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Ben A.

Ben H.

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Cult of Personality I was thinking maybe Eva Peron, though she was never actually the President of Argentina. [Ben H.: 12/5/04 17:37]

Other Cults of Personality The adoration of Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam was spooky; I could see it extending well into a democratic transition there (if that ever happened). Vietnam, like China, has not had any charismatic leaders since its great revolutionary unifier (Mao, in China's case); instead it has a shadowy ruling cabal without a pre-eminent chief. Iran strikes me as another case of this. Maybe this trajectory is propitious for slow liberalization. In cases like North Korea, the son set up his own cult of personality and continues the tyranny at his whim. I imagine that if Saddam had died unchallenged in power, one of his sons would have killed the other and set up a similar cult. As for democracies, no, I can't think of any analogs to Turkey. In America, I dimly recall that Washington actively discouraged people from elevating him into a Dear Leader. England since the Magna Carta has been all about keeping the monarch in check. France might have given De Gaulle the Ataturk treatment, but he's just too funny-looking. In Spain, Franco just seemed to fade away, without anyone to drive the stake through his heart and proclaim himself founder of the republic. Every street in Italy seems to be named after Vittorio Emmanuel (sp?) or Garibaldi, but I would attribute this more to lack of imagination than to reverence. (Whether Berlusconi's stature will outlive him remains to be seen; I doubt it.) Maybe some South American countries? Is Bolivar given the Ataturk treatment in Venezuela or Columbia or Bolivia? What about Singapore? Isn't that a quasi-democracy with a self-aggrandizing leader? [Doug: 12/5/04 16:48]

Greetings From Istanbul I arrived this morning for a 30-hour business trip. Actually, the business portion will probably require all of 5 hours, but thanks to airline schedules I had to get here a day early in order to be sure I wouldn't miss my meetings. I haven't been here in a long while, but one of the things that struck me again is the continuing Ataturk personality cult. For example, along the wall the the park across from my hotel (and stretching probably half a mile) is a series of giant historical photographs of Ataturk. Likewise, at the airport. I should also note that in October when I visited the Turkish embassy in D.C., I got an eyeful of Ataturk as well. One wall of the large conference room was given to a photorealistic group portrait with a heroic potrayal of Ataturk at its center. A group of Turks in ball stand in a semi-circle at the right end of the canvass, looking off toward the right. While they are depicted as slightly blurry and in shadow, Ataturk stands in front of them, sharp and practically glowing. He stands stiffly erect, head titled downward, face wearing a steely expression, as he regards full-on whatever it is the rest of the group is looking at. Maybe it's The Future of Turkey. Anyway, all the Ataturk picture, busts, and statues creep me out not just out of an American aversion to political cults of personality, but also because Ataturk bears a really striking resemblance to my paternal grandfather. (Maybe there is something to the rumors of Ataturk's Jewish backround?) What I find interesting is that this cult of personality has survived Turkey's transition to a functional free-market democracy. Most of the cults of similar intensity that I can think have only survived as long as their habitat, namely an autocratic, centralized state -- and sometimes not even that long, as the next dear leader supplants the old cult with his own. The evolution to a mature democracy has typically coincided with a violent repudiation of the cult of personality. Can you guys think of any examples similar to Ataturk's ongoing veneration? [Ben H.: 12/5/04 13:05]

Peanuts, Cracker Jacks, Deca Durabolin Isn’t the real story here just how enormously effective steroids and HGH seem to be? I see another PR triumph for the pharmaceutical industry! (warning: some users may experience parastic infection. Consult your semi-trained nutritionist). Sheffield, Giambi, Caminiti, Bonds (and let’s not forget McGuire and Sosa) all played great on the sauce. Is it safe, you ask? Well, to quote Jason’s brother Jeremy on what convinced him to use steroids himself: “Yeah, and Jason didn’t die.” Peanuts, Cracker Jacks, Acyclovir It has been a good week for baseball all around. [Ben A.: 12/2/04 17:09]

Wishing We Had Held Onto Nick Johnson About Now Giambi, looking like a deflated balloon, admits the obvious. Can the Yankees use this admission to wiggle out of their contract with him? [Ben H.: 12/2/04 07:18]

We recently paid blackmail to a "Doctor Apocalypse" via a Gambian account. Coincidence? [Ben A.: 12/1/04 17:18]

I thought I very skillfully chose my words such that the statement is ambiguous on that question. [Ben H.: 12/1/04 11:55]

So then you're excluding yourself from the set of cinematic supervillains? [Doug: 12/1/04 11:22]

Once in a While, I Can't Help But Like This Job Who but I and a few cinematic supervillains gets messages like this: >We wired funds in the amount $X,XXX,XXX.XX to the Central Bank of Gambia for value today. Can you confirm they received it? Should be in Banjul later today. Will follow up with them then. [Ben H.: 12/1/04 07:51]

Audrey Tautou Naked! ... in "A Very Long Engorgement" [Doug: 11/30/04 20:51]

If His Name Were R.W. Pomme He'd Call It A Fondriere While media outlets that obsessively replayed Abu Ghraib and Fallujah incidents have let the depredations of French "peacekeepers" in the Ivory Coast slide, some blogs at least strive to keep it a live issue. The video of the Hotel Ivoire incident is quite appalling. I am trying to find a functional link. Our Africa consultant was in Lagos last week and decided at the last minute that it was safe enought to pop over to Abidjan. He reports that the situation there is relatively calm, but that all business has come to a halt. The staff at his hotel was quite excited that occupancy had climbed up to 5%. The country is, as of about 2 weeks ago, back in default to the World Bank. Quagmires don't only happen in the desert! [Ben H.: 11/30/04 09:58]

The Realest Line? Some jerk called at 6:30 this morning (wrong number) and I couldn't get back to sleep. On the plus side, while lying there I thought I saw how to extend my proof to get a fully subset of the real line that's fully rigid in the sense described below. Anyone who feels like a good point-set-topology workout is invited to check the proof which I spent the next five hours writing up. [Doug: 11/27/04 13:17]

The Realer Line Everybody knows "the real line" from high school math, the x-axis with every possible decimal number on it. I guess the motivation behind its name is that it models distances in the real world: physical lengths are divisible not only into "rational" parts like 1/2 and 1/3, but also into "irrational" parts like 1/π. Nonetheless, it's long worried me that the real line is profoundly unreal, since you can stretch it and compress it in whatever bizarre way you want without really affecting it. A real line worthy of the name ought to be rigid in this sense: if you pick up some segment of it (think of ripping out a section of an infinite ruler) and carry it to somewhere else on a line, so that its left endpoint is superimposed on some new point, its points should line up with those of exactly one new segment. The classic real line is not rigid this way. If I pick up the segment [0,1] and slide it over so that the deracinated "0" is on top of 5, I can line up its points in the obvious way using the equation f(x) = x + 5, so that they map onto the segment [5,6]. But I can also use the equation f(x) = 2x3 + 5, so that [0,1] maps in a fun-house way onto [5,7]. So is [0,1] congruent to [5,6] or [5,7]? Help! Relativism is destroying our schools! Can there be a really "rigid" line? The semi-technical definition of a rigid line would be this: a set of points with dense linear ordering, such that if you want to slide a closed interval of it onto another "target" interval with a particular left endpoint (via an order-preserving bijection), there is exactly one "target" interval to which you can move it. I think I've proved that there cannot be such a line. However, I think I've also proved that there can be something almost as good: a "maximally compressed" line, such that when you slide an interval to a new endpoint, there is a unique smallest interval to which it is congruent (technically, order-isomorphic). The proof is a modification of a 1950 paper by the Polish mathematician Sierpinski; it's a simple enough modification that I'd be stunned if nobody else had come up with it in the last half-century. But who knows. Maybe I'll post it on usenet. The line I made up is a subset of the "real" real line, and it lacks a lot of nice properties, like the least-upper-bound property. So I don't really intend it as a replacement. But you gotta love its compression property: when you're handed my ordered set of points and told to pick points to call "0" and "1", your choice forces a choice of "2", "3", and all the rest. ("2" is just the right-endpoint of the smallest interval whose left-endpoint is "1", and that can be slid pointwise onto [0,1].) Whereas, if you're handed an ordered continuum with the least-upper-bound property, in the usual way, and pick "0" and "1", there's absolutely no objective way to assign numbers to the other points -- everybody does what "feels good", standards fall away, and before you know it Heather has two mommies. [Doug: 11/26/04 23:34]

