More of the same

Last week, the mainstream media put unrelenting focus on the anniversary of 9-11. While appearing sentimental, coverage ultimately served to make a very complex matter meaningless by emphasizing only two aspects: (1) Victimhood and (2) Unity. Even the terrorists and their networks were relegated to the margins.

Last night

Awed. Moved. Speechless. But a little burdened, too. Like some great secret was shared with me but I didn't know what it meant and no one caresd. I went to bed thinking, That was so awesome, and woke up thinking, So, so awesome. Not much can move me like that. Not "move" like the way a powerful movie can move you, but like the way a world wonder can move you. The music and the venue and the performance and the performers all teemed with a penetrating glow that inspired in me the still wonder that can set a quiet little boy on edge. The songs were alive.

Justin Vernon thanked opening act Kathleen Edwards and described himself years ago listening to her records and drowning his pain in whiskey. He said that tracing the thread in this life is hard but music was his thread and it lead him there and to her and to a better place. He was in a wonderful place.

The day after

In the article "E.U. Divided by 'Palestine' Bid at U.N.", The New York Times supports the indefinite postponement of Palestinian statehood. The logic given is circular. The article states:

Yet despite what is at stake, neither those European countries that support nor those that oppose the Palestinian resolution have a Plan B for the “day after” the resolution. 

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor who is a staunch defender of Israel, said last week that she was concerned about the “day after,” asking what might happen on the ground if the Palestinians unilaterally went to the U.N. General Assembly. 

“The big question is the day after,” said Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov, an international relations specialist at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. “The settlements will still be there. The Israeli Army will still be there.” 

The situation might quickly deteriorate if the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, stops, as he has threatened, the transfer of customs revenues owed to the Palestinians. The Obama administration, too, might cut aid to the Palestinians and even downgrade its ties.
There is a danger, too, that riots among the Palestinians could ignite the anger of Israel’s other Arab neighbors. 

All of this, analysts say, would make it imperative for the Europeans to think hard about how they could help the situation on the “day after.”

So, Palestinians want statehood and independence from Israeli occupation, but EU states can't allow Palestine statehood because the territory is still occupied. The article recognizes that withdrawal and Israeli concerns can be negotiated first, but the writer immediately dismisses any such reasonable solution:

But the truth is that the Europeans have no Plan B. “It’s because we have not seen the text of the resolution,” said an E.U. diplomat. But when they do, chances are it will be too late.

So, UN and EU diplomatic negotiators could develop a plan but because they haven't already, they can't support Palestinian statehood when it comes to a vote at the UN. The New York Times does a faithful job towing the State Department's line.

Something about The Wizard of Oz

The Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion each sensed some deficiency within himself. They learn from the Wizard, who is not a really a Wizard, that they are not deficient. At the end of the journey, they were not given a gift so much as they had the idea of a void extinguished. Soon after the void was extinguished, the magical world they were in, with its wonders and dangers, disappeared.

They were incarnations of Dorothy's circle. When they needed help, these characters were magical, foreign, and mysterious. When that need vanished, they were ordinary men, as familiar as an uncle or cousin. The magic was in the journey they were all on together, all of them needing, recognizing their needs, resolving always to serve those needs together and until the end.

2011 Prediction: Dallas Cowboys (6-10)

• at NY Jets              L, 30-16
• at SF 49ers             L, 17-21
• Redskins                W, 20-12
• Lions                       W, 17-16
• at NE Patriots         L, 34-9
• Rams                       W, 16-12
• at Philly Eagles       L, 41-20
• Seahawks                W, 24-13
• Bills                          L, 18-14
• at Wash Redskins   L, 21-17
• Dolphins                 W, 20-17
• at Ariz Cardinals    L, 24-15
• Giants                       L, 16-12
• at TB Buccaneers   L, 20-10
• Eagles                      L, 31-13
• at NY Giants          W, 17-13

