8 posts tagged “news & politics”
Overall, McCain was better than I thought he'd be. He certainly connected better, especially at the end, on an emotional level, a la Reagan. Ethos and pathos missing, for the third Presidential election in a row, from the Democrat.
The Wall Street meltdown and bail-out have taken wind out of Obama's sails. Hard to communicate hope and optimism when people feel we might be going to hell in a wheelbarrow.
McCain's "freeze spending" sounded pretty strong. (it was a solid answer in the context of ten minutes of mush).
It will be interesting to see what sound bites get replayed over the next few days. Obama's "you were wrong . . .you were wrong . . . was the nicest rhetorical flourish of the debate, but was too brief.
The fact-checking will matter, and benefit Obama slightly.
I wondered during the Democratic convention where Obama put his appeal to young people. Still wondering.
Boxing metaphor: a draw, Obama sure-footed, but fought not to lose. Even scoring on two cards, McCain gets extra point on third card from old Jewish lady in Fort Lauderdale on the Iran exchange and experience. (Old Jewish ladies in Fort Lauderdale are much more important than they should be in these election things.)
Both candidates are unsure of what to say about the economy. Election begs a plan.
Football: at the beginning of the fourth quarter, McCain is back to within a field goal, out of time outs.
Two more debates. Lots of commercials. And Palin. McCain still has a ways to go.
I am in the teaching and learning business, specifically the public policy teaching and learning business, and there's one thing I can tell you: real learning takes some time. You can't skip steps.
Time-for-learning norms have, in fact, developed over hundreds of years. There is a reason that university students only take between four and six classes at a time, and why it takes a quarter or semester per course. There is only so much a mind can take in, hold on to, and apply correctly.
As anyone knows, if a student wants to specialize or major in, say, international relations, she takes an introductory course with a series of lectures, readings, written assignments, and discussions, followed by five to ten courses like it, depending on the level or the degree. At the higher end, she might take a course, titled, say, "American Foreign Policy from Reagan to Clinton," which has prerequisites to assure ability to master of the myriad contexts one needs to analyze so complex a topic.
All in all, it's at least a two-to-four year process, depending on the degree, before a university will say, "OK, you know what you are talking about, we'll certify that."
Learning, of course, can be accelerated, especially in subjects like languages, where memorization and repetition are the main requirements, or in mathematical or technical topics where the learning is linear and unambiguous. But in fields like international relations, where there is ambiguity and depth and a range of views in a big old goofy world, not so much. There are, naturally, other ways of learning something like international relations; one can become a national legislator or a news reporter and travel around, read, observe, and learn from experts. But that, too, takes time before expertise is achieved. Educators use words like internalize and synthesize to describe the learning process. The point is: the real learning of complicated stuff takes time.
Governor Sarah Palin is sort of enrolled in a crash course called John McCain's Domestic and Foreign Policies. It's a high level, specialized course, with unique norms of truthiness, that still requires grounding in history, economics, public policy, and political philosophy. It isn't easy; even John McCain seems to be having trouble with it. And not only does Governor Palin have to learn it, she simultaneously has to teach it .
Last night, Governor Palin came off as an undergraduate with a patchwork grounding in the subject matter, about two weeks into a course, a little lost, trying to fake her way through her first round of questioning by a smart professor who didn't want to humiliate her or come off as a bully himself.
It is inconceivable to me that she is going to be able to get up to speed for more interviews that build on that one, or for her debate with Senator Biden, or, gulp, to be leader of the free world at any point in the next two years. Talking points, off topic, just aren't going to cut it.
I sorta feel bad for her. I think she is beginning to realize she is in over her head. It's not like she is Matt Cassell taking the place of Tom Brady this weekend. They can't just simplify the playbook or go to the run. She is Sarah Palin and what she really knows and understands, alone, up in front of the world.
It is going to be for Governor Palin as it was for a friend of mine, Aaron, when he appeared on Jeopardy. As the houselights went down and they started counting down to the entrance of Alex Trebeck, Aaron said, "suddenly my brain was trying to think of everything I've ever known at the same time, then pose it all in questions." Aaron (Wesleyan, Yale) lasted two rounds and got a trip to Australia. I'm afraid that Governor Palin (Hawaii Pacific College, Northern Idaho College, University of Idaho, Matanuska-Susitna College, and back to Idaho) will suffer the same sensation Aaron did, but is unlikely to do as well when the questions start.
You can't skip steps.
