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Articles We Never Finished Reading (Except For The Pictures): The Rocks That I Got

"The house, a classic white brick manse, is huge—nine bedrooms—and sprawls out from the center hall with two giant wings. The interior is echt J.Lo: luxe, modern, and sexy—dark floors, gray curtains and walls, pastel-colored furniture. Her assistant, Gilly, deposits me in Lopez’s office and says, “Jennifer will be down shortly.” I hear kids shrieking somewhere upstairs. Like Lopez herself, the office is both masculine and feminine. There are wood-paneled walls and wingback chairs, a killer sound system, and a fur throw draped over a sofa. There’s a huge plaque (30 MILLION ALBUMS SOLD WORLD-WIDE); a ledge full of various film- and music-industry awards; and on her desk, nude shots of J.Lo for the advertising campaign for her forthcoming perfume, Glowing (the sample fragrance bottle actually lights up). A quick glance at the shelves reveals a taste for the classics (The Grapes of Wrath, Shakespeare); memoir (Arthur Miller’sTimebends); and self-help (Lies at the Altar: The Truth About Great Marriages). On the glass coffee table there is a big, lush book on Pucci, which somehow seems perfect."

"Venus Rising", a profile of Jennifer Lopez by Jonathan Van Meter, in the April 2012 Vogue

I just wanted to prove that not everything I put down is in New York, and also that not everything is a political or intellectual diatribe. I don't (generally) buy People or Us (though I admit a weakness for the sleazier Star) or other mags with fawning celbrity profiles... but Conde Nast can get me to read them anyway, posing as fashion (Vogue, GQ) or deep thought (Vanity Fair, which isn't). At this late date, I know what I'm in for: a quick tour of the Star's Lovely Home, a few bites of Our Star at a Meal, the old "they're just like us" anecdote, and another few thousand words about how, really, they're not (multiple divorces, million dollar lifestyles, blah blah blah). Sometimes they're interesting (Julia Roberts, Charlize Theron), even thoughtful (Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway)... but sometimes you can't even fake the necessary interest, which appears to be the case here. I kept putting this issue at the top of my pile, even after the new one came out, determined to read the Lopez piece all the way to the end. But I just couldn't do it; I'd get hung up on descriptions, like the one above, which illustrate both the absurdity of her wealth and the vapidness of the profiles like this (and, by extension, the vapid prose of writers like Van Meter). Then there's the fact that Lopez, still, is the odd kind of nondescript star only America can quite produce: she's not exactly good, her career is kind of middling, she's the third chair on a reality panel show whose recording career has been modestly succesful. Although she seemed a promising actress, that hasn't really worked out either. So why does she get Vogue covers? I mean, obviously, she's attractive, but that seems to be about it, and even there, there are more striking brunettes and women of Puerto Rican descent. So mostly, I've given up, the Vogue goes into my back issue pile, and I'll never know Jennifer's beauty secrets. Oh well. Life, I suppose, must go on.

Articles We Never Finished Reading: And The World Screams, Kiss Me, Son Of God

"[Cornel] West and Cone did a Q&A at a Princeton bookstore last winter, and afterward, they and a handful of friends and colleagues—including the journalist Chris Hedges, who wrote the Truthdig piece; Carl Dix, a local communist organizer; Brother Ali, an albino rapper; and a few professors—went to dinner. There, West was in his element. He had no one to provoke, and it was clear to see why some might compare West to Ralph Waldo Emerson, W.E.B. DuBois, or even Mark Twain. The conversation started with an appreciation of the works of novelist James Baldwin. “At Baldwin’s funeral,” said West, “I sat next to Stokely Carmichael. He’s a hard brother, and he cried like a baby.” West regarded Baldwin in the light of William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Amiri Baraka, and his friend Toni Morrison. Then the conversation took a turn, touching briefly on the works of the slavery historians ­David Brion Davis and Leon Litwack, and the civil-rights historian Howard Zinn, ­before resting for a time on Paul Tillich and Reinhold Niebuhr, the definers of ­twentieth-century Christian theology—both of whom taught at Union. About the literary critic Harold Bloom, West pronounced, “He’s not always right, but he’s always got something to say,” and then he veered straight through Martin Heidegger to praise his lesser-known disciple, Hans-Georg Gadamer."

 - This week's profile of Cornel West titled - I'm not kidding - "I Want To Be Like Jesus", by Lisa Miller.

Miller does manage the neat trick of being both fawning and dismayed in profiling West, apparently going with "how could such a great mind have so many personal problems," but none of West's admirers can outdo West himself. If you can get past the Jesus part - it's an actual quote that West says he doesn't see himeself as any of Jesus' disciples, but rather as Jesus, himself - there's still West polishing his resume over a string of appointments at Ivy League schools (the hook for the story, ostensibly, is that West is leaving Princeton for Union Theological Seminary), and name dropping like mad. It's not West's celebrity that gets me, or the self satisfaction; his Jesus complex is no doubt helped by the sycophants he's trained to follow him and who shower him with accolades and praise. Miller does a nice job, really, of highlighting the fact that all this mass love is no substitute for the fact that he has few friends, three bad marriages and even a fairly checkered set of professional connections (and really, when forced to choose between Larry Summers or Professor West, who's really worse?).

