Stephen Chambers Blog

Top 10 Songs of 2011 - Why Did I Pick Them?

2012-01-14T08:11:00.001-08:00

So there you have it, my Top 10 Songs of 2011:

#10 Foster The People - Pumped Up Kicks

-An unexpected anthem of early 2011, this song has the rare kind of innocence you don't find too often in decent garage bands.

#9 The Lonely Island - Jack Sparrow

-Does this need an explanation? It's a perfect, bizarre lampoon that's a catchy song in its own right.

#8 Those Darlins - Be Your Bro

-Those Darlins Have a warm place in my heart for their unapologetic country-indie-Nashville sound.

#7 Pitbull - Give Me Everything

-Since listening to his Spanish-language pop albums, Pitbull has grown on me in spite of myself - it's probably the Cuban connection. His swagger is very genuine.

#6 The Strange Boys - Punk's Pajamas

-One of the best "indie bands" out there, The Strange Boys have a voice and a sound (harmonica and all) that makes them one of the most unique things to come out of Austin recently - and that's saying something.

#5 The Black Keys - Lonely Boy

-This song just rocks, and they get props for attracting millions of viewers to a video of a man dancing outside a motel.

#4 The Muppets - Life's A Happy Song

-Smart and sentimental, this song stays in your head long after it's over. Maybe the most memorable song of the year.

#3 Nicki Minaj - Super Bass

-Nicki Minaj is one of my guilty pleasures, and this song is one of her best. Listen to that cadence; she tears it up. Rhyming "polo" with "mogul"? Fantastic.

#2 Deer Tick - Main Street

-From my home base of Providence, these guys rock in a way that reminds me of 1970s Springsteen or somesuch. Some kinda raw energy that needs to be bottled.

#1 Beirut - East Harlem

-The most low-key, operatic of the bunch, East Harlem is Beirut being Beirut: they get under my skin in a way that rock, pop - all the rest of it - can't, precisely because the music is practically off on its own island.

Top 10 Songs of 2011 - #1

2012-01-14T08:09:00.000-08:00

Beirut - East Harlem

Top 10 Songs of 2011 - #2

2012-01-14T08:07:00.002-08:00

Deer Tick - Main Street

Top 10 Songs of 2011 - #3

2012-01-14T08:07:00.001-08:00

Nicki Minaj - Super Bass

Top 10 Songs of 2011 - #4

2012-01-14T08:05:00.000-08:00

The Muppets - Life's A Happy Song

Top 10 Songs of 2011 - #5

2012-01-14T07:57:00.000-08:00

The Black Keys - Lonely Boy

Top 10 Songs of 2011 - #6

2012-01-14T07:00:00.000-08:00

The Strange Boys - Punk's Pajamas

Top 10 Songs of 2011 - #7

2012-01-13T10:18:00.000-08:00

Pitbull - Give Me Everything

Top 10 Songs of 2011 - #8

2012-01-09T06:50:00.000-08:00

Those Darlins - Be Your Bro

Top 10 Songs of 2011 - #9

2012-01-05T08:03:00.001-08:00

The Lonely Island - Jack Sparrow

Top 10 Songs of 2011 - #10

2012-01-04T06:23:00.000-08:00

Over the next few days, I'm going to post my top songs of 2011.

#10: Foster The People - Pumped Up Kicks.

The Chambers Diet, Part III: It’s Going to Be Fine (Really)

2012-01-03T11:12:00.000-08:00

Q: How should I live my life?

A: It’s going to be fine.

Let me say that again: It’s going to be fine.

“What’s going to be fine?” you say, “Life? No it isn’t. The world is a mess, and look at my life – it isn’t much better.”

Here’s the thing: I don’t buy that. You’re reading this, right? So that means you can afford whatever medium you’re reading it on, right? You’re probably in the first-world too. Let’s assume that I’m basically right about those points: that you can read, and that you’re in the first world.

Let’s start with some tough love: there are billions of people in this world living in the worst conditions imaginable. Billions. There are slaves and child soldiers, there are curable diseases wreaking untold havoc on the lives of people all over the fucking world. The place is a mess, I agree.

But now let’s think about where we are, and where the world could be. We’re getting enough to eat, and we have all kinds of things, like antibiotics, that the rest of the world struggles to get. So there’s that.

Now let’s take another step back: suppose you were born in the ‘first world’ a century ago – or even a few decades ago. Do you know how often people died of the flu back then? It happened all the time. Life was a series of commonplace tragedies – it’s why people had (and still have in a lot of places) so many kids. Most of them weren’t going to make it. “Yes, yes,” you say, “get on with it, I know all of that.”

My point in starting this way is just to remind us where we are. Look around right now. I’m not talking about some existential search for your soul: I’m talking about taking a look at your physical surroundings. They’re probably not that bad; in fact, by any objective measure, they’re probably pretty damn good. If you’re reading this, you’re not working in a salt mine.

Let’s keep moving. If you believe in God, that’s fine. But let’s assume you sort of believe in God: maybe you believe in a higher power, maybe you believe in all kinds of things but have never witnessed a miracle. Maybe you believe the whole thing, hook-line-and-sinker. That’s fine. Full disclosure: I’m pretty agnostic about the higher powers. What I’m not agnostic about is the way the universe works, and this is going to start to sound weird and mystical (but I don’t think it is), so stay with me for a moment.

The ancients had it right: the world responds to you. There is a Goddess of Fortune, and she favors the bold. Whether she exists-exists is a different question, but that’s how the universe works. If you embrace your position in this world, and really live it – the universe will look out for you.

What does all of that mean? First, a few technicalities: when I say the universe responds to you and fortune favors the bolds, what I mean is, if you live up to your ideal – up to what you, and only you, are supposed to be – things will work out well. They just will. That may be because there is an invisible demi-god looking over your shoulder, but it probably has more to do with the human subconscious. We do things in our lives without noticing them all the time. Your brain filters out most of what happens in your life. What you experience isn’t the world, it’s a twisted version of the world, with parts missing – parts sped up, others slowed to a crawl – based entirely on your experience. Time wraps and bends inside your head all the time, to say nothing of how malleable memory and basic perception can be.

We know all of this, it’s been proven. The missing piece is that how you perceive the world informs your behavior, even when you don’t notice or want it to. You can’t help it: that’s just how it works. How you think about things informs how you present yourself, how you look at people, how you react – often unconsciously – and that informs how your life plays out. You will be dealt a better hand if you expect to be.

Embrace your position in the world – live up to the best version of yourself that you can be – and the world will respond in kind, not necessarily because of any mystical intervention, but because you force it to, without even knowing it.

To pull back again: why should you be positive, when there is so much misery and suffering in the world? Life is tough, after all. Well, for starters, the world exists. It doesn’t have to, but it does. The latest studies in physics suggest that there are many, many universes out there, and most of them probably aren’t set-up to support life. But we’re here. Maybe things repeat endlessly, maybe there’s an afterlife, but none of that is certain in the way your existence is now – you at least get one shot at this. That’s a damn big deal.

How big a deal is it? A scientist recently guesstimated the likelihood of your birth, based on your parents meeting, all the way down to the likelihood of one particular sperm and one particular egg meeting back into the recesses of your prehistory. Do you know what the likelihood was? The likelihood that you’re breathing right now – to say nothing of the fact that I’m alive too to write this too – is a rounding error.

It’s about the same likelihood as the population of San Diego rolling trillion sided dice and getting the same number.

Yeah, you heard me. A few million people drop trillion sided dice and all of them roll an eleven. What that means is you shouldn’t be here. And neither should I. We won a lottery the likes of which our brains are physically incapable of understanding just to exist.

What that means is that you get at least one shot at this. Relax and fucking enjoy it, it may be the last chance you have – but you shouldn’t even have it. That’s why, no matter how bad shit gets – and it can get bad, I know – no matter how ugly the world is, it’s going to be fine. Simply because it is. It doesn’t have to exist, and it does. That’s your reason to rejigger your mind.

Neither of us should exist right now, and we do. The universe will do what you say, if you have the balls to ask. Stop worrying and look around again. You shouldn’t be able to read this right now or listen to music or fall in love or eat Chinese food (for your one meal) – none of that should be able to happen, but it does.

It’s going to be fine.

Coming up: I've decided to post Top 10 lists on this blog for 2011. Movies, music, books, etc.

Stay tuned.

The Chambers Diet, Part II b: How to Be Healthy (Hint: It's All About Your Mouth)

2012-01-03T05:09:00.000-08:00

Here’s the second part of staying healthy – and this is where we start to veer into the next section, which is more philosophical – you need to relax. I’m not saying you need to do yoga or watch the ocean (although both of those things could be good) – we’ll get to specifics in a minute – but you have got to calm down.

“I’m perfectly calm,” you say.

Sure you are (and maybe you are), but this is a major part of your health. Half of your immune system (maybe more) is your mind. People with positive outlooks live longer; people who believe in God live longer; people who are married live longer, and so on – all of those things are fine (and I’m not recommending any of them in particular right now) – but what they have in common is that they decrease stress. They take it down a notch. Those fucking people are less concerned with the day-to-day. The reason they live longer is precisely because they are under less stress.

So calm the fuck down, and you will be healthier, I promise. Easier said than done, right? I realize that, which is kind of the point of the third section. Right now, I’m just justifying spending some time with you to lay-out all the reasons you have to chill-ax and change your outlook. Right now, though, I just want to get it into your head – want to repeat it endlessly, until you toss this across the room – that if you are under greater stress, you are much likelier to get sick.

Period.

This is also part of the reason that moderate alcohol intake forms a key component of the Chambers Diet: it de-stresses you. I don’t really trust you to de-stress yourself. I just don’t. Therefore, we have to cheat a little bit. You drink a little, and you will calm down. We need to set it up so that you don’t have a choice. Like when you get a good massage: your muscles have to relax, right? They have no choice. You can try to tense them up, you can try to drive yourself nuts, but if somebody is fucking pounding on your back in the right way, in a hot sauna, you will relax – you won’t have a choice.

That’s where booze can be a quick fix. It’s a cheat. It forces your muscles to stop clenching a little bit, even if they don’t want to. This works with the limited food part too: you can relax on much less alcohol, if you haven’t eaten in awhile. There’s a reason whiskey comes from the gaelic ‘a whisk of ae,’ meaning ‘water of life.’ It actually can be very good for you, if you’re careful: sanitize your mouth and relax your muscles with a drink, and you will be healthier.

The issue, of course, is that booze can be bad for you too – especially if you drink too much. So maybe we can use that as a prop, but it isn’t going to be enough to get us into full Chambers Diet mode. Taking the third step is going to require a rejiggering of how we think about things. You get now why this is important – why it matters if you are relaxed about life, right? The same reason it’s important that you eat decent food and brush your teeth: you’ll be healthier and happier.

So let’s do it already, let’s get into the philosophy.

The Chambers Diet, Part II a: How to Be Healthy (Hint: It's All About Your Mouth)

2012-01-02T06:14:00.000-08:00

II: How to Be Healthy (Hint: It’s All About Your Mouth)

Q: How do I stay healthy?

A: Brush your teeth with hard liquor.

“Again with this,” you say, “are you out of your mind? I stay healthy by drinking a lot of vodka?”

My answer is yes and no. To be honest, that lead-in isn’t completely honest – there’s more to being healthy than oral health, but that’s actually where it starts. There is now boatloads of evidence that the health of someone’s gums and teeth makes a big difference in things like heart disease. You may know that, but did you ever stop to think about the implications?

