O'Donnell and Paul

Lawrence O'Donnell has a newish talk show on MSNBC, and the guest tonight was well-known libertarian Ron Paul of Texas. (Note, though, that Paul runs under the Republican Party banner.)

Mr. O'Donnell, may I ask that in future, you be a little more thoughtful than you were tonight?

You kept trying to bait Mr. Paul. He kept trying to explain the logic of his positions, and you either kept deliberately ignoring or failed to grasp his reasoning. You're not a dummy, so I have to assume you were ignoring him. That's not right. You're better than that.

Ron Paul's positions may involve outcomes with which you disagree, like the eventual end of Medicare (and I would assume Social Security, though tonight's discussion didn't touch on that). That's arguably less important than the fact that Paul's stance on these issues not only has been consistent over time, but flows logically from his core libertarianism. For instance, I think he made a valuable point in claiming that the Civil Rights Act infringed on private property by forcing businesses to implement desegregation. The ends might have been laudable -- you're probably right that we'd still have segregation today if that legislation hadn't passed -- but Paul certainly made a convincing case that the legislation on its face was unconstitutional, and it's important for all of us to understand what it means to live within the boundaries of our Constitution.

You had a chance to open up a terribly important discussion on whether ends always justify means in our legislation. You could have discussed how we can reconcile our Constitution with our desire not to leave people without help if they need it, or even if we can reconcile the two. Instead, you kept trying to get Paul to admit he wanted to kill Medicare, presumably so you and others could pull the clip out later.

In order for this country to have a full debate on the topics that divide us, we need for the citizenry to understand fully what the possible consequences of various actions will be. If, for instance, people think we need a smaller government, people need to understand what will flow from the act of reducing the size of government.

Ron Paul, whether you agree with him or not, at least is not airbrushing the picture. That makes him far more valuable to our national dialogue than most politicos. We need to foster a greater understanding of what he's saying, because I have the uneasy feeling that far too many of his onetime Tea Party fledglings don't grasp the consequences of their anti-government rhetoric the way he does.

So Mr. O'Donnell, in the interest of our national debate, listen to him next time.

(This is not to say that everybody deserves the same courtesy. For instance, the arrogant jackass whom Rachel Maddow attempted to interview last week, who kept bleating that she was being sarcastic, was simply a prick who wanted air time without any questioning of his positions or statements. More than once I wished Maddow had had the gumption to cut off the braying donkey's microphone, since he was contributing nothing but horseshit to the interview.)

Music as Trojan horse

Converse is building a recording studio in Brooklyn. Yes, that's the shoe company, building a facility in which bands will be able to record for free.

For the brands the desired payoff is coolness by association. And while a generation ago these arrangements would have carried a stigma for the artists, branding deals are now as common in rock as guitars. A band’s decision to do business with a soft-drink company is often no different from its decision to sign with a record label.

A few details of the scheme:

Converse’s studio, called Converse Rubber Tracks, is the brainchild of Geoff Cottrill, the company’s chief marketing officer. On a tour of the raw space he wore a pair of ripped jeans, a Rolex watch and a big, I-swear-it’s-true smile as he described the plans for the studio, which is to open by the end of the year. After applying online, bands deemed dedicated and needy enough will be able to record whatever they want there. No need to prepare rhymes for “Chuck Taylor” — Converse says it will have no influence on the music, the artists will keep ownership rights, and, as with many brand-as-patron projects, the songs aren’t intended to be used in ads.

Mr. Cottrill said the company wants to “give back” to its loyal customers, but of course the enterprise is not purely altruistic. The idea is that helping new bands will build good will for the brand (and generate future sales) and also give Converse an advantage over all the other companies out there competing for young eyeballs.

Furthermore:

[T]he patronage model grows out of the same kind of margin-trolling philosophy that has led big companies like Apple and Nike to license music by rising but still low-profile artists, said Josh Rabinowitz, director of music at the Grey agency.

“Indie-inflected music serves as a kind of Trojan horse,” Mr. Rabinowitz said. “Consumers feel they are discovering something that they believe to be cool and gaining admittance to a more refined social clique.”

