Don't Look Back

Recently The New York Times moderate Conservative political columnist David Brooks asked readers over age 70 for a "gift":

...write a brief report on your life so far, an evaluation of what you did well, of what you did not so well and what you learned along the way. You can write this as a brief essay or divide your life into categories — career, family, faith, community, and self-knowledge — and give yourself a grade in each area.

A morbid request, I think, but people obliged. Brooks' sampling will in the end lack diversity, but so far it volunteers interesting narratives. Any pattern of self-judgement is elusive. Some writers regret disastrous decisions because of their consequences, while others disregard effects, choosing instead to emphasize the values symbolized in the decision, like courage. In all, the essays offer no real surprises. The source of greatest fulfillment and greatest regret was usually love and family. Failed marriages were a common theme, inspiring regrets, except in the case of one man who remained friends with his exes. Estranged children caused pain, while relationships with adult children bring rewards.

The current of familial autopsies denotes an irony Brooks will likely miss or ignore: His respondents don't reflect the success of moral-majority ideals Brooks would like to impart. Rather, with their multiple marriages, estranged children, and indifference (or, sometimes, bitterness) towards religion, these folks represent a reality the self-righteous can't acknowledge--that however well-meaning one may be, we all suffer personal shortcomings and from circumstances that make strict adherence to value codes all but impossible. Sometimes we fail. Sometimes we need help and second and third chances.

Brooks thinks self-reflection is valuable and not performed often enough. That's a debatable if not dubious claim. He also thinks these essays might prove a good resource for the young. Could they instead prove harmful and confusing? Seeing ourselves as subjects fit for analysis comes so naturally.

Another picture post

Stuff about an article on Newt Gingrich

Plodding further along the media-worn path of horse race campaign coverage, the Time magazine article "Gingrich Could Draw GOP Ire on Immigration" hones in on Gingrich and how his stance on immigration may affect his ranking:

The firebrand former House speaker broke with what has become a reflexive Republican hard line on immigration, calling for "humane" treatment for otherwise law-abiding illegal immigrants who have been in the United States for decades, establishing deep family and community ties.

"Firebrand" qualifies as an odd characterization given that Gingrich is thoroughly establishment, old guard, and a while out of the game. Nevertheless, the article never explains how Gingrich's position contrasts with his opponents and their "hard line". The closest comparison comes more than halfway throughout the piece:

But Romney has been tough on illegal immigration while running for president. He said Tuesday night that what Gingrich was proposing would act as a magnet for foreigners to enter the country illegally.

"Tougher" goes undefined. Also undefined are the immigrants. But this quote from a Gingrich supporter holds a clue:

"With me, personally, I fall right in line with him," said Columbia, S.C., Gingrich supporter Allen Olson, a former tea party official. "It's utterly impossible to round up 12 million people and ship them off.

Yep. Mexicans. When Conservatives and media discuss immigration, usually they mean Mexicans. This is understood, but rarely if ever said. The Conservative stance on Mexican immigrants goes unexamined here in this piece as it does elsewhere. The Conservative response to Gingrich, however, does not:

The response was swift. Some conservatives asserted he had wounded his candidacy, perhaps fatally.

That Gingrich's "humane" position should so offend a large segment of voters merits some examination here. The reporter might ask, Why? What are the reasons? Are those reasons valid? Instead of diving into the meaning and merits of this debated issue, the piece cynically treats the position as mere political maneuvering:

And far from a stumble, Tuesday night's remarks seemed a calculated tactic to draw a contrast with Romney, whom he now sees as his chief rival to the party nomination and who has had his own trouble with conservatives ...

This article also includes the obligatory nod to Gingrich's presupposed intelligence in this quote, courtesy of Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss:

"He's one of the smartest politicians out there, and don't think he hasn't thought this through."

Gingrich's intellect has long been an object of admiration in his media coverage.