No, the thing that got me to throw down the artcle was the paragraph above, which to me laid bare the intellectual pomposity that annoys me when West talks in most interviews and appearances (I can only imagine what his classes would be like), the scattershot deployment of Big Intellectual Names You Must Know, the smattering of celebrity names and inside gossip that make you feel like an intimate (why else name drop of Stokely Carmichael?) , but the considered lack of thought about the ideas that are supposed to drive these big thinkers and their works. I feel very lucky to have had college professors who challenged me not to just read the assignments, but to think about what I read, synthesize my own ideas and apply the learnings to all sorts of aspects of life in general. It's not who you know, or how fabulously well read you are, I think it's what you do with the ideas that you discover along the way, and the life you put together as a result. Otherwise, why bother learning anything along the way?

West, the article suggests, is suffering now because he's one of the few major black intellectuals to have soured on President Obama, but that, of course, is of a piece with West's general approach: his over-the-top praise for Obama initially was both too much and too intended to get attention for himself, and his new contrarianism is just as self aggrandizing and just as poorly thought through (if you can stay long enough, Melissa Harris-Perry takes it apart in the article, with her usual combination of smarts and class). Maybe it's my life spent around collegiate types, and faculty in particular; but the best teachers, and the best friends, I find, carry less pretension and look more to share ideas rather than win the contest of Obscure References, because it's a better world when we all know a little bit more. West can probably win the name game... but that doesn't make you Christ. Or even Christ-like.

TV To Talk About

Of all the distractions that have kept me from writing - a protracted illness, a promotion at work, life in general - none has been quite has captivating the past few days as the news from TV pilot season. Though many things change in these modern media times (it's a theme for me, just now), the major networks and their pilot development system has, oddly, not changed all that much. From January to about April, Hollywood busily prepares experimental episodes of dozens of new TV shows, and the networks study and test them while deciding which TV shows live or die for next season's schedule. The biggest change from when I was a kid is that gossip about the pilot process is way more visible now than it ever was, and the "early line" on next season's hot new shows starts... yesterday. Thanks mostly, to Deadline Hollywood  and their TV editor Nellie Andreeva (if you still don't know about Nikki Finke and Nellie et al and you care at all about Film or Television as a business, just hang your head in shame), we get more news these days about the TV pilots than ever, and this past week has been fast and furious as up fronts (the period when Network TV still sells most of their advertising for the coming year) start next week, with new schedules revealed and the general public surprised, happy or saddened with news of their favorite shows. These days, people who really care already know, and the "save my show" campaigns either already happened or generally, it's too late.

In any case, now is a nice moment to recap some of the past TV season as it winds to a close, and we know a lot about who's going, whose staying (and even some of what's coming, though I won't comment on them yet. Mostly). So here are some farewells and some celebrations and some... why did that come back?

First, the farewells:

1. GCB. Based on the novel Good Christian Bitches, ABC been's auditioning this Texas soap for a spot on the fall schedule (presumably, to replace Desperate Housewives, which finally limped to its close). The show focused on Brooke, whose perfect seeming marriage ended at the start of the show with the death of her philandering, embezzling husband, and her return to the wealthy Dallas enclave where her mother Gigi still lives. Their lives revolved around the local baptist church, full of Texas money and sudsy storylines. The show wasn't perfect - a little too much camp, a lot of bitchy arch dialogue, and some preposterous plotting - but for the show it was aiming to replace, it seemed like a pretty good start. Sadly, ABC has decided to go in other directions (let's save our hope for 666 Park Avenue and Nashville, especially), leaving Leslie Bibb still looking for the star vehicle she really deserves.... not to mention poor Kristen Chenoweth, who may never find another role so tailored to her talents.
2. Ringer. Hopes were high when the former Queen of the WB and the first big anchor for the new CW (when they merged with UPN) was coming back in a new series. But the least convincing thing in this good twin/bad twin mixup was the lead herself, Sarah Michelle Gellar, who looked wan and uncomfortable from the get-go (and from what I hear, never got better. I just gave up after three epsidoes last fall). Perplexingly complex, and not in that good way where you care to figure it out, Ringer never found an audience, and I think most fans just want to fondly remember the best days of Buffy when Gellar and Joss Whedon were firing on all cylinders (and, to be fair, you could argue that we remember Buffy herself better than Gellar actually was. I know, sacrilege). In any case, I suspect Gellar's own judgment about her next best role doesn't take into account that she'd be better in a more active, dynamic, and physically demanding part - say a tough talking cop or such. Locked into the role of wealthy man's plaything brings out a kind of passivity in Gellar's performing that was really hard to take.
3. The Secret Circle. The most mystifying of duds, as this witchy poo bit of business followed The Vampire Diaries (built in audience), was created by Kevin Williamson (both Dawson's and TVD), and was based on a book by the creator of Vampire Diaries (i.e., Williamson already knew how to work the source material). And the premise seemed promising - teen witches, sexy derring do, hints of danger and big dark secrets... and then, nothing. Recasting the hot teen blonde boy after 4 episodes was a sign of buyer's remorse at the CW (the kid was wooden... but who isn't in that casting pool?), and the show never found a satisfying tone. But that's just the beginning of bizarre misfires all around (especially making the lead girl generally less likable with every episode), and especially perplexing when The Vampire Diaries seemed completely immune to any of these plotting disasters (providing a gasp filled, near perfect finale to boot). But then, that's Williamson for ya - he shoots for the rafters and when it's good (those shows, Scream), it's brilliant, and when it flops (later seasons of Dawson, Scream 4), it really fails. Here's hoping his next venture works better...
4. Harry's Law. I don't care - and if you're under 55, you probably don't either - but here's another example of network still not believing that older audiences, especially older women, are worth courting, even in large numbers. Harry's Law was actually NBC's second largest drama series in terms of audience, yet they seemd to think nothing of tossing it, while courting not fourth place, but fifth, among major networks (that's right.. on some nights, even Univision beats them). All because Harry's Law was next to nothing in 18-49, but huge in older audiences. We are on the cusp of a moment when senior viewing is bound to matter more (baby boomers in their golden years... anyone?), but apparently, not enough for a legal procedural led by an older female actress who's wildly popular within her age cohort. Which probably means another Emmy for Kathy Bates, and a lot of angry bloggers.
5. Pan Am (and The Playboy Club and Awake and Missing and The River and Alcatraz...). A number of high profile, big budget drama series came and went with surprising speed, with Pan Am being among the most high profile and prominent duds. both Pan Am and the shorter lived Playboy Club tried to get some ziz out of the same neo-sixties vibe that's apparently made Mad Men a hit, but both shows kind of underlined what Mad Men struggles with (and better): that roles for women in the sixties were professionally limiting, highly decorative, and probably caused the Women's Movement. Personally, I thought the Playboy Club explored these tensions better than the others, but of course... they're still Playboy Bunnies and the sexism was especially built in. Pan Am pretty much gave up from the start, trying to lace the obviously dull roles of glorified waitresses with a preposterous Cold War spy story that was more annoying than interesting. But the amazing thing about Pan Am was the obvious enormous expense of it all, recreating Eeno Saarinen's famed Pan Am terminal at JFK, the planes, the foreign locales (and in period)... the question of "and, why?" never entirely went away. Obviously, networks feel that the expense is worth it when shows pan out and become hits... but this season seemed especially loaded with expensive boondoggles (period dramas, pricey - yet untried - talent like Ashley Judd, elaborately scripted fantasy) of questionable long term prospect. And next season, though somewhat reined in, does seem like few execs learned much from their mistakes (though ABC apparently passed on Shonda Rimes expensive, elaborate soap Gilded Lilys, set in the Gilded Age).

 

And, on a happier note, I'm glad to see that these are coming back:

