SDP Alternate World Entertainment Guide

I just watched the season finale of Dr. Who.  My colleague, Professor Schaff calls it the best show on TV.  I am inclined to agree, though with a few qualifiers.  Just right now Dr. Who has the best writing of any show that I have watched, and one of the best actors: David Tennant, who played the deatheater, Bartie Crouch, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.  It is a sign of the show's strength that it is so good despite having villains cut right out of the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, along with a visual texture and special effects that are appalling British.    It is one of the Doctor's most appealing traits that he never kills even the baddest monster, or allows anyone to be killed if he can help it.  But of course he is a Time Lord, and has the benefit of writers who make sure that everything comes out alright in the end. 

I am watching the Dr. Who spin-off, Torchwood.  It started out pretty uneven, but it's getting better.  And now that we know that Captain Jack is The Face of Bo, well ...

I have finished watching season one of Heroes, and it was marvelous.  It is clearly inspired by the X-Men movies, though it is not, strictly speaking, a superhero story.  Applying Dr. Blanchard's Theory of Genres, a superhero has to have an alternate (and usually but not always secret) identity.  The characters in this show, despite their super powers (invisibility, flight, telekinesis) have names like Peter and Clare the Cheerleader.  Like a lot of recent fantasy television, individual episodes of Heroes are subordinate to a strong story arc and it's a good story.  The next wave of evolution (not exactly Darwinian evolution, but something more akin to magic) is producing supermen and superwomen.  But they have divided (surprise!)  into good and bad superpersons, and are at war.  As in Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, some mysterious power is always backing the play of the good guys and gals.  But don't count on it!  For a political scientist, it's a barrel of monkeys.  The flying man is a candidate for Congress, and the super endowed crime boss Linderman (played by Malcolm McDowell) uses a superkid to rig the voting machines.  I told you they were bad news!  The visual texture of Heroes is excellent, making Dr. Who look like an animated Disney film.    The acting is consistently good.

Television today is very good, much better than when I was a kid.  It is better on the whole than cinema, which is a big shift from previous decades.  But there are so many good shows that a lot of them get lost.  One of my favorite shows, The Dresden Files, about a wizard for hire, didn't make it to a second season. 

Clarence Thomas has Good Reason to be Angry

A few years back I entered an elevator in a Washington D.C. hotel with a couple from Arkansas.  I placed them by their accent, which I know well from having grown up there.  Their presence was no surprise, as it was early in the first Clinton Administration.  The woman had an Indian pattern shawl around her, and her companion wore a well-cut jacket and a Stetson hat with a feather in it.  I was there for a meeting of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.  "They're conservatives, and I bet they're meeting with Clarence Thomas," he said to his companion, looking back at the crowd that I just departed from.  His voice dripped with such venom that, if you poured an ounce of it on your dinning room table it would eat right through.  He was right about the one thing and wrong about the other, though we would have been glad to have Justice Thomas among us. 

Clarence Thomas has written an autobiography, and in it (surprise!) he describes his confirmation hearings with no small measure of bitterness.  The New York Times (surprise) is appalled.

The rage he harbors raises questions about whether he can sit as an impartial judge in many of the cases the Supreme Court hears.      When Supreme Court justices write books, which is not often, they tend to write about subjects and in ways that are consistent with the dignity of the court.

Perhaps.  But no Supreme Court judge in the history of that institution has ever been subject to what Clarence Thomas was subject to.  Has any other judge ever had journalists paw through his garbage for incriminating evidence?  Was a bounty ever posted for incriminating evidence about a nominee as he approached the Senate?  Besides, the Times' argument about impartiality is stupid.  Would the Times ever has thought that Thurgood Marshall should recuse himself from race cases because of his personal experience of discrimination or because he had been attacked by racists in Arkansas?  Quite the contrary.  Apparently, it is only bitterness about liberal organizations that is disqualifying. 

I do not know what the truth is about the relationship between Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas.  I do know that Ms. Hill was, willing or not, used as a weapon by Thomas' enemies to destroy his reputation.  By her own admission, she would never have come forth if someone had not illegally leaked the confidential testimony she gave during his background check. I can tell you that a ten year old accusation, coming out of nowhere and unsubstantiated by a shred of evidence, would not have been taken seriously if it had been made about anyone else. And even if Ms. Hill's story were true, what did it amount to?  She was careful never to accuse him of any crime, including sexual harassment.  She accuses him of making her uncomfortable by asking her out and making a few rude comments.  Yet Thomas' enemies managed to raise that to the level of a high crime.  If any if this were done against someone that the Times was fond of, they would immediately recognize it as atrocious behavior. 