Science, society, and responsibility

The Time magazine editorial "Was Jared Loughner In Control of His Actions?" interests me because it addresses the issue without dumbing it down too much. The author, psychology professor Michael Gazzaniga, answers his question with both a Yes and No, but probably thinks the better answer is Yes.

Gazzaniga refers to emerging cognitive science-related research that says we are not as in control and not as rational as we like to think we are. Framed as a re-evaluation of our decision making, this conclusion has been gaining media traction, highlighted right now in discussions with and/or about economist Daniel Kahneman's book, Thinking, Fast and Slow. I see this discussion as a resurrection of Descartes' mind-body problem, but using the language of science instead of philosophy. The knowledge holders now preface their statements with something like "The research tells us ..." when really they are interpreting research, disavowing assumptions, then they're telling us.

Nevertheless, returning to the editorial, Gazzaniga tenderly leaves the recognition of responsibility to society, not science.

Something on The Ask

His wife cheats on him, he lacks the requisite affection for his own son, his employment as development officer at a third-tier university was recently terminated for bad behavior, and he's aging badly, quickly: Milo is a sad, bitter man. This unfit protagonist of The Ask knows his own insufferability, describing himself as the unsympathetic lead in some bad novel. But author Sam Lipsyte's rendering of Milo's self-loathing loserhood disarms the reader just enough, bypassing our hostility on a bridge of rickety empathy.

After college, Milo quickly traded in his aspirations in the art world for a rat-race life of quiet desperation and loud disappointment. His opposite is his estranged college buddy, Purdy, who's now a wealthy, enviable man whose stock has only risen since graduation. The memory of Purdy seems to figure in whenever Milo takes stock of his own failure. But Purdy does have one spot on his record: A son he didn't know he had and now wants to hide. The son turns out to be twice as bitter and resentful as Milo, and for better reason.

To those of us quick to blame others, the narrative encourages turning that critical eye inward, and taking a break from the self-hating and social criticism long enough to appreciate what we do have, which is often more than first imagined. If the novel has a point, that may be it. The Ask reads quickly but has a lot of flaws: Barely tolerable characters, a drawn-out plot structure, some unclear resolution points, and the author frequently employs one affected choice of syntax that bothered the hell out of me.

A tale of two endings

The New York Times issued two death certificates today. The first was for soft and sterile Republican candidate Jon Huntsman. The article "Major Ad Blitz for Huntsman in New Hampshire, by Group Backed by His Father" maintains the narrative that candidate Jon Jr. is the son who can't escape the shadow of his rich, self-made father. The article says this explicitly:

Though Mr. Huntsman has clearly made his own name as the governor of Utah and, most recently, as the ambassador to China for President Obama, he has grown up in the long shadow of his father, one of the richest men in the country and an entrepreneur behind iconic items of Americana ...

And the supporting details from the article (parenthetical is mine):

Governor Huntsman made it clear early this year that he did not think he could be a viable presidential contender if he did not raise money on his own, telling reporters, “Unless you can raise it legitimately, you’re not going to win.”

As he has struggled to do so, his aides and supporters have placed increasing hope that Mr. Huntsman’s father would shovel enough money into (Jr.'s PAC) Our Destiny ...

Mr. Huntsman has been loath to ask his father to up his commitment to the outside group, several people familiar with the situation said. His father, on the other hand, they said, has been unwilling to do so without being asked, especially given the uncertainty of whether the investment would make a huge difference.

The Huntsman candidacy never had a chance, and The New York Times' insistence on this narrative only hurt.

The second death certificate is for the Occupy Wall Street movement--or, at least the occupation part. The article "Beyond Seizing Parks, New Paths to Influence" depicts the police raids and impending Winter as ruinous for the protestors encamped in parks across the nation. The article's sources now predict a shift in strategy from attention-getting to information sharing and political action. The New York Times has consistently been critical of the protestors and the movement, focusing on the perceived lack of a unifying message or list of demands and the nuisances caused to locals and businesses, but the paper has stayed pretty neutral about the politics. This article seems to argue that Occupy Wall Street succeeded in raising consciousness about the issues, if nothing else.