Calling: Found I was confirmed in my belief that this set-theory stuff is my true calling upon reading, on the first page of that paper someone recommended to me, this sentence: "One starts with a model of ZFC+CH and blows up the continuum with Cohen reals." In fact, I'm finding it hard to understand why anyone would pursue any career that did not let them write such sentences. Blowing up the continuum with Cohen reals? I mean, come on. [Doug: 11/21/04 18:23]

I've always been puzzled by the term "self-storage facility". It calls to mind seasonal workers or maybe temporarily-manically-depressed people: "Shit, I've got nothing to do for a few months, guess I'll just lock myself in this container until Septemeber." [Doug: 11/19/04 21:25]

Hometown I love it when the old neighborhood makes the news. As an aside, what percentage of self-storage units do we think contain corpses? 5%? [Ben A.: 11/19/04 19:22]

Thanks, Washington Glad to see the Congress spends its time tending to important business. The Sox championship proved its importance when it impelled the Government Reform Subcommittee to put on hold its important work designating February as Denture Odor Awareness Month in order to resolve to congratulate the team. [Ben H.: 11/19/04 17:47]

Sweeeeet! 108th CONGRESS 2d Session H. RES. 854 Congratulating the Boston Red Sox on winning the 2004 World Series. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES November 16, 2004 Mr. CAPUANO (for himself, Mr. MARKEY, Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts, Mr. NEAL of Massachusetts, Mr. OLVER, Mr. MEEHAN, Mr. TIERNEY, Mr. MCGOVERN, Mr. DELAHUNT, Mr. LYNCH, Mr. BASS, Mr. BRADLEY of New Hampshire, Mr. MICHAUD, Mr. ALLEN, Mr. LANGEVIN, Mr. LARSON of Connecticut, Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut, Mr. SHAYS, and Mr. SIMMONS) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Government Reform -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RESOLUTION Congratulating the Boston Red Sox on winning the 2004 World Series. Whereas on October 27, 2004, the Boston Red Sox won their first World Series title in 86 years in a four-game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals; Whereas the Red Sox won their sixth world title in the 104-year history of the storied franchise; Whereas the 2004 Red Sox World Champion team epitomized sportmanship, selfless play, team spirit, determination, and heart in the course of winning 98 games in the regular season and clinching the American League Wild Card playoff berth; Whereas the 2004 Red Sox World Champion team honored the careers of all former Red Sox legends, including Joe Cronin, Bobby Doerr, Carlton Fisk, Jimmie Foxx, Carl Yastrzemski, Cy Young, Johnny Pesky, Dom DiMaggio, Jim Rice, and Ted Williams; Whereas the 2004 postseason produced new Red Sox legends, including Derek Lowe, Pedro Martinez, Curt Schilling, Tim Wakefield, Jason Varitek, Keith Foulke, Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, Johnny Damon, Trot Nixon, Orlando Cabrera, Kevin Millar, Mike Timlin, Alan Embree, Mark Bellhorn, Bill Mueller, and Dave Roberts; Whereas Red Sox Manager Terry Francona brought fresh leadership to the clubhouse this year, and brought together a self-proclaimed `band of idiots' and made them into one of the greatest Red Sox teams of all time; Whereas Red Sox owners John Henry and Tom Werner and Red Sox President and Chief Executive Officer Larry Lucchino never wavered from their goal of bringing a World Series Championship to Boston; Whereas Red Sox General Manager Theo Epstein assembled a team with strong pitching, a crushing offense, and most important, the heart and soul of a champion; Whereas the Red Sox never trailed in any of the 36 innings of the World Series; Whereas the Red Sox set a new major league record by winning eight consecutive games in the postseason; Whereas Derek Lowe, Pedro Martinez, and Curt Schilling delivered gutsy pitching performances in the postseason worthy of their status as some of the best pitchers in Red Sox history; Whereas the Red Sox starting pitching in Games 2, 3, and 4 of the World Series had a combined earned run average of 0.00; Whereas Manny Ramirez won the 2004 World Series Most Valuable Player award in the World Series after batting 0.350 in the postseason with two home runs and 11 runs batted in; Whereas the Red Sox staged the greatest comeback in baseball history in the American League Championship Series against their rivals, the New York Yankees, by winning four consecutive games after losing the first three games of the series; Whereas the Red Sox prevailed in four consecutive American League Championship Series games, while producing some of the most memorable moments in sports history, including Dave Roberts stealing second base in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 4, David Ortiz securing a walk-off home run in the 12th inning of Game 4, David Ortiz singling in the winning run in the bottom of the 14th inning in Game 5, and Johnny Damon making a grand slam in Game 7; Whereas the entire Red Sox organization has a strong commitment to charitable causes in New England, demonstrated by the team's 51-year support of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's Jimmy Fund in the fight against childhood cancers; Whereas fans of the Red Sox do not live only in Boston or New England, but all across the country and the world, and a grateful `Red Sox Nation' thanks the team for bringing a World Championship home to Boston; Whereas the 2004 Boston Red Sox and their loyal fans believed; and Whereas this IS next year: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the House of Representatives-- (1) congratulates-- (A) the Boston Red Sox for winning the 2004 Major League Baseball World Series and for their incredible performance during the 2004 Major League Baseball season; and (B) the eight Major League Baseball teams that played in the postseason; (2) recognizes the achievements of the Boston Red Sox players, manager, coaches, and support staff whose hard work, dedication, and spirit made this all possible; (3) commends-- (A) the St. Louis Cardinals for a valiant performance during the 2004 season and the World Series; (B) the fans and management of the St. Louis Cardinals for allowing the Red Sox fans from Boston and around the Nation to celebrate their first title in 86 years at their home field; and (4) directs the Clerk of the House of Representatives to transmit an enrolled copy of this resolution to-- (A) the 2004 Boston Red Sox team; (B) Red Sox Manager Terry Francona; (C) Red Sox General Manager Theo Epstein; (D) Red Sox President and Chief Executive Officer Larry Lucchino; (E) Red Sox Principal Owner John Henry; and (F) Red Sox Chairman Tom Werner. [Ben A.: 11/19/04 16:22]

More Wonders of the World Wide Web Genius! Via unfogged Update: This site is gold! [Ben A.: 11/17/04 21:08]

