To the woman who spoke with me on the bus this morning:
The bus was not crowded when I stepped aboard. It had reached that state where all the buffered seats are filled, though, and taking a seat meant sitting directly next to someone already on board. I took a seat next to a young woman, and the seat next to me was soon taken by you, a woman about my age -- no offense, but it takes a middle aged woman to address me as you did.
Soon the bus was full, and by the penultimate stop there were straphangers in the aisles -- including a couple of women, one of whom was standing in front of me. I kept my seat. I'll confess, I didn't really think about it, absorbed in my podcast and tuning out the morning world as best I could, so I was essentially speechless when you asked, once we had reached the station, why I didn't offer my seat to the standing woman. You asked very politely, clearly taking pains not to offend. I mumbled something about equality, and fled.
I searched my mind. Why hadn't I stood up? Was it just commuter lock? "I've got my butt in this seat, and come hell or high water..." Not consciously.
Maybe part of it was having grown up with the New York City subway, where equality has long since triumphed, and tough-as-nails women straphang with the men as a matter of course. Offer her my seat? Well, she'd likely turn it down flat. "What makes you think I need to sit. I'm no little lady, pal." (If she's in the mergers and acquisitions department, she might hold out for a better offer -- like my seat plus my lunch. She'd win, too.)
Perhaps I've internalized the progressivism of the current generation that states that gender is a social construct. If I wouldn't give my seat to an able-bodied male, why would I offer it to an able-bodied female? Isn't that sexist and patriarchal? And why would I make an assumption based on how they present? I have friends with penises who wear skirts, after all.
Perhaps it was just something to do with my state of mind this morning. I have stood up in the past -- though typically for someone elderly or disabled.
Maybe it's a little bit of all these reasons, and maybe none at all. Maybe I don't know what to think any more. I live in an in-between time. My parents raised me to be chivalrous and courteous, though it seems very old fashioned today. (Aside from at a nice dinner, or when I'm meeting someone new, I've mostly given up on the idea of standing when a lady arrives or departs.)
There is a certain type of feminist who might respond, "Serves you right! Women have been the uncomfortable ones for years, suffering through physical domination, curtailed social and professional opportunity, and the "weaker sex" bullshit for generations ad incipio. You're complaining that you feel a little awkward in an abjectly low-stakes situation? Ha! Deal with it." And she wouldn't be wrong.
In the end, ma'am (if I may be so bold as to address you thus), something in that concatenation of conditions resulted in my not standing this morning. The result was a man conflicted about what he should do, taking refuge in a pair of headphones and some sunglasses to duck a hard choice. I'm not proud of this. In fact, it has prompted some soul searching this morning. Who am I? What am I? Am I a stander, or am I a sitter? And am I willing to take the consequences of my choice?
Meanwhile, I thank you for starting this train of thought, and I'm sorry I didn't have a better answer for you this morning.
Tuesday, June 04, 2019
Thursday, May 30, 2019
The Obscure Morality of Charity
In a free and open society, we recognize that the right to trade freely is the bedrock of economic liberty. Individuals (or groups of them, in the form of corporations) can come together and make non-zero-sum exchanges. That is to say, the underlying characteristic of these exchanges is that both parties believe they are benefiting from the transaction. It is one of the miracles of capitalism that, often, they both are.
While we may legislate or regulate against certain categories of transaction, often times these restrictions simply recognize and attempt to surpress transactions that misrepresent the potential benefit between the parties. Disclosure regulation on Wall Street, the fine print on your mobile phone contract, and the FDA's drug approval process are all different examples of society's attempt to keep trade open and honest, so that parties trading can evaluate the benefits clearly.
In other words, mutual benefit is what we strive for, the most moral form of transaction. It is clearly better than deceit, where I convince you that a transaction will benefit you by witholding or manipulating information that could reveal an imbalance of benefit. If I roll back the odometer on my Honda before I sell it to you, deceiving you about the potential benefits (to you) of the transaction, I have made it a zero-sum exchange: I benefit at your cost.
Mutual benefit is also clearly preferable to force or monopoly, which both restrict the ability to look elsewhere for a beneficial transaction. Like deceit, force and monopoly can make a transaction zero-sum -- but the costs are out in the open. If there is only one cable company in my city, I may find myself paying a steep price for my service. I may be fully aware that I am overpaying, but I recognize that I don't have options in this case, so I pay up.
Within this heirarchy, the concept of charity sits precariously. Is it an exchange of mutual benefit? Is it an exchange in which I forego my direct benefit for someting else -- a deferred benefit, say, or a benefit for someone else? For if all the benefit of the transaction is to the recipient, then we have a zero-sum transaction, which would likely be immoral. I could not, for example, sell myself into slavery, even if I desired it. The goverment would intervene in such an unfair transaction.
In many cases, a chaitable transaction may in fact be mutually beneficial. I may choose to support the Red Cross, knowing that I might someday be the victim of a natural disaster. I want the Red Cross to be there for me. But in that sense, the transaction seems closer to purchasing insurance than to charity.
What about giving to an organization that can in no way benefit me -- such as donating to famine relief for a third-world country? I don't plan to travel to this country, and I'm unlikely to be impressed into citizenship there against my will. I simply want to help feed people who are starving. Perhaps the benefit to me is that one person does not starve. Maybe that good feeling is what I derive from the transaction. In that case, it is up to me to decide if that good feeling is enough to offset the cost to me.
I might, after all, make a donation to an ineffective charity. What if, for example, my donation to famine relief ended up spent on fancy cars and swanky offices for the NGO's officers? Or what if the donation went to rice that was expropriated by the government of the poverty-stricken land, put out on the black market, and sold at a price that none of the starving citizens can afford? This might steal some of that good feeling that made the exchange seem mutually beneficial.
So I am willing to give money to charities, but I will hold them accountable for results. The benefit to me comes in the form of the charity acting efficiently and effectively at its mission, whatever that may be. The benefit to the me, in other words, is essentially the guarantee that I can feel good about what I've done.
So we've established that even a charitable transaction has benefits to both sides, and that accountability, while a more nebulous type of benefit to one party, is nonetheless a benefit. But we don't need to postulate poverty-stricken countries to see this. It makes sense even in the everyday world. Imagine that I pay the rent for my unemployed younger brother. I'm going to expect the same accountability from him that I expect from the famine charity. It will make me feel good to help him knowing that he will he put that time and freedom I paid for to good use -- to get a job and pay next month's rent himself. But what If he spends it on drugs, does no job hunting, then returns the following month with a request for more money? Has he retroactively stolen that good feeling I paid for? And am I likely to help him again, or would that be simply enabling him in his poor habits and decisions?
It's worth thinking about this in the realm of public policy as well. I might support legislation that would take more of my money, through taxes, for increased housing for the homeless, or increased payments to welfare recipients. Again, I may be concerned about being in that situation myself. I may also believe that fewer homeless or poor in my community will mean a better quality of life for me. But let's put that aside for the moment and say that all I really want is to feel that I have truly helped someone, that paying my taxes is an act of charity rather than a strictly utilitarian bargain. What accountability do I require in this transaction?
It occurs to me that I should require the stewardship accountability that was an obvious responsibility of the famine relief organization -- that my money not go to padded budgets or irresponsible behavior. But I should also require the personal accountability I demanded from my brother -- that the recipient of charity use that gift toward ameliorating the problem that made charity necessary in the first place. Unless government assistance occupies another, unexplored realm of transaction, that seems reasonable. It would be immoral for the government to force me into a transaction in which I do not benefit or deceive me on the extent of that benefit.
We sometimes think of charity as freely given, unrestrained generosity; but in the real world, we make significant demands when we give. This strikes me as proper. There is nothing generous about throwing bad money after good, ignoring the direct or indirect consequences, or giving precedence to my good feeling above the benefit to the recipient. After all, if a charity -- or a government -- abrogates its duty to use my money to truly help a truly needy beneficiary, it has played out an immoral zero-sum transaction with both of us.
Monday, March 11, 2019
The Tyranny of Beef
When I was young, a night out for real meant a steak. I would go with friends to Arthur's, a North Jersey landmark with red-and-white-checked tablecloths, pickled peppers, roasted potatoes, and flags in the steak to indicate how rare it was. This was sophistication, we told ourselves. We had, after all, simply grown up in an era prior to Nouvelle or Fusion, when a steak dinner was simply what you ordered. No self-respecting man was going to go out and order chicken. As for fish, wasn't that a first course?
As the years went by, I had Chateaubriand at Maisonette, Wellington at Four Seasons, steak pie at Brittingham's, prime rib at Morton's, and onglet at Tewksbury Inn -- always believing that I was happy, that this was dining. (All except Morton's, perhaps, where the the whole vibe was a little too Henry VIII-meets-Disney for my tastes.
Then I had duck at Court Street. It probably wasn't the best duck anyone has ever had, but it was a revelation to me. There was another option -- not boring like chicken, and not silly and inconsequential like pasta. Then there was the salmon at the Sole Proprietor. Fish as a main course? Who knew!
By the time I was 30 years old, I had stopped ordering beef entirely at restaurants. I think I've had one steak in a restaurant in the past five years, and I didn't love it. I'm sure I was nearly the last one to figure this out. There are always hipper people than me. But most of the time they were eating pasta, and where's the fun in that? But I had discovered pork and lamb and organ meat and shellfish, and I wasn't going back.
I was late to the party on variety -- I didn't have Chinese food until my teens. I had sushi, but only because I was in Japan. Pizza was made at home, on cookie sheets, and had tomato paste from a can beneath the rubbery mozzarella. But then I grew up under the Tyranny of Beef. Oh, sure, people ate pork chops. At home. On Wednesday. Turkey was for Thanksgiving, ham for Easter, macaroni and cheese on Friday and during Lent. But beef ruled the world. That was a Saturday night dinner, dinner for company, dinner out. Like having a martini before dinner -- who would have thought we'd trade that for glasses of Chardonnay? (Wine came in a jug, with a handle, right?)
What's the point here? Not much really, other than to observe the culinary changes that came about under my watch, the way that a steak became no-longer-a-steak in a very short time. Three-pieced businessmen started to talk about the joys of ceviche with a minerally Gruner, and the manliness of Don Draper stepped aside to let in the manliness of Tony Bourdain.
It was thrilling, in many ways, to find it happening. Had I been older, I might have been the type who sniffed about such tastes being unmanly -- we don't call someone with simplistic throwback tastes a "meat-and-potatoes man" by accident. Had I been younger, I may have grown up never knowing the Tyranny of Beef -- like a kid born in the era of Facebook and smartphones can't imagine that people once lived -- for lifetimes on end -- without such things.
As the years went by, I had Chateaubriand at Maisonette, Wellington at Four Seasons, steak pie at Brittingham's, prime rib at Morton's, and onglet at Tewksbury Inn -- always believing that I was happy, that this was dining. (All except Morton's, perhaps, where the the whole vibe was a little too Henry VIII-meets-Disney for my tastes.
Then I had duck at Court Street. It probably wasn't the best duck anyone has ever had, but it was a revelation to me. There was another option -- not boring like chicken, and not silly and inconsequential like pasta. Then there was the salmon at the Sole Proprietor. Fish as a main course? Who knew!
By the time I was 30 years old, I had stopped ordering beef entirely at restaurants. I think I've had one steak in a restaurant in the past five years, and I didn't love it. I'm sure I was nearly the last one to figure this out. There are always hipper people than me. But most of the time they were eating pasta, and where's the fun in that? But I had discovered pork and lamb and organ meat and shellfish, and I wasn't going back.
