Headlines that make you despair of successful parenting

"Girl's hand reattached after jump rope accident"

Damn straight

Death of a "Superfan"

The New York Times gives "relatively significant person" obituary treatment today to Joan Winston, who died Sept. 11 at age 77.

Who is she? Only one of the most important "Star Trek" fans ever:

Ms. Winston earned the love of “Star Trek” fans everywhere by helping to orchestrate an afterlife for the series beyond the television set — initially by organizing conventions and persuading stars from the series to attend, later by appearing at the conventions as a star in her own right, a superfan whose undying devotion inspired awe among “Star Trek” devotees.

That's right. Before Joan Winston, people used to watch television shows -- and move on with their lives. After Winston, people were increasingly able to create lives that centered around their favorite entertainments. "Star Trek" is the most notorious example of this, but far from the only one. (See also: D&D, Society for Creative Anachronism, any form of cosplay, etc.)

Winston didn't really create this phenomenon -- she was just one of the catalysts. But it's telling that our culture has come to this: You get a NYT obituary for really liking a TV show. You get a NYT obituary for really liking a TV show. Hey, I like "Star Trek" too; same for "Lost" and "Battlestar Galactica." Where's my 1,500 words in the Times?

Even the Amish are using green sources of energy

Fascinating story in today's Philadelphia Inquirer. Apparently the Amish are embracing solar power:

The Amish shun connections to the outside, including the power grid, to run their buggy batteries, electric fences, refrigerators and sewing machines. But within their religious framework, using the sun to charge their batteries is acceptable, at least for some purposes, says Donald Kraybill, an expert on the Amish at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College.

"It's like tapping into God's grid instead," he said.

The Amish fear becoming too materialistic and worldly, which is why they do not use solar to power batteries for iPods, TVs, laptops but do use them for water pumps, washing machines, and battery-powered floor lamps.

"I could run a Game Boy on the same power I run the refrigerator," solar vendor Beiler explained. "But it's hard to maintain your culture if you have a TV. Then your kids are worshipping the latest rock star. Eventually, it would erode our culture and ultimately destroy it."

This probably doesn't prove much, if anything, about the utility of solar power -- the Amish don't really have an oil-addicted culture to retrofit. But it's interesting, nonetheless.

When my iGoogle "random art of the day" feature goes horribly wrong

What'll we call these? "Hooverville" is taken. "Bushville?"

Coast to coast, tent cities rising

— A few tents cropped up hard by the rail-road tracks, pitched by menleft with nowhere to go oncethe emergency winter shelterclosed for the summer. Then others appeared —people who had ...read more...

My last David Foster Wallace post (for now)

I do not often weep for the deaths of major cultural figures, or at articles from The Onion, but I did tonight. (Yes, I'm a sap.)

A friend sent me this article: "NASCAR Cancels Remainder Of Season Following David Foster Wallace's Death." As is often the case with The Onion, it's both brilliantly funny and brilliant.

It was the last paragraph that brought me to tears:

"Racing and literature are both huge parts of American life, and I don't think David Foster Wallace would want me to make too much of that, or to pretend that it's any sort of equitable balance," Helton added. "That would be grotesque. But the truth is that whatever cultural deity, entity, energy, or random social flux produced stock car racing also produced the works of David Foster Wallace. And just look them. Look at that."

It's a magnificent world. It's a magnificent country. And though he couldn't feel it at the end, DFW was part of what makes it all magnificent.

Barack Obama is a politician

Our friend Hamilton ls fond of using the word "messiah" to describe Barack Obama every time Obama gets mentioned. But I don't think Obama is a messiah. I think he's a politician -- one with the (mostly) right ideas about how to run a country, yes, but with all the foibles that implies.

The truth is, I hesitate to be described as a "Democrat" -- and, in fact, only registered as a Democrat for the first time in my voting life this year (if memory serves) -- because I like to think my allegiance is not to a party and its structures, but to a set of ideas about what's right and wrong, good and bad for our country.

One of my ideas -- and I know, I'm naive -- is that we're all on firmer ground when we deal in truth. I know: "Politics ain't beanbag." But I think that truth, facts and honesty are the foundations of a well-functioning democratic government. Which is why it pains me when campaigns take liberties.

Well: The Barack Obama campaign is taking some liberties, implying that John McCain is in league with Rush Limbaugh on an anti-immigration crusade. And, well, we all know that's not true. From my perspective, McCain (and George W. Bush) has mostly been on the side of angels on this topic. It saddens me to see the Obama campaign resort to distortions and smears.

