Turn Market Street East Into Philly's Times Square?

That seems like a bad idea, for a number of reasons -- not least of which is that Philly is Philly and any attempt to "New Yorkize" the part of Market between Seventh and 13th streets seems doomed to fail by dint of drawing side-by-side comparisons, highlighting Philly's inferiority complex with regard to the Big Apple. It even sounds bad when promoters try to make it sound good:

"It's a way to enliven Market Street East and give it a more exciting sense of vitality," said Carl Primavera, an attorney who represents billboard companies.

"Now [conventioneers], get on a bus and go to King of Prussia," Primavera said. "But what if they could go one block to Market Street to do some shopping and then walk over to see the Liberty Bell?"

Now, I think lining up the crassest versions of commercialism alongside America's most treasured historical relics is, well, a perfectly American thing to do. But it also ought to be resisted. The area under discussion is certainly not the finest foot forward to the city's visitors, but it would be nice if there were some other viable option between "urban ennui" and "trying way too hard."

Why Don't We Just Invade North Korea?

Jamie Fly talks North Korea at The Corner: "As long as the current despotic regime remains in place, these incidents will continue to occur and the threat of nuclear-weapons proliferation (either to other rogue regimes or to terrorists) will loom large in the fears of Western policymakers. Forcing the current regime from power is the only way to resolve the security and proliferation challenges posed by Pyongyang."

Oh, is that all it takes? Knocking a government out that's been in power for 60 years? That has a huge army and tons of artillery aimed at the capital of a U.S. ally? And replacing it with the government of our choice? No problem! Why didn't anyone think of that sooner? Let's get right on it.

I'm no fan of the North Korean regime -- in fact, I'll go ahead and join George W. Bush in professing my loathing of the government there. It's awful. But the lesson of the last decade should be this: We can't magically make the world the way we want it by knocking over odious regimes. In fact, we can often make things worse! We don't possess the resources to do all the stuff that would remake North Korea to our liking, and history should tell us that neighboring China might not stand for it anyway. If North Korea mounts an invasion, then let's go to war. Short of that, we're going to have to figure out how to manage the situation instead of eliminate it -- and, perhaps, by playing for time, the North Korean regime will collapse from it's own ricketyness, like the Soviet Union did. Chest-beating proclamations like Fly's won't lead to a solution, and in fact actively obscure the path to problem-solving.

Thanksgiving

I'm thankful to have learned this year that my small family is more resilient in the face of adversity than I'd imagined.

I'm grateful to have discovered how much our community and friends in Philadelphia have come to mean to me.

I'm thankful for a wife who wouldn't let me give up when I wanted to stick my tail between my legs. I'm thankful for a son who regularly gives me kisses on my forehead.

I'm thankful that even in a rough professional year, I've had the pleasure to continue doing the thing I want to do: journalism.

I'm thankful, frankly, for the wisdom and forgiveness of people who have no good reason to offer either to me.

This has been a humbling year, in all senses of the word. But there's more good than bad in it. And I thank all of you, readers and friends. Thank you.

Brother, You're Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile

Why is this stuck in my head today?

Tom Friedman Sure Can Sound Stupid Sometimes

An editor might've encouraged him to reconsider this opening line.: "For me, the most frightening news in The Times on Sunday was not about North Korea’s stepping up its nuclear program, but an article about how American kids are stepping up their use of digital devices."

Let This Be China's Problem

Reacting to news of North Korea shelling South Korea, Conor Friedersdorf yesterday tweeted: "Can this be the start of when we start thinking of some things as China's problem?"

Good question, and that -- along with today's story about China's difficulties managing North Korea -- raises a good issue for those concerned about the rise of China in the Pacific. That rise is usually portrayed as a challenge to the United States, both in terms of prestige and in access to markets and materials needed to drive the economy. But why can't it also be a process that burdens China with wearying and expensive issues?

Look what being the "world's policeman" has done for the United States. We're stuck in two wars through a combination of folly and, when you get down to it, being the biggest kid on the block. As China becomes one of the other biggest kids on the block, it's going to attract the attention and demands of the same problematic individuals and nations that now make being No. 1 such a pain in the butt for America. Let them have it! And good riddance!

Afghanistan Quagmire Watch

Robert Wright offers up two nuggets of information about the Afghanistan War that make me wince:

• At just over nine years of age, this war is already the longest in American history. And this Saturday we’ll eclipse the Soviet Union’s misadventure in Afghanistan; the Soviets brought their own personal Vietnam to an end after nine years and seven weeks.

• And the cost of the Afghanistan war already exceeds the cost of the Vietnam and Korean Wars combined, even in inflation-adjusted dollars. At $100 billion a year (seven times the gross domestic product of Afghanistan) this war is feeding a deficit that will eventually take its toll in real, human terms.