Wolfe I think Bottum gets it right and, as usual, Slate's dialoguers are sloppy and snarky. Just as you say, Ben, Hoyt Thorpe's gilded youth turned to lead pretty quickly, leaving him with just enough experience of the good life to know what he doesn't have and to fake the assurance that comes with having it. As for the title, no, it's not particularly arresting, but "I am Charlotte Simmons" is the main character's mantra, and it is thematically important to the book. She bucks herself up by telling herself over and over, "I am Charlotte Simmons", which is meant to be an assertion of her uniqueness and intellectual superiority. (The notion of people's belief in their own specialness and superiority is a major theme of the book and touches every major character.) Ultimately, though, as a credo it's empty and tautological, Wolfe wants to say. You prove your worth by the values you demonstrate through your actions. You achieve superiority through accomplishments. By the end of the book, "I am Charlotte Simmons" is a declaration curdled with irony. "I am this person who has been completely corrupted, who has abandoned her intellectual pursuits, who has become deracinated from the values of her upbringing." [Ben H.: 11/17/04 12:07]

That is so true. [Ben A.: 11/17/04 12:03]

Still, after writing all four thousand pages or whatever, couldn't he have thought up a better title? [Doug: 11/17/04 11:54]

Various So, there's more good critial commentary on Wolfe. I need to read this book. Here is J. Bottum in the Weekly Standard. And here is what promises to be a pretty bad Slate 'dialog' on Wolfe. You know, I'm no preofessional critic, and I haven't read Charlotte Simmons, only the excerpt in Rolling Stone, but I ran smack into this comment in Stephen Metcalf's first paragraph --"Hoyt Thorpe, a smirking, born-on-third-base frat boy in the George Bush mold" -- and am still reeling. This is exactly wrong. Unless Wolfe has changed the backstory since the Rolling Stone excerpt, the defining fact about Hoyt is that he *wasn't* born on third base, but is rather the son of a grifter who abandoned his family. Now he's trying to claw his way around the bases, faking his way into Dupont by combining a serene show of confidence and a bogus public service story. And this comes from Tom Wolfe, the contemporary writer most obsessed with masculinity, and male roles. How lazy a critic to you need to be to miss this, or to analogize such a character to Bush? And how limited must Metcalf's vision be if he assumes smirk and swagger can only derive from privilege. Sheesh! Doug, I also have found the ability to touch the web and get intelligent resposnes from informed people deeply cheering. I certianly can't help you on your direct questions, but I feel sure I have in the past provided comments that are themselves "interestingly dense." [Ben A.: 11/17/04 11:46]

The Web Does Indeed Rule ... and so does a significant subset of humanity. I've been trying to launch my investigation into a new way to conceive spacetime. (The one sketched in the last pages of my "Platonic Bloom" book.) I was having some difficulty getting momentum, until I contacted a post-doc in math at the Courant Institute (NYU), who gave me some helpful advice. Then I posted a simplified question on Google groups, which netted me some more incredibly useful leads from another guy. Receiving one totally gratuitous act of kindness like this can outweigh the depressing effects of several days' worth of international news! [Doug: 11/16/04 22:42]

Dangerous Information That was funny -- reminds me of The Funniest Joke in the World, which was even funnier. [Doug: 11/16/04 21:16]

Modern Day Kitab Al'Azif This is fun. Chain of association: From The King In Yellow via a the hyperlinked text go mad or suffer horrible dooms. The web rules, as does the phrase "motif of harmful sensation." [Ben A.: 11/16/04 20:46]

Inflation? In My Country? I'm Shocked, Shocked! Ugly PPI print this morning. And it is not just oil. PPI ex-food & energy is now up to 5.4% yoy. Alan? Alan? Are you going to say something to reassure us? [Ben H.: 11/16/04 09:51]

Prejudice and Customer Preference My recollection is that there the limited exceptions to federal anti-discrimination law do not include "customer preference". For example, Title VII allows sex discrimination where sex "is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of that particular business or enterprise." However, courts have generally rejected the idea that pure "customer preference" falls within this definition. It's funny that you mention the example of a Jew serving as Middle East peace negotiator. Clinton's State Department assigned that role to the very Jewish Dennis Ross. A bank had a small dinner a couple of years back where Ross was the speaker, and I asked him this very question (i.e. whether the fact that he was Jewish made his job harder, in his view). He claimed that the role was inherently a difficult one and that he did not think his ethnicity made it particularly harder. I am also reminded of a similar case at the IMF. This must have been at the tail end of apartheid, or maybe shortly thereafter, when the IMF was re-engaging with South Africa. The good, liberal, Deputy Managing Director in DC decided to teach put the South Africans in their place by sending down as mission chief an Ivorian. The DMD surely felt very righteous about himself; the Ivorian, I'm told, was pissed off at being used as a sort of racial picador. [Ben H.: 11/16/04 07:35]

Dupont and Athletics The corrupting influence of big-time athletics is a part of the book, but it's really more a subplot than an integral strand of Wolfe's thesis. The idea, as I see it (and I see it, sadly, as a consulting slide), is this: - Universities hold themselves out as rarified bastions of intellectualism, but this is a kind of fraud - The student bodies at even top universities are suprisingly anti-intellectual. This holds true for a variety of reasons, from the professoriat's abdication of its pedagogical role in favor of abstruse research and politicking to big-time athletics. - The hyper-sexualized MTV youth culture does not stop at the quadrangle gates. If anything, it flourishes on campus, and exerts tremendous pyschological pressure even on those students who may have escaped its influence at the secondary school level. - For Wolfe, every social institution is about dominance rituals, and the university is no exception. What surprises him (I think, anyway) is that the dominance rituals in this supposedly rarified intellectual world are no different from on the outside and the results, too, are very similar. The university dominance rituals are not intellectual in nature. Masculine swagger (in this case frat-house swagger) reigns supreme. Sure, Dupont does not approximate Harvard as closely as it does, say Duke (my cousin went there, and from her descriptions, Wolfe seems to have come pretty close to the mark). However, you guys should consider that our Harvard experience might have been atypical even for its time and that it is now an experience that ranges from 10-14 years old. The way my hedgie friend who is Harvard class of '01 describes her experience, today's Harvard may come closer to the Wolfean anti-ideal. [Ben H.: 11/16/04 07:20]

Bingo, Doug Wolfe, I gather, tries to have his cake and eat it by marrying ultra-elite academics with big time ball. That basically means Duke, Stanford, or at a stretch, UCLA. I don't think the high Ivies have much of a debauchery sub-culture, but again, one never knows. I am guessing (and not just guessing) that Arizona State does. With Sweetness, Sucker I must confess a certain unease at the prospect of Rice as the new Secretary of State. Maybe serving as provost of Stanford should not presumptively disqualify a person from any future position of responsibility, but it should raise a barrier that only exceptional personal virtue can surmount. On the plus side, just think how batshit various racist/sexist potentates (and their medieval cronies) will be at taking marching orders from Condi. Welcome to the Enlightenment, losers! An aside: To what degree should the US, or any organization, makes concessions to the predjudices of customers/stakeholders? This seems to me a tough question. Is there any doubt that a young blonde woman would face especial challenges in negotiating a truce in Coite D'Ivoire, or a Jewish/Arab American in enforcing the final Israel/Palestine settlement? [Ben A.: 11/15/04 23:55]

Malapropism Watch Colin Powell on his understanding with George W. Bush: "After we had had a chance to have good and fulsome discussions on it, we came to mutual agreement that it would be appropriate for me to leave at this time." Let me guess which party was good and which was fulsome. [Doug: 11/15/04 23:07]