I was late to the party on variety -- I didn't have Chinese food until my teens. I had sushi, but only because I was in Japan. Pizza was made at home, on cookie sheets, and had tomato paste from a can beneath the rubbery mozzarella. But then I grew up under the Tyranny of Beef. Oh, sure, people ate pork chops. At home. On Wednesday. Turkey was for Thanksgiving, ham for Easter, macaroni and cheese on Friday and during Lent. But beef ruled the world. That was a Saturday night dinner, dinner for company, dinner out. Like having a martini before dinner -- who would have thought we'd trade that for glasses of Chardonnay? (Wine came in a jug, with a handle, right?)
What's the point here? Not much really, other than to observe the culinary changes that came about under my watch, the way that a steak became no-longer-a-steak in a very short time. Three-pieced businessmen started to talk about the joys of ceviche with a minerally Gruner, and the manliness of Don Draper stepped aside to let in the manliness of Tony Bourdain.
It was thrilling, in many ways, to find it happening. Had I been older, I might have been the type who sniffed about such tastes being unmanly -- we don't call someone with simplistic throwback tastes a "meat-and-potatoes man" by accident. Had I been younger, I may have grown up never knowing the Tyranny of Beef -- like a kid born in the era of Facebook and smartphones can't imagine that people once lived -- for lifetimes on end -- without such things.
Friday, May 11, 2018
Graceland
Can I confess that I've struggled with this lyric?
And if you are going north instead, and can see the delta, I don't think the cradle of the Civil War is anywhere nearby. Charleston? Sure. Richmond? Might work. Atlanta? Maybe a stretch, but I'd hear the argument. The south side of Memphis? Nope. Hell, even Harper's Ferry has a better claim than Memphis.
The Mississippi Delta was shining like a National guitar
I am following the river down the highway through the cradle of the Civil War
I'm going to GracelandI know it's idiomatic, but if you are "following the river down the highway," aren't you going south? And if you are going south to Memphis, you aren't anywhere near the Delta -- so what the f*ck would you know of how it is shining?
And if you are going north instead, and can see the delta, I don't think the cradle of the Civil War is anywhere nearby. Charleston? Sure. Richmond? Might work. Atlanta? Maybe a stretch, but I'd hear the argument. The south side of Memphis? Nope. Hell, even Harper's Ferry has a better claim than Memphis.
Saturday, April 28, 2018
Inferiority Complex in Blue
I think I'd trade every word I've written -- the hours and the cigarettes and staring at the blank page and the work of the right word to start with and the right word to end with -- for a little taste of what Ellington must have felt when he put down his pen, having finished "I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart."
Saturday, April 21, 2018
Earth Angel
David Geffen, when he came out, added the caveat that he could never be quite certain of his homosexuality while standing near Demi Moore.
In a similar spirit, I am moved to declare that this atheist's principles falter when he gazes upon Irène Jacob. She's appeared in little of note for the past 20 years, but I treasure her roles in two Krzysztof Kieślowski films -- Trois Couleurs: Rouge and The Double Life of Veronique -- so thoroughly that I'm in some ways disinclined to spoil that by viewing her in lesser art. (U.S. Marshals, anyone? Help yourself.)
Although Veronique is the earlier performance, I saw Rouge first, and it remains my indelible image of her: young, beautiful, and unaware of a role in a drama that seems to operate above the human level. Veronique, not surprisingly, pursues similar themes. In fact, many of Kieślowski's stories explore that foreboding feeling of what Robert Frost referred to as "design." Even to consider that possibility is unnerving, disorienting.
Not to dwell on the themes, here, but it does make a difference. Jacob is not unaware in an innocent way. This is not a virginal thing. Her sexuality is explored quite frankly in Veronique. Nor is she simply an ingenue, in need of a man to complete her. In Rouge, the man who has the greatest effect on her may or may not be god (or perhaps an avatar), and he appears to need her more than she needs him.
But there is a delicacy in her beauty that seems to make her the angel of this ironically vengeful god. And in Veronique, the universe seems to be able to support only her beauty; twice that much seems to tip the scales too much. But delicate features without projecting weakness or meekness -- strong and distinct -- and not an oval-faced cherub, but the kind of angel who might be hiding a sword in her gowns. Her figure lean and elegant, but muscular. Her window scene in Veronique is stunning for that reason -- she is beautiful, but not willowy. Perhaps it is not even worth describing her. Let a thousand words be spared.
Amazing...
In a similar spirit, I am moved to declare that this atheist's principles falter when he gazes upon Irène Jacob. She's appeared in little of note for the past 20 years, but I treasure her roles in two Krzysztof Kieślowski films -- Trois Couleurs: Rouge and The Double Life of Veronique -- so thoroughly that I'm in some ways disinclined to spoil that by viewing her in lesser art. (U.S. Marshals, anyone? Help yourself.)
Although Veronique is the earlier performance, I saw Rouge first, and it remains my indelible image of her: young, beautiful, and unaware of a role in a drama that seems to operate above the human level. Veronique, not surprisingly, pursues similar themes. In fact, many of Kieślowski's stories explore that foreboding feeling of what Robert Frost referred to as "design." Even to consider that possibility is unnerving, disorienting.
Not to dwell on the themes, here, but it does make a difference. Jacob is not unaware in an innocent way. This is not a virginal thing. Her sexuality is explored quite frankly in Veronique. Nor is she simply an ingenue, in need of a man to complete her. In Rouge, the man who has the greatest effect on her may or may not be god (or perhaps an avatar), and he appears to need her more than she needs him.
But there is a delicacy in her beauty that seems to make her the angel of this ironically vengeful god. And in Veronique, the universe seems to be able to support only her beauty; twice that much seems to tip the scales too much. But delicate features without projecting weakness or meekness -- strong and distinct -- and not an oval-faced cherub, but the kind of angel who might be hiding a sword in her gowns. Her figure lean and elegant, but muscular. Her window scene in Veronique is stunning for that reason -- she is beautiful, but not willowy. Perhaps it is not even worth describing her. Let a thousand words be spared.
Amazing...
Wednesday, March 07, 2018
Thought in Progress
Hopefully, I'll have time to come back and flesh this out a little more. I was was struck by a thought this week.
If I had know 30 years ago how much of life was just making shit up as you go, I would have lived my life differently. Somehow, I feel like I was always waiting for that moment when everything would straighten out, I would understand who I was and where I belonged, and all would make sense.
I realized rather late that life does not change in that fundamental way. I've lived happy times and sad times; had jobs that seemed like play and jobs I dreaded every single day; and at various times had supportive friends and partners and other times felt all alone. All through that, there has never been a time when I wasn't making shit up, improvising madly, feeling impostor syndrome lurking right behind me.
Maybe there are special people out there, always proceeding with confidence and certainty, unencumbered by doubts. After 50 years on this planet, I'm inclined to call those people sociopaths and be done with it.
Kids, I don't know much, but this I have figured out. Start now, do what you want, and take the f*cking consequences. Because things don't really change.
If I had know 30 years ago how much of life was just making shit up as you go, I would have lived my life differently. Somehow, I feel like I was always waiting for that moment when everything would straighten out, I would understand who I was and where I belonged, and all would make sense.
I realized rather late that life does not change in that fundamental way. I've lived happy times and sad times; had jobs that seemed like play and jobs I dreaded every single day; and at various times had supportive friends and partners and other times felt all alone. All through that, there has never been a time when I wasn't making shit up, improvising madly, feeling impostor syndrome lurking right behind me.
Maybe there are special people out there, always proceeding with confidence and certainty, unencumbered by doubts. After 50 years on this planet, I'm inclined to call those people sociopaths and be done with it.
Kids, I don't know much, but this I have figured out. Start now, do what you want, and take the f*cking consequences. Because things don't really change.
Still Locked in Jetsons-think
I've always been a techno-optimist, even if I'm not an early adopter. Just ask Razor how long it took him to talk me into an iPod. To my credit, though, it was an easy leap from there to streaming audio, which I have learned to love. I still miss the sound of vinyl, but who the hell has room for all that crap in their living room?
Anyway, this article about robot burger-flippers set me thinking about places where technology can and cannot create change -- at least without other changes coming first. Go take a look at the picture of the "robot" in the article. I'll wait.
It's a big robotic arm mounted in front of an old-fashioned flat-top grill. And this is my beef, so to speak. Why would the "big thinkers" interested in robotic burger-flipping want to mess around with retrofitting? This is exactly the thing that holds back real innovation. Think of the time and effort that went into creating all the technology needed to simulate a 16-year-old with a spatula. I think of this as first-order robotics, or Jetsons-think: creating a robotic replacement for labor. A robot that holds a spatula is like Rosie, the Jetsons' robotic maid, who holds a standard vacuum cleaner,
What is needed is more second-order thinking. Instead of designing a robot to fit into a human work environment, shouldn't we be building the work environments around the robots? I mean, unless you think we're suddenly going to decide we've had enough innovation -- the robots flip burgers and do nothing else, forever. Humans will always do everything else.
That's not the way it works, though, is it? If you were McDonalds, say, with big bucks to throw at this, wouldn't you be blue-sky thinking right now? Wouldn't you be at the drawing board, redesigning the kitchen to be more friendly to automation? Instead of a big f*cking robot arm in front of the grill, wouldn't you make a grill that requires no arm at all?
Imagine building a washing machine (which is, after all, essentially a robot), but building it in a way that mimicked the actual movements of a human doing the job -- pulling wet clothes from a tub and putting them through a wringer, for example. Idiotic, right? That's what this kind of thinking creates, and it means that technology created this way will never be more than an expensive novelty, a dead end off the road of deep thinking and difficult problem solving, the real work of innovation.
Rethink the task, rethink the environment in which the task is done, and design for that.
Anyway, this article about robot burger-flippers set me thinking about places where technology can and cannot create change -- at least without other changes coming first. Go take a look at the picture of the "robot" in the article. I'll wait.
It's a big robotic arm mounted in front of an old-fashioned flat-top grill. And this is my beef, so to speak. Why would the "big thinkers" interested in robotic burger-flipping want to mess around with retrofitting? This is exactly the thing that holds back real innovation. Think of the time and effort that went into creating all the technology needed to simulate a 16-year-old with a spatula. I think of this as first-order robotics, or Jetsons-think: creating a robotic replacement for labor. A robot that holds a spatula is like Rosie, the Jetsons' robotic maid, who holds a standard vacuum cleaner,
What is needed is more second-order thinking. Instead of designing a robot to fit into a human work environment, shouldn't we be building the work environments around the robots? I mean, unless you think we're suddenly going to decide we've had enough innovation -- the robots flip burgers and do nothing else, forever. Humans will always do everything else.
That's not the way it works, though, is it? If you were McDonalds, say, with big bucks to throw at this, wouldn't you be blue-sky thinking right now? Wouldn't you be at the drawing board, redesigning the kitchen to be more friendly to automation? Instead of a big f*cking robot arm in front of the grill, wouldn't you make a grill that requires no arm at all?
Imagine building a washing machine (which is, after all, essentially a robot), but building it in a way that mimicked the actual movements of a human doing the job -- pulling wet clothes from a tub and putting them through a wringer, for example. Idiotic, right? That's what this kind of thinking creates, and it means that technology created this way will never be more than an expensive novelty, a dead end off the road of deep thinking and difficult problem solving, the real work of innovation.
Rethink the task, rethink the environment in which the task is done, and design for that.