2011 Predictions: San Francisco 49ers (7-9)

• Seahawks                      W, 23-13
• Cowboys                        W, 21-17
• at Cincy Bengals          W, 20-6
• at Philly Eagles             L, 35-13
• Buccaneers                    L, 20-18
• at Det Lions                   L, 24-16
• Browns                           W, 27-20
• at Wash Redskins         L, 18-13
• Giants                             W, 17-13
• Cardinals                       L, 23-13
• at Bal Ravens                L, 30-9
• Rams                              W, 20-12
• at Ariz Cardinals           L, 21-16
• Steelers                           L, 36-15
• at Seattle Seahawks      L, 20-17
• at SL Rams                    W, 16-10

Holding middle ground: The jobs speech, September 8, 2011

The best lines from the President's September 8, 2011, jobs speech:

I know some of you have sworn oaths to never raise any taxes on anyone for as long as you live.

This line is troubling. His flippant reference to the Republicans' unwillingness to negotiate says he thinks he's dealing with merely a tougher streak of politics as usual. The middle ground is gone and Obama, either bravely or stupidly, clings to the notion that it isn't.

 We have to reform Medicare to strengthen it.

An Orwellian betrayal we can expect to hear more often.

I reject the idea that we have to strip away collective bargaining rights to compete in a global economy. We shouldn't be in a race to the bottom, where we try to offer the cheapest labor and the worst pollution standards.

Falls on deaf ears, like the rest of his appeals, but this part speaks volumes to the state and direction of America's standard of living. He evidently can see the tables turning but is either unwilling or unable to see what's at stake.

Yes, we are rugged individualists. Yes, we are strong and self-reliant. And it has been the drive and initiative of our workers and entrepreneurs that has made this economy the engine and envy of the world. But there has always been another thread running throughout our history--a belief that we are all connected; and that there are some things we can only do together, as a nation.

Direct appeals to values are always interesting. Here he references competing values. The speech had other good lines; I'm thinking mostly of the times he tried to head critics off at the pass by announcing that his proposals were not controversial and not class warfare.

Overall, the speech had more strengths than weaknesses, and imparted a strong variation in tone. And insisting that Congress pass his plan and not some mockery of their own was shrewd. However, the basic theme remains: The President thinks he can manage and get cooperation. He can't. He's outgunned rhetorically and organizationally.

Change in Libya, change in media

Judging by changes in the tone and language of coverage, I sense the media is backing away from the Libyan rebels. When the tide of battle turned not long ago, the coverage was breathlessly supportive of their cause. But now the rebels have power and the remaining fight has only the Gadhafi manhunt and a few stalemates with Gadhafi loyalists in various municipalities. The waning enthusiasm in part flows naturally from the press tiring of the story line. But there's more to it: The rebels are no longer a single-cause fighting force. Now they are emerging as a diverse set of forces with different agendas and identities. This defies the simplistic narrative that most journalists need. For example: The rescue of trapped miners makes a good story. The miners dealing with the trauma, depression, and anxiety in the aftermath is a hard story. The former gets tons of coverage; the latter, little to none. Aside from the media's preference for simple narratives, they now see that the new Libyan leadership may turn out no better than Gadhafi, and this would reveal how truly uncritical the coverage of this conflict was.

Another transcript

The New York Times piece Huntsman Warns That GOP Can't Win the White House by Denying Climate Science offers only a summarized transcript of environment-related content spoken during last night's Republican debate. This pointless article quotes a bold assertion by Huntsman, then makes no attempt at verifying his figure. Unbelievable. Here is the only authentic moment from the debate--a potentially historically significant moment in the evolution of the GOP--starring Huntsman and left alone by the NYT:

When you make comments that fly in the face of 98 out of 100 climate scientists, to call into question the science of evolution, all I am saying is that in order for the Republican Party to win, we can't run from science ... By making comments that basically don't reflect the reality of the situation, we turn people off.