How the hell can it be that your gums are responsible for a healthy heart? Your gums – really? Really. There are plenty of good medical reasons that’s the case, but trust me, it is. It speaks to a couple themes that I want to harp on for a minute.

First, what goes in your mouth is connected to the health of your whole body. Food and drink aren’t just brands of gasoline that power the engine. The calories you put in your body actually make your body. You know that right, but again, stop and think about what that means. It means your mouth is the gatekeeper to your health. It means your mouth matters more than you give it credit for. Not only does the very substance of your physical being – those french fries that turn into cells and power your bloodstream – enter via your lips, but so do plenty of germs, good and bad. You need to keep your mouth fucking clean.

That means brushing your teeth, it means seeing the dentist – but again, as with the diet, I actually don’t trust you to do either of those things. You know you need to floss, but you don’t. Neither do I. Who has the time to run that stupid little string between your teeth? You really should floss, by the way. But let’s assume you’re like most people, and you brush your teeth maybe once a day, you go to the dentist less often than you should, and you very very rarely floss (basically before a trip to the dentist).

That’s actually fine.

Here’s the rub: you need to sanitize your mouth. You need to kill the germs that like to hang out on your gums and in-between your teeth. That’s oral hygiene 101, right? So how do you do it? Well, you can use mouthwash, and that’s fine. But I’ve already advised you to drink a little booze. Why not make it hard liquor?

Hard liquor has a lot of interesting properties. Mostly it kills things, like your brain cells and your liver – but it also kills bacteria. Hell, you could perform surgery with a bottle of strong whiskey. Suppose you accidentally ate something with dangerous bacteria in it – you are much less likely to die of ecoli, if you complimented it with booze with a greater than 30 or 40 percent alcohol content. Beer and wine are less helpful with this, but the hard stuff actually sanitizes. So here’s part of your new routine: if you’re not going to use mouthwash (which, by the way, typically has some form of alcohol in it), go straight to the source. Drink some hard liquor, and that cold sore will go away. When that cold sore goes away, you’re much less likely to – yes, you guessed it – get a cold.

So that’s part one: keep your fucking mouth clean. Sanitize it. Kill the germs that hang out in it with some straight bourbon.

The Chambers Diet, Part I: BTFB (Back to Fucking Basics)

2012-01-01T08:36:00.000-08:00

I: BTFB (Back to Fucking Basics)

Q: What Do I Eat?
A: Anything you want.

Let me say that again. Eat anything you want. “Well okay,” you say, “I’ll see you at McDonalds.”

Here’s the catch: you only get to do it once a day.

This is not a diet of fish or greens or other wonderful things that make you healthy, that give you strong bones and a positive outlook on life. That’s not the way life works. If you want to eat those things, fine. But you don’t have to.

The nuts and bolts of how the diet part of the Chambers Diet works are pretty simple. You get one meal each day. Eat it any time you want, in the morning, mid-day, evening – hell, eat your meal in the middle of the night, I don’t care. But remember, you only get one.

Sound unrealistic? “But I’ll be hungry all day,” you say, “and when I do eat, I’m liable to just eat ten hamburgers. That can’t be healthy.”

Here’s the thing, if you limit yourself to only one meal each day, your body will adjust. It will stop craving so much Goddamn food, I promise. Within a few weeks, you won’t be hungry – except at mealtime. And then you will be very hungry, but you will also be unable to pack it away, because your stomach will physically shrink.

Now, I know this sounds unhealthy. And what about those times in the middle of the day or night when you have to go another three hours until meal-time? There is actually a pretty simple solution to that too.

Our bodies aren’t designed to eat three meals a day and then sit around. The way communication between the stomach and brain works is pretty fucked up. Neither one knows what the hell is going on. And let me be clear, the Chambers Diet isn’t for everyone. If you are working in the shit, if you’re chopping wood or digging ditches, for example – if you’re running around all day – this might not work. You probably need more regular calories. But even for manual labor, most of the time then I suspect it will still work. Why?

Have you ever been to the Zoo? Animals are constantly running around, stressed that they’re going to get eaten and won’t find enough food. That’s the way the world works. It’s also what we evolved to do. Here’s the big secret to our diets: eating more doesn’t necessarily correlate with longer life spans. In fact, in studies of chimps, there’s pretty compelling evidence that the moneys – which are 98% human – live significantly longer, if you just cut lots of calories out of their diets. In that study, most of the scientists were so dumbstruck by the evidence that they immediately tried to cut their own calories too. It’s a lot of damn work to process food all day. Our bodies are stressing all the time to deal with phenomenal amounts of calories we never evolved to consume. We just aren’t made for this.

Imagine yourself in the prehistoric savannah: you’re hunting or gathering, doing your thing. How many calories are you getting each day? Not many, right? And when you do eat a lot, what kind of calories do you think those are? Prime rib? Not likely. How often do you take down a wooly mammoth? Pretty rarely, right? And when you do – here’s the kicker – that meat doesn’t really save. Our prehistoric ancestors – in the hundreds of thousands of years when we did most of our evolving – didn’t know a whole lot about preserving food. So when they came across a big meal, they went all out. The rest of the time, they ate a little of this, a little of that, whatever was easy. That probably meant nuts and fruit.

So that’s my answer: when you are hungry during the day, when you absolutely need to eat something before that one meal, eat some nuts, eat an apple. But that’s it. You don’t get a meal, you get a tiny snack. Then you wait a few hours, and if you need more, you eat more. Most of the time, if you’re hungry your brain just wants to stimulate your stomach. Drink some water.

Then, when you have your meal, I guarantee you’ll be less and less likely to crave junk food and crap. Your body is going to tell you what it needs when that one meal rolls around. See the thing is, unlike other self-help gurus, I actually don’t trust the human mind. I think we’re lazy and can’t control ourselves. I’m not asking you to control yourself. That’s why we have laws. If people could control themselves, society wouldn’t need traffic lights or rules against stealing. But we make rules, because otherwise we’re liable to run a little wild.

So here’s your rule: one meal, and in-between nuts and berries.

Within that law, you get to do whatever you want. I promise, no matter how many burgers you think you’ll eat, eventually that number will drop. Eventually, you won’t get hungry during the day. Your body will get the message. ‘Oh right, we’re back in the savannah. I can’t eat constantly. I get one meal I look forward to, and the rest of the time, I deal with it.’

There’s another trick to handling that meal: alcohol.

“Oh my God,” you say, “listen to this fucking guy. This is the most unhealthy diet I have ever heard of. The burger and booze diet.”

It actually can work like that. If you’re an alcoholic or a prude, ignore me. Flip to the next section. Actually, if you fall into either of those categories you should probably put this down. But for the rest of you, I’m going to be a big enabler/pusher for a few minutes. Bear with me.

Civilization began when people learned to store grain and foodstuffs, right? Guess what they did the moment people figured out agriculture. That’s right, they made booze. I’m not inventing something new – the Chambers Diet has been around since before time began – I’m actually getting back to basics.

I want us around the campfire for our daily meal with a bottle of alcohol. I’m not saying you have to drink everyday. In fact, you probably shouldn’t. But there’s also plenty of scientific evidence now – just as with the monkeys that are always hungry – that a little alcohol never hurt anyone. For most people, it actually helps. Moderate alcohol usage makes you healthier. Make some of those daily calories alcoholic. This is getting us into a later section – about stress and health – but the point, as with the food, isn’t that I want you to keep a chart or stress about points or buy into some packaged plan. The Chambers Diet builds on a holistic philosophy. Let’s get back to fucking basics.

Eat your nuts, berries, and mammoth; drink your booze, and you will be merry. You’ll also lose weight, I promise. You simply won’t be able to eat as much, because your stomach will shrink. You also won’t be as interested in food. Stop fetishizing it. Food is what we need to survive, but it shouldn’t occupy so much of our time. Make that meal a good one, by all means – and I suspect you’ll pay more attention to it too, if you only get one – but look around. There’s a whole lot more to this life than calories.

To say nothing of the fact that when you drink on a pretty empty stomach, you’ll get more bang for your buck – you’ll enjoy it more – and you’ll care so much less about eating. This is all about tricking our bodies that have been conditioned into the modern world, it’s about convincing – re-convincing – our cells that we’re back where we belong. See, we haven’t evolved to this. We haven’t evolved to deal with the Chicken McNugget, because the modern diet – as anyone who knows anything will tell you – has changed radically in the past few decades, to say nothing of the past few hundred years. How fast does evolution happen? Not that quickly. It can’t keep up. We’re designed to eat very little and drink booze. Back to basics.

That’s where the Chambers Diet begins.

The Chambers Diet, Introduction

2012-01-01T08:28:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year. I don't make resolutions, but I've decided to post sections of a new writing project, titled "The Chambers Diet" on this blog in the coming days and weeks. It seems appropriate for the coming year.

First things first: this isn’t a guide to dieting. The Chambers Diet is more than a ‘diet’ – it is a philosophy. Food and drink are only part of the story. They’re part of it, not because I want you to lose weight (although you will, if you listen to me), but because food and drink are part of who we are and how we relate to the world.

This is not a traditional self-help guide. I’m not going to tell you to exercise or get more fresh air or reconnect with your mother. Instead, I’m going to lay it out – one, two, three – and let you in on a little secret: no one has it all together. There is no magic bullet; there is no ideal life or perfect way of seeing the world. Let me say that again: you can’t be perfect.

What you can do is make peace with your place in the world, lose weight, and chill-ax. It’s going to be fine.

That’s the Chambers Diet. So let’s do this thing.

In the coming days, I'll get into three major sections for my philosophy of food, drink, and health:

I: BTFB (Back to Fucking Basics)

II: How to Be Healthy (Hint: It’s All About Your Mouth)

III: It’s Going to Be Fine (Really).

Cuba Video

2011-02-27T12:58:00.000-08:00

Some home video from my recent trip to Cuba:

Writing For Free

2011-02-14T10:35:00.001-08:00

Today's NY Times article, "Media Companies, a Nation of Serfs" helps to explain why I have always had a difficult time blogging or keeping up with twitter. I'm usually pretty busy writing or researching (to put it crassly) for money, whether from publishing companies or universities. So it's difficult for me to get motivated to provide free content for a site like this one (Blogger). At the end of the day, anything I write on here is driving traffic to Blogger, right? While some blog readers might also be interested in seeing what else I've written, etc., I have a hard time believing that translates into sales. Am I wrong?

Also, You Can't See Cuba From Key West

2011-02-13T13:10:00.000-08:00

As it turns out, you can only see about thirty miles into the ocean, looking south from Key West, and although I'd been told that on a clear night, you could see the light from Havana looking south from Key West, I didn't see anything.

So there's that.

Also, although everyone is denying it, I noticed an article in The Miami Herald this afternoon, which was all about the GOP longing for a Jeb Bush 2012 President run. I can't remember if I wrote about Jeb on here, but as far back as 2004-ish?, when I was writing for The Radical Center website, I ranted and worried about Jeb Bush, in part because I've long seen him as the Michael Corleone of the Bush Family. Dubya was Sonny, BTW.

I'll go into the reasons I'm concerned about Jeb Bush if it looks like he's liable to make a run. Really though, I think it's much more likely he runs in 2016 or 2020, which still puts us in the right timeframe for a total financial/social catastrophe.

Also, I always love it when people read things I've written, and it seems that an English class is reading 'Jane and the Raven King'. Way to go, Mrs. Duff!

Researching Hard For The Money

2011-02-11T13:26:00.000-08:00

I have been working at the University of Miami's Cuban Heritage Collection for the past few weeks, mostly with a collection of papers related to American investment in early 19th century Cuba (which I knew they had), but also with the unprocessed papers of Cuban historian, Portell Villa (which I didn't know they had). So that's what I've been up to. Also, did you know rum is cheaper in Miami than in Rhode Island? It is.

