perfidy

I think I hate Doktor Frank. Upon reflection, that's a bit harsh. I ought to sharpen that a bit, and say I am gripped by a seething jealousy of Doktor Frank. There. That's more like it. The reason for my seething jealousy is this post. It's a wonderful discourse on the joys and perils of music wonkery, the nature of the individual experience of music fandom, and the subjective, atomistic nature intrisic to the experience of musical enjoyment. Except he's not an asshole about it like I am.

Also worthy of jealousy is this two-part post on My Completely Random Life (one, two), on the Culture Wars and the relative decline of Rock and Roll as the ruler of all. My compatriot mentioned this post previously in this same forum, but it's so good that I think it deserves a second glance.

Finally, Slate asks the irrelevant question, "Was Lester Bangs The Best Rock Critic Of The 70's?. Irrelevant doesn't imply un-interesting, though. An older wiser Lester would be the first to admit that everything he wrote about Lou Reed was, in the end, totally irrelevant. Irrelevant, but interesting, illuminating, tortuous, tortured, thoughtful, eager, and compulsively readable.

Watch, as I try to tie all this together like a monkey toying with a piece of twine. Go, monkey, go!

Ben and Jennifer have set a wedding date of September 14!

It's good that they're getting this out of the way, because their divorce has been scheduled for January 6, 2004 for a while now.

Can you say..... Mmmmmmmmartyr?

The beautiful and talented Erin O'Connor has posted an excerpt from an article she wrote for the Chronicle of Higher Education about the flapdoodle down at UNC. The freshman reading this semester is "Nickel and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich, and campus conservatives are concerned that Ehrenreich's propaganda will rot the little heads of freshmen before they have a chance to grow.

A fair point, but I dunno. I agree with O'Connor's conclusion-- that "Nickel and Dimed" isn't the best reading for Freshmen-- though I think it's a decent choice-- but I partly disagree with her reasons why.

When I started college, the entire incoming class had to read Being There by Jerzy Kosinski. I think that was a good choice-- it was a fairly simple book about American media-mindedness that lent itself well to freshman-level exegesis. Even better, we got to watch the Peter Sellers movie. Yeah!!

But the discussion we had wasn't very spirited. It was fine, and a few people got into some pretty good debates over the greater meaning of the book, but I think it could have been a little more fun.

Which is why I'm not sure I agree with the O'Connor or the Conservatives at UNC....I'll give you a minute... go read.

So... O'Connor calls the idea that freshmen should be discussing partisan politics "astounding." I couldn't disagree more. Any freshman class at any college can hold a rousing, if not openly rancorous debate on politics which I guarantee will contain more substance than Hannity and Colmes. Besides, the kids are going to spend the next four years flitting from cause to cause-- why pretend otherwise?-- so why not help to guide their educational experience in a way that might be constructive?

I think Ehrenreich's book is a good choice for freshmen. It's heart-breaking, passionate, and polemical. It's thinly argued, anecdotal, and full of holes. It invites debate and discovery as freshmen brainstorm ways to defend their position. It allows students to take positions and defend them, and I don't think it hurts anything that the discussion is inherently political. Perfect, right?

Well, yeah, except for one thing. The risk the discussion sinking to the mere level of Hannity and Colmes. To me, this would be the biggest reason not to assign Ehrenreich or her ilk. O'Connor puts it well, writing about the Conservative protesters:

The committee's seemingly unimpeachable plea for "greater fairness and balance" in the reading program conceals a less savory jockeying for ideological position.

"It's intellectually dishonest to present only one side," says the group's founder, Michael McKnight. That's true. But couched in that demand for balance is the committee's conservative agenda. The group seeks more balance not because balance is inherently desirable, but because of the committee's interest, as its Web site announces, "in promoting conservative and free market ideas and perspectives on the UNC campus." It is protesting because Nickel and Dimed gives conservative politics a bad rap. As McKnight told The Herald-Sun, "as a Christian, I was offended, and as a conservative I was really offended. It's one thing to disagree with someone's point of view, and it's another thing to ridicule them." Tellingly, McKnight frames his complaint in terms borrowed wholesale from the liberal identity politics that he and his group oppose.

The tacit assumption by both liberals and conservatives that Chapel Hill's summer reading program is more about politics than about reading should give us pause. We ought to be asking what it means to read opinionated works as either a confirmation or negation of identity -- but instead we are fighting endlessly about whose identity gets top billing when readings are assigned.

And that's the problem. As I said above, discussing an easy target like Ehrenreich's book does foment discussion and mixing. But it's not very deep. Popular political debate these days is all surface, surface, surface (and hell, when has it been any different?), and maybe colleges could do a little more to encourage deeper thought. Even popular political writers like P.J. O'Rourke might be an improvement. Even better, actual literature, such as Elie Weisel, the aforementioned Kosinski, Milan Kundera, Zora Neale Hurston, or Toni Morrison might do the trick. Except maybe for Morrison, these authors aren't very hard going, and their work inspires thoughtful discussion from many sides. Moreover, these authors are more, what the hell, collegiate than Ehrenreich and "Nickel and Dimed," and for some student's it's the last elevated thing they'll do for four years. So, I agree with O'Connor's argument (as usual), but I do not share her conviction that a little political heat is a bad thing.

... as for the ostensibly adult people arguing about whether a book can rot the brain, for shame!

