Category: The Dish

McWhorter says poetry is more popular than ever, but most people just don’t recognize it:

Rap is indeed “real” poetry. It rhymes, often even internally. Its authors work hard on the lyrics. The subject matter is certainly artistically heightened, occasioning long-standing debates over whether the depictions of violence and misogyny in some of it are sincere. And then, that “gangsta” style is just one, and less dominant than it once was. Rap, considered as a literature rather than its top-selling hits, addresses a wide-range of topics, even including science fiction. Rap is now decades old, having evolved over time and being increasingly curated by experts. In what sense is this not a “real” anything?

The only reason rap may seem to nevertheless not be “real” poetry is a skewed take on language typical of modern, literate societies: that spoken language is merely a sloppy version of written language. “English,” under this analysis, is what’s on a page, with punctuation and fonts and whoms and such. Speech is “just talking.”

That means that to us, poetry is written poetry, that which sits between covers and is intended to be read, quietly, alone, with tea, likely chamomile. Never mind that in fact Jay-Z has released a magisterial volume of his lyrics as a book: generally, rap is intended to be heard on the fly, often in a concert arena. Surely there is a key distinction between that and the strophes of John Berryman or Gwendolyn Brooks? But if there is, it’s a matter of style and tone, not basic classification.

On the above music video:

Let’s not get it twisted—the Cam’ron of the forthcoming Federal Reserve isn’t the same person who, earlier this century, became the central mythological figure of Harlem. But, when you put him in the right hands—in this case, the nimble duo of A-Trak and Just Blaze—the resulting product is more than enough to release a flood of pent-up dopamine. Lines like “Mommy backed up and said she see the difference/ “You’re mature, handsome, mixed with a lot of ignance” will do that to you.

Self-Defence Forces in Ukraine get fresh supply of weapons from a generous benefactor . pic.twitter.com/wK1fFPaK6R

— joe.m (@joeman42) June 25, 2014

Anna Nemtsova checks in after President Poroshenko cancelled a short-lived ceasefire with Russian-backed separatists on Monday night. His government is now talking about sealing the entire border:

As fighting continues in the east, including within the city of Donetsk, Ukrainian authorities understand that a conventional Russia invasion remains possible, which would represent an escalation of the covert tactics now in play between the Russian army and local militants. Andiy Parubiy, the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, said on the television show Freedom of Speech: “We understand that it can happen at any monument, on any night.” Despite Tuesday’s presidential phone call to discuss de-escalation, Ukrainian authorities prepared for a more serious military operation to re-enforce the troops fighting in Luhansk region, snug against the Russian border.

Leon Aron doesn’t see what choice Poroshenko had but to end the ceasefire, given the “cat-and-mouse game” Moscow is playing:

Pro-Russia forces attack symbolically high-value targets (e.g. an airport, or an administrative building); Kiev attempts to retake the locations; Russia condemns the efforts as the “killing of peaceful civilians” and demands that Kiev “stop attacking its own people”; Kiev declares a unilateral a ceasefire; Vladimir Putin voices support for “a peaceful resolution of the conflict that would take into account the wishes of the Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine”; the rebels “ignore” his calls and continue to shoot down Ukrainian planes and helicopters; the ceasefire collapses.

Confronted with a horrible moral choice of ceding sovereignty over its own land or engaging in violence trying to reclaim them, Kiev has chosen the latter. It is hard to see how any government would have acted differently under the circumstances.

There are signs, however, that Putin is unwilling to escalate the situation further:

Some experts say Putin faces internal opposition from pro-war forces who think he should be more assertive in supporting east Ukraine’s beleaguered rebels. “Everybody wonders why Putin isn’t using troops [to back the rebels],” says Sergei Markov, director of the pro-Kremlin Institute of Political Studies and a frequent Kremlin adviser. “But Putin does understand how hard the war is, and wants to do what he can to preserve peace.”

Alexei Makarkin, director of the independent Center for Political Technologies, says that Putin’s recent shift toward a negotiated solution suggests that he recognizes that Ukraine has slipped out of Russia’s sphere of influence forever, and that he must try to salvage what he can of Moscow’s badly shredded relationship with the West.

The Bloomberg editors blast European leaders for not standing up to Putin:

They had set an ultimatum for Putin on Friday: Rein in Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine and agree to seal the border by Monday or face “significant restrictive measures.” The deadline arrived, Putin ignored it and … EU leaders agreed today to think about it. Some European countries, apparently, thought the situation in eastern Ukraine remained too uncertain to make a decision. If so, they’re playing right into Putin’s hands. …

Putin knows the likelihood of the EU imposing meaningful economic sanctions is low — so long as he doesn’t launch an outright invasion of Ukraine. To show Putin he’s wrong, the EU needs to follow through on its ultimatum by sanctioning Russian corporations and other well-defined economic targets, thus demonstrating its willingness to go further. So far, the EU has yet to give Putin a reason to take its threats seriously.