I can't claim that Converse operating a record label is any worse than Sony operating one: the profit motive is the profit motive, after all, no matter who's in charge. As a practical matter, this tactic has "fad" written all over it: Marketing is desperately seeking a way of differentiating and enhancing The Brand, and this is one more thing they'll throw against the wall to see if it sticks. If it does, eventually we'll end up right back where we are today, a handful of survivors monopolizing mind- and market share and the rest absorbed or shut down.

Still, I can't shake the feeling that there are downsides somewhere, downsides we can't see -- yet. The companies that are most hard-headed about this, the ones that have a strategy beyond "let's see if we can generate street cred," are likely to make their private labels serve their corporate needs in ways we can't imagine (and, perhaps, in ways we can; who's to say that other companies will follow Converse's example and pledge not to interfere with the creative side?). Then the question will be, can those companies get the talent to play the company tune?

Coming at it from the other side, I have to wonder if musicians who are predisposed to work with corporate patrons are compromised before they start composing.

Ms. Cosentino of Best Coast said that her decision to work with Converse was not just about the publicity. She’s a fan of the company — “I’ve been wearing Converse since I was a child,” she said — and noted that when she recorded “All Summer,” the Converse-sponsored track with Kid Cudi and Mr. Batmanglij, the company gave no instructions other than that it was looking for a “summer vibe.”

“We just made something that is a fun song,” she said, “that will hopefully make people dance around in their Converse during the summer.”

Listening to the guys footing the bills is not, in itself, unprecedented or even wrong. Music labels and music producers have been making specific requests of their composers and performers since the industry began. Yet it seems to me that would-be musicians looking for their big (or even little) break will look to tailor their sound or image to what they think the would-be patron is seeking. It's not unlike the practice of customizing one's resume to the job opening, an accepted strategy in today's job market. However, music isn't just a business: it's a form of self-expression.

As a music fan and music consumer, I've heard enough music to know that there's a discernible difference between those artists that are in it for the money and those that have something to say on their own behalf. While there are always exceptions, the ones who are in it for the money first are generally less interesting and less vital than those who write and perform because they must, because the music within them is crying out to be heard. For instance, I loved Death Cab for Cutie from the moment I saw them for the first time because I could tell they were telling me about themselves through their songs. Would their music have resonated with me to the same degree if they had been focused at the start on getting a deal with a boutique music label owned by Microsoft instead of writing and performing without knowing if the band would go anywhere?

In short, I worry that these little buzz-seeking labels will cause otherwise decent musicians to jump past the necessary phase of finding their own voices in favor of catering to someone else's to gain a contract.

As for the elusive coolness factor these labels are intended to cultivate (and thence to impart to their parent companies), I'd like to share a few observations from my years of listening, rather more intently than most consumers, to many different music styles and artists. In hindsight, these observations should have been bloody obvious to anyone with four functioning brain cells, but they weren't to me, and perhaps they won't be to you, either:

• Coolness is not branded.
• If you think coolness is defined by others, you will never be cool.
• Music and coolness are unrelated to each other, no matter what Miles Davis thought.
• Corollary: if you're listening to music for its coolness, you're not listening to music.

Scalzi on Rand

An odd bit of link-jumping led me to John Scalzi's thoughts on Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

I'm jealous of anyone who can write like this:

The fact that apparently a very large number of people don’t recognize Galt as the genocidal prick he is suggests a) Rand’s skill at stacking the story-telling deck is not to be discounted, and b) as with any audience with a large number of nerds in it, a non-trivial number of Atlas Shrugged readers are possibly far enough along the Asperger spectrum that they don’t recognize humanity does not in fact easily suss out into Randian capitalist superheroes on one side and craven socialist losers on the other, or that Rand’s neatly-stacked deck doesn’t mirror the world as it is, or (if one gives it any sort of genuine reflection) model it as it should be.

Scalzi, though you might not have guessed it from the foregoing, is a fan of the novel. Not so I.

Somewhat to my surprise, I was angry when I finished reading -- but not by the political philosophy: I couldn't take the book seriously enough for that. No, what left me completely pissed about Atlas Shrugged was its unrelenting dullness. The limp story was hardly worth the telling, for starters, but Rand went further by devising a uniquely overwrought, yet lifeless, style, and sustaining it for hundreds of pages beyond what even a dedicated word-padder like Dickens would have dared. I had been promised a life-changing novel: I got a pointless, joyless screed. I was angry that I had lost time to it, and I wanted that time back.

