National myth

Most cultures and countries have their national myths. The myth serves many functions: They create and enable shared experiences, solidify a national identity, and promote values, just to name a few.

In America, myths about the Founding Fathers abound. America also has many myths about its soldiers. A primary myth revolves around the story of the young soldier--a boy, really--who goes off to war and returns a man, stronger than he was when he left.

Ideally, some young woman waits for him. This is the story of the journey, but focused and particular to the American soldier. These myths come to life in movies, books, and video games. But they take deep root in the public psyche when perpetuated through news media. The media's promotion and America's subsequent embrace of the so-called "Greatest Generation" exemplifies many of our military myths, including this one. Military sacrifice thus becomes the highest honor affordable to the middle and lower classes.

That returning soldiers often face unemployment, alcoholism and addiction, shrinking benefits, and physical and mental trauma goes unmentioned.

NPR is engaging in some myth making with their series "Who Serves". Here is an exemplary installment: "For Some, The Decision To Enlist Offers Direction"

Vignette, junked

One of them rose out the passenger side, measured steps took him inside the house. The other stalled in the driver's seat. Both wore black t-shirts, hiking boots, blue Dickies, close shaved hair. Looking on them saw hard looks, but those weren't hard looks they gave, trying. They were young. In short time the white Lincoln Town Car backed readily out the driveway, then pulled less readily up the street trailing a scent of stale cigarette smoke and car freshener like words in a goodbye letter between teenagers.

Is making a question into a headline stupid?

Using a question for a headline entices readers with deception. The question-headline implies that (1) the article will focus on the question and (2) deliver a clear cut answer. Instead it delivers disappointment on both fronts. For example, a headline yesterday asked, "Will Michele Bachmann's gaffes hurt her presidential candidacy?" As if an underpaid junk peddler at The Christian Science Monitor can tell the future. The article was really an excuse to again cover her recent "gaffes". A reader might also assume that the article writer seeks his opinion on the matter. But, no.

The question-headline also has a more dubious function. It posits doubt and/or masks an accusation. Asking "Will Michele Bachmann's gaffes hurt her presidential candidacy?" is the same as reporting that Some people say Michele Bachmann makes a lot of gaffes. So the question highlights the doubt or accusation. Another example, today The Christian Science Monitor (which is just full of questions lately) asks, "Obama's push to boost tax revenues: Will voters approve?" The question implies that Many voters will not approve of Obama.

The question-headline is also no different from other headlines in that it frames the conversation. In this case, readers are forced to think of Obama in terms of his acceptability rather than consider the real question behind his proposal: Should people pay taxes in proportion to the benefits they derive from society? And you can't answer that without first defining what services our taxes, when filtered through State apparatus, should provide. But rather than encourage debate, the media force-feeds us contrived drama.

The hoax

The Washington Post presents an article documenting propaganda that doesn't use the word propaganda. "Israel ramps up campaign against Gaza aid flotilla" also avoids saying why groups from around the world would risk their lives to send aid to Palestinians in Gaza. Likely, the aid comes second to the organizers' ultimate goal of bringing attention to the Israeli occupation. In direct denial of this goal, the headline frames the article from the Israeli point of view, and focuses on Israel's hoaxy response.

Christian died of blunt force trauma

So give me back to Death
    -by Emily Dickinson

So give me back to Death --
The Death I never feared
Except that it deprived of thee --
And now, by Life deprived,
In my own Grave I breathe
And estimate its size --
Its size is all that Hell can guess --
And all that Heaven was -

Popcorn

Statistic-oriented articles about population surface fairly often but in the lead up to this summer's release of the 2010 census data we find more articles like this CBS piece "Minorities make up majority of U.S. babies". This story emphasizes a statistic showing most people over 65 are white but minorities are having the most kids and makeup the majority of the population under age two. According to the article, this demographic shift begs us to worry for our future.

