“Brad DeLong”:http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/001173.html tells us that Barbara Ehrenreich’s version of left-wing politics are an ‘infantile disorder.’ In support of this claim, he quotes _in extenso_ from a _Nation_ piece that she wrote in 2000, advocating support for Ralph Nader rather than Al Gore. Brad is being both condescending and obtuse – I have difficulty in seeing any evidence whatsover of infantilism in the piece that he quotes. Ehrenreich has two points to make. First – that if you’re really committed to major reform of the US political system, voting for the Democrats isn’t going to do it. The only way to create a real alternative is to build an alternative social movement – and alternative party – on the ground, which necessarily is going to involve conflict with the institutional interests of the Democratic party. Second – even if we are stuck in a two party system for the foreseeable future, the way for leftists to get their voice heard by the Democrats isn’t to roll over and play nice – it’s to credibly threaten to vote for somebody else unless the Democrats start pushing for the things that you care about.

There are some very good counter-arguments against voting for Nader, and they’re even better in this election than the last one. Because of basic personality flaws, he’s an improbable candidate for real social change (although I should say that I know and like some of the people who work for him). He’d be a bad President. This time around, he doesn’t have the support of the Greens, or much in the way of supporting organizations (apart from the Republicans). Thus, voting for him wouldn’t do anything to help build a viable alternative political movement. Finally, the alternative to a Kerry Presidency is demonstrably too horrible to be contemplated. Still, Ehrenreich is posing a very serious question that Brad doesn’t start to answer. If you believe (as Ehrenreich does, and as I do) that the current two party system in the US is systematically flawed, and produces deeply inequitable results, then why should you vote, year in, year out, for candidates who have no intention of changing things? The ‘lesser of two evils’ argument may cut it this year; it isn’t going to cut it forever.

Update: for a different defence of Ehrenreich, see “Kevin Drum”:http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_07/004292.php.

Update2: It seems that Brad wasn’t being quite as condescending as I thought – his ‘infantile disorder’ jibe is a “nod to Lenin”:http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/001175.html. I still reckon that he doesn’t establish much of a case that Ehrenreich is in fact being infantile.

Wilco or Cat Power. Huh?

I’m happy to provide links to enable Kevin Drum to arrive at an informed decision as to which of these truly fine music offerings is preferable . Wilco has a new album out, “A ghost is born”. I don’t own it yet, but the six tracks you can listen to for free are fantastic. Zoë says “Hell is Chrome” ‘sounds like it’s about a vewy young angel.’ Newborn ghost, indeed! She thought it was too sad, but danced round and round to the piano on “Hummingbird”. I’m listening to “Muzzle of Bees” right now. Beautiful stuff.

Cat Power has a very infectious – in a good way – new album, “You Are Free”. Go to the site and hear the hypnotically simple strains of “I Don’t Blame You”. Then click through to ‘media’ and watch the video for “He War”. It’s a great pop tune with lyrics that make no sense and a nice low-budget story video without a story, set in California. I like those so long as they can’t afford clowns. Just people walking and trees and water, mostly. Like looking at someone’s photo album and wondering what’s going on in all the pictures without really caring. For all I know it’s in heavy rotation on MTV and VH1 and you’re all sick to death of it. If so, I apologize. I’m in Singapore and am not made aware of such things when they happen.

There are two other videos from older albums, but one wouldn’t load and I can’t recommend the other.

Well, which is it going to be, Kevin?

I’ve spent the last couple of days at the annual meeting of “SASE”:http://www.sase.org, the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics. Cass Sunstein gave one of the keynote speeches – a summary of his “much”:http://balkin.blogspot.com/2004/06/iraq-and-fdr.html “blogged”:http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2004_06_21.shtml#1087950677 book on Roosevelt’s ‘Second Bill of Rights.’ There was one interesting aside in his talk. While talking about Roosevelt’s talent for speaking plainly and directly to the interests of ordinary Americans, Sunstein claimed that Roosevelt’s modern rhetorical heir was John Edwards. I’m not entirely convinced – I’ve an inherent suspicion of anyone whom the _Economist_ keeps on talking up. Still, even if Edwards proves to be a disappointment in office (insofar as Vice-Presidents are ever successes), he’s already made an important contribution to US public discourse. By finding a language to express the class divisions in US society – and avoiding, somehow, the usual, tired accusations of ‘class warfare’ – he’s done us all a real service.

“Ted says”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002154.html

bq. There ought to be a word for these kinds of arguments, in which one simultaneously displays and condemns hypocrisy. They happen a lot.