But James Carden argues that Ukraine’s new association agreement with the EU was a mistake that will only exacerbate tensions, and that the US is foolish to stand behind it:

Because of the specific foreign-policy and security protocols embedded within the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, and because NATO membership usually follows on the heels of EU membership, the agreement will further exacerbate the “security dilemma” vis-a-vis Russia, Ukraine and NATO. And so we can expect Russia to respond in a number of ways, some of which we have already seen in its anticipation of the coming of the Agreement: Russia will align more closely with China; Russia will move to destabilize parts of eastern and southern Ukraine; Russia will increase military and defense spending; Russia will likely move to strengthen the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Russia will likely attempt to add a political and security dimension to the Eurasian Union.

Even though Belgium’s 2-1 victory in extra time yesterday knocked USA out of the World Cup, Kornhaber celebrates our goalie Tim Howard, whose record 16 saves put an American mark on the tournament:

After watching America lose to Belgium in agonizing and thrilling fashion on Tuesday, it’s impossible to deny what I (and I suspect even Coulter) realize, deep down: If you have a problem enjoying soccer or any other popular athletic contest, that’s on you, not the sport.

Exhibits a, b, and c to that effect were Tim Howard, who nuked the notion that soccer is boring, random, and devoid of true stars (Coulter: “Do they even have MVPs in soccer?”). On the page, the fact that the U.S. keeper set a World Cup record for saves in a game (16) is just another statistic that just makes my eyes glaze over. But when I watched the process by which that statistic was achieved—really watch, beer in hand, surrounded by fans, aware of what’s riding on the outcome—the feeling was entirely different.

A compilation of Howard’s saves after the jump:

But Henry D. Fetter, prior to the game this week, tempered any excitement that soccer is finally becoming a major American sport:

Even before the World Cup got underway, soccer historian David Goldblatt told The Economist “football is taking off in America.” And even before that, writers were making predictions:

• “U.S. soccer on the brink.”
• “Now everyone believes in soccer’s future, a general belief that soccer has all the irresistibility of a sport whose moment has come.”
• “Within 10 years ‘soccer will not only be the No. 1 sport in the U.S. but also the major soccer center in the world.’”
• “Father used to take their kids to the football game. Now the kids, they take their father to the soccer game.”
• “Soccer is on the verge of exploding.”

An impressive compilation of concurring opinions, to be sure. But, not to spoil the current celebration, those quotes are from 1968, 1975, 1977, 1980, and 1993, respectively.  And even in those years, it was hardly a novelty to be bullish about the prospects for the sport in this country. “Soccer in America is gaining in popularity … the game is established on a firm foundation and the future of the sport in the United States is assured” the New York Times recorded—in 1924.

And Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, in a less Coulterish way than Coulter, says the sport will never really catch on:

[S]occer doesn’t fully express the American ethos as powerfully as our other popular sports. We are a country of pioneers, explorers, and contrarians who only need someone to say it can’t be done to fire us up to prove otherwise. As a result, we like to see extraordinary effort rewarded. The low scoring in soccer frustrates this American impulse.

We also celebrate rugged individualism, the democratic ideal that anybody from any background can become a sports hero. We like to see heroes rise, buoyed by their teammates, but still expressing their own supreme individual skills. Certainly soccer has its celebrated stars, from Pele to Beckham, but those skills seem muted on TV where we’re often looking at small figures on a large field and therefore these feats appear less impressive than they really are.

Could Howard change that? Dunno. But he sure can grow a sweet beard.

Waldman analyzes the president’s Rose Garden speech from Monday, calling it “a pretty blatant thumb in the opposition’s eye”:

Obama is basically accurate in his characterization of Republican arguments, even if he portrays them in an uncomplimentary way. They do indeed argue that they won’t pass an immigration bill because they don’t trust the president to enforce it properly. Which is just an invitation for him to take executive action, making them more angry, to which he can respond, I’m only doing this because you won’t pass a bill. And since Democrats have worked just as hard to convince the public that Republicans are insanely obstructionist as Republicans have to convince the public that Obama is a tyrant, the president’s response isn’t hard to explain to people; they understand by now that Republicans are opposed to passing immigration reform. So the places where Republicans have been the most recalcitrant are those where Obama is most likely to be emboldened to move aggressively.

