Month: December 2008

Hitchens tackles the Warren dust up:

…if the speaker says that heaven is a real place but that you will not get there if you are Jewish, or that Mormonism is a cult and a false religion but that other churches and faiths are the genuine article, then you know that the bigot has spoken. That’s all in a day’s work for the wonderful world of the American evangelical community, and one wishes them all the best of luck in their energetic fundraising and their happy-clappy Sunday "Churchianity" mega-feel-good fiestas. However, do we want these weirdos and creeps officiating in any capacity at the inauguration of the next president of the United States?

Heather Mac Donald differs. You all know what I think by now: it’s time for some eggnog.

(Actually, I find eggnog disgusting. Have you tried the new honey Jagermeister?)

A video podcast blog – about big hairy, bearded guys playing and featured in video games. Niche marketing. But what a niche.

The robot babysitters are coming:

Models now on the market range from the Hello Kitty robot — "perfect … for whoever does not have a lot time to stay with child," proclaims a vendor — to NEC’s PaPeRo, which tells jokes, gives quizzes and uses radio-frequency identification chips to track kids. In another generation, these sophisticated machines will likely seem quaint.

"The question is, if robots could take care of your children, would you let them?" said [Clifford Nass, director of Stanford’s Communications Between Humans and Interactive Media Lab].

"What does it communicate about our society that we’re not making child-care a number-one priority?"

Nass pointed out that surveys show people are least willing to use robots as massage therapists, even though robots could make excellent masseurs. The reason, he said, is the meaning of a massage.

"There are some things you do for symbolic reasons, not technical reasons," he said.

St. Andrews, Scotland, 8 am.

Megan believes the government shouldn’t and can’t successfully refinance people’s mortgages:

Whether or not it should, there are certainly situations where the government can prop up prices artificially.  But the housing market is too big, and too dislocated, for that to work at this point.  The supply curve and the demand curve will find each other–and given the overhang of new construction, I’d guess that in the near future, they’ll meet at a point even lower than we’re seeing now.

Josh Marshall doesn’t want a bailout of real estate developers either.

Gregory Cowles reflects:

Whatever else it’s remembered for in the publishing industry, 2008 may be remembered as the year that e-books finally caught on. Kindles are a regular sight on my train these days, and seem likely to become as ubiquitous as iPods: due to unexpected demand (or shrewd marketing?) Amazon sold out well before the holidays and established a Kindle waiting list, elevating the device to the vaunted commercial realm of Birkin bags and Tickle-Me-Elmos. Meanwhile, executives at one publishing house recently told me they now read all of their manuscript submissions on Sony Readers, not paper, and they may eliminate bound galleys in favor of electronic review copies.

(Hat tip: Jacobs)

The soon-to-be-former-president stimulates the Turkish economy:

The shoe hurled at President George W. Bush has sent sales soaring at the Turkish maker as orders pour in from Iraq, the U.S. and Iran.

The brown, thick-soled “Model 271” may soon be renamed “The Bush Shoe” or “Bye-Bye Bush,” Ramazan Baydan, who owns the Istanbul-based producer Baydan Ayakkabicilik San. & Tic., said in a telephone interview today.

“We’ve been selling these shoes for years but, thanks to Bush, orders are flying in like crazy,” he said. “We’ve even hired an agency to look at television advertising.”

(Hat tip: Tyler)

It’s important to remember, it seems to me, that this wasn’t the year about Obama. Something else was going on, and the candidate himself identified it as early as June 2007:

The truth is, one man cannot make a movement. No single law can erase the prejudice in the heart of a child who hangs a noose on a tree. Or in the callousness of a prosecutor who bypasses justice in the pursuit of vengeance. No one leader, no matter how shrewd, or experienced, or inspirational, can prevent teenagers from killing other teenagers in the streets of our cities, or free our neighborhoods from the grip of homelessness, or make real the promise of opportunity and equality for every citizen.

Only a country can do those things. Only this country can do those things. That’s why if you give me the chance to serve this nation, the most important thing I will do as your President is to ask you to serve this country, too. The most important thing I’ll do is to call on you every day to take a risk, and do your part to carry this movement forward. Against deep odds and great cynicism I will ask you to believe that we can right the wrong we see in America. I say this particularly to the young people who are listening today. …

I know that you believe it’s possible too.

(Photo: from an Obama rally in Iowa, a long, long time ago now, by Scott Olson/Getty.)

One returns to a speech that will, I suspect, be remembered long after the Obama presidency is over. Here’s a trip down 2008 lane from the Dish, grappling with the Wright speech. It brings up themes reignited by the Warren selection:

Much of Wright’s worldview I find repugnant. But some of it I also find inspiring. And in trying to understand it in its totality, I do try to think about the racial context and history of America. And so there is a difference, pace Jonah, between a white charlatan like Robertson who chooses to demonize minorities in the name of Jesus and a pastor like Wright who vents rage against a majority that has, in the not-so-distant past, given African-Americans every reason to be angry. And there is a difference between a white politician (like Bush) who seeks to enjoy the support of a Robertson without ever challenging his ugly dimensions and a black politician who, while remaining in a congregation like Wright’s, nonetheless has written and spoken as movingly as anyone in my lifetime about the need for racial reconciliation and understanding.

Maybe this is a bridge too far. But in thinking about Obama for this past year, and reading the subtle critique of, say, Shelby Steele, as well as the palpable racial discomfort of some white conservatives, I have to say that it is precisely the wide span of Obama’s bridge that makes me admire him. He has refused to disown Wright, while also refusing to endorse all of his message. You can call that opportunistic or expedient or cynical. You can also call it intelligent and brave and principled.

Refusing to disown Wright must now be seen in the context of refusing to disown Warren. Continued here. The full text of Obama’s speech here.