vacation vacation

I'm on break, so any updates will be sporadic and likely useless. I leave you with this excellent routine, from Billy Connolly (via Videosift). Wait for the punchline...


Later folks!

Protest edition

• Geez, some protestors. Chickened out after threats of suspension, which aren't you know, unreasonable. Thoreau spent time in jail for his civil disobedience. These kids are in tears over a potential suspension? Something an administrator said in the article should hit it home:

  "If people do want to engage in civil disobedience, there are consequences that come with civil disobedience."

  "Unusual and extreme tactics"? I am ordinarily an anti-establishment sympathizer, but the administration tactics don't strike me as particularly diabolical. No threats of physical violence, no cops. Yeesh, get over it.
  
• Meanwhile, here's a protest that really matters. A librarian stands up for civil liberties before Congress.
• Wait, you lost the e-mails? Just, whoops! Lost! As much as I cringe when I hear lefty bloggers refer to the Bush Administration as the "Bush Crime Family," the Bushies aren't making it any easier for themselves. The cover-up is growing worse than the crime. Why does Gonzales still have a job? Fire him.
  
• This story of concern over an Asian supermarket is kind of inexplicable to me, just because I can't imagine why it's such a big deal. I mean, we have Diho Market just over in Westmont, and I have a feeling that Southern California has long had more experience with Asian presence than the west suburbs of Chicago. Needless to say, the veiled xenophobia is still clear. A quote from Larry Blugrind, a protestor quoted in the Times piece:

  "My worry is that 99 Ranch could be a steppingstone for [our community] to become all Asian," he said. "I don't want another Hacienda Heights."

  Translation: I liked it better when you were "diverse" window dressing, and white people were still in control. Also hilarious in the story, they cite as part of the "changing face" of the community... "a karate studio, a Chinese buffet and Thai restaurants." Gasp! Shock! I'm pretty sure you could find those almost everywhere in America. The real question is, how did Chino Hills avoid them for so long?
  
• OK, I wasn't going to comment on the Rudy bread "gaffe" (if it can be described as such), but since HuffPost still has it on its frontpage, I thought I'd mention it. Honestly, it seems like much ado about nothing. So what if he doesn't know how much a gallon of milk is? That doesn't mean he's "ouf of touch" with the people. Most people do not spend most of their money (or even their food budget) on bread and milk. (And, btw, despite national averages and whatnot, I remember buying bread for a buck a loaf at the Kroger.) In any case, running for President is not the Showcase Showdown. There are plenty of reasons not to vote for, or even like, Rudy Giuliani. Plenty. This is not one of them.
• AltHouse on campus free speech. We can't all be nice folks, especially when it comes to heated topics, and I don't think a university should civility upon people. Let'em say what they want. Also, what the hell is with those "free speech zones"? I'm pretty sure the whole campus is a free speech zone. Or should be, anyways.
  

Kilgore Trout's grave

Kurt Vonnegut is dead. What a goddamn loss. What many don't realize without reading Vonnegut and only hearing of his "dark humor" and "morality" is that his books aren't really mean-spirited or bitter. Like the Midwestern charm that pervades his character, Vonnegut's books are tinged by a certain geniality, even in their profound pessimism, like some sort of demented tale out of Lake Wobegon populated by aliens and mad scientists. And despite the appeal of "Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt," Vonnegut's stories have an urgent message for us today. We live in darkening times, times where Vonnegut's moral directive that men must act is of paramount importance. Tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians are killed. So it goes. Scores were killed in suicide bombings in Algeria. So it goes. The American cult of Apathy gazes at its TV screens with a shrug. So it goes.

Today, Kurt Vonnegut is dead. So it goes.

More on Hillary hate

So if you read the article yesterday, you know that Hillary hate across the entire political spectrum has to do with her presumed fence-sitting on every position she's ever held in order to get ahead. As a result of her personal and political evolution, however, she can be a target of every attack and every accolade that anyone can dig up. Yet, she is just doing what every self-proclaimed feminist of the 1970s said they would do: she's getting what she wants, what she believes she deserves. The Jack Hitt piece backs Hillary up on her feminist ambitions, but I think the root of Hillary hate is the route to power, not the movement she embodies.

I've got Hillary hate myself, not as much vitriol as most, but still enough to not want to vote for her. This will no doubt be her biggest liability as the Democratic candidate... everyone already has a pre-formed opinion of her. Even if she appears as the embattled woman fighting off chauvinism, she'll still have a tough time fighting preconceived public conceptions. At the same time, she won't have to go through the trouble of "defining" herself... she's already done it so many times that we know the refrain.

I find the Hillary hatred to be particularly notable in America, because of the Ségolène Royal phenomenon in France. I believe that if Royal loses, it will be because she's a woman. France is still chauvinistic but that's not why her sex plays such an important role. As a woman, she's had to define herself unusually to gain entry into male-dominated politics. Many see her, like Hillary, as a political opportunist, using the power of her husband, Socialist Party elder (well, life-partner) François Hollande, to take the Socialists by storm.

Her campaign has been defined by fending off attacks based on her femininity. How many men would have to do as much chest-thumping flag-waving as she has? Of course, her problem of indefinition is exactly the opposite of the Hillary problem. Still, note that both of them aren't known by their last names so much as their surnames. Ségolène's nickname is Sego; Sarkozy's is Sarko. Hillary and Ségolène have to take on all these multiple roles because society expects it. They have to be feminine and masculine, devious schemer and naive newbie, domineering and submissive, national mother and national father. With all these identities, it's no wonder that everyone can find something to hate.