[note] Edited to remove gibberish and non sequiturs 9/4/03

Jeez... this is the week of light posting and crappy headlines. Sorry about that. It's the first week of school, and the particular Perfidous Indoctrination Center I work for is in full swing, as the Evil Geniuses of the future pursue their degrees in Evil Medicine, Mendacious Lawyering, Interrogative Dentistry, and Advanced Theoreticial Malingering.

But whatever. I see that the 9th Circuit Court, in a rare high-profile decision that doesn't make me grit my teeth as they skate back and forth over the line between reason and excess, have overturned 111 death penalty sentences imposed by judges (not juries) in three states.

Great. The facts of the main case that this decision hinged on are outrageous enough, without getting into the utterly nondemocratic, old-school-Whiggish phenomenon of one magistrate deciding the ultimate fate of a defendant. From the article:

The case that led to the appeals court ruling was described in the decision as "the raw material from which legal fiction is forged."

According to the ruling, that "raw material" included:

• A police tip from the defendant's mother-in-law based on her daughter's "extra-sensory perception"

• An alleged romantic encounter between one of the defense attorneys with the first prosecutor in the case during negotiations on a possible plea agreement

• The judge imposing the death sentence while allegedly under the influence of marijuana. The judge was later disbarred.

Jeebus. The best case for jury sentencing I have ever read.

This is a good point for me to discuss why, in my political-science naivete, I am a self-described "centrist" (Buckethead would write that, "handwringing anklebiter," and he wouldn't be wrong). My personal ethical and moral systems make me ambivalent about the death penalty. While I am in favor of the death penalty when applied by jury to the most horrible of capital crimes, I feel it is meted out too liberally and for too many offenses. Regardless of any cost/benefit analyses which show that keeping a multiple-murderer locked up for life costs a fortune whereas killing them is cheap, I don't like to measure life by that metric.

The point at which my support of the death penalty breaks down is where my faith in humanity breaks down. Lassiez-faire is a great idea in theory, but at some point, somebody is going to do something completely shit-headed that ruins the party for other people. Circumstances like the aforementioned capital case, which apparently hinged on psychic evidence, for example, make me gibber and howl in fury. If a person's life is in the balance, I feel that a standard of evidence beyond "no reasonable doubt" should apply-- there should be ironclad proof. Obviously psychic evidence doesn't make this cut. Yet, here it apparently did. Exhibit A in shit-headed party ruining.

There's a line, let's call it the "shithead line," beyond which my nanny-state instincts step in and I want to buy the world a helmet. A similar argument applies to, say, capital markets, since we're talking about capital things today. An unregulated market is theoretically "fair," as long as all players are assumed to be rational and optimally situated to take advantage of opportunities. But neither circumstance really applies. The "shithead line" has been crossed many, many times in the last few years by companies I'm sure I don't need to mention. On the near side of that line, I prefer a lightly regulated market. On the far side of it, I prefer the swift hammer of armed response.

However, my rational mind understands that buying the world a helmet would cost a bundle and break the bank, thereby doing more harm than the high-minded good that was originally intended. A balance must be struck between swift-hammer justice and other regulation, and just letting people do what they think is in their best interest. The constant question for me is to clarify just where that line falls.

But I digress. Regarding the death penalty, I have been heartened over the last few years to see a serious inquiry into how death sentences are given out-- first in Illinois, and now at the Federal level. Perhaps it will lead to a clarification of the shithead line as pertains to capital punishment. Life is precious, and even though I'm no Christian (and I'll see YOU in hell), I feel that even the worst among us deserve small mercies, especially if a little more attention to process keeps innocent (that is, less guilty) people from being put to death.

Psychic evidence, indeed. . . goddamn twinkie defense rassen rissen d'hoy glaven

Pursuant to a recent thread on this very website, here's an article from the Boston Globe about how budget constraints are hindering Boston public school students' access to things like books, sports, or gifted & talented programs.

That's the problem with money and education. More money doesn't make schools better, but money sure makes them worse.

And just wait 'til NEXT year, when No Child Left Behind kicks in and the Division of Enforced Mediocrity of the Department of Ed. knocks out the federal funding to Boston's notoriously ailing public schools. Ya can't leave kids behind if the bus never goes anywhere.

Actually, the likelihood of an impact is only one in 909,000. More information can be found here and here.

Go here for a really cool java animation of the the object's, and earth's, orbit.

From Reason comes this mind-bending story by Jacob Sullum: Forest Tennant has spoken out against the War On Drugs-- the war he helped start.

[W]hen the folks at the Hoover Institution who produce the PBS show Uncommon Knowledge were looking for someone to debate drug policy with me, Tennant must have seemed like a natural choice.

Imagine their surprise when he ended up agreeing that the war on drugs has been a disastrous mistake. To be sure, Tennant is not completely comfortable with the idea of treating all psychoactive substances the way we treat alcohol. Among other things, he worries about underage access and legal liability issues.

But Tennant concedes that only a small percentage of drug users become addicted, that the drug laws are not very effective at preventing abuse, and that any increase in addiction that follows the repeal of prohibition is apt to be small. Equally important, he has come to realize after decades of dealing with addiction that the war on drugs imposes tremendous costs in exchange for its dubious benefits. . . .

Sullum also notes that other old-school drug warriors are coming around to the side of cautious legalization. This is very encouraging. Maybe in a decade or two we'll begin to see actual changes in drug policy, with attendant beneficial effects for our society, economy, foreign policy, civil liberties, and ability to smoke a giant fatty while watching a Mel Brooks film festival.