GERARD VAN DER LEUN has some thoughts on where Bush-hatred is heading.
Archive for 2003
December 5, 2003
GO VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE BLOGGERS over at Wizbang.
JUDGING BY THIS PIECE IN SALON, ’60s revivalism isn’t playing that well among younger audiences:
I’m standing near the back of New York’s Webster Hall, by the radical bookstore’s table, when Morello appears onstage with his acoustic guitar. Most of the dozen young people I’ve met so far have come to hear Morello, so I expect mostly praise from the crowd of sources who surround me. Instead, Mike Levin — a sideburned graduate student at New York University — tells me that he’s not pleased. “I feel alienated by it,” he says. Morello’s speech — including the reference to Iraqis wanting Americans to leave, and a tale of being tear-gassed at the Miami FTAA protests — seemed “kind of preachy,” says Levin, 28. “Kind of clichéd.” His cousin Kate, 22, a politically active intern at the Nation magazine, agrees: “It seemed like he was trying to make the music fit the politics.”
Four of six fans I speak to offer a similar critique — Morello and the other artists seem a retread of ’60s counterculture that’s not quite able to fuse politics and music into a persuasive whole. Some critics simply see holes in the content; Jason Lyons, a tall 24-year-old in baggy jeans, says that he doubts that all Iraqis, or even most, actually want U.S. troops to leave immediately, as Morello claims. Similarly, in Boston, Sheldon found the rhetoric fast and loose. “It wasn’t driven by factual evidence,” she says. “It was driven by their opinion.”
Said Lindsay Sullivan, a fan I met in the Webster Hall stairway: “There’s a great message and I agree with it, but there isn’t anything new.” Her friend Anna Hurley agreed: “There’s not much inspiring going on.”
According to Danny Goldberg, CEO of Artemis Records and the author of “Dispatches From the Culture Wars: How the Left Lost Teen Spirit,” stars tend to alienate their fans “if they become preachy, didactic, too predictable.” Despite the artists’ best efforts, this seems to be what happened, at least at times, during Tell Us the Truth.
Read the whole thing (you have to sit through an ad, though).
MASS KILLING IN IRAN? Blog Iran sent this story:
Amid burning banks, stores and government offices, at least 30 Baloch protesters are dead and 80 injured in the southeastern city of Saravan near the Pakistani border, said Malek Meerdora, who immigrated to Canada from the city in 1993.
Meerdora told WorldNetDaily the Iranian government has attempted to shut off communication from the city, but he has been in contact with sources there via satellite telephone and the Internet.
The BBC reports five dead, not 30, but its sourcing doesn’t seem much better. Stay tuned.
UNEMPLOYMENT DOWN: Minorities and teenagers hardest hit.
UPDATE: Um, hardest hit by the fall in unemployment. Some people didn’t get it. But Bill Hobbs has some additional perspective.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Okay, the email keeps coming. Unemployment is down most among them, which is good. Sorry I was being too cute, I guess.
On a related topic, a reader who’d rather I not use his name emails:
Just finished a month in Japan evaluating innovation and competiveness for my company.. Given your recent TCS column on robots, I thought you’d find it interesting how far the concept of “dark factories” has gone in Japan. One of the companies (highly profitable) I visited has a manufacturing plant that can run two months without stopping..no big deal, huh?
Well, the big deal is that this factory is solely robots manufacturing other robots, to the tune of about 50-60/day, big industrial robots too. There isn’t a human around for 70 straight days (hence the term “dark factory”..they don’t need light to operate). I’ve got 14 years in Supply Chain and Manufuacturing, but I wasn’t prepared for how far machine vision and “fuzzy logic” has already taken us. The robots did everything themselves..there was no artifical set-up of the components or stockroooms.
True, it is a bit of a showpiece, but even I got this eerie Terminator/Matrix feeling watching what I guess is essentially robot reproduction.
Interesting. I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords, er, employees.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Augh! They’re everywhere!
HERE’S MORE ON THE CREDIT LYONNAIS / EXECUTIVE LIFE SCANDAL:
PARIS, Dec 5 (Reuters) – French lawmakers demanded answers on Friday over President Jacques Chirac’s role in the Executive Life dispute amid speculation he blocked a settlement that did not protect his billionaire friend Francois Pinault. . . .
Besson told Reuters he would raise the matter in parliament next week after a motion to launch a full-blown parliamentary inquiry into the affair was scratched without explanation from the agenda of next Friday’s meeting of its finance committee.
“This is going to turn into the Chirac-Pinault affair,” said Alain Riou, a senior figure in the opposition Green party, who is also seeking clarification on Chirac’s role.
Stay tuned.
SPEAKING OF STEREOTYPES about the South, Jack Neely wonders if the North and South aren’t really trading places. As long as we get the fun part, with fast cars and cussing women. . . .
