Not Funny

This cartoon is considerably more creepy than what is normally published in the New Yorker. It was sort of unfortunate that I read it the morning after I saw this story.

And while I'm at it, this cartoon isn't funny at all. I don't know what it is about prison rape that sends people into fits of giggles, but you'd think the editors of the New Yorker would have better taste than that. Making fun of Polish names? "We just don't publish that kind of thing." But, condemning American citizens to serial rape? That's comedy gold.

Embarrassing

Over the course of this year, the Oberlin College Republicans have, as part of the "Ronald Reagan Lecture Series" hosted, among others, a climatologist to challenge global warming orthodoxies, a woman to discuss the failures of feminism, and a black guy to discuss the end of affirmative action. Yesterday's speaker, given this hilariously transparent MO, was not particularly surprising, but they made a mockery of themselves in a way I wouldn't really have though possible. On Tuesday May 1st, the Republicans hosted a speaker of Mexican descent who discussed immigration reform. What's the big deal, you ask? The big deal is that they titled it:

"An Evening with a Mexican-American: Essentials of Real Immigration Reform."

Are you fucking kidding me? An evening with a Mexican American? It's like they don't want to be taken seriously. I guess it's kind of brilliant because you can't ridicule something if its title is so mindbendingly stupid it leaves you speechless.

Vetoed

The President vetoed a bill that I don't really understand last week, but it at least made gestures at getting the US out of Iraq. There's now something of a standstill, in which Congress needs to either defund the troops, which no one seems to want, or pass some sort of bill that the President will sign. John Edwards is asking for money to run an anti-war ad directed at Congress in DC, and John Kerry has a great diary at DailyKos already thinking ahead to targeting key Republicans in '08.

Congressional tactics are very very complicated, especially to the extent they intersect with procedural matters, but I think the thing to do is to pass a bill that funds the troops for 2-3 months. When the President comes back to ask for more, pass the bill he just vetoed, or a stricter one. If he vetoes that, give him funding for another short period of time. Right now we just don't have the votes to end the war, but its sure not getting any more popular. If Pelosi makes the Republicans vote to stay in Iraq and support Bush every 2 months until November of 2008, they will have a worse election then than they did in 06. Either that, or sometime between now and then we will see major Republican defections, big intra-party clashes, and hopefully an earlier (but long overdue) end to the American involvement in the disaster in Iraq.

In which I agree with Mitt Romney

and disagree with liberal bloggers. There's been some fuss, like this post at TPM, that Mitt Romney said it probably wasn't worth it to expend a huge effort to capture Osama Bin Laden. Apparently, the responsible thing for the media to do would have been to flip a collective shit and destroy the man without ever analyzing the value of his statement. It's undoubtedly true, and unfair, that Nancy Pelosi would have gotten this treatment. But Romney happens to be right, so its a good thing it didn't happen. Capturing Osama Bin Laden would accomplish approximately nothing. People would feel slightly better about 9/11, perhaps. We might or might not embarrass ourselves by botching his trial, a la Hussein. The world and country would be not at all safer. I would rather, to use Romney's words, be "moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars" to do things that will actually protect America, as opposed to make good headlines. I'm all for criticizing the media when they obsess over offhand comments by Democrats that are poorly phrased but basically true, but that's because I want the media to be good, not because I want them to be equally bad to everybody.

Gravel for President

The first primary debate was tonight, and Mike Gravel stole the show. Tell your friends. Join the Facebook group. Volunteer. My guess is his performance in South Carolina tonight will catapult his name recognition into the high single digits.

His most memorable assertion was that, and I'm paraphrasing here, running for President is like being in the Senate. The first day you walk in and you think, "wow, how did I make it here?" The third day you ask yourself, "How did all of these guys!?"

Terrorist attack on US soil narrowly averted

Or at least, you'd expect the headlines to say that. In actuality, you can't find this story using Google News at all if you include variations on the word terrorism in your search.

One of the obvious problems with the media reporting on "Islamic terrorism" is that if you define everything bad Muslims do (buying cell phones) and nothing Christians do (murdering civilians with IEDs) as terrorism, it suddenly seems like Islamic terrorism is an awfully big problem.

Really?

Via John, an article on building giant skyscraper farms to feed the world's cities. This is exactly the kind of technology reporting that I can't stand. It's really common in magazines like Discover (which I love.) They uncritically report on cool ideas that range from totally impossible to very unlikely except under extraordinary conditions and claim that they'll... solve global warming!