Buster Keaton, 2010

Happy birthday to Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton, one of the silver screen's greatest comedians. He would have been 115 years old today, and you probably would have been able to hear every one of his creaking joints as he got out of bed; I've never seen anybody perform stunts like his. An astonishing and underappreciated genius.

Scalia and originalism

Antonin Scalia has been something of a pain in my backside for his entire tenure on the Supreme Court. He is the most dangerous kind of reactionary in that he possesses a brain and is adept at using it.

Okay, calling him a reactionary is probably unfair. At his best, he is conservative in the most literal sense of the word, preferring to keep what works rather than rushing headlong into the new. Unlike the nitwits who populate Fox News and much of conservative talk radio, Scalia can persuasively argue in support of his positions in a way that makes even those of us who habitually disagree with him grudgingly concede that he might have a point.

In recent remarks to students and faculty at Hastings College of the Law, Scalia called his greatest legal achievement the advancement of originalism.

Originalism, as applied by Scalia, is a theory of interpreting the 1789 Constitution and later amendments according to the meaning understood at the time they were ratified.

As Scalia explained it during his talk, "I interpret in the way it was understood by the society at the time."

It's a shortcoming of many liberal critics of Scalia that "originalism" is often discussed as if all of the amendments are to be understood in a 1789 context as well. In fact, what Scalia is saying is that what the text says has to be understood in the context of the time in which it was written, whatever time that was.

This approach has its merits. As Scalia noted, it gives "easy, easy answers" to a number of questions. An opposing approach, which he calls evolutionism, regards the Constitution as a "living document," whose text is subject to interpretation according to the mores and customs of the present. As Scalia sardonically notes, "Every day is a new day for evolutionists."

(I will resist speculating what Scalia thinks of the scientific theory of evolution. Stay focused, stay focused....)

Scalia would prefer to make new laws rather than to reinterpret the Constitution. In his eyes, the Fourteenth Amendment, for instance, was intended to apply to racial discrimination and should not have been extended to apply to sexual discrimination: "If the current society wants to outlaw sex discrimination, hey, we have legislatures."

So what do those who consider originalism an invalid, or at least insufficient, way of interpreting the Constitution think? Here's an excerpt from a story about newly retired Justice John Paul Stevens:

"To suggest that the law is static is quite wrong," he says. Stevens argues that "the whole purpose was to form a more perfect union, not something that's perfect when we started. We designed a system of government that would contemplate a change and progress."

Now, I admire Stevens, but his argument simply misses Scalia's point. Scalia admits that society can change; he simply contends that government should adapt to those changes through legislation rather than reinterpretation of the Constitution's plain text.

The article about Stevens continues:

This clash of views [between Stevens and Scalia] is exemplified in a 1990 opinion Stevens wrote, which invalidated the Illinois patronage system as a violation of employees' First Amendment rights to freedom of association.

Stevens notes that when he first encountered the question, he thought the claim had no merit. After all, as Justice Scalia would subsequently observe, patronage existed at the time the republic was founded. But Stevens, upon examining the question, reached a conclusion exactly opposite of what he originally thought.

"It did persuade me that some things that have been part of our law for a long, long time are not necessarily correct interpretation [sic] of the Constitution," he said. "The best example of that, of course, is racial discrimination. ... But the patronage system, it seemed to me, was a misuse of government power; the government has a duty to act impartially."

Being viscerally opposed to many of the conclusions Scalia has reached over the years through his originalist interpretation of the Constitution, I used to think that originalism was daffy, to put it kindly. In fact, I used to consider it a mere fig leaf to justify mean-spirited decisionmaking intended to further political ends. However, now I can see it could be the basis for a justifiable theory of the Court's role in the federal government. The Court and the federal court system would play a far less active role in forging our society than they have in the past. It would force much more of our national debate to be exercised through Congress and state legislatures.

