Month: May 2010

As I understood the core premise of Obama's candidacy, it was that we were not going to continue the "Daddy Knows Best"  attitude of Bush-Cheney. Arguments would be made on the merits of the case, disagreement would be welcome, reason would predominate, sunlight would be the best disinfectant. We were all grown up enough to discuss all these things without partisan knees jerking, and without some sequestered and all-powerful executive doing the governing for us.

My worries about the judicial and political blank slate of Elena Kagan is that the slate is not, in fact, blank. And those in the know fully understand what she will do – and their goal at this point is to prevent the public from knowing. A reader captures my unease:

It’s not that we’re all guessing on Kagan.  As I’ve listened to her supporters—Lawrence O’Donnell, Lessig, and others—it’s clear that’s she herself and her views are very well known . . . inside the beltway.  She’s obviously been hob-nobbing with a lot of the villagers (as Digby calls them) for years now, and they're comfortable with her selection.

The clear problem is two-fold:  they are asking us to simply trust them that what they say is true, and because they don’t want to give anything away, they’re not telling Kagan’s potential supporters anything of substance, either.

It’s just as bad as Bush/Cheney in that way:  “Trust us!  We’re the good guys!  We’ll pick the right person for you!”  Not something that makes me any more comfortable than it does Glenn Greenwald.

That seems to be what they want with “terror suspects,” too, and it’s exactly like Bush/Cheney.  “Hey, they’ll get full rights unless they’re terror suspects—then we’ll do all those special things we need to.  How do we know that they might really be terrorists?  Trust us!  We’re the good guys!” Frankly, it’s sickening.

It's certainly not change we can believe in. How can we believe in something we're not even permitted to know?

(Photo: Sen. Scott Brown welcomes U.S. Solicitor General and Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan in his office in the Russell Senate Office Building May 13, 2010 in Washington, DC.By Chip Somodevilla/Getty.)

A reader cuts to the chase:

It’s pretty simple, isn’t it? The Tories have 306 out of 650 seats, or 47%. Therefore, they have enough seats to block a dissolution of Parliament, if they hold together.

Bingo. The question, of course, is whether an arrangement precisely tailored to get Britain through one parliament is a good rule to govern forever thereafter. There is no written constitution, remember. If this provision passes the Commons, it becomes the constitution. A fascinating Canadian perspective here.

"There's something ironic in the fact that the legacy of the New Deal is the inability to reproduce it," – Megan McArdle.

It's not just the emergence of a conservative party at peace with modernity, it's the willingness to compromise that is striking. A reader writes:

It is SO REFRESHING to see an on-paper list of common principles and goals between two parties on the opposite end of the political spectrum. Forcing politicians to compromise and form coalitions is a great strength of the parliamentary system that is sorely missed in America's current political climate, so characterized as it is by "the alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension" (Washington).

Take this line for example: "Provision will be made for Liberal Democrat MPs to abstain on introducing transferable tax allowances for married couples." It speaks volumes about the real potential for this odd political marriage of convenience to actually work and produce sound governance.

I sometimes wish we had in the US a system similar to that in Germany. A lower house that apportions seats solely on the basis of state populations seems a poor solution when citizen loyalty to a specific state has declined and modern technology has made moving from state to state so easy and common. How much better to let blue Alabamians and Red Californians have an elected voice they can point to as their own.

Sara Rubin looks into the impact of Arizona's immigration law on the nation's lettuce supply:

If [migrant] workers are reluctant to return to Arizona, growers may find themselves short on harvesters, in which case "the crops rot in the field," says Wendy Fink-Weber, director of communications for the Western Growers Association, which represents 90 percent of fruit and vegetable growers in Arizona and California. Greens, which are a finicky crop and demand near-perfect conditions, have only about a five-day harvest window after reaching maturity. Each head of lettuce is cut and packed into boxes by hand. The intensive labor associated with growing lettuce—a $1 billion business for Arizona and the state's highest-value crop—accounts for up to 50 percent of the cost of production.

As Second City (Colbert's old haunt) suggests in the video above, tourism could take a hit as well. Original ad here.

A reader writes:

I enjoy your work a lot, particularly the creepy ad watch. Thought I'd send in a suggestion from Saudi Arabia. This is a video condemning terrorists using clowns. Should give people nightmares for years.

That's our job here at the Dish. Al Lisaan provides a translation:

The written lines at the end say “Do not use your silence as a weapon against innocent people” and “Say no to terrorism.” The audio translates to “As you stand idly by terrorists and extremists, you only encourage them to continue the killing and destruction”.

A reader writes:

Plumer has obviously never heard of the "Dead Zone" in the Gulf of Mexico.  Do you really think the media hasn't been busting their butts to get pictures of dead fish and other sea life covered in oil?  The reason they can't is because those animals don't exist.  The Gulf spill happened in the middle of the Gulf's New Jersey-sized dead zone.  The primary cause is actually Mississippi River runoff (fertilizer products). The spill is a tragedy, but the truth is we already killed all the sea life.  This will change if the spill spreads beyond the Gulf or comes onshore.  But for now, the Gulf of Mexico is only marginally less hospitable to animal life than it was a month ago.

Six dead dolphins recently came ashore, though it's still unclear whether the spill was the direct cause.