First quoted is Laura Speer of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, an organization aiming to help disadvantaged children. She says,

It's clear the younger generation is very demographically different from the elderly, something to keep in mind as politics plays out on how programs for the elderly get supported ... It's critical that children are able to grow to compete internationally and keep state economies rolling.

Although the article writer focuses on race, the stakes here are very much rooted in class and economic concerns, as Speer alludes to so deftly. But race makes for a more attractive story angle. The rise of black single mothers is another focal point for the article.

The final word goes to Tony Perkins, president of the conservative interest group Family Research Council who "emphasized the economic impact of the decline of traditional families, noting that single-parent families are often the most dependent on government assistance." In his words:

The decline of the traditional family will have to correct itself if we are to continue as a society ... We don't need another dose of big government, but a new Hippocratic oath of "do no harm" that doesn't interfere with family formation or seek to redefine family.

That quote is loaded. To be non-traditional--often the result of personal irresponsibility, it seems--is to be poor and a threat to society's existence. The article offers no alternative political point of view.

Huntsman 2012

New Republican candidate John Huntsman received a warm welcome from media this week. According to the coverage, he's the nice handsome wealthy unassuming centrist whose campaign has begun so modestly you just have to believe in him. Matt Bai, political chief at The New York Times, writes the following:

If the field stayed wide open, the 51-year-old Huntsman—with his silver hair and his prized Harley and his mastery of Mandarin Chinese, with his record as a tax-cutting governor and his vast family fortune—would be an intriguing prospect ... 

On television, Huntsman radiates strength, with his conventional good looks and easy demeanor, but in person he sometimes has a lesser presence. Average in height and build and self-effacing in a Jimmy Stewart kind of way, he’ll slouch a bit and bow his head, holding a microphone prayerfully with both hands, until it almost seems as if he is receding in front of you. He comes across as genuine and unpretentious, without a hint of entitlement—the kind of guy you’d be glad to run into at your kid’s soccer game.

The Christian Science Monitor offers a list of 10 things to know about Huntsman that reads more like a PR piece than journalism. Their list includes the following:

The relatively moderate Huntsman, whose good looks and polish position him as the GOP’s Obama, may be more electable than most of his more partisan contenders. He’s also a strategic politician who sees an opening in a weak field ...

“Jon Huntsman has an attractive combination of style and substance,” says Professor Chambless. Indeed, the articulate diplomat, who inspires adjectives generally associated with a Hollywood sensation–tall, lean, photogenic, charismatic–appears to be the Republican best poised to challenge Obama on the style front.

And he’s no laggard in the substance department, either. He has held two diplomatic posts, one in the economic powerhouse of China, and he's twice been elected governor– he left office early in his second term for the China post–of one of the reddest states in the union, Utah.

His business success rounds out Huntsman’s impressive résumé. And as a moderate, the ex-governor has a shot at capturing the critical independent vote. Given all that, it’s no wonder Time magazine called him “the Republican Democrats fear most,” and Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, once said the prospect of facing Huntsman in 2012 made him a “wee bit queasy.”

NPR demonstrated their enthusiasm by devoting several stories to Huntsman. Will Rick Perry get this kind of welcome? Maybe this much and more.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Reading Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Early in the novel our freewheelin' protagonist McMurphy approaches the insecurely effeminate and possibly homosexual patient Harding following the latter's humiliation during group therapy. McMurphy aims to open Harding's eyes and expose the cruelty of Nurse Ratchet. Harding protests at first, defending the therapeutic methods of the clinic by asserting that its practitioners' expertise is too much for any layman to critique. In other words, the medical community's knowledge is their power. But McMurphy persists, using analogy and his gruff but down-home brand of empiricism to bring Harding to realize that Ratchet's clinic seeks to instill and maintain order through shame. Harding is won over, but then one-ups McMurphy by claiming that they are both peons, separated only by a few degrees.

I can't tell if, in Kesey's mind, Ratchet represents merely a bad apple within the system or if she is the system. Another observation: Having seen the movie many times, I'm surprised by how important a role gender plays in the original story.

