Month: July 2008

By Patrick Appel

From Charles Mann’s 2005 article on the perils of the longevity boom:

When lifespans extend indefinitely, the effects are felt throughout the life cycle, but the biggest social impact may be on the young. According to Joshua Goldstein, a demographer at Princeton, adolescence will in the future evolve into a period of experimentation an education that will last from the teenage years into the mid-thirties. In a kind of wanderjahr prolonged for decades, young people will try out jobs on a temporary basis, float in and out of their parents’ homes, hit the Europass-and-hostel circuit, pick up extra courses and degrees, and live with different people in different places. In the past the transition from youth to adulthood usually followed an orderly sequence: education, entry into the labor force, marriage, and parenthood. For tomorrow’s thirtysomethings, suspended in what Goldstein calls "quasi-adulthood," these steps may occur in any order.

Doesn’t sound so bad to me.

Drew ‘Buck Nasty’ Ferney competes in the first round on July 26, 2008 during the 2008 Cuervo Black US Air Guitar Championships in Austin, Texas. Photo by Elsa/Getty.

By Patrick Appel
Reihan sees the stirrings of a Republican revival:

This looks like the beginning of the two-party system righting itself — in the Feiler Faster spirit, we’re slowly getting back to 50-50. The mix of issues that are keeping Republican heads above water is different from what we’ve seen during the Bush era, and more attractive in some respects: spending restraint is making a rhetorical comeback, and pushback against environmentalists is taking the place of pushback against social liberals. Given mre straitened economic circumstances, this makes sense. Social issues — for liberals and conservatives — tend to be voting issues for the relatively affluent. If the goal is to move blue collar voters, job impact is what counts.

By Patrick Appel In an interview with Stephanopoulos, McCain backtracked on his use of the word timetable (by my count, he uses the phrase "conditions on the ground" seven times), but near the end there is also this somewhat bizarre exchange over gay adoption:

STEPHANOPOULOS: What is your position on gay adoption? You told the “New York Times" you were against it, even in cases where the children couldn’t find another home. But then your staff backtracked a bit. What is your position?

MCCAIN: My position is, it’s not the reason why I’m running for president of the United States. And I think that two parent families are best for America.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, what do you mean by that, it’s not the reason you’re running for president of the United States?

MCCAIN: Because I think — well, I think that it’s — it is important for us to emphasize family values. But I think it’s very important that we understand that we have other challenges, too. I’m running for president of the United States, because I want to help with family values. And I think that family values are important, when we have two parent — families that are of parents that are the traditional family.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But there are several hundred thousand children in the country who don’t have a home. And if a gay couple wants to adopt them, what’s wrong with that?

MCCAIN: I am for the values that two parent families, the traditional family represents.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So, you’re against gay adoption.

MCCAIN: I am for the values and principles that two parent families represent. And I also do point out that many of these decisions are made by the states, as we all know. And I will do everything I can to encourage adoption, to encourage all of the things that keeps families together, including educational opportunities, including a better economy, job creation. And I’m running for president, because I want to help families in America. And one of my positions is that I believe that family values and family traditions are preserved.

Seattle, Washington, 10.12 am.

By Patrick Appel
For Sunday, a paragraph from one of my favorite Atlantic articles of all time:

Everything written in self-conscious, writerly prose, on the other hand, is now considered to be "literary fiction"—not necessarily good literary fiction, mind you, but always worthier of respectful attention than even the best-written thriller or romance. It is these works that receive full-page critiques, often one in the Sunday book-review section and another in the same newspaper during the week. It is these works, and these works only, that make the annual short lists of award committees. The "literary" writer need not be an intellectual one. Jeering at status-conscious consumers, bandying about words like "ontological" and "nominalism," chanting Red River hokum as if it were from a lost book of the Old Testament: this is what passes for profundity in novels these days. Even the most obvious triteness is acceptable, provided it comes with a postmodern wink. What is not tolerated is a strong element of action—unless, of course, the idiom is obtrusive enough to keep suspense to a minimum. Conversely, a natural prose style can be pardoned if a novel’s pace is slow enough, as was the case with Ha Jin’s aptly titled Waiting, which won the National Book Award (1999) and the PEN/Faulkner Award (2000).

By Patrick Appel

The ad McCain released yesterday attacks Obama for not visiting injured troops during his time in Germany, because "the Pentagon wouldn’t allow him to bring cameras," a statement which is reportedly false.  Here is what TPM is reporting:

"A Pentagon spokesperson confirms to me that because of longstanding Department of Defense regulations, Pentagon officials told Obama aides that he couldn’t visit the base with campaign staff. This left Obama with little choice but to cancel the trip, since the plan to visit with campaign aides had been in the works for weeks. […]

"We have longstanding Department of Defense policy in regards to political campaigns and elections," Pentagon spokesperson Elizabeth Hibner told me. "We informed the Obama staff that he was more than welcome to visit as Senator Obama, with Senate staff. However, he could not conduct the visit with campaign staff."

After being told this, the Obama campaign announced yesterday that it had decided it was "inappropriate" to make the visit as part of a campaign trip.

It’s unclear how Obama could have made the visit at all, given the Pentagon’s directives. No Senate staff was on the trip, and the Obama camp says they received the Pentagon’s directives on Wednesday, after they were already abroad."

Ben Smith expects Obama to attack McCain for attacking— a response similar to the rebuttal ads Obama used against Clinton.  Also, while McCain chides Obama for making time to go to the gym and not time to visit with the troops, the image used in the ad is Obama shooting hoops in Kuwait— with the troops.

By Patrick Appel
Coates adds to Loury and McWhorter’s debate over whether it is appropriate to compare King’s speech in 1963 to Obama’s at the convention.

By Patrick Appel
The Internet is killing off the bike messaging trade. From the achieves, a tidbit of Marshall Fisher’s 1997 article on bike messengers:

Although couriers spend their days delivering the packages that keep corporate America running, they share a distrust of authority and a disdain for the pallid indoor worker. Ford, who is twenty-six, graduated from Wesleyan University with a dual degree in studio arts and premed. Like a number of messengers I have talked to, he was thoughtful and articulate, despite the Dudes and "like"s peppering his speech. His goatee twitched and his tongue studs flashed as he spoke in a machine-gun rhythm. "I was thinking about medical school, but this is just so much more entertaining. Why would I want to forfeit my youth to go to medical school?"

By Patrick Appel
I agree with Matt about the ups and downs of daily tracking polls:

…look, Obama’s been drifting in the 45-48 range and McCain’s been drifting in the 41-44 range and there’s no reason to think that movements within the familiar bands represent anything other than normal fluctuation in a statistical sample. I think the commentary on the tracking polls looks more and more like the silly commentary on the daily fluctuations of the Dow where first analysts look at numbers, and then second they devise post hoc explanations of the movement. Realistically, I don’t think there’s anything worth commenting on unless some much more sustained trend develops.