Sunday, January 28, 2018
The Wheel Turns
This wishy-washy editorial in the Times about public-sector unions may seem dreadfully vague. In fact, what isn't said is the clearest message of all. The problem is a serious one: collective bargaining over public pensions and benefits has quite literally bankrupted the state, with the smiling assistance of the governor himself. Now the towns are being stuck with the bill, and they aren't happy.
After several paragraphs setting up the problem, the writers finish off with this dreadfully jejune scoop of vanilla:
For years, governors of these blue states have borrowed against the future to win union donations and votes with little regard for the IOU coming due. These states are in major fiscal trouble, especially after the recession and no-growth recovery accelerated the problem.
Now to what the article says so clearly under its breath: Democrat governors, who have to balance their budgets, are on the other side of this issue from the national party. Party leaders like Nancy Pelosi are still preaching the model of happy unions, big spending, and welfare statism, while state Democrats like Andrew Cuomo have been getting awful nervous over the past 5 years or so looking at their bottom line. Others, like Connecticut's Dannell Malloy, just whistle past the graveyard.
The time will come soon, however, when the party will meet an impasse. The national Democrats will want to continue winning elections with union backing, while governors desperately try to dial it back to save their states from a Puerto Rico-style implosion. Some states are worse off than others. But all are under water -- except one: Wisconsin, where a Republican governor, Scott Walker, earned the undying hatred of the unions for exposing the fiscal shell game and putting the system on solid ground.
But not every state can count on a Republican to ride in and rescue it. Democrats will have to choose as well. Do they continue the spending spree, or do they too make the tough decisions? We'll see, indeed.
After several paragraphs setting up the problem, the writers finish off with this dreadfully jejune scoop of vanilla:
While mayors say they’re willing to pay more for pensions, many want the ability to shift their employees to defined-contribution plans that give them control over the costs. But will Democrats in Hartford defy their labor friends and rescue Connecticut’s underwater cities? Connecticut voters are only beginning to understand the damage from two terms of Mr. Malloy.That kind of "we'll see!" conclusion is the crux of this biscuit. The Times, like all Democrat organs, is between the devil and the deep blue state policy. After generations of giving away the store on lavish salaries and benefits, nearly unbreakable job security, featherbedding, and underfunding state pension accounts, states like Connecticut (and New Jersey and Illinois and California -- seeing a pattern?) have an unfunded liability that is going to break the back of the budget in painful slow motion.
For years, governors of these blue states have borrowed against the future to win union donations and votes with little regard for the IOU coming due. These states are in major fiscal trouble, especially after the recession and no-growth recovery accelerated the problem.
Now to what the article says so clearly under its breath: Democrat governors, who have to balance their budgets, are on the other side of this issue from the national party. Party leaders like Nancy Pelosi are still preaching the model of happy unions, big spending, and welfare statism, while state Democrats like Andrew Cuomo have been getting awful nervous over the past 5 years or so looking at their bottom line. Others, like Connecticut's Dannell Malloy, just whistle past the graveyard.
The time will come soon, however, when the party will meet an impasse. The national Democrats will want to continue winning elections with union backing, while governors desperately try to dial it back to save their states from a Puerto Rico-style implosion. Some states are worse off than others. But all are under water -- except one: Wisconsin, where a Republican governor, Scott Walker, earned the undying hatred of the unions for exposing the fiscal shell game and putting the system on solid ground.
But not every state can count on a Republican to ride in and rescue it. Democrats will have to choose as well. Do they continue the spending spree, or do they too make the tough decisions? We'll see, indeed.
Saturday, January 27, 2018
Education
I'm an educator. I didn't set out to be one. I wanted to be, at various ages, a musician, a researcher, a spy, an actor, a writer -- pretty much anything but an educator. I hated school, I hated teachers, and I despised the one-way thinking of American establishment education.
Somehow I ended up as an educator, partly out of economic necessity (what else does someone with two degrees in the liberal arts become?) and partly because I naively thought I could make things better. For the past 20+ years, I have written curriculum, tutored immigrants, taught Shakespeare to inner city kids, directed literacy programs from K-12, and coached college students who want to teach.
I've seen education from a lot of angles, and I've come to a one-sentence conclusion about it all: American education has confused formative assessment and summative assessment.
Formative assessment is what you look at along the journey to a learning goal. We're talking about getting a quick snapshot, a quantum of interim data that helps you adjust your curriculum or pedagogy on the fly. As a rule, it should be data-driven and specific. It should be binary; it should ask, are students getting it? Can my civics students name the three branches of government, yes or no? If not, I'd better reteach it -- probably in a different way, since formative data is most useful and accurate in reflecting the effectiveness of my teaching.
Summative assessment is, for lack of a better term, the final exam. We're now at the point of not being able to reteach. The course/semester/year is over. How did I do in getting my students from point a to point b? It seems to me that this data necessarily needs to be more flexible, more nuanced, more qualitative.
Again, I might want to know if my students can name the three branches of government -- but while I might ask them to take a quiz for formative assessment (i.e., name them), for the summative assessment I might ask them to write a song about them, make a poster about them, or stage a quick scene showing how they interact. Whether my students can name the three branches doesn't reflect my actual goal -- which might be to have students be able to work with that knowledge. (Getting them to name the branches is simply a heuristic to use along the way.)
Naturally, we tend to use the most inflexible method -- high-stakes multiple choice testing -- for summative assessment. And we use the more flexible and qualitative methods -- such as multi-intelligence portfolios and even intuiting from conversation -- for formative assessment.
This is backward and bizarre. What's more, you can take almost any contemporary problem in education -- teaching to the test, drugging "attention deficit" kids, excessive use of removal or suspension as a disciplinary tool, dismissing the arts almost entirely from the school day -- and trace it directly back to this single source.
And as far as tracing things back to a single source, the trend itself can be traced to the creation of the U.S. Department of Education. Once the federal government got involved, standardization was inevitable. Don't get me wrong. Standards are one thing. We should have some high expectations for educational outcomes. Standardization is another thing entirely. Standardization tends to happen at the lowest common denominator.
McDonalds meals are standardized, for example -- and there's very little love and pride that goes into the day-to-day creation of Big Macs in franchises across the country. That doesn't mean that the original idea of the Big Mac wasn't inspired. Think of it in conceptual form: a double burger with melted cheese, crisp lettuce, some pickles and onions for zip, and a tangy sauce to seal the deal. Sounds great! Put it on the menu of any bistro in the country. But in execution, it falls a little short of the concept, yes? By standardizing education, we made the same trade off.
The difference is that making a Big Mac without love or pride doesn't damage its self-esteem, blunt its creativity, or drive it to a state of grinding ennui. It's just a sandwich. But students, it's been said often before, are not widgets -- or mass-produced burgers. We can't stamp them out in a factory-style school, pour the right knowledge in their heads, and send the regional manager around twice a year to count the educational equivalent of the average number of sesame seeds on the buns.
The even more extraordinary element of the problem is that every superintendent in the nation would react with horror at the suggestion that we ought to McDonalds-ize the education of our children. I suspect that everyone at the Department of Education would nod at what I've written here. Every educator in the country would agree with that paragraph directly above.
The dogs bark, but the caravan rolls on.
Somehow I ended up as an educator, partly out of economic necessity (what else does someone with two degrees in the liberal arts become?) and partly because I naively thought I could make things better. For the past 20+ years, I have written curriculum, tutored immigrants, taught Shakespeare to inner city kids, directed literacy programs from K-12, and coached college students who want to teach.
I've seen education from a lot of angles, and I've come to a one-sentence conclusion about it all: American education has confused formative assessment and summative assessment.
Formative assessment is what you look at along the journey to a learning goal. We're talking about getting a quick snapshot, a quantum of interim data that helps you adjust your curriculum or pedagogy on the fly. As a rule, it should be data-driven and specific. It should be binary; it should ask, are students getting it? Can my civics students name the three branches of government, yes or no? If not, I'd better reteach it -- probably in a different way, since formative data is most useful and accurate in reflecting the effectiveness of my teaching.
Summative assessment is, for lack of a better term, the final exam. We're now at the point of not being able to reteach. The course/semester/year is over. How did I do in getting my students from point a to point b? It seems to me that this data necessarily needs to be more flexible, more nuanced, more qualitative.
Again, I might want to know if my students can name the three branches of government -- but while I might ask them to take a quiz for formative assessment (i.e., name them), for the summative assessment I might ask them to write a song about them, make a poster about them, or stage a quick scene showing how they interact. Whether my students can name the three branches doesn't reflect my actual goal -- which might be to have students be able to work with that knowledge. (Getting them to name the branches is simply a heuristic to use along the way.)
Naturally, we tend to use the most inflexible method -- high-stakes multiple choice testing -- for summative assessment. And we use the more flexible and qualitative methods -- such as multi-intelligence portfolios and even intuiting from conversation -- for formative assessment.
This is backward and bizarre. What's more, you can take almost any contemporary problem in education -- teaching to the test, drugging "attention deficit" kids, excessive use of removal or suspension as a disciplinary tool, dismissing the arts almost entirely from the school day -- and trace it directly back to this single source.
And as far as tracing things back to a single source, the trend itself can be traced to the creation of the U.S. Department of Education. Once the federal government got involved, standardization was inevitable. Don't get me wrong. Standards are one thing. We should have some high expectations for educational outcomes. Standardization is another thing entirely. Standardization tends to happen at the lowest common denominator.
McDonalds meals are standardized, for example -- and there's very little love and pride that goes into the day-to-day creation of Big Macs in franchises across the country. That doesn't mean that the original idea of the Big Mac wasn't inspired. Think of it in conceptual form: a double burger with melted cheese, crisp lettuce, some pickles and onions for zip, and a tangy sauce to seal the deal. Sounds great! Put it on the menu of any bistro in the country. But in execution, it falls a little short of the concept, yes? By standardizing education, we made the same trade off.
The difference is that making a Big Mac without love or pride doesn't damage its self-esteem, blunt its creativity, or drive it to a state of grinding ennui. It's just a sandwich. But students, it's been said often before, are not widgets -- or mass-produced burgers. We can't stamp them out in a factory-style school, pour the right knowledge in their heads, and send the regional manager around twice a year to count the educational equivalent of the average number of sesame seeds on the buns.
The even more extraordinary element of the problem is that every superintendent in the nation would react with horror at the suggestion that we ought to McDonalds-ize the education of our children. I suspect that everyone at the Department of Education would nod at what I've written here. Every educator in the country would agree with that paragraph directly above.
The dogs bark, but the caravan rolls on.
Thursday, January 04, 2018
As Long as We Are Wallowing in Guilt...
I've been listening to some lectures by Jordan Peterson, the Canadian psychologist who has made waves of late. He has some interesting things to say about the psychology of the citizens of tyranny. Some of this we know already from Hoffer's True Believer -- the psychological gymnastics needed to justify simply trying to muddle through as a person living under a regime like Stalin's or Hitler's. The Solzhenitsyns are few and far between.
We all believe (but especially lefties!) that, living under such a regime, we'd be proud and brave dissidents. After all, they are resisting Trump -- what could be more courageous? But Peterson's statement is stark: Bullshit, he says, 99% of us would be exactly the go-along-to-get-along schmucks that did not stand up to Hitler. Germans are not more evil than Americans in general (they just seem that way); in a similar predicament, Americans would behave the same way.
By a kind of tortuous process, this led me to thinking about moral struggles and how we are so often blind to the actual issues that matter. Slavery, Jim Crow laws, eugenics, Japanese internment -- all these travesties had tacit approval from majorities in America.
