New York Times: Senate Race in Minnesota Shows Power of Bloggers
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New York Times: Senate Race in Minnesota Shows Power of Bloggers
Posted by Jason Heppler on Saturday, May 24, 2008 at 08:09 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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A couple days ago I linked to John Miller comparing the Indiana Jones films to the National Treasure films. After taking in Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I'd say that comparison is apt. The latest chronicle of Jones is essentially National Treasure with archeology substituting for history. The film is a rollicking good time, and despite an ending that I found downright silly, I can still recommend the film.
The film opens in 1957 with rock-and-roll now king but with Indiana Jones still getting into trouble. This time it is with Soviets who have kidnapped him and taken him to an installation in Nevada where the government hides some of its prized secrets (such as a certain ark important to the Hebrews). They are looking for a particular artifact and they think Indy knows where it is. Let's just say the artifact pertains to an occurrence at Roswell, NM. They eventually get their object, but not Indy as he has escapes in the first of many chase scenes in the film. It concludes with Indy surviving a nuclear blast. Yes, you read that right. Indy also finds out that his buddy Mac is an agent for the Russians (or is he?).
Back at his nameless university, Indy meets up with young James Dean type Mutt, played well by Shia LaBeouf. Mutt knows one of Jones' old colleagues, Prof. "Ox" Oxley, who has disappeared in South America while looking for a certain crystal skull. Here is where the adventure really starts, and it will not surprise you to learn that the Russians, led by the evil Irina Spalko (played by Cate Blanchett), are after the same artifact.
The rest of the film involves Mutt and Indy's quest to find the skull, elude the Russians, escape from the Russians (no surprise), and figure out what precisely are the powers of the crystal skull. This whole aspect of the film includes multiple chases and crawling through a number of creepy caves in Peru, which the Peruvians seem to have in abundance. These are done well and with a lot of pluck.
The film has its weaknesses. If anything, it goes at breakneck speed and does not allow the audience to catch enough breathers. And, frankly, I found the secret of the crystal skull pretty easy to figure out. The film does re-introduce Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood. Unfortunately they do little with her other than have her squabble with Indiana like an old married couple. At one point they are harping at each other and both their Russian guard and Mutt tell them to shut up. They were saying what the audience was thinking. And while clearly this is the kind of film where you set your brain on numb, it was hard not to notice that a middle aged woman was achieving physical feats that would kill a man half her age. There's suspension of disbelief and then there's "Oh, come on!"
The film works better if you think of it as simply a live action cartoon. If you slam Daffy Duck against a wall a dozen times, he gets up and walks away. So does Indiana Jones. There is actually a vignette where Mutt duels with Spalko, each on moving vehicles traveling side by side. Eventually Mutt finds himself with feet on both vehicles straining to stay upright. In fairly poor CGI, Mutt's legs get unusually long, one might even say cartoon-like. At this point we are essentially in Loony Tunes land.
(A digression: This film is one of a growing series of examples of how CGI gets in the way of good film making. I don't know if the ease of it stops filmmakers from thinking or what, but frankly the action scenes from the 1981 Indiana Jones film are better and they couldn't even spell CGI. This, in my opinion, is what got George Lucas in trouble in the more recent Star Wars films. Lucas, who executive produced Crystal Skull and helped with the story, seemingly spent excessive time in those Star Wars films with special effects to the detriment of story and script. One could make the same accusation here, but with less detrimental effects.)
Harrison Ford is as good as ever, still playing the daredevil, but with a recognition of age. The film deals with this fairly well, acknowledging the Jones is now middle aged but allowing him to step out now and again. The film is sillier than previous Indiana Jones films, but the silliness usually (but not always) works. The actions scenes are exciting, if a bit cartoonish (and the film sets some sort of record for number of characters jumping from one moving vehicle to another). The real find here is Shia LaBeouf, who continues to excel. He is one of the most watchable of all young actors. It is his character and the dominatrix-like Spalko who keep the movie fresh. This is not because Indiana Jones himself is boring, but that he is a well-known character already. The film is cheeky and fun. It certainly is the most lighthearted of all Indiana Jones films.
The film is largely edifying, giving a message not unfamiliar in Indiana Jones movies, that the desire to know and control can be very dangerous. The Spalko character claims to want to know everything, and this ends up being her comeuppance. Also, it's nice to see the Commies as bad guys, something not every filmmaker is willing to do. At one point Spalko asks Indy if he as any last words and Indy responds, "I like Ike." Could Indiana Jones be a Republican?
Again, if viewers go in with the notion of seeing a cartoon, they will have a great time. Don't take this film too seriously. Clearly those who made it did not.
Posted by Jon Schaff on Saturday, May 24, 2008 at 09:12 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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I haven't blogged much recently about Asian horror, one of my many interests, because I haven't had much to blog about. I have seen most of the good Japanese, Korean, and Chinese movies that have been pushing their way into American remakes. It looks as if that well may have run dry.
I just watched a low-end sample of the genre: Shikoku (1999). It was very badly written; but it is almost redeemed by the performance of Yui Natsukawa, who is so damn good an actor that she can carry any weight. She is also dreadfully beautiful, a kind of Japanese Cathrine Zeta-Jones.
The film did have some features that are worthy of thought. One of them was the magic by which a woman manages to resurrect her drowned daughter. Pilgrimages are common in Eastern religion as they are in Western Biblical traditions. It's a great way to generate tourism, and it feeds into two archetypal ideas: that travel may redeem the traveler, and that certain actions (prayer, bowing) repeated enough times can change reality. In this film, there is a tradition of making a pilgrimage around an Island, stopping at 80 or so temples. At each stop, one's spiritual passport gets marked. But here is the trick: pilgrims are supposed to go around the island counter-clockwise. This is supposed to seal off the realm of the realm of the dead from our world. The grieving woman completes the circuit sixteen times in the opposite direction. You can guess what happens.
The idea of the two realms is a relic of early religions in the West, largely eclipsed by Christianity, but it is still pretty near the surface in Asian drama. In Shikoku, the tension between ancient mythography and modern life comes down to the conflict between a husband and wife over raising their daughter. She wanted the daughter to continue the ancient family line of temple seers. He wanted her to get a modern education. She won.
Lastly, this might be the first Asian horror movie I have seen in which Buddhism was so much as mentioned. Taoist magic is prominent is several Japanese and Chinese films, but in this one it is a Buddhist priest who comes to the rescue and repairs the breach between worlds. "I have always believed in the Buddhas, living and dead," he says as he shakes a stick at the demonic daughter.
I am guessing that Buddhist religion is very weak in China and Japan. It survives, if barely, only because they have nothing else. Asian horror seems to be in decline as well. Its fans can only hope that Hollywood's recent appetite for translation will resurrect that ghost. I surely hope so. Horror movies are one of the most direct routes into the ancient history of the human heart.
Posted by K. Blanchard on Saturday, May 24, 2008 at 12:24 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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Speaking today with the Argus Leader editorial board, Senator Clinton made the following remarks to explain why she is remaining in the Democratic race:
EB: You don’t buy the party unity argument?
I don’t, because again, I’ve been around long enough. You know my husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere around the middle of June
EB: June
We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. Um you know I just I don’t understand it. There’s lots of speculation about why it is.
Well, that made the national news! It was obviously an enforced error, as the Senator has since felt compelled to issue an apology. But why, exactly?
Anna at Dakota Women, responding to Jon Schaff, comes to Senator Clinton's defense:
The point she was trying to make, Jon, was that primary contests have often gone through June in the past. Nothing more, nothing less.