Without having read the book, without even intending to read it, I'd suggest that one's impression of how realistic "I am Charlotte Simmons" is depends on which real university one subconsciously compares it to. Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are not like this; they're filled mainly with achievement-bots, the "overprogrammed darlings" of the coastal elites, as Ben H says. Maybe Michiko Kakutani has those places in mind, and maybe that's why her review kind of misses the point. (Incidentally, Ben H, that link is the humorous vignette I was mentioning tonight.) U.C. San Diego, where I got my M.A., also seems unlike Wolfe's fictional school; it lacked the sports teams and frat houses that are the main wellsprings of campus boorishness. But my impression of Michigan State University, my hometown school, sounds consistent with Wolfe's book, and M.S.U. is surely more representative of giant state schools than Harvard or U.C.S.D. [Doug: 11/15/04 22:40]

Man in Full, or Full of It? I was about to post on this book myself. Not because I've read it, mind you, but because I was intrigued by the negative critical responses -- particularly the Kakutani and Showalter reviews you cite. I have been trying to fathom the loathing Wolfe inspires for some time. No one diputes Wolfe's standing as an essayist, but his last two novels have occassioned some remarkable pans. No doubt it frustrates the word-burnishing set to see Wolfe's increasingly workmanlike prose meet with enormous commercial success. That he's a realist, a showman, and a right-winger can't help. The reviews you mention, however, advance a more interesting, and rarer, accusation: that Wolfe has failed as an observer. Well, this may be so. I found the sheer quantity of screwing reported in "Hooking Up" improbable. But one should always take care not to underestimate the fabulous heterogeneity of American subcultures, or to judge national norms from the habits of one's own ghetto, particualrly if one dwells, as I do, in the same barrio that houses literary novelists and high toned critics. So I can be convinced either way. Further inspection of Showalter and Kakutani, however, does not reveal them as reliable guides to the zeitgesit. Kakutani, hilariously, adduces the prominance of alcohol at Dupont, and relative absence of hard drugs, as evidence of Wolfe being out of touch. Similarly, while Showalter chides Wolfe for leering, he at least knows who the Blood Hound Gang are. Perhaps a culture raised on the mores of MTV Unzipped and Girls Gone Wild might really be excessively sexualized. Wolfe has at least tried to connect with this reality. And while kids no doubt act out for the white-suited camera-man (thanks again, MTV!) one suspects Wolfe has learned to discount. No, what I think we see here are people being told something they don't want to hear. Showalter doesn't want to learn that a substantial segment of the youth culture is given over to a bleak cocktail of sex, misogyny, staus seeking and materialism. Nor more so do I, but why execute the messanger? Next step: read the book. [Ben A.: 11/15/04 22:16]

Most of the reviews of Tom Wolfe's latest sound a lot like Elaine Showalter's. They allege a vague creepiness to attach to an older writer's depiction of lubricious young people. But what if that's what the contemporary undergraduate scene is like? Look, I'll admit that I Am Charlotte Simmons was no Bonfire of the Vanities, but then surely Tom Wolfe had an easier time observing the Sherman McCoys of the world than he did with undergraduates. A white-suited dandy of an author would be the ornament of a Wall Street social climber's cocktail party; having that same dandy hanging out at a frat house would prove a social version of Heiseberg's Uncertaintly Principle. Anyhow, I liked the book in spite of Elaine Showalter, Michiko Kakutani, et al. Wolfe captured the strange fact that universities are at once the physical manifestation of intellectualism and incredibly anti-intellectual places, if one measures by the attitudes of the typical student body. Perhaps a critic like Showalter, a Princeton professor, feels a little overlooked by Wolfe. For unlike most academic satire (and it's not clear to me that Wolfe's book is really satire rather than something darker and more censorious), I Am Charlotte Simmons gives the professors short shrift. Rather is a picture -- or maybe indictment -- of the students (that the professors are absent is possibly a silent indictment of them, too). Dutiful metropolitan liberals like Kakutani might revile the book for that reason. Spending all their spare hours figuring out ways to get their little overprogammed darlings into top schools, they simply cannot stomach the possibility that these same darlings will turn those dearly bought four years into a long party. All that time spent helping to write college admissions essays extolling the life of the mind convinces them their kids actually believe it. One of the really trenchant bits of Wolfe's book is that way that Charlotte Simmons builds up the university in her mind as a sort of deliverance from the social isolation of a high school of boorish, intellectually indifferent students; and her bewilderment at finding the exact same social roles filled by people who happen to be smarter, a kind of social Darwinian adaptive radiation. Yet i couldn't shake a certain sense of dreariness about the book. Not that it lacked the signature Wolfean verbal pyrotechics. No, they were present in abundance, and contributed to a number of impressive, amusing set-pieces. But what had me down was the absence of a single sympathetic character. The boys and men are all either macho swaggerers or snivelling, etiolated poseurs. The women are uniformly shallow, treacherous, and debauched. Wolfe at some point seems to have become overcome by his own Olympean disdain for his subjects. I can't think of another realist novel -- including Wolfe's own body of work -- similarly deprived. One analog that came to mind was The Way We Live Now, but even Trollope's indictment of money-crazy London had its Roger Carbury, a man from outside the main scene of action, but a paragon of decency set up for deliberate contrast to the targets of Trollope's scorn. [Ben H.: 11/15/04 19:25]

Demographics Nifty segmentation of the US. I forgot where I found it... Update: Initial source the good fellows at unfogged. [Ben A.: 11/15/04 18:49]

New Meaning to "Hardship Pay" Being a bodyguard is far more dangerous than I imagined. [Ben A.: 11/11/04 17:08]

Adam Gopnik has an uncharacteristically boring piece about Le Monde in the New Yorker this week, which discusses its current difficulties. He notes that a main charge levelled against Le Monde is that it's changed from a "contre-pouvoir" into a "pouvoir". That is exactly how I remember it being phrased last year. France's main sickness in a nutshell: they think that having power is evil, that lacking it is good. The "slave morality", someone once called this. [Doug: 11/11/04 14:28]

The French and The Oppressed On your point three, it is worth noting that France was among the most important supporters and military suppliers of Israel during its early years. At that time, pressed on all sides by Arab armies, Israel played the role of the underdog. A few decades of material progress rendered Israel unsuitable as an object of noble French solidarity and therefore their allegiance moved to the Palestinians. On Arafat's sexual orientation, I believe that the original insinuation of his trysts with bodyguards came from Oriana Fallaci, in Interview With History. [Ben H.: 11/11/04 13:28]

Arafat in France The eulogy you link to there is sadly representative of France's idiocy on the subject of the Mideast. Whether or not Arafat was gay (and I might have waited for a slightly more reputable source than a Romanian ex-bodyguard before suggesting this) nobody is on his jock like the sententious statesmen of France. The French pique themselves on the Kerryesque nuance of their worldview, but here, as in most places, they too find it more satisfying to have a Good Guy and a Bad Guy. (It's not my main intention to ask what the French look for in a Good Guy, but if you cast yourself as someone who stands up to The Man -- corporations, America, Israel -- you're most of the way there.) Arafat is a Good Guy to them; he's kept just enough deniability with respect to recent terrorism, and to the Barak plan's rejection, to keep the French from having to go through an embarrassing and mentally taxing recalibration of their political likes and dislikes. (Castro, on the other hand, did make the superhuman effort required to make the French rethink their opinion of him. When he dies, hopefully soon, France will be a little less effusive.) Another universal human failing, besides the need to have Good Guy and Bad Guys, explains French non-revulsion towards Arafat, and that's the inability to understand that other people might be radically unlike you. I venture to say that most of (say) Le Monde's readership and writership think to themselves, "Surely, Arafat is a right-thinking man who wants nothing but a socialist state of justice and equality, and would never steal the billions of dollars we provide for his people." A third human failing has to be invoked to explain the French attitude toward the whole Palestinian people: philanthropic vanity. The French just feel good about themselves when they set themselves up as the Saviors of the Oppressed. This helps explain why the French aren't outraged that so much of the money they gave the Palestinians now sits in Arafat's secret bank accounts. The success criterion isn't that the Palestinian lot should improve; it's that the French can continue making the noble gesture of solidarity. In fact, if the Palestinians ever did climb out of their Oppression, the French would be robbed of their ability to keep making this gesture. The unstolen aid money that actually reaches the Palestinians has had the notable effect of rendering them incapable of normal economic activity, of normal human life. I've read that one-third of their GDP or GNP is foreign aid. One no longer has to work to feed one's family; U.N./E.U./Arab charity will take care of that, freeing one up to sit around the cafe all day with one's buddies, cursing the Jews. (This is perfectly fine if one sees the Palestinians primarily as an object for one's noble gestures, and if one can blame any bad aspects of this lifestyle on the Jews, as one always can.) Bonus quote (from a Le Monde article, "Un Palestinien", dated Nov. 6, not freely linkable now) that describes terrorism as a "contestable" tactic. Now that's what I call nuance! Il l'aura fait par tous les moyens, les plus légitimes comme les plus contestables, par la diplomatie comme par la lutte armée, terrorisme inclus. ... [Doug: 11/11/04 11:03]