Vinik outlines some ways the president could tackle immigration without Congress. But rather than making an end run around the House GOP, Connor Simpson suggests Obama might actually be trying to force their hand:

Earlier Monday, the President sent a surprise request to Congress asking for roughly $2 billion to deal with the influx of children attempting to cross the border illegally from South America. While children from Mexico can be deported fairly easily, immigrants who travel from as far as Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are much more difficult and expensive. The move will likely cause chaos on Capitol Hill, but could potentially force the House to finally deal with immigration   reform.

It’s a catch-22 for politicians:

vote to deport a bunch of children and solve a very real problem, or vote to deport a bunch of children and look heartless in the eyes of your constituents. Hard line immigration reform opponents will love it regardless.

Chait calls the House failure to act on immigration reform “a fascinating case study of a party unable to act on its recognized political self-interest”:

The GOP’s worst problem is that Obama’s unilateral relaxation of immigration enforcement will add a newer and more potent dimension to the immigration issue. No longer will Republicans merely have to promise to oppose reform legislation. They will have to promise to undo what Obama has done. …

And so Republicans may well find themselves in the position of watching their nominee pledging to prosecute or deport immigrant families or children pardoned or left alone by Obama. The only way their friends, neighbors, or relatives who happen to be legal citizens can spare them will be to vote for Clinton. It may have seemed that the Republicans’ standing with immigrant communities had sunk to a new low in 2012, but in 2016, things could actually get worse.

Jonathan Bernstein, on the other hand, argues that the stakes are not so dire for the Republicans in 2016 – or so they seem to believe, at least:

In the long run, the electoral danger of keeping immigration reform high on the agenda is that it could keep Hispanics in the Democratic camp for generations, in part by encouraging them to use ethnicity as their primary political identification. And if that happens, Republicans will risk turning into a long-term minority party. But the electoral effects are much murkier in 2016. That makes it even more difficult for pro-reform Republicans to make the case, particularly as politicians generally aren’t known for their long-term electoral thinking.

Now, on the policy merits, Chait (and Obama) have it right: the possibility of White House action has always made a compromise the best choice for Republicans if what they care about is policy substance. But this set of House Republicans, and the party they represent, isn’t known for putting policy substance over symbolism.

But Francis Wilkinson notes that this could all blow up in Obama’s face:

Obama is in a bind, and he won’t be escaping it soon. He promised that if the House didn’t act on immigration, he would. But if he eases deportations while thousands of alien kids are entering U.S. custody, he may well inspire a ferocity from House Republicans that we haven’t seen since the days of the debt-ceiling fiasco. Only this time, Republicans will point to Obama’s tardy response to a genuine crisis, rather than their own ideological make-believe, as the proximate cause. … By setting himself up as the alternative when and if legislation failed, Obama made himself a target of immigrant desires that he is almost certainly incapable of satisfying. He now faces a backlash from foes and friends alike.

Yglesias declares immigration reform no longer a “special” issue meriting bipartisan action. Now, he believes, “like other liberal priorities it’ll happen if Democrats win a sweep election but not otherwise”:

The more interesting question is what happens to Republicans. Will they simply cede the faction of the business community that’s hungry for immigrant labor to the Democratic coalition? Or will they push harder for a new formula — something like the SKILLS Act that would allow in more highly-skilled workers in exchange for slamming the door on family reunification for less-skilled (mostly Latin American) migrants even tighter — that would try to split up the existing interest group coalition for reform.

But whatever happens, it won’t be special. We’ll see continued trench warfare through executive action and judicial decisions as long as the legislative branches are divided. And then when one party or the other gains a breakthrough, some kind of reform will pass largely on a party-line vote.

Which is a bit odd, given the growing public consensus around liberalizing immigration policy. Although a Gallup poll last week found anti-immigration sentiment on the rise, Aaron Blake examines the long-term trends to find that this increase “looks more like a blip on the screen than a significant and lasting shift.” Two data points:

1) A May poll from the New York Times showed 46 percent of Americans thought all immigrants should be welcomed to the United States. That’s up from 33 percent in 2010, 24 percent in 2007 (the last time immigration reform failed) and around 20 percent in the mid-1990s. The percentage who say there should be no immigration has also dropped to 19 percent.

2) The same poll showed the percentage of Americans who say immigrants contribute to this country has risen significantly over the past three decades. While Americans in the 1980s and 1990s said immigrants were more likely to cause problems than contribute, it’s now 66-21 in favor of contributing. And the numbers continue to rise to this day.