They're all politicians. Though I'll vote for him -- I live in a swing state now! -- I don't expect Obama to save the world. And this is an example why.

It's about governance

I'm not sure if it's possible to win an election these days by describing how you'd like to govern the country -- John McCain, it would seem, doesn't think so. But Barack Obama seems to. Dull? Sure. But this is the stuff the election is about:



This is the debate we need to have.

McCain and the financial crisis

Ben and I will be tackling the financial crisis in this week's Scripps column. But you can be sure that the following information will make it into my half:

In 2002, McCain introduced a bill to deregulate the broadband Internet market, warning that "the potential for government interference with market forces is not limited to federal regulation." Three years earlier, McCain had joined with other Republicans to push through landmark legislation sponsored by then-Sen. Phil Gramm (Tex.), who is now an economic adviser to his campaign. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act aimed to make the country's financial institutions competitive by removing the Depression-era walls between banking, investment and insurance companies.

That bill allowed AIG to participate in the gold rush of a rapidly expanding global banking and investment market. But the legislation also helped pave the way for companies such as AIG and Lehman Brothers to become behemoths laden with bad loans and investments.

McCain now condemns the executives at those companies for pursuing the ambitions that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act made possible, saying that "in an endless quest for easy money, they dreamed up investment schemes that they themselves don't even understand.

Finding the sweet spot between appropriate regulation and over-regulation is tough, I realize. I'm not smart enough to know where that spot is. Neither, it appears, is John McCain.

Why, even though I'm fond of print, it is doomed

Today's front page:



And today's business section:



Reminds me of the time I went to see a movie and the projectionist actually ran the final reel -- with the ending -- as the second reel.

Obligatory Sarah Palin post

Over at The Corner, they post Laura Ingraham's takedown of her fellow conservative, David Brooks, who is insufficiently enamored of Sarah Palin. Ingraham concludes:

It is silly to criticize her at this early stage until we know a lot more about her abilities as a leader.

Um, that's kind of the problem. Isn't it?

Proof that I listened to too much Dr. Dimento as a kid

Here's a song I've been singing to Tobit, during diaper changes, to the tune of "Dead Puppies."

Tobe's poopies
Tobe's poopies
Tobe's poopies aren't much fun.

Tobias poops in the hall
Tobias poops anywhere at all.
Tobe's poopies aren't much fun.

Tobias poops will only grow.
He poops high, and he poops low.
Tobe's poopies aren't much fun.

And so on. You get the idea.

What's that falling? I think it might be the sky.

Sometimes there's nothing left to say

Fly on the wall

I guess I would have enjoyed listening to the plane flight conversation between Ben Stein and Tom Morello.

David Foster Wallace

I'm sorry to hear tonight that David Foster Wallace is dead, having hanged himself at age 46.

Wallace will be most remembered for his novel, "Infinite Jest," which contained 1,000 pages of narrative and an additional 100 pages of footnotes. Like all his other writing, "Jest" couldn't just be read on its own; you needed a second bookmark, to flip back to the footnotes -- which were very important -- and a dictionary, to look up words that Wallace, and only Wallace, used in his writing.

It's been more than a decade since I read "Infinite Jest," (and yes, I read the whole thing) and while I remember it as being perhaps too precocious -- it's been a doorstop in every literary hipster's home since its publication -- some images stand out. Oddly, they're the deaths:

• A character commits suicide by cutting a hole in a microwave oven door, sticking his head through the door and starting it up. The result: Think a hotdog in the microwave. Wallace compounded the awfulness of this by having the character's son arrive home thinking something smelled good.

• Another character with a cold dies because he's been tied up in his home, the victim of a robbery, tape placed across his mouth. His sinuses already filled, he suffocates horribly on his own mucus.

Wallace's own death -- as far as we can glean -- was relatively pedestrian.

"Jest" and his other fiction was inventive and, well, daunting to the average reader. It was his reporting and other nonfiction, though, that was really stunning: Penetrating, thoughtful, incredibly detailed and, often, very funny.

The best of his reporting can be found in two books that I recommend you buy: "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again," and "Consider the Lobster." The centerpiece of that second book is a controversial essay that, well, considers whether lobsters feel pain when cooked -- and thus, whether it's ethical to eat them. One can disagree with his conclusions and still be fascinated and amazed by the thoughts displayed and how they're expressed.

