A possible trend in journalism and writing

I bet critical obituaries will grow more common. The most recent high-profile example is Salon's "Andrew Breitbart, 1969-2012". This trend--if it is one--I first noticed after Christopher Hitchens died. Yes, some figures, like Hitchens and Breitbart, are more likely to draw fire after death, but now everything is politics. So look out--after a celebrity or politician of any stripe dies, writers will rush to publish something harsh. Doing so, they imagine, is just setting the record straight. (Weird how that runs parallel to current journalism's rampant fairness bias--reporters giving equal weight to opposing views when one side's argument doesn't deserve it.)

Mike Nesmith on Davy Jones and The Monkees

Rolling Stone published an email interview with Mike Nesmith that included the following two question/answers:

RS: In your estimation, why did the Monkees burn out so quickly? The whole thing ended after little more than two years. 

MN: That is a long discussion – and I can only offer one perspective of a complex pattern of events. The most I care to generalize at this point is to say there was a type of sibling suppression that was taking place unseen. The older sibling followed the Beatles and Stones and the sophistication of a burgeoning new world order – the younger siblings were still playing on the floor watching television. The older siblings sang and danced and shouted and pointed to a direction they assumed The Monkees were not part of and pushed the younger sibling into silence. The Monkees went into that closet. This is all retrospect, of course – important to focus on the premise that "no one thought The Monkees up." The Monkees happened – the effect of a cause still unseen, and dare I say it, still at work and still overlooked as it applies to present day.

RS: Do you have a favorite Davy Jones-sung Monkees song? If so, what makes it your favorite? 

MN: "Daydream Believer." The sensibility of the song is [composer] John Stewart at his best, IMHO – it has a beautiful undercurrent of melancholy with a delightful frosting, no taste of bitterness. David's cheery vocal leads us all in a great refrain of living on love alone.

What to make of that first exchange? convoluted and cryptic as it is. Sounds like Nesmith argues that The Monkees evaporated not because they were a synthetic marketing formula, but because they were not. They were a real live boy mistaken for a wooden Pinocchio.

Secondly, I like his characterization of Jones' "Daydream Believer". I have always felt that melancholy chord in the performance--and that is the key to the song, because living on love alone can be only a dream. A mighty dream.

Notes:

• RIP David Thomas "Davy" Jones (30 December 1945 – 29 February 2012)

On Denis Johnson's novel "Nobody Move"

Apparently out of luck, compulsive gambler Jimmy Luntz finds himself on the run from his creditor's goon, Gambol. Denis Johnson's novella Nobody Move presents this brief manhunt like scenery on a short trip in a beat-up Sedan DeVille. A solid, short list of characters waltz in from the sidelines during this game between chance and hopelessness, enhancing the conflict found in this fast, fun read.

A short thing in Salon about Rocky

Night of the Underdog, a flashback piece about a great film.

When is a whistleblower not a whistleblower?

An anonymous source leaked internal documents from Libertarian thinktank Heartland to hydro-climatologist and climate debate figure Dr. Peter H. Gleick. These documents discussed fundraising and strategies for fostering climate change doubts within schools. Under someone else's name, Gleick pursued the leak and received more documents, which he then turned over for publication. He's (1) commendable for truth-seeking and/or (2) guilty for his methods.

In the op-ed "The Heartland Affair: A Climate Champion Cheats—and We All Lose", Time magazine's Science desk Going Green columnist condemns Gleick, citing journalistic standards (because Gleick publishes on Huffington Post) and drawing support from a confession the would-be whistleblower himself published in Huffington Post. In that confession, Gleick admits to "a serious lapse of my own and professional judgment and ethics" and says he regrets his actions.

No doubt Gleick disapproves of Heartland's tactics and holds a higher standard for himself in this climate "debate" messaging war. He is very clear about this. He's also clear on where he stands in the larger debate. The Time columnist shows less courage, condemning the confessor while saying nothing substantive of its context. The point of his column is that "if a reporter lies in the pursuit of facts, the resulting story will be much harder to believe, even if it really is true". If in this case that happens to be true, it's only thanks to columnists like this who, cynically writing under the header Going Green, further obfuscate the debate, leaving casual readers to come away thinking "another global warming advocate lied".