Dog Bites Man Chirac's reaction to the news of Arafat's death (assuming this one doesn't get retracted by some embittered claimant to his looted fortune like the last few) is no surprise. I suppose that when the Joker dies, the whole Legion of Doom would mourn. I can't wait to see the sort of eulogy Chirac will deliver upon Sharon's death... [Ben H.: 11/11/04 09:33]

Just For The Record I wanted to echo your irritation, Ben H, with the facile equivalence of Republican Christians and Islamist theocrats. Perhaps this is one of those things that we can blame on John Rawls. Certainly liberals toting some notion of "public reason"* have been vigilent in insisting religious reasons cannot legitimately be invoked in political debate. From whence, I wonder, do these non faith-based "reasons" derive? Where do most people get their concern for right action, or the welfare of the poor? From a bogus game theory experiment conducted under a veil of ignorance? From the Critique of Practical Reason? Becuse as we know, mixing and politics and religion never works. * Yes, it is unfair to blame Rawls for this. Just barely unfair, but still unfair. [Ben A.: 11/10/04 20:00]

Joan Baez: Nutcase Hippies: defying parody for forty years! [Ben A.: 11/10/04 16:05]

Young Punters You're very kind, Ben, not to mention the identity of one loudmouthed sceptic of the Yankees move to acquire Clemens a few years back, who questioned the deal on the grounds of Clemens age! [Ben H.: 11/10/04 07:00]

Old Masters Clemens’ Cy Young is a source of great rejoicing, all the more so as his presence on the Yankees would doubtless have stymied the Sox. The hidden message of the Cy Young voting? Sign Pedro Martinez. Clemens won the award at 42, Randy Johnson, who may have had a better year, finished second at 41. Curt Schilling, 37 years young, will likely finish second in the American league voting announced tomorrow. Only eight years ago then Red Sox GM rebuked a subordinate with the famous remark “you don’t give a 34 year old pitcher a four year deal!” Four Cy Youngs later, that looks like bad advice. Modern training techniques and shoulder-sparing management of the pitching rotation have allowed pitchers to be better for longer. In this era, Pedro Martinez, at 33 and still averaging over a strikeout an inning, is a spring chicken. [Ben A.: 11/9/04 22:04]

An Alternative Strategy for the Dems If neither withering contempt nor honeyed persuasion brings the Dems electoral success, they could always give this gambit of the Belgian left a try. Alas, even in the age of McCain-Feingold and judicial activism, it would almost certainly be impossible to pull off such a trick. Here's a little irony, though. The EU for years was all over Turkey because the so-called Deep State kept finding ways to ban the largest Islamist party. They banned the Welfare Party. The Virtue Party appeared. They banned the Virtue Party. The Happiness Party appeared. They harassed the Happiness Party. Most of its members founded AKP; AKP won the last election and now (quite succesfully -- they are sort of like the Muslim equivalent of a Christian Democrat party) runs the Turkish government. Now, it looks like the scolds in Belgium will play the same cat-and-mouse game. Somehow I think supranational "Brussels" won't chastise Brussels the same way it did Istanbul! [Ben H.: 11/9/04 17:14]

Greatness Knows No Age Since your team swept the Word Series this year, Ben A., you can enjoy without the least twinge of regret that ex-Red Sox great Roger Clemens has captured yet another Cy Young award. I, on the other hand, can't help but feel he should either have spent this past season in retirement or putting that 18-4 / 2.98 year in the service of Steinbrenner's Evil Empire! [Ben H.: 11/9/04 15:23]

Pundits and Pols Aren't the Only Ones That Count It's not clear to me whether the "American Voters Are Idiots" meme trickles down from the heights of the punditocracy or, like many ideas that supposedly originate in the fecund brains of the media and political elite, percolates up from regular folks. If most of the population of New York City and L.A. chatter incessantly about the American booboisie, the booboisie is going to figure it out, even if pols and pundits stay silent. What smart, well-read New Yorkers like you, Doug, think makes its way through the general hum of urban conversation to the people like Maureen Dowd (who has rarely had an original idea in her elegantly coiffed head), rather than vice versa. James Lileks made the excellent point* a while ago that NY and LA hold forth with great certainty on the characteristics of Middle America; but if one thinks about it for a moment, it seems a lot more likely that Middle America knows NY and LA than the other way around. After all, those boobs sitting in front the TV all evening watch programs hatched in LA, filmed in NY, focusing on the hijinks of young, coastal-urban singles. Maw and Paw may have better feel of the zeitgeist then you may suspect. Just as an example, when poeple from our Dallas office come up to New York, they already know about the various neighborhoods of the city and even the "hot" restaurants and clubs. They get whacked over the head with it in TV, movies, books, magazines. I know very little about Dallas in comparison. *"It’s a big country. Please take this in the spirit it’s offered: we watch the news that comes from New York, read the magazines that come from New York, see the shows that come from New York. It’s entirely possible we know you better than you know us. Nu?" UPDATE: As usual, Mark Steyn says it better. UPDATE II: And now Hitchens , too. I sense a counter-meme taking shape... [Ben H.: 11/9/04 13:23]

You Misread Me The only reason I call him Arafag is because in his own religion and his own pathetic little statelet, violence against homosexuals is official policy. To me it is a delicious irony that Arafat (or a Talib or a Saudi) contracts AIDS through having anal sex, just as it is very sad when it happens to a non-hypocritical gay person (or any decent person, for that matter). Homosexuality is only shameful (shame, of course, being externally detemined) in a society like Arafat's. I think it's totally fair to mock him with his own prejudices. While i wouldn't deny that people who find homosexuality abhorrent went with Bush, you should also note that (at least according to the exit polls) 23% of self-identified gay voters chose Bush. [Ben H.: 11/9/04 12:57]

Speak to me, Yasser, Speak To Me!! Turns out more than a killer's blood is leaking away in Yasser Arafat's brain haemorrhage. According to this, it could be a $1bio spill. Maybe the EU can appeal to the Swiss bankers to get what is, after all, their money back. [Ben H.: 11/9/04 12:53]

