A thing on the book "At Home" by Bill Bryson

In At Home, author Bill Bryson offers an anecdote-rich tour of the modern suburban house. For this purpose he uses his own home, an impressive and well-aged English estate. This is a thick book of historical trivia in which Bryson introduces mostly little-known events and figures who share in the responsibility for our modern daily domestic experience. Bryson skips around the centuries (mostly the last four) and hops between Europe (mostly Western) and the Americas (mostly North).

Some pages in, I began to suspect Bryson of merely using the house as an excuse to assemble and publish a bunch of disparate historical tidbits he culled and collected along the way; oftentimes a story contributed nothing to our understanding of how the modern suburban house took shape.

But this doesn't make the reading any less agreeable. It's a good gift book, something that might liven up a coffee table in a lasting way.

Notes:

• I wouldn't want Bryson to really give me a tour. Not of his home or of a telephone booth or of anything.

The times, they are a-changin'

In the Vanity Fair piece "You Say You Want a Devolution?", Kurt Anderson argues that fashion and design--art, music, movies, television, clothes, cars, etc.--looks much the same as it did 20 years ago. This fashion freeze is our collective response, Anderson offers, to the unparalleled rapidity of change in other areas such as economics and technology.

It's an interesting thesis. Well argued and written, too. But to totally buy into his idea, you have to share Anderson's vision: Anderson sees fashion as a collective bundle of popular trends, and the evolution of these trends looks something like a line on a graph surging upward as trends continue evolving. Over the last 20 years, though, that line has leveled off, according to his view.

This picture needs complicating, so I suggest an alternative model.

First, sticking with our graph: I think fashion includes at least a few lines, not just one, that have historically surged upward. And rather than leveling off, I see these lines splintering over last 20 years--even more so the last ten--as social groups subdivide into ever smaller subcultures of like-minded people.

While most of these lines keep trending upward over time, in my splintered model there could indeed exist some mainstream line hovering between and below these subcultures--a mainline that appears to level off and soldier on. But rather than see this grouping as having stagnated, it could be they just dropped their fidelity to fashion altogether. In this sense, their line simply stops. For them--the designers and the consumers--fashion has moved from the aesthetic realm to the political. (Note that fashion continues to demarcate affiliations.)

What the mainstream wears and what they listen to means less (or at least means something different) to them now than it did 20 years ago. So, for example, if you wore a new pair of Nike sneakers in 1993, you were saying something: Nike was synonymous with Michael Jordan and basketball supremacy, and the label was expensive so a new pair of kicks was a sign of status. If you're wearing a new pair of Nike shoes today, it's probably because your old ones wore out. More likely you wear New Balance because you've chosen comfort and practicality--the politics of personal choice--over glamour and status--the fidelity to fashion.

Anderson too briefly discusses changes in how we consume fashion. He's right here, of course, but doesn't take it far enough. He says,

The only thing that has changed fundamentally and dramatically about stylish objects (computerized gadgets aside) during the last 20 years is the same thing that’s changed fundamentally and dramatically about movies and books and music—how they’re produced and distributed, not how they look and feel and sound, not what they are.

Yes, technologically production, distribution, and consumption has changed. But these facets have changed in meaning, too. How and what we make and consume is now a political matter: Toyota Prius or Hummer? File sharing and torrents or iTunes? Walmart, Whole Foods, or local?

-Other Notes:

• Anderson noted the tendency towards nostalgia one minute and then pointed to the outright freeze on design the next. This muddled his point. But his words ring clearly when he hypothesizes about the institutional and market forces at work.

• Certainly not all but many successful artists (designers, trend setters) from all fields in every age have kept an eye on the past. Designers and architects who worked in the Georgian period of the 18th century drew from the Classical Age just as their descendants in the age of Art Deco did in the 1930s.

• In the 1990's we referenced the 1970's. Right now (2011) the 1980's seem popular; the post-hippie feel of the Grunge era has been replaced by the post-New Wave kids of today.

• There is nothing totally new under the sun.
  

Something on Tom Perrotta's novel The Leftovers

With somewhere around 30 pages left, Perrotta's books usually end with a flurry of page turning, a race to what happens. Not so with The Leftovers. But what The Leftovers lacks in action, it makes up for with meaning and emotion. I've read every Perrotta book and although this one ranks low, his low is still high.

