Month: February 2014

Tanner Colby regrets that “there is rarely any thoughtful critique of the left when it comes to race.” He kicks off a multi-part series on the subject by criticizing the effort to integrate schools in the post-Brown south:

Bouie supports Colby’s broader point but thinks it’s unfair to discount the political circumstances:

“You have to realize that busing had been used for decades to promote segregation,” [Virginia Commonwealth University history professor Brian Daugherity said, pointing to one Virginia county that, for example, bused black students to the black school and white students to the white one. “For liberal policymakers in the 1960s, it wasn’t a stretch to say ‘You’ve been using busing to promote segregation, we want to use it to promote integration instead.’” …

I should say that I don’t disagree with Colby about the efficacy of busing. But one thing is clear to me: If you’re going to criticize the political approach of anyone, you need to consider the context in which they were working. If busing was a key part of the integrationist arsenal, it was because it was a key part of the segregationist one as well. And if liberals lost the war on segregation, it’s because there wasn’t—and isn’t—the will to win.

A reader goes beyond the utility of the language:

In my opinion, one doesn’t learn French for practical reasons (although one of your readers did make a case along those lines). Rather, one learns French because it is beautiful. Some of the most adventurously intellectual, rigorously philosophical, and inventive, artistic, and creative minds just happen to have been shaped by the French language. To mention only a few examples: the poets Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarmé, Apollinaire, Jacob, Valéry, Artaud, et. al. The list of French philosophers is even longer: Abelard, Montaigne, Descartes, Voltaire, Diderot, Comte, Bergson, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Barthes, Foucault, and the rest.

I could go on listing French composers, playwrights, novelists, scientists, and the like. But to my mind the best defense for the French language is an Irishman:

Samuel Beckett wrote some of his most important works in French, including his masterpiece Waiting for Godot and the trio of novels Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable. Beckett consciously chose to write in French, because it freed him creatively and allowed him to develop a style that he would not have developed otherwise.

Language both shapes culture and is a reflection of culture. To rate languages accordingly to how “useful” they are, as McWhorter does, is peculiarly vulgar and offensive. It also indicates an oblivious attitude toward the beauties and mysteries of all languages, not only French.

Another reader:

As a French major, I can say that studying la langue was great. But not for Molière or Rimbaud. (Yes, for Paris …) Rather, it’s the way one’s brain stretches and re-forms when confronted with alternate cultural architecture for seeing, sorting, and comprehending the world around you. To discover, for instance, that the French language has no word for “wilderness” – for a kid from the West, that was a mind-blower. “My cultural foundation does not exist in your worldview.” That is why language is such a powerful thing to study.

American children need more opportunities to be shocked out of their America-centric universe, and to see that meaning is fleeting and culture-dependent. If the temptation of croissants and a sweet tooth for Orangina gets a kid to study French, bravo. Whatever the language, the better a child (or adult) will be for it.

Daniel Gross applauds CVS for its decision to stop selling tobacco products by October 1:

Yes, CVS is a massive operator of bricks-and-mortar stores that contain pharmacies and sell cosmetics and other items. But that’s not all CVS does. Not by a long shot. In fact, the corporate parent is known as CVS Caremark. Why? In 2007, CVS merged with Caremark RX, a huge pharmacy benefits manager (PBM). PMBs, as their name implies, manage the prescription drug components of Medicare and other public and private insurance programs. And that’s a huge and growing business.

Jonathan Cohn points out that CVS is abandoning one industry in favor of another:

For the past few years, pharmacy chains have been providing the care that more traditional medical practices cannot.

In the next few years, the chains hope to provide a lot more of it. On a conference call Wednesday morning, Troyen Brennan, MD, chief medical officer for CVS, said the company already has 800 clinics in operation and plans to expand to 1500. That seems roughly consistent with the national trend. A recent study from Accenture suggested the number of clinics would double between 2012 and 2015.

This growth is what prompted CVS to stop tobacco sales, according to company officials: “We are retooling ourselves as a company,” Brennan said. “How can you continue to sell tobacco when you are part of the health care system?”

Kliff agrees:

CVS has increasingly moved beyond its traditional role as a pharmacy in recent years, expanding its reach as a health-care provider. Its MinuteClinics services have allowed the company to increasingly enter into contracts with hospitals and health plans, often providing primary care services on the weekends and evenings, when doctors’ offices tend to be closed.

CVS chief medical officer Troyen A. Brennan estimates that the company has between 30 and 40 partnerships with health-care systems across the country and is in talks with a similar number about starting additional arrangements. He said the decision to halt tobacco sales will make it easier to strike such deals, particularly those that include financial rewards for CVS if they can help patients stop smoking and reduce their medical bills.