Notes:

• Where is the story on Heartland's tactics?
• If global warming/climate change was my issue, this would frustrate me.

Their fortunes changed

On a brisk February morning he found her on his front yard wrapped in a dirty tarp. On her person, only a pair of new, red sweatpants. The way those legs folded out from under the tarp brought to mind a deflated Christmas display. Blood, smudges and streaks crimson black, hers, he guessed, sprung from where her fingernails had been ripped off. After this brief exam he pulled the tarp over her feet, secured the arrangement with three cinderblocks, then picked up the morning paper. Though she was already a celebrity in his mind, he figured he'd check the news for a second opinion.

About the TV show "Leave It to Beaver" (1957-1963)

Compared to "grittier", more recent television shows like Norman Lear's work in the 1970's and early "Rosanne", "Leave It to Beaver" is often critically dismissed for three reasons: (1) it's bourgeoisie idealism, a show (often seen as representative of other shows of the era) whose producers were either too disconnected or too disinterested to deal with darker, more important themes and problems; (2) the parenting it portrayed set too high a bar for those in the real-life business of parenting; (3) it oversimplified life with cut-and-dried narrative archs. (An example of this last criticism lies in the IMDB plot summary for the show: "Unlike real life, these situations are always easily resolved to the satisfaction of all involved and the Beaver gets off with a few stern moralistic words of parental advice.")

After watching the show the last several weeks, these critical write-offs seem way too hasty.

That the setting is a middle class suburb, that Ward and June can make it look pretty easy, and that problems arise and see resolution within the episode are all arguable enough. But none of these issues are unique to "Leave It to Beaver" or shows of its era. Moreover, consider the show's context: first, the middle class was booming then, so upward mobility was real (more so than now); second, the show was aimed at families, so its arch and content were built accordingly.

So those criticisms are a little unfair. Worse, they are conventional. They are conversation enders that cut off any real consideration of the show's merits. And it definitely had merits.

It wasn't like Beaver would just drop his lollipop in the mud and learn to be careful. No, the conflicts and themes could be substantial. Beaver might learn about the nature of trust--that trust is often necessary, that trust can be betrayed, and that trust can redeem the trusted and the trustee. He might learn about making choices by feeling regret. He might learn about responsibility after being disappointed or disappointing others. He might learn that there can be more to a person than the impression they make. And there were episodes in which he saw and met people outside his privileged suburban middle class world. Jealousy, money, status, honesty, popularity, peer pressure--all covered, and not always "to the satisfaction of all involved". In some episodes it was Ward and June whose eyes were opened.

Not every episode hit a home run but "Leave It to Beaver" deserves way more credit than it usually gets.

Note:

• In one stellar episode called "Eddie Spends the Night", Eddie Haskel, whose parents are out of town, is invited to stay at the Cleavers. That evening he and Wally fight and in protest Eddie goes home to an empty house. At first the Cleavers are relieved, but soon Ward and June remember their responsibility and lobby Wally to re-invite Eddie. Wally finds Eddie home alone and evidently a little scared of being by himself, though he tries not to show it. After first pretending (for Wally's benefit) to demand his father allow him to return, Eddie rejoins Wally. The next day Eddie confesses to Beaver that he hates being alone because, even though he acts like a big shot all the time, he can't pretend to himself that he's as confident and popular as he wants to be.

A thing on "The Spirit of Terrorism", essays by Jean Baudrillard

Was disappointed with these essays. Baudrillard alternates between skin-deep pontifications on the symbolic meaning of terror and basic leftist moralizing against the methods and consequences of US hegemony. Too bad: despite the volumes of writing on the attacks, I expect there's a real dearth of good literature on the subject.

Baudrillard doesn't argue points so much as reflect on them, so his writing is loosely structured. The edition I read was translated by Chris Turner.