There should be a word too for the kind of self-deconstructing display of bad faith that “Charles Krauthammer”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37954-2004Jul8.html treats us to in his latest piece of hackwork, entitled “Blixful Amnesia.” If someone other than Krauthammer were involved, you might imagine that a post thus entitled would be an apology for “repeated”:http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer110102.asp “assertions”:http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer111502.asp “that”:http://www.townhall.com/columnists/charleskrauthammer/ck20021115.shtml “Hans”:http://www.townhall.com/columnists/charleskrauthammer/printck20030110.shtml “Blix”:http://www.townhall.com/columnists/charleskrauthammer/ck20031010.shtml was a craven, incompetent fool for not finding WMDs in Iraq. Instead it’s yet another incoherent harangue; this time against a recent talk given by Blix in Vienna. Blix’s “speech”:http://cms1.da-vienna.ac.at/userfiles/blix.pdf begins with an aside – that hundreds of millions of people are more directly threatened by hunger than by weapons of mass destruction – and then launches into a detailed and lengthy discussion of non-proliferation, Krauthammer, who doesn’t appear to have read beyond the opening paragraphs, sees this as telling evidence of the failure of the “decadent European left” to face up to the problems of proliferation of nuclear weapons. In fact, Blix offers a series of proposals for addressing proliferation – starting with a real commitment by the existing nuclear powers to stop producing nuclear weapons material.

There’s something rather odd about Krauthammer’s continued obsession with Blix. My suspicion is that it’s because Blix’s credibility (at least with regard to the most recent round of weapons inspections) has increased over time, while Krauthammer’s has evaporated. In Krauthammer’s “own words”:http://www.aei.org/events/filter.,eventID.274/transcript.asp fifteen months ago.

bq. Hans Blix had five months to find weapons. He found nothing. We’ve had five weeks. Come back to me in five months. If we haven’t found any, we will have a credibility problem.

Indeed. It’s high time that the Washington Post took him at his word, and dealt with his continuing “credibility problem” by suggesting that he seek employment elsewhere.

* Katherine of Obsidian Wings is hanging up her blogging spurs. I’ll miss her. She’s written a long, thoughtful swan song about why we should care about U.S. human rights abuses towards people we suspect of terrorism.

* Tim Dunlop at The Road to Surfdom argues that right-wingers probably shouldn’t crow about this story. According to the Financial Times, a British governmental report is about to say that the British claim that Saddam was trying to buy uranium from Niger was “reasonable and consistent with the intelligence.”

The famous sixteen words in Bush’s State of the Union, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa”, are arguably technically correct. However, the use of the word “learned”, and the context (in the SOTU, as part of an argument for war on Iraq) strongly implies that the United States believes that the substance of the statement is true.

Tim points out, in great detail, that the best intelligence in American hands said otherwise. (It wasn’t just Joe Wilson.) He points out that the CIA had successfully removed the claim from previous speeches. He also points out that the Administration already apologized for using the claim when Ari Fleischer said “This information should not have risen to the level of a presidential speech.”

(Also, Tim reminds me to mark my calendar. July 14th is the one-year anniversary of the outing of Valerie Plame by two senior Administration officials. Congratulations to the lucky felons!)

* From Reason’s Hit and Run, Tommy Chong is out of jail, having served nine months for selling bongs over the internet. He’ll be on the Tonight Show this evening. According to the Drug Policy Alliance:

Tommy Chong was arrested and indicted following a series of DEA raids in February 2003 as part of the Government’s “Operation Pipe Dreams” crackdown on illegal drug paraphernalia. The crackdown involved at least 1200 officials, including hundreds of DEA agents, and at least 103 US Marshals. The operation led to 60 arrests. It occurred during an Orange Alert against terrorist attacks.

* The Poor Man is right about everything.

Finally, at least two evangelical Christians have written about Focus on the Family’s decision to distribute Michael Moore’s home address to their email list.

* David Wayne at Jollyblogger has a very good post arguing that FOTF is only hurting the Christian cause.

* Joe Carter at the Evangelical Outpost thinks that the concern is overblown. He thinks that the real issue is (surprise!) the hypocrisy of the left. I agree with him that politicially motivated outings of gays are shameful. However, I don’t understand how Carter can dismiss the right-wing invasion of privacy, condemn the left-wing invasion of privacy, and then feel secure enough in his own righteousness to condemn the left for selective outrage.

There ought to be a word for these kinds of arguments, in which one simultaneously displays and condemns hypocrisy. They happen a lot.

I should note that Carter doesn’t seem to have much support in his comments. If you choose to comment, please be polite.