Conservative home has a helpful summary of the coalition deal. The greatest controversy thus far has surrounded the plan to raise the percentage of votes needed to call a general election. Rather than a bare majority, future parliaments would need 55 percent of the MP’s votes. Here’s Iain Martin:

[T]his fails the fairness test. It is an idea that has been easily and widely grasped for generations inside and outside parliament that if you lose a confidence vote by one then, there’s no way around it, you have lost. Fifty per cent plus one is enough. This seems such an obvious truth that one wonders why it was not apparent to the two parties negotiators that attempting to change the rules might make them look shifty .

Other dissents from Dizzy and Hopi Sen. Massie jumps in:

[U]nless I am hopelessly confused about all this, the provision has nothing to do with confidence votes. The government would still be brought down by losing a confidence motion on a simple majority. But, now that we have fixed-term parliaments, this wouldn’t necessarily trigger a general election. That would only happen if it proved impossible to form a new government and, then, 55% of MPs voted in favour of dissolution and fresh elections.

This is a deeply tricky question – and I have to say my alarm bells go off. I can see how shifting to fixed terms helps this government, but constitutional band-aids for current circumstances, invented under extreme time pressure, have a real tendency to lead to unintended consequences. I’m going to think on this some more.

This thread has quickly taken off. A reader writes:

I work in a public library in a very large American city and have encountered several women in a burqa at the reference desk.  Immediately I am struck by how our culture is not set up for a woman to be almost completely covered like that. I am a woman, and have found myself several times by myself at the reference desk trying to converse with another woman, who happens to be veiled.  The veil made it difficult to hear these women since it covered their mouths. It occurred to me this burqa is not designed for a free society where women are allowed and actually expected to speak for themselves.  Body language communication was impossible to read from these veiled women which is such a huge part of conversing, almost as big as the words actually said.

Another writes:

Last week I encountered a person in a burqa in my crowded suburban Baltimore supermarket. I hadn't realized how much of our public interactions require "feedback" of one sort or another.  Even the minor "excuse me" requires some sort of feedback to properly "read" the other. When I moved closer, I was able to make eye contact and so complete the social dance.  Ironically, this moving closer required me to invade her social space.

Is all this discomfort important enough to outlaw? Of course not. In time with more interactions like this it will become easier to read the other. I will become fluent in reading "Burqa".  This is however a large problem if there is segregation like with Muslims in France.  However can you become fluent enough in other cultures and so adapt to one another in the public space if you have no experience with one another?

Another:

Let me respectfully disagree with your views. The burqa has nothing to do with religious freedom or a woman's "choice" or any of that crap.  It is a form of subjugation.  It is a way to reinforce the notion that women are dangerous and that they belong to men.  It says "you are allowed out of the house only if no one can see you.  Only if you are invisible." It is akin to wearing chains.  

I invite you, and that idiot who compared banning the burqa to banning Red Sox gear, to wear one.  Drape yourself in long, heavy, dark material from head to toe.  Walk around like that for a full freakin' day.  On a hot day, preferably.  It might help put the whole issue in a bit more perspective.  The burqa is NOT comparable to modest or humble clothing, the way long sleeves or a scarf might be.  It is meant to erase one's personhood, and it is very effective.

Women who "choose" to dress like this are women who have been raised from childhood to accept their second-class status.  They have been raised to believe that they are unacceptable to society, and to god, unless they are dressed like this.  Very few have chosen this belief system; it has been imposed on them.  And if they disobey, they are punished.  With violence.  I fail to see the "choice" in this.

Another:

Religious liberty is not a limitless right. As with civil liberties, it has limits. When the British outlawed Sati and Child Marriage in India, it was an encroachment of religious liberty. But, as an proud Indian who is deeply the damage done by colonial rule and a proud Hindu with deep appreciation for Hindu philosophy, I have no doubt that it was fully warranted, and that we are better off for these particular "liberties" being taken away from us. Burqa may not rise to the same level as Sati or Child Marriage. Or perhaps it does. Whether to outlaw Burqa or not should not be based on the faulty notion that there is limitless religious liberty.

Another:

My significant other lives in Rogers Park, about just slightly northwest of Uptown, and that area is also significantly multi-ethnic; women in burqas are there too, and their daughters.  I've spent a lot of time up there recently, living in the neighborhood and brushing past women with burqas.

Unlike your reader, however, I've invested some time in the course of my education to get to know some Muslim communities in the north, and have spoken with a handful of women who wear burqas.  From the ones I've spoken to, their lives are interesting and rich.  And I have spoken to a few of their daughters as well, and more than one has told me that she intends to wear the burqa when the time comes.  Furthermore, a great many have pointed out the very real truth that the freedom to wear what you want is not always as clear-cut in America: sexualized clothing is increasingly prevalent in America and increasingly moving to younger populations of girls, yet no one stops to think that this might also be a form of gender-policing and enforcement.

It is true that women who are willing to speak with a Christian male involved in interfaith relations are not likely to be a random sample.  I am not claiming that these women even remotely emblematic.  I am claiming, however, that these women represent only themselves, and these women would be significantly impacted in their personal religious decisions should a ban like this go into place.  Yet nobody seems to want to, you know, talk to these women and hear what they have to say. People are only interested in passing laws "for their own good."

(Photo: A Muslim woman dressed in niqab (veil which covers the body and leaves only a small strip for the eyes) walks through the streets of Brussels, on April 27, 2010. By Julien Warnand/AFP/Getty.)

"What we actually meant to publish was this rather more detailed and informative round-up of what commentators are saying on that subject. The inadvertent blank page has been removed. Apologies," – Steve Herrmann, BBC online editor.