The building/farm is supposed to do all sorts of fancy things. It'll generate energy through 1) a photo voltaic collector that will presumably turn the electricity into light. This is obviously less efficient than just letting the light hit the plants, and so will presumably not even power one story of this 50 story building. 2) The building will collect wind power, which is pretty sweet, but I can't imagine it will reliably generate power for light for all 50 stories of the building. 3) The non-edible plant waste will be used to generate power. That's awesome, but the energy in the plant waste had to come from light the plants absorbed, so that's only an efficiency improvement, and certainly isn't an energy source. Yet the article suggests that this building is going to produce more energy than it consumes. 4) Everything will be organic. How? Because it said so! 5) Even though all of the unused plant waste is being removed to make fuel, it won't need fertilizers. Why not? Because it said so! Right there in the first page of the article.

There's a lot of cool stuff in there with really interesting implications for urban design, but pardon me if I roll my eyes when I read the article. I'd love to see buildings using solar and wind power, purifying sewage, collecting rain water, and using energy and space efficient design, but I'll believe in the magical energy and water and food producing organic building when I see it in Manhattan.

Amnestwhat?

Kind of a weird Times article. It's all about how Giuliani has turned away from his pro-immigrant views now that he's running for president. That should surprise exactly no one, since, as far as I can tell, playing on fears of Blacks and Arabs is already shaping up to be a centerpiece of his electoral strategy. Why not the Mexicans too, right? On the other hand, when you read what he says by the end of the article, it just doesn't sound that bad.

pg. 1: "And while he once pushed policies like providing schooling for the children of illegal immigrants by saying, “The reality is that they are here, and they’re going to remain here,” now he emphasizes denying amnesty."

pg. 2: "These days, when he says he opposes amnesty, Mr. Giuliani says he does not mean that the millions of people here illegally should be deported, but rather, that they should have to earn their citizenship and that nothing should be accorded automatically."

I'm a big fan of the kind of not-amnesty that involves a path to citizenship without deportation or prosecution.

And you look like one, too

Hey, it turns out Chimpanzees are smarter than us, at least at some stuff. Which means when they decide to force billions of us into concentration camps where they sever our limbs without anesthetics, restrict our free movement, sensory stimuli and social interaction, leave us in piles of our own feces, give us feed that makes our stomachs swell and rupture and then kill and consume us, it'll be totally fine. You know, because you're allowed to do that to animals that aren't as good at arbitrary mental tasks. Right?

I'm a Republican

I wasn't old enough to vote against mayor Mike Bloomberg in '00 or '04, but after reading today's Times, I can say that I would happily support him in '08 if he could run again. The guy has always seemed competent, only about an eighth as obnoxious as Giuliani, and generally interested in doing well for the city. My three major complaints have been that he 1) has deeply flawed views on education, 2) wasn't willing to stick his neck out and turn NYC into a truly green city and 3) is a Republican.

Well, I still don't buy into the small school education philosophy, though that's a post for another day. But he has fought as hard as anyone to get the city our fair share of education funds, and for that I applaud him.

Today we learn that he's pushing for a massive environmental/developmental package that could reshape the city. NYC could and should be the most environmentally friendly city on the planet, and a model for living in the post-fossil fuel world. This (especially the congestion pricing!) is a great first step, and it will be illuminating to see who lines up in support. Were I registered to vote in NY, the position of the candidates for mayor and for local office on this issue in would probably determine my vote more than anything else.

On the other hand, he's still a Republican. I feel dirty complimenting him, so I'll have to go shower now.

Good news!

Apparently, things are going pretty darn well in the conservative blogosphere. Just head on over to Instapundit.com and see what's happening: Reynold's deftly disposes of the strongest arguments from the most cherished and respected members of the Democratic establishment in such posts as "a response to Rosie O'Donnell" and "More Celebrity Global Warming Hypocrisy." Take that, Senator John Travolta!

But that's not all. If you thought that the White House firing public servants in order to influence Federal corruption investigations was a big deal, wait until you hear about Sandy Berger! And if a three year old non-scandal doesn't interest you, don't lose faith, because the conservative blogs are hard at work fabricating a new one. The "Dianne Feinstein Scandal" has apparently been so well covered up that no one can even find any evidence of wrong doing! Just wait until the Mainstream Media gets a whiff of that.

I almost (but only almost) feel bad for them.