Bee Gees ruin music history again

• The late Johnny Cash's old house burned to the ground (pictures on right). The house was bought in early 2006 by Barry Gibb, of BeeGees fame, to be used as a summer home. On the one hand, it's unfortunate that such an essential piece of music history (where Cash wrote many of his songs) has been lost forever. On the other, it's probably for the better that Barry Gibb didn't write any songs in that fabled house.
  
• How to rule Iraq? Divide and conquer, essentially blocking off Baghdad into smaller, more manageable pieces with checkpoints and whatnot. Perhaps it will work, but I don't see what makes this fundamentally different from the clear-and-hold plan for Baghdad. The mythical counter-insurgents who can work like surgeons have failed to materialize, and as Petraeus himself must know, a successful counterinsurgency takes a hell of a lot longer than six months.
• Speaking of Iraq, Bush wants a "war czar." Is this guy serious? I mean, really? Unless I'm mistaken, we already have a war czar. Already has a pretty good title, too: "Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy." Oh, that's THE PRESIDENT. We already have a war czar, and he's been passing the buck since things in Iraq stopped looking absolutely perfect. Who's fault is it that Iraq hasn't gone well? Is it Defeat-o-crats? Or the Iraqi people? Or the incompetent generals? Or the Iranians? Wrong, jackass, the buck stops on your desk. Yeesh, do we really have to keep this schmuck for two more years?
• Man, this college loans scandal looks shady as hell. What's surprising is that the "preferred lender" charade was performed at so brazenly for so long at so many schools. I guess it was an acceptable form of graft, since it made money for everyone and only screwed poor students. Although, as universities become more like businesses, we can't exactly be surprised when they take cash over their obligation to their students.
• President Bush: soft on crime. Take that one to the bank. His Justice Department systematically defunded the divisions of the FBI that go after fraud and civil rights violations, as well as white-collar crime in general, to convert the place into counterterror mode (which mostly means... a violating civil rights mode). A lengthy but important article, if you have the time.
• Winner of Best Headline of the Day: "Birds Do It. Bees Do It. People Seek the Keys to It." Heh. Neat article, too.
• Come on, people let's buy the Cubs! Contribute your pocket change! They'll be hella cheap after they implode this season!

Why we hate Hillary

Short answer: because there's so many of her identities to hate.

More on this tomorrow. But right now it's late-ass, and I'm hittin the hay.

More thoughts on the (Joshua) Bell experiment

So a few days ago I linked to this piece on Joshua Bell's subway performance in L'Enfant Plaza.

Well, David Marchese, music critic at Salon, thought the whole piece was another salvo of elitist bullshit surrounding classical music. Since I linked to it first, I obviously think otherwise, so let me engage a few of his points.

1.) The apathy of the public comes as a surprise to Weingarten (the writer of the original piece). Not so to Marchese, who notes the obvious: "hello, they had jobs to get to." Still, if Jasper Johns was painting, or Wynton Marsalis was playing trumpet, I'm not sure it would've gotten people's attention either. I don't think the piece was as condescending as Marchese does, but then again, maybe I'm one of those elitist snobs of classical music that Marchese decries. Rather, I feel that the apathy of the public to great rough art (not necessarily classical) was the point. The note about the children (who, as Marchese notes, are as fascinated by eating their boogers as listening to Joshua Bell) needing to be dragged away by parents isn't just a re-hash of the old "kids are innocent, great engines of awesomeness!" argument. Instead, it's an indictment of our collective loss of curiosity. Wouldn't you at least give it a passing glance? A thought? "Who is that?" But we all just file past.

2.) Yes, the primary hurdle of classical music is its high-brow attitude. Skyrocketing ticket prices, a lack of interpretation for new listeners, and the prevalence of the Josh Grobans and Il Divos of the world have turned classical music into an ossified genre of tuxes and snores. Instead of reading this as a patronizing display of scoffing at lesser folks, the Joshua Bell experiment was an attempt to strip down classical music of its pomp and bring it free to people who wouldn't necessarily normally hear it. If anything, it shows how much classical music needs more shows like this, rather than less.

3.) I understand Marchese's contention that shaming people into paying close attention to street musicians won't actually help the ailing classical music industry, which is bucking itself up with those airy assholes I listed above. I'm not sure what will, and at least part of the blame belongs at the feet of a recording industry that demands megahits. I think people really do want to listen to classical music; it's just hard to access it in a non-pretentious way (or a non-schlocky way... the Fur Elise ringtone comes to mind...). For example, I think IU does a great job of spreading the appreciation of classical music: tons of free concerts, cheap opera tickets, etc. Yeah, I know IU's a special case, but as Charles Rosen said in his Patten Lecture dinner, classical music has plenty of audience, and terrible P.R. I'm inclined to agree. The reason for Bell's failure to garner attention was the lack of proper framing, as the article duly notes. I'm talking about getting booked at major eclectic music festivals, better marketing of public performances, lower ticket prices at major symphonies, etc.

Anyways, I agree that Weingarten does have his fair share of elitist snobbishness, as do I. But I don't think the "experiment" was an attempt to humiliate the passersby. Rather, it was a gauge of art's importance without context, and in a world drenched in context upon context, seeing Bach's unaccompanied violin sonatas stripped bare as the lowest of ignored arts was a valuable lesson. Or at least, a more valuable one than this one.