Facilitating the man who facilitates change

In the recent New Yorker magazine article titled "The Obama Memos", a journalist tells the story of Obama's first few years in office by interpreting released White House memos. Two things stand out.

First, the journalist's description of the President's communication method with advisers:

President Bush preferred oral briefings; Obama likes his advice in writing. He marks up the decision memos and briefing materials with notes and questions in his neat cursive handwriting ...

If the document is a decision memo, its author usually includes options for Obama to check at the end. The formatting is simple, but the decisions are not.

Depending on the circumstances and personalities involved, a team of advisers can be understood to inform their leader and/or steer their leader towards a course of action. I find it interesting that the President's advisers are steering him in the formatting of their memos, which discourage response and nuanced discussion in favor of decisive decision making.

Second point of interest is this claim forwarded by the journalist:

A President’s ability to change public opinion through rhetoric is extremely limited. George Edwards, after studying the successes of Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Ronald Reagan, concluded that their communications skills contributed almost nothing to their legislative victories. According to his study, “Presidents cannot reliably persuade the public to support their policies” and “are unlikely to change public opinion.”

Nope, not buying it. Are you telling me that Roosevelt's fireside chats didn't make his audience more amendable to the unprecedented policies of his administration? That all Kennedy's talk of the "New Frontier" didn't help the success of the space program? That Reagan's pronouncements about "Morning In America" didn't inspire support? The argument and content around this passage feels as if it was inserted haphazardly. Whether (and how) Obama used rhetoric effectively once he was in office is a question that would require more research.

Kenneth Feinberg's worth

Kenneth Feinberg is an interesting figure. Conceptually, anyway. After the BP Gulf oil spill, the Federal government negotiated creation of a payout fund and President Obama appointed Feinberg to assign the compensation due to each disaster victim based on losses and projections. Feinberg had done the same for victims' families after 9/11 and the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, and, prior to that, he participated in Agent Orange-related litigation.

After the oil spill, I watched him testify on CSPAN at a series of Federal oversight committee hearings about the payout fund's administration. He is an animated performer, and his unrehearsed answers to panel inquiries were a clinic in articulation. I was thinking of him today and found an article from the Washingtonian, March 01, 2008, called "What I've Learned: Kenneth Feinberg". It's an interview, and features this:

Interviewer: Is it hard to shed the role of lawyer? 

Feinberg: I think being a lawyer and administering the 9/11 fund was at best a wash—and actually may have been a hindrance. It’s been said that perhaps a better qualification to do what I did with 9/11 and Virginia Tech is divinity school rather than law school. You certainly become more of a psychologist and a rabbi or a priest than a lawyer. It has made me a better listener.

Neat answer because (1) we can consider how his administration would have looked and sounded under other value systems and power matrices (medical/psychological or spiritual as opposed to lawful justice); (2) he stresses listening as essential, rather than previous experience, wisdom, or disinterest, for example. But I wonder if he is distancing himself from these points by starting off with "It’s been said "?

Might add to the reading list his book What is Life Worth?: The Unprecedented Effort to Compensate the Victims of 9/11.

President Obama's State of the Union address, January 24, 2012

President Obama put a lot on our plate with this SOTU speech. The highlights were (1) the forceful, almost impassioned delivery early in the speech, during his invocation of the optimism and teamwork of America's post-war years, and (2) his pointed remarks at his rivals, including the following:

• "But I intend to fight obstruction with action, and I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place."

• "Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense."

• "The greatest blow to confidence in our economy last year didn't come from events beyond our control. It came from a debate in Washington over whether the United States would pay its bills or not. Who benefited from that fiasco?"

• "The differences in this chamber may be too deep right now to pass a comprehensive plan to fight climate change. But there's no reason why Congress shouldn't at least set a clean energy standard that creates a market for innovation. So far, you haven't acted. Well tonight, I will."