"I grew up in a very segregated South. And I think that you have to cut some slack . . . I'm probably the only conservative in America who's going to say something like this, but I'm just telling you. We've got to cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told you have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie; you have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant and you can't sit out there with everyone else; there's a separate waiting room in the doctor's office; here's where you sit on the bus. And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment and you have to just say, I probably would too. I probably would too. In fact, I may have had a more, more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me."
- Mike Huckabee
"America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from
Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40
million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.
Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.
Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.
Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks — with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas — to advance black applicants over white applicants.
Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.
We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?"
-Pat Buchanan
Ain't that America . . ..maybe Barack Obama should have closed last week's speech: "We've come to the end of our time. Perhaps we can continue this conversation next week where we left off."
One of the most interesting things to me about a Barack Obama presidency is that he would bring with him, as an African American, an internalized awareness of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s indignation and anger. It’s real stuff. It is shared in some measure by many if not most African Americans for good, historical reasons. And having a little of it in the White House would be good for the country.
There’s no reason to believe that Rev. Wright’s indignation is central to Obama’s politics or that it would guide his policies in a profound way. But Obama is, after all, African American. Historical anger is part of the intellectual, religious and political waters in which he learned to swim, and it is a part of the American story that has never before been directly represented in the White House.
Among generally tolerant and sensible people, many feminists I know have been known to enjoy a sip of bell hooks or Andrea Dworkin. Most environmentalists have a soft spot for Greenpeace pirates, tree sitters, and SUV burners. I have heard moderate Jewish friends come to the defense of Meir Kahane in debates, as I, an Irish Catholic, have gone out of my way to hear what Gerry Adams had to say. Whenever I see a picture of Fidel Castro, whom I know to be a tyrant, I can't help humming a wry chorus of Elton John's "I'm Still Standing." It’s the way we are. Radical sympathies aren’t a bad thing. Like a classical cellist who listens to gangsta on the bus, isn’t there a little radical voice in all of us, a Henry David Thoreau who calls us on our mundane, compromised existences and says “Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty,” and shakes us up a little bit?
It seems to me that’s the jolt Barack Obama got in church from Jeremiah Wright. Good politicians are very absorbent. They listen all the time and pick up on people’s hopes and fears, loves and angers. I am reading a biography of the legendary California politician, Jesse Unruh, by former newsman Bill Boyarski. Of Unruh, Boyarski writes, “He had the curiosity of a good reporter plus an economist’s belief in data. He also listened to political gossip and solicited advice from many people. On some Sundays he’d drop in on his nephew Paul, by then a blue-collar aerospace worker, and talk politics. He made his judgments based on such information, interpreted through his won experiences in life.” Among those experiences, he carried with him the resentment that comes with the humiliation of having been raised in poverty. Unruh was a moderate, who was capable of outrageously boorish behavior against women, but inside he was still a kid who once got into a fight with his friends when they threw a Black kid into a privy. When he got his chance, he carried California's early, landmark Fair Housing Law through the state legislature.
And had Unruh been Black, he would have gone to the church of his folks as well and absorbed the railing anger and urban legends of the Black political pulpit along with the music and the spirit. Without it, he would have been lacking something in the representation game.
I think that Barack Obama has been writing the speech he gave today for thirty years. At some point in the campaign he knew he’d have to deliver it. Better during the Democratic primary because he knows the Republicans most likely have some ugly Willie Horton via Rev. Wright waiting for him--with a nastiness that even Mark Penn is incapable of. But now, he’s disarmed them. He put Wright and race in perspective and he can move on. He has a spotlight now for his views on the economic mess and Iraq. And he’ll use it with a chorus of teachers and writers inside of him, Harvard Law professors, Saul Alinsky disciples, Rev. Wright and Ralph Ellison, radicals and moderates, daring and tentative, left and right, people he's met and listened to along the way--a chorus I tell ya.
“These people are a part of me,” he said today. “And they are part of America, this country that I love.”
And they might all be headed for the White House.
Happy St. Paddy's Day, O'bama
An email from one of my sisters came in this morning.
Hey mr.,mr.
Bill's son in Europe is inundating us with info that the 9/11 attacks were a US conspiracy, we planted bombs in the buildings or something. I've mentioned that ALL the air traffic controllers would have had to be IN on the plan, to no avail, these conspiracy people are hell bent (like Rosie O'Donnell). Any sites or info you've come across to help us to send to him?
As it happens, I recently ran into somone else who seemed normal and smart enough until he brought up 9-11 and headed down the conspiracy path. It was a frustrating conversation that led to a truly drastic and desperate act on my part: I paid my tab and slipped out of the pub.