No. Jon was certainly right than an argument was implied: I should stick around in case something happens to the front runner. See Jon's post for reasons that the argument is weak. Anna points out that Senator Clinton made this argument before, and seems to think that the fact that it went unremarked upon then is proof that it was unobjectionable; hence the current attention is politically motivated. Maybe, but the fact that she has said virtually the same thing twice reinforces the idea that she had something specific in mind. She wasn't just speaking off the cuff.
However, a weak, inexplicit argument does not amount to a gaffe. Charles Krauthamer put his finger on why Senator Clinton's remark was suspect: it is simply very bad form to mention assassination in this context. My friend and esteem Keloland colleague Todd Epp points this out, and then goes off the deep end himself:
I am absolutely shocked and disgusted by even a hint that assassination is on the table or a possibility in this campaign. Not only that, but she obviously feels entitled to the nomination should some idiot actually shoot and kill Sen. Obama.
So what if someone shoots Obama? Seems to me the first place the investigation should start would be the Clinton Campaign.
That last part doesn't exactly help the situation.
There is good reason why good taste does not allow that kind of comment, or Senator Clinton's mention of the possibility of assassination: a lot of bad things happen just because someone put a pernicious idea in the head of some unstable person. Maintaining some level of decorum is not just a matter of avoiding offense. It is much more serious than that. But then the Clinton's have never had the slightest respect for decorum.
Posted by K. Blanchard on Friday, May 23, 2008 at 11:12 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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Posted by Jason Heppler on Friday, May 23, 2008 at 05:56 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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Posted by Jason Heppler on Friday, May 23, 2008 at 05:44 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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What to make of Hillary Clinton's use of the Bobby Kennedy assassination as a reason to stay in the race in a discussion with the Argus Leader editorial board? I shall post the video below. One reasonably draws the conclusion that she is arguing that, like in 1968, something might happen to the presumptive nominee, like an assassination, in which case the party will need a pinch hitter.
One should think it obvious that this is a pretty weak argument. First, it surely is irresponsible for Clinton to raise the assassination specter. She is being condemned by the Obama camp, and rightly so. Second, the likelihood of assassination is so small that it is a tad desperate (in addition to irresponsible) for Clinton to raise the issue. And let's even assume the worst. Would the Democratic Party really feel limited to those still officially in the race as possible replacements? Surely what we'd have is a convention decision, with Hillary Clinton being in a strong position whether she was officially in the race or not. Any way you cut it, dumb move by Clinton. Here the vid.
The Argus Leader’s Executive Editor Randell Beck issued the following statement today:
“The context of the question and answer with Sen. Clinton was whether her continued candidacy jeopardized party unity this close to the Democratic convention. Her reference to Mr. Kennedy's assassination appeared to focus on the timeline of his primary candidacy and not the assassination itself.”
Posted by Jon Schaff on Friday, May 23, 2008 at 04:12 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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Read all about it here.
A former business manager of Hildebrand Tewes Consulting admitted in court this week that he stole from his former employer.
Chad Schuldt, 37, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Minnehaha County Circuit Court to two counts of grand theft.
He overpaid himself, issued cash advances and made unauthorized purchases on a company credit card, a police affidavit says, costing the firm nearly $200,000.Under a plea deal, he will get five years of suspended prison time on one charge and could get up to 10 years on the other. A sentencing date has not been set.
Posted by Jon Schaff on Friday, May 23, 2008 at 11:15 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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Mark Baerlein's The Dumbest Generation: How The Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future is one of the most rewarding reads I've had in some time. Every educator and parent should read this book. Many thanks to Joe Knippenberg who recommended the book a couple weeks ago at NLT. Bauerlein, a professor of English at Emory University, successfully marshals evidence of the academic failures of our young and relates those failures to a phobia for books and love of "screen time" (computer, television or otherwise). Bauerlein illustrates the consistent failure of technology to fulfill its promise in education by explaining how the very nature of the computer experience is conducive to providing information but not knowledge. He concludes with a discussion of the betrayal of the young by older mentors who should be helping usher the young into adulthood by challenging their prejudices (as opposed to massaging them) and helping the young encounter the great tradition of ideas.
Bauerlein is aware of the challenge that he is simply an old fuddyduddy who hates what is new. He eloquently rebuffs this notion by showing the facts of academic malfeasance and by making one of the most succinct and convincing arguments I have encountered for teaching great books. Bauerlein also discussed research that suggests that the very nature of "screen time" mitigates against any acquisition of knowledge. For example, when using the internet for school research, students tend to "cut and paste" from web sites without ever really reading or thinking about the information they are presenting. Bauerlein gives opposing views their due and proceeds to rebut them in a methodical manner with logic and solid evidence.
One thing I learned from Bauerlein's book is that if I make this blog post too long no one will read it, so let me just sum up the argument. Bauerlein begins by producing prodigious amounts of data of the various gaps in the knowledge of our young. One can quibble here and there with the use of statistics, namely whether they have comparative value. Compared to 50 years ago we educate a higher percentage of the population both in K-12 and certainly in college. Therefore when you talk about students of the past you are talking about a different population make-up than we have today. But the author also shows that in the last 25 years or so, when populations are fairly comparable, the drop off in performance is remarkable.
Bauerlein is not just interested showing, once again, how little our students know. His other point is that some make extravagant claims as to the promise of technology, but young peoples' experience of technology does not match. Technology is not used by them to gain knowledge but to amuse themselves. This use of technology reinforces a youth culture that is self-obsessed and unconcerned with the outside world. While technology may have the promise of revealing a whole world of ideas, the young use it to chat, play games, and goof around. This leaves students unable and unwilling to sit in quiet, read a book, concentrate on it, and think about it. While the young today have unprecedented access to information, they do not have the skills to analyze the information intelligently, to put it into any context, and turn that information into knowledge. This leaves young people ignorant creatures of prejudice, and, worse yet, solipsistic adolescent prejudice that they are never challenged to overcome.
Bauerlein writes:
[Screen time] conditions minds against quiet, concerted study, against imagination unassisted by visuals, against linear, sequential analysis of texts, against an idle afternoon with a detective story and nothing else.
One of the book's strongest sections is where Bauerlein discusses the way in which language is acquired and used. We tend to talk with a lesser vocabulary than we write, so those who don't read will develop a smaller vocabulary than those who do, and Bauerlein goes to some lengths to show the paucity of reading by our students. Bauerlein makes the powerful point that most learning actually takes place out of school. So it isn't just what goes on in the schools, but the habits of leisure time that build the mind and prepare it for adulthood and citizenship. Bauerlein convicingly shows how the inability to read dampens one's ability to formulate one's own ideas and analyze the ideas of others. And it must be stressed that Bauerlein shows that it is not just that we use computers badly, but the very nature of how people encounter computer screens (to say noting of the passivity of television) makes sound learning difficult.
This post is already long enough that most will not make it this far. So let me terminate with Bauerline's own conclusion. Throughout the book Bauerlein shows that the young are not just ignorant; they are disengaged from the civitas. As Jefferson would have predicted, a semi-literate, unaware population is not capable of self-government. Unable (and unwilling) to assess complex arguments, incapable of analyzing phenomena in the light of history, the young are poor citizens who, like subjects, must defer to authority to tell them what to do and think. They lack the capacity to question that authority. In short, they are unable to perform the tasks of the vigilant citizen Jefferson thought necessary to make free government possible. Not only do the young have impoverished souls, they are poor citizens. This does not bode well for the Republic.
Oh, and Bauerlein provides copious evidence that "mobile computing" education is a complete waste of money.
Update: Joe gives us a link.