1. The Vampire Diaries and Supernatural. The CW renewed a raft of its current successes - not just these two horror/fantasy shows, but also Nikita, Gossip Girl and 90210 - suggesting that they've found a way to make shows that may fly uder conventional radar, but attract rabid followings nonetheless (If GG can't be called a hit, it's remarkable that its made Blake Lively a fashion and media star, just as one example). Supernatural seemed to have played its big story arc out in six seasons, and the seventh has been touch and go, but as long as the actors are game, I'm happy to stick with it; while the Vampire Diaries has shown remarkable fluidity writing itself into corners and then imaginatively breaking through them. Add in another interesting fantasy show next season along with the prequel to Sex and the City (the Carrie Diaries), and the CW seems poised to remain the network that gets the young viewer.
2. Scandal. I was dubious about yet another Shonda Rimes exercise with a commanding female lead in the world of male power (in this case, politics and Washington wheeling and dealing), but steady underplaying and some effective but uderstated writing have convinced me that Scandal is the real thing - a solid, fairly unique premise that lets talented people shine in a layered ensemble (all that, and it manages to avoid seeming like a pale carbon of, say, The Good Wife). Kerry Washington does, as it turns out, make a captivating series lead, and an interracial affair with the President turns out to be way hotter and more plausible than one might think. Densely plotted, and you have to pay attention... but Rimes gets things about TV plotting that others only dream to know, making it easy to keep things straight and stay interested. What mystifies me is why the other two Shondaland shows - Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice - both of which seem creatively spent, will limp along next year while other, interesting shows fall away (can you sense my GCB bitterness?).
3. Don't Trust the B- in Apt. 23. Comedy's an ugly business these days, full of asinine guys and insulting humor (and yet, I still love me some Archer)... which, somehow is what makes this show about a crass, unlikable woman in the lead all the more offbeat and appealing. Pairing a nice, innocent lamb in the city with a manipulative, selfish but brilliant ne'er do well is hardly new, but nothing on the B- feels stale. And then there's the genius of having James van der Beek play... James van der Beek, shallow and dopey has-been from Dawson's Creek. The byplay between the three leads is smart and refreshing, and the plots, thus far, have been brilliant combinations of sly and sick. If they can keep up the pace set in the first five, the creators are geniuses. If it manages to be merely funny and fresh week to week, I'll take it.
4. Community (and Parks and Recreation and 30 Rock and even Up All Night). It's been a long time coming, but my best friend managed to convince me that Community is way funnier and smarter than I realized (though the computer fantasy room is a cheap and easy write-around of doing some of the hard work). And even though I don't watch it, I know Parks and Recreation is good work. That they both survived predictions of cancellation is heartening, as is the fact that 30 Rock, however imperfectly, will have 13 episodes to wrap up their run as well next year. And, just as heartening, someone saw fit to give the promising cast and premise of Up All NIght a chance to get it together, too (it's Maya Rudolph's quasi-Oprah that really has me interested in what they can do). All these shows suggest that good comedy can be more than cheap insults and white guys being just jerks. And that deserves to survive, doesn't it?
5. The Good Wife. Naturally. CBS may be renewing a raft of dubious nonsense (all those CSeyes, the twin NCISesses, that awful show with Tom Selleck as the head of the NYPD, never mind what passes for comedy there), but they are also renewing what's fast become the jewel of network prime time, an intelligent interesting show with a lot of fascinating characters you care about and follow week to week. That's what television, I think, is supposed to be. And, at least, the one show that proves how to do it well these days is still there.  

Worst Song Ever: Out With The Old, Out With The New...

Something old, something new... I haven't heard a lot of terrible in a while, but when they do... jeepers.

Bryan Adams, Summer of '69. Lazy, lazy, lazy: never mind that Adams can't be the protagonist of the song (he was 10 in 1969), or the failure to evoke a decade as tumultuous as the sixties were, no, let's just wonder about "best days of my life," the line meant to imply this summer - remember, when his "band" broke up - was amazing because he met some girl and it just seemed to "last forever" when, of course, that girl's no longer in the picture and his rock aspirations amounted to even bigger, better things. Yes, the song, basically, is an insult to us al, dreamers or not, who fixate on our past as if it were golden, or reject holding onto the past because there's no point. Cynical, lazy and obvious, Summer of 69 is just corporate rock with little more than profit in mind. And no, I don't hate all Bryan Adams. What was really insulting about this song was that the same fairly sexy, smart songwriter who mixed pain and pleasure in "Cuts Like A Knife" (and showed up in one of MTV's most casually arresting videos) ultimately resorted to it. And no, I don't think "Canadian" is the perjorative for it.

Nicki Minaj, Starships. I freely admit, I don't entirely get Minaj or her success, but I don't entirely depise it: Super Bass has its charms (boom ba loom ba boom ba boom boom bass, indeed), and somebody should indeed know who the f*** I is. But that song came from Stargate, a production team recently profiled in The New Yorker's creative arts issue (I don't hate all New Yorkers, either, natch) along with this song's writer, Ester Dean. The article is especially deadly for the way it pulls back a Wizard of Oz-like curtain on the team's approach to songwriting, what they term "hhok plus hook plus hook" which appears to mean the layering on of easy catch phrases (going a long way to explaining a lot of their work with Rihanna, like the atrocious "S&M"). Starships, produced by another, Stargate-like team, is a good example of how the process can fail, all meaningless catchphrases loaded on top of one another until complete incoherence is achieved. It's not the song is lazy, overprocessed, or not undeniably catchy - it's all of these. It's the astonishing amount (obviously) of money, time and effort spent to put complete gibberish onto a digital hard drive as if it did, indeed, mean something. 

Maroon 5 (featuring Wiz Khalifa), Payphone. Let's be honest, it's hard being Maroon 5; hard being a band who zoomed to the top of the charts in about 1 and a half albums, rethinking Chic-era bass heavy disco beats as stylish, designer rock music for the upscale lounge set, and proving, on a string of hits (not to mention some pretty choice album filler), at least a dozen ways to reinvent that wheel.  That success is due, in no small part, to Adam Levine, possessed of one of the highest, most graceful tenors in pop, able to sound yearning, sweet and sublimely sad, often all at once (She Will Be Loved, for starters, Misery to follow). Levine's also an offbeat heartthrob, which explains his budding success as the latest thing in Reality show TV judging on The Voice. But, alas, success will spoil Rock Hunter: Levine is, more or less, phoning it in for this lazy Chris Brown viaTaio Cruzish, Usher-lite single, which can't even be bothered, lyrically, to either set itself in a past where payphones actually mattered, or somehow explain why the central image of a payphone even matters to the point of the song. Instantly forgettable, yet still featuring a vocal jump that borders, even for Levine, on screechy, Payphone is the first time I've felt like Maroon 5 is cashing the check rather than putting in the effort. And yes, Moves Like Jagger did kind of hint at this development, but even that, egregious Xtina notwithstanding, made up in verve what it lacked in panache. Levine may not have moves like Jagger, but his own style is sexy enough, most of the time. Here's hoping the album isn't a complete dud.