The Boors Ye Shall Have Always With You Why am I contemptuous of Bush supporters? Two main reasons. One is demonstrated by Ben H's vile post below; fag-hating is a significant part of Bush's appeal. (Arafat may well deserve the worst possible fate, but it's wrong to exult in it in a way that declares homosexuality itself to be shameful and disgusting.) The other is that Bush and his team lied repeatedly to the electorate about Iraq and his tax policies, and Bush voters basically said "Thank you, sir, may I have another?" This is abject, in a way that supporting a merely bad candidate is not. Of course, it's bad strategy for Democrats to say that the bulk of Americans are twats. I'm just glad I'm not a politician or professional pundit, and am therefore free to observe that they are twats. [Doug: 11/9/04 12:49]

Queer Eye for the Dead Guy This Reuters report on Arafat's reputed death this morning takes on a whole new meaning in light of the homosexuality / AIDS rumors*: The fate of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat was mired in confusion on Tuesday as French doctors contradicted reports by senior Palestinian officials that the veteran leader had died at a Paris hospital. Several political sources said Arafat, 75, in a coma for the past six days, had succumbed to the mystery illness that led to his being flown to Paris from the West Bank on Oct. 29, thrusting his Palestinian Authority into crisis. "He is dead. It is possible they will delay the announcement," one Palestinian source said. "He died after bleeding in the brain began last night. His bodyguards started hugging and kissing and telling each other to be strong." They should have checked for haemorrhaging at Arafag's other end, if you ask me. *Ion Pacepa, a communist-era Romanian secret police apparatchik reported in his memoir Arafat's, uh, close relationship with his bodyguards: In his memoirs "Red Horizons," Pacepa relates a conversation in 1978 with Constantin Munteaunu, a general assigned to teach Arafat and the PLO techniques to deceive the West into granting the organization recognition. "I just called the microphone monitoring center to ask about the 'Fedayee,'" Arafat's code name, explained Munteaunu. "After the meeting with the Comrade, he went directly to the guest house and had dinner. At this very moment, the 'Fedayee' is in his bedroom making love to his bodyguard. The one I knew was his latest lover. He's playing tiger again. The officer monitoring his microphones connected me live with the bedroom, and the squawling almost broke my eardrums. Arafat was roaring like a tiger, and his lover yelping like a hyena." . RRRrroooar! [Ben H.: 11/9/04 11:42]

Where's The Outrage! Yes, we have heard this song before. Why, why didn't the populace rise up and dethrone Clinton, why did they still love him so? Perhaps because he was perceived as benig the target of an endless chain of Washington nonsense? Perhaps because not everyone spent ten hours a day reading the American Spectator? Now, far be it from me to describe the blockbuster revelations of Joe Wilson and Dick Clarke, the meetings of the 9-11 commission, or the just in time but two years late criticism of war planning John Kerry as Washington nonsense; or to draw parallels between the worst excesses of the Spectator of the late 90s and every freaking thing written by the left in the past two years. Certainly, no films chronicling the Arkansaw drug/murder ring made it to wide screen release, so there's a difference right there. [Ben A.: 11/8/04 21:17]

Blowing Out the Flickering Embers of Hope What the Dems ought not be doing is venting their spleen at fellow Americans who voted for Bush. You know, the people they will likely have to convince to vote for their guy the next time around. If a couple hundred million "527" dollars, Michael Moore, Bruce Springsteen, and the menagerie of MTV freaks behind "Rock the Vote" couldn't win the election for the Dems by "turning out the base", then they must rely on persuasion and not mobilization to carry the next presidential election. Calling 51% of the electorate yahoos, rednecks, racists, cretins, credulous boobs, etc does not constitute an effective method of persuasion outside of the less self-confident corners of a middle school. The Left's Bush-hatred sounds like the echo of the Right's bender of Clinton-trashing. However, where the Left departs company from the bilious anti-Clintonites of the right is in its tactless and utterly pointless denunciation of American voters. The charges have, in my view, little merit, but their accuracy is beside the point. For all the vitriol poured out against Clinton, the Right attributed his successes mostly to a kind of demonic charm rather than some alleged imbecility of the mass of Clinton voters. Whether they merely suppressed the urge to denounce these voters or honestly respected them, I cannot say. That directing their rhetorical fire against Clinton rather than the voting public was a wise choice, I can assure you. I want to add a word on a persistent and infuriating meme repeated by some of the Dem's sorest losers: that there is little difference between (ooh scary) "born-again Christians" and Islamofascists because both put a lot of stock in a holy book and both allow their particular holy book to inform their political choices. The left has got to get over this empty formalism and facile moral equivalence. Does it matter to them at all that one side interprets its book as a call to exterminate (really, not metaphorically) those who will not submit to it, the other to anodyne goodwill to men; the one to impose religious law by the sword, the other to oppose at the ballot box the wholesale exclusion of religiosity from the public sphere; the one to stone to death adulterers and homosexuals, the other to counsel against premarital sex and to deny homosexuals little but the name of marriage. [Ben H.: 11/8/04 20:57]

Keep Hope Alive! Like the blizzard of ’78, I expect to recount the great Leftist freak-out of aught-four to be to my children and grand children. Why, recriminations were packed so high we had to tunnel our way out to get food! Much as there is to enjoy in the gnawing off of tongues and resulting blood-specked spittle now in evidence on the left, I am a uniter, not a divider. So let me suggest three reasons why Blue Staters should not despair about their prospects, or the country’s: 1. Some take it as a fixed point that the economy cannot perform under a Republican administration, but friends, we are not doing so poorly. Models that forecast elections based on domestic economic news predicted a decisive reelect. It is hard to unseat an incumbent presiding over a decent economy. Given this, Kerry likely over-performed. So just wait for a recession and you can insert a candidate into the Oval Office faster than Bill Clinton inserted himself into, well, lots of places. 2. If the Democrats can abandon enough allies and principles, evangelical protestants will no doubt start to feel the respect that Nancy Pelosi has for them deep down on the inside. So while this strategy promises to be super effective, perhaps I might note that it is likely unnecessary. As everybody and his dog has noted by now, the “we lost because of gay marriage trope,” while gratifying to certain self-conceptions, does little to explain the results. Also, support for gay rights is practically the only saving grace of the modern democratic party (beyond their newly acquired – and doubtless sincere! – insistence on fiscal discipline). I would hang onto that one. 3. It could be that a guy who voted against the first Gulf War and supported the nuclear freeze was not a great choice during war time. I wonder why the Democrats did not nominate a Senator who voted for the first Gulf War. You know, the one where it was responding to aggression and we had the international coalition and were trying to enforce a UN resolution. You know, one of those nine guys. I think three of them are even around. Curse those fiendish GOP operatives for branding the democrats as weak on defense! How do they do it? [Ben A.: 11/8/04 20:23]

Ministry of Silly Talk From the Times, apropos of Yasser Arafat's fate: On Sunday night, the French foreign minister, Michel Barnier, told LCI television that Mr. Arafat was alive but his circumstances were complicated. ... Asked if Mr. Arafat was dead, Mr. Barnier answered, "I wouldn't say that." The absurd dysfunctional mess called "Palestine", in whose absurd dysfuntion the French are implicated, is every bit as absurd and dysfunctional as the Monty Python courtroom that M. Barnier's equivocations recall. JUDGE: Mr. Bartlett, I fail to see the relevance of your last witness. COUNSEL: My next witness will explain that if m'ludship will allow. I call the late Arthur Aidridge. JUDGE: The late Arthur Aidridge? COUNSEL: Yes m'lud. (A coffin is brought into the court and laid across the witness box.) JUDGE: Mr Bartlett, do you think there is any relevance in questioning the deceased? COUNSEL: I beg your pardon m'lud? JUDGE: Well, I mean, your witness is dead. COUNSEL: Yes, m'lud. Er, well, er, virtually, m'lud. JUDGE: He's not completely dead? COUNSEL: No he's not completely dead m'lud. No. But he's not at all well. JUDGE: But if he's not dead, what's he doing in a coffin? COUNSEL: Oh, it's purely a precaution m'lud - if I may continue? [Doug: 11/8/04 14:46]