Posted by Jon Schaff on Friday, May 23, 2008 at 09:38 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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Dave Barry once wrote that the population of South Dakota is so small, anyone entering it automatically becomes a member of the State Legislature. At present, Senator Hillary Clinton is acquiring seniority.
Jonathan Ellis reports in the Argus Leader that Senator Clinton will visit Brandon and Brookings tomorrow, and the Pine Ridge Reservation next week. That last part is interesting. The Clintons have cultivated good relationships with many minority groups. They once had a lot of loyalty among African Americans, but that's long gone. I am guessing that there is some residual loyalty among Native Americans, and that Senator Clinton will carry that demographic.
If so, she stands a reasonable chance of winning the state. There aren't any recent polls, or at least not any public ones. The campaigns surely have their internal polls. South Dakota is not easy to predict at this moment. The state is hip-deep in hip-wader Democrats, just the kind of people that gave Ms. Clinton her gargantuan victories in West Virginia and Kentucky.
On the other hand, lava-lamp liberals and over-educated professional types like Todd Epp make up a disproportionately large slice of the Democratic pie due to our small population. They may yet help Obama prevent a defeat or at least a massive defeat.
I wouldn't bet a dollar of my own money on June 3rd. But if someone gave me a wad of cash to put down, I would put it on a Clinton victory. I would also bet that Ms. Clinton is headed to the Convention floor. Even if the delegate count goes over the magic number for Obama, she wants to make the case that she should be the nominee. The Clinton campaign is not something that occurred to Bill and Hillary last year. It is something they have been forging (think of Sauron at Mount Doom) since the first months of Bill's presidency. Ms. Clinton wants to make the case that she is the one who could win in November. Then she just has to hope that Obama loses.
A win in South Dakota will be an upset in her favor, if due only to a very outdated poll. A big win is what she is playing for. Short of a catastrophic McCain collapse (which is surely possible), neither Democrat will carry South Dakota this November. The 2012 presidential election has already begun.
Posted by K. Blanchard on Friday, May 23, 2008 at 12:09 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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My esteemed Keloland colleague Cory Heidelberger draws our attention to an interesting post by my pal Doug Wiken on the dubious environmental benefits of hybrid cars like the Prius.
The June 2008 WIRED magazine page 153 suggest used vehicles might be better choices for lower carbon emissions than buying something like a new Prius because making a new Prius consumes 113 million Btus. A single gallon of gasoline contains about 113,000 Btus, so "Toyota's green wonder guzzles the equivalent of 1000 gallons of gasoline before it moves one mile. But, buy something like an old Tercel or other vehicle that gets 35mpg and the Prius will have to go 100,000 miles before it catches up.
I understand the comparison here is the energy cost of producing a new Prius vs. buying a used vehicle, which is the kind of angle that usually doesn't get reported. I have heard it said that we could save a lot of energy by getting all the gas-guzzlers off the road; but Wiken's point, based on WIRED, makes that look very doubtful.
The above doesn't count against the Prius if one is determined to buy a new car. But there are other considerations. What are the environmental consequences of producing the batteries that the hybrid vehicles require? The total production and disposal costs have to be counted in order to decide what the polar bears would drive.
All this might be eventually made up for by the hybrid's smaller environmental footprints while in operation. But do they really have smaller footprints? The London Times reports on a study by Auto Express that is throwing cold water on that claim.
Cars promoted as eco-friendly were criticised yesterday for pumping out up to 56 per cent more carbon dioxide than the manufacturers claim.
Three models, including the Honda Civic hybrid, performed so badly in tests that their environmental claims were dismissed as a gimmick.
Apparently one car produced more carbon emissions than other non-hybrids using the same engine. And then there is the kicker, from a comment on the Times article:
The only thing green about Hybrids is how much more of it you have to put out to buy and operate them. A recent article in a Toronto newspaper detailed that a Ford Escape SUV hybrid costs $14,145.00 more to own over 7 years than it's petrol brother. Even the Toyota Camery hybrid was $1298.00 more. Buy a fuel efficient petrol/diesel car and spend the money you save vs the hybrid to plant trees. You'll do the planet a bigger favour.
The truth is that it's next to impossible to solve ecological problems this way. The process of building, marketing, operating, and disposing of an automobile is just too complex for that. The only reliable guide we have is the economic one. Graham of Toronto is right: buy the car that meets your needs at the best price you can get. Use the extra money to plant a few trees and buy a bicycle. Buy the Prius only if what you are really in the market for is environmental chic.
Posted by K. Blanchard on Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 11:15 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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Democratic Senator Jim Webb has an answer, via Professor Bainbridge: "Virginia Senator Jim Webb speaks a truth that's supposed to remain unspoken and thus probably disqualifies himself as Barack Obama's running mate. . . . This statement isn't just going to get Webb in trouble with the non-black ethnic groups eligible for affirmative action, such as Asians, Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders, Hispanics, Native Americans and Alaska Natives, it's going to exacerbate the sexism debate roiling Democratic waters these days."
Also, the Obama/media axis gets stronger.
Posted by Jason Heppler on Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 09:43 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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A question that's often raised when you tell people you're studying history is, "what can you do with a history degree?" For one Columbia University history major, class of 1973, the answer was to be passionately informed about jazz. Phil Schaap hosts "Bird Flight" on Columbia University's radio show WKRC and was profiled by the New Yorker this week, a tribute to his encyclopedic knowledge of jazz and unusual stories about many of jazz's greatest players. It's a fun read and an interesting reflection on memory and forgetting, so be sure to check it out.
[cross posted at SDP Jazz Note]
Posted by Jason Heppler on Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 09:13 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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Here is Tim Johnson's press release on the passage of "the $165 billion supplemental appropriations bill to provide for our nation's service members and fund ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan." Included in this supplemental are:
Included in the bill is $400 million for the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000.The funding compensates local school districts for decreased revenue as a result of reduced timber production on public forest lands. Six counties in western South Dakota are receiving payments through the program, including Pennington, Custer, Lawrence, Meade, Fall River, and Harding.The supplemental also contains a delay of several Medicaid rules proposed by the Bush administration. If allowed to take effect, these rules would substantially reduce federal Medicaid funding to South Dakota. Senator Johnson has worked on several fronts to delay these rules and is pleased a delay is included in this legislation. If enacted, this rule would cost South Dakota more than $7.4 million annually.
Can Sen. Johnson explain how supplementing school budgets for lost timber revenue and increasing Medicaid funding are related to providing "for our nation's service members" and "ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan"? He can't of course, because what he is really doing is buying our votes with our own money. He also has cagily slipped these nuggets into a bill on defense spending because otherwise the president would probably not approve them. Between legislation like this and the Farm Bill, we are really seeing politics as usual over the last week.
Posted by Jon Schaff on Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 04:10 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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The May 19, 2008 edition of National Review contains a cover story by Stanley Kurtz surveying the black liberation theology behind President Barack Obama's Trinity United Church of Christ. Kurtz investigates the theology of James Cone, whose thought undergirds Trinity and has a devoted student in Trinity's recently retired pastor, Jeremiah Wright. This story is not available online.
In Kurtz's account, James Cone was highly influenced by Malcolm X's condemnation of Christianity as a "white man's religion." How, then, could Cone, a Christian and disciple of Martin Luther King reconcile Christianity and authentic blackness? The answer is a synthesis of Christianity and Marxist politics. Cone sought:
an authentic Christianity, grounded in Jesus’s blackness, [that] would focus with full force on black liberation. Authentic Christianity would bring radical social
and political transformation and, if necessary, violent revolution in the here and
now.
