Category: Current Affairs

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Word of the Day

It’s Schadenfreude. My own spin on the definition: the bitter joy one takes in the suffering of others.

I loved Obama’s take on the Palin misfortune: back off and let the family take care of its misfortune in private. Of course, the world little noted his injunction, let alone remembered it, and the hits just keep on coming. Governor Palin’s embarrassing moment with her daughter’s pregnancy–and hey, it’s Senator McCain’s moment, too–is really the least of her, or his, problems. She’s just a Christmas stocking full of early holiday surprises. See TPM Election Central for a handy list of the pies that hit her (and Team McCain) in the face over the last couple of days. My particular favorite, though it’s of no particular importance, is her giggling on a radio talk show while the host-lout calls one of her opponents “a bitch.” Who knew Christian zealots could be such fun?

Anyway, as Labor Day drew into Labor Day night, I recognized the guilty truth that it’s kind of fun to see a Republican candidate driven from pillar to post over some of the same kinds of issues–including a matter that is arguably private–for which Democrats have been harried for years by the self-anointed saints of the right.

Enjoy your time in the spotlight, governor. If the tide keeps running this way, you just bought yourself a ticket back to Juneau.

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Gustav

Here’s what the National Hurricane Center has to say (public advisory and forecast discussion) about the storm melodramatically (and cross-dressingly) labeled “the mother of all storms” by the mayor of New Orleans. (How many people remember the origin of that “mother of” formulation? I think it’s time to retire the phrase and try some new personifying descriptions. A hurricane of Gustav’s reputation could be called anything from “unwelcome visitor” to “mannerless brute.” Any other suggestions? While we’re at it, we’d like also recommend a lifetime media ban on use of “The Big Easy” to describe New Orleans. If some hard-up news writers need a colorful handle for the city, let them use “The City that Care Forgot.”)

What’s it like down there in hurricane country? A blogger acquaintance I’ve followed for quite some time is named Rob. He lives near Bush, Louisiana, about 50 miles north of New Orleans. His blog is called Crabapple Lane, and he’s reporting on his preparations for the storm–including explaining why he’s choosing to ride it out at home rather evacuate. It’s compelling, immediate stuff. Thanks, Rob–we’re pulling for you.

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Game Token

Venturing into deep waters, but here goes: I think it’s safe to say that with Sarah Palin on the ticket, Team McCain has all but sewn up the battle for Alaska’s three electoral votes.

Palin’s sudden elevation from obscure environmental menace to No. 2 on the ticket is the most surprising rise to national prominence since Bush II named Harriet Myers to the Supreme Court. It’s reminiscent, too, of the cynicism that led Bush I to nominate Clarence Thomas to the court.

In the Myers case, the choice met with derision: Mr. President, you’re asking us to believe you have searched our great land high and low and that this is the best candidate for our most august tribunal? Of course, under this president, the notion that competence is a prerequisite, or even desirable, for high office has taken a beating. But in the Myers case, the howls were so loud and insistent from all quarters that the president was forced to let his friend withdraw herself from consideration for the court.

McCain’s choice of Palin provokes the Myers reaction all over again. Senator McCain, you’ve combed the ranks of GOP officeholders everywhere–and even a non-GOP one in the repugnant person of Joe Lieberman–and this is the person you want us to believe is the best-qualified to vault into high office?

OK–if you say so.

As even the dimmest pundit can see and as Palin herself made clear in her debut, she’s on the ticket as a magnet for the legions of Hillary Clinton voters so crushed by Obama winning the Democratic nomination that they’re going to vote for McCain. For them, Palin would clinch the deal. Or maybe McCain and his brain trust believe that everyone who voted for Clinton voted for her because she was a woman. Run out a new body in a pantsuit, put some of the same rhetoric on stage, and see whether anyone notices the difference.

We’ll see how that works, I guess. Meantime, from the Republicans, the party that has fought affirmative action at every turn, arguing that it begets tokenism and promotes the unqualified over the qualified, we get another bizarre episode of tokenism to ponder. When civil rights pioneer Thurgood Marshall died, they found a black man bent on reversing his legacy to take his seat on the Supreme Court. When Sandra Day O’Connor retired from the court, they suggested a woman without a scintilla of judicial experience or preparation to replace her. And now, to appeal to the partisans of Clinton–as steadfast an opponent of the GOP right as any Democrat–they put up a right-wing Republican.

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The Clinton Speech

Watching her speak at KQED over C-SPAN’s feed. Hell of a speech number one. Especially her asking her delegates whether they were in the race for her … or for all the things she want to stand for. The C-SPAN pictures are wonderful. So many of the women in the crowd look like they are hanging on every single world. Many of them are near tears and look almost stricken. If anyone can rally them, though, it’s this woman talking to them right now. There was a quick cutaway to Bill Clinton where he looked so proud and happy he might break down.

My mom–my mom would have loved to see this.

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Dogs, Wolves, Us

The New Scientist site is carrying a story headlined, “Dogs aren’t stupid wolves; they are much smarter.” Sadly, the oddly headlined story (“much smarter” than what? stupid wolves? whoa!) is just a come-on for a feature in the print edition of the magazine and only the first paragraphs appear online. But people aren’t stupid subscriber-sheep, and someone somewhere has seen fit to post the entire text of the article in a Usenet group.

The gist of the article is that dogs’ close association with humans over the last 100 centuries or so has endowed them with some “remarkable mental skills.”

“Domestic dogs evolved from grey wolves as recently as 10,000 years ago. Since

then their brains have shrunk, so that a wolf-sized dog has a brain around 10

per cent smaller than its wild ancestor. That was one

reason why animal behaviourists felt dogs were merely simple-minded wolves. It

has become clear, though, that despite the loss of brain volume, thousands of

years spent evolving alongside humans have had a striking effect on dog

cognition.