Olga Khazan looks at how this decision might affect CVS’s competitors:

CVS is far from the only player in the retail-clinic space: Walgreens, Target, and Walmart all have their own versions. And as more and more big-box stores become homes for primary care, they may face identity crises because they sell the vice-oriented products that make consumers feel good alongside the services that make them well. Even as CVS stops offering cigarettes within 20 feet of a physician assistant’s practice, its competitors might continue to do so. And beyond tobacco, Walmart might encounter PR issues over the fact that it sells, say, Jack Daniels and cirrhosis treatments under one roof, or shot guns and wound care. Some states have even considered legislation that would prevent retail clinics from operating in stores that sell tobacco or alcohol.

Yglesias wonders if the pharmacy chain will remove other unhealthy items from its shelves:

[T]he cigarettes issue seems to me to mostly raise the question of how far CVS can really go down this road. After all, I was in CVS just yesterday to buy myself some Diet Coke. The Diet Coke sits next to the sugary sodas. And they’re across the aisle from the potato chips. Up front where you cash out there are lots of M&M’s and Snickers bars.

There is, to be sure, also some medicine for sale in your typical “drugstore.” But junk food is a massive product line. I’m not sure how junk food sales compare to tobacco sales, but much more square footage of the stores is dedicated to chips and sodas than to smokes. To really make the pivot CVS is talking about, it seems to me they’d have to change their business pretty drastically.

Jonathan Weil notes that the company will lose money on the move but clearly believes it’s worth it:

In dollar terms the move is a blip. CVS said the decision would cut annual revenue by about $2 billion, which is less than 2 percent of its $123 billion of 2012 sales. The socially responsible investing crowd will be thrilled. President Barack Obama praised the move. A certain majority owner of Bloomberg LP no doubt will be pleased, too. Walgreen Co.’s directors had better be ready to answer questions about why their company hasn’t decided to stop selling cigarettes, too.

Kilgore considers the broader cultural shift against tobacco:

The relatively mild backlash to the cumulative wave of anti-smoking laws, ordinances and private bans (would anyone light a cigarette in someone else’s home without explicit encouragement?), not to mention sanctioned discrimination by health insurers and employers and heavy legal settlements against the tobacco industry, probably means actual Prohibition will at some point become feasible. And the trouble to which tobacco addicts must increasingly go to indulge their habits—even as cannabis smoking becomes more acceptable—has to be having an impact on anyone wanting to live a normal life.

The CVS ban, particularly if it leads to similar bans by competitors, is another step towards the day when purchasing of tobacco products will happen in the equivalent of “head shops” where it’s available at all. And popular culture will follow, at least after Mad Men’s final season concludes.

A record-breaking 87 prisoners were exonerated in the US last year:

Today’s report from the National Registry of Exonerations counts more than 1,300 exonerations in the past 25 years. Among the long term trends they discuss:

* Twenty-seven (27) of the 87 known exonerations that occurred in 2013 — almost one-third of the total number for the year — were in cases in which no crime in fact occurred, a record number.

* Fifteen (15) known exonerations in 2013 — 17 percent — occurred in cases in which the defendants were convicted after pleading guilty, also a record number. The rate of exonerations after a guilty plea has doubled since 2008 and the number continues to grow. …

Last year, 40 people convicted of murder were exonerated, including one person who’d been sentenced to death. Murder and sexual assault convictions make up the majority of exonerations. The report points out that that may be largely because the meager resources available to review old cases tend to focus on the crimes with the most severe penalties. That would indicate that there may be a whole universe of innocent prisoners convicted of lesser crimes who simply don’t have anyone to fight for them.

Balko has a more upbeat view:

The fact that we just had a record year for exonerations – and more than a decade after the introduction of modern DNA testing – is a good sign. If nothing else, that we’re exonerating more people means there are more resources being devoted to looking for these cases. It means that courts are more open to reconsidering old cases. It’s also a testament to the fact that, in some parts of the country, police and prosecutors are actively participating in task forces charged with seeking out the wrongly convicted.

Andrew Cohen thinks there are “two relevant facts worth noting that are not synthesized into the exoneration report’s analysis”:

The first is that not all states are equal when it comes to prioritizing exonerations. Some simply care less about justice for the wrongfully convicted than others. Some are spending money on programs designed to ferret out inaccurate trial results while others are not. The registry that has given us this report may be national, in other words, but the remedies in place surely are not. Congress could help rectify that. So could the Supreme Court. So could the executive branch. Maybe this year.

The second point that needs to be made in the shadow of the report is that some states today are moving against the flow. Lawmakers in at least two states, Alabama and Tennessee, are seriously considering measures that would tighten appellate deadlines in capital cases, making exonerations harder to achieve.

