Whose Country? Ctd

A reader writes:

My husband and I adopted an African-American infant 7 years ago. It has been a revelation. But the moment, and I can pinpoint it to the day, I internalized that our nation is black as much as anything else, was the

day I went to a family reunion.

My maternal ancestors are the descendants of the owners of the Middleton Plantation in South Carolina. Several years ago they had a reunion of all the Middleton descendants, combined with a reunion of all the descendants of the slaves of the Middleton planation. At first we were going to take our daughter, but the dissonance of the descendent of the slave owners taking his descendent-of-slaves daughter to that reunion was too much. I went alone with my mother.

I met and became friends with a distant cousin, descendant of slaves and a slave owner, and I learned a lot about the history and genealogy of the slaves and a more nuanced history of my own ancestry. I had moments of deep reflection, pain and confusion. That reunion has set me on a journey that has made it quite clear to me that we (and I) are black, and white, native and much more. We are not half, we are all of each.

Today, on our wall, is our family map. On it are arrows, originating in Western African, Eastern North America, Central America, Northern Europe, Southern Europe and several other places, with way points along their trajectories of Massachusetts, Virginia, Mexico, Utah, Arkansas, South Carolina and several others, all ending at our house in San Francisco.

Because, like America, that is what our family is.

British Politics Goes Viral

Political reform, that is:

From OpenUpNow.org:

It’s a space for every Briton who cares about our country’s future. It’s the sum total of everyone who signs this petition. Open Up’s goal is to promote real, positive and long-term changes to the way our country is run; to increase transparency, fairness and accountability in elections and government; and to challenge the culture of patronage that defines our political system today.

For those new to the parliamentary system, Britain does not directly nominate its candidates (although the Tories have now started open primaries among pre-selected candidates and Labour’s Miliband supports the idea). The duck reference?

A five foot tall floating duck house claimed from the public purse by Tory grandee Sir Peter Viggers has become one of the most bizarre items so far uncovered in the MPs’ expenses investigation.

Further explanation of open primaries here. Sign the petition here.

Any Smear Will Do, Ctd

McArdle counters Drezner:

Believe me, people were obsessed with the dollar during the Bush era, too.  Obsession with the value of the currency seems to be baked into the DNA of the right for some reason.  If it's not the sliding dollar, it's gold buggery or petrodollars. 

A large segment of the right ascribes almost magical properties to fixed currency, like the ability to keep the government from borrowing too much money.  This is belied by the long history of government's on commodity or currency pegs borrowing a great deal of money, and then defaulting and/or revaluing.  It is also belied by the fact that the government cannot actually borrow a ton of money in the expectation of inflating away the debt, because neither the bondholders nor the Fed are particularly likely to go along.  But for a lot of the right, still, what is good for the US dollar is what is good for America–and what is good for the US dollar is simply being worth as much as possible relative to other currencies.

Is it possible to be a conservative any more without being this crude?

Quote For The Day

"If I were putting money on the future of gay marriage, I would bet on it. The secular arguments against gay marriage, when they aren't just based on bigotry or custom, tend to be abstract in ways that don't find purchase in American political discourse. I say, ‘Institutional support for reproduction,' you say, ‘I love my boyfriend and I want to marry him.' Who wins that debate? You win that debate." – Ross Douthat.

Whose Country? Ctd

The emails keep pouring in. A reader writes:

Consider how long one of America’s chief exports has been its culture. Now think about what form that culture takes: Music, art, consumer goods, movies, all have huge “black” influence. If we were simply following the Western European lead, do you think that people would line up to hear/taste/see that? I think not. They want our stuff because it isn’t bland, because homogeneity is boring.

Another adds:

To the "southern white man" who wrote in today: I felt the same way when I visited southern Africa a few years ago and was wondering whether my hunch about the cultural similarities was right. I'm originally from Mississippi, and there's a warmth in Africa that feels very much like the American South.

In Defense Of Baby Steps

Al Giordano praises those who have worked to change the public's mind about pot:

This latest paradigm shift in US policy did not come about because some marijuana legalization advocates complained that medical marijuana reform wasn’t somehow “enough.” Of course it never was the final policy goal for so many that did the heavy lifting to make it so. But baby steps have now made an evolutionary leap forward toward the bigger change. Thus, this is a good moment to point out that the whining and Chicken Little tantrums of some others on that front had zero impact on making progress happen. Their method of complain and bark orders from the sidelines proved, once again, completely inconsequential and only served as annoying distraction from those doing the real work and organizing.

Good Advice

Malcolm Gladwell:

Aspiring journalists should stop going to journalism programs and go to some other kind of grad school. If I was studying today, I would go get a master's in statistics, and maybe do a bunch of accounting courses and then write from that perspective. I think that's the way to survive. The role of the generalist is diminishing. Journalism has to get smarter.

Dreher adds his two cents.

Money On Palin

Tom Schaller has bet Nate Silver that Palin won't run for president and that she won't win the nomination:

[A] strategic politician seeking the Oval Office should, all else equal, wait until she is not running against an incumbent president enjoying the many advantages incumbency provides, from access to the bully pulpit to control over the levers of government. History says the odds are better if you wait.

Since when has Palin ever been a "strategic politician"? Since when has she even acted rationally? I think it's hers to lose, except she has lost and she has quit and she's still loved. The movement behind Palin is pure cultural revolt. It has as much interest in actually governing as she has.