He could write about cruise ships and dictionaries and tennis and, yes, pornography with amazing skill. And he sometimes turned off readers because, in his displays of virtuosity, he didn't slow down to let them catch up. In coming days, you'll likely re-read his reporting of John McCain's 2000 campaign -- a classic on par with Timothy Crouse's "Boys on the Bus" -- with a fresh and amazed eye.

It's cliché to say we've lost a singular talent, but it's true -- I can't think of anybody else who does was David Foster Wallace did, much less did it so well. Because of generational similarities, it's tempting to say that writing has lost this generation's Kurt Cobain, but that's too easy. Instead, I think of Hall of Fame tight end Kellen Winslow -- about whom I once read: "He was so much of a revolutionary that he changed the way the position was played; and when he retired, it went right back to what it had been before."

Rest in peace.

From CNN's Department of Sensitivity

Palin: More on the conservative reaction

I'd like to add National Review's Rich Lowry to the list of intellectually honest conservatives I like to read. He was earlier than just about anybody else on his masthead in admitting, back in 2005 or 2006, that the Iraq War was going badly -- and that it wasn't the media's fault.

Today, he reviews Sarah Palin's performance in the ABC interviews:

The foreign-policy session was a white-knuckle affair. She barely got through it and showed no knowledge more than an inch deep. What she did demonstrate was amazing self-possession. She somehow bluffed her way through the Bush doctrine question. Gibson apparently didn't want to go into full "gotcha" territory by asking flat-out if she knew what it is. And then he muddled things further with his dubious definition of it, so she was never truly nailed and there was enough ambiguity there for conservatives to defend her.

The fact still remains that she very likely didn't know any of the possible definitions of the Bush doctrine. I can't imagine if Obama had picked Gov. Tim Kaine and he had had a similar moment, conservatives would have rushed to say that the Bush doctrine is just too amorphous and complicated for him to know anything about it.

Palin seemed weak on economic and budgetary policy too, talking in the vaguest generalities. She was much better, and positively good, on the social issues—which are dear to her and she's thought about—and anything having to do with her personally or with her record in Alaska.

So Sarah Palin is good at the thing she's interested in, which is social issues. But here's the thing: with some exceptions, there's not much the executive branch has to do in steering the country on social issues like abortion and gay marriage. The biggest thing is to make appointments to the Supreme Court, and those opportunities don't come around that often.

But the executive branch does have a big, day-to-day role in economic and budgetary policy. It does have a big, day-to-day role in foreign policy. What Lowry is suggesting, then, is that Palin's not really qualified to do the job as it exists.

Lowry's still rooting for Palin, of course, and thinks she can study her way into preparation. But this is all rather laughable when we're considering a woman who sneered that a run for the presidency "isn't an opportunity for personal growth." If only she'd blinked and taken her own advice.

The pissing match

My friend Ben suggests the Obama campaign is mocking McCain's POW status by pointing out that he doesn't use e-mail. Proof, Ben says, that the Obama campaign is as nasty as McCain's. My response in the comments, which I share with you:

I guess I'd like to hear from John McCain or his campaign that his war injuries are the reason for his non-use of e-mail, rather than take it on the word of Jonah Goldberg's speculation that it's the case. As hilzoy points out, John McCain has already told us he uses a BlackBerry; McCain's own answer to the e-mail question -- given two months ago -- is that he "never really felt a need to do it." And let's face it: If John McCain didn't use e-mail because of POW injuries, I'm sure we would've heard that from him by now. (And as hilzoy also points out: There are lots of products that allow the disabled to use e-mail.)

In any case, McCain has already said he stands by the sex-ed ad, which is clearly a -- oh let's not soft-peddle this -- lie about Obama's record. Look it up. And I know that you're predisposed to believe bad things about Democrats, and I'm predisposed to believe bad things about the GOP -- but really, do you think the Obama campaign suddenly got so stupid it decided to create certain political backlash by mocking McCain's POW injuries? Do you think it just wanted to throw the election away?

Really?

With respect, you're trying to create an equivalence where there's not one. I'm not naive, and -- to anticipate the argument -- I don't think Barack Obama's the Messiah. Campaigns on both sides stretch the truth all the time. The McCain campaign, however, is lying more often, and more egregiously.

But you know what?

I hate that we're getting into a pissing match about whose lies are bigger, whose campaigning is nastier. I hate, in fact, that we're talking about e-mail -- even if it's my guy who brought it up. Because these things tell us nothing -- except indirectly -- about how each candidate would try to govern, about how they would try to lead America, about what we can hope for from a president. And as smarter people than I have pointed out, winning an election by creating an ugly narrative about the other guy does nothing to help you govern once you get in office. Ask George W. Bush how his Social Security privatization efforts worked out.