Can we just call this the Tank Johnson rule?

USAToday reports on the NFL's new discipline policy, or at least discussions about it.

Maybe we should call it the Pacman Jones rule? The whole damn Cincinnati Bengals rule (no team shall have more wins than arrests)? In any case, new NFL disciplinary policy is on the horizon. Will the backlash be anything like the NBA anti-thug dress code?

I think we can all agree that forcing players to stop looking like thugs and forcing them to stop being thugs are two different things, and that the latter is far more important. It's nice to know that they're getting player input though.

How we caught Zarqawi

If you have time to burn, read the Mark Bowden (of Black Hawk Down fame) article in the new Atlantic about how the U.S. military hunted down al-Zarqawi. It's a remarkable story of an operation that worked in Iraq, and makes you wonder how we couldn't and still can't catch Osama bin-Laden. The article shows post-Abu-Ghraib military interrogators working within boundaries and getting key information, with at least a little bit of luck. Rather than traditional Bowden fare of commando raids and firefights, this reads like a police procedural, Law & Order: Baghdad. Riveting stuff.

Clearly, though, our military is not incompetent, nor is the local population entirely indifferent to the insurgents. The problem lies in politics, organization, and public relations, and in all those respects, this administration has utterly failed.

If you don't have an Atlantic subscription... uh, tough luck. But they only cost $15 a year at the special rate found here, and the internet login lasts forever (as Schmidtty and I discovered). Not to mention that it's the best monthly (ok, 10-issue) magazine in America. (Sorry, National Geographic.)

Five minutes before class

Just like the title says, ten minutes of reading + five minutes of writing = this post.

• Don't steal a whale's teeth... or at least don't bang them endlessly with a hammer.
• Richard Holbrooke's had enough bullshit about Nancy Pelosi's Syria trip.
• Re: Sol LeWitt. Here's a better photo gallery via WashPost.
• Uhh... you sure 'bout that, Barry? VP's not a great gig, but it also makes you the gimme candidate next time around. If this gig doesn't work out, you're always going to be "failed Presidential hopeful."
• Chris Hitchens stops angrily defending the Iraq War to angrily commenting on the rise of the "You" generation. Engaging, as always, but maybe a little late to the party.

Pre-dinner thoughts

• Must-Read o' the Day: Tish Durkin's piece on ambivalence in Iraq. She highlights the danger in just tossing blame for the war to the dark forces of the Bushies, in that it exculpates the rest of us from responsibility in the matter. As many on the left (including myself...) cheer on the implosion of a country, the historicizing of the Iraq war keeps trying to stuff it into clear-cut models, but as the Iraqi responses show, this war has been more complex than anyone bargained for.

• Other piece floating around, Balkinization's discovery that an emeritus professor at Princeton has been put on the no-fly because of anti-Bush comments. Pre-Bush, such a case would be inconceivable. Today, it seems like business as usual.
  

• Finally, this USAToday piece touches on something I've talked about for some time. That is, a college degree is more an indication of hereditary fiscal solvency than any bearing on intelligence. The piece of paper I get when I graduate is worth something not because of the classes I took or experiences I had in Bloomington. It's worth something because my parents (or someone else) was willing to foot the bill for me to spend four (or more) years doing nothing. ("D's Get Degrees", after all.) As colleges market themselves as a step towards a higher income bracket, the value of the degree as an educational tool keeps getting diluted. If I'm going to college to earn more money in the future, rather than expand my mind, then who cares what the hell I learn? If the college degree is worth more as a status symbol than an educational tool, then it's no surprise that prices keep skyrocketing and the college population keeps getting richer. I dunno.
  

Morning Major Sources

So, already taking a few suggestions into account, I'll try to separate the content into smaller chunks, for easier digestion. Here's some of my morning reads, newspapers and MSM stuff that's worth your time. It'll change daily. NYTimes & WashPost one day, ChicagoTrib and CNN the next. Maybe I'll do one newspaper, one of CNN or MSNBC, and one French? I dunno. I kind of worry that this will end up too much like Slate's Today's Papers.

NYTimes:

• First off, al-Sadr is calling on Iraqis (mostly Shi'ites) to band together to fight American troops in Diwaniya. Remember when I said it was only a matter of time before the Mahdi Army and the Shi'ite community explodes? Well, al-Sadr is pretty cranky, and he's trying to re-assert control over his followers... but I'm not totally sure it'll work. As almost every major leader with a finger in the Iraq pie (pirhana tank?) right now is learning, nothing in this country is as simple as it seems.
  
• Civility on the web? The idea of blog ethics is still nebulous and with the freedom available on the web, any code would be so easily broken as to be non-existent. Internet sages Tim O'Reilly and Jimmy Wales seem to be pushing for some sort of general ettiquette, but that kind of removes much of the appeal of the internet. More commentary in my IDS column from last week. Also, if you have extra time, Reason Magazine did a nice overview of the general problem here.
  
• Sol LeWitt died, at age 78. A quite virtuostic conceptual artist, proving that Modern Art doesn't have to just be thumbing its nose and winking all the damn time. See some of his work here.