So this time, inspired by that wonderful feeling one gets when an older sibling, with whom I remember watching this live, asks me to help her with her homework, I responded:
"
Ah yes,
One of the things I have learned from working with undergraduates and hanging out in bars is that it is pretty much impossible to score even a point with a conspiracy theorist let alone win an argument. And for a while in college I was pretty passionate about conspiracy theories around the Kennedy assassination, so I understand a bit. As we mature and grow older we start to realize that the sustained level of competence, loyalty, and secretiveness among a lot of players to actually make one of these conspiracies work is pretty much impossible among human beings. In this case, would the planning have been done by same huge US government cabal who planned the reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan? Right. No, it had to be done by a very small group of people, indeed there is evidence that a number of the hijackers, who weren't the pilots, didn't know the end game when they got on the planes, just their individual roles. They may have assumed this would be a hijacking and hostage operation. That would have made sense both interms of secrecy and sanity.
There is a good explanation of the conspiracy impulse in the Wikipedia 9-11 page:
"Critics of these conspiracy theories say they are a form of conspiracy common throughout history after a traumatic event in which conspiracy theories emerge as a mythic form of explanation (Barkun, 2003). A related criticism addresses the form of research on which the theories are based. Thomas W. Eagar, an engineering professor at MIT, suggested they "use the 'reverse scientific method'. They determine what happened, throw out all the data that doesn't fit their conclusion, and then hail their findings as the only possible conclusion."[165] Eagar's criticisms also exemplify a common stance that the theories are best ignored. "I've told people that if the argument gets too mainstream, I'll engage in the debate." This, he continues, happened when Steve Jones took up the issue. The basic assumption is that conspiracy theories emerge a set of previously held or quickly assembled beliefs about how society works, which are then legitimized by further "research". Taking such beliefs seriously, even if only to criticize them, it is argued, merely grants them further legitimacy."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_conspiracy_theories
Still the best and most clearly written summation was put together by, of all people, Popular Mechanics. http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html Scientific American did a report too. On a personal note, I am an old friend of the executive director of the 9-11 commission, Phil Zelikow. A long time ago I helped a bit to get him elected to the Acton (MA) School committee, and rode the train with him. Phil would have to have been a very key player in inventing the lie for history. He's smart, but he's not that smart. No one is. All for now, Billy warning, Penn Gillette uses swear words.
Not to say that there isn't good reason for paranoia:
Which brings me to the real point of this post, a fond good-bye to William F. Buckley. I always had a soft spot for him. And of course he was a sailor. Once upon a time children, there was intelligence and civility in public affairs television. This is from 1969. It's a little long, but you'll be smarter for watching it, not to mention a little spooked by its relevance.
This challenge by Barack Obama might just be what Hillary Clinton needs to be an effective president. If Sen. Clinton is to be president--although it is very possible that Barack Obama will surge just enough, and just enough, into March, to prevail--she will start the job on day one with a full realization that, in order to count on a base of political support among Democrats and educated independents, she has to pursue peace in Iraq aggressively, be comfortable and confident in her own skin, connect her inner beliefs to her public policy agenda, and work to persuade a heterogeneous slice of the country that we need both a fettered market and a strong government to secure fair access to health care, protection from poverty, continuous opportunities for education and improvement, and, most of all, an ethos of public responsibility for the public good, even if it is expensive, as the nation has previously and successfully provided itself in its worst of times.
There are about 90,000 homeless people in Los Angeles County, and about 2800 of them are living in Santa Monica. About 280 of those homeless in Santa Monica are military veterans, and a lot of them seem to be in the very worst shape. On Sunday, between rain showers, I took a walk down to the park, The Palisades, which is on the cliffs overlooking the beach and Santa Monica Bay. On the ground, I found a service medal. It was a Bronze Star, which is the next step up from a Purple Heart. There was nobody around. A Bronze Star, in the dirt, in the park.
Randi knows the Santa Monica policeman who oversees the homeless. She's going to take it to him. Maybe he'll bring it by to a park ranger. Maybe somebody is looking for it.Maybe not. Sad either way.
Peter the Bear holds court at The Shack most nights of the week, whether he’s drinking or not, in a good mood or not, full of mischief or not. We call him Bear because he is built like one. Kids think he looks like Santa Claus, because he does. Bear moved to Santa Monica many years ago from New Zealand. He’s still hard for many to understand, but once you realize you’re conversing with a deceptively smart unambiguous mammal barking obscure but deadly accurate references in New Zelandian, it gets clear; or as clear as clear is at any moment to the regulars who circulate through the Shack, Sonny’s, The Escobar, or a half dozen drinkeries in the blocks toward the beach.