Wright makes a pretty good case that America's presence in Afghanistan does more to hurt our security than to help it. Read the whole thing.

Philly Schools Don't Have Libraries? Maybe It's Time To Buy iPads For The Students.

I'm still getting to know the city, obviously, because this is shocking to me:

"Nearly half of all city public schools have no libraries, a fact that has long galled Philadelphia Federation of Teachers president Jerry Jordan.

Tuesday, at a news conference at University City High School, Jordan called for the district to ensure that each of the district's 258 schools was equipped with a library.

'There's nothing more important in educating your children than developing them into great readers,' Jordan said in an interview. 'Librarians work with teachers and help support curriculum across disciplines.'

Students whose schools have libraries score better on crucial standardized tests. And because city libraries have had cutbacks in hours and staff, having such resources in schools is especially crucial now, Jordan said."

As it happens, I recently wrote about a similar situation involving a charter school in Colorado. Pikes Peak Prep addressed its problem by getting iPads for all its students.The idea was to expose kids to current technology while putting an entire library at their fingertips.

“The decision we made was based on: Do we build a library and a science lab, then buy books and a bookshelf and hire a librarian? You can do the math,” said Kevin Teasley, president of the GEO Foundation, an Indianapolis-based charter school management group that runs Pikes Peak Prep. “Or do we look at some more economical approach in which we can achieve essentially the same outcome at a reduced cost to the taxpayer?

I'm not sure whether stocking and maintaining a fleet of iPads in Philadelphia would be more or less than building, stocking and maintaining a series of school libraries. But to shrug your shoulders and cite "budget constraints," as local officials do, means you've given up on the kids who attend those library-less schools.

Philly Convicts Can't Read Or Write

Not sure why this is surprising: "A test of reading skills among inmates in Philadelphia's prison system yielded some worse news than expected: About 25 percent to 30 percent of prisoners read at a second- or third-grade level. The average reading level was at a fourth-grade mark, but city Prisons Commissioner Louis Giorla said he had previously assumed that the average was between a sixth- and eighth-grade level."

TSA Backlash Watch: Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Oh, come on:

"The next step in tightened security could be on U.S. public transportation, trains and boats.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says terrorists will continue to look for U.S. vulnerabilities, making tighter security standards necessary.

“[Terrorists] are going to continue to probe the system and try to find a way through,” Napolitano said in an interview that aired Monday night on 'Charlie Rose.'

“I think the tighter we get on aviation, we have to also be thinking now about going on to mass transit or to trains or maritime. So, what do we need to be doing to strengthen our protections there?”"

This isn't going to end well. The ability to move freely about the country -- about one's own city, even -- appears likely to be restricted. Somebody needs to take a deep breath.

How Obama Created The Tea Party

Interesting critique on the London Review of Books. I found this passage gave me the most to think about:

Obama’s largest rhetorical miscalculation – and it bears part of the responsibility for 2 November – was to suppose he could move people to admire and sympathise with government even as he encouraged them to disdain and deprecate politics. By holding himself above politics he cleared a path for an insurgent movement that put itself below politics. Obama echoes Reagan in speaking often of ‘Washington’ in a tone of assumed displeasure. The difference is that Reagan had so little grasp of the details of his administration that the disavowal in a sense showed consistency. For Obama, the same posture is transparently inauthentic. And in a democracy like the United States, as in any representative government, a contempt for politics whets the people’s appetite for sudden remedies.

A Reagan-loving friend of mine isn't so hot on the disparagement there, but otherwise I wonder if this isn't getting at something. In a representative democracy, politics is how we make government go. If you're always grumbling about the mud that you're in, is it any wonder if people think you're a pig?

That said, there are limits to this theory. I still stick with the theory that the Tea Party originated as a gathering of sore losers from the 2008 election; I don't imagine there's much President Obama could've done to win them over.

Murphy Brown and Bristol Palin

I'm not interested in politicizing Bristol Palin's single motherhood. I wish Bristol's mother was the same. Via The Corner, we get news that Sarah Palin has decided to revive the Dan Quayle-Murphy Brown debate: "“I’m biased, of course, but given a choice of role models between Bristol and Murphy Brown, I choose Bristol.”"

Well, sure, if it's a choice between accidental motherhood after you've established a career and and income that can take care of the baby, and accidental motherhood before you've even finished your own childhood, it's not even a contest is it?

Good for Bristol for keeping her child and raising it. And good for the Palin family for supporting Bristol and her child! Seriously. But Sarah Palin's smugness on this issue is a bit much to take.

Glenn Reynolds Advocates Genocide

Instapundit: "JUST WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW: North Korea fires artillery barrage on South. If they start anything, I say nuke ‘em. And not with just a few bombs. They’ve caused enough trouble — and it would be a useful lesson for Iran, too. We can’t afford another Korean war, but hey, we’re already dismantling warheads. . . ."