That is indeed impressive. It was a beautful day for outdoor activity, too. Speaking of the marathon, I am reminded on a funny New York Times article -- don't worry, it was a long time ago and it appeared in Metro section, so my Times loathing is not compromised by praising it. One of the Metro columnists took his car and tried to drive, as closely as possible, the NYC marathon route of that particular year. It took him something like 15 minutes longer than the winning runner's time. Viva New York! [Ben H.: 11/8/04 13:35]

Congratulations to my father, who ran the New York City marathon yesterday. 26.2 miles is three times more than I have ever or will ever run in one go. Wow. [Doug: 11/8/04 12:36]

Van Gogh Repercussions In response to Theo Van Gogh's murder by a Dutch Muslim, an Amsterdam artist put up a mural of an angel, under the words "Thou Shalt Not Kill." The artist's studio happens to be near a mosque, whose imam found the message somehow "offensive." I suppose such a stark reminder of his own faith's signal failure to honor the most basic commandment could cause some unpleasant feelings. However, they ought properly to be aimed inward, not outward. This imam called the authorities, who showed up and removed the mural over the artist's protests. The Dutch authorities thereby gave yet another example of how thoroughly they have been cowed by the aggressiveness of Muslims immigrants. But when the government abdicates its responsibility to protect its citizens from a violent minority, it should come as no surprise that some citizens decide to take the job into their own hands. The multculti Dutch authorities think that by ignoring the problem, they will buy peace. How wrong they are... [Ben H.: 11/8/04 10:04]

Too Perfect To Possibly Be True Arafat's "mysterious" disorder is end-stage AIDS? [Ben H.: 11/6/04 19:55]

Jesusland, eh? Western Canada minus Vancouver would almost certain opt to join Jesusland if given the choice. The conservative movement in Canada that subsumed and replaced the old Progressive Conservative Party (Tories) arose in Western Canada and relies on the region as its political base. Stephen Harper and Stockwell Day before him faced a not insignificant amount of criticism from Canada's mainstream media for purportedly allowing their evangelical religious views influence their policy platforms. In fact, Harper's opposition to gay marriage was a contentious issue in this year's Canadian general election. Canada, it would seem, has its own Red Province / Blue Province divide, one that pretty neatly fits the longitudinal pattern visible in the U.S. [Ben H.: 11/6/04 13:51]

One Solution ... (Via Slate and, apparently, the Toronto Star.) [Doug: 11/6/04 08:55]

I Know Jack-Shit About Equities... ...but my man Alejandro believes that the election rally will be short-lived. He points out that stocks had a massive rally in the run-up to the election and that prices in that span were predicated on a Bush win. Therefore, another rally is not justified. Your sale decision is sound. Now, what you really ought to do, is buy a Tiffany Lamp made out of rhodium. [Ben H.: 11/4/04 18:14]

Dinner's on me I did decide to do some emotional hedging two weeks before the election and buy some extra stock, thinking that a Bush victory would boost its value. I sold it all off just now and have several hundred dollars worth of consolation, so dinner tonight's on me. I just hope I didn't sell too soon. (Or maybe I should put it all into Tiffany lamps anyway. This has replaced rhodium as my current investment scheme.) [Doug: 11/4/04 16:31]

Arafish Apparently, today is the anniversary of Rabin's assassination. Coincidence? You decide! [Ben H.: 11/4/04 14:14]

Sour Grapes I suppose my usage is stretching the meaning a bit. What I am talking about is how people (several in this office -- not even Americans!) say, ok, you won the presidency, but the US is just a piece of crap country on the way to third world theocracy status anyway, so have fun being the dominant party in a country on the decline. Seems to me that's an instance of sour grapes, broadly construed, though not nearly as clear as saying, "well, the presidency doesn't confer much power, anyway." [Ben H.: 11/4/04 13:43]

Sorry to force you to keep correcting my economic overstatements, Ben. Now that I have time to read up on macroeconomics (having returned to part-time work), maybe I will. Also, to continue in my role as embittered loser, a pointless cavil: you, like a lot of people in the last two days, have used the phrase "sour grapes" incorrectly. If I remember the fable, "sour grapes" is the pathetic consolation you take by saying that what your successful rival won from you wasn't really worth having anyway. I don't think that at all: the presidency is eminently worth having. Bush will use it to increase, rather than decrease, the level of suffering in the world. This makes me sad. So a more accurate description of my current state would be sad, bitter, and somewhat angry. I'm even hoping that the death of Arafat (just announced) and the upcoming assault on Fallujah will let me vent some anger vicariously. I think you said it best, Ben -- it's Guernica time! [Doug: 11/4/04 12:53]

Bush and the Dollar As Doug notes, the USD fell on Bush re-election. Strangely, though, Treasuries are rallying. As is oil. This is what one of my counterparties dubs a WTFT -- "What the Fuck? Trade". So much for efficient markets! [Ben H.: 11/4/04 12:11]

China and the Dollar I don't want to repeat my previous posts, but China is not holding the US on a leash. We've fallen into an unhealthy economic relationship, but it is mutually so. As for China threatening the call back its loans: it doesn't hold loans, it holds bonds, some of which have fairly long maturity. I wouldn't worry about the stock. Let's focus on the flow. The U.S. current account deficit is in excess of 4% of GDP, which is a pretty scary number. Don't blame this entirely on the Republicans, though. Part of this is, yes, government dissaving. But more of it is a very low private savings rate (our priv savings rate is MUCH MORE out of whack with global norms than is our public savings rate. Our budget deficit is actually middle-of-the-road in the OECD context). And a final bit of it is what I'll call "capital account push." That's the Asian governments deciding to maintain a dollar-peg at all costs, in order to keep exports churning and people employed; much like trademen in Victorian England would extend credit to a penniless nobleman because, hey, he's a nobleman, he must ultimately be good for it, and the alternative is to be idle. I think this last bit may actually be the most important. So what if China stops buying Treasuries? Well, in that case CNY will appreciate, and I'd guess JPY, KRW, TWD all follow. USD will weaken. What will the result be? Should be stimulative via increase in net exports, will probably put upward pressure on inflation and through that channel through nominal rates, MAY put upward pressure on real rates due to an increasing risk premium as the dollar becomes more volatile. Higher real rates would be contractive. Not clear which effect dominates. I would say this, though: the rest of the world's claims on the U.S. could be shrunk a lot more easily than you suggest by inflation at levels far from catastrophic. If you assume the average duration of the claims is around that of a 10yr bond, a 1% permanent inflation shock over that 10yr period would (at this point) knock about 8% off the real value of the claims. We don't need Carterite inflation to deal with the claims hangover; besides which, lots of the claims are equity claims (stocks and FDI) and that can evaporate REALLY fast. Just ask the Japanese who were supposed to "own America" back in the 80s. No inflation required! One way people talk about the US C/A deficit is to save that "Americans are living beyond their means." Well, strictly speaking this is true, but it is because some other people (Chinese and Japanese) are lending us the resources to do so for reasons which are, strictly speaking, non-financial. If this situation comes to an end and the USD weakens vs CNY, many millions of Chinese will have greater consuming power (and will likely use it). And many Americans will have lower consuming power. But note: this is not on an absolute basis, just as a share of global production. Americans may end up better off on an absolute basis as a equilibration of exchange rates leads to a more sensible relative pricing and hence more efficient allocation of capital, labor and other resources. In practical terms: instead of keeping 100% of our output and getting 5% of the world's output, we keep 95% of our output and 0% of the world's output. But we whole US industries rendered uncompetitive by the USD-CNY peg suddenly make sense again, and the US produces 15% more than it did before. (Totally illustrative numbers, obviously). That said: do go ahead and get out of dollars. USD/Asia is going to revalue sooner or later. It is as close to a slam dunk macro trade as exists. And do it because it is a GOOD TRADE, not because you're drunk on sour grapes. As for whether China will try to use financial blackmail to get us to sell out Taiwan, my first reaction is that I doubt China even needs to threaten. Colin "Multilateralist" Powell has signaled a serious softening of our commitment already. Chen Shui-ban is not a popular guy around this White House. I suppose the White House view is that China is too important on too many dimensions not to cultivate good relations with the Chinese. The Chinese would be quite foolish to threaten to stop buying USTs as a lever to split us from Taiwan. They are not buying USTs as a form of charity. They are doing it because it suits a primary economic policy goal, the CNY-USD peg. Were they to be spiteful enough to make such a threat, they would face protectionist barriers in about 12 hours. That, of course, is their worst nightmare. [Ben H.: 11/4/04 11:55]

