Month: August 2011

An unseemly new business model:

Exploiting Florida’s liberal public-records laws and Google’s search algorithms, a handful of entrepreneurs are making real money by publicly shaming people who’ve run afoul of Florida law. Florida.arrests.org, the biggest player, now hosts more than 4 million mugs. On the other side of the equation are firms like RemoveSlander, RemoveArrest.com and others that sometimes charge hundreds of dollars to get a mugshot removed. On the surface, the mug-shot sites and the reputation firms are mortal enemies. But behind the scenes, they have a symbiotic relationship that wrings cash out of the people exposed.

Jon Michaud revisits “American Hair: Its Rises and Falls,” a 1938 New Yorker article by Lewis Gannett:

Gannett remarks that the New World was discovered and settled almost entirely by men with whiskers:

Balboa and Magellan and Sebastian Cabot, Cotes, Pizarro, Ponce de Leon, and De Soto, Champlain and Cartier, Hawkins and Drake, Captain John Smith, Sir Walter Raleigh, John Winthrop, and the first Lord Baltimore all were bearded men.

But, by the eighteenth century, due in part to the influence of the Puritans, the beard was out and the wig was in. “Not one of the signers of the American Constitution wore a beard or even a mustache,” Gannett notes. Even Uncle Sam, in his earliest incarnation, dating to 1852, was clean-shaven. It was not until Abraham Lincoln that we had a President with a full beard.

(Image: the Grant Administration, also known as "the hairiest in our history.")

So claims RJ Hillhouse:

Forget the cover story of waterboarding-leads-to-courier-leads-to bin Laden…Sources in the intelligence community tell me that after years of trying and one bureaucratically insane near-miss in Yemen, the US government killed OBL because a Pakistani intelligence officer came forward to collect the approximately $25 million reward from the State Department's Rewards for Justice program.

Last week the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops gave us their view (pdf) on what our priorities should should be in the budget debate:

The moral measure of this budget debate is not which party wins or which powerful interests prevail, but rather how those who are jobless, hungry, homeless or poor are treated. Their voices are too often missing in these debates, but they have the most compelling moral claim on our consciences and our common resources.

The question is whether that moral claim must be answered by politics and coercive redistribution or by personal commitment and Christian charity. I prefer a model where the state is modest – no government can feel "compassion" – and frees up the space for Christians and people of good will of all faiths and none can help those around them. In that sense, I'd like compassionate conservatism to be put out of its misery. Amy Sullivan fears austerity has killed it:

The days of Stephen Goldsmith and John DiIulio and even George W. Bush are over just as much as those of the Nelson Rockefeller Republicans. There are two dominant responses to tough economic times – redoubled altruism and redoubled libertarianism – and the Tea Party adamantly stands for the latter.

What I find troubling about this formulation, again, is the notion of the government redoubling altruism. It's a fundamental category error, in my view, although I do believe that in the current climate, the burden of austerity should fall on those most able to shoulder it, and we should do what we can to protect the truly vulnerable. Hence my support for universal healthcare. In some ways, I think the current Great Recession makes it more, rather than less, vital.

The Economist explains the discrepancy between China's population today with what it would be if the one-child policy had been strictly enforced:

If each woman had been allowed only one child since 1980, China’s population would have been 340m smaller than it was in 2010. If a strict one-child limit were in force for the rest of this century China’s population would shrink to less than 145m by 2100, 800m fewer than the UN projects in its central scenario.

Cord Jefferson tries:

It’s a frustrating world for those of us who have intentionally opted out. When it comes to buying or leasing homes and other big-ticket items, we’re penalized for a history of living within our means and buying only what we can afford. Financial asceticism is supposed to be virtuous in America, especially in the midst of a political clime that denounces debt like it’s some kind of domestic terrorism. But when it comes to credit cards, we’re unwilling to put our Amex where our mouth is.

I haven't had a credit card for years, because I actually live like a fiscal conservative. I have one debit card and one Amex. And because of this, I was unable to get a mortgage on a second home in Provincetown! That's the kind of perverse logic of the last decade. People with massive credit card debt who regularly made payments were given mortgages they couldn't afford. People who'd saved and only bought when they had the actual means were punished. That's why I'm somewhat ambivalent about protecting people from credit card sheisters. No one has to get a credit card or get into debt. They can live more frugally.

