Month: December 2006

[Clive]

Robbie Millen, Danny’s collaborator at Comment Central, re-visits a timeless analysis of architecture, urban studies and the way we live now:

Jane Jacobs‚Äô death in April sent me scurrying to read her most famous work, "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" (1961). It’s a compelling read ‚Äî full of crackling prose, wit and humanity ‚Äî about how well-intentioned planners destroy neighbourhoods by failing to understand how cities actually work and how their inhabitants use them. Ever wondered why some parks attract junkies and winos? Why some streets are safer than others? And why children shun playgrounds? All the answers are packed in between the covers. And the source of her wisdom? She didn‚Äôt study architecture formally, but used her eyes and ears.

[Clive]

Nostalgia time: Juliette Gr√©co, queen of the Left Bank, sings Serge Gainsbourg’s wistful classic "La Javanaise". For lovers of Paris, there’s also her black-and-white TV version of "Il n’y a plus d’apr√®s". It’s scary to think she turns 80 next year. The last time she played London, she still floored the audience.

Incidentally, that new jazz-blues star, Georgia-born Madeleine Peyroux, covers "La Javanaise" on her new CD. Her video of "J’ai deux amours", the old Josephine Baker anthem, is very classy, too. [Doh, I gave the wrong title earlier…]

[Clive]

A worrying assessment from the Daily Telegraph’s Con Coughlin – definitely no faintheart in the War on Terror:

At no point have Nato’s planners paid any serious attention to the other country whose border stretches for hundreds of miles along Afghanistan’s western border, even though Iran’s visceral hostility to the presence of a massive Western force so close to home is hardly a secret. This is despite the fact that the Iranians have actively supported, equipped and trained the insurgent groups that have caused coalition forces so much discomfort in southern Iraq.

But whenever I have raised the issue of Iranian involvement in Afghanistan on my visits to Nato headquarters over the past year, I have invariably been greeted with either blank stares or an eagerness on the part of senior commanders to move quickly to another, more amenable topic of conversation.

[Clive]

At the risk of provoking a volley of battle-of-the-sexes jokes from my co-bloggers, here’s a neat one that arrived in my in-tray. I’ve run it past my wife, and she agrees it’s both non-sexist and funny.

A store that sells new husbands has just opened in New York City, where a woman may go to choose a husband.  Among the instructions at the entrance is a description of how the store operates:  "You may visit this store ONLY ONCE!  There are six floors and the value of the products increases as the shopper ascends the flights. The shopper may choose any item from a particular floor, or may choose to go up to the next floor, but you cannot go back down except to exit the building!"
 
So, a woman goes to the store to find a husband. On the first floor the sign reads: "These men Have Jobs". The second floor sign reads: "These men Have Jobs and Love Kids". The third floor sign reads:  "These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, and are Extremely Good Looking."

"Wow," she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going.

At the fourth floor the sign reads: "These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Good Looking and Help With Housework."

"Oh, mercy me!" she exclaims, "I can hardly stand it!"

Still, she goes to the fifth floor and the sign reads: "These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Gorgeous, Help with Housework, and Have a Strong Romantic Streak." She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the sixth floor and the sign reads:  "You are visitor 31,456,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor.  This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please.  Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store."

To avoid gender bias charges, the store’s owner opens a New Wives store just across the street. It too has six floors. The first floor has wives that love sex. The second floor has wives that love sex and have money. The third through sixth floors have never been visited.

[Daniel]

John McCain is the Republican front runner? Michael Barone notes this:

Rudy Giuliani has been leading John McCain in the large majority of polls, albeit usually by narrow margins.

 

[Clive]

After I posted a photo of the school run, an e-mailer wrote to say how tranquil it all looked. Very bucolic and all that. (Trivia note for Fawlty Towers fans: the Lord Melbury exteriors in the opening episode were shot just along the road.) 

I don’t regret moving out of noisy, dirty London, and it’s nice to get a distant glimpse of a famous stately home from my study window. But peaceful? Ninety per cent of the time, it certainly is. But as for the other ten per cent, let’s just say it’s been lively. On exactly the same spot where I took that picture, for instance, I was once head-butted in broad daylight by a lumbering thug who thought (wrongly) that cycling was banned on the path. I politely explained the facts, then…. BAM. As I had one of my sons on the toddler-seat behind me, I couldn’t even let go of the handle-bars to protect myself.