Articles We - Still - Never Finished Reading: Knowing Is All

[The President]...acknowledges no rules. This past week, one of his campaign websites posted an item entitled "Behind the curtain: A brief history of Romney's donors." In the post, the Obama campaign named and shamed eight private citizens who had donated to his opponent. Describing the givers as all having "less-than-reputable records," the post went on to make the extraordinary accusations that "quite a few" have also been "on the wrong side of the law" and profiting at "the expense of so many Americans."

These are people like Paul Schorr and Sam and Jeffrey Fox, investors who the site outed for the crime of having "outsourced" jobs. T. Martin Fiorentino is scored for his work for a firm that forecloses on homes. Louis Bacon (a hedge-fund manager), Kent Burton (a "lobbyist") and Thomas O'Malley (an energy CEO) stand accused of profiting from oil. Frank VanderSloot, the CEO of a home-products firm, is slimed as a "bitter foe of the gay rights movement."

These are wealthy individuals, to be sure, but private citizens nonetheless. Not one holds elected office. Not one is a criminal. Not one has the barest fraction of the position or the power of the U.S. leader who is publicly assaulting them.

- Kim Strassel "The President Has A List", Potomac Watch on the WSJ Opinions page, today.

... And disclosure, despite Strassel's heavy breathing, does not equal initimidation. Political donations are public, the names and amounts a matter of record; what gets attached to those records - like, say, one's history in business or one's other political interests - is what we do with the First Amendment. We say stuff. And it gets heard.

Strassel's dark mutterings about vast Presidential conspiracies is probably most hilarious for the Nixonian referencing, given that Nixon's darkest political tactics - the searches for scandal and the rummaging in people's pasts are hardly things the Republicans have disavowed or left to the past. This, after all, from the contingent that still tries to trump up "Bill Ayers" and birth certificates and suspicions of Islamism into painting the President as monster. But hey, all's fair... until you ask just who's giving money and why.

Strassel's being mostly incoherent here, arguing for a kind of secrecy or some sort of "hands off" approach to donors she can't dcodify or describe in a straightforward way... mostly because it doesn't exist. And for me, this morning, this made a nice companion to pointing out the general pointlessness of Frank Rich's "eek, money!" complaints on the opposite end. Strassel's companion point form the right is just as silly: if people plan to give enormous sums of money to try andunseat the sitting President, knowing who they are and what their agendas might be is hardly the "abuse of power" Strassel is trying to claim. It's mostly one, small shred of valuing openness and information over secrecy and hiding. And like many conservative commentators who seem to find investigative reporting somehow not just beyond their skills but somehow beyond the pale, Strassel seems to be arguing against the very paper she works for.

Knowing is good. It's just that knowing alone isn't going to stop the stream of milionaire donations, anymore than vague threats of reprisals (which the President, one could note, really didn't make.) But hey... why let that stop a good column?

Articles We - Yup - Never Finished Reading: Rich Man's Burden

If you want to appreciate what Barack Obama is up against in 2012, forget about the front man who is his nominal opponent and look instead at the Republican billionaires buying the ammunition for the battles ahead. A representative example is Harold Simmons, an 80-year-old Texan who dumped some $15 million into the campaign before primary season had ended. Reminiscing about 2008, when he bankrolled an ad blitz to tar the Democrats with the former radical Bill Ayers, Simmons told The Wall Street Journal, “If we had run more ads, we could have killed Obama.” It is not a mistake he intends to make a second time. The $15 million Simmons had spent by late February dwarfs the $2.8 million he allotted to the Ayers takedown and the $3 million he contributed to the Swift Boat Veterans demolition of John Kerry four years before that. Imagine the cash that will flow now that the GOP sideshows are over and the president is firmly in Simmons’s crosshairs.

 

- Frank Rich "Sugar Daddies," New York Magazine Apr 22

 

...Except that, if you check out the informative graphic attached as a sidebar to Rich's article, Simmons is hardly "representative": His 15.4 million in contributions is second only to Sheldon Adelson's 20 million plus, and the tqo of them are 10-15 times ahead of far more "representative" contributions that range from about 1-2 million, generally. That's not a huge discrepancy (though the dollar figures ought to count for something), but it's indicative Rich's generally bombastic approach to the whole topic. There are prefectly good reasons to be concerned about the role of a small, but significant, number of wealthy contributors to both political parties, but Rich's fashionable hair-raised (or as Lucianne used to put it "dress up over head") screed is more about repeating familiar tropes with little real insight, overstating both the rxtent of the problem and properly identifying its more troubling aspects.