I'll be presenting an article, "'No God But Gain': The Business of Cuba and U.S. Foreign Policy" at the April "Slavery's Capitalism" conference at Harvard in April. I just finished a draft, which I'm pretty excited about.

I have nothing else to blog about, except that I'm not as optimistic about Egypt as most people seem to be. Nor do I think we should return to the gold standard and abolish the federal reserve as a few people seem to think we should. *cough*Rand Paul*cough*

The reason I don't think we should return to the gold standard is because I study a period in time in which the United States banking system functioned on a standard of 'specie,' meaning gold and silver. Most of this came into the U.S. via Cuba (from mines in Central and South America). You how you can get a loan to buy a house? (Or should be able to, if the financial infrastructure weren't so absurd?) You wouldn't be able do that as easily with a gold standard. Specie limits credit and consolidates wealth.

Head down, power through

2011-01-23T09:15:00.001-08:00

First off, thanks to everyone who turned out at the signings on 1/14 and 1/22, it was a lot of fun. I have been busy with writing and planning for a February research trip to Miami. Yes, I know how that sounds, but I will be staring at 200 year-old mail on a fellowship at The University of Miami's Cuban Heritage Collection, not lounging by a pool. Promise.

Another nice little review of Jane and the Raven King was sighted at motherdaughterbookclub.com.

What else? Go Bears!

Providence, RI Signing: Brown U. Bookstore, 1/15/11, 2:00 pm

2011-01-14T10:57:00.001-08:00

If you're in Providence, Rhode Island, I'll be reading/signing/makingthingsup at the Brown University bookstore tomorrow, Saturday, January 15th at 2:00 pm.

Thank you to the NY Journal of Books, which just gave the novel an incredibly nice review.

Also, my new favorite video of all time is now at theThriftymommasbrainfood blog, in which her two children review the book.

Loco Amor

2011-01-05T05:53:00.001-08:00

I spent part of the month of December (the part of the month between Hannukah and Christmas) in Havana, Cuba. Suffice to say, it was pretty amazing. I was there on a research trip for my dissertation (which is about the U.S. - Cuba in the early 19th century), thanks to a Tinker Grant from the Center for Latin American and Caribbean studies at Brown.

What's interesting about these photos I took is they make Cuba look much more like a theme park than it actually was. Despite the numerous Canadian and European tourists in Havana, there is nothing plastic or artificial about the place. It is an island at the intersection of three empires, with an almost post-apocalyptic feel: there are Soviet ruins on top of American ruins on top of Spanish ruins, with streets jammed with 1920s - 1950s American classic cars, running on Polish engines, alongside boxy Eastern European and Russian vehicles and the occasional modern import (usually for diplomats and people with connections). Havana is saturated with diesel and loco amor. It was an experience.

Anyway: Happy 2011!

I have a few readings/signings for Jane and the Raven King coming up here in Providence, and I understand that a number of bloggers are taking a look at the book right now, so I'm eager to hear what they have to say. This weekend I'll be at the American Historical Association's annual meeting in Boston. I'm not presenting anything yet (that's coming in April), but I'm curious to see what it's like - especially since I'm not on the job market.

It's good to be back.

Blog Etiquette

2010-12-07T13:11:00.000-08:00

So I made an author page on Amazon.com, and in the picture I've been using for a lot of this stuff, I have a mustache. As it turns out, I have a beard, not a mustache. I did that for Movember and because I was curious what it would look like. I honestly think it's kind of silly-looking, which is why I like the picture (look to the right).

I have writing I'm working on today, because I'm headed to Cuba on Friday, and there are some things I need to get done, before I run off and get radicalized.

What else? Um. I've been listening to a lot of 'Iron and Wine' and 'Flogging Molly'... Let's see. I know everyone liked 'Tangled,' but I wasn't terribly impressed by it... What else, what else..?

This is why it's historically been hard for me to keep a blog. I'm usually working on something, which is (hopefully) more interesting to see in its finished version that when I'm working on it. Like the book trailer, for example. I didn't blog about making the book trailer. Should I have? I still don't quite get blog etiquette.

I'm also unclear about what kinds of things people would be interested in learning about? What about writing and agents and editors and things like that? That must be a talk-able topic on the interwebs, right? But should I really go on and on about how that stuff works? I think most of the people who read about that want to be published, and frankly reading blogs about being published probably isn't as helpful as working to improve one's writing (which is all about getting words on the page and then editing it mercilessly, which also is kind of boring to talk about).

ANYWAY.

Chronicles of Avantia

2010-12-07T06:10:00.000-08:00

Another project, on which I collaborated with bestselling author, Adam Blade: The Chronicles of Avantia. I worked on books two and three (Chasing Evil and Call to War) in this series.

If you like Chronicles of Avantia and Beast Quest, check out Jane and the Raven King

Jane and the Raven King Trailer

2010-12-06T17:50:00.001-08:00

Check this out:

WikiLeaks Reveals a Professionalism of Recent Vintage in the History of American Diplomacy

2010-12-05T14:10:00.000-08:00

WikiLeaks Reveals a Professionalism of Recent Vintage in the History of American Diplomacy

Plugging Away

2010-12-03T12:35:00.000-08:00

My website has been given a facelift and now includes a picture of my dog, Calvin and some more photos (most of which I took way back at the Fourth of July using a slow exposure to make sparklers and fireworks do all kinds of colorful things.)

If you haven't already, please check out my new novel, Jane and the Raven King and click "Editorial Reviews" to read some of the first chapter.

You know how they say authors shouldn't track their Amazon rankings? Well, they do. And I have been. It's launch week, so I've been really curious, especially since I spent a few days this week pushing people to check it out. A couple readers have written very nice reviews on Amazon already, which is fantastic. Turns out, Amazon rankings are something of a state secret, involving algorithms and Economics 103 math. Nobody really knows how many copies are selling on there, nobody knows how books get sorted/linked with other "Also Bought" titles - nobody, that is, but Amazon.

I have other writing projects and other non-writing minutia I've been avoiding all day, but it's launch week, so I have a legit excuse.

Jane and the Raven King

2010-11-27T10:22:00.000-08:00

The official release date for "Jane and the Raven King" is this Wednesday, December 1st. It is now shipping on Amazon.com, so please pick-up a copy.

Roughly 250,000+ books are published in the United States each year; the average shelf life for most new works of fiction is less than one month.

I stand behind this book, and although it's definitely YA fantasy, I've heard from 6 year olds and adults who enjoyed it. Thank you, thank you for your support! I want to hear what you think.

Now then

2010-02-15T12:04:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the long hiatus.

I have news: a new book, Jane and the Raven King, will be published in December 2010 by Sourcebooks.

Also, a scholarly publication to mention:

Neither Justice Nor Mercy, which is about19th-century riots and executions in Providence, Rhode Island. It was published in The New England Quarterly in September 2009.

More to come. I've been AWOL, I know. I just finished my preliminary exams at Brown in December, so now it's on to creative writing, dissertation-research and publishing.

Up and at them!

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-26T18:02:00.000-08:00

Happy thanksgiving.

Where Have You Been?

2008-11-15T05:50:00.000-08:00

So it's that time in the semester when things are starting to get busier. I'm not sure how often I'll be able to post on here, but if anything important comes up, I'll be sure to let you know.

Election Update

2008-11-04T18:12:00.000-08:00

I'm following along on television and the internet, but if you check Intrade, you'll notice a lot of movement, both in individual states and in the national race: in which McCain is now down below 3%.

Election Day

2008-11-04T05:41:00.000-08:00

As you've probably noticed, I've been spending an inordinate amount of time blogging on here about the 2008 Presidential election. Now that it's finally upon us, I'm going to have a busy day of doing other things, before I watch the results tonight, with the rest of you. The New York Times has a piece about things to watch for in the evening election coverage. Networks won't call states until after the polls close, which starts to happen in a meaningful way between 7:00 - 8:30 EST. If Obama is having trouble in some of those initial polls, and/or if networks seem hesitant to call important states, it could portend a much tighter race than the polling data suggests.

All of that said, I think it's worth paying close attention to the Senate races. There are a number of pretty close, incredibly important Senate races, including in Minnesota, Georgia, and even potentially in my home state of Kentucky, where the Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell is reportedly only up by 5 points in polls that have a margin of error of almost 4 points. If people like McConnell start losing their seats, this will be much bigger for the Dems than even conventional wisdom has it. And I think that's possible.

My money is on a real rout. I think states like Georgia, which many are now giving to the GOP, will be close. Unless people are a lot more racist that they're letting on, this is going to be something to see.

Go get your "I Voted" sticker; I'm wearing one right now.

Down in the Markets

2008-11-03T09:46:00.000-08:00

Enough with polls for the moment, the numbers on intrade have jumped around a lot in the past few hours. Obama is now at a projected 91.7% chance of being elected President, whereas McCain is down to 9.8%. Florida and Ohio are both up big-time for Obama on the futures prediction market.

The Story of the Crowd, Part III

2008-11-03T07:41:00.001-08:00

For what it's worth, today Paul Krugman agreed with my assessment of the future of the Republican party, arguing that it will become more, not less, extreme. If you've been following this blog, you know that I predicted this several months ago, and now that a big Obama victory has become mainstream thinking (as I also predicted, back when the polls were even), thinkers are turning to the future.

He's so far ahead in the polls, we don't even need to vote, right?

Don't Vote

2008-10-30T05:53:00.000-07:00

Take 2:

(And for the record, here's take 1):

Watch The Skies

2008-10-28T12:39:00.001-07:00

So it has now become conventional wisdom that Barack Obama has a commanding lead in most polls, and that John McCain is in serious trouble. As a democrat, this worries me. It worries me because much of Obama's lead is predicated on voter turn-out, and voter turn-out can be notoriously low in key places if there is a general sentiment that a candidate is so far ahead in the polls he no longer needs any votes.

The other danger can be weather. Poor weather, i.e. rain or snow generally dissuades exactly the kind of first time voters, who may decide next Tuesday that Barack Obama can win without them.

So here's where I'm looking, if we assume that much of Obama's support in many of these highly contested states will be in urban areas, (granted, it's a week away, and 7-day forecasts can be unreliable):

The weather forecasts for next Tuesday, election day:

PA:
Philadelphia: Sunny, 60/44
Pittsburgh: Partly Cloudy, 61/46
OH:
Cincinnati: Partly Cloudy, 67/47
Cleveland: Mostly Sunny, 60/47
Columbus: Partly Cloudy, 64/48
FL:
Miami: Scattered Showers, 80/74
Tampa: Scattered Showers, 82/63

There are, of course, many more cities and states that will matter than this next Tuesday, but I'm essentially working from the standpoint that John McCain cannot reasonably win this election without Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania in particular is a real stretch for him, and he knows it. That's precisely why he's been spending so much time campaigning there recently. The electoral math simply works in Obama's favor at this point.

If major storms come up, and/or if there is a major cold-front in some of these places, I think that could have a significant impact on the election, but so far (knock on wood) so good.

The Number 60

2008-10-25T07:20:00.000-07:00

So they spent $150K on Sarah Palin's wardrobe, so the highest paid member of McCain's campaign is Sarah Palin's stylist, who had $24K in the space of two weeks in October while McCain is now attempting to run on a pseudo-populist platform: what more do you want? At least they're as blatant with the hypocrisy as the current administration.