So what are the issues today? What are we blind to that future generations will condemn us for tolerating? A glance at the news on any given day would lead one to believe that "institutional racism" and "rape culture" are the two glaring failings of America today, the things history will chide us on.
I disagree. I think 50 years from now, those issues will be seen as overblown. We know with some certainty that the scare stats on rape culture are horrifically exaggerated -- a quarter of college women are not sexually assaulted except under a meaningless definition of the term. And as cooler heads have examined the race issue, it seems that black suspects are not more likely to face police violence. That doesn't mean that we have reached perfection. These issues deserve plenty of attention. (What history will remember, I think, is that we gave these issues too much of the wrong kind of attention.)
No, the two issues on which our great-grandchildren will judge us harshly are 1) abortion and 2) the mistreatment of animals.
Look, before we go further, let's get this clear. What has two thumbs and is a pro-choice carnivore? That's right. No fair calling me a tool of the religious right on this one. (If you have a beef, so to speak, you'll have to debate me on the merits.) Moreover, I don't think I'll change my opinion on either issue real soon. I may change my own behavior, but the incursion on freedom needed to change these practices, except by slow social change, would be unacceptable.
First, let's take on abortion -- you know, because it's such a clear-cut issue. I think that the right of a woman to her bodily integrity and self-ownership takes precedence in the situation. But the view that obtains right now, among abortion rights activists, is that abortion is a morally neutral act. I think this is blind and foolish. Now I don't intend to start a guilt campaign against women who choose abortion, but anyone who does choose such shouldn't do so with her head in the sand. I think that time and science will only bear out the idea that the fetus is human, capable of pain, and in a sense conscious. It may not be enough to change the calculus on legality -- at least in my mind. But the "clump of cells" rhetoric will come to seem monstrous in a few generations.
Second, the way we treat animals is clearly callous and in many cases shocking. I think factory farming gets the most attention, but that's just the tip of it. From animal testing to pet ownership to even the humane and Whole Foods-approved ranching practices that simply paper over the barbarity of animal ownership, the root here is the right to determine whether an animal lives or dies. I'll be blunt: if you see a moral difference between shooting your own dog because he soiled the rug and butchering your own cow for steaks, you are lying to yourself. In either case, a human makes a decision to end the animal's life at his own convenience.
Should we criminalize burgers? Should we lay a guilt trip on carnivores who own cute dogs? No. But we should recognize that taking an animal's life is not -- again -- morally neutral. Will I stop eating bacon? Probably not. But if I'm a 90-year-old getting shit from the 2060 answer to millennials, I'd like to think I'll say, "Fair cop, kid."
We all believe (but especially lefties!) that, living under such a regime, we'd be proud and brave dissidents. After all, they are resisting Trump -- what could be more courageous? But Peterson's statement is stark: Bullshit, he says, 99% of us would be exactly the go-along-to-get-along schmucks that did not stand up to Hitler. Germans are not more evil than Americans in general (they just seem that way); in a similar predicament, Americans would behave the same way.
By a kind of tortuous process, this led me to thinking about moral struggles and how we are so often blind to the actual issues that matter. Slavery, Jim Crow laws, eugenics, Japanese internment -- all these travesties had tacit approval from majorities in America.
So what are the issues today? What are we blind to that future generations will condemn us for tolerating? A glance at the news on any given day would lead one to believe that "institutional racism" and "rape culture" are the two glaring failings of America today, the things history will chide us on.
I disagree. I think 50 years from now, those issues will be seen as overblown. We know with some certainty that the scare stats on rape culture are horrifically exaggerated -- a quarter of college women are not sexually assaulted except under a meaningless definition of the term. And as cooler heads have examined the race issue, it seems that black suspects are not more likely to face police violence. That doesn't mean that we have reached perfection. These issues deserve plenty of attention. (What history will remember, I think, is that we gave these issues too much of the wrong kind of attention.)
No, the two issues on which our great-grandchildren will judge us harshly are 1) abortion and 2) the mistreatment of animals.
Look, before we go further, let's get this clear. What has two thumbs and is a pro-choice carnivore? That's right. No fair calling me a tool of the religious right on this one. (If you have a beef, so to speak, you'll have to debate me on the merits.) Moreover, I don't think I'll change my opinion on either issue real soon. I may change my own behavior, but the incursion on freedom needed to change these practices, except by slow social change, would be unacceptable.
First, let's take on abortion -- you know, because it's such a clear-cut issue. I think that the right of a woman to her bodily integrity and self-ownership takes precedence in the situation. But the view that obtains right now, among abortion rights activists, is that abortion is a morally neutral act. I think this is blind and foolish. Now I don't intend to start a guilt campaign against women who choose abortion, but anyone who does choose such shouldn't do so with her head in the sand. I think that time and science will only bear out the idea that the fetus is human, capable of pain, and in a sense conscious. It may not be enough to change the calculus on legality -- at least in my mind. But the "clump of cells" rhetoric will come to seem monstrous in a few generations.
Second, the way we treat animals is clearly callous and in many cases shocking. I think factory farming gets the most attention, but that's just the tip of it. From animal testing to pet ownership to even the humane and Whole Foods-approved ranching practices that simply paper over the barbarity of animal ownership, the root here is the right to determine whether an animal lives or dies. I'll be blunt: if you see a moral difference between shooting your own dog because he soiled the rug and butchering your own cow for steaks, you are lying to yourself. In either case, a human makes a decision to end the animal's life at his own convenience.
Should we criminalize burgers? Should we lay a guilt trip on carnivores who own cute dogs? No. But we should recognize that taking an animal's life is not -- again -- morally neutral. Will I stop eating bacon? Probably not. But if I'm a 90-year-old getting shit from the 2060 answer to millennials, I'd like to think I'll say, "Fair cop, kid."
Wednesday, January 03, 2018
Folgers is the new PBR?
Imagine my surprise. Listen, my family is foodie to the core. My family was foodie when hipster-foodie wasn't even a bulge in the trousers of the father of a future Brooklyn artisan pickle maker. I was raised on it, my adolescence magically matching up with America's sudden and widespread discovery of flavor, giving Betty Crocker the heave-ho. (Sidebar: Remember when Chinese food was exotic? Watch movies and tv shows from the 60s and 70s. Chinese food was damn exotic.)
My parents drink Folgers (note, no apostrophe), my brother's family does, and my sister's family too -- a family of winemakers, for god's sake. If anybody in my family had an excuse to talk through their nose about the aroma and body of their favorite brew, they certainly would. And my ex (that's the former Mrs. Enobarbus) used to be a die-hard fair-trade pour-over Sumatra sniffer. Buys the house brand at Target now.
Hence, my question. Has the coffee wave broken, leaving little tidal pools of cappuccino foam on the shore of American culture? Will the gourmet coffee business go the way of the cupcake shop?
I suppose it is a truism that when the hip becomes mainstream, it is no longer hip. (The aforementioned former Mrs. Enobarbus herself, in fact, had a rule that stated, roughly: if Mr. Eno has even heard of something, it cannot possibly be the dernier cri.) And a corollary (Razor, you can't tell, but I'm pronouncing that with accent on the second syllable) might be that, once the cultural vogue goes mainstream, the trendy rats not only leave the ship, they denounce it on the way out.
The PBR comparison is apt. As craft beer became mainstream, Pabst became a way of showing that you had a certain disdain for the hoi polloi joining in the fun. (No, that's too cynical. Perhaps, rather, it's a denunciation of what happens to the quality of the product thanks to mainstreaming.) Whatever else it was, it was a clear signifier -- drinking Natural Light would not send the same message, after all. If Joe Sixpack is drinking IPA now, I'm going to go pinch his six pack of Pabst. A bit childish, perhaps, but understandable.
So, now, whither coffee? Starbucks has not crumbled. In fact, I'm guessing they are quite secure. The new Dunkin' Donuts, if you will. But they no longer serve coffee, really. They specialize in coffee-flavored milkshakes and the paraphernalia to go with them. It's been building for a while, but it seems like the perfect moment for a serious coffee drinker to go fully retro. In fact, maybe Folgers isn't going far enough -- opt instead for a cup of mud, a splash of java, a big mug of ink. Hell, the hippest will have ditched their pour-overs and vacuum pots for an old school percolating urn, dribbling out a tarry hours-old sludge that burns the throat and melts the GI tract. (The kind of stuff we drank at my first office job. The boss would throw back a cup at 7:30 sharp, grab the paper, and head to the bathroom for the next 40 minutes.)
As always, I feel bemused, at best. Starbucks, to me, meant nothing other than standing in line behind someone whose order took longer to say than to make. If I get coffee out, it's from the gas station. And for brewing at home? I mean, I saw the brands proliferate in the grocery aisle, but The Ever Cheap and Reliable Eight O'Clock Bean stands out in its saucy red bag, so I never really had occasion to look around.
What, am I above it all? No, I'm just cheap.
My parents drink Folgers (note, no apostrophe), my brother's family does, and my sister's family too -- a family of winemakers, for god's sake. If anybody in my family had an excuse to talk through their nose about the aroma and body of their favorite brew, they certainly would. And my ex (that's the former Mrs. Enobarbus) used to be a die-hard fair-trade pour-over Sumatra sniffer. Buys the house brand at Target now.
Hence, my question. Has the coffee wave broken, leaving little tidal pools of cappuccino foam on the shore of American culture? Will the gourmet coffee business go the way of the cupcake shop?
I suppose it is a truism that when the hip becomes mainstream, it is no longer hip. (The aforementioned former Mrs. Enobarbus herself, in fact, had a rule that stated, roughly: if Mr. Eno has even heard of something, it cannot possibly be the dernier cri.) And a corollary (Razor, you can't tell, but I'm pronouncing that with accent on the second syllable) might be that, once the cultural vogue goes mainstream, the trendy rats not only leave the ship, they denounce it on the way out.
The PBR comparison is apt. As craft beer became mainstream, Pabst became a way of showing that you had a certain disdain for the hoi polloi joining in the fun. (No, that's too cynical. Perhaps, rather, it's a denunciation of what happens to the quality of the product thanks to mainstreaming.) Whatever else it was, it was a clear signifier -- drinking Natural Light would not send the same message, after all. If Joe Sixpack is drinking IPA now, I'm going to go pinch his six pack of Pabst. A bit childish, perhaps, but understandable.
So, now, whither coffee? Starbucks has not crumbled. In fact, I'm guessing they are quite secure. The new Dunkin' Donuts, if you will. But they no longer serve coffee, really. They specialize in coffee-flavored milkshakes and the paraphernalia to go with them. It's been building for a while, but it seems like the perfect moment for a serious coffee drinker to go fully retro. In fact, maybe Folgers isn't going far enough -- opt instead for a cup of mud, a splash of java, a big mug of ink. Hell, the hippest will have ditched their pour-overs and vacuum pots for an old school percolating urn, dribbling out a tarry hours-old sludge that burns the throat and melts the GI tract. (The kind of stuff we drank at my first office job. The boss would throw back a cup at 7:30 sharp, grab the paper, and head to the bathroom for the next 40 minutes.)
As always, I feel bemused, at best. Starbucks, to me, meant nothing other than standing in line behind someone whose order took longer to say than to make. If I get coffee out, it's from the gas station. And for brewing at home? I mean, I saw the brands proliferate in the grocery aisle, but The Ever Cheap and Reliable Eight O'Clock Bean stands out in its saucy red bag, so I never really had occasion to look around.