Cone advocates revolution, violent if necessary, to throw off the rule of the oppressors. Cone writes:
“There will be no peace in America until whites begin to hate their whiteness, asking from the depths of their being: ‘How can we become black?’”
(Note: In the piece Kurtz attributes this quote to Jeremiah Wright, but a little research and a look at the context seems to indicate that this is a typo and these are James Cone's words).
Cone sees white America as throughly racist, arguing that black hatred of the white man is as justified as the Jews hatred of Germans and advancing the Lerone Bennett thesis that Abraham Lincoln was really a racist who did nothing to free slaves.
As stated, the Marxist influence in Cone's work and in Trinity's theology is unmistakable. Kurtz writes:
A scarcely concealed, Marxist-inspired indictment of American capitalism pervades contemporary “black-liberation theology.” Far from the mainstream, Trinity (and the relatively small band of other churches that share its worldview) sees itself as marginalized and radical, struggling in the face of an overwhelming rejection of its political theology by mainstream black churches.
And here is a James Cone quote:
“The black church cannot remain silent regarding socialism, because such silence will be interpreted by our Third World brothers and sisters as support for the capitalistic system, which exploits the poor all over this earth.” And: “We cannot continue to speak against racism without any reference to a radical change in the economic order. I do not think that racism can be eliminated as long as capitalism remains intact.”
The Cone/Wright thesis is that black America has made no advancement. Indeed, any economic advancement of blacks is just a sign that blacks are buying into the white middle-class dream. One wonders if Cone and Wright advance the notion unfortunately popular in some black circles that denigrates education as just a way of acting white. Here's Kurtz's summary.
At the heart of Cone’s and Wright’s refusals to enter the mainstream of American culture lies the ongoing conviction that, appearances to the contrary, nothing in American race relations has improved. No matter how different things look today, it’s all just a disguised form of slavery or holocaust. Cone’s original attempt to justify black hatred of whites by equating America with Nazi Germany was unconvincing, but the slavery/Holocaust
analogy lives on as the indispensable linchpin of black-liberation theology.
Barack Obama is a smart man. It is inconceivable that he remained ignorant of the ideology behind his church for twenty years. What is more likely is that President Obama joined the church specifically because of its ideology. Is not this passage from Kurtz reminiscent of Obama's "I am confident that we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth" statement?
But what about Marxism’s rejection of God, and the claim that religion is the “opium of the people”? Cone concedes that white and black middle-class religion may stultify action, just as he conceded the soundness of Malcolm X’s attack on dreamy, heaven-in-the-hereafter faith.
Here is the basic theology/ideology of the next president of the United States. Luckily he is also ambitious, so perhaps he will not govern according to this ideology.
BTW, the opening section of this video, which I have posted before, indicates that Obama is very familiar with Malcolm X and is happy to ape Malcolm's rhetoric.
Posted by Jon Schaff on Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 10:13 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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This is the Congress that couldn't legislate straight. Apparently Congress sent the wrong Farm Bill to Bush for him to veto. Therefore it was all invalid.
The House overwhelmingly rejected President Bush's veto Wednesday of a $290 billion farm bill, but what should have been a stinging defeat for the president became an embarrassment for Democrats.
Only hours before the House's 316-108 vote, Bush had vetoed the five-year measure, saying it was too expensive and gave too much money to wealthy farmers when farm incomes are high. The Senate then was expected to follow suit quickly.
Action stalled, however, after the discovery that Congress had omitted a 34-page section of the bill when lawmakers sent the massive measure to the White House. That means Bush vetoed a different bill from the one Congress passed, leaving leaders scrambling to figure out whether it could become law.
Buried in this story is the true impulse to act quickly to resolve this problem:
The legislation includes election-year subsidies for farmers and food stamps for the poor - spending that lawmakers could promote when they are back in their districts over the Memorial Day weekend.
Posted by Jon Schaff on Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 09:38 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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Intrepid reader Art points out something that anyone who buys sugar should have noticed. The Washington Examiner, whom I quoted in this post, gets the decimal place wrong on sugar. The numbers listed there should read 11.6 cents and 20.99 cents, not $11.60 and $20.99 as the Examiner says. Now that would make for expensive cake.
Posted by Jon Schaff on Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 09:34 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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The newspaper for which I frequently write, the Aberdeen American News, has decided to weigh in on the question whether to list the polar bear as an endangered species.
Maybe the Bush administration thought no one would notice that the decline in polar bears could be addressed without acknowledging the impact of climate change. If so, its plan to list the bears as officially threatened under the Endangered Species Act - like so many other convoluted and confounding initiatives from this White House - raised more questions than it did answers.
And, there can be no doubt that extending ESA protection to the estimated 25,000 polar bears living from Alaska to Greenland without admitting a causal correlation to global warming could only have been concocted by the same see-no-evil political advisers who brought us “Mission Accomplished.”
I dissent. Since I have bought a lot of Miles Davis with what they pay me per column, I do so respectfully. The editorial begins by speaking of the "decline in polar bears." Are polar bears in decline? I have seen no figures to suggest this. There are, by all accounts, a lot more polar bears around than there used to be. Here is a bit from the Los Angeles Times:
Scientists think the global population of 20,000 to 25,000 bears remains robust, rebounding from the 1960s, when hunting had driven down the population to about 12,000. But virtually all polar bear experts predict rapid population declines in the Arctic, which is warming faster than anywhere else in the world and changing too rapidly for the bears to adapt and find other food sources.
A group of Canadian scientists last month declared the polar bear a "species of concern" but stopped short of saying it was threatened with extinction -- a designation that could have restricted hunting by Canada's Inuit people.
Now that last bit is telling. Canadian scientists, whom I suppose to be as competent as non-Canadian scientists, think that concern is in order, but not so much as to stop the Inuits from actively reducing the number of polar bears by killing them.
I gather that a species is usually or always (until now) put on the endangered list when there is evidence of actual stress on that species. It is clear in this case that the polar bear's status has been earned entirely on speculation. Global warming leads to shrinking ice sheets, and that, it is said, will shrink the polar bear's habitat. That's a perfectly reasonable argument. There is just no reason to believe it.
It wasn't that long ago that we were hearing about a global winter, to be caused when global warming shuts down the circulation of Atlantic currents. Surely that would be a great benefit to the polar bears, extending their habitat all the way down to Milwaukee. Maybe global warming means global cooling, or maybe it means global warming. But just right now the global warming computer models are suffering from some embarrassment.
The world stopped warming in 1998. This is wildly inconsistent with the models on which global warming arguments are based. But it gets better. Here is the London Telegraph:
Researchers studying long-term changes in sea temperatures said they now expect a "lull" for up to a decade while natural variations in climate cancel out the increases caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions.
The average temperature of the sea around Europe and North America is expected to cool slightly over the decade while the tropical Pacific remains unchanged.
This would mean that the 0.3°C global average temperature rise which has been predicted for the next decade by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may not happen, according to the paper published in the scientific journal Nature.
However, the effect of rising fossil fuel emissions will mean that warming will accelerate again after 2015 when natural trends in the oceans veer back towards warming, according to the computer model.
So we are in for another ten years of global cooling. Surely the polar bears will be happy about that? Maybe the general climate models are right, and temperatures will soar after 2015. But they are way off when it comes to what is happening now. Are there more surprises in store? Bet on it. That's the way nature works.
I like polar bears as much as the next guy, at least when they aren't dancing with penguins in Coke commercials. When I consider how well-designed they are for life in the white zone, I am filled with admiration. But the claim that they are endangered by global warming is based on pure speculation. Polar bears have survived earlier periods of warming just fine, thank you. We have no way of knowing what is in store for them in the next century.