The pernicious campaign against Thomas' reputation did not stop when he took his place on the Court.  A colleague of mine once said that Thomas had proven to be a lightweight justice at best.  "Oh really," I replied, "and which decisions of his do you find fault with?"  My friend had to admit that he hadn't read any of Thomas' decisions, but was merely repeating what he read in the New York Times.  In fact, Thomas' written opinions, whether you agree with them or not, and I do not always agree with them, are far more intellectually rigorous and coherent than the vast majority of court opinions. 

Clarence Thomas has been subject to waves of calumny beyond anything that any other Supreme Court Judge has had to endure.  He has a right to be pissed about it. 

Code Pink

Ed Morrissey:  "So Rush Limbaugh supposedly calls dissenting soldiers "phony" -- he didn't, but let's run with this -- and the Left screeches about dishonoring the troops. How about calling them predators, murderers, and liars? Does that count as besmirching the troops? Will Media Matters and Harry Reid call for Code Pink to be shut down, and will Wes Clark demand that they have no access to military facilities?"

South Dakota Brain Drain

No, this is not a post about a Blanchard class.  Perhaps you noticed this story about top South Dakota students who go elsewhere for their university experience (which sometimes includes an actual education!).  One cannot blame students who leave because they simply want to get away from home for a while or because they want to experience a big city lifestyle that South Dakota cannot offer. 

I think South Dakota's schools stack up well against the competition.  In this one man's opinion, if your goal is to get a degree that will help you get a job, then you can go just about anywhere and be successful.  Achieving this goal has much more to do with what you put into your college experience than where you go to college.  In this case other factors such as cost, location, ambiance, etc., come into play.  Obviously if you have a specific program in mind, you will want to make sure the institution has that program.  Yet, since you can go almost anywhere and be successful (by which I mean get a degree and the job you want), I think most people who pay big bucks for their university education are getting ripped off. 

I realize it is a bit self-serving, but in general I think you get a better learning experience at a smaller school than at a bigger school, even an elite one.  For example, I have a colleague who got his undergraduate degree from Stanford, a large elite school.  But he insists that the classroom instruction at Northern is light years ahead of Stanford.  What makes Stanford exclusive is that it is, well, exclusive.  It only lets in top high school students.  But the faculty at Stanford, and at most large research universities, don't teach undergraduates and, frankly, mostly don't care much about undergraduates.  In my experience, faculty at research universities run the spectrum from don't care about undergraduate education to contempt for undergraduate education. I'd look for a university with a faculty that is passionate about undergraduate education, and one is more likely to find that at a smaller school (with small classes sizes, btw) than at the large research schools. 

Some students, a minority to be sure, are interested not just in a degree and a job, but a true liberal education.  Please read this post by Peter Schramm on this subject. Here a student must be more selective.  Despite what many schools say, very few universities and colleges actually care about liberal education.  Again, I'd talk to faculty and perhaps look for a vibrant Honor's Program or other specialty programs, like at the Ashbrook Center at Ashland, if one truly cares about getting an education fit for a free citizen, as opposed to four years of expensive job training. 

Farm Bill Follies

The U.S. Senate continues to play around with the Farm Bill, but it looks like John Thune's much fought for disaster money is part of the deal. 

The Senate Finance Committee found a way to add money to the bill, generating about $16 billion over 10 years by tightening rules on tax shelters, among other tax measures.

About $5 billion of the extra money would go toward a fund for weather-related agricultural disaster assistance while the rest of the money would go to tax credits for conservation, rural development and other farm programs.

Abourezk at Powerline

The Powerline guys have picked up on the Jim Abourezk story.

Update: We get noticed on Powerline.  There is no admiration like mutual admiration. Oh, and notice that the Iranians denouncing Israel again.  Jim Abourezk once appeared on Iranian state radio denouncing America and Israel, but not Iran.  Here is the leader of that Iranian state:

He has since toned down his rhetoric but in this speech he reaffirmed his deeply controversial questioning of the mass slaughter of Jews in World War II and his suggestion that Israel could be moved to arctic North America.

"The Iranian nation hates killing and considers Hitler and the executioners of the World War II as black and dark figures," he said.

"But the Iranian nation has a question and as long as there is no clear and reasonable response to this question, it will remain.

"They have made the Holocaust sacred and do not allow anyone to ask questions. Under the pretext of the Holocaust they are allowed to commit whatever crime they like," he added.

"Europeans cannot tolerate the Zionists in their region and country, but they want to impose them on the people of the region... Give these vast lands of Canada and Alaska to them to create a country for themselves."