Rich does concede that a number of donors to Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, the Karl Rove "Super PAC" that most liberals fixate on most, are secret and that, in part, there are another couple of "anonymous" $10 million donors yet to be identified. Fair enough; but even then, the number of truly "enoromous donors" over five million seems to number roughly less than ten. Moreover, Simmons is also a pretty "representative" example of throwing enormous amounts of money at a problem without seeing much in the way in the way of results. Simmons acknowledges having dumped similarly large sums into the 2008 election, to no particularly good end, and there's no real indication (despite Rich's panting and pointing) that his largesse this year will have any more effect; that doesn't make him "dangerous," that makes him a "patsy" to what I woud call some "unscrupulous" operators promising the moon and delivering a lot less. In just a few sentences, Rich goes a long way towards making Simmons seem like an old man frittering his fortune rather than a political genius - which is not exactly strengenthing Rich's point about fearing these people.

The thing which deserves far more examination than we've made in our society, is that, while "money equals speech" may be the Supreme Court's greatest error, it's not clear that "money equals success" in elections. The 2008 election - along with the two previous ones - are noted for the enormous sums raised, but the outcomes of the last few elections seem less determined by funds than by other factors about when to vote for change and when to affirm the status quo. John Kerry didn't just lose in 2004 over money issues; his failure to inspire voters, even (especially) those in his own party played an enormous role in his loss. Similarly, Obama's fundraising abilities were in many ways a subset of the real qualities that pushed him into the White House: charisma, personal appeal, and the promise of a fresh start. John McCain could have spent a small fortune - and in fact noth he and the GOP did - and still have lost as drmatically as he did.

A lot of this has to do with assumptions about the power of advertising that rarely get properly questioned, challenged or examined in more than a surface way. In a culture where we are bombarded by marketing messages from morning to night, we rarely consider what advertising really moves us to do, why, and how to realistically asses ts reach. We assume, because it is asserted repeatedly, that "negative" advertising on politicians will "ruin" candidates' electoral chances, even when, privately, many of us admit that we find these ads less than useful, often ignore tham, and seek out other, more useful information to make a choice. Yes, that's what separates "informed" voters from a group that probably is more easily swayed; even so, it's hard to know that the enormous sums spent by Crossroads is really buying any kind of real success for conservative ideas or candidates - the successes of 2010 for the GOP, surely, are a lot more about a national mood than a lot of negative ads, however Rove wants to dress up his power as a "mood alterer". Mostly, the millions backing Rove's organization seem meant, mostly, to prop up Rove as a political celebrity whose "power" as a broker is more assumed than proven (a role, I've observed, that traces back to his supposed "genius" in supporting George W. Bush, a similarly dubious proposition).

None of this is to dismiss legitimate concerns about the power of enormous wealth to buy political access, influence electoral outcomes, or suggest that I think "money equals speech" or support the current role of "Super PACs"... but I do think that a lot of the noise about the terror of "all this money" from the left is, well, just noise, mosty meant to try and lmit the actual success of the spending of conservatives, and try and ignore the large spending by groups (say, unions, anyone?) supporting the left. And, as always, I feel compelled to point out that many of these critics ought to clarify their arguments - if this is about simply being personally wealthy (and Rich is not one for distinctions), that's a different issue than the politics of spending said wealth. And as I keep trying to gently say... I think it's probably a waste of time to hate wealth. That's not going to go away. The political ads, hopefully, will.

(Also, much like "Worst Song Ever," I think I may need Ground Rules. But really, I don't hate all of Frank Rich's writing.)

On Hookers And Secret Services

Okay... so where were we?

I've been sort of chomping at the bit to comment on various stories - Ann Romney, George Zimmerman, you name it - but nothing is quite as captivating as the scandalous non-scandal of The Secret Service in Cartagena, now, is it? (And really... Cartagena? Other than Romancing The Stone... who's ever cared about Cartagena?)

My raction to the Secret Service story hasn't changed much since it broke: so... apparently after work the agents like to drink, carouse a bit, and maybe pick up a local resident for some R&R. And that's bad... why?

I'm not trying to excuse hooking, but in my own curiously twisted thinking on sex and sexuality, it's not people paying for sex that bothers me. What bothered me, say, about the Elliot Spitzer scandal, and made it scandalous, was both the outrageous prices he paid (which was simply foolish) and the fact that being Attorney General means enforcing the laws he was breaking at that time. That's hypocrisy, and that, it strikes me, is scandalous.

(Also, going to prostitutes while married strikes me as tacky and poor moral character, but that's a separate issue.)