What, am I above it all? No, I'm just cheap.
Saturday, December 16, 2017
The Phantom Trilogy
Minor spoiler alert. I just saw The Last Jedi today, and I'm gonna tell you, it's all splash and no heart. Never a big J.J. Abrams fan, I was excited to see Rian Johnson take a turn at the helm. I enjoyed his twisty sci-fi Looper a few years back, and his quirky little indie film Brick is one of my favorite hat-tips to noir style and dialog.
Sadly, eight movies in and we're still slavishly following these same characters around -- Leia and Luke, Chewbacca, even Yoda shows up. But it's Luke in particular that drags the pic down. He's always such a buzzkill with his brooding self-seriousness, and without a cynical rogue like Han Solo around to balance the force, as it were, you're left with a big lemon-suck.
All the new characters we met in The Force Awakens are back, but they are cardboard cutouts, moving the plot along but providing no depth, no emotion. Even Kylo Ren's brooding (and, oh, does he brood) over a supposed betrayal by his onetime Jedi master feels perfunctory. What could have been a great conflict is handled with trickery and shortcuts that steal the power of the relationship. Rey is much blander than last time, and Finn and Poe seem to be there only to complicate the plot.
Interestingly, on their sideplot to nowhere, Finn's sidekick Rose steals the goddamn movie. A new character, she is genuine in a way that we haven't seen in this franchise since the early days, even if her love for the resistance is a little meta. (She's like a rebel alliance fangirl. You almost expect her to bust out original trilogy action figures.) But she's cool and gets one of the better scenes of herism.
Speaking of what was genuine in the early pics, why all the fawning over the raggedy old humans but no love for our favorite droids? I've always believed that the original arc of the Star Wars universe necessitated a series in which R2D2 and C3PO were the through line, the real main characters. The rebellion revolves around them almost as if they were narrators. They speak the first lines in the films. And they can continue on as the other characters lived and died, just as it is implied that they have a history with the rebellion before they ever meet up with Luke. (I think this was addressed in the second trilogy. Frankly, who cared.) And they are perfectly picaresque characters, uncannily showing up in the middle of every major moment in the rebellion like little Forrest Gumps.
Until now, that is. Sadly, they are no more than window dressing here -- appearing for a momentary cliche, and then being brusquely shunted aside like last year's iPhone for the bouncy and bubbly antics of BB-8, who is nowhere near having a personality. C3PO gets one chance to be an officious protocol droid and R2D2 gets a quick reunion with Luke. Done, and done. (Anthony Daniels's lines sound like they were literally phoned in -- on a flip phone, from his sofa, perhaps, on some or other Monday afternoon.)
Look, Star Wars was a big enough moment in my life that I had to see this one -- just as I will see the next. But it's all getting a little threadbare. My favorite thing about Rogue One was that they broke so fully away from the canonical characters into a self-contained story. More of that, please. Perhaps the ninth movie will be the charm. After all, everyone we knew from the earlier trilogies is now dead.
Maybe now we can move on, for god's sake.
Sadly, eight movies in and we're still slavishly following these same characters around -- Leia and Luke, Chewbacca, even Yoda shows up. But it's Luke in particular that drags the pic down. He's always such a buzzkill with his brooding self-seriousness, and without a cynical rogue like Han Solo around to balance the force, as it were, you're left with a big lemon-suck.
All the new characters we met in The Force Awakens are back, but they are cardboard cutouts, moving the plot along but providing no depth, no emotion. Even Kylo Ren's brooding (and, oh, does he brood) over a supposed betrayal by his onetime Jedi master feels perfunctory. What could have been a great conflict is handled with trickery and shortcuts that steal the power of the relationship. Rey is much blander than last time, and Finn and Poe seem to be there only to complicate the plot.
Interestingly, on their sideplot to nowhere, Finn's sidekick Rose steals the goddamn movie. A new character, she is genuine in a way that we haven't seen in this franchise since the early days, even if her love for the resistance is a little meta. (She's like a rebel alliance fangirl. You almost expect her to bust out original trilogy action figures.) But she's cool and gets one of the better scenes of herism.
Speaking of what was genuine in the early pics, why all the fawning over the raggedy old humans but no love for our favorite droids? I've always believed that the original arc of the Star Wars universe necessitated a series in which R2D2 and C3PO were the through line, the real main characters. The rebellion revolves around them almost as if they were narrators. They speak the first lines in the films. And they can continue on as the other characters lived and died, just as it is implied that they have a history with the rebellion before they ever meet up with Luke. (I think this was addressed in the second trilogy. Frankly, who cared.) And they are perfectly picaresque characters, uncannily showing up in the middle of every major moment in the rebellion like little Forrest Gumps.
Until now, that is. Sadly, they are no more than window dressing here -- appearing for a momentary cliche, and then being brusquely shunted aside like last year's iPhone for the bouncy and bubbly antics of BB-8, who is nowhere near having a personality. C3PO gets one chance to be an officious protocol droid and R2D2 gets a quick reunion with Luke. Done, and done. (Anthony Daniels's lines sound like they were literally phoned in -- on a flip phone, from his sofa, perhaps, on some or other Monday afternoon.)
Look, Star Wars was a big enough moment in my life that I had to see this one -- just as I will see the next. But it's all getting a little threadbare. My favorite thing about Rogue One was that they broke so fully away from the canonical characters into a self-contained story. More of that, please. Perhaps the ninth movie will be the charm. After all, everyone we knew from the earlier trilogies is now dead.
Maybe now we can move on, for god's sake.
Friday, December 15, 2017
Expert, Schmexpert
Why does the American faith in education experts persist?
If you went looking for the foundations of the electromagnetic field concept, who would you expect to find there – a famous scientist and Royal Society member, or his self-taught valet and sometime lab assistant?
If you were searching for the person who kicked off the public health revolution in mid-1800s England, you might look for a forward-thinking doctor. But you’d be wrong. Instead, look for a philosopher and his assistant, both trained in the law. And the mental health revolution, half a century later, was launched not by a physician, but by a former inmate of a mental hospital.
In the late 19th century, if you wanted to perfect an efficient incandescent light bulb, you might have gone to the best educated scientists for help, but probably not to a semi-educated tinkerer in New Jersey. Why?
Someone interested in an economical operating system for the emerging personal computer market might also have asked the experts, perhaps at IBM. But IBM themselves got theirs from a college dropout whose software business was barely out of his garage.
When nobody bought the electric cars coming from the teams of experts at GM and Nissan, Elon Musk, a software businessman and PayPal investor, pushed them aside with the Tesla.
What about something big, like the moon shot? Didn’t it take experts to do that? Well, it certainly took a pile of money that only a government (big fan of experts) could provide. But once the technology was democratized and the costs came down, true innovation in space travel came not from NASA, but from a guy with an online bookstore.
And yet we still believe that the experts will give us the education (or health care!) system that we want.
The fact is, there’s a tried and true paradigm for getting what we want for our money: A few years ago, Apple put out their latest iPhone, but everyone bought the Samsung instead because of the big screen and a great camera. Can you guess what features Apple put on its next phone? If you said a bigger screen and better camera…
Imagine if this was how schools worked. They offer possibilities, and we respond by buying what we want. Foreign language immersion? Project-based learning? STEM-focused curriculum? If you want it, schools will provide it (and more schools will provide it if they see consumers rushing to schools that already do) – but only if the experts stop dictating what schools can do and where all the education money goes.
The common refrain is that education is too important to leave “to the market.” That case can be made for nutrition, too. But still we let corporations provide our food. Hell, we let parents decide what their kids eat. Where are the cries for a government-provided, thrice-daily gruel – exactly how many calories you need to clear the bar and no more? After all, in educational terms, that’s what our government schools serve up, day after day.
“Expert advice is indispensable to the democratic process,” wrote Harry Rosenfield in the Spring 1949 Antioch Review. “But it is not a substitute for that process.” The best illustration of that process would be millions of Americans voting … with their pocketbooks.
More: To paraphrase Michael Strong, imagine if the education system we had now was something we had paid an education company to build for us – think of an education Halliburton. Be honest: wouldn't we look at that system ... and call for that company to be fired?
If you went looking for the foundations of the electromagnetic field concept, who would you expect to find there – a famous scientist and Royal Society member, or his self-taught valet and sometime lab assistant?
If you were searching for the person who kicked off the public health revolution in mid-1800s England, you might look for a forward-thinking doctor. But you’d be wrong. Instead, look for a philosopher and his assistant, both trained in the law. And the mental health revolution, half a century later, was launched not by a physician, but by a former inmate of a mental hospital.
In the late 19th century, if you wanted to perfect an efficient incandescent light bulb, you might have gone to the best educated scientists for help, but probably not to a semi-educated tinkerer in New Jersey. Why?
Someone interested in an economical operating system for the emerging personal computer market might also have asked the experts, perhaps at IBM. But IBM themselves got theirs from a college dropout whose software business was barely out of his garage.
When nobody bought the electric cars coming from the teams of experts at GM and Nissan, Elon Musk, a software businessman and PayPal investor, pushed them aside with the Tesla.
What about something big, like the moon shot? Didn’t it take experts to do that? Well, it certainly took a pile of money that only a government (big fan of experts) could provide. But once the technology was democratized and the costs came down, true innovation in space travel came not from NASA, but from a guy with an online bookstore.
And yet we still believe that the experts will give us the education (or health care!) system that we want.
The fact is, there’s a tried and true paradigm for getting what we want for our money: A few years ago, Apple put out their latest iPhone, but everyone bought the Samsung instead because of the big screen and a great camera. Can you guess what features Apple put on its next phone? If you said a bigger screen and better camera…
Imagine if this was how schools worked. They offer possibilities, and we respond by buying what we want. Foreign language immersion? Project-based learning? STEM-focused curriculum? If you want it, schools will provide it (and more schools will provide it if they see consumers rushing to schools that already do) – but only if the experts stop dictating what schools can do and where all the education money goes.
The common refrain is that education is too important to leave “to the market.” That case can be made for nutrition, too. But still we let corporations provide our food. Hell, we let parents decide what their kids eat. Where are the cries for a government-provided, thrice-daily gruel – exactly how many calories you need to clear the bar and no more? After all, in educational terms, that’s what our government schools serve up, day after day.
“Expert advice is indispensable to the democratic process,” wrote Harry Rosenfield in the Spring 1949 Antioch Review. “But it is not a substitute for that process.” The best illustration of that process would be millions of Americans voting … with their pocketbooks.
More: To paraphrase Michael Strong, imagine if the education system we had now was something we had paid an education company to build for us – think of an education Halliburton. Be honest: wouldn't we look at that system ... and call for that company to be fired?
Thursday, December 14, 2017
Housekeeping
Wow, Blogger has changed a lot since 2002, no? Back then I could kind of figure it out as I went, since there were rather fewer features. But to log back in and not know where to start is disconcerting. I'm going to try to figure out how to update the blogroll. Hell, or just delete it. Nobody is really out there anymore.
I hate to say I told you so, but blogs were indeed the CB radio of the 2000s. I bet Razor will get all over my case for being purposely contrarian about this now (if he's even out there), but in a way I am sorry to come back and see the blighted landscape of what was once a lively and independent medium. (One that I railed against with some real venom about 10 years ago, yes. But still...)
The best bloggers turned pro. Radley's got a real job at the Washington Post, where he has made himself a widely cited expert on policing. Mike Totten is still in the Middle East, writing for a serious foreign policy outlet. And good for them. They deserve to be in that world of pro journalists; they enrich the conversation, and they got in (to one degree or another) because they showed their stuff on their blogs.