The themes were Destiny and Teamwork and Fairness, all of which he anchored in the nation's past accomplishments. Since becoming President, Obama has summoned the past time and again in his speeches, which serves multiple ends: (1) this situates himself within American history, minimizing the foreignness and otherness attributed to him by his detractors; (2) the past offers comfort, the future is scary and unknown; (3) the past is a canvas on which he can depict values he wants to promote and call on; (4) the past also inspires confidence in our ability to achieve (largely through living and acting on the aforementioned values). In 2008, of course, he encouraged us to look ahead and, using the language of transformation to make himself a change agent in our eyes. No more of that.

Anyway, the play-by-play:

1. President Obama opened by acknowledging military troops and the end of full engagement in Iraq; this also drew attention to his foreign policy success. Then, the first major theme: the military is exemplary, he said, because of their teamwork. He then invoked the optimism of America's post-war years, framing that generation's successes as a product of teamwork. Here he also introduced the concept of fairness, coupled by a reference to the income gap.
2. But he left this theme for a while as he hit a litany of program initiatives: manufacturing, high tech, job training, education, higher education tuition, immigration, gender equality, and small, new businesses. This allowed him to say at least one thing that resonates with almost every listener in the audience. Here he also appeared ambitious, confident in himself and in the country's ability to meet any challenge. Optimism is key. However, he also risked losing the momentum he built early, leaving his audience restless and overwhelmed--a feeling that may ultimately have left them underwhelmed.
3. Next, his major policy points: on energy, he touted an "all of the above" strategy; for infrastructure, he recalled America's greatest engineering achievements (Hoover dam), using them as inspiration for the troubled construction industry; he endorsed a mortgage relief plan and stronger financial regulations, mentioning the consumer watchdog he recently appointed; then on to tax policy where the hook was his "Buffet Rule", essentially providing some tax relief to lower income brackets and raising taxes for the very wealthy.
4. Although by now he'd probably already cowed, wowed, or disgusted you, depending on your POV, he here switched gears by almost launching into his Republican rivals. But before it registered, before he risked attracting the pundits' criticism for being overly-partisan, he generalized the problem of government intransigence, offering support for an insider trading ban tailored to members of Congress. He then chastised Congress for doing nothing before, almost in the same breath, appealing to Conservatives by touting his policy initiatives that encourage "competition", less regulation, and streamlined government.
5. Finally, he returned to foreign policy, fashioning his conclusion out of the military strike on bin Laden, the bi-partisan Executive team that ordered it, and the American flag given to him by the soldiers who carried out the mission.

Teamwork and cooperation have remained themes in his speeches as stratagems for contrasting himself with the partisanship of his rivals. Selling these themes has not gotten easier, however; Americans are used to self-identifying as independent, as individuals.

An unpublished poem by Shel Silverstein

 When I Am Gone
   by Shel Silverstein

When I am gone what will you do?
Who will write and draw for you?
Someone smarter—someone new?
Someone better—maybe YOU!

We all were appalled

Right off, last night CNN's Republican debate moderator John King asked Newt Gingrich about his ex-wife's new claim that he asked for an open marriage. Newt answered,

I think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office. And I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that. Every person in here knows personal pain. Every person in here has had someone close to them go through personal things. To take an ex-wife, and make it two days before the Primary, a significant question in a Presidential campaign, is as close to despicable as anything I can imagine.

Despite his admitting to having a weak imagination, this morning's coverage calls Newt's reply brilliantly calculated. What made it a hit was not so much Newt's words but rather (1) the timing of the exchange, (2) Newt's delivery, (3) King's freezing up, and (4) the audience's enthusiasm.

No doubt King thought his opening rhetorical situation a golden opportunity; he hoped to start with fireworks, embarrassing Newt by capitalizing on the big ABC tabloid interview with the ex-wife. But doing so created an even bigger rhetorical situation for Newt, one he seized with his customary bluster by rejecting the question on moral grounds. That he got to do so right in the beginning, at the moment when anticipation and energy were peaking and ratings were highest, only magnified the exchange and created an immediate emotional outlet for the audience, who cheered Newt on as he chastised the media, the moderator.