Few things on the case R. J. Reynolds et al v. United States Food and Drug Administration

A district court just ruled on whether the FDA can force cigarette companies to publish graphic anti-smoking images on packs. The Judge, Richard J. Leon, gives a failed rhetorical analysis in his opinion:

Unfortunately for the Government, the evidence here overwhelmingly suggests that the Rule's graphic-image requirements are not the type of purely factual and uncontroversial disclosures that are reviewable under this less stringent standard. Indeed, the fact alone that some of the graphic images here appear to be cartoons, and others appear to be digitally enhanced or manipulated, would seem to contravene the very definition of "purely factual." That the images were unquestionably designed to evoke emotion - or, at the very least, that their efficacy was measured by their "salience," which the FDA defines in large part as a viewer's emotional reaction, see CompI. ~ 58 (citing 76 Fed. Reg. at 36,638-36,639) - further undercuts the Government's argument that the images are purely factual and not controversial, see, e.g., Defs.' Opp'n at 22-29. Moreover, it is abundantly clear from viewing these images that the emotional response they were crafted to induce is calculated to provoke the viewer to quit, or never to start, smoking: an objective wholly apart from disseminating purely factual and uncontroversial information. 18 Thus, while the line between the constitutionally permissible dissemination of factual information and the impermissible expropriation of a company's advertising space for Government advocacy can be frustratingly blurry, 19 here - where these emotion-provoking images are coupled with text extolling consumers to call the phone number "1-800-QUIT" - the line seems quite clear. --Memorandum Opinion, 11/07/2011, R. J. Reynolds et al v. United States Food and Drug Administration

The Judge ruled in favor of tobacco companies by preserving the status quo and the cigarette package's text warning that smokers routinely ignore now. I don't fault his decision (in fact, I tend to agree), but I do hate his remaining faithful to the ideation of  a "purely factual and uncontroversial information"--a quote originating from Zauderer, describing a concept that has been around forever: A pure observation language. Such a language will never be, and can never be.

Anyways, I hope this case goes to the Supreme Court. How do you warn people about a product that, if used as intended, will almost certainly lead to addiction and quite likely a slow, painful death. (And, more to the Government's unspoken point, the resulting deaths exact a heavy cost on taxpayers every year.)

Which of the following are purely factual and uncontroversial information?:

• Cigarettes cause cancer and death
• Leaving for work today may result in your dying in an accident
• Orange juice contains vitamin C
• Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear

Pictures

A good piece on Herman Cain asks, Why isn't he even more on the ropes?

Let's examine one of the author's conclusions in the enjoyable article "On the Ropes with Herman Cain" which appears this month in The New York Times Magazine.

The piece profiles the candidate with a critical eye, leaving the general impression that (1) this politician is flawed--seriously lacking, even, and (2) his campaign is unusually resilient. The resiliency point is well made except for this one high-profile example: "And in the first two national polls that were conducted after the sexual-harassment scandal broke, Cain was still looking strong, running right up at the top with Romney." This phenomenon isn't remarkable. While a scandal might pervade a campaign's coverage, it needn't necessarily hurt a candidate's approval. Just a recent example: Obama's numbers held steady through all the Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright talk that followed him in 2007.

A candidate's approval rating is damaged when the nature of his scandal threatens or challenges his base. For example: Democrats sick of George W. and the GOP in 2007 did not worry about Obama associating with mostly irrelevant Leftists. Likewise, today's Republicans, many of whom are suspicious of litigation and dismissive of feminists, don't care about old sexual harassment charges.

An event is only a scandal if it offends the values of your peers, and a speech act is only a gaffe if it draws their derision, thereby embarrassing you.

A separate point: I've read speculation that Cain intends not so much to win to the election, but rather to make himself a celebrity. This jibes with my old theory that elections would soon evolve into popularity contests between game show host-like candidates. But, should this happen, it would only be a temporary phase in the history of US electioneering. And, moreover, that campaigns and candidates are the essential form of PR isn't news.