NPR leaves us in the dark

The NPR story Conservatives Step Up Attacks On Public Funding For Birth Control takes the usual route, replaying Conservative and Liberal positions on funding birth control and the abortion issue, but then makes two sad attempts at shedding light on the debate. First attempt:

Abortion opponents are correct that widespread access to birth control hasn't eliminated abortions in the U.S. — although the number has declined considerably over the last two decades.

The author assumes that (1) eliminating abortion was the goal and that (2) such a thing is possible. Both assumptions are incorrect. Furthermore, the line could have been more honestly written as, "Birth control advocates are correct that the number of abortions performed has dropped dramatically due to widespread access to birth control".

The second attempt to shed light on this debate comes at the end of the piece:

Still, the question remains, why is it only now that objections to birth control are being raised in public? John Green, a political science professor who studies religion and politics at the University of Akron, says he thinks it has a lot to do with the recent battles over federal spending in general, and the new health law in particular.

The author doesn't pursue this theory to its end by asking why the budget battles even started under Obama. This is a reasonable question given the fact that (1) the US has run a budget deficit since Reagan held office 30 years ago and (2) the current Recession was not caused by Government Debt. She did not point out that budgets only become the big issue when a Democrat occupies the White House; the last threat at Government shutdown came under Clinton.

This is poor reporting. If the author was investigating a murder, she might ask "Why did the suspect kill the victim?" and receive the answer "Because the victim made him mad." Shouldn't she then ask, What did the victim do to make him mad?

Mike Muir

Just that this is a cool picture of Mike Muir of Suicidal Tendencies.

Song lyrics: Love Knows How to Fight

Monday I got hooked on M. Craft's song "Love Knows How to Fight." With repeated lines omitted, here are the lyrics:

Love knows how to fight
Like darkness wrapped in light 

And the sky is a roof made of tin with a million holes for the light to get in
Beyond, there's an endless sea of lucidity, and infinity of light
And tonight for the first time in my life I'm gonna believe something is out there
And there's somewhere I'm going to 

Cause all of the satellites which circle way up high won't save me now
And all of the meteorites that shoot across the sky won't save me now
All of the galaxies that turn before my eye won't get me out
Out of this mess I'm in now, no nothing can save me now 

So if you wanna fuck up with a beer bottle in your hand well so do I
And if you wanna cut up the blueprints and the plans well so do I
You wanna get messed up, and make a final stand? well so do I
Cause I look around me and I see, nothing can save me now. 

Love knows how to fight
And fight it will right up until the end
Like darkness wrapped in light
Love knows how to fight

My interpretation:

• First, the singer considers the human-centric view: The night sky and known universe are subordinated by man's conceptualizations of them (a tin roof with a million holes). Everything known becomes a thing to be studied and dominated. This is man's world of self-determination. The singer feels helpless, powerless, and, probably, desperate.

• In his desperation, he feels ready to open himself up to the possibility of destiny or some force greater than himself (I'm gonna believe something is out there) because he has no other recourse (nothing can save me now). When he says "Nothing can save me now" he means literally that no thing in the known universe--not even a meteorite--can help him. Only destiny can help--destiny not being a "thing" so much as the possibility of some thing else, some thing not known that is beyond understanding.

• Being without recourse in the human-centric world dominated by the concept of self-determination, he feels free to act out against the rules, the laws, and the plans set and enforced by other men. So he welcomes the opportunity to act out in defiance ( ...  if you wanna cut up the blueprints and the plans well so do I ...) 

•  At the beginning and end of the song he says the "something" "out there" is love. He sets up a binary relationship between self-determination and love, dark and light.

Generalized vapidity

An NPR music blog called The Record includes a recent entry about summer songs. The author, a music critic, writes about a certain kind of summer kind of summer song: "Instead of invoking an endless, idealized beach day, such a song resonates within a specific time and place." And then she gets specific:

Not intentionally topical, such songs collide with current events in unexpected ways: a simmering bass line might reflect the oppressiveness of a heat wave, or a confrontational chorus could connect with kids forming a grassroots movement in the street. 