I know you're a cynic about the progress of freedom in America, Ben, so maybe you don't care that this is the case. Maybe you're in such an anybody-but-Obama mood that you don't care, really, what John McCain does as president so long as Barack Obama isn't. But there's an element to all of this that seems to play the undecided voters -- the "mushy middle" who will decide this campaign -- as suckers. Maybe they are. I wish, however, that we were better than that.

On blinking

Ok, so I've watched some video from the Palin interview, and wow -- pardon me if this is shrill -- but it's way more annoying than reading the transcript. What reads on paper as considered (if dodgy) discussion comes across as blustery. Yeesh.

Here's what we've learned about Sarah Palin so far: She doesn't believe in blinking. At all.

Not when she's offered one of the most important leadership positions in the world:

You have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we're on, reform of this country and victory in the war. You can't blink. So I didn't blink then even when asked to run as his running mate

And not when you're making decisions in the war on terror:

GIBSON: But, Governor, I'm asking you: We have the right, in your mind, to go across the border with or without the approval of the Pakistani government.

PALIN: In order to stop Islamic extremists, those terrorists who would seek to destroy America and our allies, we must do whatever it takes and we must not blink, Charlie, in making those tough decisions of where we go and even who we target.

Blinking, apparently, is bad. So let me torture this metaphor, just a bit.

Palin's "blinking" references presuppose an approach to the world that only rarely makes sense: The idea of America as a white-hatted gunfighter standing in a dusty street, twenty paces away from an outlaw, both men ready to duel. Blink, and you die. It's foreign policy in constant crisis mode. And it doesn't have to be that way.

In real life, blinking is enormously helpful. It helps clear your vision. It's necessary. And that helps you see details in the world that you might otherwise have missed. It's the split-second you take -- often involuntarily -- to be able to see better. And just to make this ridiculous: If you run around the world without blinking, your eyes dry out and fill with dust. You end up bumping into easily avoidable obstacles.

Sorry. Like I said, I tortured the metaphor.

For what it's worth, the Palin approach described above stands in contrast to what the Bush Administration has actually done. When it came to going after terrorists in Pakistan's border areas, the administration spent more than half-a-decade in one long, slow blink. And perhaps with good reason: The need to get the terrorists had to be balanced against violating the territory of a nuclear-armed state.

Palin's answers suggest she believes in foreign policy by gut, without regard for the need to take a moment to consider the right course of action -- with contempt, in fact, for people who do take time to do such contemplation. We've been governed by gut for the last eight years. It's been a lousy approach to the world.

The New York Sun

It's possible that you've never heard of The New York Sun, a little paper started up a few years back to provide, essentially, a conservative broadsheet alternative to the Times. Now it is facing a possible shutdown.

I hope that doesn't happen.

The Sun's politics are not my own. But it is a feisty and interesting paper that is also, well, frequently informative. In other words: It's interesting. It would be a shame to lose that voice.

The Palin interview

Looking at the transcript of excerpts. After two weeks of pigs, lipstick, pregnancies and rumors, it's kind of a nice thing to see a focus on -- whaddya call it -- actual issues before the government. But there are a couple more days of interview to come; I imagine we'll get some silliness before it's all over.

That said: It is what it is. Palin's a conservative Republican, and she sounded conservative Republican themes. If you like that kind of stuff, you like that kind of stuff. If you don't, you don't.

Some thoughts, though:

• Working on pipeline issues in Alaska really isn't foreign policy experience. Yes, energy policy will be a factor in our foreign policy, but it isn't actually foreign policy. Palin looks silly trying to pretend she has credentials in this arena when, clearly, she doesn't.

• I'm not sure what to make of this, except to believe that Raymond Shaw is the kindest, gentlest, best human being on the face of this earth:

GIBSON: What if Israel decided it felt threatened and needed to take out the Iranian nuclear facilities?

PALIN: Well, first, we are friends with Israel and I don't think that we should second guess the measures that Israel has to take to defend themselves and for their security.

GIBSON: So if we wouldn't second guess it and they decided they needed to do it because Iran was an existential threat, we would cooperative or agree with that.

PALIN: I don't think we can second guess what Israel has to do to secure its nation.

GIBSON: So if it felt necessary, if it felt the need to defend itself by taking out Iranian nuclear facilities, that would be all right.

