Month: December 2009

Write Like Sarah Palin

Slate held a contest. One submission:

"The minute I was on that stage in Florida with all those lights in my eyes and the smell of Alaska still on my fingertips and my family, too, all around out there, I was where I dreamed of all those years on the basketball court and in Alaskas's God given beauty which we must cherish and use as God gave it us to use and in honor of the troops, also."

Another good one:

"Reaching the peak of Igikpak, that majestic mount, feeling the smooth Alaskan wind rustle against my cheeks, watching over this vast yet tender land that epitomized so much of America's resplendent pulchritude, and slowly squeezing the trigger on the wolf cub I'd been tracking through my crosshairs, I suddenly felt in my heart something I had always known to be true: the capital-gains tax must be eliminated."

The Dark Side Of Dubai

Johann Hari delved into it last week:

The people who really built the city can be seen in long chain-gangs by the side of the road, or  toiling all day at the top of the tallest buildings in the world, in heat that Westerners are told not to stay in for more than 10 minutes. They were conned into coming, and trapped into staying. In their home country – Bangladesh or the Philippines or India – these workers are told they can earn a fortune in Dubai if they pay a large upfront fee. When they arrive, their passports are taken from them, and they are told their wages are a tenth of the rate they were promised. They end up working in extremely dangerous conditions for years, just to pay back their initial debt. They are ringed-off in filthy tent-cities outside Dubai, where they sleep in weeping heat, next to open sewage. They have no way to go home. And if they try to strike for better conditions, they are beaten by the police.

Relatedly, James Estrin presents a photo essay of the city's decadent decline.

(Photo: OLIVER LANG/AFP/Getty Images. Hat tip: 3QD)

The Celebrity-Political Complex

Matt Bai observes the revolving door between media and public service:

Now it seems that Cronkite’s brief moment as a vice-presidential contender may have been the first inevitable step down a treacherous path. Today we’re not at all surprised to hear names like Chris Matthews and Lou Dobbs tossed around as candidates for higher office. And while it used to be that only political aides of notable talent, people like Bill Moyers and Pat Buchanan and George Stephanopoulos (and, well, Chris Matthews), could make the tricky transition from politics to TV news, now it’s the politicians themselves — Joe Scarborough, Mike Huckabee — who find themselves ensconced as hosts on a cable-TV set. The door between politics and television news now isn’t merely revolving; it spins so fast and so continuously that a fair number of people no longer seem to belong neatly on one side or the other. Is Sarah Palin, at this point, a politician, or is she the star of some “frontier family” reality show? In fact, she seems to realize that the changed environment allows her to be both at the same time.

Continued here.

The View From Your Recession

A reader writes:

I work for a small municipality that serves 40,000 people. As our fiscal year restarted in October we had about 10 jobs open up, ranging from Public Works ($12/hr) to policeman/woman ($42k/yr) to Jailer ($15/hr) to PD Dispatch ($14.50/hr). These aren't high paying jobs, though benefits are included. I am here to tell you that I have never, in my 10 years here, seen so many people come in to apply for a job. We are getting ALL types of people, most of whom I know have a zero chance of getting hired just by the looks of them (I know, a bit judgmental, but believe me, it's that obvious). Every day HR is processing gobs of applications. An HR rep just told me they have gotten about 400 apps for the 10 positions that have been open since October 1. And 80% of them won't even qualify for consideration, based on a municipalities stricter hiring guidelines.

Makes clear to me that at least one demographic is getting hit hard, the working poor.

“Common Sense”

Damon Linker traces the history of the term:

[Professor of psychology Jonathan] Haidt claims to have found that American liberals and conservatives merely differ on which aspects of common sense they prize most highly—with liberals tending to esteem fairness and care and conservatives leaning toward loyalty, respect, and purity. If this finding ends up being confirmed by further studies, it would show not that one ideological outlook or another is more commonsensical than other, but rather that the content of common sense is somewhat fluid or changeable within certain broad parameters—and that to a considerable extent it mirrors our political opinions and ideological commitments (or vice versa). 

Yglesias spins.

The Daily Wrap

Today on the Dish the coverage our relatively thin, except for the latest bombshell dropped by Sarah Palin. Andrew reacted here. Far-right bloggers squirmed, one let loose his imagination, another took a commendable stand, and Ben Smith talked Trig.

Also, Andrew's addressed the buzz over his "leaving the right" post and replied to a reader dissent over Israeli settlements.

— C.B.

The Press and Palin And Trig

A journalist reader writes:

I take slight exception to this passage:

“They are simply basic questions anyone would ask of a person who had recounted such an amazing tale. And yet not a single journalist has done so.”

I repeatedly asked the McCain/Palin campaign last year to address questions about her strange delivery story, and I’m sure a number of other journalists did as well. The campaign simply refused.

Now, it’s true that no one who has interviewed Palin in person has asked direct questions about the Texas/Alaska labor experience. But that says more about who Palin picks for interviews than it does about journalists generally.

That was what I was referring to: direct on-the-record televised or reported questions about the story. No one did. Not even Oprah when the whole bizarre story – riveting for any mother – is in Palin's book. But look at this again: a journalist asked a valid question, as I did repeatedly, and

The campaign simply refused.

This is a democracy?

A Child As Political Prop

A reader writes:

As the parent of a child with a developmental disability, it pains me to see Sarah Palin lug little Trig all over the place.  Early intervention services, which are free, are available for children as young as Trig in a family's home state.  My daughter is a teenager now.  Early intervention services were key for her development.  Even if Trig is receiving services privately while traveling, it would be great for his mother to discuss this during the tour.  More information on early intervention is available on the National Down Syndrome Society website here.

Forgetting The Campaign

Liberal activist Tom Hayden is so mad at Obama for the Afghan escalation that he is removing his Obama bumper sticker “until the withdrawal strategy is fully carried out.” Alex Koppelman sighs:

It’s one thing for liberals who’ve supported Obama to disagree with and criticize him over Afghanistan, for them to have been hoping he’d opt for a different direction. But arguments like the one Hayden’s making — and the one Michael Moore made in his recent open letter to the president — just end up with those advancing them look foolish. It’s like they dreamed up a list of policy positions for Obama, then convinced themselves that they actually were his positions.

Agree or disagree with Obama’s decision, one thing is clear: The course he chose is not, as both Hayden and Moore have implied, some radical shift in his thinking.