Any case

Citing the War Powers Resolution, dissenters in Congress yesterday challenged President Obama's authority to engage in hostilities in Libya without their authorization. Legality here hinges on interpreting the vague resolution which, despite having been ignored time and again since its inception, seems to heartily support the current challenge: § 1543 defines applicable circumstance as, among other things,

... any case in which United States Armed Forces are introduced—(1) into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances; (2) into the territory, airspace or waters of a foreign nation, while equipped for combat, except for deployments which relate solely to supply, replacement, repair, or training of such forces ...

Any case? Points for critics of the administration.

But Harold Koh, State Department legal adviser, counters that "the limited nature of this particular mission is not the kind of ‘hostilities’ envisioned by the War Powers Resolution.” Moreover, this is NATO's mission now--since at least April 7--and the US only lends support and not manned armed force.

The decades-long trend shows the Executive branch gaining power. Hard to imagine any check on that now.

Electronic Music

Imagine the Casiotone (with other higher-end synthesizer-oriented electronic musical instruments) begatting modern electronic music. The story of this genre would be a story about technology turning in on itself through the medium of music wherein it expresses something essential about itself: That it must evolve or risk dying. When a technology reaches some perceived peak, such as the printing press and paper, that technology, it is thought, risks and awaits eradication. If it cannot be improved upon, it eventually will be outmoded. This truth is expressed at the micro-level in electronic music--a genre in which the triumph is to achieve a seamless transition from one piece of music into another piece, eventually rendering the first piece unrecognizable and forgotten, its sonic identity at once consumed and carried on in subsequent arrangements.

I don't like or listen to this music.

Lack of opportunity

One oft-used phrase by government administration officials and therefore journalists and pundits is "lack of opportunity". A quick Google search suggests the phrase comes most readily when writing about US domestic issues, but it also comes in handy for international discussions. NPR recorded a prime example last month when quoting a nameless official during coverage of President Obama's latest address to Muslims of the Middle East and North Africa:

It's important to note that the political movements we've seen are rooted in part in a lack of opportunity in the region ... We see this as a critical window of time to take some concrete actions.

A people who lack opportunity to this degree may trend toward revolution. Power voids abound in such an environment, potentially opening the door for enemies of elite US interests to seize control.

Now, less than a month after that speech we discover a rigorous but unofficial US military campaign to squash a popular uprising in Yemen. This episode, for some reason, is different from the war in Libya: It is Rebels who uprise in Libya; only "militants linked to Al Qaeda" uprise in Yemen.

Yemen has been governed by Ali Abdullah Saleh since 1978. That's 32 years of autocratic rule. Earlier this year mass protests began targeting unemployment, poverty, and government corruption. Saleh refused to step down. Embattled now, his regime remains tenuously in power thanks to the State Department, whose spokesman Mark Toner is quoted in The New York Times as saying,

With Saleh’s departure for Saudi Arabia, where he continues to receive medical treatment, this isn’t a time for inaction.  There is a government that remains in place there, and they need to seize the moment and move forward.

So, our government supports an authoritarian regime that presides over poverty, unemployment, and corruption--a lack of opportunity--in turn creating a power vacuum which opens the door for enemies of elite US interests to seize control. If the elite in this country perceive a threat to their interest from abroad, it seems they are creating the bed in which they lie.

Shame and Power

News media now push this story about sexually suggestive photos sent via Twitter by New York Congressman Anthony Weiner. A few months ago it was Congressman Christopher Lee emailing shirtless pictures of himself. How are these important? The answer can be found in Foucault.

These stories share the assumption of scandal--the media's judgement that these actions are inappropriate and deserving of shame and public scrutiny. Media represent power. They are agents of powerful private interests joined at the hip with policy makers who seek control over behavior. Power enforces control, encourages self-control and the policing of peers. Power seeks to regulate sexuality ultimately to ensure the stability of the population (i.e., control population growth, minimize conflicts leading to lawlessness, etc). Weiner and Lee are guilty of expressing their sexuality in unsanctioned ways.