The local alt-weekly, the Houston Press, has a good piece about the woes of the summer’s major concert tours. They do a good job of laying out all the fees in going to see (say) Kid Rock, concluding:

So let’s say you plan to take a date to go see the Kid. That’s $56 for two tickets, plus $42.15 in fees, of which Ticketmaster takes $18.15 and the Woodlands folks $24. Ring-ring, that’s $98.15, please, all before your first expensive beer or soggy nacho…

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The local alt-weekly has a good piece about the woes of the summer’s major concert tours. They do a good job of laying out all the fees in going to see (say) Kid Rock, concluding:

So let’s say you plan to take a date to go see the Kid. That’s $56 for two tickets, plus $42.15 in fees, of which Ticketmaster takes $18.15 and the Woodlands folks $24. Ring-ring, that’s $98.15, please, all before your first expensive beer or soggy nacho…

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The recent discussion of blogs and their democratic characteristics (or lack thereof) prompted by Laura’s comments at Apt 11D in response to critiques of her blog study’s survey instrument has gotten me thinking about the comments option on blogs yet again. It is a question I have pondered numerous times already, probably ever since I started reading blogs and certainly since I decided to start my own.

For me, the question of whether a site that calls itself a blog has comments option turned on is actually quite directly related to what constitutes a blog in the first place. I realize this is a question that is probably impossible to answer in a way that would satisfy everybody, but it is one still worth asking especially if one is to do research on the topic (as I am doing now) where a definition would be helpful.

One of Laura’s concerns is that the blogosphere is not very democratic. That’s true (she mentions some reasons and others have discussed this point at length elsewhere as well). However, blogs can have a democratic component: Comments. Why is it that certain bloggers decide to go without comments? And what makes their Web site a blog in that case? (Clearly I am showing my bias here in that I believe comments are an essential part of a blog. That said, I do realize and accept blogs as blogs even when they do not have comments turned on.. but do so mostly because the community has decided to consider them blogs. You know which ones I mean.)

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Talking of transatlantic language differences, I was quite surprised to see this headline in the Washington Post. And I thought Australians took sport too seriously.

Pursuant to a discussion of the recently popular Teachout Cultural Concurrence Index, Will Baude makes the following remarks:

My friend mentioned that she has some trouble with all of those old Bogart films because she finds Bogart so physically repulsive that he detracts from the role. To be sure, H.B. was not Hollywood’s prettiest face, a fact that (unsurpisingly) seems to bother more female viewers of the films than male ones. [Female members of my family voiced a similar complaint about Something’s Got to Give last Christmas.]

This is funny to me for two reasons. First, though Bogart’s no beauty, he’s hardly replusive. Second, Bogart is perfectly cast in one of the great movies of all time, The Maltese Falcon, a movie which is marred by the single most egregious miscasting of all time. (Perhaps it is not the worst in absolute terms, but it is a hideous flaw in an otherwise brilliantly cast movie.) I refer, of course, to the wretched, wretched Mary Astor. She was only 35 when the movie was made, but she looks much older. The character she plays, Brigid O’Shaughnessy, is supposed to be a knockout who can wrap any man around her finger. A sexpot. Men’s eyes are supposed to pop way out on stalks and develop pounding hearts for pupils, while steam shoots out of their ears and they make various foghorn and train-whistle noises. It is difficult to overstate the extent to which Mary Astor falis to plausibly elicit this reaction.

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Someone has to make the announcement: Crooked Timber is one year old today!

Bill Clinton did a book-signing in Washington, DC, today. When I got to work this morning, fans were lined up around the block of the 12th St. Barnes & Noble. As they did in “New York”:http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Entertainment/reuters20040622_237.html, hundreds of people camped out the night before. They were under the mistaken impression that it would be hard to get in the next day. At 6:00pm, I walked down the street from where I work to see about all the hoopla. Turns out they were still letting people through the door. I hadn’t bought a copy yet, so I thought I was out of luck. You were supposed to buy one the night before to get in the next day. But five minutes later, and sans book, I was given one those magic wrist-bans, the much-publicized “credential”:http://finance.lycos.com/qc/news/story.aspx?symbols=INDUSTRY:87&story=200406281230_BWR__BW5243 that entitled me to the purchase of one–and only one–book, to have it signed, to a speedy presidential handshake, and to the feeling that I’d just experienced a windfall. I certainly wouldn’t have camped out for a book signed by President Clinton. Unlike this “fan”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32380-2004Jul6.html, I also wouldn’t have camped out for “Paul McCartney, Dolly Parton, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mother Teresa, Frank Gifford.” Which makes me wonder: is there any signed book worth spending the night on the sidewalk? Yeah, maybe I would have camped out for a signed copy of the first edition of A Theory of Justice. Frank Gifford?

Congratulations to “Unlearned Hand”:http://www.unlearnedhand.com/archives/000807.html. That must have been some July 4th weekend.

Congratulations to “Unlearned Hand”:http://www.unlearnedhand.com/archives/000807.html. That must have been some July 4th weekend.