Howard who?

Peter Suderman at the Corner has apparently never heard of Howard Dean. His interest is piqued by the idea that engaged citizens might actually organize outside of a traditional campaign structure and... well, God only knows what might happen.

"But the prospect that popular political ad campaigns might no longer be officially approved leads to all sorts of interesting possibilities. How does a campaign control its message when independent parties are out there working without oversight? What happens when an election is won even partly on the basis of an ad that a candidate didn't create or approve? My inner 13 year old boy is extremely curious."

It makes sense that his inner 13 year old might be curious, given that when Peter was 13 a campaign for the Democratic nomination hadn't yet been run on exactly the principles he's talking about. But it is pretty amusing that the grown-up conservatives are just noticing this crazy phenomenon now.

Edwards still in

Elizabeth Edwards' cancer has returned. The campaign will continue. She looks and says she feels fine. Best wishes to them.

A Toe for a Toe

I just read a super interesting article in the Times on the development or evolution of morality in primates. Often using words like morality confuses things a fair amount, but the the subject of the article, Dr. Frans de Waal, makes a very convincing case that various apes and monkeys can empathize, enforce social rules, and can take actions for the good of the community, not just the individual.

What rights animals should have is, to be sure, a complicated issue, but in the case of chimpanzees it seems almost impossible to draw a distinction between us and them that would render their wellbeing worthless.

Of course, given the variation between human populations on issues of rules and punishment, its not surprising that other species have modes of enforcement we would never consider. I learned that "Young rhesus monkeys learn quickly how to behave, and occasionally get a finger or toe bitten off as punishment."

Accountability

I just Youtubed (yes, it's a verb) Alberto Gonzalez's press conference on this whole "sneakily firing lots of competent federal employees in order to politicize their positions" scandal. In response to the first question, which was inaudible on my speakers, he said "As we can all imagine, in an organization with 110,000 people, I am not aware of all the information that passes through the halls of justice, nor am I aware of all decisions. "

Then, in response to the next question, he says "I am ultimately accountable and responsible for what happens within the department." Well, this really shouldn't need to be said, but the fact that he didn't know what the hell was going on in his own department is not an excuse for anything. In fact, it's a fairly good reason for him to resign. The idea that an event of the magnitude we're talking about could have taken place without Gonzalez's knowledge is totally absurd unless you assume that he isn't doing his job at all. I'm not particularly interested in whether he's lying or slacking, because either way, he should not be the AG of the United States of America.

Here's a fun analogy. Lets say at Oberlin College, there was suddenly no electricity on North Campus. Nancy Dye could hold a press conference and say "I'm really not in charge of electricity." That would be totally true, but also totally irrelevant, because as president of the college, a disaster of that magnitude would ultimately be her responsibility. And if it was obviously preventable, or the motivations behind it were less than pure, or if she proved unable to effectively solve any of the resulting problems in the aftermath, it would certainly be cause for her to resign. It also would have been much more dramatic than her decision not to return next year was in real life.

Anyway, I suppose it's inevitable that the term accountability will be butchered by people who refuse to be held accountable for anything, but at its core, it does actually mean something. Gonzalez is saying that he's "accountable", but um... nothing will happen to him even though he utterly failed his job. That sounds an awful lot like a little thing I like to call being "not accountable".

Those Greasy, Greedy, Hook-Nosed, Jew States...

The debate about the "new" anti-Semitism has been had so many times on the internet I hate to even delve into it. But I will, because Stanley Fish is wrong, and bad at math, and for some reason he still gets to write on the Times website.

The whole argument centers around the question of people like me, or people who take slightly more extreme views that I'm ambivalent or disagree with. These people sometimes claim that the occupation of Gaza and the West-Bank is illegal and a human rights violation, that Israel and the Zionist movement are imperialist, and that they don't deserve the support of the United States, that a state reserved for a Jewish majority shouldn't exist, or that it was a mistaken product of imperialism that should never have been created, that there should be a "one state" solution involving the incorporation of the West Bank, etc.. So, are these folks who oppose the state of Israel or its policies anti-Semitic?