These men--let's pretend they are both guilty--expressed their sexuality in an unobtrusive, non-aggressive way: Electronically. Although the acts are basically harmless and victimless, power aims to extend domination and control over sexuality even as it exists and is practiced in the electronic sphere. Hence, the public shaming.

The Googlization of Everything: (And Why We Should Worry)

We find no apocalyptic visions in its pages; if anything, Siva Vaidhyanathan's confidence in the inevitable and not-too-distant demise of Google urges us to extrapolate lessons learned from its rise and fall and apply those lessons generally across a world where information and power are wielded digitally. But don't misunderstand: Google is still the matter.

It takes a few sections but Vaidhyanathan eventually establishes his own ethos as critic without penning a straw man version of Google Inc. to stand against. No, he just argues that although Google does obscure its ultimately commercial and self-interested motivations via its reassuring corporate philosophy, "Don't be evil," it is our faith in Google and lack of critical thought that pose a more dangerous threat. So, Vaidhyanathan's discussion of Google is, in a more abstract sense, a discussion about ourselves and the institutions we come to rely on so quickly.

Style Guides

I notice a lot of similarity in the style and delivery of the various pieces on NPR, especially among the more entertainment-oriented articles. This phenomenon--which is no doubt also true of content on PRI and other public broadcasting partners--is likely by design, intended to ensure quality and consistency of their standards.

For example, I often hear use of a trope in which a pair of words are stated and then restated in reverse. Thursday I heard the following during a piece on the Dallas Maverick's Western Conference NBA Finals victory over the Oklahoma Thunder:

In the just concluded Western Conference Finals, the oldest team in the NBA played the youngest - once you adjust for minutes played. Exciting basketball for sure, but also an interesting referendum on the age-old old age issue.

Friday I heard this in a review of Terrence Malick's film The Tree of Life:

The Tree of Life doesn't jell, but I recommend the experience unreservedly. You might find it ridiculously sublime or sublimely ridiculous — or, like me, both. But it's a hell of a trip.

Not sure, but this may be called epanados. I wonder how much of this standard-following is enforced from above, how much of it is self-regulating among peers, and how much of it comes from mechanisms of education.

Spy vs Spy

Rand Paul's objecting to the unchecked extension of the Patriot Act requires little reporting. This Wall Street Journal blog post about it should interest readers only because of the way the author describes the debated provisions:

The provisions at issue enable law enforcement officials to conduct surveillance on terrorist suspects, including those who switch communication devices such as using disposable cellular phones and those who are so-called lone wolves—individuals who aren’t linked to known terrorist organizations abroad. A third provision enables law enforcement officials access to suspects’ business transactions, including car rentals, hotel bills and other credit card transactions.

By labeling surveilled people suspects--terrorist suspects, in particular--the writer intends for the reader to support passage and object to Paul's "tactic" of "insisting" on full debate. The reader concludes, "Well, this doesn't affect me!"

This woefully poor summary of the provisions is admirable.

It's all in your head

The Newsweek author responsible for the article "Stuck in a Post-Crisis Gloom" first attempts to summarize what "abetted" the Great Recession without mentioning banks, sub-prime lending, deregulation, over-leveraging, or credit default swaps. Instead he blames consumer overspending. As for the recovery, he says,

The greatest barrier to recovery now could be psychology—stubborn gloom—which conditions household and business spending decisions. There is a curious role reversal. Foolish optimism led to the financial crisis and recession by assuming things would work out for the best. Now, reflexive pessimism weakens growth by ignoring good news or believing it can’t last.

A startling hypothesis: The public caused the recession and now the public prevents recovery.