Meanwhile, Instapundit is still out there, but it turned into a Trumpista group blog so slowly I hardly noticed. It's all layered and nuanced and couched with the usual "Trump is not perfect, but" sort of language. But it's clear there is an editorial slant to the PJ Media sites, and they link to one another relentlessly. (Also as I predicted.)
What are we to make of the smoldering remains spread before us, the dead links to once entertaining or thought-provoking voices, the mass exodus to Twitter, where nuance goes to die? On our own site, there's a mixed bag to be found, of passionate statements on issues that turned out to be not so momentous after all, dismissals of the ones that were -- but also some writing that stands up after many years, opinions that forced me to reconstruct my worldview, and things that just made me laugh my ass off.
I am reminded, too, of Razor's impassioned railing against the blog phenomenon of "fisking," of launching a series of zingers at your opponents' arguments. I found it entertaining at the time, but it turned out that Razor was right; fisking was simply Twitter culture in nascent form.
Anyway, this is a long-winded way of me saying I'm not here to get nostalgic or try to recapture something. I really just missed the daily exercise of putting my thoughts in order, on whatever subject, and seeing if I agree with myself.
One thing I will miss about that moment: there was an army of folks out there willing to explain why I was full of shit. (And I was lucky enough to have two of them on the same site.) If there is one thing I'm convinced of, it's that I don't have enough of that in my life. Sure I have plenty of people willing to tell me I'm an asshole. (Take a number, folks.) But can they explain it? Will they? Despite what some will say is a particularly intemperate cultural moment, the truth is that it's always been easier to shout "bigot!" or "fascist!" and walk away.
So, once again, here I am pecking away at a keyboard that I have never fully mastered, despite the millions of words I've written. Here goes nothing.
I hate to say I told you so, but blogs were indeed the CB radio of the 2000s. I bet Razor will get all over my case for being purposely contrarian about this now (if he's even out there), but in a way I am sorry to come back and see the blighted landscape of what was once a lively and independent medium. (One that I railed against with some real venom about 10 years ago, yes. But still...)
The best bloggers turned pro. Radley's got a real job at the Washington Post, where he has made himself a widely cited expert on policing. Mike Totten is still in the Middle East, writing for a serious foreign policy outlet. And good for them. They deserve to be in that world of pro journalists; they enrich the conversation, and they got in (to one degree or another) because they showed their stuff on their blogs.
Meanwhile, Instapundit is still out there, but it turned into a Trumpista group blog so slowly I hardly noticed. It's all layered and nuanced and couched with the usual "Trump is not perfect, but" sort of language. But it's clear there is an editorial slant to the PJ Media sites, and they link to one another relentlessly. (Also as I predicted.)
What are we to make of the smoldering remains spread before us, the dead links to once entertaining or thought-provoking voices, the mass exodus to Twitter, where nuance goes to die? On our own site, there's a mixed bag to be found, of passionate statements on issues that turned out to be not so momentous after all, dismissals of the ones that were -- but also some writing that stands up after many years, opinions that forced me to reconstruct my worldview, and things that just made me laugh my ass off.
I am reminded, too, of Razor's impassioned railing against the blog phenomenon of "fisking," of launching a series of zingers at your opponents' arguments. I found it entertaining at the time, but it turned out that Razor was right; fisking was simply Twitter culture in nascent form.
Anyway, this is a long-winded way of me saying I'm not here to get nostalgic or try to recapture something. I really just missed the daily exercise of putting my thoughts in order, on whatever subject, and seeing if I agree with myself.
One thing I will miss about that moment: there was an army of folks out there willing to explain why I was full of shit. (And I was lucky enough to have two of them on the same site.) If there is one thing I'm convinced of, it's that I don't have enough of that in my life. Sure I have plenty of people willing to tell me I'm an asshole. (Take a number, folks.) But can they explain it? Will they? Despite what some will say is a particularly intemperate cultural moment, the truth is that it's always been easier to shout "bigot!" or "fascist!" and walk away.
So, once again, here I am pecking away at a keyboard that I have never fully mastered, despite the millions of words I've written. Here goes nothing.
Monday, December 11, 2017
For Sandra Bullock, however chance may find her (a dream interlude)
I was in a bar with friends, and Sandra Bullock was there too. (It wasn’t a sex thing, though. She’s very attractive, but she’s the epitome of not-my-type. Not sure why it was her.) She had just finished explaining how we are destroying the planet with our wasteful and polluting ways, the horrible inequality and poverty, and the general hopelessness that a thinking person must feel in America today.
Shaking my head, I said to her, “We are so close.” Then, with some sketches on the back of a paper menu to help show the timelines, here’s what I said to her.
We’re so close. So, so close to all the things we dream of.
Think about history for a moment. Take your mind back to the ancient civilizations that gave us the foundations of law and philosophy and politics, the social templates that shaped the world for thousands of years. Think about the technology that built their civilizations: domestication of plants and livestock, irrigation, the wheel, and writing. That’s about it.
Moreover, giving or taking a few marginal changes, the life of an Egyptian in 1700 BC was not all that different from your great-grandfather’s life. Both were lives characterized by backbreaking labor, rampant disease, and mortality. People in both times mainly tilled small plots of land, farming first to feed themselves, with some surplus to trade for specialized goods – but they often still made their own clothes, from shearing sheep to spinning wool to stitching the garments themselves. Preserving food through smoking, drying, pickling, and canning wasn’t merely hobby time for hipsters. It was all that stood between them and winter starvation.
John Tyler was president in the 1840s, just around the time the changes were beginning, and as of 2017 he still has living grandchildren. Pretty recent. Back then, even the president of the United States lived like a peasant. True, he would have had servants to ease things a little. But the White House was cold, drafty, and smoky, heated only by fire, with no running water or electricity. Three generations ago, the most important man in America lived in a manner that we would abhor if we saw the poorest person today enduring.
Even later, in 1875, John Harvey Kellogg was studying medicine in New York City, the most modern place in the nation, and at Bellevue Hospital, the medical epicenter of America. He lived in a cold attic, trundling downstairs and outside to stand in line waiting his turn to shit in a freezing, insect-infested outhouse. Even in Rome, more than 2000 years before, public latrines had running water (recycled from the public baths, no less) to flush away the waste. Moreover, Kellogg would be taught almost nothing about sanitation in medicine. Advocates of washing hands after touching a sick patient were still voices in the wilderness, bloodletting was still common.
Until very recently, the improvement in the work, health, and comfort of a typical person was so slow as to be nearly non-existent. Perhaps the magic moment was in 1869 when Leland Stanford drove the golden spike that opened the Union Pacific transcontinental railroad. Goods and people could now move cross country with speed. (A horse drawn wagon of goods making good time could cross the continent at roughly 20 miles per day, or roughly five months.) Even so, it would take many years for the average person to make use of this mobility. At that moment, more than half of the people in the country still worked as farmers.
It is less than 150 years later and our world is unrecognizable. In the U.S., decent sanitation is nearly universal, as is the comfort of clean heating in even the poorest homes. Technology that would have been indistinguishable from witchcraft is ubiquitous. When I sat down at a computer for the first time, it was likely the only one for miles and miles. My friend’s father worked at IBM, and he had a computer at home. Now nearly everyone has one in their pocket.
Pollution of air and water is down dramatically, which no one ever mentions. The poorest wage worker lives better than John Tyler did. For every unit of fossil fuel we use, we go further, do more work, provide more overall benefit. Of the top 10 causes of death just 100 years ago, 6 of them – pneumonia, tuberculosis, cholera, diphtheria, bronchitis, and meningitis – are either virtually eradicated or easily treated. And one more cause of death, violence, is nearing a historical low (roughly tied with the 1950s).
How can we look at this and feel hopeless? Think what we could be tomorrow.
Shaking my head, I said to her, “We are so close.” Then, with some sketches on the back of a paper menu to help show the timelines, here’s what I said to her.
---
We’re so close. So, so close to all the things we dream of.
Think about history for a moment. Take your mind back to the ancient civilizations that gave us the foundations of law and philosophy and politics, the social templates that shaped the world for thousands of years. Think about the technology that built their civilizations: domestication of plants and livestock, irrigation, the wheel, and writing. That’s about it.
Moreover, giving or taking a few marginal changes, the life of an Egyptian in 1700 BC was not all that different from your great-grandfather’s life. Both were lives characterized by backbreaking labor, rampant disease, and mortality. People in both times mainly tilled small plots of land, farming first to feed themselves, with some surplus to trade for specialized goods – but they often still made their own clothes, from shearing sheep to spinning wool to stitching the garments themselves. Preserving food through smoking, drying, pickling, and canning wasn’t merely hobby time for hipsters. It was all that stood between them and winter starvation.
John Tyler was president in the 1840s, just around the time the changes were beginning, and as of 2017 he still has living grandchildren. Pretty recent. Back then, even the president of the United States lived like a peasant. True, he would have had servants to ease things a little. But the White House was cold, drafty, and smoky, heated only by fire, with no running water or electricity. Three generations ago, the most important man in America lived in a manner that we would abhor if we saw the poorest person today enduring.
Even later, in 1875, John Harvey Kellogg was studying medicine in New York City, the most modern place in the nation, and at Bellevue Hospital, the medical epicenter of America. He lived in a cold attic, trundling downstairs and outside to stand in line waiting his turn to shit in a freezing, insect-infested outhouse. Even in Rome, more than 2000 years before, public latrines had running water (recycled from the public baths, no less) to flush away the waste. Moreover, Kellogg would be taught almost nothing about sanitation in medicine. Advocates of washing hands after touching a sick patient were still voices in the wilderness, bloodletting was still common.
Until very recently, the improvement in the work, health, and comfort of a typical person was so slow as to be nearly non-existent. Perhaps the magic moment was in 1869 when Leland Stanford drove the golden spike that opened the Union Pacific transcontinental railroad. Goods and people could now move cross country with speed. (A horse drawn wagon of goods making good time could cross the continent at roughly 20 miles per day, or roughly five months.) Even so, it would take many years for the average person to make use of this mobility. At that moment, more than half of the people in the country still worked as farmers.
It is less than 150 years later and our world is unrecognizable. In the U.S., decent sanitation is nearly universal, as is the comfort of clean heating in even the poorest homes. Technology that would have been indistinguishable from witchcraft is ubiquitous. When I sat down at a computer for the first time, it was likely the only one for miles and miles. My friend’s father worked at IBM, and he had a computer at home. Now nearly everyone has one in their pocket.
Pollution of air and water is down dramatically, which no one ever mentions. The poorest wage worker lives better than John Tyler did. For every unit of fossil fuel we use, we go further, do more work, provide more overall benefit. Of the top 10 causes of death just 100 years ago, 6 of them – pneumonia, tuberculosis, cholera, diphtheria, bronchitis, and meningitis – are either virtually eradicated or easily treated. And one more cause of death, violence, is nearing a historical low (roughly tied with the 1950s).
How can we look at this and feel hopeless? Think what we could be tomorrow.
Is Kevin Bacon America’s greatest actor?
As a general heuristic, if the headline to an article asks a question, the answer is bound to be “No.” Why? Because headlines are simplistic, needing to capture a thought, and idea, an opinion, within a breath. By contrast, an article necessarily needs to explore with depth and nuance, to shun the short answer – and especially the short answer in the affirmative. There is only one route to yes, after all, and a universe of ways to get to no.