WashPost:

• Speaking of Internet ethics, this gets the award for best headline all day: "Mexican Drug Cartels Leave a Bloody Trail on YouTube". That's some creative use of YouTube for sure... intimidating rival drug gangs. An almost surreal article... could you imagine reading this five years ago?
• You know, the cost of cutting CO2 emissions may be pretty damn high. I mean, the Kyoto Protocol, well, that's goofy because it'll never work. The biggest hurdle in the "cap-and-trade" CO2 emissions model is companies that don't like being capped, like utilities, who are charging all of the CO2 allowances to the consumer, rather than the marginal cost they were themselves charged. So, much as Al Gore is jumping up and down saying that we have to do something... it appears that doing something may have profound effects on industry, labor, and global competition. Especially since no one in the developing world will be taking any of these steps. Doing lots of things may be less important than doing the right thing.
  
• Oh, and AMERICAN SUMO!!!! Enjoy. Best line: "They carry heaping piles of noodles, very popular, as they strut-waddle around in their bathrobes like Tony Soprano going down the driveway to get his morning paper." I lawled pretty good at that one.

Finally, a rundown of other stuff I found interesting in the papers:

• LATimes has a piece on "wage insurance," a kind of stopgap to prevent people from having to receive unemployment insurance. I am skeptical, but it seems like a reasonable free-market solution to unemployment in America. Still, it seems to be shuttling people towards low-wage, low-skill jobs, when at least some of these guys must have mental faculty for something more interesting, given proper training.
• For any French readers, the French presidential campaign is officially off to the races! At 0h01 last night, everybody's designated TV time, posters, etc. began. Two weeks left, first round, Sunday, April 22. Here's an AP piece in English. Despite the fact that only 29% of people say they'll vote for Sarko, 59% (!!) think he will be the winner. Yikes.
  
• A dissenting voice on climate change from Richard Lindzen in Newsweek.
• IU costs rise again.
• Zimbabwe in crisis. BBC's got the bishops warning of uprising (as does AP), but Mugabe could seriously be losing his grip. Still, it might be worth pause. None of his replacements look much better. The New Republic has a good overview of Mugabe's situation here (subscription required).
  

Sparse Easter offerings

• Mutant bedbugs! Not just for the Third World any more! Although in many ways, America seems eager to join the Third World. More on that later.
  
• Are Chicago's historic buildings losing their souls to become shells for modernist swill? Or are they being appropriated for new works of art in the way of mash-up culture? I'm not really sure. The Trib seems to have made up its mind anyways.
• I was going to write my song of the week bit today, but it's too late. It'll be on "Surprise, Honeycomb" by The Wrens. I'll probably do it tomorrow.
• How much compensation should an ex-spy get from his government? I guess it's hard to say. After all, serving your country, you probably should've been doing it out of duty and not money. At the same time, it's pretty dangerous to have your spies be low-paid.
• All traffic woes solvable... as long as you're willing to pay. Everyone complains about the traffic, but are there bigger problems? Maybe not in L.A. Still, in a country that actually has the resources to implement large-scale infrastructure changes (unlike, say, the Philippines, which can do little to nothing about Manila's day-long traffic jams), maybe we should work to become more efficient. But as time has shown, the wider you make the roads, the more full they become. Every gridlock fix we have inevitably led to more gridlock.
• I don't think the Brits selling their stories is that out of line. Their government didn't protect them in hostile waters, sending them out in a glorified dinghy into a disputed border zone, at a time when Iranians were being rounded up in Iraq by the barrelful.
• Finally, to round things off, via Dave Barry, a heart-warming story about the true meaning of Easter. Wait, not that one. This one.
  

Everybody's a critic.

So much for two posts a day. Yeah, no such luck. Although, maybe one long post a day is preferable to two. As this blog is still in its nascent stages with (I imagine) very few readers, I'll keep fiddling around with format and whatnot. Any suggestions from my meager readership are encouraged.

So, in actual French news, Royal has taken a hit in the latest Figaro poll. Not that French polls are a decent metric of French public opinion. Still, Sarkozy still holds comfortably onto the biggest chunk of the public with a sizeable lead. I'll write more about the actual election later, as actual Election Day draws nearer.

In the meantime, here's a neat piece from Figaro (in English) about how Internet video is affecting French politics. I'll note that it's still way behind the impact of, say, "macaca" in 2006. The bulk of gaffes and public appeals have been distributed in papers and television. Still, the rise of Bayrou in the last few weeks may have as much to do with his Internet blitz as traditional French indecision.

Disney OKs gay marriage. Good for business = Good for America.

A symbolic reminder of the culture we inhabit. If you have time, you should definitely give it a read and consideration. Would you stop and listen? I'm honestly not sure I would. We're all fixed on our goal to just get through the day that we miss works of unimaginable beauty around us, even when they're right in front of our faces. In other Joshua Bell news, that down-home Indiana boy has gone and won himself the Fisher Prize... a prize that no one has won in three years.

On the topic of cultural expression, here's a NYTimes piece about heckling culture. As criticism has become art sometimes superior to the art itself, have we become so callous that we're more willing to pan than exult? Has the internet turned us into this? I chew on this one quite a bit, because honestly, I'm exactly the snarky, ironic, critical asshole that may be killing creativity, or at least, making a caustic environment for new art. Is there such a thing as smart heckling and dumb heckling? Is the defensive response to heckling simply the result of coddled artists who need a cold dash of reality?