Something on The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

I previously wrote on two short Carson McCullers stories that depict love as a lost cause. Her most cited and celebrated work, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, zooms in on the lost. Loneliness reverberates through these pages as we  follow a modest cast of characters who harbor passions that stir and agitate them. Each character is doomed by their ill-fit connection to this world, seemingly unable to relate to it and to others. Isolated, they turn their thoughts and feelings over and over again in their minds before finding an outlet in a polite deaf-mute whose soft smile and modest nods of approval disguise his own pain.

Stealing moments alone with the deaf-mute, each character imagines they've finally found someone in the world who understands them without realizing that that someone actually does not. It may be the sole blessing in their miserable lives that they don't realize this, but even that delicate respite is stolen when the deaf-mute commits suicide. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter moves ploddingly at times but the characters are well drawn and the sorrowful tones resonate without deafening us to the sounds of tiny bubbles bursting.

The hunter and the Huntsman

We know mainstream media covers elections like a horse race, focusing only who's winning rather than the implications of candidate X winning as opposed to candidate Y. But in the article "Huntsman: Cain’s miscue on China nuke capability, Romney’s trade rhetoric raise policy issues" The Washington Post goes off this election-coverage script and talks policy. Or, rather, they transcribe the candidates talking policy. Of course, the consolation candidate, Huntsman, made it possible. But faithfully, almost dutifully, the article returns to horse race coverage at the end with this reminder: "While Cain and Romney have been leading the GOP contest, Huntsman has trailed badly, barely registering in early polls."

All or nothing when talking values and money

In this week's editorial, David Brooks either misses the point or hopes to talk around it.

He argues that the Occupy protest movement targets the wrong type of inequality. To make his argument, Brooks organizes inequality into two varieties conveniently named Blue and Red. According to Brooks, Blue inequality--the target of the Occupy movement--consists of the wealth gap between the elite business/finance sector and everyone else. Red inequality consists of the opportunity and values gap between college graduates and those who never make it to college.

The differences between college grads and non-college grads, Brooks says, are "inequalities of family structure, child rearing patterns and educational attainment". Besides making the sweeping generalization that college graduates are better at raising children and run better homes, Brooks makes the common mistake of separating values and economics and then emphasizing one at the expense of the other. The poor need stable, good paying jobs to support a family the way Brooks wants them to. Liberals tend to overemphasize the economics of poverty, while Conservatives focus on values.

Towards his conclusion, Brooks writes that Blue inequality is "not nearly as big a problem as the 40 percent of children who are born out of wedlock. It’s not nearly as big a problem as the nation’s stagnant human capital, its stagnant social mobility and the disorganized social fabric for the bottom 50 percent." With jobs being outsourced or eliminated due to downsizing, and with workers' wages stagnant while CEO pay skyrockets, Brooks is naive to think that if only the poor married before having children, their conditions would improve and opportunity would follow.

A thing on the film Lars and the Real Girl

Socializing hurts Lars, but through a co-worker he learns of a website that sells life-like sex dolls, so he orders one and, upon her arrival, makes her his girlfriend. To him, she poses no threat. She can be his creation, and from her he creates a saintly Brazilian missionary immigrant named Bianca who, being wheelchair-bound and having a limited understanding of English, is completely dependent upon him.

But soon other townsfolk co-opt his creation, and they make Bianca more dynamic, resourceful, and, eventually, independent. Lars originally used Bianca to approximate intimacy; with her he could relate to the world the way he wanted to be related to--with patience and sensitivity, without possibility of rejection. But suddenly realizing he is no longer Bianca's only connection to this world, thereby feeling rejected, Lars defiantly sets out building connections of his own by going out with a young lady he works with. From there, we put Lars on the road to deliverance from the prison of his inhibitions.