Here we have a politician who publicly preaches values, from the party that owns family values, caught violating those values, claiming that he is morally above public inquiry into his values and his personal life.

The hypocrisy is plain as day, yet King fumbles on the opportunity, and Gingrich looks brilliant because he gets away with it.

Gingrich holds aloft his righteousness in his staccatoed indignation. He summons the dignity of the moment--a Presidential debate (a Primary debate)--a dignity due to such an event in abstraction, but not often felt in practice.

King could have countered along another route: Gingrich faults "the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media" while enjoying the destructive, vicious, negative nature of attacks hurled at candidate Romney by him and his Super PAC.

All this aside, what to make of Gingrich's appeal to "personal pain"? What pain? The pain of the divorce? And whose pain? His? The ex-wife's?

The answers don't matter. What matters is, What does the pain speak of? I'd venture that, for Gingrich, "pain" in this context is the pain we inflict and feel ourselves when confronted by personal failings. Gingrich has them in spades, but a candidate can't say so. Instead, "pain" is a code, a signifier of the unspeakable. Pain communicates to us without words and carries its own meaning. I'd venture further and say most his audience understands this, personal failings, even if they don't know it.

And if I'm right about what Gingrich is saying, I'd be tempted to see this as a product of his recent conversion to Catholicism, as his statement has in it an element of Confession.

Blackout

Communities plan to protest passage of PIPA and SOPA by staging web site blackouts. Wikipedia and Reddit, for example. Presumably a blackout shows the result of the bills' passage, which could force such sites offline. The black screen represents an electronic abyss, which metaphorically is apt as a symbol of what the internet post-PIPA/SOPA might be.

But this method, instituting a blackout, feels like negative reinforcement: If you don't protest, this will happen! A more productive tactic might have been, for example, replacing the site's usual content with a simple search that allows a user to quickly find his representative's contact info so that he can call or email his opposition to the person most capable of stopping passage.

Note:

• Wikipedia's message to its users states "But although Wikipedia’s articles are neutral, its existence is not."
• Links: Press release and message to users

Rue McClanahan's autobiography "My First Five Husbands ... And the Ones Who Got Away"

Although she spent much of her career on the theater stage, sitcom acting earned Rue McClanahan the most fame, having played Vivian on "Maude" and Blanche on "The Golden Girls". Her autobiography is like a chronology of lovers--she had a panicky need for male companionship likely brought on by her distant father. But hers is not a tale of dysfunction or sadness; instead she admits to only a few recurring mistakes within in a lifetime happiness. She ends with this:

Even as a child I had the strong feeling that life was good. I had a passion for work, an openness to love, and a penchant for joy. In a word, I had hope. 

I still have it.

The prose is light and bubbly, probably true to McClanahan's personality. The woman herself sounds like her trademark character, Blanche--slept around a lot but had a strong independent streak and beamed positivity, charming those in her company. But, the story goes, she succeeded purely on her acting chops.

I expected more gossip about television actors, but she offers almost none aside from acknowledging that Estelle Getty was not very good and Bea Arthur was an intimidating personality prone to dispensing harsh judgements. Although published in 2006, just four years before her death at age 76, the book isn't some old worldly woman's book of truisms. Mostly she cautions readers about marriage, lamenting that love alone isn't enough. Despite that minor key note, the book is a fast, fresh read.

More than a stenographer?

To give us an idea of where journalism is at here in the 21st century, today The New York Times Public Editor, the institution's "readers' representative", asks "Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?" Apparently printing every crazy old claim without verifying it has ruffled a few readers' feathers.

"Vigilante" is such a strong word. See the comments--now they're good reading!

On a walk

Starts with the interloper's wedding march: the ceremonial song of unarticulated thought that accompanies one who ends each step by committing to the next. Music fades out.

You start train hopping, hoping to find one with a destination promising enough you can stand the ride.

Each lawn, a palm reading: each house, a face. I am a back turning.