So here's my thing: if the Secret Service agents were, say, using counterfeit money to pay hookers... then maybe we'd have a similar case; but  drinking in bars and bringing someone home for sex doesn't strike, entirely, as a firing offense. Again, tacky, perhaps; but not quite the federal crime it's being made out to be. Indeed, I'll be curious to see if some of these attempts to discipline Secret Service employees stand up as proper for a federal employer. Is off hour behavior really fair game for the government as an employer?

In any case, there's been a lot of huffing and puffing to try and dress up what is basically a salacious exercise in peeking behind other people's bedroom curtains as somehow a major breach of national security. You can almost see the visible relief of many media organizations reporting today's triumph "hooker may have been in President's hotel!" That's, you know, serious. It's almost like, you know, she was in the President's room. Except, you know, she wasn't.

All the heavy breathing doesn't amount to much, and can't really make the agent's behavior seem much more than what it is - tawdry, mostly, with a side order of tasteless. The idea that patronizing hookers might "lead to blackmail" is an old saw that was always meant to comment more on sexual behavior than any actual threat - it's the same nonsense that was trotted out about gays during the Red Scare years, and just as dopey. It's a suggestion that sex is dirty, embarrassing, and rather than be humiliated for a peccadillo, most people would, I don't know, pay thousands and reveal state secrets. Evidence of this actually happening isn't just mostly scarce... it's basically nonexistent. It's the stuff of movie plots and bad novels one buys in airports.

More to the point, these ideas of salacious blackmail seem especially absurd in this era where people's nude photos wind up on internet websites. Shocking? Embarrassing? Does anyone even know what these words mean anymore? The small number of people actually "shocked" to discover that Secret Service agents hire hookers lead especially sheltered lives and are, in general, awfully naive (almost as naive as the people who seem to think this only happened, once, in Cartagena). There's nothing especially shocking, or possibly even embarrassing about the President's guards getting randy after hours in a foreign country. The trope that this "could lead to national security breaches" is pretty much nonsense, and most sensible people, I suspect, get that, even if they hate to admit it. Because once you admit it... then we also have to admit that this story is getting way more play than it ever deserved.

I don't think, as Americans, we'll ever get over our nosiness, our voyeuristic tendencies, or our confused notions about sex generally. That's our culture, and that's how we define who we are - simultaneously wildly open and free, and puritanical and judge-y, all at once. By all means, go overseas and go wild with the foreigners. Just don't get caught. Or we'll really be mad. And if it helps us to pretend that somehow this is crucial to our "national interests", it's just a reminder of the lengths we go to when we need to justify our prejudices. Mostly, I suspect, the excessive interest in this story is about envy. And that's never pretty. And we're lousy at hiding it.

 

In My Weakened State

Just when I think I have experienced most any kind of flu or similar illness, I get hit with something else. Or so it seemed this week when I came down with an intestinal bug, one that has, apparently, been making the rounds.

I have discovered that is actually frightening to be unable to keep any solid food in your system for more than an hour. Also, lack of nutrition makes you lightheaded and occasionally incoherent.

I have also discovered that "I am just one stomach flu away from my goal weight" is really only funny when you don't have said stomach flu.

Since much of this week it has been difficult to form coherent sentences, I thought writing was pretty much out of the question.

I went to the doctor on Thursday. And, let it be said that at least I seem to have found a really good set of medical professionals for my primary care practice, at a clinic designed for people of modest incomes. It is literally amazing every time I go there. This time, the caring older lady doctor diagnosed me right quick, and handed me an easy to fill scrip of affordable medication within 20 minutes of my arrival.

A day and a half later, I am attempting to reintroduce solid foods and get back to work. It may be too soon for both (Thursday morning, when I thought I could handle both, was a disaster, but that was before the pills), but I'm big on trying to get back on the horse as soon as possible. The worst that can happen is... I fall off the horse. Or I wind up in my store's back room, sobbing (somthing I was pretty close to on Thursday morning).

Like food poisoning, there's nothing quite like a stomach or intestinal virus to make clear both the basic necessity of food and the fragile state of one's health when normal food intake is interrupted. Trying to remember to treat myself gently and handle with some care is not the worst lesson to be reminded of... although I could have done without the multiple trips to the bathroom and the feeling that the life was being sucked right out of me.

Anyway, let's see how the next few days go, and hopefully, I can get back to more fully writing my thoughts. 

The Swing Of Things

The suitcase officially went back into the basement today, so I guess the vacation excuse is officially over. We got back home late Tuesday night (memo to self: Miami remains the worst reentry point into the US of anywhere), and Wednesday was mostly about resting up and feeling settled back home. Yesterday was my first morning back at work, which was fine, but as usual, the early rising and energy reqired at work makes the afternoon and evening after a bit of a wash.

That, and I'm finding it hard to get back into the swing of things, especially writing. Blogging lately, for me, has been an off and on enterprise at best, and, admittedly, more off than on. Writing about politics isn't simply frustrating at this point; mostly it feels simply pointless. Watching TV news and discussion programs - which I do a whole lot less lately - is frustrating and, I hate to admit, depressing. The waste of time and energy spent on useless topics ("our first story tonight: something not very controversial that happened on the Republican primary trail, amongst candidates you don't care about, pretty much all of whom will never be President.") really just floors me.

