Month: October 2011

"For these kids who are driving this thing, being in The New York Times doesn’t mean shit to them. It’s not their frame of reference," – Danny Schechter, a documentary filmmaker, on OWS.

Morro Bay, California, 8 pm

Bryan Caplan presents the "Rotten Spouse Theorem":

Even after a bitter divorce, people often pay their ex a compliment: "He was a bad husband, but he's always been a good father" or "She was a bad wife, but she's always been a good mother." Gracious, yes. But accurate? Hard to see how. A family isn't a set of independent relationships. They're all connected. Damaging one foreseeably damages the other.

This is particularly obvious when parents fight in front of their children. When your children hear you yell at your wife, you don't just hurt her feelings. You hurt their feelings. Thoughtful parents often respond with a "not in front of the children" pact. It's a good idea, but changes nothing fundamental. If you make decisions that hurt your spouse, you have to expect your children to suffer, too – even if they never connect the dots. … [P]robabilistically, you have to expect your family members' pain to move in unison. Think general equilibrium: The way you treat your spouse ripples out to your children.

Sam Harris thinks deeply about our most fundamental enigma:

It is surely a sign of our intellectual progress that a discussion of consciousness no longer has to begin with a debate about its existence. To say that consciousness may only seem to exist is to admit its existence in full—for if things seem any way at all, that is consciousness.

Even if I happen to be a brain in a vat at this moment—all my memories are false; all my perceptions are of a world that does not exist—the fact that I am having an experience is indisputable (to me, at least).  This is all that is required for me (or any other conscious being) to fully establish the reality of consciousness.

Consciousness is the one thing in this universe that cannot be an illusion.⁠

(Photo: Self-portrait of a crested black macaque)

A brooding Rick Perry reevaluates his campaign. 

TNR piles on:

Gingrich has one of the loosest, least rigorous, most pretentious minds in politics. He loves ideas, he’s just no good at them; and the idea of ideas is not enough to make a man a serious intellectual. The bloopers in his works of history—fiction and nonfiction, and nonfiction that turns out to be fiction—are legendary.

(Countless more "plans" at Newt's Twitter)

Many readers are upset that I endorsed the conflation of these two protests (click to enlarge). The most astute among them:

The Tea Party photo is funny because one of the protesters has a sign that says "Zero taxes" (and another that appears to say "Stop Taxing Us") – an absolutist message that doesn't make sense given the context. The illustration of Occupy Wall Street tries to ascribe the same absolutist ideas to OWS, but is there any evidence that the complete elimination of all corporations is a goal of OWS? I'm sure there are a few members who hold this view, sure, but overall the message is 1) specific to the financial sector and 2) rather than pure "anti-corporate" they just want things to be *slightly less bad* than they are right now, and give more citizens a shot at the American Dream. In sum: it would be a funnier/better point if the OWS picture had a sign that said "zero corporations."

My impression of the OWS crowds is that they express an almost fanatical hatred of anything called a "corporation." Pointing out that their world is saturated with corporations is perfectly valid as a wry critique. Not brilliant, but worth a gander.

Goldblog takes on an emerging right-wing meme:

Sure, there is going to be hostile anti-Jewish feeling expressed at the margins of any populist movement, but a) it appears as if the people expressing these thoughts in the video are real outliers; b) it's obvious to me that most people who attend these rallies are angry about corporate greed and excessive CEO compensation (among other financial concerns) and not about Israel or perfidious Jews; and c) this movement has (like most political movements, actually) disproportionate Jewish representation. To say that there are occasional outbursts of anti-Semitism at Occupy Wall Street is not to say that Occupy Wall Street itself is antisemitic.

Michelle Goldberg sees these isolated yet horrific outburts as inevitable consequences of a leaderless movement:

The charge that Occupy Wall Street is shot through with anti-Semitism is dishonest and deceptive. But it’s built around a kernel of truth. There are a few Jew-baiters at Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan, though they are marginal, particularly compared to the large numbers of Jewish activists taking part. Yet the leaderless, diffuse nature of the movement, in some ways its greatest strength, also makes it hard to police bigots, bullies, and cranks. This isn’t just about Jews—Occupy Wall Street’s ability to find some measure of unity and discipline amid a commitment to anarchy will determine whether it is able to grow beyond demonstrating widespread disaffection with the status quo.

A reader writes:

Teju Cole's tweets remind me a lot of Felix Feneon's "Novels in Three Lines". His three-line crime and accident reports appeared in Le Matin in 1906. Some samples, in Luc Sante's translation:

Pauline Rivera, 20, repeatedly stabbed, with a hatpin, the face of the inconstant Luthier, a dishwasher of Chatou, who had underestimated her.

At the station in Macon, Mouroux Mouroux had his legs severed by an engine. 'Look at my feet on the tracks!" he cried, then fainted.

Catherine Rosello of Toulon, mother of four, got out of the way of a freight train. She was then run over by a passenger train.

Feneon was, among other things, a tweeter avant la lettre.

Another reader serves up more from the collection:

Again and again Mme Couderc, of Saint-Ouen, was prevented from hanging herself from her window bolt.  Exasperated, she fled across the fields.

A dishwasher from Nancy, Vital Frerotte, who had just come back from Lourdes cured forever of tuberculosis, died Sunday by mistake.

Finding his daughter, 19, insufficiently austere, Jallat, watchmaker of Saint-Etienne, killed her.  It is true that he has eleven children left.

Another:

There is no longer a God even for drunkards. Kersilie, of St.-Germain, who had mistaken the window for the door, is dead.

Lit by her son, 5, a signal flare burst under the skirts of Mme. Roger, of Clichy; damages were considerable.

On the bowling lawn a stroke leveled M. André, 75, of Levallois. While his ball was still rolling he was no more.

In Oyonnax, Mlle. Cottet, 18, threw acid in the face of M. Besnard, 25. Love, obviously.

Perry's jobs plan might be refried bullshit beans, but his commercials are well executed:

As always, I'll be live-blogging the debate tonight to see if he can regain some cred. Blogosphere and reader reax will follow. See you at 8 pm.