Besides, are we really going to regulate everything from automobiles to hog manure based on what is might happen to animals living in the arctic a hundred years from now? Maybe we should, be we ain't gonna. When we think about how best to protect polar bears, we have to think locally: what are the conditions now and the threats to them where they live. When we think about global warming we have to think globally. The Endangered Species Act was not designed for that.
Posted by K. Blanchard on Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 12:51 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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One thing you can say for Barack Obama's craven flip flop on the Farm Bill, noted below by Jon Schaff, is that at least you know what Obama is now saying he would do. Having once opposed the atrocious bill, he is all for it now that he has to try to win farm country voters; but I suppose that means that he will vote to override the current President's veto and sign such legislation if he becomes President.
By contrast, a Congress of Talmudic Scholars larger than Obama's pledged delegate count couldn't determine the meaning of his position on negotiating with Iran. Marc Ambinder, blogging at The Atlantic.Com, tries a little exegesis on the Hyde Park Hero's oracular pronouncements.
It's clear now that Obama would not... within the first year of his administration, meet directly with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without "preconditions" and without equivocation. It IS clear that Obama would meet with Ahmadinejad (or Ali Khamenei) without forcing Ahmadinejad (or Ali Khamenei) to provably suspend uranium enrichment. It's also clear that Obama would be more willing to meet with these leaders than McCain.
Obama's campaign now uses the word "with preparation" as shorthand to refer to diplomatic advance work; other advisers use the word "unconditional" as a straw man to suggest that critics are accusing Obama of wanting to meet "unconditionally" with these leaders -- of course their would be "conditions" -- there just wouldn't be "pre-conditions." (Would there be .... post-conditions?)
Ambinder shows in detail that the Obama organization has been utterly incoherent on at least two things: 1) who he would meet with and when he would meet with them, and 2) whether there would be "preconditions" for the meeting, and what sort of conditions these might be.
Why the conceptual stammering? It may be that common problem for politicians: how to take back something you said weren't thinking, without admitting that you weren't thinking or even that you said what you said. But sometimes these gaff-induced tailspins reflect some underlying contradiction that a candidate can neither resolve nor acknowledge. Ambinder puts his finger on this one:
Obama wants to draw a much brighter line between his approach to Iran and North Korea's and the Bush administration's approach to those countries.... A political trap awaits Obama in this sense: how to best distinguish your diplomatic approach from President Bush's.... that requires a very very wide gap between the two approaches ... and how to reassure Americans that Obama does not believe in the messianic power of his own rhetoric and would not be willing to let Iran run roughshod over the United States? That requires a slightly narrower gap. After all, there _are_ low level and mid-level (and even senior level) contacts between Iran and the United States right now; the Bush Administration is negotiating with North Korea.... [my italics].
Obama wanted to show that his approach to these problematic polities would be dramatically different from that of George W. That's why he originally said he would sit down and talk without preconditions. The trouble is, there just aren't a lot of practical policy options available to a President, and the reasonable alternatives differ marginally at best from what the current President is doing.
Obama's critics (including, apparently, President Bush) charged him with advocating appeasement of dictators. That may or may not have been unfair, but it had the affect of showing that Obama's policies will either be wacky (see Jimmy Carter) or they will be pretty much the same as the ones we have now. Whatever this is, it isn't change that we can believe in.
Posted by K. Blanchard on Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 11:36 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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A roundup of Barack Obama gaffes includes his Sioux City / Sioux Falls misstatement.
ALSO: Wasn't John McCain suppose to be the one with the temper problem?
Posted by Jason Heppler on Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 07:42 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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Joe Lieberman: "How did the party of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy drift so far from the foreign policy and national security principles and policies that were at the core of its identity and its purpose? . . . A great Democratic secretary of state, Dean Acheson, once warned 'no people in history have ever survived, who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies.' This is a lesson that today's Democratic Party leaders need to relearn." Read the rest.
Posted by Jason Heppler on Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 07:32 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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George Bush has vetoed the Farm Bill and the House has already voted to override the veto. Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin voted with the majority to override the veto of a bill that the New York Times calls a "disgrace" and the Wall Street Journal calls "shameful." Also, apparently world opinion is against this bill as it undermines WTO talks and puts poor nations at a competitive disadvantage. But who cares, as long as it helps members of Congress and presidential candidates get votes.
Posted by Jon Schaff on Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 06:34 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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I liked this bit from NRO's John Miller:
The new Indiana Jones movie opens tomorrow, and I guess I'm as interested in seeing it as the next overgrown kid. When I was a boy, Raiders of the Lost Ark fired my imagination like no other film. I think I saw it five times in the theater, mostly at the Old Orchard Theater in Farmington Hills, Mich. I don't know how many times I've seen it since then. The John Williams theme song is my ringtone.
For my own kids — or at least their senior member, a 10-year-old boy — I wonder if the two National Treasure movies aren't having the same effect. (National Treasure 2 just came out on DVD.) For movies full of high-spirited adventure and without a moment of vulgarity, they're tough to beat. Their plots are of course ridiculous, but they're also ridiculous fun and they've prompted my kids to ask serious questions about, among other things, the Library of Congress. The movies are also fundamentally patriotic.
So if you want to avoid crowds in the movie theaters this weekend, think about National Treasure. You could do a lot worse.
I heartily endorse Miller's recommendation of the the Indiana Jones movies (of course the first is the best) and the National Treasure films (again, the first is better). Miller's rationale is similar to what motivated my endorsement of Prince Caspian. Caspian is not a great film, but it's a decent adventure story that most of the family can watch (better yet, read the book together). I also recommend one of Prof. Blanchard's favorites, Night at the Museum, for family viewing. It also is funny, quirky, and I don't think there is a single objectionable thing in it (if there is, I missed it).
BTW, there is no question as to my seeing the new Indiana Jones film this weekend. A review is coming.
Posted by Jon Schaff on Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 09:09 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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In the must read of the day, David Brooks is right on in his analysis of the Farm Bill and Barack Obama's cynical support of it. Obama was against the Farm Bill before he was for it. This is so good, I will post a big chunk of it:
The $307 billion farm bill that rolled through Congress is a perfect example of the pattern. Farm net income is up 56 percent over the past two years, yet the farm bill plows subsidies into agribusinesses, thoroughbred breeders and the rest.
The growers of nearly every crop will get more money. Farmers in the top 1 percent of earners qualify for federal payments. Under the legislation, the government will buy sugar for roughly twice the world price and then resell it at an 80 percent loss. Parts of the bill that would have protected wetlands and wildlife habitat were deleted or shrunk.
My colleagues on The Times’s editorial page called the bill “disgraceful.” My former colleagues at The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page ripped it as a “scam.” Yet such is the logic of collective action; the bill is certain to become law. It passed with 81 votes in the Senate and 318 in the House — enough to override President Bush’s coming veto. Nearly everyone in Congress got something.
The question amid this supposed change election is: Who is going to end this sort of thing?
Barack Obama talks about taking on the special interests. This farm bill would have been a perfect opportunity to do so. But Obama supported the bill, just as he supported the 2005 energy bill that was a Christmas tree for the oil and gas industries.
Obama’s support may help him win Iowa, but it will lead to higher global food prices and more hunger in Africa. Moreover, it raises questions about how exactly he expects to bring about the change that he promises.
If elected, Obama’s main opposition will not come from Republicans. It will come from Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill. Already, the Democratic machine is reborn. Lobbyists are now giving 60 percent of their dollars to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The pharmaceutical industry, the defense industry and the financial sector all give more money to Democrats than Republicans. If Obama is actually going to bring about change, he’s going to have to ruffle these sorts of alliances. If he can’t do it in an easy case like the farm bill, will he ever?