A PATRONIZING NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE ABOUT THE SOUTH that gets facts wrong and relies on outmoded northeastern stereotypes? Hard to imagine, I know, but that’s what some people are saying.
UPDATE: Reader George Calhoun emails:
As a recent (relatively – 1994) alumnus, and as a person who toured campus with my wife less than a month ago, I can vouch that there are no confederate flags proudly displayed anywhere at Vanderbilt. (I have to confess, however, that I didn’t examine the KA house TOO closely…) I guess facts don’t matter. The Times ought to start a Jayson Blair section, and properly identify their creative fiction. Some of it is pretty entertaining if you don’t happen to be the target.
Indeed.
DO SOUTH PARK REPUBLICANS EXIST?
Lost in the debate over whether or not SPRs exist and to what extent they are politically relevant is an important and telling irony: Most South Park Republicans would have no idea there is a debate about them. They spend their lives outside the incestuous circles of punditry. We cannot further our understanding of them by quoting members of the political chattering classes.
Some important observations here for both Republicans and Democrats. And this warning for Republicans:
The GOP’s hold on South Park Republicans could quickly fade. Their vote is clearly up for grabs. You never know what might be the straw that breaks SPR backs, between GOP spending hikes, tariffs, anti-smoking legislation, and the specter of “conservative” laws that might compromise privacy and liberty.
Indeed. It’s an excellent observation that you can only be the “lesser of two evils” so long as the other party is worse.
THE NEW CLASS IS THREATENED BY THE INTERNET, with its intolerance for lies and posturing and its openness to alternative voices. Here’s the response:
Leaders from almost 200 countries will convene next week in Geneva to discuss whether an international body such as the United Nations should be in charge of running the Internet, which would be a dramatic departure from the current system, managed largely by U.S. interests.
The representatives, including the heads of state of France, Germany and more than 50 other countries, are expected to attend the World Summit on the Information Society, which also is to analyze the way that Web site and e-mail addresses are doled out, how online disputes are resolved and the thorny question of how to tax Internet-based transactions.
The “new class” types who dominate international bureaucracies can’t be expected to take the threat to their position lying down. And, as I’ve written before, it’s a very real threat to them, and to others who profit from silencing people. As blogger-turned-Iranian-Parliamentary-candidate Hossein Derakshan notes: “We can’t vote, but we can still say what we really want.”
That’s a horrifying notion to some, and you can expect more efforts to put a stop to it.
UPDATE: Check out DailySummit.net, which is covering the Geneva summit steadily. They’ve even got quotes from Arthur C. Clarke.
I FIND MICKEY KAUS’S KERRY WITHDRAWAL SCENARIO plausible, even if it is “quirky and contrarian.”
All I can say is that Kerry has done much worse than his on-paper credentials would suggest. Maybe my instincts on his candidacy were right. . . .
BRAD DELONG HAS AN INTERESTING POST OFFERING a framework for analyzing the economic impact of nanotechnology. Zack Lynch has some thoughts in reply.
UPDATE: In a related vein, here’s evidence that investment in nanotechnology at the moment isn’t really driven by fundamentals:
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A growing fascination with nanotechnology seems to be doing wonders for the stock price of Nanometrics Inc.
Too bad the company’s only connection with the hot field of molecular-scale machinery is the first four letters of its name and a stock ticker, NANO. But that, apparently, is enough to confuse some investors. . . .
Gerald Fleming, an analyst with Oppenheimer who covers Nanometrics stock, said he received eight to 10 calls on Wednesday from brokers who thought the company had something to do with nanotechnology.
“The company’s been around for 25 years, well before nanotechnology was even though of, and it’s strictly a coincidence,” Fleming said.
Enthusiasm is nice. But it should be informed enthusiasm.
I NEVER THOUGHT THAT JOHN DVORAK’S MUCH-FISKED COLUMN ON BLOGGERS was about me, but here’s someone who does. All I can say is, I remember Dvorak predicting that the x86 chip series was going to be shouldered aside by arrays of sped-up Z80 chips. So when he predicts the death of blogs . . . .
STILL QUOTATIONALLY-CHALLENGED at the New York Times?
UPDATE: Reader Greg Wallace writes:
This is going to make me sound old, because it was way back in ’78 that I got my BA in journalism. Virtually all of my journalism professors in college taught us that it is acceptable to “clean up” quotes if the context remains intact and the meaning is not altered. My editors throughout the years since have consistently maintained that position. I think the Times is a goiter on the body of journalism, but I’d save this fight for another day.