Yesterday, there was a big shift on Intrade in Georgia: they now have McCain up 65 to 35 (this is in percentage terms of the likelihood of a win and doesn't represent aggregate polling).

Intrade now has Obama at 375 electoral votes and McCain at 163, whereas the the aggregate polling data on the Princeton Election Consortium has Obama at 363 to McCain's 175.

I think the Deep South is in play, despite what you've probably heard.

Oh, and what about the economy? Credit markets haven't gotten much better, earnings are down, and global stock prices continue to fall--in some place pretty dramatically. We're all still in a lot of trouble. I think we should all be watching the Senate races even closer than we are already. Whatever your party affiliation, if you want to give money, the places you can make the most difference are in those tight Senate races in places like Georgia and Minnesota. Getting 60 Senate seats could be crucial for the Dems if they want to pass real health care reforms and shake things up in the ways the public will be expecting. So while the Presidency is certainly important, the number 60 in the Senate is a close second.

Ferrell y Fey

2008-10-24T04:35:00.001-07:00

I know, I know: a whole week goes by without a real blog. What can I say, no rest for the weary.

Who Endorsed Whom For The What Now?

2008-10-19T06:53:00.000-07:00

Colin Powell just endorsed Barack Obama for President.

"I Got My Middle Name From Somebody Who Never Thought I'd Be Running For President"

2008-10-17T12:24:00.000-07:00

Hilarious.

Scamming Scantrons

2008-10-16T17:19:00.000-07:00

How would you like to be paid $300 to retake the SAT, with the promise that if you do well enough (improve your score by 50 points or more), you will be paid an additional $1,000/year?

Well sure, you say, why not? After all, high schoolers are taking the SAT eight times or something these days--why not pay them to take it, rather than the other way around?

Here's the rub: the SAT financial incentive plan I just mentioned is part of a college program for entering freshmen. Yes, Baylor University is paying their freshman $300 (in bookstore credit) to retake the SAT. Then, if the students improve their scores, they get scholarship money. If that sounds crooked, it is. It's the natural extension of the ratings craze amongst universities; here, the SAT is blatantly being used as nothing more than a tool to boost the school's number score in U.S. News and World Report.

Float Like A Butterfly...

2008-10-16T06:54:00.000-07:00

I would just like to add that Barack Obama is the Muhammad Ali of Presidential debates.

Everything Sure Wrapped Up Nicely...

2008-10-13T13:45:00.000-07:00

(And much earlier than usual.)

I want to say congratulations, first of all, to Paul Krugman, at the New York Times, who has just been awarded the Nobel Prize in economics. He's also a Professor at Princeton. I've been following Prof. Krugman's work for a long time (and his blog is linked down there, on the right), so this is something that's been richly deserved, I think. Among other things, he's one of the people out there who has a knack for predicting general macro-economic trends. Like our current crisis.

But wait, you say. the DOW jumped 11% today; after a weekend of schmoozing amongst world leaders, we finally have worldwide bail-out plans that make a kind of sense (based on the model that's been proposed by Gordon Brown of the UK). Things have turned the corner. It's all good now. Problem solved.

Well. The credit markets were closed in the U.S. today for the same reason my University was closed (though I still held office hours): Columbus Day.

Ups and downs are what we should expect in the near to mid-turn. And I mean big ups and downs.

If we take history as a guide, the market will go up for awhile, and then it will come back down. "You sure talk like an econ-o-mist with all those fancy 'ups' and 'downs'. Speak English will you!"

We are experiencing the financial correction of unfettered speculation. Very simply, too much money that was on paper didn't exist; that's the bubble. What happens after you toss even more money into it? Now, don't get me wrong, I think they've basically got the right idea. Part of the problem here is that they (the U.S. and the E.U.) are betting the bank (literally) on the idea that the inter-connectedness of the financial markets trumps all. It doesn't. What they can do now is delay the 'correction' by propping things up by moving money around in the short term in the hopes that the liquidity pumps enough confidence back into the markets to keep the engine running. Part of the trouble with trying to predict where this is going is that they're behaving slightly differently than the folks in charge back in 1929. The effects of a lot of this is going to be to undermine various currencies (including the U.S. dollar) and to make the situation even more vulnerable to the effects of 'externalities'.

You can't out-think this. What they're doing is delaying the fall (maybe), and *potentially* mitigating some of the effects. This is good. But this is only valuable if we use the extra time to try to fix things and insulate the general population from the effects of a worldwide depression. That's where this is headed.

It's The End of The GOP As We Know It (and I feel fine)

2008-10-10T11:41:00.000-07:00

For everyone out there who has been saying, "You know, this Presidential election just doesn't have the appeal of previous fights. Where's the race baiting, where's the violence and constant guilt-by-association? After all, in 2000, Bush ran an aggressive campaign in South Carolina that said McCain was gay, had an illegitimate black child, and so on and so forth. COME ON." Well, here we go.

McCain is now officially accusing Barack Obama of being a terrorist. You knew it was only a matter of time. Now that both the prediction markets and polls show McCain losing badly in November, his campaign is using its limited resources to run in a vicious attack mode. This is like the final 'fight' instinct in a cornered animal, and it's going to do permanent damage to an already demoralized party. We are witnessing the end of the Republican party as we know it.

The problem is, we may also be witnessing the beginning of the GOP's new incarnation. The fact of the matter is that simple economics and demographics mean that McCain's 'new' strategy is probably going to hurt him as much or more than it will help him. It may mobilize a small portion of his far right base (all of those people who shout "Terrorist!" at McCain's rallies and who genuinely believe Obama's name to be an indictment of his patriotism). However, it will also mobilize and anger Obama's base and potentially broaden his appeal. The moment frightened racists in the majority start going for Obama publicly is also the moment all minorities and young people will move for Obama. If McCain wants to hurt his appeal among Hispanics, for instance, he just needs to follow his present course.

If John McCain were a 'maverick', he would shift his policies. He would say something like, "We need deregulation, except in cases of national crisis," etc. He would pick one issue and push hard in a counter-intuitive direction, such as arguing for universal health care. That's his only hope at this point. Attempting to re-polarize the electorate is only going to work for a small portion of the population, and it's not going to work in a lot of places that really matter. Like Florida.

What all of this means, is that the Republican party, as it is now constituted, is now effectively done. The economy is going to crush them, unless they change. And they can't. They don't have enough time. However, there is a much darker side to this. And that is: historically, times of economic calamity tend to cause lots of nasty side effects. The Great Depression wasn't just a period of frolicking broom-handle games in ash-pit back alleys; it was also a period of fierce anti-Semitism and isolationism. What we're seeing now in the McCain campaign may be a sign of things to come in the decade ahead.

Dire Warning, Take 2

2008-10-08T15:13:00.000-07:00

Actually, scratch that: I think it will go lower. By the end of the 1929 crash (in the early 1930s), the market lost 89% of its value. I think they'll slow the fall and keep it from bottoming out quite that low, but somewhere in the 70%+ range isn't out of the realm of possibility.

How Low Can You Go?

2008-10-08T14:52:00.000-07:00

Isn't it nice that we've learned the lessons of the Great Depression? The notion espoused by those notables at The New York Times that because the government is now frantically scrambling to restore confidence somehow the crisis of confidence in the financial systems--somehow the psychology of credit markets--won't run its course is just silly. Also, the idea that no one saw this coming is ridiculous. The Atlantic featured a cover article a few years ago with a view looking down from the window of a Wall Street building as someone prepared to jump.

The real question people should be asking is when will things bottom out, and then what do we do. Of course we should be trying to slow the fall and mitigate the effects, but at the end of the day credit is going to continue to tighten, and the markets are going to continue to fall. It is October, after all.

Well, the Dow has lost something like 13% of its value since its peak last year. If we use history as a guide, it wouldn't be unreasonable for it to fall 40% or even more. We have a ways to go.

My friends ...

2008-10-08T06:29:00.001-07:00

Sorry I haven't been keeping up my blogging over the last few days. In fairness, I've been busy. The highlight of last night's Presidential debate (other than the fact that Senator McCain can't open his mouth without saying 'my friends,' which is helpful for drinking games):

Ouch.

What Happens to Higher Education?

2008-10-03T06:37:00.000-07:00

An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education suggests that the economic shake-up is already effecting higher education. Boston University, for example--along with a number of other large institutions--have begun to limit or freeze hiring. Among those that are still hiring, more institutions are pushing for adjunct faculty and phasing out tenured positions. It's worth noting though, as the article suggests, that those few schools with giant endowments, etc. will likely clean-up if the situation gets worse, and that the economic problems could lead to greater enrollment in colleges, as jobs become scarce.

So the idea is that Harvard will poach qualified faculty from poorer institutions, which will be employing poorly paid adjunct faculty (who have no job security) to cover a larger pool of incoming students that will increasingly be composed of those in the upper classes. That's the direction it's headed.

What this means for those in graduate school (like me) is that jobs will potentially be scarce and won't pay well. All of that said, if the economy really starts to tank, the take-away may well be that higher education will look an awful lot like the rest of the country, which only makes sense given the corporatization of our university systems. This is an area in which I think Barack Obama could, and will, do a lot of good. I think he, unlike the GOP, recognizes the importance of maintaining American supremacy in higher education. As many of our other industries have been eclipsed by the rest of the world, the universities in the United States remain the place to 'do business'. That has to continue.

Did McCain Just Have A Stroke?

2008-10-03T04:11:00.001-07:00

I'll leave the VP debate analysis for a time when I have more energy. Take a look at this, though:

Did McCain suffer a small stroke on-stage?

Tooting My Own Horn

2008-10-02T16:45:00.000-07:00

On July 19, 2008, I wrote in this blog:

'A few years ago, I suggested that the U.S. housing market would drag down the entire economy, and that our national and personal debt--combined with the larger, global trends in markets--might well set-up a Perfect Storm in which someone staring at graphs and charts murmurs ominously, "It's...happening!"'

(I wrote in 2005 on the website [now defunct] radicalcenter.com that I expected the economy to collapse by the year 2010.)

On August 29, 2008, I wrote:

"I still there may be a 50/50 chance of a major stock market collapse in the next two months."

I've also been saying for awhile to anyone who will listen that I don't think the upcoming Presidential election is going to be close: I think it'll likely be a rout. I predict that Obama will win somewhere on the order of 40 states.

The online futures market Intrade, which has a spooky history of predicting the likelihood of events, is now estimating that Barack Obama will win 353 electoral votes to John McCain's 185.

To put all of this in perspective, though, I didn't think Obama or McCain would be the nominees. I thought it would be John Edwards vs. Jeb Bush. We do not live in that alternate universe, and, after revelations of Edwards's extra-marital affairs came to light, I suspect those distant alternate peoples are wishing they had nominated Obama.

Honorable Mention

2008-09-30T15:27:00.000-07:00

I've just learned that my short story, "Pennsylvania Dragon" (which is available on my website), received an honorable mention in the 2008 Year's Best Fantasy and Horror anthology. The editor, Ellen Datlow, mentioned that it was one of the better darker pieces of the year. It is dark, though it isn't actually included in the anthology--which is good for you because you can read it for free. Though you shouldn't if you're under a certain age. Like I said, it's a bit dark.

Sell! Sell!