In this case, though, let’s not be too quick to find that no.
Nearly forty years since his debut in Animal House, Kevin Bacon has done big budget, small budget, leading man, ensemble, action, schlock, and nearly everything in the cracks. But the early brush with star status following Footloose led down a bumpy road to his unusual current status as an extraordinarily recognizable character actor.
Footloose as a sensation is difficult to overstate: a hit film that made a pile of money on a comparatively small budget; a popular soundtrack that threw off multiple #1 singles; a Tony-nominated stage musical 15 years after the film; a bigger-budget remake more than a quarter century later whose failure to live up to the original only adds to the lightning-in-a-bottle phenomenon. All this adds up to a solid place in the American cultural consciousness. And it made Bacon a household name.
It is hard enough for any actor to walk away from the leading roles that follow the “overnight” success, and even harder to choose ones that might sustain that success. Bacon was a victim of both pitfalls. Some of his roles soon after Footloose – Quicksilver, White Water Summer, She’s Having a Baby, Criminal Law – show casting directors (and Bacon himself) trying on the various “lead” types: rebel, action hero, romantic, even psychopath.
Nothing worked. Perhaps Footloose was a fluke; perhaps Bacon couldn’t really carry a film. But here’s where it gets interesting. After failing to gain traction as a lead in big-budget productions, many erstwhile A-listers (Brendan Fraser comes to mind) have been content to take the lead in smaller and less serious films. But Bacon didn’t set his sights on lower-budget leading parts. He jumped into secondary (and even tertiary) roles in vehicles for other stars like A Few Good Men, and smaller roles in ensemble pictures like JFK.
And he was brilliant. His role in JFK, his first big leap, is small but memorable, and thoroughly against his previous “type.” Playing a male prostitute, he steals his big scene from Kevin Costner with equal parts bravado and profanity. Then, in A Few Good Men, Bacon excels as the one JAG neither cowed nor confused by Tom Cruise’s legal bluster. As Cruise’s adversary, he brings a gravity to the role as a young prosecutor, and humanizes the face of the opposition despite the fact that we are rooting against him.
Neither film is a showpiece for him, neither role is terribly complicated, and any character actor could have “done” the role. But Bacon turned both into standout performances in small roles. What he did next was a bravura moment. In Sleepers, a film with a young male ensemble cast that might have featured Bacon 10 years earlier, he instead took the unsympathetic role of a horrifically abusive guard in a boys’ juvenile home who is murdered by former inmates in revenge for his crimes against them. In his choice to play this role, and the choices as an actor that construct the character, Bacon is bold and fearless – and he plays an unredeemed monster chillingly.
Similar supporting roles followed in films like Apollo 13, Frost/Nixon, and Black Mass, along with some indie roles in The Woodsman and Digging to China. And in each, he took on complex roles, historical characters, and touchy subject matter that would have been untouchable right after Footloose.
To be fair, missteps followed as well, including the execrable The Air Up There. But a spin through the Bacon filmography, rather than cementing an impression of bad choices, seems to indicate an actor hungry for challenges. Like Gene Hackman (who used to be America’s greatest actor), Bacon seems to simply relish working. The list of films he’s appeared in is so long and diverse, it’s no mystery why he found himself at the center of a Hollywood connectivity parlor game, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
None of this is to suggest that Bacon is without competition for the crown of greatest actor. His contemporary Sean Penn (who has a Bacon Number of 1, by way of Mystic River) might have the best critical reputation, and Tom Cruise (Bacon Number of 1, through the previously mentioned A Few Good Men) is the hands down winner at the bank. But Bacon has a charisma that is unique, he presents an everyman charm the other two lack, and he projects a star quality that still leaves us seeing his minor roles as A-list cameos.
Look, I’m just going to say it. The answer is yes.
In this case, though, let’s not be too quick to find that no.
Nearly forty years since his debut in Animal House, Kevin Bacon has done big budget, small budget, leading man, ensemble, action, schlock, and nearly everything in the cracks. But the early brush with star status following Footloose led down a bumpy road to his unusual current status as an extraordinarily recognizable character actor.
Footloose as a sensation is difficult to overstate: a hit film that made a pile of money on a comparatively small budget; a popular soundtrack that threw off multiple #1 singles; a Tony-nominated stage musical 15 years after the film; a bigger-budget remake more than a quarter century later whose failure to live up to the original only adds to the lightning-in-a-bottle phenomenon. All this adds up to a solid place in the American cultural consciousness. And it made Bacon a household name.
It is hard enough for any actor to walk away from the leading roles that follow the “overnight” success, and even harder to choose ones that might sustain that success. Bacon was a victim of both pitfalls. Some of his roles soon after Footloose – Quicksilver, White Water Summer, She’s Having a Baby, Criminal Law – show casting directors (and Bacon himself) trying on the various “lead” types: rebel, action hero, romantic, even psychopath.
Nothing worked. Perhaps Footloose was a fluke; perhaps Bacon couldn’t really carry a film. But here’s where it gets interesting. After failing to gain traction as a lead in big-budget productions, many erstwhile A-listers (Brendan Fraser comes to mind) have been content to take the lead in smaller and less serious films. But Bacon didn’t set his sights on lower-budget leading parts. He jumped into secondary (and even tertiary) roles in vehicles for other stars like A Few Good Men, and smaller roles in ensemble pictures like JFK.
And he was brilliant. His role in JFK, his first big leap, is small but memorable, and thoroughly against his previous “type.” Playing a male prostitute, he steals his big scene from Kevin Costner with equal parts bravado and profanity. Then, in A Few Good Men, Bacon excels as the one JAG neither cowed nor confused by Tom Cruise’s legal bluster. As Cruise’s adversary, he brings a gravity to the role as a young prosecutor, and humanizes the face of the opposition despite the fact that we are rooting against him.
Neither film is a showpiece for him, neither role is terribly complicated, and any character actor could have “done” the role. But Bacon turned both into standout performances in small roles. What he did next was a bravura moment. In Sleepers, a film with a young male ensemble cast that might have featured Bacon 10 years earlier, he instead took the unsympathetic role of a horrifically abusive guard in a boys’ juvenile home who is murdered by former inmates in revenge for his crimes against them. In his choice to play this role, and the choices as an actor that construct the character, Bacon is bold and fearless – and he plays an unredeemed monster chillingly.
Similar supporting roles followed in films like Apollo 13, Frost/Nixon, and Black Mass, along with some indie roles in The Woodsman and Digging to China. And in each, he took on complex roles, historical characters, and touchy subject matter that would have been untouchable right after Footloose.
To be fair, missteps followed as well, including the execrable The Air Up There. But a spin through the Bacon filmography, rather than cementing an impression of bad choices, seems to indicate an actor hungry for challenges. Like Gene Hackman (who used to be America’s greatest actor), Bacon seems to simply relish working. The list of films he’s appeared in is so long and diverse, it’s no mystery why he found himself at the center of a Hollywood connectivity parlor game, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
None of this is to suggest that Bacon is without competition for the crown of greatest actor. His contemporary Sean Penn (who has a Bacon Number of 1, by way of Mystic River) might have the best critical reputation, and Tom Cruise (Bacon Number of 1, through the previously mentioned A Few Good Men) is the hands down winner at the bank. But Bacon has a charisma that is unique, he presents an everyman charm the other two lack, and he projects a star quality that still leaves us seeing his minor roles as A-list cameos.
Look, I’m just going to say it. The answer is yes.
Out of Touch
So I have to say for the sake of my erstwhile co-bloggers (long may they hit refresh!), I'm not reading the news anymore, so don't expect fresh insights on current events -- or even links to those who have them. I only have an opinion on the wild world of gay cakery because literally 85% of the people I know, from friends to coworkers, are ... well, ginger beer, as they say.
No, my current one-line manifesto is "Uninformed, dammit, and staying that way." Having grown up within smelling distance of New York City, before it gentrified, I knew what a putz our president was back when he was a near-daily Page Six item. All I will say about that matter before I close it for good is this: The worst thing about suffering this administration is that Lou Reed isn't around to write spittle-flecked songs about it, the way he did about Rudy Giuliani and Jesse Jackson back in the 80s.
Hmm. So why the hell am I here? A great question, for which I don't have an easy answer. A couple of partial answers:
1. Uninformed or no, I have lots of opinions.
2. I miss writing. A lot.
3. I realize that the squishy Flyer and pinko Razor kept me laughing and thinking no matter what.
Now both of them have daughters (and Flyer's in particular arrived well after we gave up this homely project several times), so they likely don't have the time to do like they used to. However, perhaps a place for me to ramble alone might be nearly as sanity conserving. And who knows? Maybe I can get them to chime in from time to time.
I've been blogging on my own a little as Enobarbus on another site for the past few days. I'll try to round up some of the interesting stuff there and repost over here. It's been fairly abstruse stuff.
So what's up? My wife (that's Mrs. Enobarbus) asked me to dangle (in the nicest way!) a couple years ago. I've been a bachelor since. It worked out pretty well. I quit teaching English and went to work running a small charity -- a lateral move if there ever was one. My 16-year-old dropout son lives with me.
Jesus, it all sounds like a sitcom pitch, doesn't it?
Oh, and I'm going to visit Flyer for Christmas. Feliz Navidad, y'all!
No, my current one-line manifesto is "Uninformed, dammit, and staying that way." Having grown up within smelling distance of New York City, before it gentrified, I knew what a putz our president was back when he was a near-daily Page Six item. All I will say about that matter before I close it for good is this: The worst thing about suffering this administration is that Lou Reed isn't around to write spittle-flecked songs about it, the way he did about Rudy Giuliani and Jesse Jackson back in the 80s.
Hmm. So why the hell am I here? A great question, for which I don't have an easy answer. A couple of partial answers:
1. Uninformed or no, I have lots of opinions.
2. I miss writing. A lot.
3. I realize that the squishy Flyer and pinko Razor kept me laughing and thinking no matter what.
Now both of them have daughters (and Flyer's in particular arrived well after we gave up this homely project several times), so they likely don't have the time to do like they used to. However, perhaps a place for me to ramble alone might be nearly as sanity conserving. And who knows? Maybe I can get them to chime in from time to time.
I've been blogging on my own a little as Enobarbus on another site for the past few days. I'll try to round up some of the interesting stuff there and repost over here. It's been fairly abstruse stuff.
So what's up? My wife (that's Mrs. Enobarbus) asked me to dangle (in the nicest way!) a couple years ago. I've been a bachelor since. It worked out pretty well. I quit teaching English and went to work running a small charity -- a lateral move if there ever was one. My 16-year-old dropout son lives with me.
Jesus, it all sounds like a sitcom pitch, doesn't it?
Oh, and I'm going to visit Flyer for Christmas. Feliz Navidad, y'all!
Sunday, December 10, 2017
5 "Unsung Hero" Albums
Plenty of albums are overrated. Sweetheart of the Rodeo, for example. Fine album, yes. But any student of country music sees that it was mainly homage, and fairly studied homage at that. Songs of the genre were done better, earlier.
Most of Nirvana is overpraised as well. A lot of the Stones 70s stuff is a blur of filler. Clapton, too, when he wasn't ripping off J.J. Cale, was an amazing guitar player spinning his wheels on mediocre material. And, nearly 35 years on, who can stomach both platters of London Calling? There is one great album on there.