John McCain opposed the farm bill. In an impassioned speech on Monday, he declared: “It would be hard to find any single bill that better sums up why so many Americans in both parties are so disappointed in the conduct of their government, and at times so disgusted by it.”
McCain has been in Congress for decades, but he has remained a national rather than a parochial politician. The main axis in his mind is not between Republican and Democrat. It’s between narrow interest and patriotic service. And so it is characteristic that he would oppose a bill that benefits the particular at the expense of the general.
McCain, in an act of political courage we are unlikely to see from Barack Obama, explains his opposition to the Farm Bill here.
I may surprise some people by saying what few presidential candidates would ever be willing to say out loud in farm country: I'd veto the farm bill—a bloated expansion in federal spending that will do more harm than good.
When agricultural commodity prices and exports have reached record highs, we no longer need government-grown farms and mammoth government bureaucracies. As grocery bills soar, food banks go bare and food rationing occurs on a global scale, we must challenge the wisdom of this bill. We must question policies that divert more than 25 percent of corn out of the food supply and into subsidized ethanol production. We must question a supply-control sugar program that costs Americans $2 billion annually in higher sugar prices.
Can we honestly demand fair and free trade from other countries when this bill increases trade distorting payment rates and restores an illegal cotton program? Sen. Barack Obama has raised the rhetoric on fair trade and restoring fiscal discipline, but his support for the farm bill betrays the inconsistency of his position: Cry foul with our trade partners, but break the rules at home.
As they say, read the whole thing.
This is a pattern for Obama. Talk about change, but oppose any real change. Entitlements are crushing the federal budget and dooming future generations, but Obama opposes all but the most minor changes. Energy costs are sucking the money out of family wallets, but Obama proposes no significant change other than the tired old trope of bashing the oil companies. In a desperate move to get the Teamsters' endorsement, Obama favors removing federal oversight of the union even though corruption is still rampant right in Obama's Chicago backyard. Some "change."
But none of this matters. In a new poll Obama is up eight over McCain and the RCP average is 4.5%. Things are so structurally bad for Republicans that it would take a minor miracle for McCain to pull off this win.
If I may draw from the Simpsons monorail song:
Marge: But Mainstreet's still all cracked and broken...
Bart: Sorry mom, the mob has spoken.
Posted by Jon Schaff on Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 08:52 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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I am beginning to suspect that one could predict Obama's support in any state by adding the number of Black voters to the number of white voters who ever owned, or even thought of owning, a lava lamp. Hence Oregon (pronounced Or-ah-gen). With about half the precincts counted, Obama is leading Clinton by a cool 16 points.
But Ms. C got lucky in Kentucky. With 100% of the vote recorded, she once again flattened Obama 65/30%. To put that in perspective, election watchers usually call a margin of 10% or better a landslide. Margins of 20% or better suggest an election that was never really competitive. When one of the candidates is a well-liked incumbent, or the other got caught in a prostitution scandal, that's when you expect such lopsided margins. A victory of 35% usually requires both.
Obama carried Louisville and Lexington-Fayette counties. That's two small bruises on an otherwise solidly Clinton map. By contrast, the exit polls tell us almost nothing, because Ms. Clinton took pretty much every defined group by 60% or more.
Obama has a problem. There a large stretches of territory in these United States where he couldn't be elected sanitation engineer. There is a meme developing to explain this, if not explain it away: call it the Hillbilly meme. You can find a discussion of it at Salon.
In analyzing the returns from last week's West Virginia Democratic primary, a phalanx of reporters and commentators have explained Hillary Clinton's landslide victory by pointing out that West Virginians are a special set of Democrats, white, low income and undereducated. Some, like Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo and Jonathan Tilove of the Newhouse papers, have linked the lackluster performance of Barack Obama in West Virginia to a larger Appalachian problem. ...
The legions of pseudonym-laden online posters who follow in political punditry's wake are less restrained in describing the shortcomings of Sen. Clinton's Appalachian supporters. They suggest it has to do with her voters being racist, toothless, shoeless, and prone to marrying their cousins. In short, they characterize these "special" Democrats in much the same terms they used in quieter times to describe Republicans...
However, the unnerving truth for the erstwhile party of Jefferson may be that Appalachia, for all its legend and lore, is not that different politically from the rest of the small-town and rural parts of the country where 60 million of us live. And that could mean trouble for the fall...
When you look at the earlier aggregate rural vote on Super Tuesday, the preference for Clinton is clearly not confined to Appalachia. Combining the results from 22 diverse states in the Northeast, South, Midwest and West on Feb. 5, Clinton beat Obama 55 percent to 38 percent among rural voters, according to an analysis in DailyYonder.com, the news Web site of the organization I head, the Center for Rural Strategies. Those aren't West Virginia margins, but they aren't close. They shine a light on a vulnerability that Democrats have shared through the last several election cycles.
The reality is that when Democratic candidates run competitively in rural America, they win national elections. And when they get creamed in rural America, they lose. That was Bill Clinton's reality in winning as it was the reality for Al Gore and John Kerry in narrowly losing.
This is the problem that the Democrats face. Their party is divided between hip waders and lava lamps. When some who appeals to the hip waders gets nominated, the lava lamps fall into line. But it doesn't necessarily work in reverse. We might be about to watch the Party of Jefferson once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Posted by K. Blanchard on Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 12:01 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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Marc Ambinder: "In Kentucky, 8 in 10 Clinton voters... say they'd be DISsatisfied if Obama were the nominee; about 60% of Clinton voters in Oregon said the same. MORE Clinton voters in KY say they'd support John McCain than say they'd support Barack Obama."
MEANWHILE: Clinton has achieved another blowout victory over Obama, beating him by thirty-five points in Kentucky.
Posted by Jason Heppler on Tuesday, May 20, 2008 at 09:34 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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The story here:
A cancerous brain tumor caused the seizure Sen. Edward M. Kennedy suffered over the weekend, doctors said Tuesday in a grim diagnosis for one of American politics' most enduring figures. "He remains in good spirits and full of energy," the doctors for the 76-year-old Massachusetts Democrat said in a statement.
They said tests conducted after the seizure showed a tumor in Kennedy's left parietal lobe. Preliminary results from a biopsy of the brain identified the cause of the seizure as a malignant glioma, they said.
His treatment will be decided after more tests but the usual course includes combinations of radiation and chemotherapy.
Kennedy has been hospitalized in Boston since Saturday, when he was airlifted from Cape Cod after a seizure at his home.
Obviously we wish him the best.
Posted by Jon Schaff on Tuesday, May 20, 2008 at 02:57 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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We took in Prince Caspian last night. If you like medieval milieu adventure movies, this film is pretty good but not great. If you are an aficionado of the Narnia stories, you'll likely be disappointed. The film takes serious deviations from the book, some for the better and some for the worse.
I am with Ross Douthat and Thomas Hibbs the the source material for the film provides a challenge for a film maker. C.S. Lewis's book contains long sections of one character simply telling a story. It's hard to make that into a rousing crowd pleasing film. Perhaps the solution is to do what Peter Jackson did in Lord of the Rings, start the film with a summary of the history of the ring, successfully summarizing in a few minutes Gandalf's long story told in the chapter "Shadows of the Past" in The Fellowship of the Ring. Andrew Adamson, director of Prince Caspian, instead chooses to leave the background story out, which results in losing much of the context of the overall story. As Hibbs points out, in the book it is important that Caspian is a lover of "the old things," the history and stories of Narnia, in contrast to his wicked uncle Miraz who finds such things a waste of time. Caspian's preservation of memory and tradition is part of what makes him an attractive character. I wish the movie would have given some consideration to this aspect of the story. This is the one deviation from the book that I find off-putting.