PALIN: We cannot second guess the steps that Israel has to take to defend itself.

So, do we think that Palin's position is that we can't second-guess Israel's steps in its own defense?

The thing is: Sure we can second-guess Israel's steps. And to some extent, we should. An Israeli attack on Iran wouldn't be carried out in a vacuum. It would have ripple effects -- probably very large ripple effects -- throughout the Middle East. And the United States would almost certainly feel those effects in a painful way. There may come a point where that pain is less than living with a nuclear Iran, but we shouldn't pretend like Israel is acting on its own -- particularly when we subsidize their military. It's in our interest to keep strong tabs on what Israel is doing, and to offer strong advice.

• I think Palin struck a weird note here:

GIBSON: I'm talking about somebody who's a head of state, who can negotiate for that country. Ever met one?

PALIN: I have not and I think if you go back in history and if you ask that question of many vice presidents, they may have the same answer that I just gave you. But, Charlie, again, we've got to remember what the desire is in this nation at this time. It is for no more politics as usual and somebody's big, fat resume maybe that shows decades and decades in that Washington establishment, where, yes, they've had opportunities to meet heads of state ... these last couple of weeks ... it has been overwhelming to me that confirmation of the message that Americans are getting sick and tired of that self-dealing and kind of that closed door, good old boy network that has been the Washington elite.

This sounds more like talking points than a considered position. You can argue there are lots of changes that Americans want in foreign and domestic policy, and that they might see entrenched politicos obstructing those changes. But I'm not sure that most Americans would consider it a negative for top officials to have met a head of state. We're not to the point where have experience and expertise is automatically a bad thing, are we?

Never mind. We probably are.

There are more thoughts. But I'm sleepy. And this should probably start the conversation.

The Palin interview: Conservative reaction

The fun of not having a TV is that I sometimes see the reviews of an interview before I see the interview itself. Tonight's Sarah Palin interview on ABC is one example; I still haven't seen it, though I hope to before bed.

It's apparent already she wasn't so hot -- the good folks at National Review's The Corner are panning her performance. But they don't want it to actually count. Here's Kathryn Jean Lopez:

I also wonder why there's so much riding and attention on one interview

That's Palin's fault -- and the fault of the McCain campaign. Tomorrow is two weeks since her nomination was announced; today is her first encounter with the press since then. If she was doing what McCain once did -- talk to the press unceasingly, until there's nothing to talk about anymore -- nobody would be paying quite so much attention to this one interview. She raised the stakes with her decisions.

Later, Lopez again:

One certainly does not get the "ready on Day One" sense about her from that interview. But if my surveys over the last half hour or any indication, no one who is optimistic about Palin are changing their minds about her based on this.

That's the problem, isn't it? Palin is apparently unprepared for office even by the standards of National Review's most uncritical cheerleader. But that's no reason to actually oppose her election. Ladies and gentlemen: Your modern GOP.

With that, I eagerly await viewing the actual interview.

Because I'm immature, and because I fear that any writing I do on politics today will be petulant, I offer the following

A context-free selection from today's New York Times story about Sen. Larry Craig's continuing legal troubles:

Mr. Martin disagreed with Judge Hudson’s description of the complaint. “We don’t know how long the crack is, how big the crack is,” Mr. Martin said. “We don’t know,” he said, if Senator Craig simply glanced at the crack twice “or if it was continuous staring.”

I refuse to believe that nobody in the Times' copyediting process didn't at least giggle when reading that paragraph.

I heart New York

I originally posted this last Sept. 11 on my old blog. Some revisions have been made.

Since 9-11, I've taken four trips to New York City -- one a few weeks after the attacks. I'd never been there before.

I've been propositioned by a Greek hooker in Times Square.

I've taken a nap on the Great Lawn of Central Park.

I've watched "High Noon" on a big screen, with 3,000 or more other people, in Bryant Park, right next to the New York Public Library.

I've eaten the most amazing gyros sandwich in Greenwich Village.

I've been challenged to a chess game in Washington Square Park.

I've (unwisely) walked, slightly inebriated, down an empty and boarded-up stretch of Broadway long after dark.

I've probably deserved to be mugged for doing that.

I've heard Zadie Smith give a reading at Joe's Pub.

I've paid $17 for a mediocre cheeseburger.

I've perused the musty-smelling rare book room of The Strand.

I've spent nights in a hotel room that, judging by the large and never-cleaned stain on the carpet, might've been the scene of a 1977 mob hit.