What if the moment's prevailing mood is hard to pin down — sometimes voluble, sometimes glum? I'd call that floating anxiety, the Red Bull-and-vodka delirium of a culture seriously in flux. That's what this summer feels like to me, with the tensions inspired by economic woes, political skirmishes, tragic accidents and true-crime sprees never quite alleviated by the distractions Kardashian weddings and Harry Potter finales provide. It's not a breezy, easy time, even when the weather's nice enough to put the top down.

This does not describe the shared experience of Summer 2011. NPR aired an audio segment on this blog entry today and online I found a short write-up about the segment. This write-up, credited to NPR Staff, negates the original blog entry with this: "Still and all, a summer song is personal. It matters where you spent the past few months, with whom and what kind of memories got made." Exactly.

Review:Race Matters

Cornel West gallops through the American black's condition in essays he assembled under the title, Race Matters. He diagnoses the race as suffering a nihilistic experience brought on by an increasingly unethical capitalistic, market-driven culture. He bemoans the current leadership and issues a few calls to action. But who is West's audience?

Only those already of like mind will draw value from West's essays. Nothing here is discussed in depth, very few quotes are included, statistics are rounded, and no citations are given. This is a surface-level manifesto: In Race Matters, large, sometimes nebulous issues are distilled into a hardline socio-political stance.

True insights are few; the best among them can be found in West's discussion of black Conservatives--particularly, the response to Clarence Thomas. Rather than smear Thomas as just an Uncle Tom, West quickly sketches an ethical critical position and shows Thomas' failure to satisfy its requirements.

A minor but interesting theme in West's discussions is fashion. He gives an interesting visual rhetorical analysis comparing the dress of Civil Rights leaders to that of modern politicians and intellectuals. For example, Martin Luther King's dark, modest suits spoke to the man's humility, allowing the emphasis to fall on his audience. But many modern black leaders dress in expensive, flashy suits that symbolize personal achievement, and emphasize the man as a shining example.

Goodnight, Moammar Qaddafi

Hours into the revolution in Libya, media extracted the sanctifying, legitimizing force of the word "government" from descriptions of Gadhafi's rule, choosing instead to use phrases like "remains in power". He was called colonel or leader, but not President. Accordingly, his army then lost its claim to legitimacy. They became "forces loyal to Gadhafi" or some variation thereof. Examples from various mainstream news sources:

Forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi
Forces loyal to the unseated ruled Moammar Qaddafi
Forces loyal to Col Muammar Gaddafi
Forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi
Forces loyal to the once powerful leader Col. Moammar Qadhafi
Forces loyal to the embattled leader

Review: The Storm at the Door

The Storm at the Door dotes on the drama suffered by a couple in the months prior to and after their forced separation. First he torments her with his mania and alcoholism as she enables him; then he's tossed in the sanitarium where his patience and will are tested while she suffers humiliation and guilt, forced to raise the kids alone and go to Church Sundays. With a microscopic story arc, the characters were left to do the heavy lifting but they weren't strong enough.

The error of his ways

In GQ's "The Impossible, Inevitable Redemption of Michael Vick", Will Leitch interprets the metanarrative PR firms generated for NFL star Michael Vick:

Michael Vick was undisciplined, young, and too loyal to (and trusting of) the people he grew up with. He made mistakes, including but not limited to dogfighting, and eventually his malfeasances were uncovered. He realized the error of his ways and accepted his punishment. While in prison, he "got his mind right," discovered the perspective that eluded him as a free man, and vowed never to repeat the mistakes of his past. He took advantage of his second chance, becoming the quarterback he was always meant to be. His story is an inspiration to all. Particularly to those desiring the finest in athletic gear.

Then Leitch lays it out:

I'm not sure if it will strike you as a relief or an outrage that Michael Vick doesn't really believe all of this, but you should know: He doesn't.

Leitch argues that Vick does not think his fighting and killing dogs was wrong. Yet, Vick confesses no such thing. So how does Leitch support his argument? Through a rhetorical move: A tale of two Vicks.