One question, of course, is whether this would be a good thing for the country. Another is whether Scalia and his philosophical brethren on the Court are deciding in full, consistent accordance with originalism. Not being a lawyer, or even an exceptionally well-read amateur Court watcher, I don't have an answer to either question. (For instance, I assumed that an originalist reading of the Constitution would have resulted in a different conclusion in Brown v. Board of Education. In fact, the Brown Court examined the Fourteenth Amendment's ratification debate and racial segregation practices at that time -- precisely as originalism demands -- and concluded: "This discussion and our own investigation convince us that, although these sources cast some light, it is not enough to resolve the problem with which we are faced." So much for my legal expertise.)

Rick Sanchez gets canned

Rick Sanchez was canned from his job at CNN after remarks he made on a radio show.

One set focused on Daily Show host and producer Jon Stewart. Here's a transcript I made of the roughly four-minute excerpt available online. (I've heard there were two co-hosts of the show; since I don't know which is which, I've credited anyone other than Sanchez as "Host.")

Rick Sanchez: I think Jon Stewart's a bigot. I think he looks --

Host: You think Jon Stewart's a bigot? Hold on, now we're gonna get into it. Jon Stewart's my old boss, my friend --

RS: Yeah, I think he's a bigot.

Host: How is he a bigot?

RS: I think he looks at the world through his mother, who was a schoolteacher, and his dad, who was a physicist or something like that. Great, I'm so happy that he grew up in a suburban, middle-class New Jersey home with everything that you could ever imagine --

Host: What group was he bigoted towards?

RS: Everybody else who's not like him. Look at his show: I mean, what does he surround himself with?

Host: Listen, he picks on Jews all the time --

RS: Mmm-hmm, yeah.

Host: He's a Jew. He focuses on them, I think he overcompensates to some extent, I always noticed that.

RS: Yeah.

Host: He goes after himself and people like him --

RS: By the way, let me --

Host: -- and everybody else. I totally -- I disagree with you and I defy you to give me a specific example.

RS: Let me give you an example of what I mean by that, by the way. I don't necessarily think --

Host: That's a pretty strong word, calling Stewart a bigot, calling anybody a bigot, give me an example.

RS: That's -- well, that's what happens when you watch yourself on his show every day and all they ever do is call you stupid. You see --

Host: Well, if he's bigoted against the ignorant, fine. If he's bigoted against the apathetic, and he's being elitist saying others are stupid, but what groups specifically -- call someone a bigot, against who?

RS: Anybody who's different than you are, anybody who's not from your frame of reference, anybody who doesn't look and sound exactly like the people you sound and grew up with. The people that you put on your show, who always reflect somebody who's, I'm bringing in to sit around me, you know, who's very different from me. I mean, I'm sorry, but I just don't buy this thing that the only people out there who are prejudiced, all right, the only people out there who are prejudiced are the right. There's people who are prejudiced on both sides.

Host: But you're not giving me a specific example. You're saying he's bigoted toward people who aren't like him? His guests come from every -- he has the most right-wing --

RS: I think, I think --

Host: Don't you point your Sharpie at me, Sanchez.

RS: [laughs]

Host: Don't you take your Sharpie out.

RS: I think Jon's show is essentially prejudicial. I think --

Host: Against who?

RS: Against anybody who doesn't agree with his point of view, which is very much a white, liberal, Establishment point of view. He can't relate to a guy like me. He can't relate to a guy whose dad worked all his life. He can't relate to somebody who grew up poor.

Host: He can't relate to --

RS: No, he can't.

Host: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. He's a stand-up comedian.

RS: No he's not. According to Time magazine, he's the guy most Americans trust for news.

Host: Whatever. He's a stand-up comedian.

RS: But it's not "whatever"! It's --

Host: No it's not! You just said he can't relate to people like you! Rick, Rick, hold on, Rick. I'm a stand-up comedian. I've been a stand-up comedian for fifteen years. It's a really, really difficult job. It's filled with failure, it's filled with travel, it's filled with hard work. We might not be out there doing physical labor like your dad did, but I don't think it's fair to define --

RS: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no --

Host: He works very hard, and I've done it, he puts in twelve hours a day on that show --

RS: You're right, you're right --

Host: -- and his staff respects him, and I don't agree with -- I don't know his parents --

RS: You're right, you're right. I'm not saying --

Host: -- but I've worked for him --

RS: No, wait, wait. You misunderstood me. I'm not saying that he doesn't --

Host: You just said he can't relate to people who work hard!

