I don’t have much to add regarding the news of Michael Jackson’s death. I stopped listening to him when I was 16 or 17, but his songs dominated the charts when I first started paying attention to pop music as a kid. I remember lying in a hospital room in 1984 and listening to Thriller. I remember grade school classmates reciting the lyrics to “P.Y.T.”
This is shaping up to be a really weird week in current events.
The fact that Governor Mark Sanford had an affair doesn’t particularly interest me. How he conducts his romantic life has little bearing on how he chooses to govern his state. His record as governor provides ample fodder for criticism, enough to land him on Time‘s “Worst Governors” list a few years ago. But he also presumed to use the bully pulpit of his office to make moral judgments on others. When he served in Congress, he was a vociferous critic of Clinton’s marital infidelity and, more recently, an outspoken opponent of same-sex marriage.
It takes a special kind of douchebaggery to build a political career on one’s staunch defense of “traditional values”, but then make a complete break with those values in one’s private life. It’s not surprising, it’s not interesting, but it’s douchebaggery nonetheless and it seems endemic among conservatives. You would think Republicans would have a clue by now. You would think it might begin to dawn on them that they should stick to their low-taxes, limited-government schtick and tone down the self-righteous scolding. But they aren’t big on self-awareness, which guarantees a steady parade of middle-aged white men coming before the cameras to lay their hypocrisy bare.
The Supreme Court issued a big decision yesterday that has special education advocates cheering and school districts breaking out in cold sweats. The court ruled that school districts may be required to pay private-school tuition for some students with disabilities, even if they never received special education services in a public school previously. Some kids are undoubtedly better off in private settings, particularly when the school district lacks the expertise or resources to serve a particular student’s needs. But private-school tuition is expensive and public school districts aren’t getting any richer. I’m not sure that this will lead to substantially higher numbers of kids being placed in private schools, but parents may now feel more empowered to demand that public school officials do more to assure that their children are being provided a free and appropriate public education. Not necessarily a bad result.
All the other geeks are linking to the clip below of geek idol John Hodgman praising Obama as our first “Nerd in Chief” in an address to Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner, so I might as well do the same. This whole meme of our president symbolizing the rise of the geeks seems to be catching on. Extra geek points to Hodgman for showing off his detailed knowledge of Dune esoterica. I really do need to read that book. I was waiting for him to close with some catchy Klingon phrase, but that might have pushed the audience from amusement into befuddlement.
This new century, still only a few years old, is likely to witness the rapid ascendancy of China and India as both economic and political superpowers. But before they can claim that kind of status, both countries will have to endure the same kind of social upheaval that nearly tore America and Europe apart in the early decades of the last century. Perhaps that explains the enormous popularity of Slumdog Millionaire among American audiences. We see echoes of our own past in the struggles of present-day Indians to rise out of poverty through hard work, ingenuity, and a dash of luck. But that movie is only one version of India’s rags-to-riches story. Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger offers a darker glimpse of modern India.
The book is a series of confessional letters written by a Bangalore entrepreneur named Balram and addressed to the Chinese president. Balram only knows the Chinese leader through reports on Indian news, but he feels compelled to share his story of how he left an isolated village to seek work in New Delhi. Balram eventually finds work as a driver for a wealthy family, a position that his village relatives both envy and respect. But Balram soon realizes that he is nothing more than a servant in a long line of servants. He has no desire devote decades of his like to working for a cruel, petty boss only to be tossed to the streets when his eyesight fails or his reflexes slow. Balram decides he needs to take drastic measures to escape the dreary life of a servant.
In telling his story, Balram indicts much of Indian society: its hopeless public education system, its messy and thoroughly corrupt political system, the bleak and persistent poverty, the greed of the wealthy outsourcing business owners (who themselves are servants to American corporations). These indictments are also Balram’s not-so-veiled excuses for his actions. But the book succeeds because Balram doesn’t try to delude himself or the reader. He recognizes that he is a deeply imperfect man trying to get by in a deeply imperfect country. His cynicism is tempered by his wit, giving this book a sharp satirical tone that even Dickens would have respected.
I briefly checked out the Stone Arch Art Festival and it reminded me why I’m indifferent to these kinds of things. The people-watching is interesting, but most of the art seems so kitschy to me. Is there really much of a market for bronze sculptures of frogs with notebook computers sitting on park benches? Or for generic landscape watercolors? I saw only a few things that I would actually consider displaying on my own walls. Anyway, I think I’ve had my fill of art fairs for the year.
From the I Knew That Already Department comes a Wired Science story about the evolutionary roots of our tendency to stare at those with physical disfigurements. The story focuses primarily on staring at people with facial deformities, but the concept almost certainly applies to the rest of the human body. From the article:
To ensure the long-term survival of our species, we’re genetically predisposed to be attracted to symmetrical faces. The idea is that normal, healthy development free of disfiguring diseases or genetic mutations produces a symmetrical face. We unconsciously see symmetry as a marker of genetic quality. Our reaction to a face that is disfigured, however, also has links with short-term survival.
My symmetry ends just below my chin. I twist and curve like a slow river. I certainly don’t begrudge people’s stares. A few million years ago, I would have been that funny-looking ape with the oversized head who kept scribbling nonsense on tree bark.
The democratization of information–through blogs, Twitter, and other sources–is a boon to obsessive policy wonks like me. We now have the tools to follow every incremental step of the legislative process. But that same instant access to information amplifies every daily victory or setback into world-shaking events. Take the current debate on health care reform. Proponents of reform haven’t had a great week. Two of the major Senate proposals received high cost estimates from government economists, which may or may not affect the scope and ambition of a final bill. But the debate was sure to get contentious once real dollar amounts and concrete proposals started getting a public airing. Everyone involved in the debate already understood that health care reform is an expensive proposition. Congress only began public debate on health care this week. But already, we’re seeing blog posts with titles like “Health Care Reform D.O.A.?“
That’s not to say I’m blase about the prospects for real health care reform. I’d like to see Democrats a lot less skittish and a lot more forceful about key aspects of reform like a mandate for coverage and a public plan option. And Obama needs to counter GOP criticism about the cost with reminders that they oversaw one of the biggest entitlement expansions in the form of Medicare Part D.
I’m not ready to declare the fight over before it’s even begun. My seatbelt is fastened tight for the bumpy ride ahead, but I remain hopeful that we’ll get where we need to go.
Porn and the internet go together like, well, porn and the internet. It’s become so ubiquitous that now it’s just another feature of the pop culture. But we don’t often think about the people consuming all that porn. Video artist Robbie Cooper decided to point a camera at the people looking at internet porn for a project entitled Immersion: Porn. He interviews several people–men and women, straight and gay–about their reasons for viewing porn and then records them watching the stuff, keeping the camera focused on their faces. The video can probably be considered NSFW, as it’s pretty obvious that these people are enjoying a little self-pleasure. But the images are arresting and a vivid reminder that nothing strips away our reserve like an impending orgasm. And it’s honest in a way that porn never is. No pizza delivery boys or voluptuous schoolteachers here. Just average people dying little deaths.
As expected, health care and human services took a heavy hit in Pawlenty’s unallotment plan announced today. General Assistance Medical Care, the health care program for extremely poor Minnesotans that was the subject of emotionally wrought debate in the Legislature last month, will end a few months earlier than originally planned. Personal care attendants will have their hours further restricted. Outreach efforts that help people sign up for health care programs will be sharply reduced.
And meanwhile, another deficit looms in 2011 because these one-time cuts do nothing to fix the structural imbalances in the state budget. We haven’t quite reached California or New York levels of dysfunction in our state capitol, but we’re getting there.