The story picks up shortly after a mysterious happening likened to the rapture in which half the Earth's population vanished in an instant, and in the quiet aftermath we watch a cast of characters deal with the loss best they can. One facet of loss that interested me was that of identity. The subtraction of so many peers seemed to leave people wanting for their own identities, as if they were only who they were with everyone else around to verify it. This suggests we're all social constructions.

Also missing are the identities of the vanished, most of whom are unsurprisingly canonized, honored at small parades, days of remembrance and the like. Likewise, relationships are recreated in the minds of the rememberers. One of the novel's characters, a teenaged girl named Jill, lost a childhood friend-turned-acquaintance but, in the friend's absence, the two girls are recast as best friends who were much more alike and much closer and more dear to each other than they had ever been before the rapture.

I don't know that identity was an issue Perrotta intentionally explored. Anyway, good book.

Race and politics

The Los Angeles Times article "One black woman's personal mission to reelect Obama" uses a couple of big economic facts to say that blacks remain faithful to the President despite their worsening economic condition. The facts lack context, however, and this larger premise is a tremendous over-simplification and it's short-sighted.

The piece profiles grassroots Obama booster Gerri Hall, a retired black woman in Flint, MI. Note the difference in values that emerges at the outset when the article comments on changes since Hall's youth:

Fifty years later, there is a black man in the White House and Hall is firmly rooted in the middle class, with a nice home in a leafy neighborhood, a pension from her 30-year job at General Motors and enough savings to help her grown son buy a starter place of his own. 

"Things have definitely gotten better," she allows, "in terms of tolerance and coexistence and people getting along."

Note that the author speaks in economic terms, whereas Hall refers to social progress. The article reflects market-oriented values, but its subject, social values.

Then the article posits that black Americans see themselves reflected in Obama as he battles Republicans: "The sentiment may explain why Obama still enjoys commanding support among African Americans, even though blacks have suffered the worst of the deep recession that soured so many others on the incumbent." And again a few paragraphs later:

The statistics are grim. The poverty rate for African American children has increased under Obama, along with black joblessness. Nationally, black unemployment was 15.5% in November, almost twice the overall rate. For black teenagers it was just under 40%. 

Even so, African Americans remain far more upbeat than the rest of the country.

The article assumes--or, more likely, plays along with the assumption--that what happens during a President's term is attributable to him. Next, the black unemployment rate is given without any historical context. What was the unemployment rate for blacks under Bush? Under Clinton? What role does Congress play in all this?

Another misdirect comes on the heels of the previous quote. The article text says:

An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll done with theGrio.com, a black-oriented website, found that 49% of African Americans felt the country was on the right track, compared with nearly 3 in 4 overall who felt otherwise. Most African Americans blamed congressional Republicans, rather than Obama, for the country's economic ills.

The article treats the tendency to blame congressional Republicans ambiguously; one could read this as a feature exclusive to the black community. What is the overall trend? Could this be a party issue rather than a race issue?

This article dumbs down the whole discussion. The author is owing to black allegiance or camaraderie what's more likely long-term developments of political power relations within areas ranging from economics to social status, and education to faith.

Continuing on the unemployment argument, the article states: "Unemployment is officially 16.5% in Flint, where fortunes soared and, for the last several decades, plummeted with the near collapse of the auto industry." Has the auto industry really collapsed? What role does outsourcing in this industry play in local (and national) unemployment? And what are the politics behind that?

The point isn't that the writer hasn't done his job. It's that readers must evaluate what they read.

I did read one line I liked for its well-writteness: "To this day, Hall has the manner of one accustomed to being in charge: her diction precise, her dress fastidious and her case for Obama outlined in PowerPoint and carefully sorted fact sheets."

Another way

There is a moment I remember, her nose in the honeysuckle bush down the alley and the world falling away in a rush. Over the years when I'd get frustrated with one thing or another, I'd remember that--our short walk to the doughnut shop in Summer 2011, or maybe remember some other such blessing and be born again. It was in that first year of marriage I realized she didn't make magic; she was magic. Not me, I didn't think. I kept after myself about being close with my son and her. She was always better at the loving and it never did get harder for her the way it did me. But when I'd finally get around to talking out loud about something like that, some burden, she could help me come around, and then I would sometimes go out to the patio or garage, off to be alone a minute, and let my eyes burn with how grateful I was she's there. Life had the magic of goodness with her.