David Wolman explains how "even when credit cards only exist at the periphery of our experience, they can boost our willingness to pay or borrow":

[In an] experiment, subjects entering the room where the research took place happened to see some credit card paraphernalia on a desk. The artifacts were supposed to appear irrelevant and the subjects were asked how much they would be willing to pay for an array of items. The subjects had been exposed to something without thinking about it directly. Merely by “decorating the experimental setting” with this visual equivalent of a subconscious whisper—credit card—willingness to pay jumped 50 to 200% compared to the control group.

Carli Davidson's series of shaking dogs is getting lots of buzz. Previous portraits by the Dish's favorite pet photographer here, here and here.

Chait counters Krugman:

It begins as a policy argument (we need more stimulus) which is true. But then it quickly acknowledges that Congress won't pass more stimulus, so it switches to a political argument (Obama should attack Congress for opposing more stimulus.)

So now we're not really arguing about what to do about the economy. We're arguing about political messaging. But it's pretty clear that the concept of economic stimulus is unpopular. People think it's a big waste of money. So what is the value of devoting a lot of presidential energy to an unpopular message? There's no real evidence that sustained presidential rhetoric can change people's minds on issues where they've formed an opinion.

A reader writes:

Obama was a storytelling candidate. He promised us two things: a new voice and perspective that understood the deep, structural and interconnected problems facing the United States as of 2008, and an approach to solving them that would free us from the zero-sum, Baby Boomer-driven politics of the previous two decades (and arguably much longer than that). You wrote magnificently about both, and bought into Obama's potential as a transcendent figure ("Goodbye to All That") sooner and more deeply than anyone.

But you have to face it, Andrew: it hasn't happened.

What you (and I) thought was a phenomenon mostly inherent/related to the Clintons and Bushes is structural; it has far more to do with the closed informational loop on the Right and the Aileses and Kristols and Norquists and Limbaughs guarding the door… guys who sure as hell weren't going to let Obama in, no matter how even-keeled his temperament or how many nice things he said about Reagan. And to their credit, they signaled this from Day One: they meant to resist and destroy this president. They denied his democratic legitimacy–as they do any and every Democrat's. You know this.

In the face of this dynamic, Obama had a choice. He could either draw the lines between his vision and theirs, make the case clearly and repeatedly that his policies were designed to lift us out of the muck the Republicans had left us in, and send the message that government was not only not "the problem" but, when managed with competence and modesty, could defend the vulnerabilities and advance the interests of middle- and working-class Americans. Or he could persist in his pose as the man above it all, the only adult in the room. 

He chose door number two, and the results are that his (real) accomplishments go unappreciated if not unnoticed; his heretofore most dedicated supporters start to wonder why they should bother fighting for a leader who seems so disinclined to fight for them; his opponents go from fight to fight in ever-greater confidence that they can roll him; and those who don't pay as much attention just think he's weak.

I desperately hope I'm wrong about this, but I think in a year you'll see it clearly–when Obama runs for re-election using the Bush 2004 playbook in reverse, seeking a second term not on his record or his forward vision but by trying to scare the country away from whatever Republican ultimately runs against him. This is valid enough–they are a terrifying bunch–but it's never particularly satisfying to vote your fears, particularly when four years ago the same candidate spoke so eloquently to our highest hopes.

Here's why I don't buy this. First, it is not in Obama's character and the Angry Black Man dynamic it ould have entailed would have been brutal on him. I think they've tried to goad him in order to provoke exactly this response that would give them a natural, racist advantage. His refusal to take the bait means an awful amount of disappointment in his base, but is, I think, the least worst tactic given his race and personality.

Secondly, if you want to change that hideous dynamic, rooted in the 1960s culture war, you don't repeat it. You defeat it by consistent, relentless reason. Obama will be a transformative president only if he pulls this off, because he will have transformed our political culture for the better. As for his re-election campaign, just watch. The man has a long record of George HW Bush competence and quiet governance, but unlike GHWB, he can also unleash rhetoric that obliterates his opponents. Imagine a debate between him and Perry. Christianist swagger vs Christian calm. This is not weakness. It is a deeper form of strength.

Heidelberg, Germany, 12 pm