It’s true, the closer you get to salt water, the the better the imbibing, with pilsner poets doing their best and worst thinking--particularly in the invention of reasons to stay put--in seaside pubs. And along the coast of California, there’s a special Mack and the Boys quality out of Cannery Row --“son’s a bitches, saints and angels and holy men”-- among the regulars who perch beneath neon Budweiser surfboards, Dodgers losing on TV, and Pat Benetar blaring from the ceiling suspended speaker boxes. But they are for another story. For now you just have to know Peter. Well almost.
Today was commencement day at UCLA. We were all talking. Peter was, as usual, working the daily crossword with an ear out for anything that might piss him off. Big Pat, who pisses Peter off for sport, had just left his stool to report to work on the other side of the bar across the street. A few stools down, Ed and Doc were waiting for Jesse the Snake, a young intense actor they befriended for his ability to absorb Ed’s unrelenting needling. And Ed needles; once he gets rolling he won’t let his miserable victim get to less than a quarter pint down--for hours. This is how Jesse keeps his pint full for free; as well as why Eddie named him The Snake. Among the guiltless, codependence is an art form.
Jesse the Snake’s real name is Jesse Berns, or at least that is his acting name as it appeared this morning on page E16 of the LATimes, in a four-paragraph review of “Dog Lover’s Symphony” in which Jesse stars as a young parolee who falls in love with a sexy lawyer, over something to do with dogs. Jesse had invited Eddie and Doc to attend the premier that evening, which might have been a risky choice -- except that the movie, which is narrated by a dog (always an even riskier choice) was described thusly: “. . .the film is so off on all fronts it is a chicken and egg conundrum trying to pinpoint specific problems . . . By the time the film’s left-field conclusion drops, involving temporary resurrection and a check for $10 million, the only suitable ending for such a stinker involves a twist-and-tie and a baggie.”
Clearly Ed and Doc would be the perfect premier escorts. Just as clearly, this particular premier, to be attended in the company of Jesse the Star, demanded very special mental preparation, in which Ed and Doc were seriously engaged and had been for some time, which led to my conversation with Peter.
As I said, today was commencement Day at UCLA. I was master of ceremonies for the School of Public Affairs, which graduated 200 or so master’s students in social work, urban planning, and public policy along with a handful of PhD’s and a smattering of undergraduate minors in the fields. Commencements are wonderful rituals: the regalia, the black robes with the colorful felts and satins of the hoods, the families slowly walking wide-eyed with cameras at the ready, the smartness of it all, and, seemingly everywhere, pretty girls in light summer dresses. The ceremonies follow a kind of shared liturgy, with faculty and guest speakers called upon to freshen up ancient platitudes with references to the always new events and challenges of the day. Ours featured a soon-to-be-retired local political icon, remarks by an associate dean, four student speeches, not to mention my narration (only as dogs are not allowed to narrate commencements as they may soon be banned from doing in films).
The politician opened with an enthusiastic report that, thanks to her and a few others, Los Angeles would soon get a new professional football team. The graduates, uniformly underwhelmed by that notion, were represented by their selected peers who spoke of commitment, hard work, idealism, their challenge of staying committed while broke, and one, from urban planning, who chanted for militant resistance against, as near as I could tell, commencement planners and some indiscernible forces that control them.
The associate dean thanked the parents, families, and friends for their support of the graduates, and I added a few minor things and a brief tribute to a recently deceased beloved faculty member. We recessed into the sun, shook hands, and posed for pictures, and all agreed it was a wonderful commencement.
What struck me after, I said to the Bear, is that not one of us--not the politician, the four students, the dean, nor I, mentioned the word Iraq, or the war. Not out of criticism, reflection, nor reverence. Not a word, in a school of public policy’s commencement in June of 2006. Not a word on the very day that, as reported on Morning Edition, listened to on the way in, the 2,500th American died in combat.
It wasn’t by any design or forethought. We all wrote our little updates separately. But when we all spoke, the war went unspoken.
Peter the Bear, in his usual regalia of Corona t-shirt, shorts and sandals, drew himself up on his stool and lifted his white bearded chin. “Of course not,” he barked. “It’s a bloody, stupid war.
“You’re all up there in the university in your bloody robes and whatnot, and you don’t have to worry about it. It’s being fought by bloody mercenaries and your conscripts, no matter where they’re from or say they’re from--they all are.”
Peter, the ex-pat Kiwi cross worder, reads the paper and watches the TV news nightly under the Elvis swinging hips clock. He listens for things that piss him off. He knows what people aren’t talking about in places where they talk about damn near anything, even a movie narrated by a dog; places like seaside saloons and universities, among the knowing, where our distant war is hardly mentioned.