The movie itself has some issues. Ben Barnes as Caspian is a bit of a pretty boy, a runway model in a suit of armor. He lacks the commanding presence of a king, which is what he really is. Overall, all of the younger characters seem nagged by self-doubt and are a bit whiny, falling short of the noble characters of the novel (Edmund is perhaps an exception here). The film lacks the whimsy of the book with my favorite character Reepicheep given a normal voice rather than the squeak that he has in the book. Trumpkin the dwarf is merely grumpy, as opposed to grumpy and silly as he is in the book. A mild romance between Susan and Caspian is frankly stupid. Finally, Aslan is strangely absent in the film, essentially making a cameo appearance.
But I do give the film a mild recommendation. As an action/adventure film, it largely works. Sure, it is a film you've probably seen before, but it is good enough, and most certainly better than most of the dreck coming out of Hollywood. The film has enough action and wonder to hold the viewer's attention. The film does contain themes of faith and bravery that make it edifying, although there is enough violence in the film to make it inappropriate for the smaller children. In short, the film is good enough. Still, read the book as well.
Update: Go here for an excellent summary of reviews more troubled than I am about plot deviations from the book.
Posted by Jon Schaff on Tuesday, May 20, 2008 at 09:18 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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When in Bath, SD last week, Hillary Clinton chastised George Bush and John McCain for favoring a veto of the new Farm Bill passed by Congress. The more one looks into this bill the more that veto seems justified.
The Washington Examiner has been on the job in pointing out some of the more egregious examples of waste in this bill. Here is their Tim Carney:
The Farm Nutrition and Bioenergy Act, which cleared the House on Tuesday 318-106, is a cornucopia of boondoggles, rip-offs and handouts, but perhaps the most inexplicable part is the provision instructing the federal government to buy “surplus” sugar from sugar growers and then sell it to make ethanol. Taxpayers will buy overpriced sugar and then sell it to ethanol makers at an artificially low price — a sweet deal for sugar and ethanol barons, and a raw deal for taxpayers. (snip)
Sugar companies need to be this active politically because their business depends on government regulation and subsidies. The farm bill headed to the White House this week guarantees that 85 percent of all sugar sold in the U.S. will be grown domestically. That means the federal government will fiercely restrict imports from other nations, driving up the price we pay for sugar.
This continues the long-running restrictions on sugar imports, which make our sugar more expensive. In 2007, raw sugar cost $11.60 per pound in the rest of the world, but $20.99 per pound here. Of course this makes our food more expensive.
Finally (actually, there are other sugar subsidies in the farm bill, but too many to list), there is the seemingly Cunningham-inspired sugar-to-ethanol program: The USDA buys “excess sugar” and sells it to ethanol makers — and only ethanol makers. The first problem here is that “excess sugar” means any sugar that sugar growers want to keep off the market to further drive up prices. Second, when the USDA can sell the sugar only to ethanol makers, there’s no way the USDA will get a good price.
The tax payer and consumer gets ripped two ways, by spending almost double the going rate for sugar while then paying out to subsidize ethanol producers (and protecting them from foreign competition). Carney is right. If any private business operated like this people would be going to jail. Talk about a sweet deal.
The editors of the paper also chime in:
There also are inexcusable local-interest flimflams such as a $250 million tax credit for a private land sale in Montana and a provision to “sell” national forest land, necessitating a shifting of the Appalachian Trail, to benefit a Vermont ski resort. Worse -- and this is brand new -- House and Senate negotiators “air-dropped” several expensive provisions into the bill that neither chamber had voted on, including $170 million for salmon fisheries in California. Then there is yet another fuel subsidy, this one for “cellulosic” ethanol, at a five-year cost to taxpayers of $348 million. All of this, at a time when the federal deficit this year is expected to hit $400 billion and the federal debt approaches $9.4 trillion. In short, this bill is so stuffed that it deserves to be named by an agricultural term -- bull, uh, manure.
Speaking of ethanol, David Freddoso calculates that given all the government money from all levels of government spent on ethanol, we could give $44,000 a year to every single person involved in ethanol production, from the farmer to the plant worker to the guy who drives the truck. As it is we spend that much money ($6-$8 billion overall) to produce maybe two days of gas. And that's assuming ethanol is not an net energy loser, which is what some argue.
Posted by Jon Schaff on Tuesday, May 20, 2008 at 08:41 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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I am about two weeks behind in watching ABC's Lost, but my son and I viewed two shows tonight and the old magic is back. I don't know if this is in time to save the show, but I can only hope. The trick in this kind of show is to constantly reveal answers to old questions that consistently raise new ones. The current season is doing that.
Posted by K. Blanchard on Tuesday, May 20, 2008 at 02:04 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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My favorite new American, Christopher Hitchens, has noticed what everyone else has so far ignored: John McCain's proposal to import the British tradition of Question Time to the American system. CNN broadcasts this spectacle of British government. The Prime Minister regularly goes before Parliament to answer questions. It is a very lively affair. If you look up raucous in the dictionary, you might see a picture of the PM standing while all the MP's are shouting.
As Hitchens notes, there is an equivalent in the American system. Executive branch officials must go before Congressional committees to defend themselves and their agencies. But only rarely, when there is a scent of scandal, does this attract much interest. What would it be like if George W. or McCain or Obama had to stand before one chamber and then the other and answer questions? I don't know, and neither do you. One thing is for sure: Congressmen and Senators would have to watch a lot of CNN to figure out how this is done, if ratings are to be sustained.
There is an obvious bit of Constitutional text to hang the proposal on. From ePublius, Article 2, Section 3:
He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.
This is of course the basis of the State of the Union Address. It does bear some superficial resemblance to question time, but without the questions. And that makes all the difference.
McCain's proposal is indeed interesting, and if implemented, it would be wonderful for journalists and political scientists, and dreadful for presidents. The American system largely insulates the President from uncontrolled public conversation. The debates which have become part of the election process currently have little or nothing to do with the actual business of being president. Introducing question time would change the requirements of office. Bill Clinton would have been very good at it. George W. would be so bad he would probably refuse to show up.
I think it very unlikely that McCain's proposal will be acted on. But as a political scientist, I am all for it.
Posted by K. Blanchard on Tuesday, May 20, 2008 at 01:50 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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Andrew Malcolm: "A week after his 57-state remark, Obama puts himself in the wrong city."
Posted by Jason Heppler on Monday, May 19, 2008 at 10:17 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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I have nothing to say on the California gay marriage decision that has not been said better by someone else, namely by Rod Dreher and Patrick Deneen. How about some Deneen:
To my mind, what's most striking about the Court's decision is the language of the inviolability of "individual liberty and personal autonomy." These are the legal and Constitutional grounds on which a decision about the basis of marriage are being grounded. On the basis of such grounds, can there really be marriage at all, at least in a form that is worthy of defense? Aren't we really talking about an advantaged tax and property arrangement, one that can and should be altered at the will and inclination of the individual's "liberty and autonomy"? It is really nothing other than the contractual partnership defended in Locke's Second Treatise, sans the children (or at least conceived by the couple in question). And doesn't it permit any possible form of coupling, including ones not limited to couples (e.g., polygamy, etc., between consenting adults?)
Ah, the joys of "individual liberty and personal autonomy." Family and local community find themselves eviscerated by an ideology and as a consequence the isolated and weakened individual turns to the only means of collective action with any legitimacy, the state. This is how libertarianism ushers in the omnipresent state, demolishing the very liberty that gives the libertarians their label.
