Month: January 2009

I haven’t commented on the latest circus routine, but it is worth noting David Foster Wallace’s Atlantic profile of the circus-master, John Ziegler:

KFI’s John Ziegler is not a journalist—he is an entertainer. Or maybe it’s better to say that he is part of a peculiar, modern, and very popular type of news industry, one that manages to enjoy the authority and influence of journalism without the stodgy constraints of fairness, objectivity, and responsibility that make trying to tell the truth such a drag for everyone involved. It is a frightening industry, though not for any of the simple reasons most critics give.

Or how you can ruin Shostakovich, Symphony No. 5:

Massie opines:

…it is an iron truth of politics that prolonged success sows the seeds of future downfall. Revolutions run out of steam. They cannot be permanent. More damagingly still, what begins as an unorthodox and surprisingly successful approach calcifies into a stubborn orthodoxy that brooks no dissent, even as times and circumstances change.

The path to power is built upon compromise and flexibility: Thatcher always knew what she wanted to do, but she was also aware, in her early years, of how limited her room for manoevre was – not least because not everyone in her cabinet was on board. If progress was slower than she liked, it was also steadier than when, after 1987, she reigned supreme and hubris began to take its fatal grip. Similarly, Reagan was a vastly more adaptable President than current conservative folklore might have you believe.

In that sense, then. the troubles of Republicanism now and of the Tories in the last 15 years, were built upon their previous successes. The difficulty is that the second (or third) generation is rarely as talented or adaptable as the trailblazers who won power in the first place. Instead of finding fresh ideas and solutions, they inherit positions and prejudices that, because they worked once before, are assumed to be eternal truths rather than particular answers to particular problems at a particular time.

Gloucester, Virginia, 5.10 pm.

William Saletan joins the PTSD debate.

When I came to America from Britain, the gay rights movement was way ahead here of the old country. No longer. Here is a list of the most powerful openly gay people in Britain. The whole list is a staggering contrast with the US. At the top:

1. Spencer Livermore, 32, Director of Political Strategy, 10 Downing Street
2. Nick Brown, 57, Deputy Chief Whip, MP for Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend
3. Peter Mandelson, 54, EU Trade Commissioner. He’s back in the cabinet as Business secretary and Brown’s main spin doctor.
4. Angela Eagle, 46, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, MP for Wallasey
5. Ben Bradshaw, 47, Minister of State for Health Services, MP for Exeter
6. Andrew Pierce, 46, Assistant Editor, Daily Telegraph. Julian Glover, Matthew Parris partner, is opinion editor al The Guardian.

The bigotry that infects the Republican party and the cynicism and cowardice that dominates the Democrats on this issue prevent such success and integration in America. And yet many of the causes that have prevailed in Britain – marriage equality and military service, for example – were pioneered on this side of the Atlantic.

Jacob Grier looks at Arlington, Virginia and sees the benefits of a light touch in anti-smoking regimes:

Arlington makes an interesting test case. It’s one of the wealthiest, most liberal cities in the country, and residents would surely approve a smoking ban if they were allowed to. Fortunately they’re restrained by Virginia law that forbids local anti-smoking ordinances to exceed the state’s own rules. Every year a statewide ban is introduced in the senate and immediately shot down by the tobacco-friendly house.

The fact that popular bars and established restaurants are voluntarily choosing to restrict smoking shows that ban opponents have been right all along: given demand for smokefree environments, profit-seeking business owners will eventually provide them, if not as immediately as a legislative ban would. And as someone who generally prefers bars with clean air, I think that’s fantastic — as long as dive bars like Jay’s or the backroom cigar lounge at EatBar remain free to set their own policies too.

On a related note, Steve Verdon doesn’t take kindly to the idea of "third hand smoke."

It depends who you ask. Financial journalists in aggregate:

It should be noted that the journalists are now very bearish. Asked when the recession would end, 31% said early 2010, 26% said mid-2010, 22% said January 2011, and 21% said even later.  The survey also asked where the DJIA would close on June 30, 2009. The average of the responses was 8639.12, or about 100 points lower than today. Since journalists screwed up so badly last time and are reliably contrary indicators, this might be a signal that we’re in for a quick recovery.

The official line:

The consensus (and the Fed forecast) is that the economy will bottom in Q2 2009 with a sluggish recovery in the 2nd half of this year.

Nouriel Roubini aka "Dr. Doom":

The U.S. recession will last two full years, with gross domestic product falling a cumulative 5%, said Nouriel Roubini, … For 2009, Roubini predicts GDP will fall 3.4%, with declines in every quarter of the year. The unemployment rate should peak at about 9% in early 2010.

A reader writes:

The "shrinking map of Palestine" to which you link is incomplete and inaccurate.  I offer only three examples.

 

First, its initial map of Palestine ignores at least two relevant points.  (A) Under the Ottoman Empire, "Palestine" did not exist as a political entity.  (B) In 1917, the British conquered the land on both sides of the Jordan River. Initially, the Palestine Mandate included both territories.  This is why, before its annexation of the West Bank, the country now known as Jordan was called "Transjordan."  Please see this Wikipedia map.  In 1922 (others say 1923), Britain unilaterally partitioned the land into "Palestine," comprising what today are Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, and "Transjordan."  Some extreme Jewish nationalists and messianists claim that that partition either provided the Arabs of Palestine with a homeland ("Jordan is Palestine") or wrongfully deprived Jews of a part of our rightful patrimony — "the Jordan has two banks, and both are ours."

 

Second, the author omits a map of the partition proposed by the Peel Commission in 1937, which the Jewish Agency for Palestine, under David Ben Gurion, accepted, but the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee (under the Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin el-Husseini) rejected. You can see how much land that rejection cost them.

Third, the caption under 2006 map reads: "Israeli government seeks to impose final borders by 2010."  I don’t know what Mr. Lahoud’s source is, but so far as I am aware, however inadequate their conception of final borders may have been, neither the Sharon nor Olmert governments have tried to "impose" them.

 

Of greater concern, are the fabricated quotations appearing below the maps.  I’ll limit myself to the first one: "We must expel Arabs and take their places."  Ephraim Karsh has shown that Ben Gurion actually wrote: "We do not wish, we do not need to expel Arabs and take their place." Note that Karsh is criticizing Benny Morris, who cited Shabtai Teveth, the unattributed author of the work cited by Mr. Lahoud.  In a more recent history, Morris has accepted the accuracy of Karsh’s translation.  (See Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001.)

Michael Cohen is disappointed:

This failure to recognize PTSD has real consequences. Not only will those who are suffering not receive the added — and much-needed — medical benefits that come to Purple Heart recipients, but the stigma around mental illness in the military is only perpetuated by this action. One can only imagine the chilling effect that this decision will have on soldiers already uncomfortable about facing mental illness.