Leitch first shows us a meek Vick. This version of the man goes on television and in subdued tones says his actions were wrong, he knows they're wrong, and he's learned his lesson. This man goes on 60 Minutes and makes public appearances with reps from the SPCA. He's a boring guy, probably a dumb jock who can't talk things not-football.

Then we see the other side, the star athlete eager to mug and pose for photographers who can put his face in glossy magazine profiles. This guy is an exposure and praise-loving gamer set for showtime.

One man is a fake, slyly blunting our interest in him and discouraging prolonged meditation. The other is the real thing.

We all have multiple personas. We act one way around the boss and another way when out clowning with friends. Having multiple fictions does not make us liars.

Although Michael Vick probably is a liar.

Two bits

The Associated Press article "3 attacks target Israelis near Egypt, 6 dead" partially covers the recent attack in southern Israel. An Israeli official is quoted:

"The incident underscores the weak Egyptian hold on Sinai and the broadening of the activities of terrorists," Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in a statement. "The real source of the terror is in Gaza and we will act against them with full force and determination."

Then the AP writer shares this nugget:

Bedouins in Sinai cooperate with anti-Israel militants in Gaza, just across the border.

That's it. No context, no mention of occupation, no mention of violated UN resolutions. The highlight of the article is this curve ball conclusion:

The bus driver interviewed by Channel 2 did not provide details of the attack but appeared calm, smoking a cigarette in the driver's seat.

 One cool customer.

In the second of the two bits, the writer should have been more explicit in calling out the BS here and his title is a misdirect, but the LA Times article "New presidential bus attracts attention, criticism" deserves some credit for at least passively implying that this story was stupid and the criticisms trivial, uninformed, and hypocritical. The article states:

Republicans can't stop bringing up its cost, making the bus sound like a boondoggle. In the new age of austerity, a million-dollar bus is an irresistible target — especially because it was built in Canada rather than the U.S..."This is an outrage ..." Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said ... Other conservatives were snarkier ...

There's pettiness. Now the hypocrisy:

"The vehicle had to support the weight of security and communication equipment that we had," (Secret Service spokesman) Donovan said ... the Secret Service ordering a custom-built bus gave the agency "a level of security that we couldn't achieve by doing it the other way" ... President George W. Bush rode on a bus from the same Canadian manufacturer ... The Secret Service actually ordered two buses like the one Obama used this week. The other is for the eventual Republican presidential nominee.

Review: The Influencing Machine

In her short graphic booklet The Influencing Machine, Brooke Gladstone concludes that we get the media we deserve. But Gladstone doesn't explicitly argue towards this point. Rather, she argues that reporters are mostly well meaning professionals subject to their own weaknesses and common institutional biases. In The Influencing Machine, Gladstone reveals these biases, and she catalogs ugly moments in media history, cites different views on media responsibility, and discusses consumer habits.

But in acknowledging that PR firms work the media on behalf of political-private interests, and that mainstream media is under a larger corporate thumb, and that journalists and editors, driven by competition between media outlets for markets, reshape and spin news, Gladstone concludes in error. Journalism can involve acts of heroism, but usually it unfolds somewhere between irresponsible stenography and political-private interest promotion--neither of which are for, by, or of the people.

My thinking on media criticism means that I have expectations for what I should see when I consume news and media. In other words, the product is already written in my mind before I seek out mainstream media's interpretation. I realize that. But Gladstone's careless "media is a reflection of society" summation whitewashes the matter. The Influencing Machine is PR for journalism in an age when people don't trust journalism because the line between journalism and PR has faded.

Late mention: Derrida

Read one section of Derrida's brief Gift of Death. The essay discussing Abraham's move to sacrifice Isaac was very good. In the remainder, Derrida cross-referenced too much for me to appreciate. Also read some of Deconstruction in a Nutshell, a parsing of a roundtable discussion with Derrida held at Villanova in 1994. John D. Caputo, Philosophy Professor there, obfuscates everything, rendering the dense content impenetrable.