Posted by Jon Schaff on Monday, May 19, 2008 at 03:41 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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Social Security is the cornerstone of our social welfare state, giving a safety net to older Americans, as well as paying out disability and survivors benefits. Yet Social Security is in deep financial trouble. You know the story. In about ten years the amount of the Social Security trust fund begins to decrease. In about twenty years payments out of Social Security will out strip its receipts. But there is a trust fund to live off of for about ten years, so it is thirty years out that we can no longer maintain Social Security.
This problem is caused by various factors. First, we live longer than ever. Life expectancy now reaches close to 80 years old. But that includes those who die young. If you make it to 65 you will likely see 85 and beyond. So most people who begin to collect Social Security get out more than they ever put in. So how do we make up the difference? By taxing the young. But we have fewer young people working for each person drawing Social Security benefits. When the program was instituted it was about 15:1. Now it is 3:1 and soon will be 2:1. Also, the formula used to calculate the Social Security cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) is wrong: it actually over estimates the rise in cost of living thus causing benefits to rise faster than inflation. Finally, and worst of all, the Social Security trust fund is largely an accounting gimmick. Much of it has already been spent on other items. The Social Security "surplus" then consists of the various other parts of government "owing" the Social Security Administration money, which as a matter of accounting the SSA counts as an asset. The problem is, of course, that the non-Social Security spending and the Social Security spending all come from the same source: you and me. We will have to be taxed into oblivion to keep up with the increase in benefits. This is why we are heading for disaster regarding Social Security and every knows it, or should.
This is also why Barack Obama is so irresponsible (and characteristically so) with his latest attack on John McCain, claiming McCain will cut benefits on seniors. The practitioner of the "new politics" goes to the old playbook. Rather than leading on Social Security, Obama chooses to demagogue on it, scaring seniors in order to gain votes while offering no solutions to a serious problem. One common sense solution is to raise the retirement age. But Obama is against that. Another is to recalculate the COLA so it is more accurate. But Obama is against that. Famously George Bush advocated moving to private accounts. But Obama is against that. In short Obama is for nothing but against everything. This is the smart political move. To advocate any change would cause some persons pain and that might cost Obama votes. So it looks like the practitioner of the "politics of change" actually just wants the status quo as long as it gets him votes. And we can let our children and grandchildren fend for themselves. This is similar to the Democrats' policy on energy: beat up on the oil companies and give more money for ethanol because while neither of those policies increase supply or reduce demand or does anything to move toward energy independence, they do get votes and that is what is important.
While Obama sometimes does not know what city he is in, as of January he will probably be pretty sure of his address: 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Let us hope that he governs better than he campaigns. His so-called new politics really is the old. Make a bunch of promises you can't keep and offer no solution to any thorny problem because you don't want to lose any votes. It's irresponsible, but it is probably a winning strategy.
Posted by Jon Schaff on Monday, May 19, 2008 at 08:48 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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I spent the last several days discussing bioethics in New Orleans. That, and eating crawfish etouffee. I managed to catch some 'Nawlins style jazz at a small club that I won't name because it was hard enough to get a seat. I also made it by the Louisiana Music Factory, a little record store on Decatur Street in the Quarter. If you want to sound like a local when you visit the Big Easy, don't say "French Quarter," just say "the Quarter." The Music Factory looks like a mushroom growing on one of the downed logs of history: old wood, aging hippies behind the counter, and creaking stairs. When I was there they had a quartet, the Blues News, belting out Delta blues like nobody's business. The harmonica player was three kinds of good, but don't call it a harmonica when you get there, or even a blues harp; just call it a "harp".
Upstairs is where they keep the jazz discs. It's not a big collection, but whoever stocks it knows what he is about. If there are two discs hiding behind the piece of plastic labeled "Eric Dolphy," they will be his two most celebrated documents. It was a jazz nerds idea of a good afternoon to comb through those stacks. Just before the Blues News tuned up, they guy behind the counter put on a disc and then went out to smoke in the soft rain. It was entrancing. It was also used, and a bargain at $6.95.
I have been relying heavily on the Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings, but at about 1500 pages it is anything but portable. So I couldn't look up Ike Quebec (pronounced Kyoo-beck), whom I had never heard of. But hearing is believing, and besides he had Grant Green on guitar, Paul Chambers on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums. That is company that connects him with Miles Davis across the lines of jazz.
The disc was Blue & Sentimental, a very accurate title. It is very soft and sweet, playing Green's sharply punctuated notes against Quebec's sprawling, romantic, tenor. I found it just the right container for my memories of Decatur Street.
Ike Quebec was born in 1918 and died forty-five years later of lung cancer and the charms of heroin. If I hadn't heard of him, it wasn't for lack of Quebec revivals. He has been rediscovered several times, I learn, only to fade again. He killed himself off before he could leave a substantial body of work. But Blue & Sentimental is fine jazz. Listen to it on your iPod as you walk down Decatur toward the Cafe Du Monde. Maybe all true stories are sad, maybe not. But if you can't enjoy being blue and sentimental in New Orleans, you have come to the wrong place.
Posted by K. Blanchard on Monday, May 19, 2008 at 02:26 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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I am on record as favoring homosexual marriage, a position that puts me at odds with many of my conservative friends and especially with religiously motivated conservatives. I favor the extension of the ancient institution to cover this new case primarily on two grounds.
Some Gay activists (Andrew Sullivan comes to mind) argue that marriage will help foster a culture of responsibility among male homosexuals. I have my doubts; however, this was precisely one of the benefits of traditional marriage, and if one believes in the institution, as I do, it makes sense to see if it will work its magic once again. So long as marriage is understood as a relationship of mutual responsibilities, backed up by the recognition of the state, then I think the growth of a marriage culture among Gay Americans gives them a stake the institution. That will strengthen marriage.
Second, I think that many homosexual couples have relationships that function exactly as a marriage does for heterosexual couples. It is a matter of common decency for the state to recognize that each partner in a same sex couple be able to have the same rights of medical consent for one another as a husband and a wife do. The creation of alternatives to marriage like civil unions, etc., weakens marriage.
That said, I am also opposed to judges writing their political preferences into constitutions. I am no authority on the Constitution of the State of California, but I very much doubt whether it requires Gay marriage. I know that the U.S. Constitution does not. For contrary to what my esteemed Keloland colleague Cory Heidelberger says, laws restricting marriage to relationship between a woman and a man does not treat homosexuals differently "just because they're different." It treats homosexuals the same because they are the same. In South Dakota a homosexual man cannot marry another man, but neither can a heterosexual man. Both of them are equally entitled to marry a woman. Whatever may be wrong with a law that treats everyone the same way, it can't be inequality.
Proponents of Gay marriage liken it to interracial marriage, but again the logic is all wrong. Laws against miscegenation were intended to prevent the "commingling" of the races, so to keep them as segregated as possible. Laws which do not allow men to marry other men would be more like a law which did not allow a Black American to marry within his or her race. Gay marriage would make it easier for homosexuals to form discrete and insular communities, if they are of a mind to do so. Whatever may be wrong with laws that do not allow sex marriage, it can't be segregation.
Marriage laws always involve discrimination. They discriminate against a person who want to marry someone who is too young. They do not allow a person to marry his sister, or mother. What about second cousins? That's a judgment call. Marriage laws in the United States do not allow any two people to marry a third, no matter how much the trio may want it. Beyond the second case mentioned above, constitutions provide no guidance. If you want Gay marriage, maybe to way to get it is to persuade your fellow citizens that it is good policy.
Posted by K. Blanchard on Monday, May 19, 2008 at 01:13 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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