(snip)

State television showed pictures of tens of thousands of people streaming through the streets in other demonstrations held in every major city up-and-down the country, repeatedly chanting the mantra of "Death to Israel".

Despite the heavily politicised nature of the Tehran demonstration, there was a festive mood with the numerous children present having their faces painted as cats and rabbits in entertainment laid-on by the municipality.

"I come every year because the Palestinians are helpless and they cannot defend themselves. I come here to here to attract the world's attention to their plight," said Somayeh Salim, 27.

She was carrying an Israeli flag in her rucksack: "I am going to burn it."

 

Zombie Propaganda

A quote from Ken Blanchard: "...the zombie plague depicted is not really a war."   That's just what they want you to believe.   

Quick Hits

So much to blog on; so little time.  So let's do some quick hits.

I see other local bloggers are not worshiping at the ethanol alter. 

It's wrong to question Bruce Springsteen's patriotism (has anyone done so?), but OK to question Rush Limbaugh's.  Just trying to keep track. 

A woman allegedly had sex with an eight-year-old.  The headline says it was a "relationship."  The more accurate term for that "relationship" is molestation.  The English language continues to die a slow death.

Apparently Massachusetts pediatricians regularly ask young patients about their parents' drinking and gun owning habits and whether their parents beat them.  This is without parental knowledge or consent and, it must be added, without any evidence of wrong doing by the parents.  The rights and responsibilities of parents take another hit.  But it's OK because it's "for the children." 

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

South Dakota Politics has long been concerned to keep our readers informed about the zombie menace.  I have been reading World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, by Max Brooks.  I can report that it is one of the finest pieces of horror fiction that I have ever seen in any medium, and that is saying a lot. 

WWZ is not really a novel, just as the zombie plague depicted is not really a war.  It is set just after the hoards of zombies have finally been eradicated and a much reduced human population is rebuilding.  The book consists of a series of interviews between an unnamed author and people who played a prominent part in the struggle, or had remarkable personal stories to tell.  The stories in turn are set all over the globe.  You learn how the South Africans and Israelis contained the menace at great moral and physical cost.  You hear how Indians watched as their cities were overrun, how a Japanese internet nerd was finally forced to confront real zombies when his online connection shut down.  You set sail with a Chinese nuclear armed submarine, with lots of refugees on board, as it sails around looking for a coast to land on that is not crawling with the undead.  Most gratifying to me is the story of how the students at the Claremont Colleges successfully defended the campus against waves of walking corpses.  That's where I went to grad school. Each of these stories is told with meticulous attention to texture and detail.  Given the one fantastic assumption, all the stories ring true.   

WWZ shares a very similar form with the founding document of modern horror stories: Bram Stoker's Dracula. Stoker's novel was told through the diaries of the characters, but WWZ has no persistent characters.  It is series of small stories stitched together into a larger one.  Both books  are excellent examples of the horror genre, which turns on the invasion of the rational, secular world, by some form of demonic evil out of the story bank of the pre-modern consciousness.  You can learn a lot about both modern and ancient mind by dipping into horror fiction.

Zombie fiction is very hot these days.  Allow me to indulge in a little biothanatology.  A true zombie has the following characteristics: 1) the zombie is a reanimated corpse, having really died and then regained powers of motion and sensation, but no other basic organic functions; 2) the zombie retains no trace of a soul or personality of its own; and 3) the zombie moves with some purpose, though that purpose may be supplied by an external agent or something that now inhabits the reanimated body.

The original zombie stories (we get the word from Haiti) gave us a corpse reanimated by magic and serving the interest of some evil wizard or mad scientist.  Everything was changed with George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, which gave us hoards of slow moving zombies with a single desire: to eat the flesh of living people.  This introduced the contagion theme to zombie fiction.  People who are bitten rapidly sicken and die, becoming zombies themselves.  So, presumably, do people killed by zombies.  The army of the undead keeps growing. 

The Romero Zombie has proven to be extraordinarily successful.  It has spawned a lot of sequels and countless imitations.  More on are on the way every day, including, I gather, a movie version of WWZ. WWZ itself was an instant best seller.   What is the attraction?  Story telling often plays with basic human fears.  Romero Zombies play on three of these.  One is the fear of the dead, which is about as old as human storytelling.  Another is fear of contagion.  Romero zombies are vehicles for a fatal disease.  The third is fear of the crowd.  Any time you are around a lot of other people, you are at their mercy.  What happens when the others turn against you, as frequently does happen to unlucky individuals in primitive societies?  We obviously enjoy a little fear, in the safe confines of a story. 