TSA Backlash Watch: What Fallows Said

James Fallows:

"Every society accepts some risks as part of its overall social contract. People die when they drive cars, they die when they drink, they die from crime, they die when planes go down, they die on bikes. The only way to eliminate the risks would be to eliminate the activities -- no driving, no drinking, no weapons of any kind, no planes or bikes. While risk/reward tradeoffs vary between, say, Sweden and China, no nation accepts the total social controls that would be necessary to eliminate risk altogether.

Yet when it comes to dealing with terrorism, politicians know that they will not be judged on the basis of an 'acceptable level of risk.' They know that they can't even use that term when discussing the issue. ('Senator Flaccid thinks it's 'acceptable' for terrorists to blow up planes. On Election Day, show him that politicians who give in to terror are 'unacceptable' to us.') And they know for certain that if -- when -- a plane blows up with Americans aboard, then cable news, their political opponents, Congressional investigators, and everyone else will hunt down any person who ever said that any security measure should be relaxed."

This is why I don't expect TSA's measures to be loosened much, if at all. There's not much electoral price to pay for squeezing America's nether regions in the name of "security," and plenty to be paid when an attack happens. It doesn't actually matter if the measures are effective or not; all that matters is that it looks like something is being done.

TSA Backlash Watch: Americans Are Smarter Than Marc Thiessen

Torture apologist Marc Thiessen is enraged by American complacency: "Can any of us imagine the debate we’ve had in recent weeks unfolding in the days immediately following Sept. 11, 2001? Would any of us have objected to the deployment of millimeter-wave scanners had the technology been available then? The current uproar could happen only in a country that has begun to forget the horror of 9/11. Indeed, it appears many in the country have forgotten. A new Washington Post–ABC News poll found that 66 percent of Americans say that “the risk of terrorism on airplanes is not that great.” Sixty-six percent."

Emphasis is Thiessen's. Here's the poll, and the full wording of the question that was asked:

2. Are you personally worried about traveling by commercial airplane because of the risk of terrorism, or do you think the risk is not that great? (IF WORRIED) Would you say you are very worried or only somewhat?

If two-thirds of Americans aren't worried about their flight being part of a terrorist incident, it's because they're being entirely rational. Nate Silver actually did the odds on all of this about a year ago:

The odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. This means that you could board 20 flights per year and still be less likely to be the subject of an attempted terrorist attack than to be struck by lightning.

Now Thiessen perhaps adhere's to Dick Cheney's "one percent doctrine" approach to security matters, which suggests that if there's a one percent chance of a bad thing happening, the United States should treat it as a total certainty. Such thinking led us into a fruitless war against Iraq's WMD program, of course, but nevermind. If one accepts that doctrine, then a person's odds of being on a flight involving a terrorist incident are substantially less than one percent. The disparity between the threat and the resources being marshaled to meet that threat, then, is nearly infinite.

I'm not suggesting that a terrorist incident involving a plane can't or won't happen. But if the last decade has shown us anything, it's that A) it's hard to hijack or attack a plane in the post 9/11 era, because attackers who get past security still have to deal with the passengers and crew of a plane, and boy do those people want to live; and B) there's probably not a real large group of people interested in attacking us anyway. Thiessen gives terrorists too much credit, and the American people too little respect.

TSA Backlash Watch: One Last Thought About Kevin Drum

Kevin Drum worries about the GOP:

"For seven years, Republicans insisted that every security procedure ever conceived was absolutely essential to keeping the American public safe, and anyone who disagreed was practically rooting for an al-Qaeda victory. Now a Democrat is in office and suddenly they're outraged over some new scanners. Helluva coincidence, no? But this is no surprise: this issue works for them on every possible level. In the short term, it gives them something to pound Obama about. In the medium term, it gets the chattering classes chattering about something other than the fact that Republicans have no remotely plausible plan for improving the economy. And in the long term, if a plane does come down, they will absolutely crucify the Obama administration for its abysmal and cavalier approach to national security."

I think there's some truth to what Drum says toward the end of this paragraph. One reason the Obama Administration isn't backing down on this issue, I suppose, is that the political fallout will probably be ferocious if they do and then there's a successful attack.

However: I don't ever want to be in the position of dismissing a civil liberties issue because it otherwise gives undue advantage to one's political rivals. That way lies hackery. Are Republicans making hay out of the TSA backlash? Sure. Do I care? Not so much. Maybe they're doing it cynically, but in this case at least they're on the side of angels. It's the principle that matters, not the party.

TSA Backlash Watch: What About The Other Civil Rights?