RS: He can't relate -- no, he can't relate to what I grew up with! Absolutely not!

Host: But that's not fair to say because he can't -- because he didn't have your life experience, he's not somehow on your level. That's not his fault. We can't just say --

RS: No. It's that he looks at me as not being on his level.

Host: [dismissively] Aaah.

RS: Yeah, "aaah."

Host: I think you're holding a grudge because he picked on you or something.

RS: No, I'm telling you, I can see it --

Host: Didn't you fire a bomb at Colbert last week?

RS: I can't remember, did I?

Host: Didn't you take a shot at Colbert? You guys are crazy.

RS: I must have at some point. But yeah -- look, my point is very simple: I see stuff O'Reilly and Glenn Beck do, and I say, "Wow, that's very discriminatory, that's very prejudicial." And I look at stuff that the Colbert -- and Jon Stewart do, and I think, "Wow, that's very prejudicial." So we have a tendency to only look at one side -- I'm saying we ought to be able to look at both sides. That's all I'm saying.

Host: I certainly agree with that, but here --

RS: If we're going to call one side bigoted, we probably gotta look at the other side and say the same thing.

Host: No, I'd be careful with the word "bigot."

RS: All right, I'll take the word "bigot" back and say the word "prejudicial." "Uninformed."

So what is his beef with Stewart? My guess is that this sums it up: "It's that he looks at me as not being on his level."

The Daily Show has made fun of Sanchez on a number of occasions (according to the New York Times, more than twenty times in the last five years). The bits always made Sanchez look foolish, at best. I can understand Sanchez being sore about that. By making him the butt of jokes, Stewart is implicitly setting himself above Sanchez. That's how I'd feel, anyway, and that's what I think Sanchez meant by "not being on his level."

Moreover, a single Daily Show skewering isn't terribly damaging: it's forgotten within a short time. But being mocked more than once leaves the impression that you and your newscast are to be taken less seriously than your competitors and peers. Every fresh jab reinforces that impression, and it's all but impossible to change it after a short time.

For those in the media who criticize Stewart, I suspect it's more than a little frustrating that they can't really engage him on an even playing field. He can mock their failings as journalists, but if they attempt to turn the tables on him he can always retreat to the impregnable fortress of "I'm a comedian, not a journalist." Is he being disingenuous? Maybe. The line between satirist and activist is blurry: no two people can agree on where to draw it. If you pick on someone different every night, it's satire, but if the same targets keep coming up, what then? Is it their fault for continuing to behave absurdly, or are you grinding an axe? Are you still a satirist, or have you become an advocate with a comic streak?

What Sanchez said about Stewart wouldn't have gotten him fired, though, in spite of the ease with which one could interpret "Everybody else who's not like him" as code for "Gentile." (Note that Sanchez was not the one who first mentioned that Stewart was Jewish in this conversation.) No, it's pretty clear that it was the following that made CNN act. (Again, this is a transcript of the excerpted part of the show available online.)

RS: I just think it's important that people who are not minorities understand that those of us who are -- and very few of us will say the things that I've just said -- are actually more complex than they think we are and we get them.

Host: Stewart's -- Stewart's a minority as much as you are.

RS: He -- he -- come on. How is he --

Host: He's Jewish.

RS: Yeah, very powerless people. [laughs]

Host: Whoa.

RS: "Ooh, he's such a minority" -- please! What, are you kidding?

Host: He's -- you're telling me that --

RS: I'm telling you that everybody who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart, and to imply that somehow, they, the people in this country who are Jewish are an oppressed minority -- [sarcastically] yeah.

Host: They have a history of oppression, no?

RS: No question about that.

Host: They can't relate to that?

RS: I grew up in Miami! Every one of my best friends was Jewish. What are you talking about?

Host: They can't -- they can't relate to that --

RS: But to tell me --

Host: A Jewish person doesn't always have a constant fear in the back of their head [inaudible] the Holocaust?