I'm left trying to fashion a blog out of movie reviews, the occasional pithy observation, and some witty asides about television programs I've seen, and no, I don't think that's much of a life, either. At the same time, I have no interest in simply stopping. As much as I like the idea that someone reads what I write, enojys it, gets something out of it... I write mostly because it fulfills something for me. And still, as I do it, literally as I type this, I feel more purposeful than I have... well, since I scribbled a few words about my vacation from a hotel room in St. Kitts.

There are two other obvious complications: I just got an iPhone for my birthday - mostly because my iPod died and I've come to the conclusion that the BlackBerry Curve, while nice, is technically flawed - and I have to admit, the remarkable number of things it can do (listening to online radio of disco remixes whilst reading the AP newswire, for example) means not even having to use my laptop for most anything. Second, on the job front, I am up for a fairly significant promotion and, when I am realistic, getting that promotion changes my priorities. I'm actually ambivalent, on a quiet personal level, about moving up, because I don't really know if I can sustain writing, even at this reduced level, over the long term while in management. On the better days, I resolve to try. On the worse dys, I just curl into a ball and avoid everyone and most everything.

(None of the last few sentences belong in a blog post that could potentially be read by your boss... but oh well.)

I suppose my point is that "real life" - off of the interwebs - has become the life I'm actually spending more time leading. Interesting things are happening; interacting with real people in real time is emotionally fulfilling; pounding the keys about personal and political frustrations isn't much fun (and frankly, has never entirely been my style). There's no real conclusion here, no absolute "that's it, I'm done", no resolution that I'll try harder to blog more. It might happen... and probably, however well intentioned, it won't anytime soon. Life goes on, I'm back in the swing of things, the journey continues... and that, really, is what matters, isn't it?

Island Time

Long ago - before I started working for Starbucks and my income dropped to 25% of what it had been - I liked to take my Spring vacations in the Caribbean. Back then I had a plan (a life's goal, if you will) of seeing every Caribbean island at least once. And I was doing pretty well with it, too. In the months before I quit my old job, I had even made plans to make my next vacation a trip to Nevis, which seemed somewhat remote and less accessible.

But then I quit my job (and just to be fair, I'm not trying to blame Starbucks for my financial predicament; I made the leap out of corporate life knowing that it would be less money and challenging. Not quite that challenging, but still), and vacation plans became, literally, a luxury I couldn't aford. For several years I took almost no vaccations involving considerable travel (Maine, Canada, that sort of thing), and indeed, almost no vacations at all. 

Then I moved back home, and between her financial support (I can't pretend it's not there) and my own mildly improved fortunes, vacations to further off places resumed. There was our lovely trip to Tucson and Sedona in Arizona. We took several cruises (qhich is a quick way to up one's island total, I found).

And this year, I managed to convince her to join my island hopping quest directly.

And oddly enough, here we are, on St. Kitts.

St. Kitts and Nevis are one nation, St. Kitts lying slightly north and east of Nevis, the islands separated by a two mile strait (a moment where the Atalntic meets the Caribbean). Yesterday, spur of the moment, we took a ferry from Bassaterre, the capital, over to Charlestown, the capital of Nevis. Two islands, one vacation.

We have shopped and explored and eaten wonderful food and laid in the sun. Well, technically I have laid in the sun while mom sits in the shade or under an umbrella, rrading a book (the latest Sara Paretsky, on her way to capturing my newest Elizabeth George). My face is red and a little sore, but otherwise, it is a typical tanning adventure. Already in just a few hours over a couple of days, I am several shades darker.

St. Kitts is marvelous, less developed than some of the islands (Nassau, Aruba), not too expensive, with some nice opportunities to eat well, pick up a few duty free items (a watch, some perfume, and my boss's cigarettes), and generally relax. Nevis, as I suspected, is somewhat less developed, but even more pleasantly low key and easy going. And we even managed to shoehorn in some history, seeing the birthplace of Alexander Hamilton (which, for this graduate of Hamilton College, was a treat).

It's the change of pace that I notice the most, not surprising for your average impatient New Yorker... but somehow the cheerfulness and friendliness of most Kittians makes the slow pace tolerable. Our dinner the first night (at a local legendary beachside "shack") took 45 minutes to arrive, what with the crowds on hand for the bonfire and the fire eater (he was quite remarkable). Somehow the wait was just fine. And the food was worth the wait.

Being here, on island time, made getting to writing this post an effort; I have had it in my head for tow days, but life, and wandering, intervened. We only have a couple more days to enjoy, but this trip is already one of the standout vacation choices I've ever had.  Now it's off to my morning run and another great cup of coffee at the local coffee place, a cup every bit as satisfying as the ones I get at work.

I promise to poat pictures too.

Oh, and, Happy Easter. :)