But what about those albums that slip through the cracks, get little to no attention, or are even dismissed outright as second-rate efforts? Maybe they carry a minor hit or two, but they quickly go into the clearance bin. Here are five to consider on your next spin through the record shop (hip place that it is now) that are worth digging into:
5. ELO, Time. Coming during that 80s period when many 70s monster bands were faltering, this album went almost unnoticed -- aside from "Hold on Tight," a decent hit single, but hardly the best song on the album. ("Twilight," for example, is among their best songs.) Moreover, it is a concept album whose theme is both interesting and not necessarily intrusive. You can enjoy the album with or without the concept in mind.
4. Freedy Johnston, This Perfect World. I nearly called the major crimes unit when Rolling Stone (more abysmal year after year) didn't include this in its top 500 albums. A gem of an album, without a shred of filler, each song a glistening facet of tainted pleasure ("Delores"), bleak heartbreak ("Across the Avenue"), or mysterious pain ("Evie's Tears"). In a just world, Freedy would be walking next to Dylan and people would nod sagely.
3. Sugar, Copper Blue. Suddenly, back in the early 90s, one of the founding fathers of hardcore started writing impeccably catchy, melodic pop music. The guitars were still grinding, the beat still heavy, but the songs bristled with hooks like a square foot of velcro. "The Act We Act" is one of the great openers, and "If I Can't Change Your Mind" is a mini-masterpiece, the way good pop should be.
2. Jayhawks, Rainy Day Music. Beyond ignored, this album is treated dismissively. But it's the best thing they ever did. There's not a false note on the album, and several of the songs, like "Tailspin" and "Madman," are as good as the genre itself ever got. Why should bands like Whiskeytown and Uncle Tupelo hog all the praise? Jayhawks were thoughtful alt-country before the label even existed, and they prove it here.
1. Neil Finn, Try Whistling This. Neil Finn suffers critical neglect the way Paul McCartney does. Most of his stuff sounds so damn good, but critics are always swooning after the bad boy whose output is objectively crap (look out, Lennon!) and dismissing those "easy" melodies as silly. But easy as the melodies may come from his brain, this album is so deep in songcraft, it seems like a masterclass -- and very little of it is "sweet" in the way Crowded House often was. From a banging workout like "Loose Tongue" to the trip-hop tinged "Sinner" to the meditative "Faster Than Light," this is an adventurous, exploratory album that would have been on every critic's best-of list -- if it had been released by a bad boy.
Most of Nirvana is overpraised as well. A lot of the Stones 70s stuff is a blur of filler. Clapton, too, when he wasn't ripping off J.J. Cale, was an amazing guitar player spinning his wheels on mediocre material. And, nearly 35 years on, who can stomach both platters of London Calling? There is one great album on there.
But what about those albums that slip through the cracks, get little to no attention, or are even dismissed outright as second-rate efforts? Maybe they carry a minor hit or two, but they quickly go into the clearance bin. Here are five to consider on your next spin through the record shop (hip place that it is now) that are worth digging into:
5. ELO, Time. Coming during that 80s period when many 70s monster bands were faltering, this album went almost unnoticed -- aside from "Hold on Tight," a decent hit single, but hardly the best song on the album. ("Twilight," for example, is among their best songs.) Moreover, it is a concept album whose theme is both interesting and not necessarily intrusive. You can enjoy the album with or without the concept in mind.
4. Freedy Johnston, This Perfect World. I nearly called the major crimes unit when Rolling Stone (more abysmal year after year) didn't include this in its top 500 albums. A gem of an album, without a shred of filler, each song a glistening facet of tainted pleasure ("Delores"), bleak heartbreak ("Across the Avenue"), or mysterious pain ("Evie's Tears"). In a just world, Freedy would be walking next to Dylan and people would nod sagely.
3. Sugar, Copper Blue. Suddenly, back in the early 90s, one of the founding fathers of hardcore started writing impeccably catchy, melodic pop music. The guitars were still grinding, the beat still heavy, but the songs bristled with hooks like a square foot of velcro. "The Act We Act" is one of the great openers, and "If I Can't Change Your Mind" is a mini-masterpiece, the way good pop should be.
2. Jayhawks, Rainy Day Music. Beyond ignored, this album is treated dismissively. But it's the best thing they ever did. There's not a false note on the album, and several of the songs, like "Tailspin" and "Madman," are as good as the genre itself ever got. Why should bands like Whiskeytown and Uncle Tupelo hog all the praise? Jayhawks were thoughtful alt-country before the label even existed, and they prove it here.
1. Neil Finn, Try Whistling This. Neil Finn suffers critical neglect the way Paul McCartney does. Most of his stuff sounds so damn good, but critics are always swooning after the bad boy whose output is objectively crap (look out, Lennon!) and dismissing those "easy" melodies as silly. But easy as the melodies may come from his brain, this album is so deep in songcraft, it seems like a masterclass -- and very little of it is "sweet" in the way Crowded House often was. From a banging workout like "Loose Tongue" to the trip-hop tinged "Sinner" to the meditative "Faster Than Light," this is an adventurous, exploratory album that would have been on every critic's best-of list -- if it had been released by a bad boy.
Bake the Damn Cake, Already
I'm not sure how much more split it is possible to be on the issue before the Supreme Court on the baker who refused to bake a special cake for a gay wedding. On instinctive principle, I say good for him. In a free society, a citizen should be coerced as infrequently as possible -- and then only as a last resort. If the government tries to force him to do something, he should damn well fight back.
On the other hand, what a stupid point of principle to stand on. If you fear that baking a cake for some gay folk is going to send you to hell, violate your conscience, or otherwise cause you moral conflict, you are clearly taking the whole cake thing too seriously. Would this fellow bake a cake for a hetero couple interested in swinging? Anal sex? Shellfish for dinner? Those things are pretty strongly frowned upon by some religious folk, too. Let me guess: when it's a straight couple, the baker's attitude is, don't ask, don't tell.
All that said, there are a couple of points of principle that are clearly at stake. First, I want to distinguish this from the segregated lunch counters the left has taken to analogizing. The reason we needed the civil rights movement, the civil rights act, protected classes, and all that jazz was not because some peckerwood restaurateurs down south wouldn't let blacks eat at the counter. It was because those states and municipalities had enshrined segregation into law. A blunt tool was needed because there was no legal remedy available locally.
Look at it this way: If a gay couple can get a cake at pretty much any other baker, then society has already provided the remedy to for the problem -- and, I'd argue, will probably mete out a penalty to those who would refuse to serve all. Thus, the suit against this particular baker is egregious and probably vindictive.
However, if the law in Colorado stated quite clearly that gay people could not be served by any baker, and that a violator of this ban would be subject to sanction or fine, a court case would be only the start. (Tar and feathers for the Coloradans, to say the least.)
But that is not the case here. What did the gay couple suffer? They had to take their business elsewhere. But really, why not sue? Make the bigot take your money!
Also at stake here is the idea of protected class, as I mentioned. Can you make the baker serve you despite sexuality, gender, race? It appears so. But the baker would be within his rights to deny you if you wanted, let's just say, a MAGA cake, yes? Again, it appears so. So some animals are more equal than others. When North Carolina voted down transgender bathroom rights, Springsteen canceled his concerts there. Now, this isn't like baking a cake. North Carolinians can't go to that other Springsteen down the street. But being a citizen of a state with retrograde views isn't a protected class.
Look, I'm with The Boss on this one. Fuck 'em. But other people making a living by the sweat of their brow or the art of their fingers should be able to say fuck 'em as well -- as long as society is providing a remedy, ideally through good old competition, to that denial of service. (I'd even be inclined to suggest that North Carolina's problem could be remedied by the competition of an electric guitar hurled down a long stairway to the accompaniment of a baying, laryngitic hound dog.)
What I'm fearful of is that we will drift away from a governing principle. Like I said, I could go either way (pun intended) on this case. But whatever way we go, I want an articulated principle on which we may proceed once this is over. It can't simply be that we may deny service to people who hold views we find distasteful -- as long as those are pre-approved distasteful views.
The left would like to hold that, of course you could deny service to Nazis, say, because they are bad and wrong. End of story. But keep in mind that the left will not always be in charge of what views rise to that level of wrongitude.
One final note: Gays across the country were willing to wait patiently as Obama evolved on the issue of gay marriage. Remember that he was as retrograde as our Denver baker for the majority of his time in office. (And he was the only president we had, after all. We could choose another one down at the dollar store in mid-2014.) Is it crazy to suggest that we can spare a few more moments of evolution for bakers, florists, eyebrow threaders?
On the other hand, what a stupid point of principle to stand on. If you fear that baking a cake for some gay folk is going to send you to hell, violate your conscience, or otherwise cause you moral conflict, you are clearly taking the whole cake thing too seriously. Would this fellow bake a cake for a hetero couple interested in swinging? Anal sex? Shellfish for dinner? Those things are pretty strongly frowned upon by some religious folk, too. Let me guess: when it's a straight couple, the baker's attitude is, don't ask, don't tell.
All that said, there are a couple of points of principle that are clearly at stake. First, I want to distinguish this from the segregated lunch counters the left has taken to analogizing. The reason we needed the civil rights movement, the civil rights act, protected classes, and all that jazz was not because some peckerwood restaurateurs down south wouldn't let blacks eat at the counter. It was because those states and municipalities had enshrined segregation into law. A blunt tool was needed because there was no legal remedy available locally.
Look at it this way: If a gay couple can get a cake at pretty much any other baker, then society has already provided the remedy to for the problem -- and, I'd argue, will probably mete out a penalty to those who would refuse to serve all. Thus, the suit against this particular baker is egregious and probably vindictive.
However, if the law in Colorado stated quite clearly that gay people could not be served by any baker, and that a violator of this ban would be subject to sanction or fine, a court case would be only the start. (Tar and feathers for the Coloradans, to say the least.)
But that is not the case here. What did the gay couple suffer? They had to take their business elsewhere. But really, why not sue? Make the bigot take your money!
Also at stake here is the idea of protected class, as I mentioned. Can you make the baker serve you despite sexuality, gender, race? It appears so. But the baker would be within his rights to deny you if you wanted, let's just say, a MAGA cake, yes? Again, it appears so. So some animals are more equal than others. When North Carolina voted down transgender bathroom rights, Springsteen canceled his concerts there. Now, this isn't like baking a cake. North Carolinians can't go to that other Springsteen down the street. But being a citizen of a state with retrograde views isn't a protected class.
Look, I'm with The Boss on this one. Fuck 'em. But other people making a living by the sweat of their brow or the art of their fingers should be able to say fuck 'em as well -- as long as society is providing a remedy, ideally through good old competition, to that denial of service. (I'd even be inclined to suggest that North Carolina's problem could be remedied by the competition of an electric guitar hurled down a long stairway to the accompaniment of a baying, laryngitic hound dog.)
What I'm fearful of is that we will drift away from a governing principle. Like I said, I could go either way (pun intended) on this case. But whatever way we go, I want an articulated principle on which we may proceed once this is over. It can't simply be that we may deny service to people who hold views we find distasteful -- as long as those are pre-approved distasteful views.
The left would like to hold that, of course you could deny service to Nazis, say, because they are bad and wrong. End of story. But keep in mind that the left will not always be in charge of what views rise to that level of wrongitude.
One final note: Gays across the country were willing to wait patiently as Obama evolved on the issue of gay marriage. Remember that he was as retrograde as our Denver baker for the majority of his time in office. (And he was the only president we had, after all. We could choose another one down at the dollar store in mid-2014.) Is it crazy to suggest that we can spare a few more moments of evolution for bakers, florists, eyebrow threaders?