Heckling has a storied history (The Rite of Spring comes to mind), and we need strong criticism to keep established acts in check. Yet, that's exactly the opposite of how heckling works. We heckle no-name bums in comedy clubs, not Dane Cook (though we should). No one who pays hundreds of dollars (or more) to see the Rolling Stones is going to boo them for not playing "Wild Horses." Yet, during this time of unbearable peanut gallery displeasure, creativity seems fertile as ever. The Internet and cheap editing software, which have spawned idiocy on a mass scale, have also spawned a new wave of mash-up culture and small masterpieces. Who's to say that more voices aren't degrading the cultural water, so much as they are creating adversity necessary for any great art? Then again, if Emily Dickinson had posted her weird poetry on LiveJournal, she'd probably take hell for it. (I can see the comments now... "Jesus, more emo poetry bullshit. Cheer up or slit your wrists.") What if it stopped her from going on? Anyways, something for us wise-ass bastards to think about.

David Heimann is traveling to 365 Catholic churches in 365 days. He blogs about it here. A remarkable journey of faith. Worth the read during Holy Week, even for us heathens.

In more hilarious Easter stories... SOYLENT GREEN IS PEEPS. It's the Washington Post Peep Diorama competition. And since it combines three things that I love (the Washington Post, Peeps, and dioramas), it is officially a bag o' dimes. Look at them all, but Soylent Green is #17. Sorry, no direct link.

Giuliani's presidential candidacy better implode soon. He's driving me crazy. Quote to remember:

As for Iran, Mr. Giuliani said that “in the long term,” it might be “more dangerous than Iraq.”

He then casually lumped Iran with Al Qaeda. “Their movement has already displayed more aggressive tendencies by coming here and killing us,” he said.

If America's Mayor becomes America's President, seriously, I quit.

Peter Beinart and Jonah Goldberg talk about Hillary Clinton. Beinart's mic is scratchy, so it gets a little aggravating, but they do get at some important points. Goldberg points out that Hillary is in many ways a "compassionate conservative." (Sadly true.) Beinart points out that Hillary's not an opportunist, but is careful about how she broadcasts her views, and that power-hunger is natural in politicians. Calculation is all good, but thinking back on the mistakes of the Bush White House, it's not entirely clear to me that Hillary Clinton, in the same position, wouldn't have made the same or similar decisions (war in Iraq, Patriot Act, wiretaps, etc.).

CUBS WIN CUBS WIN. Cubs now over .500 for the first time since May 4 last year. Can we stay afloat? Eh, I'm not holding my breath.

Finally, the greatest war movie this side of All Quiet on the Western Front. Yeesh, not even Trejo can save this trainwreck.

Make your Hillary face, everyone!

Short entry today:
Damn that's scary. SomethingAwful got a hold of this picture. Needless to say, goons are going hog wild. Pretty funny Photoshop Phun.

Some neat photos, particularly the smoke pics.

If you haven't read Slate's series on African oil, you should.

Rundown of the year's American music fests, via Rolling Stone (No Rock The Bells, though... could that lineup be any more ridiculous?).

Man, O'Reilly comes off pretty awful in this video... but I kind of wish Geraldo and Bill O'Reilly will fight each other and destroy each other in a blinding flash of idiocy... but I don't got that kinda luck. I guess all we can do is bask in the retardation of this glorious clip. O'Reilly seems to be taking most of the online heat (because, of course, lefty nerds always want an excuse to hate O'Reilly), but come on, Rivera doesn't exactly make himself that admirable.

Yes, bringing up the illegal immigrant part is silly of O'Reilly, but the sensationalizing of the incident at all depends solely on the guy being an illegal immigrant. Not that Geraldo has any problem with sensation.



After forgetting that the attorneys scandal exists, Time magazine puts out a scathing piece on the "epic collapse" of the Bush Administration. Talk about making up for lost time.

No screaming on the Screamer. Kinda makes me think of this.

In closing, Live Free or DIE HARD. BRUCE WILLIS SAVES A MAC. This trailer is so ridiculous... I don't even know what the fuck. I will probably still watch it despite god-awful reviews. Yippee-ki-yay.

Help control the pet population

God bless this kid. Enthusiastic people deserve to win the Price is Right.

A small collection of links...

Bob Barker's retiring... so YouTube's having a tribute to him. None that worth seeing yet, but I really like the concept. Mad props, Bob. Mostly for punching Adam Sandler.

What if the Washington Post remade its website both as a wiki and to unify with the print edition (unlike its unfortunate new makeover)? Have to admit that it looks quite a bit more aesthetically pleasing than the current one. The side-by-side comparison really brings the point home. (via journerdism)

It's OK if you go to Syria and negotiate with evildoers, and kowtow to evil Islam in fashion statements, as long as you support the Iraq War. So spake Mitt Romney. The only thing worse than this cockamamie garbage that the Bush Administration spews is that the major news outlets buy it. War supporters in headscarves? Republicans in Syria? Eh, that's cool.

A few thoughts on Iran/Britain sailors... I feel a little bit like the Independent. Still, I think one thing we can learn from this is that diplomacy can still trump war-cheerleaders, and that having an embassy in Teheran is preferable to, you know, not. Clearly, the most important outcome was to get the sailors home. Period. Ahmadinejad can have all the showboating he wants, but I strongly disagree with the Andrew Sullivan assertion of "humiliation." A blowhardy standoff with Iran raises Ahmadinejad's hard-line nutcasery to a new level. Yes, Britain doesn't come out of this smelling like a rose, but the guys are home.