2008-09-29T14:49:00.001-07:00

Yes, the House of Representatives rejected today's $700 billion bailout, and the Dow Jones fell almost 7%. For the record, it's worth pointing out that Nasdaq was down more than 9% and the S&P 500 was down just under 9%. That should give you some idea of where the Asian markets will be headed in a few hours. My feeling is this: the bail-out wasn't a great idea, but it wasn't horrible. As far as ideas go in rotten situations, it could have been much worse. It was a gamble, but, because this is an election year, Congress balked. The bail-out had very little approval from 'main street,' largely because most people are struggling to pay their bills and aren't big on the idea of shelling out money to 'bail-out' Wall Street. Of course, it's bigger and more complicated than that, but the package was meant to be a compromise that included enough pieces Republicans would like that it wouldn't get vetoed, while bringing in enough Dem support to get it passed. That didn't happen.

95 Democrats and 133 Republicans voted against the bill, which now has the benefit of making both the White House and the Congressional leadership (and John McCain, who had been praised on the Right-Wing circuit for his 'leadership' in crafting a compromise) look inept, at best.

We aren't in 'uncharted territory'; we're heading down. Everything old is new again.

Polls and the Polling Pollsters Who Poll Them

2008-09-28T07:05:00.000-07:00

This website, which is being run by the Princeton Election Consortium, has some of the best statistical analysis based on current polling I have seen. Take a look.

November 4, 2008

2008-09-27T18:35:00.001-07:00

How about that?

What Can You Get For ... $700 Billion?

2008-09-26T13:06:00.000-07:00

Two things:

1.) The Bail-Out Package. I think it's basically a good idea. That said, I don't think it's necessarily going to work. "But wait," you say, "how can $700 billion be a good thing if it isn't necessarily going to work?" Here's the thing: the economy is in trouble. And by 'economy', I really do mean ECONOMY. This is not just the U.S. economy, nor is it limited to those fat cats on Wall Street. This is The Economy writ large--which is why The Rest of the World gave Bush and co. an earful at the UN the other day. The collapse of mortgages and the debt/financial industry that had grown to support the massive lending practices effects very large portions of the world. I think Paulson is essentially gambling, at this point. He's betting that $700 billion isn't going to hurt the markets more than it will help them. He's hoping that enough money promised to the markets will dispel a lot of the doubts that have been raised by the current crisis. Because, ultimately, this is about doubt. This is about the psychology of uncertainty. When markets go unregulated, they tend to encourage human psychology to run more rampant: hence, you get the extreme ups and downs of boom and bust. When things are more regulated, they tend to be less liable to sudden, unexpected catastrophes.

All of that said, the big problem with the bail-out is what very few people dare mentioning, and that is: the U.S. dollar. While it's certainly possible to create wealth out of increased trade, etc. etc., at a certain point, money doesn't come out of thin air. Where is that $700 billion coming from? Don't think for a minute that we have giant vaults of gold to cover all of this: we don't. Also, the idea that taxpayers are covering this is a little misleading. Sure, it may be covered by taxes, but the U.S. economy is operating on such a deficit generally that an extra $700 billion--short of dramatically increasing taxes nation-wide--just isn't going to materialize.

That money is coming from Asia. Paulson is betting that the financial strengths of places like China will be enough to prop up the financial weaknesses of the U.S. This is by no means certain. There is the potential for a much more dangerous short-term crisis here if U.S. treasury bonds become devalued and Asian banks pull back. We're talking about the devaluing of the American dollar, combined with the collapse of the financial sector and banks. Implicit in this gamble is the idea that the world's economies are so closely connected that one side of the globe wouldn't risk allowing the other to fall: if it did, that would drag down everyone. The plan is essentially to prop up the financial sector in the short term with foreign money, covered by U.S. taxpayers.

2.) The Debate. John McCain had been toying with the idea of not showing up for the Presidential debate so that he could stand around for photo-ops and be interviewed in D.C. amid the current economic turmoil. Instead, he's now decided to fly to Mississippi for tonight's 9 pm E/T debate. There's been speculation about why McCain waffled on this. I've heard a number of reasons debated, including that McCain wanted to take the VP timeslot and save Sarah Palin from meeting Joe Biden to the idea that John McCain planned all along to attend the debate and had pretended to bow out in order to rev up expectations and increase viewership for the first debate, which will ostensibly be about his area of 'expertise,' foreign policy.

I'm not sure what I believe about this. I think McCain's instinct, in the face of dropping poll numbers, is to gamble. It's why he chose Sarah Palin as his running mate, and it's why, for that matter, he made it out of the primaries.

In any event, I think both McCain and Obama will try to seize on the economy in the course of the debate, early on, and I think there is the potential (despite everyone saying it will be calm and measured) for some animosity. These guys have been airing some pretty angry ads and exchanging nasty words non-stop for months now. I think Obama will go on the offensive early, and I expect McCain to be a bit flummoxed. That said, they'll both be well-prepared. It will definitely be worth watching, and I bet the viewing audience will top 50 million. Which is huge.

What Happens After the Crisis?

2008-09-24T12:39:00.001-07:00

John McCain is now asking to suspend the first Presidential debate so that he can help "solve this problem." 'This problem' being the economic collapse. What continues to amaze me is the degree to which media portrayals of the crisis frame the event as entirely unexpected. It wasn't unexpected. I predicted this years ago, and I'm not an economist. James Fallows talked about this back in 2005, in The Atlantic (which was a 'look back' from the election of 2016), and many people, including some people who are economists, have been predicting the potential for an Argentina-like crisis in the wake of the housing bubble. But back in 2005, there were still people saying we didn't have a housing bubble. So go figure.

So my question is: what comes next? Let's assume the economy goes under, a'la The Great Depression. Let's assume Barack Obama and the Dems win big in November. What happens after the crisis?

Well, for starters, the crisis won't be over next year. The economic impact of what's happening right now (and what's been in the works, by the way, for at least a decade), will take at least that long to work itself out. Here's my prediction: As the economy tanks, the Dems will reinvent/refine themselves a'la FDR. We'll see universal health care and greater retirement security, and so on. We'll also withdraw from parts of the world and become more isolationist. Meanwhile, the GOP will be in tatters. For another few election cycles, they'll essentially be sitting on the sidelines. Until... (wait for it) they reinvent themselves too. Except, instead of going liberal, they'll push harder to the right--because, as the economic crisis drags on, they'll have ammunition to hit the Dems on multiple fronts. Many European countries, plagued by fears of Islamic immigration and Russian aggression, will also swing to the right. Right wing regimes, though weak, will take power in a number of countries, including, possibly, the U.S.

In Asia, threatened by internal insecurity and even potential Civil War amid the crisis, China will get aggressive. This is when things, I think, have the most potential to ignite. In the 20-teens, there may be a very real possibility, I think, of a U.S.-European war against China and Russia. In 2002, I wrote in the book 'Hope's War' that this would happen around 2010. I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that it will be later than that. I still think Jeb Bush is someone to watch vis-a-vis the GOP's eventual resurgence (as something other than the GOP, by the way).

But then again, what do I know?

Will Harvard Make the SAT Optional?

2008-09-22T10:08:00.001-07:00

That's certainly what this coverage of a new educational report suggests may be around the corner. Essentially, the people on the committee, which includes Harvard's President, have said that schools should de-emphasize the SAT because of the ways in which it is possible for affluent students to "game" the test and the ways in which such standardized tests tend to skew only along socio-economic lines. In other words, the only thing the SAT and ACT are accurately predicting is a student's socio-economic background; things like future performance in college do not correlate.

I think Harvard, in particular, has adopted some very stellar moves, lately, as they did when they dropped and lowered tuition for many students to make college affordable. Now, their push to end the heavy reliance on standardized testing could very well be an 'industry-killer'. The industry I have in mind? The $ billion+ test-prep industry, which is one of the fastest growing and most profitable in the country.

Coming Together to Bash Henry Paulson

2008-09-22T07:18:00.000-07:00

Today, Paul Krugman and Bill Kristol both agreed in the NY Times that the current plan to bail-out Wall Street is a mistake. Krugman (who is generally considered a 'liberal' economist and who teaches at Princeton) has big problems with the plan's details--or lack thereof. Meanwhile, Kristol (who is a well-connected neo-con) condemns the idea based on free market principles. Kristol seems to be that rare bird: a man who actually has the luxury (because he is not serving in public office) of having genuine ideological convictions. If this is any indication, we should we very wary of the current plan. Not only does it expose the hypocrisy of the economic foundations of the current administration and much of the "free market" Congress, but it could make matters much much worse.

Obama Meets Jed Bartlet

2008-09-21T05:45:00.000-07:00

If you've ever seen The West Wing, this is worth reading. Yes, it was written by Aaron Sorkin.

Paying For College

2008-09-19T09:18:00.000-07:00

This proposed overhaul of the rules that govern federal financial aid for college is a very good start. If you've been living under a rock for awhile, the situation is this: A. College is too expense; B. Student Loans are a problem; C. Federal aid is unnecessarily complex and stingy, and D. One way or another, this situation is going to change, where A+B+C=D.

I won't go into all of the reasons college is more expensive than it should be: hint, hint, it has to do with the corporate mentality of the college-as-business, and not because of Professor's salaries, which are generally stagnant or declining. The new proposals for overhauling federal aid are a very good first step. I won't go through them here--go read about it on the above link. But this is really just a first step. The current economic systems that govern University systems are generally unsustainable, insofar as they place a heavy burden on students from all but the highest and lowest economic spheres, while simultaneously degrading the product (i.e. learning) they are selling. Like I said, I don't think the middle class is going to allow this to go on. I suspect this is an issue that will be largely decided in the next eight years, and the outcome in November could have major consequences.

You Can't Blink

2008-09-17T09:56:00.001-07:00

Let's talk about 'blinking':

I'm usually not too big on Jay Leno, but this is worthwhile follow-up:

If Anybody Makes So Much As A Move

2008-09-15T17:32:00.000-07:00

That about sums it up.

Lehman Brothers and Sisters

2008-09-15T05:39:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed that there are major crises on Wall Street: in what I think may be the first time in its history, The Wall Street Journal even published a banner front-page story about the shake-up that is remaking the financial world of Wall Street. Essentially, what's happening is stage three or four of the mortgage and general economic meltdown that was triggered a year or two ago when the bottom fell out of the housing market. I wrote in the summer of 2005 that I expected a major financial crisis within five years; here it is. But watch what happens. Global markets are down, on average, something like four percent, which is, admittedly a lot. However, it isn't catastrophic yet. Consortiums of banks and government agencies around the world are now working to shore up any other financial institutions that may be suspect, and I predict that, while the market will drop now, it won't collapse. Paul Krugman feels similarly, though he's "by no means certain".

Here's what I think will happen: the market will drop, and then it will bounce back by week's end. It won't come all the way back, but it will recover a bit. Over the next few weeks it will remain jittery and continue a slow downward trend. After that, another shoe will drop, and at some point in October we'll hit a cycle in which it will be very very difficult to slow the fall. By November, I now think there's about a 70% chance that the market will have collapsed. Admittedly, it might not, but that's my prediction.

Intrade prediction markets seem to favor the slump in 2009, rather than 2008, based on the value of shares there, but I'm not so sure. It may be possible to ride out the current turmoil, but at some point in the next few years, probably--I would still say--by 2010, a full correction is coming.

Viewing McCain

2008-09-13T12:51:00.001-07:00

Incidentally, while I'm on the subject of TV interviews, John McCain's recent appearance on The View has to be one of the more useful interviews I've seen in a long time. But you don't have to take my word for it:

While Wall Street Gently Weeps

2008-09-13T12:01:00.000-07:00

Fear seems to be spreading on Wall Street, and there is now much public and private fretting in the business community that the economic troubles have only just begun. Despite the government's efforts to shore up the economy, investors remain wary, and values are fluctuating more wildly. A few months ago, I predicted a possible economic collapse in September or October. Ultimately, you can't out-think the market. You might delay it, you might mediate certain effects, but there is no free lunch. The reality of things still hasn't quite hit, though. Wait another month.