Know in your life one journey full of meaning and longing, the meanest kind of longing, that is the wish to turn back when you cannot.

Traveling distracts from meaningless journeys. To move is to be in transition, in neither one place nor the next. When transition is not pleasant, that is because it is change.

Once, pacing the street in the dark a big man just home from work took a fighter's stance with a How's it goin'? to let you know he saw you without trusting. You ducked in reply, he chuckled to drop his hands which means you flinched.

More than once the sky slept in its own pinks and gray while you watched. More than once dark warmed like the day from lights cloaked in dining room curtains and the moment took on your singular reflection.

A thing about Nikki Sixx's autobiography "The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star"

Nikki Sixx is the creative force and bass player for Motley Crue, the infamous glam-ish metal band that peaked in the late 1980's, early 1990's. His journal-form autobiography, The Heroin Diaries, follows Sixx through 1986-1987, the height of the band's excesses and Sixx's drug use. Brief commentaries by witnesses and peripheral characters pepper the book, filling in details left out of the journal entries which, I suspect, were massaged or even, in cases, written after the fact for continuity's sake. The almost 20 years between then and the book's publication date (2006) are covered as bullet points in the last half-dozen pages. It's a fast read despite the predictable redundancies inherent in the life of a junkie.

As a narrative, this is the story of a man who seemed to have it all and had a lot of fun while feeling completely miserable. In bits and pieces we learn that an unfortunate but not unprecedented family drama spoiled Sixx's childhood, amounting to what you'd call abandonment issues that in part fueled his addictions. He frames the book as a cautionary tale but, realistically, its appeal lies in its modest gossip and voyeuristic value.

In theory, rock autobiographies and biographies sound like good reading. But they rarely are so, for various reasons including the fact that musicians are not often interesting people and because the genre attracts a lot of hack writing by unskilled storytellers. The best I've read was No One Here Gets Out Alive and Miles: The Autobiography.

Free passes

The Root has a piece marking the 100th anniversary of the African National Congress titled "The African National Congress Turns 100" that dismisses the decidedly undemocratic and discouraging turn taken by the ANC of late. The piece treats all the high-level corruption and personal misconduct, and the totalitarian secrecy bill attacking the free press as mere growing pains. The author barely put effort into writing the dismissal, as evident in his conclusion:

And so, back to the celebration of the ANC's 100th anniversary. Whatever issues now confront it, and however they get resolved, on Jan. 8, even critics say, a celebration is indeed appropriate because, as one disaffected ANC member told me, "The ANC and its history belong to us, the people of South Africa."

If I felt like tossing off an allegation, I'd bet the author is just a party hack who belongs to the press union in Johannesburg.

The author's flippancy, his avoidance of problems and uncritical support fit right in at The Root. While the site, which seeks to raise "the profile of black voices in mainstream media", doesn't necessarily voice elite perspectives, it rarely (if ever) gives voice to the marginalized. The primary example: The Root offers no criticism of President Obama despite the failures of his technocratic governance and his neglecting his Progressive base.

We have high hopes

In its first sentence, The New York Times article "Big Study Links Good Teachers to Lasting Gain" shows just how crazy expectations on teachers have become:

Elementary- and middle-school teachers who help raise their students’ standardized-test scores seem to have a wide-ranging, lasting positive effect on those students’ lives beyond academics, including lower teenage-pregnancy rates and greater college matriculation and adult earnings, according to a new study that tracked 2.5 million students over 20 years.

This study focuses on so-called "value-added ratings" which measure teacher impact. The bar is being set impossibly high for public school teachers. The economics professors behind the study cheerfully dumb down the lesson we should tale away from their work:

“The message is to fire people sooner rather than later,” Professor Friedman said. 

Professor Chetty acknowledged, “Of course there are going to be mistakes — teachers who get fired who do not deserve to get fired.” But he said that using value-added scores would lead to fewer mistakes, not more.

So as long as you make sure all your third graders don't get pregnant until after college when they're working as lawyers and doctors you'll be OK. Charter schools will save the day!