Also, the EU didn't exactly leave Britain "in the lurch." What were they supposed to do? Impose sanctions? That would've made matters far worse. If the waters weren't disputed (they are) and if we had any moral high ground left (we don't), we could correctly fight back with conviction. As Sullivan correctly points out, though, it is Bush's Iraq policy that has led us here. The greatest thing we have lost in our Iraqi adventure, greater even than the thousands of soldiers who have died and billions of dollars lost, is our principles. We have always been a pragmatic nation, but even the most utilitarian among us must realize that reputation is a useful tool to have, and the most potent one we have lost.

OK, last note, an amazing retrospective on Obtusity about the many videos of Michael Jackson. Worth a watch if you've got a couple hours to burn. Or just watch your faves. Hearing Jackson say "your butt is mine" is more than a little disturbing, though.

Something brilliant about this

(via digg):



It's inexplicably funny.

Dad-Snorting edition

• First off, Keith Richards ground up his dad's ashes with a little cocaine and snorted him. Oh, Keith. You cad.

• Oops. A hilarious construction accident.

• Classic Python. Oh, the argument sketch. "Wait a minute! It's a fair cop!"

• Buy KITT. Costs significantly cheaper than the Chicago Cubs.

• Speaking of the Cubs, near the end of this fairly banal piece about new Tribune owner Sam Zell, there's a quote that kind of worries me.

  On the issue of the sale of the Chicago Cubs, Zell confirmed that he may seek to sell Wrigley Field separately. He acknowledged that Wrigley, because of its landmark status, is a tricky, single-use piece of property.

That's scary... a Cubs without WGN TV, Pat & Ron, or Wrigley Field? That's hard to imagine, and even harder to stomach.

• Greenwald goes off on Giuliani's frightening comments about Presidential power. You really think Giuliani won't try to run the place like a king?

• Via reddit, If we taught English the way we teach math.

A few thoughts on college sports, since Florida beat Ohio State for the national basketball championship just as they beat Ohio State for the national football championship. Some pundits are bemoaning that such a repeat performance means that the tournament's unpredictability has been lost. I wouldn't say that, necessarily. After all, the tournament has always at least been a little predictable. No team from a small non-power conference will win the championship. In fact, they'll be treated as giant-killers if they even make the Final Four. Alas, despite all the parity talk of sportswriters the last few years over the rise of the MVC, Big West, and WCC, among others, the dominance of power programs has never been stronger in the two major college sports. George Mason is the increasingly rare exception, not the rule.

Sure, it's great for the sponsors, great for fans of the big schools (Indiana included), great for the broadcasters, and great for the pocketbooks of those universities lucky enough to succeed in the cutthroat environment. The problem is that the losers are the players (essentially two- or three-year mercenaries being exploited before busting loose for the NBA or NFL), who never get the education they deserve, and all the universities who can't find success, particularly smaller Division I schools who have to pump cash into money-losing athletics departments. The NCAA's scholar-athlete tradition may still apply to, say, swimming and diving or wrestling. In football and basketball though, the presence of two dominant professional sports leagues, and the requirement that players go through at least one year of college first, has produced a high-stakes gambling operation whose goal is first and foremost the production of entertainment. The big secret of the "rise of the mid-major" is that they've risen not through any harder work or dedication than big programs, but through the same back-handed tactics that major programs use.

My suggestion is two-fold and ultimately an impossibly tough sell.

1.) NFL and NBA must get rid of college requirements, and create real minor leagues. This hopefully rids the college game of at least some of its crazy atmosphere of Greg Odens and Kevin Durants. That way, no one will plan on coming to college to be one-and-done, and the recruiting of such players will become way less important. They'll be going where the money is anyways.
2.) This one's the tough one: essentially convert all college sports into Division III, and destroy their quasi-independent status on campus. Here's a definition:

"Division III athletics features student-athletes who receive no financial aid related to their athletic ability and athletic departments are staffed and funded like any other department in the university. Division III athletics departments place special importance on the impact of athletics on the participants rather than on the spectators."

We've forgotten that these athletes must be students first, and that education should be the primary goal of a university. People claim that athletics raise a university's profile and raise booster cash. That's crap. So many schools have money-losing athletics programs that it's crazy, and the marketing (of Indiana hats, jerseys, oven mitts, etc.) wouldn't just stop because IU sports would be on a smaller level.

And why do we root for IU teams in the first place? Because they say INDIANA right there on the uniform. Those guys are our guys. One linguistic quirk of talking about sports teams is that us fans will use the plural subject "we" to describe the team. "We need to make the playoffs this year." "We should've signed Alfonso Soriano." "We gotta make those high percentage shots!" We appropriate the team into ourselves. And won't that be a lot easier knowing that the players are actually students like us, and not entertainment mercenaries?

The biggest problem with this plan is that it screws over the group of athletes too unqualified to make it into a university on academic and otherwise credit alone, but not good enough at their sport to play professionally. They won't get a chance to go to school, but maybe another better-qualified student from equally deprived conditions will take their spot? After all, how will we ever get the culture of "PLAY SPORTS TO SUCCEED" to change without, you know, actually changing it?