World War Z is good reading as we approach Halloween.  When they make the inevitable movie, it will need a  good director.  My horror movie nerd brother hit the nail on the head.  It needs Ken Burns.

The Argus Notes Another Book

Still no mention of Jon Lauck's new book, which is specifically about South Dakota politics, but the Argus Leader did find space to note Pete Dexter's visit to Barnes and Noble on Friday to promote his book, Paper Trails.

Herseth-Sandlin and MoveOn.org

Note this Politico story and the handy charts at the bottom of the article, which shows who takes money from MoveOn.org.  Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin received $5,000 and voted for the resolution condemning the General Petraeus New York Times ad.

Wouldn't It Be Funny If We Were Winning In Iraq?

Hillary Clinton, for one, will be able to deploy her now infamous cackle.  Like Kerry and Edwards, she voted to give Bush leave to launch the war.  If it turns out to produce a genuine democracy, allied with the United States against Iran, she can say she saw it coming all along.  Is it possible that we are winning? 

It is obvious to everyone but MoveOn.org that the surge strategy has produced dramatic results.  U.S. casualties are significantly down, and the number of Iraqi civilian deaths has been reduced by half in one month.  But the real question was never whether an increase in U.S. firepower could flush out and kill enough bad guys.  The question is whether it could trigger or help pull the trigger of a change in the alignment of tribes and ethno-religious groups in Iraq.  There is a fascinating article in the Wall Street Journal by one Bartle Bull (who should hire Todd Epp and sue his parents).  He argues that the realignment of Iraq against the insurgency has in fact happened. 

The Baathist Sunnis continued to kill to get back what they used to have, until accepting this past summer that they had suffered an historic defeat in a Battle of Baghdad of their own calamitous making. Shiite Iraq has arrived to stay, and today the drawing rooms of Baghdad's dealmakers are full of Baathists, cap in hand, terrified of the Shiite death squads they inspired and hungry for their slice of the coming oil pie. Meanwhile the Wahhabis, mostly foreigners, answering to a higher power and blind to selfish thoughts of wealth and survival, continue to kill but find themselves increasingly unwanted.

It was always clear that Iraq's Sunni tribes would eventually take up arms against the Saudis, Jordanians and Syrians in their midst who were banning smoking, killing whisky vendors, blowing up their utilities and oil infrastructure, executing sheikhs of ancient tribes, and forcibly marrying local girls to "emirs" of the absurd Islamic State of Iraq. Anbar's tribal leaders and Baathists were going to be bought off eventually, either directly or by the indirect promise of owning a chunk of what will be a very rich country.

At least 14,000 Anbari young men have joined the state security services since the surge began in February and Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, started reaching out to the chiefs. Now the insurgency has decamped to other provinces, where it does not want to be. Beating them there will be even easier, as is proving to be the case in Diyala.

Now all this sounds very optimistic, and it may well be that Mr. Bull will live up to his unfortunate name.  He believes that "Moqtada al-Sadr's eyes are on domestic politics," which seems pretty optimistic to me. But it is hard to ignore the fact of 14,000 Anbari men joining the state security forces.  That does look like a decisive shift of Iraq's most dangerous province into the "allies" column.  It may well be that Iraq has turned the corner. 

Of course this doesn't mean that the invasion was the right decision.  But we won't know about that for a few decades, and besides, it has been a moot point for four years.  We did invade, and whether you think we should pull out now or not, surely you have to hope for a good outcome.  Unless, that is, you share MoveOn's taste for defeat. 

McGovern and Clinton

From the Associated Press:

Republican Rudy Giuliani compared Hillary Rodham Clinton to 1972 Democratic nominee George McGovern on Wednesday and chided his rival for adding a Southern lilt to her voice as he intensified his criticism.

Adding to the perception that she's unstoppable, Clinton picked up the endorsement of the 1.4 million-member American Federation of Teachers, increasing her union nods to six.

Other candidates trying to topple the two national front-runners courted voters in early voting states.

Three months before voting begins, polls show Clinton solidifying her months-long advantage for the Democratic nomination while the Republican race remains fluid. Giuliani, the former New York mayor, leads in national surveys, but GOP rivals Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson and John McCain are in strong contention in various key states.

Positioning himself as the one Republican able to thwart another Clinton presidency, Giuliani lambasted Clinton's recent comments about giving a $5,000 savings bond to every U.S.-born baby.

"It's interesting that Hillary is taking something from the George McGovern playbook," Giuliani said in Manchester, N.H., likening her idea to the former South Dakota senator's proposal to send $1,000 to every U.S. resident.