Well, he cites a study by Small and Kaplan which claims that in Europe “Those with extreme anti-Israel sentiment are roughly six times more likely to harbor anti-Semitic views than those who do not fault Israel on the measures studied, and among those respondents deeply critical of Israel, the fraction that harbors anti-Semitic views exceeds 50 percent.” The fact that the hostility to a country would coincide to hostility towards the people living there is not terribly surprising, I think. Fish then goes on to completely butcher the study. "Small and Kaplan are careful to disclaim any causal implications that might be drawn from their analysis ... [If you] scratch an opponent of Israel and you are likely – 56 percent of the time – to find an anti-Semite. This does suggest that if opposition to Israel increases, there will be an increase in anti-Semitism because the population of the 56 percenters will be larger. Is this something Jews, even Jews living in the United States, should be apprehensive about?" Well, it's not something to be apprehensive about because it doesn't make any effin' sense. If two groups (anti-Semites and Israel critics) have no causal relationship, then guess what happens to one group when the other grows? Nothing! Or, as my roommate put it, "hasn't he ever heard of a Venn-diagram?"

The way that the study measures anti-Semitism seems rather fair, but brings up a big pet peeve of mine. If the respondents agree with statements like “Jews don’t care what happens to anyone but their own kind” or “Jews are more loyal to Israel than to this country” or “Jews have too much power in international financial markets” they are considered anti-Semitic. I'm inclined to agree with that, but I would like to point out that when people say similarish statements about blacks (that they are lazy, should work harder, aren't owed anything etc.) in the U.S., we call it "racial conservatism." I wish we recognized those stereotypes as racism as easily as we recognize the first set as anti-Semitism. But I digress.

Fish goes on to say that he basically believes in this New Anti-Semitism, and critics of the occupation are using it as a pretext for their desire to gas the Jews. He fantasizes about being dispossessed. Apparently, his experience on College campuses has convinced him that this movement of covert anti-Semites exists. I find this interesting because my experience on a college campus is that I meet a lot of other Jews from all over the country, many of whom have been to Israel and identify much more strongly than I do, and they almost universally reject a brutal occupation being carried out in their name.

I think it's a good rule that if a majority or sizable minority of an ethnic group believe something, that belief probably isn't motivated by racism against that same group. For example, one could say that the states of Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina should be a Black State, and that all the whites currently living their should be forced to live in an area the size of Rhode Island under Jim-Crow conditions. One could also say that everyone who disagreed with that is motivated by hatred of black people. The problem here would be that most black Americans would think that was insane. Similarly, plenty of American Jews (I count myself among them) think the occupation of Palestine, and the invasion of Iraq (and possible invasion of Iran?) are just plain crazy. Not good for the Jews, just crazy.

Finally, he brings up a good friend of his who believes that you can be politically opposed to Israel and not a racist. He says "He is 10 years my junior. I remember World War II. By the time he was born it was history. Maybe it’s that simple." I wonder how well he really remembers WWII, because I'm pretty sure Hitler sounded a lot more like Marty "We have higher standards of civilization than they do" Peretz than like Tony Judt.

Walmart, Galbraith

I'm slowly working my way through John Kenneth Galbraith's American Capitalism, the Concept of Countervailing Power. He's a wonderful writer, and I'd have finished it in a few days if I didn't have so much homework and access to a Game Cube.

The book is slightly out dated, though it only makes Galbraith seem smarter. He argues that, with some exceptions, all industries will tend towards monopoly, or at least an oligopoly of a few large businesses (which disrupt the supply and demand system of competition). The exceptions listed in my 1956 edition of the book are "... agriculture, the textile and garment industries, soft-coal mining, wholesale and retail trade, shoe manufacturing..." That's right, the industries dominated by Kraft, Nike and Walmart were at the time his examples of industries unimpeded by a few dominant companies.

What really interests me is his discussion of how the competitive system is supposed to work vs. the reality of the American markets. The forces of supply and demand and the competition between producers are supposed to determine prices, which can only work if no single business can effect prices on its own. If I, and 3000 other people, are selling wheat, I can't raise the price because no one will buy it, and if I lower it it won't force anyone else to do the same, and I'll just lose money. This ideal system, according to JKG, breaks down in a monopoly or oligopoly, where there are so few producers/suppliers that any of them can affect prices. To me, it sounds spot on.

What surprised me is that I was basically aware of the fact that large companies can choose to affect prices, and it was never portrayed as anything other than a good thing. Walmart's "Always Low Prices" don't result primarily from innovation, but from the fact that as the world's biggest retailer, they can simply force wages and prices down. What to do about that is something that there will be wide disagreement on (Galbraith certainly has his own solutions) but it seems fairly important to recognize that Walmart has an influence on the market that violates the competitive model just like Big Government(!) intervention or a Union might.