Pictures of sorts

Something on the film W

Left-leaning critics of George W. Bush tend to fall into one of two camps: Those who view the man as evil and those who view him as a puppet ne'er-do-well. Oliver Stone's film "W" agrees with the latter view, depicting the 43rd President as an over-confident and devout man driven by his need for approval. This angle of the W story is a familiar narrative--that of a son always seeking his father's approval. To be the man his father could admire, W believes he must appear in control. The role of "the decider" becomes crucial.

The film feels a little canned, but that may be part of the point: Bush is not an exceptional man, nor is his story at its core. What was extraordinary was the consequences of the group-think so pervasive in his cabinet, seized upon and steered by Vice President Cheney--the unassuming villain in this film, always lurking at the edges.

By combining an uncomplicated character study of George W. Bush with a cohesive narrative of his tenure, the film is useful for giving critics a shared interpretation of the events that transpired between 2001 and 2007. The film reviews I read when "W" premiered were pretty consistent and accurate in voicing surprise at Stone's restrained depiction of the younger Bush, revealing a deeply flawed man who found his own direction rather than a one-dimensional villain or straw man. The film attributes W's formidable initial political successes to his religious conversion, brought on suddenly after a physical and mental collapse during a very hungover three mile jog. His failures come as a result of his gullibility and insecurities.

Stone uses a thematic metaphor in the film--the baseball pop fly: the movie Bush often dreams of fielding a high fly ball in center field and then basking in the the praise and adoration of a cheering crowd. In the film's last scene, Bush, dreaming again, backs up to make the play on the pop-up, but the ball never comes down, leaving a confused Bush staring into the quiet stadium lights, wondering how the winning moment and adulation eluded him.

Adult contemporary

Recently the New York Magazine article "Indie Grown-Ups: Are Wilco and Feist our adult contemporary music?" turned a critical eye on a few prominent indie rock artists, describing, for example, Feist's recent album as merely "gusty singsong melodies about finding clarity by the oceanside delivered over cozy acoustic arrangement". The author's larger point was this:

These acts, intentionally or not, have won; they’ve taken a lower-sales, lower-budget version of the type of trip Sting once took, from a post-punk upstart to an adult staple.

Later he indicts labels for having aided and abetted this trend, grooming innocuous sounds from the likes of Feist, Wilco, Radiohead, and Bon Iver to create a new generation's equivalent of adult contemporary.

Although written in response to a different New York Magazine article, The AV Club piece "What makes music boring?" reinterprets this critique by distilling and elaborating on the "cozy" quality described above, this time using the language of boredom:

In a sense, all music is boring. The same, however, can’t be said about “boring” music. “Boring” is its own genre. It is a code word that instantly conjures artists with clearly definable attributes. “Boring” music is slow to mid-tempo, mellow, melodic, pretty in a melancholy way, catchy, poppy, and rooted in traditional forms. It is popular (or popular-ish). It is tasteful, well-played, and meticulously produced. (Or it might sound like it was recorded in somebody’s bedroom under the influence of weed and Sega Genesis.) It is “easy to like”—or more specifically, “easy for white people to like” (“white people” being a sub-group of white people singled out by other white people). It is critically acclaimed (perhaps the most critically acclaimed music there is), and yet music critics relish taking “boring” musical artists down a peg more than any other kind of artist.

This critique to me seems easy to argue, which is to say I don't disagree. But it just isn't particularly insightful. Both articles essentially make this analogy:

• Adult Contemporary is to pop music genres as Feist is to indie music.

This analogy extends easily:

• Adult Contemporary is to pop music genres as Poison is to glam metal/hard rock.

It can even extend to other discussions:

• Adult Contemporary is to pop music genres as scones are to sweets.

And the articles aren't more controversial because they take on indie music--indie music has no exclusive claim to coolness. My comment on glam metal and scones means more. It took more imagination.

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.