Amid all of this, the media continues to obsess about Sarah Palin. After her ABC interview, bits of which are currently four of the top twelve videos on Youtube. We've now learned that she's pretty clueless--to the point of absurdity.
The Bush Doctrine?

Hmm?

Foreign relations?

What's that you asked?

And so forth.

I'm ready for this election to be over.

When You Lie

2008-09-12T04:40:00.000-07:00

You make an ass out of u and me.

Today, Paul Krugman writes about the blatant lies coming out of the McCain campaign, and, if you don't have time to read it, Robert Greenwald's new video serves as a nice summary:

I agree that McCain has built his advertising campaign around dishonest smears of Obama rather than substantive conversation, but, really, after what we've seen over the last eight years what did you expect? Remember, Bush challenged McCain's military record and said he had an illegitimate black child during the 2000 primary. Obviously, McCain's take-away from recent history is that campaigning is a matter of shouting the loudest. These kinds of deceptions aren't, of course, unique to this election or to the United States, and there is a precedent for vast propaganda campaigns involving blatant lies in past elections.

So while I agree that it's out of control and inexcusable, I'm not even a tiny bit surprised. This is standard practice for these people. This is exactly how Obama should have responded:

I also think that at the end of the day we're going to wonder what all the fuss was about: I still think Obama will win handily.

'When Generations Collide'

2008-09-09T15:24:00.000-07:00

The Chronicle of Higher Education had this to say about the four generations currently working together in the Academy (there's more to it in the article):

"ONE WORKPLACE, FOUR GENERATIONS

With four generations working side by side in today's academic workplace, it helps to understand who is in the office next door. Here are some generalizations that, while they may not accurately describe every baby boomer or Gen Xer on a campus, can be used as a rough generational guide. Or perhaps an excuse to break the ice with a co-worker who might share a fondness for Super Mario Brothers or attendance at Woodstock.

Traditionalists
aka: the Silent Generation, veterans
Born: between about 1925 and 1946
Cultural influences: Great Depression, World War II, Korean War, postwar boom era, GI Bill
Workplace values: loyalty, recognition, hierarchy, resistance to change

Baby Boomers
aka: the Sandwich Generation (since many take care of both children and aging parents)
Born: between about 1946 and 1964
Cultural influences: popularization of television, assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Beatles, first moon walk, Vietnam War, antiwar protests, sexual revolution
Workplace values: dedication, face time, team spirit

Generation X
aka: the Slacker Generation, the Me Generation
Born: between about 1964 and 1982
Cultural influences: fall of the Soviet Union, women's-liberation movement, MTV, grunge, rise of home video games and personal computers, birth of the Internet, dot-com boom and bust
Workplace values: work-life balance, autonomy, flexibility, informality

Generation Y
aka: Millennials
Born: between about 1982 and the late 1990s
Cultural influences: Internet era, September 11 terrorist attacks, cellphones, Columbine High School massacre, Facebook
Workplace values: feedback, recognition, fulfillment, advanced technology, fun"

In his discussion the author says: "But some experts argue that more-substantial structural and policy changes are needed to avert a looming crisis — an anticipated dearth of young people interested in rising through the academic ranks." The author seems a bit ignorant of a lot of the work that's been done on the most recent four generations of Americans (particularly when he suggests that Millenials are similar to Xers), but it's interesting, if for no other reason than what it says about the sudden attention being paid to Millenials.

Also, as a sign of my generational status, I'd like to ask why Barack Obama hasn't cut and pasted from this episode of The Daily Show for his 30-second spots?

McCain Gets Barack Roll'd

2008-09-08T15:58:00.001-07:00

Best Movies of the Year

2008-09-07T17:00:00.000-07:00

And now for a change of pace: the best movies of the past five years (a highly opionated listed).

2007: There Will Be Blood

2006: Howl's Moving Castle

2005: Matchpoint

2004: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

2003: Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

Joe-mentum 2.008

2008-09-07T11:12:00.000-07:00

Yowza:

Obama's Response

2008-09-05T18:13:00.000-07:00

Obama's response to the GOP attacks (prior to McCain's speech):

The Story of the Crowd II

2008-09-05T09:44:00.000-07:00

My sense of the GOP convention was apparently pretty accurate. According to an editorial in today's NY Times, this year's GOP convention saw the "most conservative and richest Republican delegates since The Times started tracking such data in 1996." So it wasn't your imagination: every time they panned the crowd, it just happened to be filled predominantly with wealthy white people. Last night was John McCain's speech, and both The Daily Show and Paul Krugman had some pretty insightful things to say about the roster of speakers who preceded him:

(Krugman): "Can the super-rich former governor of Massachusetts — the son of a Fortune 500 C.E.O. who made a vast fortune in the leveraged-buyout business — really keep a straight face while denouncing “Eastern elites”?

Can the former mayor of New York City, a man who, as USA Today put it, “marched in gay pride parades, dressed up in drag and lived temporarily with a gay couple and their Shih Tzu” — that was between his second and third marriages — really get away with saying that Barack Obama doesn’t think small towns are sufficiently “cosmopolitan”?

Can the vice-presidential candidate of a party that has controlled the White House, Congress or both for 26 of the past 28 years, a party that, Borg-like, assimilated much of the D.C. lobbying industry into itself — until Congress changed hands, high-paying lobbying jobs were reserved for loyal Republicans — really portray herself as running against the “Washington elite”?

Yes, they can."

Why do they seem desperate? Because they are. (And why in the world would they put McCain in front of a green backdrop?)

October Surprise

2008-09-04T15:22:00.000-07:00

Today, the Dow Jones dropped more than 340 points, though no one seems to know why:

"Speculation focused on fears about the direction of the economy, though it remained unclear why anxieties that have been around for months would suddenly take hold." (NY Times)

On August 4, I wrote about how economic crises tend to happen in the fall, and I reflected that the ups and downs in the market remind me a lot of the historical fluctuations that preceded previous economic collapses. It's now September. I suspect the next two months will be extremely telling. If the bottom is about to fall out of our financial system, a'la the "economic tsunami" that some economics are now dreading, I'd bet on it happening before November.

The Story of the Crowd

2008-09-04T06:50:00.001-07:00

Two things I hope you watched last night: The Daily Show and Governor Sarah Palin's speech at the GOP convention, which has impressed a lot of people. Also, Robert Greenwald's PAC is now 'Swiftboating' John McCain:

While I do think Palin is a pretty effective politician, I'm relieved that McCain picked her. As good as her speech may have been, after listening to commentary by Mitt Romney and Mike Huckaboom, I'm incredibly grateful he didn't pick someone more qualified like them. Huckabee or Romney would have given just as impassioned a speech and had legitimate credentials to back it up. Palin has a four month old child with Down Syndrome and a pregnant 17 year-old daughter. Palin opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest. Are you telling me that if Obama had an older daughter who was pregnant, the right-wing wouldn't have attempted to make it the focus of the campaign? I actually think Palin's treatment by the media has been more restrained than we might have expected. That said, it's really just getting started.

All of that aside, my over-riding take-away from Governor Palin's speech had nothing to do with the speech. Watch the speech, watch the way the camera pans across the crowd and picks people for close-ups: notice anything? The median age in that room was 40 - 50 years old, and 99% of them were white. It looked desperate; it looked like a struggling, minority party that was fighting for self-interest. Obama's crowd was significantly larger and extremely diverse. As Obama said, "This election has never been about me, it's about you."

The story of this election is the story of the crowd, not the candidates. And those pictures told it well.

Alaska First!

2008-09-02T17:07:00.000-07:00

Yes, the Alaska Independence Party, which, according to its website, can be summed up in two words: "Alaska First!"

I'd like to take a moment now to sigh, close my eyes, maybe watch a movie or do something that isn't tune into the nonsense that is currently passing for the 2008 Presidential election.

Now then (and I finally saw The Dark Knight this afternoon on a very very large screen, so it's on my mind): what in the world is happening to the GOP? Have they given up being the evil villains to the indept Democratic do-gooders or what? The main premise of The Dark Knight seems to be that Heath Ledger/The Joker is really really scary and evil and threatening ... well..?

There you have it.

He's 72 Years Old

2008-08-30T06:34:00.000-07:00

Now, I know part of being a professional politician is being photographed in awkward positions, with awkward expressions on your face, but come on. The same day McCain announced that Palin would be his Clinton-supporter-stealing VP, he looked like this when someone shook his hand too forcefully.

He's 72 years old. The life expectancy for white men in the U.S. today (actually for 2006, which is the most recent year for which there are numbers) is 76 years: McCain was in a war and has been under constant stress for decades. Are you telling me we should reasonably expect this man to outlive the average life expectancy for his demographic? Even if he only served one term, he would be pushing it.

And now the woman he's picked, Sarah Palin (who was the Governor of a state with a smaller population than Brooklyn) is one tentative heartbeat away from the Presidency. If this isn't a sign of his deteriorating mental health, I don't know what is. As the NY Times put it: "The 115,000 votes she received in winning the governor’s office two years ago barely eclipsed the 80,000 people who packed a football stadium in Denver on Thursday night to watch Mr. Obama’s acceptance speech." Are you kidding me? For someone whose entire campaign thus far has been premised on the idea that Obama is too inexperienced to be President and who has tried to joke about his old age, putting someone on the ticket (and on flair) who is young enough to be his daughter is a sign of desperation.

Sure, she's young and photogenic, but look how old she makes McCain look:

Her?

Who--I Mean 'Her'?

2008-08-29T16:56:00.000-07:00

Who?

This sums up my initial feelings about the Sarah Palin VP announcement:

Shaking It Up With Palin

2008-08-29T07:58:00.000-07:00

And now, John McCain has chosen a woman, Alaska Governor, Sarah Palin to be VP. If this isn't intended to win former Hillary supporters, I don't know what is.

Obama's Speech and Putin's Suggestion

2008-08-29T07:11:00.000-07:00

Well, Obama is officially the first African-American candidate (of a major party) in U.S. history, and his speech last night had its moments.

For those of you who don't have the better part of an hour to devote to the speech right now, I'll sum it up: it began with an extended attack on John McCain--which was a clear response to Senator John Kerry's refusal to go negative at the 2004 convention--drifted in and out of policy, and finally ended on the kind of rhetorical high-note we had come to expect from him. Before last night's speech, I watched two things: Obama's 2004 speech at the DNC, where he was the keynote speaker, and the episode of The West Wing where President Bartlett debates Governor Ritchie. I realized several things in the course of the evening: First, his 2004 speech was more than an introductory speech for Senator Kerry: it was his first speech of the upcoming Presidential election cycle. Of course, that's clear in retrospect, but I think it was also clear to Obama at the time. Simply put, the 2004 speech was the best speech given by anyone on either side of the aisle in a generation of American politics. And Obama knew it. This wasn't a speech about Kerry; it was a speech about Obama and about America. At moments during that speech, the crowd broke into shouts of, "Obama!" Nevermind that very few people had any idea of who Obama was or where he came from at the time. Compare that to the shouts of "Yes We Can" during President Bill Clinton's recent speech and you get the idea. Bill Clinton was far and away the most charismatic speaker at the pre-Obama convention, and--having met him once--I can safely say that the man carries a strange charisma with him wherever he goes. But the crowd wasn't shouting, "Clinton!" during the former President's speech; they were ready for Obama.