(Graph via The National Registry of Exonerations’ “Exonerations in 2013”)

It’s struck me that there is an underlying anxiety to several of our current debates on economic and social issues. That anxiety is that the American work ethic – unparalleled in the developed world – is under threat. That’s the real critique of Obamacare – as opposed to the mendacious “two millions jobs lost” line. A reader writes about his own experience:

My job for the past 20 years was recently eliminated. I am 63 and originally planned to work until at least 65 for one reason: Health Insurance.

If I had to enter the old insurance market at my age, with pre-existing conditions, it would be unaffordable and I would have had to look for work that offered insurance. With the ACA, I can afford health insurance until I am 65, and for that reason I have decided to retire rather than look for work. That provides an opening for someone younger to get a job I might have taken. And I get to enjoy an earlier retirement, spend some of my money on things other than insurance, and be one less person competing for a good paying job. A win-win for the country in my eyes.

Hard to argue with that – but it does mean a relaxation in the work imperative – and that’s worth debating. Or I think of myself – a small business owner with serious pre-existing conditions (HIV, chronic asthma, mild depression). Until Obamacare, it was unthinkable for me to be unemployed at any point, because of the health insurance issue. I was always terrified of losing access and being bankrupted by treating a disease I could not get insurance for. Now (if I were not neck-deep in Dishness) it’s conceivable. I feel empowered by the ACA not to work if I choose to and have the savings to take a break. There are a zillion different scenarios in which the guarantee of health insurance removes the absolute necessity of working if you have some savings to fall back on.

Or think of our debate about social mobility and inequality. With wages stagnant for most Americans since the mid 1970s, and hard, often back-breaking work failing to provide real gains in income, doesn’t the logic of the work ethic get attenuated? Isn’t it also affected by your knowledge that many people at the very top of the pyramid rake in unimaginable dough for working far less hard than your average teacher or healthcare worker? And isn’t the vast accumulation of wealth among so few itself a contributor to the decline in the work ethic, since it provides so many dependents with such easy, unearned cash? It’s not just the left that has created these disincentives. Global capitalism has done its part as well.

Or take the issue of marijuana legalization. One strong thread in the opposition is the fear that we’ll all stay on the couch, binge-watch Netflix and sleep in late, while the Chinese eat our lunch. And it’s strongest among those who experienced the American dream – the over-60s – than among those for whom it seems like a distant memory – the under-30s. And then there is immigration reform. Isn’t there an obvious, if unstated, cultural fear here that Latino culture is less work-obsessed than white Protestant culture (despite the staggering work ethic of so many Latino immigrants)? Beneath the legitimate concerns about border enforcement and security – which Obama has beefed up beyond measure, by the way – there is an anxiety that the core identity of America might change. We might actually begin to live more like Europeans do. Heaven forfend.

At the core of this is a real debate about what we value in life, and what makes life meaningful.

And that’s a real debate we need to have more often and more publicly. Work is an ennobling, mobilizing endeavor. It is our last truly common denominator as Americans. But what if its pre-eminence is unavoidably weakened by unchangeable economic forces? What if the accumulation of wealth through work is beginning to seem like a mug’s game to more and more, trapped in a stalled social mobility escalator? Why wouldn’t people adjust their values to fit the times?

I have to say I feel conflicted about this. I’m a pathologically hard worker, and for me, the American dream remains not only intact, but still inspiring. I believe in work. I don’t want the welfare state to be a cushion rather than a safety net. At the same time, it seems to me that as a culture, we have a work ethic that can be, and often is, its own false idol. The Protestant work ethic we have, for example, is the imperative for industrious striving, self-advancement and material gain. It is emphatically not about being happy. And at some point, if those two values are not easily compatible, something will give.

And would it be such a terrible thing if exhausted American workers were able to take real vacations of more than two weeks a year; or if white-collar professionals could afford to take a breather in mid-career without worrying about their health insurance; or if 63-year-olds like our reader could actually enjoy two more years of leisure at the end of their careers? Would it be so awful if more Americans smoked pot and were able to garner a few more moments of chill and relaxation rather than stress or worry? How damaging would it be if a little Catholic, Latin culture mitigated the unforgiving treadmill so many of us are on?

As I say, I’m conflicted on this. I struggle every day with a saner balance between work and life, and work has consistently won. But the older I get the more I treasure not the money but the time I spend on this earth. I weigh the benefits of incessant work against the new friends I never make, the books I never read, the vacations I find hard to take, the empty afternoons that make life worth living. And, as in any individual life, the life-work balance needs adjusting over time in a society as a whole.

At what point, in other words, is the pursuit of material wealth eclipsing the pursuit of happiness this country was founded to uphold? Is the correction against the Protestant work ethic a destruction of the American values – or actually a sign of their revival after a period of intense and often fruitless striving? I suspect the latter.

(Photo: Max Weber, 1917)