How wonderful when meanings evolve

M. Craft's song "I Got Nobody Waiting For Me" won me over. The lyrics:

I've got nobody waiting for me
There's no one that I have to see
Anytime, anyplace that I said I would be
Finally I'm free and I'll be anywhere 

I'll chase my tail till I fall in a heap
Now all that I have to lose is some sleep
And I'll give away all of the hours you keep
Finally I'm me and I'll be anywhere

I'll stay out until the sun makes a play
For the sky and a new day's begun
I'll sit up the back of the bus
And without any fuss I will travel

'Cause I've got no one to weigh on my mind
No footsteps are dragging behind
As fingers reach out for the feeling in mind
I got nobody waiting for me

All that money grows out on the trees
Notes float along like seeds on the breeze
And they're easy to catch but they hatch a disease
That eats away the soul of you, the whole of you

And all those wages we make for our sins
Become the cages we lock ourselves in
Become the age that is marked on our skin
But I'm not gonna worry 'bout all that 'cause

I'll live on the taste of the air
This is life without care and I like it this way
I'll lie across the whole of the bed
In the world in my head, I will travel

But I've got nobody left to impress
No neck for my lips to caress
As I work out the buttoned up back of a dress
I got nobody waiting for me

Nobody's waiting for me
No, nobody's waiting for me

Such a good song. The author seems to celebrate aloneness ("Finally I'm free and I'll be anywhere"), while duly noting his managed pitying for the loss of intimacy ("No neck for my lips to caress"). But the celebration is maybe not so celebratory.

Consider the verse starting with "All that money grows out on the trees". How is money relevant to how a guy feels about being alone? To a guy, money does seem to go quicker when you're dating. But money itself isn't the point. The point is about corrupting influences: "And all those wages we make for our sins / Become the cages we lock ourselves in / Become the age that is marked on our skin".

When you're alone, you are often more susceptible to being corrupted. By anything. For example, you have only yourself to lavish attention on. This could corrupt, breeding self-absorption and selfishness. And money-wise, you might be impressed with how much you're saving alone; but soon enough you learn its never enough.

The pitying for lack of intimacy is the last verse of the song, followed by the refrain "Nobody's waiting for me". So Craft--or his character in the song--seems to feel that aloneness is bittersweet at best, though its often worse.

Suspicious Googling

Started reading The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry) by Siva Vaidhyanathan. The first few sections feel redundant. But the author's insistence may be justified.

Google earned immense popularity with its reliable search engine, and many tech news devotees appreciate the company's political and market identity. For these reasons, the author must first convince his audience that his concerns are valid and healthy, not hasty or ill-informed. But in his prose we see him walk a fine line; because Google is so popular and Vaidhyanathan doesn't want to alienate readers, he quickly denies having any intent to brand Google either good or bad. But in announcing his advocacy of regulation, possible legal action and ethical inquiries, the author and his subject come into opposition. And Vaidhyanathan does not sound like the reluctant harbinger of trouble he purports to be.

So far the book reads like an expose posing as an institutional analysis by an academic. I'm not against reading either of those books. And it's early still, so my impressions could change.

Popular Stoics

Was surprised and interested to see Foucault indict the Stoics in latter portions of Care of the Self. His analysis, like so much his other work, counters preconceived ideas. I had pictured these philosophers as characters of resignation; and I concluded that this resignation necessarily prevented them from being influential beyond their kin. But not so, according to Foucault; they were enormously influential. And the moral and ethical conclusions they drew from their insistence on understanding nature and being at harmony with the universe profoundly impacted what would become acceptable ways of living and what affinities would become vilified or otherwise expire with the Age.

When a marriage is legitimate

In Care of the Self, the third volume of The History of Sexuality trilogy, Foucault summarizes the history of marriage. Elite pagans married to form alliances of wealth and power; the poor married for economic practicality (i.e., a poor man might marry a poor woman and they, with their family, could support themselves). These marriages needed only the family's blessing. From there, interests of the State and of the Church took root. Marriages became increasingly social and public.

We have a tendency to look to an institution's origins to inform us on resolving contemporary issues.