Reading about Obama's past and interviews with those who have known him, I'm left with the sense that Obama knew he would be running for President all-along. Did he know Kerry would lose in 2004? Of course not, but one way or another, Obama was positioning himself: that 2004 speech was a campaign speech; its primary purpose wasn't to help Senator Kerry. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big supporter of Barack Obama, but last night's speech wasn't the same thing. Last night was a greatest hits from the campaign trail that attempted to end big. Though Obama did call for an end to our dependence on Middle Eastern oil in 10 years, there was no time table for universal health care--something I think might have mobilized more Americans than anything else. And, though the media seems to have latched onto Obama's declaration that, "We are a better country than this", the most important part of the speech was when Obama said the following:

"What the nay sayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me; it's about you."

Can you imagine Hillary Clinton using those words? In her speech, which was designed to steer her supporters to Barack Obama, she managed to talk about herself--her accomplishments, her campaign--as much as, or more than, the actual Democratic nominee. Last night was a generational moment, and, though I was a bit disappointed by the much more restrained ambitions of Obama's speech last night, for the first time in a long time, someone got up and said--whether its true or not--that he is just a placeholder. Though it may seem superficial, this does represent a sea change in the rhetoric of the Presidential election. With that move, Obama held aside the cult of personality that is growing around him and said, "Look, they may want to make this election a matter of me versus John McCain, but that's not what it is: this is a clash of ideas. My accomplishments--anyone's accomplishments--are much less important than that concept." That's exactly the opposite of Clinton-era, Baby Boomer politics.

That's all well and good, you say, but what about foreign policy? Surely John McCain can wrestle more terrorists than Barack Obama? Well, it turns out that Vladimir Putin (I have a difficult time thinking of him as anything other than a kind of mafia czar) is now suggesting that the U.S. set-up Georgia to provoke Russia to ... (wait for it) help one of the candidates in the Presidential race. Yes, that's right ladies and gentlemen, Putin said:

"The suspicion would arise that someone in the United States created this conflict on purpose to stir up the situation and to create an advantage for one of the candidates in the competitive race for the presidency in the United States. They needed a small victorious war.”

Remember how various intelligence agencies were still trying to sort out why Georgia would have gone into the separatist regions in the first place and how the United States could have so badly miscalculated the Russian response? Suppose they didn't miscalculate at all. Suppose they planned to create a stir in Georgia to give McCain a bump in the polls. How cynical do you have to be to buy into this kind of thing, and/or how naive do you have to be to take Putin's word for anything? I don't know, but I suspect there may be a grain of truth to this.

As the economy struggles--and now James Surowiecki of The New Yorker is fretting about the spastic ups and downs of the market and attributing it, essentially, to behavioral anxiety not unlike what I discussed vis-a-vis the psychological sentiment that creates market crashes: "Much of what’s happening is a function of what economists call “herding.” In conditions of uncertainty, humans, like other animals, herd together for protection. In unstable markets, this leads to trend-following: buy when others buy, sell when they sell."--the GOP is attempting to shift the focus abroad. Anyone with half a brain must realize that an election that concentrates on domestic politics favors the democrats; so the Republicans are doing (whether or not they're creating wars for the sake of November, I don't know) what they do best: trying to make us look elsewhere. Sure you're poor and have no health insurance, but do you want to blow up?

I still there may be a 50/50 chance of a major stock market collapse in the next two months.

Don't Know Much About Celebrity

2008-08-25T13:26:00.001-07:00

I've just finished painting a ceiling, so let me pause for a moment to talk shop.

Amid all of the expected calls for party unity at the Democratic National Convention, the Clinton and Obama campaigns are continuing to bicker, which is likely due, in no small part to the small matter of Obama's nomination of biddin' Joe Biden as his Vice Presidential running mate. People have asked me what I think about this, so here goes:

Biden is a decent choice (he's perceived as a straight-shooter and an experienced policy maker who has occasionally made racist slips. For some reason, the lovable, unintended racism of Joe Biden's past statements (in the primary) appeals to people who are also uncomfortable with Barack Obama, and, believe it or not, I think that may have been a factor in his selection. It's the Obama camp saying, "Hey, we're not taking this whole skin color thing as seriously as we are this whole 'the economy sucks' thing"--though, they have begun to opt for Youtube-friendly TV spots:

Of course, the real question here is: Does the VP spot matter? Will Joe Biden bring anything to a potential Obama Presidency--and, just as importantly, is the VP perceived to be an important matter? The short answer is a big big yes. Why? Because we just happen to be living through one of the most influential (probably the most influential) Vice Presidency in U.S. history:

So yes, it matters who the VP is, if for no other reason than people are now witnessing living proof that it matters--even if it doesn't. Follow-me?

But let's return for a moment to Obama's recent campaign decision to go humorously negative, a'la McCain's now-infamous 'Celebrity' attack ad:

Here's the problem with attacking major Presidential candidates as celebrities: they are. This morning, with no sense of irony, I heard an NPR commentator announce that John McCain would use the beginning of the DNC to attack Obama-As-Celebrity ... on Jay Leno. Yes, that's right. John McCain will be denouncing Barack Obama as a Celebrity-For-President while appearing on a Late Night television program that promotes celebrities in the very state--the largest in the nation--where this man...

...is now serving as a Republican Governor.

Do you want to see how far the Rabbit Hole goes? Me neither.

Their G-G-G-Generation

2008-08-20T10:28:00.000-07:00

So how about the youth of today--you know, those internet-savy, text-messaging, podcasting, blog-generating teens and early twenty-somethings I see arriving as undergrads for the Fall Semester now that September is almost here. Well, according to Mark Bauerlein of The Chronicle of Higher Education all that internet time is over-rated and he does so most interestingly (from my perspective) in generational terms:

"One of the common claims for Millennials (Generation Y, Generation Dot.Net, Digital Natives … ) is that they are well-informed, civic-minded junior citizens who put the slacker-ness of Gen X to shame."

Not so! Remember that piece in the July Atlantic called "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" and its suggestion that the format of the internet encourages more piece-meal, less disciplined thought-processes? Well, it seems that a number of studies (as cited by Mr. Bauerlein) indicate that the hordes of young people now entering college are just as ill-informed as their predecessors. What's most interesting to me has been the societal push to defend the Millenials. That is, I don't think this generation is necessarily any more 'with it' or nonviolent, etc. than previous generations, but there does seem to be a concerted effort to stick up for them on the part of the larger society: they are perceived to be a special group.

Can you imagine a group of influential college Presidents, for example, aggressively lobbying to lower the drinking age to 18 in the 1980s? Oh, those 'Millenials and Pop Culture', what are we to do with them?

Rolling On...

2008-08-18T16:54:00.000-07:00

I don't know if I have the pulse of the country or anything, but I can say that as someone who cares a lot about this kind of thing, I am very ready for November to roll around so that the four-year-old Presidential race can finally end. Who is going to be the VP? I came to the realization yesterday (when someone asked me that question) that I don't actually care that much, so long as there are no major surprises on either side. I have campaign fatigue. Part of it is that the media script is, from a plotting standpoint, far too predictable and tiring. We get it. McCain is supposed to be a maverick who needs to win Evangelicals; Obama is the black youngster with the funny name who's too popular in Europe. Can we elect a President and move on, please?

I am also getting tired of other media storylines, including the Oh geeze, what happens to Pakistan after Musharraf storyline. It's not that the story is necessarily wrong (though I think a portion of it is certainly over-simplified and possibly naive to the verge of absurdity), but that this kind of international storyline is just trite and boring.

That's why, when something interesting (and appalling) happens, like Russia invading Georgia, we're all left scrambling to find a map. There's a story that isn't following the script the media is attempting to form around it: the U.S. can't seem to Condi-Rice Russia into submission, what with all of their tanks and so forth sitting in Georgian territory.

The news is storytelling, just like history, just like much of the narrative that forms our daily lives. It's nice when it occassionally breaks the mold and takes a twist we don't see coming.

Fascist Opening Ceremony?

2008-08-16T16:33:00.000-07:00

Were the opening ceremonies at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing fascist? I kind of thought so (based on the large, coordinated blocks of people, and the scale/style of the presentation, which seemed designed to awe the audience into submission a'la the 1936 Olympics), and apparently so did this Israeli intelligence officer:

What were those games like?

Not exactly the same, but you get the idea. Take out the swastikas, change the music, move it to China seventy-two years later, you might get a slide show something like this:

I know, that slide-show is worth it for the soundtrack alone. I don't know if 2008 will go down in history the way the '36 Olympics have, but there are some similarities that are very disconcerting.

Whatever It Is, I'm Against It

2008-08-15T11:41:00.000-07:00

Here's my contribution for the day:

But He'll See The Big Board!

2008-08-14T14:06:00.000-07:00

So now Russia has essentially vowed to take the enclaves in Georgia and absorb them into Russia. Recently, Strafor suggested that what we're witnessing, far from indicating the beginning of a newly resurgent Russia, represents a return to Russian Imperial normalcy. Russia, from this perspective, has always been an empire; the last fifteen years or so were an aberration in that history.

The Georgians now say that Russia controls 1/3 of Georgia, and, in what seems to be a fairly direct response to the Russian actions, Poland has agreed to base U.S. missiles in its territory, and there are even rumblings that indicate Ukraine is very concerned about her 'territorial integrity'--which is a term I'm pretty tired of hearing at this point. Whatever happened to the word 'invasion'?

But Not A Snitch!

2008-08-14T13:53:00.000-07:00

Okay so... this is right up there with the best, most mature debating techniques of all time:

Yes, as was reported today in The Chronicle of Higher Education: "A debate coach for Fort Hays State University, in Kansas, is under review by the institution after he swore at officials and mooned judges at a tournament earlier this year, in an incident that was recorded and uploaded to YouTube."

This is right up there with my favorite speeches in dignified settings...

Tyrone-tanic

2008-08-13T11:52:00.001-07:00

According to a recent NY Times piece, if you don't know who Michael Phelps is, you are probably Chinese.... All right, the report doesn't say that exactly, but it does focus on the fact that Chinese media coverage seems to be ignoring Phelps's historic gold medal winning run/swim. The report does mention that the Phelps Phenomenon has managed to incite ultra-nationalists on Chinese internet message boards--although, I don't know how much credence we should give to random internet posters. The New York based NPR show On The Media recently had a discussion about the relevance and irrelevance of internet chatter and the extreme views it tends to encourage. Any random glance at the wonderfully insightful comments posted on your average Youtube video demonstrates either (A) How different people are online than they are in real life, or (B) How glad we all are that people don't say what they are thinking most of the time. For example, take, oh I don't know, the comments on this video of Phelps winning the 200 meter Butterfly, which are a case in point.

Say "Cheese"

2008-08-12T15:45:00.000-07:00

From the world of dumb photo-ops, the Spanish basketball team posed for a photo in which the players were... well, it's really better if I let the photo speak for itself:

Yes indeed. Following the photo scandal, the Spanish basketball team chanted as many third grade racial slurs as possible throughout their recent game versus China, which they won in overtime.

"For The Throat"

2008-08-11T18:37:00.000-07:00

Strafor is now reporting that the Georgian capital of Tbilisi is full of rumors of an imminent Russian invasion. President Bush is opting for the strong words, not action, and the Europeans seem to be doing the same.

Russian troops advancing, courtesy of the BBC.

One of the big players that has been overlooked in all of this is China. Given the tenuous history of Sino-Russian relations and given the location of Georgia vis-a-vis Chinese interests in central Asia (to say nothing of natural gas and oil reserves in the region), this could seriously threaten China's relations with Russia-unless there's something happening here that I'm missing.

