Month: December 2008

by Chris Bodenner
Politico cuts through the media maelstrom.

By Patrick Appel
Lots of reader speculation about this graph. The most common comment:

The more willing you are to "believe" in anything, the more likely you are to "believe" in something else.

It is an interesting graph, but if I have the time I would want to learn more about what underlies it. I keep thinking of those surveys on how much "charity giving" one does where it turns out the deeply religious "give" more. Well, d’oh! They’re in churches, which hit on them all the time, sometimes expect a tithe, and where the money given to the church is actually money given to support your own faith group.

Another reader adds:

There is probably something common at the level of personality to having faith in party ideals and having faith in a higher power. Both religion and political parties are hierarchical structures that demand a certain amount of deference to their stated positions. 

 

Finally, there is possibly some demographic thing going on as well. Most on the far right would be strong conservatives, which today means social conservatives, which means white, lower or middle class, and likely religious.  The far left would have a large black contingent, which means large numbers of Baptists and churchgoers. 

By Patrick Appel
The Economist joins auto bailout debate:

The worst sort of bailout would just postpone the inevitable, using tax dollars to buy time without extracting the improved management and labour practices needed to make the Big Three (or some combination of them) genuinely competitive. Far better would be an approach that results in the carmakers having costs more like those of Japanese and South Korean firms, which will mean getting concessions from the unions similar to what Chapter 11 would have forced on them. One interesting idea is for the government to guarantee existing pension promises to workers and retirees in exchange for the unions agreeing to huge job cuts. The pill might also be sweetened with generous unemployment benefits (say for a couple of years) for those let go.

By Patrick Appel
Ross has a very good response to Ruth Marcus:

This is, of course, a pretty good distillation of the case against dynastic politics: Namely, that it transforms the business of republican self-government into a soap opera, in which the public/audience thrills to the "intriguing subplots" involving a President’s daughter, a President’s wife, and a Governor’s son who happens to be the President’s daughter’s sister’s ex-husband … and sighs, enraptured, at the "fairy tale ending" when the President’s daughter grows up to have a Senate seat handed to her as a reward for having endorsed the President-elect. This sort of politics is entertaining to write about, which is one reason why fantasy sagas and Shakespeare are generally more interesting than Washington novels. But after twenty years with the same two families in the White House – which nearly became twenty-four (or twenty-eight) – for a political columnist to endorse a pointless escalation of dynastic politics because it fulfills the fairy-tale mythos her generation spun around a mediocre, tragically-murdered President and his good-looking family isn’t "girly"; it’s an embarrassment.

by Chris Bodenner
Mona Charen calls out liberals for not giving credit where credit’s due:

Motivated perhaps by his deeply felt Christian faith (relieving poverty in Africa has become a major charitable push among evangelicals), the president has pressed for greater aid to Africa across the board. The original PEPFAR legislation … was the largest single health investment by any government ever ($15 billion). … In July of this year, the president requested that funding for PEPFAR be doubled to $30 billion.

Of course the left can say whatever they like about George Bush and the war in Iraq and the war on terror. But when he does something completely in line with their own stated principles and values, it is simply mean-spirited of them to deny him his due.

By Patrick Appel
Hank Stuever hates how the media has discussed the Sean Penn and James Franco kiss in Milk. Corey Scholibo, entertainment editor for the Advocate magazine, vents:

"No one ever asks Neil Patrick Harris what it’s like to play a straight guy who sleeps with lots of women" on the sitcom "How I Met Your Mother"…No one ever asks him how ‘gross’ it is to kiss a woman."

By Patrick Appel

A reader writes:

Though I’m sure it’s makes for a more lurid tale of Great Depression woe, I would think that a more likely cause for the strong uptick (over the last *five years* no less) in offal consumption would be a revived interest in nose-to-tail consumption.  Fergus Henderson and his ilk have brought attention back to classic British offal dishes, and have attempted to renew the enjoyment of the whole animal as environmental mindfulness and thrift. 

So I’d say this is just a case where thoughtful consumption happens to dovetail nicely with economic realities, rather than a scary "my god, no one can afford steaks anymore" harbinger.