In the 1972 election, Giuliani liked McGovern and his ideas enough to vote for him for president. The liberal lawmaker lost in a landslide to President Nixon.

Since we're on the topic, George McGovern recently told reporters that he's "leaning toward an endorsemment [sic] of Hillary Rodham Clinton for president."

Could Illegals Give Electoral Votes to the GOP?

A recent study by the University of Connecticut (described here) shows that undocumented illegal immigrants in the United States could have an effect on the distribution of Congressional seats after the 2010 census.  The redistribution would also affect the Electoral College responsible for electing the President.  Potential exists for an increase in votes for GOP leaning states.  The study finds that Arizona, Texas and Florida could all potentially see increases in their total votes, while Illinois, New York and Ohio could potentially lose some.  If this is true, and the GOP maintains the states gaining influence, the Democratic party could find themselves needing to flip a state or two to combat the change in 2012.  Perhaps this will encourage the Democrats to do something on immigration?

Socialist Club at Roosevelt High School

From KELO:

A new group at Roosevelt High School discusses socialism every Thursday morning. Not everyone is comfortable with the Young Socialist Club's views, but federal law says school districts must allow all student organizations.

The Young Socialists Club at Roosevelt High School is looking for new members. Their flyer asks for students to quote "Come explore the vast realm that is socialism." But also on the flyer is a picture of Karl Marx, who is best known as a revolutionary communist. One of his famous quotes, "Workers of the World Unite," is printed boldly on the handout. But Roosevelt Principal Don Ryswyk says those references do not concern him.

He says, “At Roosevelt we have young Democrats club, we have the young Republicans club and they were asking for a young Socialists club and so I saw it as an equity issue and the students talked to me about some of the things they were going to research and I also saw it as an educational club.”

Under the Equal Access Act passed in 1984, no school administrator can pass judgment on school clubs.

Linda Hallstrom with the Sioux Falls school district says, “Basically what that act says is that school students have a right to form clubs and that we as a district or at the school building level cannot discriminate based on view point of those clubs.”

That's why Ryswyk approved the new group. He says there are several student run clubs at Roosevelt, which allows teenagers with different interests to get involved.

“We love to see kids involved in clubs because they get involved in school, they make friends, and we know that kids when they get involved in school they make better students,” he says.

But he says if a club harms students, or is based on hate, it will not be accepted.
Ryswyk says, “I'm not going to allow a club into my school that's gonna be harmful or hateful or anything like that and there needs to be some good.”

A member of the Socialists group says they will discuss all forms of socialism which includes communism, but they are *not a communist group. Student run clubs are appointed a monitor and Ryswyk says the socialist's club monitor has *not had any concerns.

Ethanol and Food Prices

The acting head of the Agriculture Department, Chuck Connor (but not the actor Chuck Connors) says that ethanol is not a major contributer to the rise in food prices.  Of course, he was speaking before a crowd of ethanol producers when he said this. 

Heightened ethanol production is a cornerstone of President Bush's energy policy, and farmers increased their corn planting to feed the fuel frenzy. But more ethanol also helped drive up the prices of livestock feed and other corn-dependent food products.

So ethanol is driving up the cost of livestock feed and "corn-dependent food products," but not the price of food.  OK....

So what is driving the cost?

Global weather conditions, including droughts in Australia, as well as rising demand in China and elsewhere, drove up wheat prices. Recent record high retail oil prices also add to inflation by increasing the costs of everything from packaging to transportation, Conner said. He did not specify how much each contributed to rising U.S. food prices.

So he doesn't tell us how much these other factors are contributing to the rise in food prices, but he is sure ethanol isn't a culprit.

Movie Blogging

We watched Martin Scorsese's The Departed last night.  The short review is don't waste your time and money.  The longer review is that while one can appreciate Scorsese's skill as a film maker, it's a little like admiring Hitler's talent as an orator.  Both possess(ed) useful skills that they use(d) to ignoble ends (and no, I am not saying Scorsese is Hitler).  The Departed is a film that wallows in cynicism.  Virtually every character is morally compromised and, to tell the truth, unlikable.  The film's not so subtle message is that people in power are all corrupt and, indeed, they are all rats.  There is no distinction between "good guys" and "bad guys."  The last image of the film is of the Massachusetts State House, as if the storyline up to that point had been a little too subtle for viewers.  See, even the legislatures are corrupt!  The film is also steeped in vulgarity and graphic violence that attempts to cover up the thin writing.  Why is it that, for example, The Maltese Falcon, could contain a similar message and be just as gripping (if not more so) than Scorsese's film without any vulgarity or blood whatsoever?  That this film won the Academy Award last year for best picture says a lot about Hollywood.