Left behind in Wrigleyville

First thing: The Left Behind series, which has now sold upwards of 65 million copies so far, is finally coming to a close (although with the franchise it has built.... not really). Whether or not it's truly over, the sixteenth final installment of the series, "Kingdom Come" is ready to ship. After detailing all-American pilot Rayford Steele's (yeah, I know... he sounds like a tv private eye) battle against dashing foreign-ass secretary general of the UN Nicolae Carpathia, and the installment of Jesus in his thousand-year reign, the breathless thriller-style telling of the Book of Revelation is over.

Having read but two of them, I can't say I'm a total expert on the series. Nevertheless, I found its formulaic thriller tropes to be a bit too familiar. When you're retelling arguably the coolest book of the Bible (when the writers go absolutely mystical bonkers with wild visions), you should probably try to give it a bit more polish than a tossed-off frivolity populated by characters named Buck Williams and Mac McCallum (seriously). Left Behind demonstrates the danger of turning the Bible into pop culture, like Christian rock and The Omega Code. In doing so, the reverence for the original material is lost, just a momentary fad in a wave of "Jesus is my homeboy" pop Christianity, but with a hint of apocalyptic milleniarianism.

Maybe I don't have much of a say on this topic, not being a Christian and all, but I can tell you that this genre of pop Christianity doesn't exactly make me want to rush to church. May the Left Behind series rest in peace. Hopefully, its passing marks the end of an era of evangelilcal hysteria and not the beginning of a longer trend... but I'm not holding my breath.

OK, on with the bullet points:

• In French news... Yeah, THAT'LL show 'em. A half-day strike by Airbus employees to protest job cuts. News flash: if Airbus didn't fire a bunch of people, it would've gone under. Then everyone loses their jobs. Yay! In fact, because of the international cooperative nature of EADS, they worked really hard to make sure job cuts didn't hit one country more than others. So, instead of pissing off one country's workers, they pissed off everyone's workers. Great. Oh, France.
• Cubs start season in last place. At least we're tied with St. Louis. Cubs are also to be sold after 2007 season... I'm at least a little concerned. Not so much about the new Cubs owner, because, whatever, MLB won't just let some schmuck buy one of its most profitable franchises. What I am worried about is that despite its current long-term contracts with WGN and Tribune, the Cubs may one day soon no longer have the nationwide coverage of WGN's Superstation or the home team call of Pat & Ron. And that would make me sadder than a Jew left behind during the Rapture.
  
• Rep. George Miller (D-California) wants to reform higher education. Most of the interview is standard Democratic boiler plate (more money for loans, more pell grants, etc.). Probably the most important reform that we hear about rarely is the necessity of reforming the byzantine system of securing FAFSA money through loans. Maybe we don't need to give more money away so much as we have to make it a little easier to get.
• Watch as the Bush Administration keeps dragging its feet on this one. A Supreme Court ruling has never compelled the Bushies do much of anything.
• So remember when Bill O'Reilly cut the mic of a guest on his show was "saying it's America's fault" that British soldiers were captured in Iran? Well... maybe it is our fault. You try to kidnap our nationals? We'll kidnap yours. Sheesh.
  
• Speaking of Iraq, when does the Mahdi Army snap? LATimes story today says soon. This is particularly worrisome since the bulk of the "surge"'s limited success has been based on keeping the Shi'ites reined in despite a Sunni offensive. At some point, not even al-Sadr will be able to hold back his followers, and all the success of the surge will have been lost. We can only hope that doesn't happen.
• The upside to colorblindness? Speculation for sure, but maybe Trevor will be really good at hunting out guys in camoflague. (via reddit)
  
• Scott Karp writes about the importance of journalism in the blogosphere world of innuendo and rumor. It's basically my column in the IDS for Wednesday, but, you know, better. Key quote:

  What I AM saying is that without clear and consistent principles, there is no chance for trust, and without trust, you’ve got nothing — or worse still, the downside can exceed the upside. So, yeah, it’s great that blogging software has empowered so many people, but with power comes responsibility. If bloggers want Journalism to get down off its high horse and take them more seriously, they need to demonstrate that they can first, do no harm.

• From the latest drawergeeks about The Sandman (Marvel), a fake movie poster that isn't that funny, but at which I laughed a lot.
• And finally, the video that's sweeping the web, Alanis Morrissette sings "My Humps." What will you do with all that ass, all that ass inside them jeans? (Good God... one is reminded of Hua Hsu, who said that "My Humps" was "so bad as to veer toward evil.") Anyways, this is Alanis' attempt to at least use its parody for good.

Hot hot green text on yellow action

Bullet points in the morning:

• According to this study, green text on yellow background is the easiest for people to read. So, like a good sheep, I'm following along. I'm not willing to put it in Times New Roman and make everything italicized, but I'm willing to try this out.
  
• Hey, Republicans, you wanted a true conservative candidate? Take a look. Just as Le Pen makes the French gaze into their national soul and consider what they've become, so should the rise of Tom Tancredo in America make us ponder what we really are, that the paragon of one of our national parties should be a xenophobe who calls Miami a Third-world country. Glenn Greenwald notes the true character of the post-Bush Republican party (way better than I could) here.

  Two of the three leading Republican candidates for President either embrace or are open to embracing the idea that the President can imprison Americans without any review, based solely on the unchecked decree of the President. And, of course, that is nothing new, since the current Republican President not only believes he has that power but has exercised it against U.S. citizens and legal residents in the U.S. -- including those arrested not on the "battlefield," but on American soil.