I've mostly avoided using the TSA backlash as a cudgel against conservatives because A) they're on the same side of this issue and B) it seems to be a teachable moment about the broader issues of civil liberties versus security. Adam Serwer, though, detects tribal privilege at work in the current controversy: "Of course, if you're Sami el-Hajj, it's perfectly cool for the government to violate your dignity by shoving you into an island prison for seven years without charge.  There's no mystery here. The application of constitutional rights, for some conservatives, is a completely tribal affair. What's really frustrating of course, is the lack of recognition of the connection between justifying the imprisonment el-Hajj faced and the TSA procedures Burlingame finds humiliating. It's a long slippery slope, but for first time people like Burlingame see themselves at the end of it."

A Thing Obama Has Done For Gay Rights

I've given the president a hard time over unkept promises with regards to gay rights, so let me praise him for this unambiguous advance: "The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare issued new rules yesterday that require all hospitals that participate in Medicaid and Medicare to allow patients to designate who shall be allowed to visit them and make medical decisions on their behalf. The order will allow for same-sex partners to have the same rights as other immediate family members. The new rules will be published in the Federal Register on November 19."

There's still more to be done, of course. But that's something that should've happened a long time ago -- and didn't until Obama was president. So good on him.

Mr. Mom Chronicles: An Update

Tobias can't be expected to
interrupt his work to deal with me.

When I first started the "Mr. Mom Chronicles," documenting my new life as a stay-at-home freelance writing dad, I expected it to be cute. Oh, I also expected there to be challenges, but I expected them to be cute challenges, making for entertaining stories that people would smile at and pass along to their friends.

You might notice it's been more than a month since I updated this series.

A little math: Parenting is hard. Work is hard. Combine the two? Days full of exhaustion and never catching up. And I'm afraid it's my son who is paying the price.

Here's what the typical day has been like the last couple of months: I wake up and go straight into office mode. The boy wakes up, generally an hour later. I get him up, diapered and fed, then return to writing mode. This is how we spend the day: I work. He lets me know when he needs something. I yell at him when he does stuff I don't want him to. And we both pray for the moment that momma gets home.

This is where I've done a lousy job: I haven't routinely set aside time that's just me and him. Parenting has been a subset of my day, but I haven't really let it dominate any part of my day, to where other duties -- to myself and my freelance employers -- get put totally aside. The boy, it seems, has been completely screwed by all this.

I stayed home, in part, so that we wouldn't have to resort to daycare. Not just for cost reasons, but because we weren't ready to have him hanging with strangers all day. At the rate I've been going, though, he might be better served by the attention he'd be getting in an institution.

Or...

Or I could dedicate myself a bit more to the task of parenting. This morning, I took him to breakfast and then a walk through the neighborhood. Nothing fancy, but it was time that we hung out and I didn't have my nose buried in a computer. I think it was good for him. I know it was good for me. We'll just have to keep on trying.

Richard Cohen On Sarah Palin's Empathy Problem

I think Richard Cohen is on to something here:

It's appalling that Palin and too many others fail to understand that fact - indeed so many facts of American history. They don't offer the slightest hint that they can appreciate the history of the Obama family and that in Michelle's case, her ancestors were slaves - Jim Robinson of South Carolina, her paternal great-great grandfather, being one. Even after they were freed they were consigned to peonage, second-class citizens, forbidden to vote in much of the South, dissuaded from doing so in some of the North, relegated to separate schools, restaurants, churches, hotels, waiting rooms of train stations, the back of the bus, the other side of the tracks, the mortuary, the cemetery and, if whites could manage it, heaven itself.

It was the government that oppressed blacks, enforcing the laws that imprisoned them and hanged them for crimes grave and trivial, whipped them if they bolted for freedom and, in the Civil War, massacred them if they were captured fighting for the North. And yet if African Americans hesitate in embracing the mythical wonderfulness of America, they are accused of racism - of having the gall to know more about their own experience and history than Palin and others think they should.

There's a large sect of the American people for whom the only acceptable narrative of our nation's history is one of ever-greater triumphs. Oh, sure, they acknowledge some bad times in the past, but anybody who lets those bad times define the meaning of "America" -- even in the slightest -- becomes guilty of an "America hatred" that disqualifies them from the mainstream of public discourse.

The irony, of course, is that we Americans spend a huge amount time celebrating our past. There's nothing wrong with this. But it does mean we define ourselves by our collective heritage. That's normal. But Cohen is right: Americans who define themselves by the grimmer moments of our heritage are routinely shunned. We don't want to think about that stuff. We are allowed to be proud that our great-grandfather fought in the war, but we are not allowed to be angry that our other great-grandfather spent a lifetime in bondage, or that his children and grandchildren lived lives that denied them their full personhood. It's an unbalanced approach to life and history.

Me? I think there's far more right about America than is wrong, on balance. But to define that heritage purely in terms of the triumphs, it seems to me, is arrogant and chauvinistic. And it leads us down paths that are bad for the nation. A sense of the possibility of tragedy is, generally, a useful thing.