I've walked miles and miles, one time covering my feet so badly with blisters that I could barely walk off the plane when I returned home.

I've seen the Yankees win a penant with a walkoff homerun by Bernie Williams -- and even tough the opponent that night was Minnesota, the crowd still responded with wild chants of "Boston sucks! Boston sucks!" (Ironically, this was the same year Boston would win the World Series.)

I've bought cheap touristy crap from a streetside kiosk.

I've bought the best-ever slice of sausage pizza from a corner shop.

I've accidentally stumbled into a Korean pride festival, complete with Korean boy band.

I've flirted with a young woman on the subway.

I've been in midtown Manhattan on Halloween night.

I've seen Shakespeare in the park.

I've been served lime-flavored coffee in the home of a friendly Puerto Rican family.

And yes, I've seen the still-smoking ruins of the World Trade Center. It changed me; it continues to change my entire life.

But I've also been changed — enriched — by a million other experiences and memories. The 9-11 attacks loom large for me, but they do not dominate my experience of New York City, which is full of life.

You know what's stupid?

This is stupid:

Democratic Congressman Russ Carnahan on Tuesday – introducing Joe Biden at a campaign event – ripped into Palin’s record and punctuated it with this snarky jab. “There’s no way you can dress up that record, even with a lot of lipstick,” he said. Obama himself used similar langauge later in the day about the McCain-Palin reform rhetoric, saying "You can put lipstick on a pig," he said. "It's still a pig."

Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. And not defensible. Sexism isn't OK when directed at Hillary Clinton; it's still not acceptable when directed at a Republican.

And it's not like Obama shouldn't already be sensitized to avoiding potentially sexist remarks. Dumb.

"The War Within": A quick lunchtime post

Some thoughts after reading the first three parts of Bob Woodward's "The War Within" in the Washington Post:

• President Bush has long made a big deal about troop levels being determined by the generals. But it's clear that's almost never been true. When the generals wanted lots of troops -- for the invasion -- they didn't get 'em. When they wanted to start pulling troops out, Bush ordered the surge. Only when Bush promoted Gen. David Petraeus to command in Iraq did he get a general on the same page with him.

"The generals will decide," then, has almost always been a lie.

• Yes, much of the military leadership opposed the surge. Why? Because they were afraid it had so overextended the Army that America would be vulnerable to a national security incident elsewhere in the world. Bush essentially gambled with America's security in ordering the surge; conservatives are claiming he won that gamble -- and it's great that violence has been reduced in Iraq -- but it might've looked different if America had suffered some sort of attack in that span. We're lucky that didn't happen.

What's interesting about all this is that the resistance clearly signals the generals didn't believe continuing operations in Iraq to be in America's national security interest -- or, at least, not of paramount importance to the security. Hmmm.

• Still, it's troubling that the Bush Administration had to essentially invent a chain of command -- Bush to Petraeus -- that circumvented the actual chain of command. The military is supposed to be subservient to civilian commands, and it's troubling from a Constitutional perspective if the generals aren't actually granting that deference.

Don't get me wrong: I don't think Bush has been a very good leader. But Democrats who might cheer the generals' resistance should soberly contemplate what might happen if a President Obama gives an order the military doesn't like. It gets harder and harder to maintain a democracy when the military starts freelancing, even a little bit.

My American lunch

A little after noon, I walked down a block or so from our apartment to the halal butcher and bought a pound of cold-cut roast beef. Our butcher, in order to maintain standards, buys his beef directly from Amish farmers in Lancaster County.

I brought the beef home, cut some slices of cheddar, and put it all on a kosher challa roll from a New York bakery.

It was tasty. And encouraging.

The vanishing Republican voter

In today's NYT Magazine, conservative David Frum makes the case that the Republican party is losing traction with voters because of growing income inequality. Towards the end, though, he can't resist taking a shot a Democrats:

Unlike liberals, conservatives are not bothered by the accumulation of wealth as such. We should be more troubled that the poor remain so poor. (Emphasis added.)