Also, is it completely a coincidence that this coincides with the opening of the Olympic Games in China? I think not.

Duck and Cover

2008-08-11T10:10:00.001-07:00

A couple things:

First, Obama has released a new 'celebrity' ad of his own:

Second, as the Olympics start to rock and roll (and incidentally, I am a big fan of the Olympics, despite the pseudo-fascist opening ceremony that managed to update totalitarian choreography--i.e. giant masses of people coordinated on a scale designed to cow you into submission), Russia's war with Georgia is heating up. We're witnessing a Russian ground offensive into the heart of Georgia.

Last Friday, Stratfor suggested the following:

"Given the speed with which the Russians reacted to Georgia’s incursion into South Ossetia, Moscow was clearly ready to intervene. We suspect the Georgians were set up for this in some way, but at this point the buildup to the conflict no longer matters. What matters is the message that Russia is sending to the West.
...
Tactically, there is only one issue: Will the Russians attack Georgia on the ground? If they are going to, the Russians have likely made that decision days ago."

So far, the West has done nothing, and, because a real response might quickly escalate into a major military conflict with Russia, they don't seem likely to alter their course. What's the alternative? Should the West actually try to stop the Russian invasion?

My suspicion is that within the next few days, Russia will offer a negotiated truce--once they have what they want. The purpose of this move is to demonstrate to former Soviet satellite states that, when push comes to shove, Russia--not the West--is in charge. This is a blatant attempt to extend Russia's sphere of influence, far beyond Georgia. In a sense, it can be viewed as a Russian counter-point to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which was engineered in large part to demonstrate that the U.S. would act without international approval when it deemed such actions necessary. The Russians are doing the same thing.

I agree that this sets a dangerous precedent, but what, you ask, is the alternative?

Well, Bill Kristol (a vocal neo-con) writes in The New York Times:

"But Georgia, a nation of about 4.6 million, has had the third-largest military presence — about 2,000 troops — fighting along with U.S. soldiers and marines in Iraq. For this reason alone, we owe Georgia a serious effort to defend its sovereignty. Surely we cannot simply stand by as an autocratic aggressor gobbles up part of — and perhaps destabilizes all of — a friendly democratic nation that we were sponsoring for NATO membership a few months ago.

For that matter, consider the implications of our turning away from Georgia for other aspiring pro-Western governments in the neighborhood, like Ukraine’s. Shouldn’t we therefore now insist that normal relations with Russia are impossible as long as the aggression continues, strongly reiterate our commitment to the territorial integrity of Georgia and Ukraine, and offer emergency military aid to Georgia?"

So what would happen if NATO sent "emergency military aid to Georgia"? Either Russia would agree to a negotiated solution or risk allowing the situation to spiral out-of-control. When military forces, dependent on the orders of their immediate superiors, are facing each other, there's a great risk of miscommunication and unintended consequences: in other words, most people probably agree that, if Russia were faced with a genuine military threat from the West, Russia would likely back-down in Georgia, rather than risk a major (possibly nuclear) war. On the other hand, the moment that Western threat becomes real is the same moment that the potential for error and catastrophe also becomes real. Otherwise the threat is simply a bluff. This is the same dynamic at work in the Taiwan Strait. Suppose the U.S. announces that it will no longer allow Russian aggression in Georgia and commits a NATO force to secure Georgia's 'territorial integrity'--surely no one wants to provoke a war with Russia, but in order to stop the Russian advance, a genuine Western military presence might be necessary. And by 'genuine' I do mean 'willing to fight a war'.

To prevent war, the West must be willing to wage war, but there is a very dangerous line when a country like Russia is involved. Although Russia is no longer the Soviet Union, most of her missiles remain: that's approximately ten thousand nuclear warheads to back her conventional military, or enough firepower to obliterate the planet several times over.

What would war look like?

Well, it might go a little something like this:

Or this:

Welcome To Tblisi, Gentlemen

2008-08-08T17:03:00.000-07:00

"Eastern Europe, 2008
The world teeters on the brink of war. Radical ultranationalists have seized power in Moscow - their goal, the reestablishment of the old Soviet empire. Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan - one by onne the nearby independent republics slip back into the Russian orbit. Russian tanks sit in the Caucasus Mountains and the Baltic forests, poised to strike to the south and east. The world hold ots breath, and waits."

No, that's not the BBC or even CNN: instead, it's the video game Ghost Recon, which was released way back in 2001, when the rest of the world was obsessed with religious extremism, in which... well, I should just let the game tell you:

Yes, the game was about U.S. special operations facing Russia forces, centered on the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. And now that 2008 has rolled around, (now Prime Minister of Russia)Putin has declared that, 'War has started'.

So I guess my question is: Has Putin been playing too much Ghost Recon or what?

Um, What About Russia?

2008-08-08T06:50:00.001-07:00

While everyone is focused on the Olympic Games in China, we may be stumbling toward a major international war with Russia. Today, Russia and the U.S.-backed Republic of Georgia have begun major military operations over the disputed region of South Ossetia.

The opening ceremony in Beijing.

The wreckage of a Georgian tank.

What does that mean for your weekend? Well, it means Russian tanks and aircraft have begun to move against Georgian positions. Georgia (yes, we're talking about the former Soviet state, not the southern U.S. state) has been moving closer and closer to the West in recent times, has pushed to join NATO, and has even been maneuvering to join the European Union. Naturally, the Russian regime isn't thrilled with that. In other words, this has been brewing for sometime. The problem is that things could get (and seem to be getting) quickly out-of-hand. Where the U.S. stands in all of this is anyone's guess; a military conflict between the U.S. and Russia is kind of a doomsday scenario, but with the recent controversy over Kosovo and Iran, Russia may well be ready to draw a line in the sand: 'Across this line, you do not--'

We'll see.

Ronald Chevalier

2008-08-06T17:49:00.000-07:00

Jemaine Clement, of 'Flight of the Conchords' has a new project, for which, I believe this is viral marketing. It's pretty great.

Third 'Party' Candidate

2008-08-06T15:57:00.000-07:00

Remember that 'Celebrity' McCain ad I posted a few days ago--along with the Obama response? Well, now Paris Hilton has responded:

Paris Hilton Responds to McCain Adfunny videosFunnyOrDie.com

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

The funniest thing about it is that she has the footnotes to a real energy policy. Pretty great.

Why Isn't Obama Doing Better?

2008-08-05T10:20:00.000-07:00

Today, David Brooks wrote an op-ed in the The NY Times suggesting that the reason Barack Obama is only leading John McCain by three percentage points nationally may be because Obama is 'a sojourner'. That is, Obama, says Brooks, has never 'fully engaged' in the many pursuits that have brought him to the top. David Brooks, he who just a few years ago, celebrated exurbia and the commercial oasis of SUV-driving, superstore-shopping, Mcmansion-buying America, drives me a bit nuts. Unlike someone like Bill Kristol, who is a blatant apologist for the right, and who at least subscribes to consistent, logical values that make a kind of sense if you kind of squint, David Brooks has a tendency to suggest a nerdish right-of-center ideology that is often not just a little, but completely wrong. Those exurbs, thanks to the cost of gas and transportation costs for materials that made them possible, coupled with the mortgage crisis, are now in real and metaphorical foreclosure. (Yes, I did use the phrase 'metaphorical foreclosure'...)

Can you believe it, everyone says, despite the economy and the war Obama only leads McCain by three points? First of all, yes, I can believe it. Obama is the first serious black candidate for President, running against a Republican candidate whose entire campaign has been one long attempt to remind voters that once upon a time he was a 'maverick', i.e. not a present-day Republican. The story of this campaign is the story of distancing ourselves from the GOP. It's also the story of racism, which--by the way--is alive and well in the United States, and it's the story of dumb, premature polling data. Polls about the outcome of the Presidential election are virtually meaningless at this point. We are still three long months away from the election, to say nothing of the fact that after the fiasco of unreliable polling data in past major elections, I have a difficult time understanding how or why anyone is taking this information seriously at all. The answer, of course, is that media organizations are taking it seriously because: (A) It's all they have, and (B) It keeps the 'story' of the-election-as-horse-race alive.

If the media spent more time focusing on probable voter turn-out, I suspect the outlook would be quite different. Nobody knows how many people are going to turn-out for either party in November, but if the primaries are any indication, Obama should do pretty well. In many states, the democrats set records for voter turn-out throughout the primary season, and now The New York Times is reporting that Republican registered voters are dropping in key states, just as registered democrats are rising.

Calling a sample of likely voters on the phone and asking them who they plan to vote for is all well and good, but the real question is how many democrats and how many republicans--and how many independents and people who have never voted before will actually show up on election day.

Suddenly one of the horses looks a lot stronger than the polling data suggests.

Stratfor and 'The Next 100 Years'

2008-08-05T05:48:00.001-07:00

In January, 2009, George Friedman, of Stratfor, has a new book coming out, to-be-called The Next 100 Years: A Forecast For The 21st Century. Who is George Friedman and what is Stratfor, you ask? Well, Stratfor is generally thought of as a quasi-CIA for the private sector. They provide a kind of consulting service for individuals and companies (they also have a free email service that's worth checking out). You pay a monthly fee of varying amounts (depending on how customized an analysis you want), and they sift through the news grift to tell you 'what's really going on'. It's very interesting, and, to my mind, pretty persuasive. George Friedman is one of the founders of Stratfor, and his last book (which I learned all about while working at the publishing house that published it) was called America's Secret War. In it, he analyzes the post-9/11 world and the U.S. response. One major underlying theme is that the news, as it is reported, is often a kind of propaganda, engineered by governments and interest groups for specific audiences and purposes. In other words, there are layers and layers to every event; news coverage really just skims the surface. It's well worth reading. And, on an interesting sidenote, someone I passed the book along to showed it to someone else who worked for the CIA, and this CIA operative's response was a kind of shocked outrage: there were things in America's Secret War that hit a little too close to home, things the CIA agent didn't think should be printed in a publicly available book. But you didn't hear that from me.

Black Whateverday

2008-08-04T08:30:00.000-07:00

Today, Paul Krugman referred to the current mortgage collapse as a 'slow-mo' melt and said, "The good news, I guess, is that we’ve been experiencing a sort of slow-motion meltdown, lacking in dramatic Black Fridays and such." But wait, you say, what do Day-After-Thanksgiving sales have to do with economic turbulence? No, presumably he may have been referring to Friday, September 24, 1869, when the stock market collapsed due, in large part to gold speculation. Other 'black' financial days include the infamous stock market drop of 'black' Tuesday, October 29, 1929 and 'black' Monday, October 19, 1987.

It's worth mentioning, I think, (and I'm sure Prof. Krugman is aware) that just because the market is popping up and down and down again, while remaining relatively sane, does not necessarily mean we aren't due for a 'black' whateverday. If history is any indication, it would likely happen sometime in the fall. The up-and-down behavior of the market that preceded the 1929 crash is also fairly striking in its general similarities to today's stock market.

What does the housing market, adjusted for inflation, look like in historical terms? Something like this:

And try this for a sense of where the stock market is in historical terms:

Remember that historically, there is a great tendency, just before a crash, to say over and over again that the worst has passed, even when there may be evidence that the underlying economic vulnerabilities have not yet fully corrected. At the heart of the market is human psychology. The more you deregulate a market, the more vulnerable it becomes to these influences; that, I think, is extremely worrying.Bl

Can You Stand the Heat?

2008-08-01T08:17:00.000-07:00

It BEGINS...

Is it my imagination or is that the same woman doing the voice-over in both ads?