The movie feels sweet, but underneath is a careful power struggle between Lars and the town. Lars' truth is dubbed a delusion, and soon others' truths are being imposed from all sides until Lars, having lost control of his creation, announces that Bianca has died--a final and dramatic act of self empowerment. What is it exactly that either pushes or inspires Lars to change, to conform to the town's normalizing desire for him to be more social?

Photos, from some weeks back

Squashing Dissent

The CNN article "Tear gas used on Occupy protesters in Oakland" quotes police statements released after violent attempts to squash Occupy Wall Street protests. The article does not (1) investigate these statements, (2) include counter statements by protestors or neutral observers, nor does it (3) discuss relevant questions about whether demonstrators needed or acquired permits for their events. This article represents a lot of modern mainstream coverage and is decidedly not journalism. It shows how media outlets function primarily as loudspeakers for establishments, both government and private industry.

OK, maybe every statement can't be checked. That's understandable. But at least say so in the article because a lot of people trust authorities, especially the police, and these people accept official statements as gospel.

My favorite part: The article concludes with this:

Oakland and Atlanta are two of many cities worldwide dealing with the Occupy Wall Street protests, the leaderless movement that started in New York in September.

Dealing with?

Something on short stories by Carson McCullers

The drifter's wisdom imparted in Carson McCullers' short story "A Tree. A Rock. A Cloud." tells us that love don't come easy. Having first failed at love, this drifter concludes that to be successful he must take baby steps, first feeling love for a tree, a rock, then a cloud--objects seemingly less complicated, less sacred and dangerous than his love's final destination, the woman that got away. He claims his approach is a science. His conclusion indicates that he believes he is not the problem. No, love itself is the problem and, moreover, the beloved is tricky and must be approached with caution. If his conclusion holds true, does this make love impossible for all men? Only the aged can hope for true love. It's a guaranteed tragedy at best.

A similar message is driven home in McCullers "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe". Here she tells of misguided, unrequited love. The three primary characters are defined by a lack of love--either a lack of love given or returned--so much so that they are ultimately victimized by love, turned tragic characters doomed to love an impossibility while drenched in loneliness and soft brutality. The love we can call healthy escapes McCullers' universe.

Broken Flowers

In the film "Broken Flowers", Bill Murray plays Don Johnston. I'd guess that Murray's motivation when he plays Don is that he has no motivation at all. The woman leaving him in the film's opening describes Don as an over-the-hill Don Juan, but what's so Don Juan about him, we can't tell. Rather than impassioned and hungry, this aging man is listless and indifferent.

The stoical plot of "Broken Flowers" begins when an anonymous letter informs Don that he has a 19 year-old son who may be looking for him. This revelation leads Don's amateur sleuth neighbor to map out a quest to identify the mother. So Don reluctantly accepts this mission. On his road trip, Don reunites briefly with four women who may have sent the letter. They are his unknowing suspects; Don is their detached inquisitor. These women all respond differently: The first with familiar affection, the next with frigid nervousness, another with distanced suspicion, and the last with outward aggression. None of these encounters leads Don to identify the mother. But once back again in his home town, Don spots a young man loitering first at the bus station, then outside the diner where Don lunches. Don approaches the stranger for an impromptu sit down which ends with Don embarrassing himself and frightening off the apparently wrong young man. It may be that Don never chose to be a confirmed bachelor. It may be that he never chose anything at all. He simply stopped developing but kept being. When the film ends, we can wonder if Don has been stirred again, or we might think this fruitless search has only affirmed his negation. But wait--a strange happening just before the credits only deepens the uncertainty.

Other interpretations: (1) The amateur sleuth neighbor represents the seeker; he is one who searches for Truth. Don is the skeptic, a slightly cynical denier of Truth. But, when Don is faced with the possibility of Truth he reaches out to take hold of it, wanting. But what does it mean that Truth evades him? (2) Another interpretation (my preference): The amateur sleuth neighbor represents the person compelled to exercise power, to subject the world to his gaze and prescribe truths, thereby creating knowledge he uses as he wishes. Don neither wishes to exercise power and refuses to have power exercised on him. When he takes up the quest for power and knowledge, he finds nothing but a stretch of time that is uninterpretable and not to be used for the purposes of meaning, knowledge, and power.