RS: I think his father could -- I think his father could.

Host: I think every Jewish person feels that way.

RS: I hope so.

Host: Of all the Jewish people I talk to -- I have a good buddy of mine, he's so paranoid about this whole mosque thing because it is -- and you hear Bloomberg and other Jews coming out and defending it because it's "when are they coming for us?" again.

RS: Yeah.

Host: So I disagree with you.

RS: I think you're right.

Host: And I'm not Jewish, and I'm not Puerto Rican. I have had every --

RS: But just to -- hold on a minute. Just because someone's Jewish they're not capable of being prejudicial? Is that what you're trying to say?

Host: No, no, no. I'm saying, just --

RS: 'Cause if that's your only defense --

Host: No. I'm saying Jewish people can relate to oppression --

RS: I don't -- I just don't think -- I'm not -- when I say that about someone like Jon Stewart, somebody way out to the left, that they can be prejudicial, I'm not saying it has anything, the fact that they're Jewish or not Jewish, first of all. I mean, you brought the whole Jewish conversation into this. I don't think Jewish has anything to do with this. I don't think you're less apt to be prejudiced or more apt to be prejudiced because you are or aren't Jewish.

Host: I brought it in because you brought in my -- your ethnicity.

RS: I'm talking about our differences in the way we grew up in our lives, yes.

And thus endeth a career at CNN.

I'm disappointed Sanchez couldn't make a sound argument that Stewart is prejudiced in some way. I'm a big fan of The Daily Show, but that could and probably does blind me to its failings, especially to any biases that Stewart might have. It would have been enlightening to hear somebody who isn't a fan, but who watches Stewart nonetheless, give a different perspective on him and his show. As it is, though, Sanchez's complaints merely sound like sour grapes.

At least the give-and-take between Sanchez and the host(s) gave me food for thought.

What does "minority" mean in the United States these days? Is it merely a catch-all for "non-Caucasian," or does it imply "disadvantaged," or does it literally mean that the group is numerically smaller than some other group?

If a group is a minority because it is "disadvantaged," and it achieves a measure of success (however one chooses to define that), is it still a minority group? For instance, the Irish once were disadvantaged and could fairly be described as a minority, but today no one thinks of them in that way. When and how does a group go from being a minority to not being one?

Is "success" measured by income, or fame, or elected office, or something else? Is the success of a certain percentage enough to declare a group successful, or does it depend on the degree of success, or both?

Finally -- and this is not to excuse Sanchez's uncivil remarks -- did Stewart pick on Sanchez unfairly? I was as amused as anybody by The Daily Show's jokes at his expense (always, as far as I can remember, inspired by Sanchez's own gaffes), but was he really so much more risible an anchor than, say, the obnoxiously voluble Chris Matthews?

Why to write well

I'm kind of grumpy about writing well. I don't mean "good writing," which connotes a superior style and wit, but simply writing well enough so your point comes across. It drives me absolutely bonkers when I encounter a piece of purportedly expository prose that leaves me more confused than when I started. It especially bugs me when the writer seems to be intelligent enough that I could and should have learned something from that prose.

Here's an example from the comments to an essay on how politics will play a key role in any adjustment of China's currency:

Two points the surplus may move elsewhere, but you are assuming that it will be saved rather than spent on investments. Spending which could increase trade, Global GDP growth, and the export industries of neighboring countries that receive further development from the mechanism that ensures China receives a disproportionate share of global investment breaking down, which is essentially mercantilism on steroids.

I'm sure the writer knows what s/he meant by that second, sprawling non-sentence, but I sure don't. I'm confident the writer is smart, too, at least about economics, so I would have liked to know what s/he was thinking.

From later in the same comment:

Rather than propping up, and developing en masse, via infant industry theory on a massive scale, competitors in as many industries as possible, over as short a period of time as is possible by the sheer size and weight of the financial repression mechanism which essentially delimits the development opportunities of other trade PARTNERS in the system. ould work, even able to be overlooked in a very small country of small size, essentially runs counter to balance in such a large player.

Nobody's going to pay attention if you explain yourself like this. Life's too short to waste it deciphering gobbledygook.

[EDIT: for grammatical snafu]