On the other hand, Mr. Progressive has given us a list of dystopian films, one of my favorite genres.  The list originates here.  Let me give special mention to Serenity, #15 on this list.  If you haven't seen this movie, give a go.  This list is one of those blogger participation games.  In this case you are to list the films and put in bold the one's you have seen. Anyhow, here's the list of the Top Dystopian Films, with the one's I've seen in bold:

1. Metropolis (1927)
2. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
3. Brazil (1985)
4. Wings of Desire (1987)
5. Blade Runner (1982)
6. Children of Men (2006) (does it count if I've read the book?)
7. The Matrix (1999)
8. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)
9. Minority Report (2002)
10. Delicatessen (1991)
11. Sleeper (1973)
12. The Trial (1962)
13. Alphaville (1965)
14. Twelve Monkeys (1995)
15. Serenity (2005)
16. Pleasantville (1998)
17. Ghost in the Shell (1995)
18. Battle Royale (2000)
19. RoboCop (1987)
20. Akira (1988)
21. The City of Lost Children (1995)
22. Planet of the Apes (1968)
23. V for Vendetta (2005)
24. Metropolis (2001)
25. Gattaca (1997)
26. Fahrenheit 451 (1966
27. On The Beach (1959)
28. Mad Max (1979)
29. Total Recall (1990)
30. Dark City (1998)
31. War Of the Worlds (1953)
32. District 13 (2004)
33. They Live (1988)
34. THX 1138 (1971)
    
35. Escape from New York (1981)
36. A Scanner Darkly (2006)
37. Silent Running (1972)
38. Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001)
39. Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) (again, I read the book)
40. A Boy And His Dog (1975)
41.  Soylent Green (1973)
42. I Robot (2004)
43. Logan's Run (1976)
44. Strange Days (1995)
45. Idiocracy (2006)
46. Death Race 2000 (1975)
47. Rollerball (1975)
48. Starship Troopers (1997)
49. One Point O (2004)
50. Equilibrium (2002)

BattleSCHIPs

How about dueling SCHIPs editorials? The Rapid City Journal takes Pres. Bush to task for his threatened veto of the new State Children's Health Insurance Program legislation. 

Currently, more than 11,000 South Dakota children per month are covered under SCHIP and this new bill represents significant progress for health care coverage for children in South Dakota, potentially providing health insurance for 3,000 to 8,000 more children, depending on whose estimates you believe.

The political battle is raging over whether these children come from truly low-income families or not. States have some flexibility in establishing income caps for SCHIP. Most set eligibility caps at  200 percent to 250 percent of federal poverty level, but 17 have caps that are above that. South Dakota sets SCHIP eligibility at 200 percent of FPL. The new bill includes financial disincentives for states  to go above 300 percent of FPL, or $61,800 for a family of four.

George Will, on the other hand, takes Democrats to task for being irresponsible with the nation's fiscal future:

Last Thursday was 96 days before DD-Day, the day the Demographic Deluge begins. That is Jan. 1, when the first of 78 million baby boomers reach 62, the age at which a majority of Social Security recipients begin to receive that entitlement. Social Security is unsustainable as currently configured, but is a picture of health compared with another middle-class entitlement, Medicare.

On Thursday, the Senate, following the House, voted to create another open-ended middle-class entitlement. Congress is not inhibited by the Law of Holes, which is: When you are in a hole, quit digging.

Will goes on to document the fiscal situation of the nation vis-a-vis entitlements and the competing visions of Republicans (pro-freedom) and Democrats (pro-equality).  He also notes that this so-called progressive bill requires a heavily regressive tax on smokers, who are mostly low-income.  What we will do when there are no more smokers is anyone's guess as "raise taxes on cigarettes" is everyone's answer to funding new programs.  Isn't it odd that we fund a major expansion of an entitlement program with a tax that the proponents wish would collect no revenue? 

But, as Helen Lovejoy would say, "What about the children?"

It has become a verbal tic for politicians to say that everything they do is "about the children." This rhetoric of pathos reflects the de-intellectualization of public life—the substitution of sentimentalism for reasoned persuasion. Bill Clinton carried this to comic lengths when, in his first State of the Union address, he noted that "not a single Russian missile is pointed at the children of America."

Those children-seeking missiles were diabolical. The new SCHIP, which would expand the dependency of middle-class children on government, is not diabolical, but neither is it just "about the children."

Katie Couric's Distaste for Patriotism

Jonah Goldberg, writing in the LATimes, cautions us that he has "no interest in questioning Couric's patriotism."  But what does it mean to question someone's patriotism?  To do so genuinely is to suggest that that person is not really one of us, that he or she may be on the other side.  That is really what wounded patriots on the left think they have been accused of. 