Let’s see, what else has happened? My car was stolen by raiders who used it on a break-in at a local company. I’ve been an eye-witness to a day-time burglary at the post-office. The couple who used to run the other post office up the hill were attacked two or three times, and one night had to barricade themselves in their bedroom. Other robbers raided a little clothes shop in the high street  and waved away passers-by with a sturdy swing of their baseball bats. The main convenience store has been visited by a gunman. A woman was shot in the face with an air-pistol on the platform of our picturesque little train station. The park-keeper regularly finds used needles in the playground.

I’ve had a beer bottle thrown against the living room window, and my wife and I were described as "Pakis" and members of the Bin Laden Appreciation Society by an idiot who arrived on our doorstep late one Saturday night. (The police caught him, and, as he had a string of offences, he got a suspended sentence.) Our garden wall was demolished this summer by a drunk driver who was on his way to a showdown with his ex-girlfriend. Burnt-out stolen cars regularly turn up on the grass verges, and there’s so much theft from parked vehicles that the police once issued a warning against leaving even loose change on the seats. (Our car was broken into one afternoon this summer after a youth spotted my son’s school bag lying on the back seat.)

We don’t actually see any police very often because, to the best of my knowledge, we only have one officer covering a community of 6,000 people. A good friend of mine who lives in the  New Jersey suburbs tells me that if an unfamiliar car even loiters on his street, he can get the cops out within a few minutes.

But, yes, otherwise it’s very quiet out here.

[Daniel]

Is Christmas efficient? A wonderful column by Jonathan Chait in the New Republic sets Chris Dillow wondering.

Here is Chait’s theory about gift-giving:

There’s a reason people don’t often buy themselves fancy chocolates: most of us would rather get M & Ms and spend the rest of the money on something else. Christmas spawns industries devoted to useless goods like fruitcake and flavored popcorn.

More commonly, it forces us to pay for things we like, but whose cost exceeds their worth to us. Suppose a box of chocolates costs $15. I don’t buy chocolates for myself, because they’re worth only $5 to me. You choose not to buy $15 cologne because it’s worth only $5 to you. Swapping chocolates for cologne penalizes each of us $10.

This leads Dillow to introduce us to the economic literature, a speciality of his diverting blog.

But actually the hole in Chait’s theory is contained in his own article. He can’t get his girlfriend to share his view of gifts and eventually gives in and buys her a scarf. It turns out that the chocolates are worth $5 to him, but worth $15 to his girlfriend when given as a present. And not giving his girlfriend a present imposes a cost greater than $15.

Problem solved.

[Clive]

John Podhoretz tunes into the Bush press conference, and lets out a long, melancholy sigh.

[Clive]

"He was not only a believer in individualism, he went to the extreme length of being an individual…"  I don’t know how many American readers are familiar with Frank Johnson’s name, but he was one of the wittiest and most unpredictable political journalists of our times. Born into a lowly East End family, he rose and rose into the Westminster stratosphere. He died last week, aged only 63. John O’Sullivan has written the perfect eulogy.

[Clive]

A reader weighs in on the experience question:

Given that at least some experience is necessary to learn the day-to-day workings of the DC process, that should not take long for a sharp mind to learn, and I don’t find much debate on whether or not Obama is sharp.  It is pretty clear that he is.  Obama’s appeal is at least partly rooted in his inexperience.  We may be approaching a "changing of the guard" moment, where his appeal stems from the generation gap between him and most other likely contenders.  I believe that his heritage and globe-spanning life experience contribute to this appeal, mainly because the current executive administration has a decidedly parochial air.

Comparisons with Kennedy, irritating as one may find them, are not misplaced.  His Catholicism broke sharply with the previous hegemony of WASPs in the White House, and though not a generation younger than Nixon, he was certainly seen as more vibrant and modern. He was also considered rather a knave, although one with a pedigree.  At the very least, it will be interesting to track Obama’s arc.  So far, I can’t help liking the guy.

Mickey Kaus isn’t so enthusiastic:

Maybe I’m an old-fashioned Joe Kleinish Clintonian self-hating Dem. But I’m not swooning until I hear Obama to tell Democrats something they maybe don’t want to hear

Being an incorrigible fence-sitter  I like Giuliani as well. But, as John Derbyshire cheerily points out, lots of people have different reasons not to:

The fun thing about Rudy is that EVERYONE has some reason to hate him.  My Wall St pals all hate him for the stunt he pulled as DA, having guys dragged off the trading floor in handcuffs.  I hate him for being such a squish on illegal aliens.  Blacks hate him because he never, when Mayor, gave the time of day to their "community leaders."  Right-to-lifers hate him because he’s not.  Catholics hate him for his divorces.  I’m sure Protestants hate him for something or other.  (Being a Catholic?)  Everybody holds paper on this guy.  What can I tell you?  He’s a shoo-in.