Perhaps there was a time when the "Democrats are socialists who hate the rich" meme might've held some truth, but not anymore. In fact, Frum provides the evidence:

In 2000, Al Gore beat George Bush, 56-39, among the 4 percent of voters who identified themselves as “upper class.” America’s wealthiest ZIP codes are a roll call of Democratic strongholds: Sagaponack, N.Y.; Aspen, Colo.; Marin County, Calif.; the near North Side of Chicago; Beacon Hill in Boston. (Palm Beach, at least, remains securely Republican.) There is a long list of reasons for this anti-Republican tilt among the affluent: social issues, the environment, an ever more internationalist elite’s distaste for the Republican Party’s assertive nationalism. Maybe the most important reason, however, can be reduced to the two words: “Robert Rubin.” By returning to the center on economic matters in the 1990s, the Democrats emancipated higher-income and socially moderate voters to vote with their values rather than with their pocketbooks.

Let me go ahead and suggest that it's unlikely that rich people hate the accumulation of wealth. There is concern -- vocal concern -- about growing income inequality in the U.S., concentrated on the fact that, as Frum says, "the poor remain so poor." But he concedes that it's a legitimate concern.

So: If Frum really is looking not to eschew wealth, but still wanting to address the plight of the poor, let me suggest he might well find a home among Democrats. Probably wouldn't do much for his gig at National Review, though.

Sarah Palin thought of the day

I wonder if Barack Obama demanded Bill O'Reilly's "deference" before going on Fox News this last week.

The longer Sarah Palin avoids talking to the press -- and sets "deference" as the terms of an interview -- the more it's going to look like she's incapable of doing so. And to paraphrase a conservative commenter (who was talking about Obama and Fox): If she can't handle the New York Times, how can she handle Iran?

Are you better off than you were four years ago?

I have respect for George Will as a commentator; though I don't often agree with him, I think he's intellectually honest and willing to concede when facts and ideology don't match up.

Nonetheless, I'm a bit amused by his column in today's Washington Post. In 1980, Ronald Reagan famously asked: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" And he rode that question to victory over Jimmy Carter.

Now, though, that question doesn't really redound to the credit of Republicans. And Will now believes that question is, well, incomplete:

Unfortunately, the phrase "better off" is generally understood as a reference to your salary, your bank balance, your IRA and the like. But wait. Are you better off being four years older? That depends.

If you are young, since 2004 you might have found romance, had children, learned to fly-fish and become a Tampa Bay Rays fan. In which case you emphatically are better off, even if since 2004 there has been only a 0.6 percent increase -- yes, increase -- in the median value of single-family homes.

Get it? It's time to look past tawdry economic concerns and focus on what really matters.

Let's put aside, for the moment, that that increase hasn't kept up with inflation over the same period of time -- meaning the value of your investment in your home isn't as great as it was.

Instead, let us agree that Will is telling an important truth, echoing Robert F. Kennedy's declaration:

"Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans."

Indeed. And yet...

One hesitates to do anything so obvious as refer to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, yet it seems appropriate right now as a response to Will. Because an enjoyment of those little things that make life richer -- fly fishing as hobby, or baseball fandom -- is to some extent dependent on being secure in life's necessities. Put it more simply: If you became a Rays fan in the last four years, but also declared bankruptcy -- or had your home foreclosed -- chances are you'll believe that you've suffered a net decline in your quality of life.

So even using Will's measure, it's a good bet that in 2008 a growing number of people have a straightforward answer to Reagan's old question: "No."

Damn that elitist New York Times! (A continuing series)

We've seen this before, but we've again reached the point in the campaign season where anything said or reported by the New York Times is treated by the right as an attack on the right. Even if it probably isn't.

The latest example: John Podhoretz's umbrage at Saturday's front-page article about Sarah Palin's faith.

From the Times:

Ms. Palin’s religious life — what she believes and how her beliefs intersect or not with her life in public office in Alaska — has become a topic of intense interest and scrutiny across the political spectrum as she has risen from relative obscurity to become Senator John McCain’s running mate.

Interviews with the two pastors she has been most closely associated with here in her hometown — she now attends the Wasilla Bible Church, though she keeps in touch with Mr. Riley and recently spoke at an event at his former church — and with friends and acquaintances who have worshipped with her point to a firm conclusion: her foundation and source of guidance is the Bible, and with it has come a conviction to be God’s servant.

Seems straightforward enough to me. Not to Podhoretz:

Today, the New York Times published an article that, should it receive wide circulation (and it might, on the web), will do a great deal to harden evangelical attitudes against the supposed leftward swing — because it is an act of secular aggression against a believing Christian.

While I suppose, if by "secular aggression" he meant "secular attempt to understand a politician who is Christian."

Go read the quotes Podhoretz quotes from the article. And go read the article. If there's any sneering by the Times here, I missed it. I'll admit it: The Times reporters and readership are probably, on the whole, more secular than the American populace. There is a certain anthropological quality to the Times' reporting on this and other faith-based topics, no doubt.