Another reader :

It’s too bad that it takes tough economic times for people to recognize the value of offal. The cheapest cuts of meat often prove to be the juiciest, most tender part of the animal when prepared properly. Too often we throw away the undesirable parts because of social taboos or just plain ignorance. Our ancestors knew the importance of using the entire animal. As a child, I used to look in wonder at the head cheese at the supermarket. My mother would tell me how disgusting it was and for years, I believed this was true. Fast forward twenty years and I am a chef, and making head cheese has proved to be not only satisfying in it’s preparation, but it’s delicious.  Not everyone is an adventurous eater, but I have found that if someone does not know what they are eating, they are more inclined to enjoy it.  I have cooked kidneys and heart before, had friends try it, and they loved it.  Upon hearing that what they ate was an organ, they were immediately repulsed and said that it was disgusting.  Where does this aversion to variety meats come from?  Are we too good for anything but tenderloin?  Offal is not awful, it is quite "wondoffal."

As someone who once accidentally ordered trippa (tripe aka cow stomach) at a restraunt in Rome, I can testify that eating all parts of the animal isn’t for everyone. This post from a few months ago by a food-blogger sums up pretty well how I feel about the dish:

This? Was disgusting. Absolutely, positively the worst thing I have ever eaten in my life.

And I was surprised and really bummed. In some part of my twisted little mind, I really did have high expectations for this dish. I kind of wanted it to be excellent, so that I could amaze, astonish, and horrify my friends by ordering tripe when we went out. I wanted to be The Girl Who Is Not Afraid To Order Tripe And In Fact It Makes Her Even Cooler And All The More Sexy Because She Enjoys It. Alas, it was not meant to be.

By Patrick Appel
A few salvos by dish readers. From the pro-NYC contingent:

The "disneylandization" of NYC is narrowly applied to Times Square and that is it, which is understandable as it used to be a den of shall I call it "sin". And, yes, while people in DC may be experts on politics, policy and perhaps even history and law, in NYC everyone is an expert in fashion, art, business, money, popular culture, and "cool."  If you want gritty, leave times square and the city will probably try to steal your wallet. All this and I haven’t even gotten to the sense of being better than everyone else being here gives you.

Another reader counters:

I lived in NYC for 6 years, and I’m going on two here in DC.  One of the things I like about DC is that, unlike New York natives, people from the DC area don’t act like growing up here makes them better than everyone else.  And before you say "what about Tucker Carlson?" – I’ve already anticipated that argument.  He’s the exception that proves the rule.

Yet another reader, writing over at Suderman’s place:

This is not a perennial debate. I’ve never heard anybody in NYC talk about DC with any more passion, good or bad, than they talk about Philadelphia, Boston, LA, etc. Northeasterners who had to move to DC for gummint work half heartedly argue amongst themselves. And, if big city living was your thing, DC was a backwater that couldn’t even get remotely close to NYC until 20-25 years or so ago. Which is about the same time the last remaining native DC families realized their little southern town wasn’t coming back and moved to Loudon County (et. al.)

By Patrick Appel
Wesley Yang’s critique of Mayer is among the more interesting:

…Americans confronting a world of enemies who wish to do it harm have responded to those threats with varying degrees of restraint or its absence, stupidity or wisdom, and have compiled in the process a long and extremely mixed record of both heroism and abuse – sometimes fatally intertwined – that absolutely rules out the kind of wounded innocence that Mayer repeatedly sounds throughout The Dark Side.

That she can sustain this view – and in this she resembles almost every other mainstream writer on the subject – in the face of her knowledge of precedents like Operation Phoenix, and despite the relentless rigour she brings to the pursuit of the darkest truths, testifies to a deeply ingrained predisposition of a certain kind of liberal: those who wish to reconcile a heroic view of the American past with a moralistic approach to foreign affairs.

This matters not just because we should have our historical record straight; it matters because illusions about inherent American virtue are precisely what has led a whole class of well-intentioned Americans to misjudge the limits of American power and its capacity to do good in the world. And that misjudgement is as relevant to the calamity of the last seven years as any of the failures Mayer so meticulously describes.

By Patrick Appel
This insane:

Blagojevich also allegedly spent significant time weighing the option of appointing himself to the open Senate seat and expressed a variety of reasons for doing so, including: frustration at being “stuck” as governor; a belief that he will be able to obtain greater resources if he is indicted as a sitting Senator as opposed to a sitting governor; a desire to remake his image in consideration of a possible run for President in 2016; avoiding impeachment by the Illinois legislature; making corporate contacts that would be of value to him after leaving public office; facilitating his wife’s employment as a lobbyist; and generating speaking fees should he decide to leave public office.

Italics mine. The DOJ press release (pdf) reads like a movie script.