Funny that nobody else cleaned this one up, though. And while I’m not terribly offended at the practice, I think it’s going to raise more hackles in the Internet age where such comparisons are easier.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Don Burton emails:
Contrary to the guy who commented that it was normal to “clean up” language in a quote, I don’t think that quite gets the NYT off the hook in this instance. Besides the empirical evidence that no other source saw a need to clean up the football coach’s quote, I would add two points:
1. By thinking the quote needed “cleaning up” the NYT is assuming that the coach mispoke, or spoke out of ignorance of grammatically correct English. Unless you’re sure either of those is the case, you shouldn’t alter the quote. However, I think it’s equally likely that the coach a) is comfortable saying “ain’t” and is not ashamed to use the colloquial speech of the region; b) uses “ain’t” because he knows that coaches are expected to use tough, earthy language; c) wants the fans in Mississippi to know that he’s as down-home as them despite his recent sojourn in Yankee-dom; or d) some mixture of a, b, and c. I lean towards possibilty b), but I find it objectionable in any event for the Times just to assume the quote needs cleaning up.
2. As an amateur Timesologist, I suspect what’s really behind the change is that the version of PC that seeps into everything the Times reports on dictates that you can’t have an African-American public figure saying “ain’t.”
I agree.
FRANCE’S AIRCRAFT CARRIER, the Charles De Gaulle, has suffered from so many problems that the French are looking to buy British:
Actually, the French had planned to build a second nuclear powered carrier, but they are having so many problems with the first one that they are quite reluctant about building another one. Britain is building two 50,000 ton conventionally powered carriers, at a cost of $2.5 billion each. France would order a third of this class, and bring down the cost of all three a bit. The new French nuclear carrier “Charles de Gaulle” has suffered from a seemingly endless string of problems. The 40,000 ton ship has cost over four billion dollars so far and is slower than the diesel powered carrier it replaced. Flaws in the “de Gaulle” have led it to using the propellers from it predecessor, the “Foch,” because the ones built for “de Gaulle” never worked right. Worse, the nuclear reactor installation was done poorly, exposing the engine crew to five times the allowable annual dose of radiation. There were also problems with the design of the deck, making it impossible to operate the E-2 radar aircraft that are essential to defending the ship and controlling offensive operations. Many other key components of the ship did not work correctly, and the carrier has been under constant repair and modification. The “de Gaulle” took eleven years to build (1988-99) and was not ready for service until late 2000. It’s been downhill ever since.
Sheesh. Makes our military procurement look good.
UPDATE: Here’s an appalling alternative proposal — that Britain and France actually take joint ownership of the aircraft carriers. Best response: “But previous experience with the French leads one to believe that such arrangements, while desirable in principle, could be very difficult in practice.”
HOW I FEEL ABOUT THIS depends on how it’s executed:
President Bush wants to send Americans back to the moon — and may leave a permanent presence there — in a bold new vision for space exploration, administration officials said yesterday.
Permanent human presence on the Moon: great. Big NASA project that NASA will screw up: not so great. Likelihood of getting the latter: high. Likelihood of getting the former: Not as high. Likelihood of getting the latter without the former actually coming about: highest.
To NASA: Sorry. I love you guys. But that’s the track record since, oh, sometime before I hit puberty. Or maybe before I learned to walk. Or maybe before I was born. . . .
JEFF JARVIS HAS COMMENTS on the revival of European anti-Semitism. And that reminds me that I meant to link to the suppressed EU report on that topic yesterday, but got distracted and forgot.
CHRISTMAS TREES AND PROSTITUTION: Equivalent in the eyes of some.
UPDATE: Reader Richard Andrews emails: “Maybe the headline should have been: Ho, ho, ho…”
Heh, heh, heh.
MY LOCAL ALT-WEEKLY has a guest column on the UT Issues Committee scandal, contrasting the University’s behavior in this case with its rather more vigorous response when some frat guys wore blackface last year. The columnist believes that the University should have responded as harshly this time as it did before. I’m not sure I agree with that. Its action (as it eventually admitted) was wrong in the blackface affair, and it certainly shouldn’t behave wrongly again. On the other hand, the disparity in treatment is certainly undeniable.
Perhaps the University should stand up more boldly for free speech, and a diversity of ideas, as a general matter, and put its money where its mouth is in supporting the latter. That would put to rest any questions of bias.
Come to think of it, that’s what all universities should do, isn’t it?
UPDATE: UT blogger Adam Groves has some thoughts.
MAUREEN RYAN, who has written a few articles about blogs for the Chicago Tribune, has now started one herself. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated . . . .
“PARENTAL PATRONIZING:” Doonesbury gets an unfavorable review. I think it never recovered from Trudeau’s lengthy hiatus. Plus, few cartoons stay funny for that long — which is why Bill Watterson deserves credit for quitting while he was at the top of his game.
DOES ISLAM NEED A POPE? Andrew Sullivan isn’t sure what to make of this, and neither am I.
SO MAYBE POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEES ARE OKAY: Parasites can be our friends.
AUSTIN BAY IS ELABORATELY PRAISING THE NEW YORK TIMES: Well, part of it, anyway.
UPDATE: Related observations here — scroll down to “listening to Iraqis.”