But aggression?

Something I've learned over the years is that liberals can be every bit as closed-minded or cloistered as anybody else. When Richard Nixon won election in 1972, Pauline Kael supposedly expressed surprise: Nobody she knew had voted for the man. When George W. Bush won re-election in 2004, many of my Lawrence friends were similarly baffled: Who the hell was voting for the man? I wasn't a Bush fan, but I was peeved at my friends for their inability to understand or imagine how people might believe differently from them.

So I welcome the Times' reporting.

Podhoretz -- assuming, generously, that he is not just cynically attempting Times-bashing to once again rally the base -- thus seems to be an aggravation that there is a secular America for whom Palin's faith and practices require some explanation. By trying to assist its readers, the Times thus stands guilty of liberal hackery. And so it goes.

I want to be Ta-Nehisi Coates when I grow up

Because he's actually grownup:

When tackling the opposition, there is always the temptation to respond with as much force as possible, to marshal all your sarcasm, all your anger, all your righteousness, and hurl it at them without regard. When I write, I'm always at war with that temptation. I did a lot of that when I was young, and I quickly became a master of The Screed, if not much else. It was writing as a sort of scrawled pornography, writing as masturbation, writing to work out my own anger, and the issues of people who happen to agree with me. But when I looked up from it all, I still felt alone--my whole audience consisted of people who were like me, so effectively, I was.

You can beat the opposition with a club all day long, if you have no regard for the people on the side getting sprayed with blood. That's a kind of writing that pleases me and people who agree with me, but shows absolutely no regard to people who either don't agree, or aren't decided. I have no idea why anyone would want to write in such a fashion. It's arrogant, self-absorbed, and better suited to one's diary, or their inane, half-drunk, happy-hour ramblings.

Read the whole thing.

RNC thought of the day

Just so I understand Republicans correctly, it's more noble to spend a life's career working for government than it is to work through charitable faith-based means to improve your community.

Gotcha.

Why I don't need cable news

We don't have a TV. Most of what we watch, we watch via services like Hulu -- or, hypothetically speaking, some other less-legal sources of television entertainment.

Which means we miss out on a lot of live stuff. Not all of it -- I saw the NCAA tournament live, and same for the presidential debates during the primary. The last two weeks I've watched the conventions via a basic feed (CNN and MSNBC both carry C-SPAN-like live feeds on their sites) without the talking head commentary.

I've never felt like I'm missing much. Jon Stewart proves me right.




The man's a national treasure.

Chestnut Hill Hospital

We didn't expect to end up in Chestnut Hill Hospital for Tobias' birth -- it's not our new neighborhood, and would be too far a trek to make sense. In fact, I hadn't heard of the hospital until Jo's water broke. We obviously ended up there anyway, for a variety of reasons.

And the people were amazing. The nurses were encouraging and cheerful. The lactation specialists were friendly and helpful. And everybody -- everybody -- acted as if our child was the most amazing, unique little guy in the world; there was no jadedness among the staffers, and that made the hospital feel like a welcome place to start our new lives as parents.

So, just days after Tobias' birth, I'm shocked and saddened to learn this:

Citing financial stresses, Chestnut Hill Hospital said yesterday that it would stop delivering babies by Nov. 4 and close its maternity unit Nov. 7. Seventy hospital employees will lose their jobs.

We probably met about a dozen of those people. They have our gratitude, and our good wishes.

Damn that elitist New York Times!

Department of Bad Analogies

I'm trying to take a short blogging break -- new job, new kid, etc. -- but I can't let Jay Nordlinger get away with this comparison to the Sarah Palin candidacy:

Years ago, the University of Michigan basketball team was the “Fab Five.” The starting lineup consisted of five freshmen. And they made the NCAA tournament (comfortably). CBS had a preview show, in which the host — it might have been Brent Musburger — asked Bill Walton to predict who would win the tournament. He said Michigan. Musburger (or whoever it was) said, “But they’re starting five freshmen! They have no experience!” To which Walton replied, “I’ll take talent over experience any day.”

Uh, Jay: The "Fab Five" rather famously lost two consecutive national championship games. The second time, they lost on one of the most boneheaded plays in NCAA history. And the record of those two seasons has been wiped from the official books because it turns out the Michigan athletic program was massively corrupt.

I mean, I think this might actually be a good analogy to the Palin pick. But I don't think this is what Nordlinger meant.