“For one thing, researchers are increasingly convinced that dogs must possess

some sense of right and wrong in order to negotiate the complex social world of

people. A pioneer in this area is Marc Bekoff from the University of Colorado at

Boulder, who has spent decades watching animals at play. He has championed the

idea that in many social species, including dogs, one of the functions of

rough-and-tumble play is to develop a rudimentary sense of morality.

“The fact that play rarely escalates into full-blown fighting shows that animals

abide by rules and expect others to do the same. In other words, they know right

from wrong. Bekoff argues that this is a survival adaptation that allows animals

to smoothly navigate other social interactions.

“Friederike Range from the University of Vienna, Austria, takes the concept of

dog morality even further. In a series of experiments, her team rewarded dogs

with a food treat if they held up a paw. They found that when a lone dog was

asked to give its paw but received no treat, it would persevere for the entire

experiment, which lasted 30 repetitions. However, if they tested two dogs

together but only rewarded one, the dog who missed out would make a big show of

being denied its treat and stop cooperating after just a few rounds. ‘Dogs show

a strong aversion to inequity,’ says Range. ‘I prefer not to call it a sense of

fairness, but others might.’ ”

Fascinating. I don’t know how the resident dog in these parts comes down on the fairness question. But he has shown a strong disapproval of profanity, which he no doubt has observed is associated with human emotional states he has no desire to be around.

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‘Ask the Powerful’

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This comes by way of a fine Sacramento blog: a succinct democracy manifesto from Britain’s Tony Benn (who is he? Maybe a little like the Jim Hightower of British politics). There’s a story behind the blackboard presentation, too. Check it out. (And click the above for a larger image.)

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‘You Don’t Need to Know’

A nice entry on The New York Times Olympics blog on the hair’s-breadth finish in the men’s 100-meter butterfly that gave U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps his seventh gold medal in Beijing. The Times and its sister publication, the International Herald Tribune, tried to get underwater footage from the official timekeeper, Omega, that reportedly gave a clear view of the finish. At first Omega said the footage would be distributed. Then FINA, the body that oversees competitive swimming, said the news media would not be allowed to view the pictures. The explanation, as related by the Times, is a pretty good working definition of arrogance:

“[FINA’S Cornel] Marculescu said it was a matter of policy, and that the Serbian team [whose swimmer finished second] was satisfied with the ruling after seeing the images — so there is no need to share the images.

“[Asked] why FINA wouldn’t distribute the footage if it showed the margin conclusively. Marculescu said: “We are not going to distribute footage. We are not doing these kinds of things. Everything is good. What are you going to do with the footage? See what the Serbians already saw? It is clarified for us beyond any doubt.

“He’s the winner in any way. He’s the winner no doubt. Even if you could see the pictures, I don’ t know how you could use them.”

[By way of Pete in the comments: Sports Illustrated has the next-best thing to the official photos–an amazing underwater sequence showing the race’s final two meters or so.0

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Feeling Targeted?

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News graphics: they’re hard to beat for their subtlety and artful suggestiveness. This one accompanies a story on the ABC News website: U.S. Headed for ‘Heightened Alert’ Stage. Something about it just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside and half expecting to wake up some morning to the news that Dick Cheney has named himself President for Life.

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My Walk to Work

Most days, I ride BART from Berkeley to the station at 16th and Mission streets in San Francisco. 16th and Mission is a tough corner in a tough neighborhood. When I was an editorial writer for the San Francisco Examiner in the early ’90s, I wrote a piece about an Irish immigrant who was beaten to death with a baseball bat at an ATM near the corner. That kind of mayhem is rare, I think, but a lower-level kind of chaos, characterized by drug dealing, purse snatching, prostitution, a large population of beggars hanging out, transient hotels, and hairy-looking bars and greasy spoons, is more typical. I’ve been accosted a couple of times in the past six months by women working the street. I spotted one trying to intercept my path one Friday night. She was in high heels, and I sped up to get past her. “Don’t walk so fast!” she shouted. “I’m not going to hurt you!”

For all that, the walk from BART to KQED is still pretty interesting and rarely induces uneasiness for the purposeful walker. In the daylight hours, the biggest hazard is red-light runners and stop-sign jumpers on the major thoroughfares I need to cross–16th, South Van Ness, Folsom, Harrison and Bryant. The walk is about two-thirds of a mile, and I use a route that avoids a vicious block of transient hotels and some very hard-looking dealer types. I wind up on 17th Street. To the west, it rises picturesquely to the Castro and Mount Sutro. Eastward–my direction going to work–it winds up in a knot of streets on the edge of the Mission before crossing a ridge and disappearing into the neighborhood at the northern foot of Potrero Hill. This part of town used to be warehouses and light industry, and today it’s a mix of real and pretend artist lofts, galleries, small theaters, and a few vestiges of the old workshops. Harrison Street, one of the main routes west and south out of downtown, seems to have become what passes for a prominent cycling thoroughfare. I see a few hipster-homesteaders (isn’t it tragic to go by appearances?) riding by every time I’m on the street.

Here are the pictures, to be added to later:

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Two Takes on the Climb

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A sort of cheesy Versus screen grab from Tour de France Stage 9, the first Pyrenees day, on July 13. In the foreground: Maxime Monfort of Cofidis. He never showed any expression as he attacked on a tough climb. Behind him: David de la Fuente of Saunier-Duval, who briefly held the polka-dot jersey of the Tour’s leading climber. De la Fuente wore the same dramatic grimace all the way up the hill.

(De la Fuente eventually lost the jersey to teammate Riccardo Ricco, who in turn was ejected from the race after a reported positive test for a form of EPO; which ejection, in turn, caused Saunier, with de la Fuente, to quit the race.)

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