  What kind of American isn't just instinctively repulsed by the notion that the President has the power to imprison Americans with no charges? And what does it say about the current state of our political culture that one of the two political parties has all but adopted as a plank in its platform a view of presidential powers and the federal government that is -- literally -- the exact opposite of what this country is?

• CARDS LOSE CARDS LOSE! Cubs now 1/2 game ahead of Cardinals for first and probably only time in the season.
• Tribune bought? At $34 a share? What does this mean for the Chicago Trib and LATimes? What does it mean for the WGN Superstation? And most importantly, what does it mean for the boys in blue at Wrigley Field? I demand that the first question for Zell at the press conference be: "Will the Cubs go all the way?" (EDIT: Cubs for sale! Anyone have $440 million to spare? We'd better start pooling now; Cubs go on sale as soon as 2007 season over.)
  
• Can France stop pandering to dictators? Eh... probably not. Still, a look at the bizarre relationship between France and Sub-Saharan Africa at the BBC.
• I'm a straight-up Democrat, and Bush's horrendous legacy needs to be dismantled. At the same time, I find these bills to be counter-productive. Bush will no doubt veto them, and the Democrats won't be able to override. Meanwhile, as the HuffingPost is busy trumpeting the story as its top headline, the Democrats are going to continue squandering their post-election political capital on impossible wins. The Democrats' primary concern should be where it always has been: domestic programs that help working Americans. Presidents look best when fighting Congress, unless you can sell it as against children, against the elderly, and against everything good in America. If all the Democrats manage to get done is a bunch of symbolic bills that all get vetoed, we'll be looking at a Republican Congress next time around. And Bush's legacy will stay that way.
  

baseballbaseballbaseballbaseball

Oh damn. It's here. Baseball. For real real. Not for play play. Five thoughts:

1.) Predictions for my Cubbies
Realistic Predictions: Cubs finish 84-78, 2nd place behind dominant offense, mediocre pitching and disastrous defense, miss playoffs. Hendry still loses job.

Dream Predictions: Cubs finish 101-61, best record in baseball, win World Series (preferably defeating White Sox, but any team will do). Derrek Lee wins the MVP that escaped him in 2005. Albert Pujols injures self in combination sneezing/hot-tub/deer-meat accident.

2.) Since everyone is picking the Brewers to do some damage in the Central...
I will predict another 3rd place, near-.500 finish.

3.) Japan Leagues
With the high-profile arrival of Daisuke Matsuzaka and others (Kei Igawa, Akinori Iwamura, etc.) some in Japanese baseball lament that their greatest players abandon the island for America. In fact, the Japanese leagues, unlike the American ones, have never been profitable on the whole, and are unable to put up the ridiculous salaries that even lower-tier American clubs can (see: Iwamura's signing with the Devil Rays). Yet, the relationship between American and Japanese baseball currently produces the obscene posting fee system, and washed-up Americans in Japan (i'm lookin at you Jose Macias...).

So, here's my idea: have MLB buy the Central and Pacific Leagues in Japan. They could be just like the American and National Legaues pre-inter-league-play. They've always been more advertising ornament than stand-alone institution in Japan, so let's make'em real teams. There'd be revenue-sharing just as in the American system, and no arcane posting fee bullshit. American players would be as free to go to Japan as vice versa. Or, the Japanese Leagues could act like a second-tier to the American teams, like the tiers in European soccer leagues. Of course, the Japanese with all that "honor" crap probably wouldn't sell in any situation, but it is worth thinking about.

4.) Farm system blues
The Cubs farm system has slowly slinked into the bottom half in baseball, having been raided in trades and having a number of solid young pitchers no longer eligible for minor leaguer status (too many innings in the majors). Home-grown talent is obviously important (Carlos Zambrano anyone?) and the Cubs' win-now strategy has forced the off-season buying bonanza. If my prediction holds true, and this is the end of the Hendry era, I think it's time to seriously dump money into the farm system, not in scouting (which the Cubs have always been good at) but in the actual development. After the K-orey Patterson debacle, over-cautiousness has led to "over-seasoning" if you will. A happy middle path will do all these guys a lot of good.

5.) Baseball blogs vs. "real" sports journalists
There's a lot of hate towards baseball bloggers as cold mechanical stat heads who hate the actual playing of the game or untrained partisan hacks who simply enshrine their own team and rain hate upon any disagreement, most of the time from guys like Murray Chass at the NYTimes, or Shaughnessy at the Boston Globe, or any number of "old-school" sportswriters who see bloggers as a threat. That's crazy. Blogs are just a different medium, like any medium. These reporters act as if the blogs are isolated nutjobs in their parents' basements, but the fact is that reporters are increasingly more isolated than the bloggers, reading less sources, watching fewer games, believing groupthink conclusions like "A-Rod needs to become a true Yankee" or "Statistics that I can't physically count during a game don't matter." Rather than write off sports blogs as lower-class competition, maybe these guys should start considering just why these blogs are popular, especially those that rag on old-school sports analysts. This change in medium just means that sportswriting is no longer the realm of ivory-tower AP-approved writing, but the down and dirty reporting and opining that made sportswriting an exciting genre.

Last thing: is this the LATimes April Fool's story? Or is this for real? Cuz seriously, I could SO be a butler.

Other April Fool's gags, Wikipedia, and Google. Hee!