Month: July 2008

Big Air

By Patrick Appel
Chris Hayes talks to his "super secret source inside a major air carrier" about why flying "sucks so hard." One of the source’s comments:

So what’s going to happen? Fewer flights, higher fares, emptier planes (yeah, fares are going to drive down demand, not consolidate fullish flights onto each other), fewer air traffic delays. In short, the fuel price will accomplish just about everything that re-regulation could hope to do. It’s exactly the same reasoning as why anyone concerned about climate change needs to see $5/gallon gas in the US and cheer, because it’s the only way to change consumer behavior. (Yes, it sucks that the working poor and working class folks who are car-dependent for employment are disproportionately hit by this. My dad is one of them—and now for the first time he’s cursing his big stupid 1997 Jeep Cherokee, which he does not need to negotiate the wilds of Nassau County. I digress.)

Inside The American Mind

By Patrick Appel
Obama’s trip hasn’t given him a bump in the polls, not yet anyway. Joe Klein has a theory why:

People may be thinking, what on earth is Obama doing over there when we have so many problems back home? Why isn’t he talking about the economy? No doubt, the Obama staff figured they needed this week abroad to establish the image of Obama as a potential Commander-in-Chief…and, no doubt, he will turn to the economy–a Democratic strength, according to the polls–when he gets home. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Obama is paying a price for vamping about overseas while banks are cratering, gas prices soar and people are getting really, really nervous about their futures.

American Food

By Patrick Appel
John Schwenkler responds to jibes at his article on conservative eating:

What we eat, and where it comes from, and how we choose to eat it, are things that matter: for we are not merely bodily beings who can feed ourselves like so many horses at a trough, but spiritual ones as well. And so the cultivation of the proper sorts of relationships to our food, to its sources in the earth, and to the people who grow it and sell it and those with whom we eat it, is obviously the sort of project that conservatives ought to go in for. That so many professed conservatives refuse to recognize this possibility, and choose instead to react with this sort of bitterness to what boils down to a call for a return to family values and political and economic decentralism, seems to me to say all that needs to be said about the sorry state of the modern American Right. If P.J. Gladnick gets to define who counts as a closet liberal, then I guess I just might be one after all. I’m happy to report, though, that that isn’t his call to make.

Prop 8 Shows Its True Colors

By Patrick Appel
The original title for the proposition was: “Limit on Marriage. Constitutional Amendment.” It has been changed(pdf):

Eliminates Right Of Same-Sex Couples To Marry
Initiative Constitutional Amendment

Changes California Constitution to eliminate right of same-sex couples to marry. Provides that only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

Jim Burroway writes: "Now when Californians go to the polls, they have to think about how their vote may actually take away something that already exists."

Virtual War

By Patrick Appel
Saletan comments on new aerial drones, which are controlled by a system that looks and feels like a video game but kills in reality:

If you’ve seen combat in the flesh, you know what the fireball on the screen means to the people in the car. But to a teenager raised on Doom and Halo, it looks like just another score. He can’t feel or smell the explosion. He isn’t even there. The eeriest thing in the demo video is the total silence that accompanies the car’s destruction. The only sound that follows is the pilot’s triumphant verdict: "Excellent job." It’s like something you’d read on the screen after getting a high score at an arcade.

Eyebrow-Raisers

By Patrick Appel
Fred Kaplan questions McCain’s foreign policy readiness:

Quite apart from the gaffes, in formal prepared speeches, McCain has proposed certain actions and policies that raise serious questions about his suitability for the highest office. As president, he has said, he would boot Russia out of the G-8 on the grounds that its leaders don’t share the West’s values. He would form an international "League of Democracy" as a united front against the forces of autocracy and terror. And though it’s not exactly a stated policy, he continues to employ as his foreign-policy adviser an outspoken, second-tier neoconservative named Randy Scheunemann, who coined the term "rogue-state rollback" and still prescribes it as sound policy.

Reporting The News

By Patrick Appel
PEW reports on the state of the newspaper industry. Nothing too surprising:

It has fewer pages than three years ago, the paper stock is thinner, and the stories are shorter. There is less foreign and national news, less space devoted to science, the arts, features and a range of specialized subjects. Business coverage is either packaged in an increasingly thin stand-alone section or collapsed into another part of the paper. The crossword puzzle has shrunk, the TV listings and stock tables may have disappeared, but coverage of some local issues has strengthened and investigative reporting remains highly valued.

Drum is alarmed. I have a hard time getting riled up myself. Though I hate to see journalists laid off, this nugget in the report is worth noting: "Despite an image of decline, more people today in more places read the content produced in the newsrooms of American daily newspapers than at any time in years." News consumption isn’t in danger. There might be less news on foreign affairs but, through the internet, I now have access to the foreign press itself. For science, I read any number of magazines and expert bloggers. Ditto for the arts. As long as there is demand for news, their will be a news industry and newspapers will exist in some form. If you want an in-depth look at the newspaper business, I recommend Mark Bowden’s article on Murdoch and the WSJ.