No reasonable person thinks that Katie Couric isn't one of us Americans.  Her distaste for expressions of patriotism and national identity are, for better or worse, as American as a Quarter Pounder.  Here is how Goldberg puts it:

In a recent speech at the National Press Club, Katie Couric expressed somber disapproval of the jingoistic excesses after 9/11. Among the things that vexed her: "The whole culture of wearing flags on our lapel and saying 'we' when referring to the United States." From what I can tell, nobody among the journalistic swells bothered to ask, "Who isn't 'we,' Kemo Sabe?"

Now I don't think that wearing flag pins is required for patriotism.  I don't wear one myself, and I consider myself a patriot.  But I can't imagine feeling scorn for someone who does wear one, and that means that Ms. Couric and I are on opposite sides of a deep cultural divide in the American body politic.  I think it is perfectly reasonable and indeed commendable for a citizen to be proud of his or her Republic, its parchment foundations, and its purple mountains majesty. I think that an American citizen, at least as much as a French citizen or Twin's fan, has leave to say "we" when referring to all those who gather to cheer the home team.  Ms. Couric thinks otherwise. 

As the host of the "Today" show in 2003, Couric said of the lost crew members of the space shuttle Columbia: "They were an airborne United Nations -- men, women, an African American, an Indian woman, an Israeli. . . ." As my National Review colleague Mark Steyn noted, they weren't an airborne U.N., they were an airborne America. The "Indian woman" came to America in the 1980s, and, in about a decade's time, she was an astronaut. "There's no other country on Earth where you can do that," Steyn rightly noted.

Ms. Couric thinks there is something wrong in identifying with one's country.  She thinks there something wrong with taking pride in being an American.  That doesn't mean she isn't one of us.  God knows that this is exactly what a lot of us think.  But those of us who think differently are allowed to take offense. 

"The War" And The Doctor

Some television blogging.  On the lighter side, read Ian Murray extolling the virtues of the best show on television, Dr. Who.  Dr. Who is consistently thrilling, funny and touching all at once.  The current Doctor, David Tennant, portrays the Doctor with equal degrees of whimsy and noble power.  SciFi channel shows Dr. Who on Friday nights.  If you get digital cable from MidCo, you can also see earlier episodes on BBC America on Saturday nights. 

I've blogged previously about Ken Burns's The War.  Today in the New York Times Edward Rothstein has some kind and not so kind words to say about the series.  Rothstein, in my view, makes a deadly criticism of the documentary:

There are efforts to show the barbarity of the two empires the Allies faced. The war was necessary, we are told again and again. But these assertions are isolated, lacking emotional force and interpretive detail, as are other facts — even about the Nazi death camps. We learn little about our Allies or about England’s near-death experience, or even about our enemies. Understanding more history from above would have made the suffering more profound and more noble as well, since it would have been made palpable that something was being fought for, that there was an unavoidable purpose beyond the pain.

Instead, necessity is eclipsed by trauma, history by emotion. We learn much about the extraordinary sacrifices and experiences of these soldiers. But the elegiac song “American Anthem” recurs throughout the film and declares, “America, America, I gave my best to you” — an assertion of private sacrifice, not public purpose.

As Rothstein intimates, this is the shortcoming of "history from below," or what is sometimes termed "social history."  Much as in films like Saving Private Ryan and We Were Soldiers, exclusive concentration on war from the point of view of the common soldier can cloud our perspective as to the reasons for war, portraying war as it must often seem to the Average Joe soldier, a series of meaningless contests that only bring about more death. 

This is just the problem: war is not necessarily meaningless. It is sometimes said on bumper stickers, "Violence never solved anything."  To the contrary, violence can and has solved quite a lot.  Just ask the slaves liberated because of the Civil War.  Or the people of Paris, liberated from Nazi rule in 1944.  Perhaps Shane was right when he said of guns that they are just tools, no better and no worse than the man who wields them.  Thus, rather than reducing war to meaningless horror, we should make sure that out tools of war are used for high, rather than low, purposes.  For as Rothstein concludes:

“The greatest sense I have about the war,” says one character at its end, is “relief we wouldn’t have to do any of that stuff again.” That is the teaching of this history from below. History from above tells us that unfortunately and terribly, we will.

The Politics of Ethanol

The New York Times reports about slumping prices in the ethanol market, and includes this observation about the importance of ethanol in the upcoming presidential election:

While generous government support is expected to keep the output of ethanol fuel growing, the poorly planned overexpansion of the industry raises questions about its ability to fulfill the hopes of President Bush and other policy makers to serve as a serious antidote to the nation’s heavy reliance on foreign oil.