"Broken Flowers" is a good film, if a little flat in its pacing. Bill Murray, of course, awards even this static character with soul.

Current narrative on Occupy Wallstreet

The media narrative on Occupy Wall Street says the participants have no clearly defined unifying goal or policy objective. By contrast we're shown the Tea Party who want smaller government and less taxes. Nevermind that "smaller government" and "less taxes" are amazingly broad demands that, if actually instituted, would result in changes that the Tea Party would not support, including cuts to the military, cuts to US farm and oil subsidies, and cuts to Social Security and Medicare (presumably, once unknowing senior Tea Party members are made aware these are government-run programs, some would change their mind).

Occupy Wall Street's thematic conceptual equivalent to "smaller government" and "less taxes" is probably "inequality" because this key word holds much meaning for the protestors: Inequality of wealth distribution (the poor get poorer and the rich get mega-rich), inequality of bailout-giving (big banks get 'em, homeowners and college loanees don't), inequality of criminal prosecutions (white collar crimes are often ignored, crimes of the poor cause prisons to spill over), and so on.

If the narrative is true that Occupy Wall Street lacks a cohesive, meaningful message, then it is equally true of the Tea Party. In fact, as the Tea Party grew in number, its aims became even more diverse, including Obama citizenship-deniers, health care reform opponents, social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, veterans, seniors, libertarians, the rich and the poor. Yet they were celebrated in the media for allegedly lacking leadership and being a true-blue grass roots movement. The same benefit of the doubt is denied Occupy Wall Street.

Bias in prisoner swap story

Mainstream outlets cover the Israeli-Palestinian prisoner swap from the Israeli perspective (i.e., "Israeli Solder to be Released") while others and foreign outlets go either way. In this case (pictured at right), only Al Jazeera takes an angle on the Palestinian prisoners.

Incidentally, the ratio of prisoners being freed (1000 Palestinians to 1 Israeli) is interesting because it lends itself to either of two diametrically opposed conclusions: (1) 1000 to 1? How many warmongering Palestinians are there?, or (2) 1000 to 1? How could the Israelis imprison so many Palestinians?

On Foucault's The Will to Knowledge

In the first volume of The History of Sexuality, The Will To Knowledge, Foucault dissolves the conventional wisdom that says sexuality has been repressed since the Victorian age. He argues instead that it began to flourish in the 18th century through discourse. Conceptually, sexuality came into being then as a social construct that has since permeated our lives. This flourishing began with the rite of confession and from there evolved and spread through the newly powerful institutions of science, medicine, and education. A general example: What was a simple debauchery before came to be identified as a specific perversion--and only one of many possible perversions--that evidenced any number of other sexual issues to be uncovered in the recesses of childhood memory and untangled in the psychiatrist's office and later echoed in the medical texts. Sexuality is a secret we tirelessly mine for truths about ourselves. Foucault doesn't deal in conspiracies. Rather, his are institutional analyses, demystifications of the larger issues and forces at play anytime we and our managers attempt reform and understanding.

This volume--or, at least this translation--feels less inspired than Foucault's earlier works, gifting us with fewer flourishes and specific citations. But the overall concepts are more accessible; for example, the recent history of family medicine and psychiatry are less foreign to casual readers than, say, the innards of the asylum. But my main criticism is this: Madness and Civilization excelled at painting a picture of what madness meant before the modern age took hold of it; The Will To Knowledge, on the other hand, gives us little idea of what sex meant to society prior to the Victorian era. Nevertheless, like any Foucault work, this is to be studied and enjoyed for its originality, insight, thoroughness, style, and potential. And I enjoyed this volume far more than I did the third volume, The Care of the Self.