So, so, creepy

Apparently Liberalism is like premarital sex, and conservatism is like... I don't know, it all freaks me out too much to wade through the entire gross metaphor, but here's Grover Norquist on Brownback, Huckabee and Hunter, the "principled" conservative Republican second tier. They still aren't conservative enough for Norquist:

"Mr. Norquist said he remained open to any of the three candidates who spoke to the council or to Mr. Romney. He argued that with the right promises, any of the four could redeem themselves in the eyes of the conservative movement despite their past records, just as some high school students take abstinence pledges even after having had sex.

'It’s called secondary virginity,' Mr. Norquist said. 'It is a big movement in high school and also available for politicians.'"

Anyway, the whole virginity pledge and second virginity crap is really awful. I suppose I'd be against it anyway, but the fact is it just leads to a lot more anal and oral sex. Shakespeare's Sister has great stuff to say on how much it devalues the pledgers. There used to be a pretty sick video on YouTube about the "Purity Ball" where daughters pledge to their fathers not to have sex until marriage. I think the video's gone, but here's the website.

"I pledge to remain sexually pure...until the day I give myself as a wedding gift to my husband... I know that God requires this of me... that he loves me, and that he will reward me for my faithfulness."

McCainiacs United!

Well, I thought John McCain was probably doomed in the presidential primary, but now he holds the distinction of being the only major Republican candidate for president who hasn't lost embarrassing campaign materials. Given the competition, he basically just needs to overcome the fact that his base hates his guts, he's too old to get elected and he's more closely tied to the astoundingly unpopular war in Iraq than any other person in congress.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are in the awkward position of deciding between a supremely competent and ambitious former first lady with unparalleled fundraising ability, a brilliant and eloquent speaker who is already drawing crowds of tens of thousands two years from the election, and an energetic and charismatic former vice presidential candidate with a populist platform that will resonate in the mid-West and upper-South.

Oppression in Chinatown!

Matthew Yglesias comments on the phenomenon of Chinese Restaurants charging more on the English menu than the Chinese menu. He thinks its no big deal. But his comment section is practically overflowing with outrage at this racial injustice!

Gatchaman says:
"So nobody here would shit a brick if a white run business was charging non-whites more? Good to know."
and follows it up with:
"Interesting, my sister-in-law, who owns a cafe in a gay neighborhood should charge the gay couples more, because it is safe to assume a gay couple with no children has more disposable income than a heterosexual couple with kids."

Right On actually spells this whole pathetic "but, what if I wasn't privileged!?" game for us:
"Would it be okay if:
(a) the Chinese people were charged more?
(b) there was a third menu, in Spanish, that charged even more than the English one?
(c) you could only order off the Chinese menu if you looked Chinese?"

If white people charged black or Chinese or gay people more at their stores, that would be a privileged majority group institutionalizing their personal prejudice against a minority group. I think we can all agree that that's bad. I don't know if I'm going to "shit a brick" or not, but it is and should be illegal.

If Chinese restaurants charged Spanish speakers more, that would be an attempt by a non-privileged immigrant group to institutionalize discrimination against another non-privileged group. It would have little impact, since unlike stores owned by whites, it is actually easy to avoid stores owned by Chinese people. This would be bad, but it is worth pointing out that, you know, it's not happening.

What matters in this sort of situation is what actually happens, and who benefitis. In this case, the effect is that a meal in Chinatown that completely stuffs my family of four costs $29 instead of the $25 they charge to first or second generation immigrants, as well as anyone who decides to devote two weeks to learning passable menu reading in Chinese. This is, as Matt said, not a big deal.

On the other hand, the result of the reverse scenario would be the creation of a second-class citizenship of Chinese speakers who would either be totally prevented from assimilating by being forced to stay in areas where other Chinese speakers owned stores, or else would find themselves paying a tax directly to everyone else for not speaking English.

One of the most subtle (and common) forms of racism among white Americans is the denial of any difference between us and everyone else. Being part of a privileged majority with higher average income and more education is not the same thing as being part of a minority that faces widespread discrimination which is often subtly (or not so subtly) institutionalized. It might be fun to pretend that those are the same if you're interested in denying your own advantage or want to minimize the hardships of others, but it puts you somewhere in the gray area between pathetic and racist, and that's just not a good place to be.

UPDATE: I realize the title of this post should have been "Forget it Jake. It's Chinatown."