And if the bust becomes worse, candidates for president could be put on the spot to pledge even more federal support for the industry, particularly here in Iowa, whose caucus in January is the first contest in the presidential nominating process.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE:  In related news, the Argus Leader carries a story today about VeraSun's decision to halt the construction of a plant in Indiana until 2008 because of a weak ethanol market.

Iraq Deaths Plunge

The Associated Press reports that September will have the lowest U.S. death toll in Iraq in 14 months.  And the good news isn't limited to American troops.  Another AP report says that Iraqi deaths have dropped by fifty percent.  Our new aggressive strategy appears to be more successful than is being commonly recognized.  Since the September 10 testimony of General David Petraeus, the media has reported less and less about Iraq and moved on to other stories like the presidential campaign or Burma or Britney Spears relinquishing her child.  In fact, even leading Democratic contenders have stopped calling for a timetable for withdrawal and can't promise they'll remove the troops by 2013.  The news from Iraq has been quite positive.

UPDATE:  Meanwhile, Iraqi politicians have condemned Senator Biden's proposal on splitting up Iraq.

UPDATE II:  See Stanley Kurtz on "profoundly biased and misleading" war reporting.

An Argus Book Review

The Argus Leader writes a book review today.  Not about Daschle v. Thune: Anatomy of a High Plains Senate Race of course, which is about South Dakota.  An Argus reporter instead reviews a book about "Tibet, the Galapagos Islands, the Arctic Ocean and Polynesia."

Gender Change is Possible. Sex Change is Not.

But would either be covered by a tax break?  The Washington Post has this "riveting" story:

NEW YORK -- After years of painful soul searching, Rhiannon O'Donnabhain -- a former construction engineer from a devout Irish Catholic family in Boston -- decided to surgically change his sex to female in 2001. The struggle was equally tough financially -- hormone treatments and medical procedures set her back $25,000, a burden she felt could be partially offset by taking a $5,000 tax deduction for medical costs.

When she sent in her tax claims after the surgery, the Internal Revenue Service initially issued the 64-year-old former Coast Guard reservist a refund check for $5,000. But soon after, she was audited and ordered to return the refund because the IRS had determined that her surgery had been merely "cosmetic" -- and therefore not tax deductible.

Now I have no problem with persons who want to change their "gender assignment;" and if they choose to do so with radical surgery and hormone treatments, well it takes a lot of people to make a world.  On the tax question, I am inclined to swing the other way.  Consider this:

The core question is this: Should changing your sex be tax deductible? The answer, according to leading medical experts, is an unequivocal yes.

Well then, it is a medical question.  But who are the "leading experts"? 

In fact, O'Donnabhain's treatment by the government has sparked outrage among medical professionals who specialize in gender identity disorder, a condition that leads an estimated 1,000 to 2,000 Americans a year to undergo sex-change operations.

"When did the IRS suddenly become physicians?" said Marshall Forstein, associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. "It's absolutely clear that transgender identity is a condition discussed in diagnostic manuals. It seems the IRS is now in the business of practicing medicine without a license."

So the experts are those who share a professional interest in tax breaks for their clients.  Well, that's the American way.  But Professor Forstein is confused: the question of what medical procedures are in order is a medical question; the question of what you can deduct from your taxes is a political question. 

I am more concerned, however, with the abuse of language by the Washington Post.  Their headline reads:

Woman Suing IRS Over Sex-Change Tax Claims
 

The Post is confusing sex with gender.   Mr-then-Ms O'Donnabhain may be a he in the first sentence of the above quote, and a she in the second, because gender is something that is "assigned" by usage and custom.  The French language routinely assigns gender to the oddest things.  A ten Euro coin is female, but it needs a gender reassignment to become a 50 Euro note.  And there was a time in these United States when all hurricanes were female.   

Sex, on the other hand, is biological.  In humans, sex is rooted in the DNA, I gather that O'Donnabhain still has the Y Chromosome in every cell.  More generally, biologists identify sex by comparing sex cells (the ones that turn into offspring).  Bigger = female.  The relative size of a single sperm compared to the female's egg is about the same as that of an X-Wing fighter to the Death Star.  And come to think of it, the attack pattern is about the same.  Now I suppose that after surgery, O'Donnabhain doesn't have any sex cells left to compare, so we would have to fall back on the Y chromosome thing.  But it is very certain that our former construction engineer and coast guard reservist is not, and can never be, a woman.  The Post's headline got the facts wrong.