Personal Message to Parents and Anyone Else Whose Estate I'm Likely to Partially Inherit (Tax-Free) Please get out of dollar-based assets. The Republicans intend to finance the government by selling IOU's, and when the buyers eventually decline to be repaid with more IOU's, and demand actual dollars, the Republicans will simply fire up the printing presses and churn out a couple trillion of them. The inflation rate will recall Carter, if not Weimar. Our currency has already started to slide. (Luckily Dao is paid in euros!) Put your money into Canadian real-estate or South American mining stocks or antique Tiffany lamps or something. -- A question for Ben H, too. How about this scenario: The Chinese decide they really want Taiwan back, and threaten to call in their loans unless we cede it to them. Plausible? Implausible? Is it more implausible that the Chinese would risk their swell economic arrangement to get back Taiwan, or that Bush would cede it to avoid being responsible for hyperinflation? [Doug: 11/4/04 11:13]

So is there any good political news out there? Well, some. [Doug: 11/4/04 10:41]

Mets Go With Randolph With Willie Randolph it was the baseball equivalent of "always a bridesmaid, never a bride." But at long last the Mets are giving Randolph a shot as a manager. Willie was my personal favorite among the Yankees teams of my childhood, one constant through years of Steinbrenner-induced instability, a class act all the way. Best of luck to him! Unfortunately, given the Mets' recent performance, he'll need it. [Ben H.: 11/4/04 08:50]

The Deep Wisdom of the American People I agree that this sort of concession speech phrase is vacuous cant. The most honest concession speech came from Morris Udall, when he gave in to Jimmy Carter in the 1976 primary race. "The people have spoken," he said. "The bastards!" Then again, Morris Udall had a great sense of humor, unlike that sonorous banality-dispenser Kerry. [Ben H.: 11/4/04 07:42]

Throwing Them Queers Over The Side I know you're being facetious, but let me take it seriously for a moment. The Dems don't need to throw gays over the side, but what kind of a moron do you have to be to make gay marriage a major campaign issue? I think that the Dem political consultant crowd -- the perennial losers like Bob Shrum, for example -- are incredibly tone-deaf, at least compared to Karl Rove or the late Lee Atwater. However, even a consummate political operator, Bill Clinton, stumbled at the start of his first term over another obscure issue relating to sexual orientation, namely gays in the military. So I'll tell you what kind of morons consistently make peripheral issues relating to gays campaign centerpieces: smart people in a party that has allowed itself to become way too dependent on the money and support of a constituency (Hollywood) that, as far as its values go, might as well be from another planet. Personally, I really don't care what the rules of marriage are. I simply can't see gay marriage as an issue of any real importance (particularly given how emptied of cultural and legal significance marriage has become), and to start yapping about it as a "civil rights issue" might not stretch the OED meanings of the words "civil" and "rights" and "issue" but does to my mind do injustice to what most of understand as the meaning of "civil rights issue." We could talk about Civil Rights Issues if the Republican-nominated Anthony Kennedy had written his opinion in Lawrence vs. Kansas and then enclosed it in brackets and put a "not" sign before it. My advice to the Dems, tell Hollywood that if they want to change the culture, they can use their crappy movies and TV shows to make the attempt, but using the party as their instrument to do it as a matter of law just ain't gonna work. And the Dem Party cannot afford to wage this sort of attritional warfare for even one more election cycle. Of course, I doubt they'll take the advice; and, as a conservative, I can't say I'm unhappy about the Dems' stubborn loyalty to this millstone constituency. [Ben H.: 11/4/04 07:34]

A Dolt of Our Own, Cont. A despairing indictment of the dim American people it was -- and I found that refreshing. It hasn't been 24 hours yet and already I'm tired of everybody from Kerry on down stressing that they have "enormous respect for the voters of America", regardless of the outcome. Look -- most Americans are dolts. Barbarians. Jackasses. Appendages of their own televisions. My father often quoted his own father (or someone) as saying "the world is two-thirds full of assholes", and if that figure is too high in our country, it's by at most fifteen percent. There was a time when these jackasses could be coaxed into voting for a non-jackass. Okay, well, to dwell on that is pointless nostalgia. Because, whatever its causes might be (Fox, Rush, Jesse Ventura ...), we have lived through the quiet triumph of a Jackass Pride movement. The open question for us (my own personal readership anyway) is whether we can find a suitable jackass figurehead for good governance, rather than bad. It shouldn't be a priori impossible. However, not all wise and just policies can be sold to the boobocracy in this fashion. Some just cannot be dressed up -- or dressed down -- to their liking. I've thought about which issue, which constituency, the Democrats will have to jettison, and come up with this answer: homosexuals. To its credit, Jackass Nation is now only mildly racist, but I fear nothing will ever get them to accept them queers gettin' married. Sorry guys (and gals), it would be swell if we could keep fighting for your civil rights, but you're sinking our boat. Over you go! Let the word go out today -- no more homosexual wedding blurbs in the Times, no more questioning of the military's rules, and not even any more mentioning of equal anything on the basis of sexual orientation. Hell, the DNC should put out a PR statement that homosexuality is immoral, preferably on biblical grounds. [Doug: 11/3/04 23:28]

A Dolt of Our Own Saletan's strategy is likely the Dems best hope. However, he proffers it not so much as a straightforward recommendation, but as a despairing indictment of, as he sees it, the dim American people and the Republics who pander to them. I think he has stumbled over an important truth. Temperament is incredibly important in a president, more than intelligence and more that wonkery. Expertise he can hire. It's like what Holmes said about FDR: a third-class mind, but a first-class temperament. [Ben H.: 11/3/04 17:43]

I hope you're not right about Hillary being a winner. As William Saletan's post-mortem explains (and btw this is the best election wrapup I've read), she's just another "well-meaning liberal who can't connect with people outside those islands of blue on your electoral map", and whose clock would be cleaned in 2008 by the Republicans' next earthy, personable dolt. Who will, incidentally, be The Rock. [Doug: 11/3/04 17:10]

The Winners George W. Bush Hillary Clinton (unless you think that this utter humiliation of Terry McAuliffe leads to wholesale change at the top of the Dem party?) [Ben H.: 11/3/04 07:12]

P.A. Trading Looks like I've made some decent money working the Intrade screens. Bought Bush victory (i.e. contract pays 100 if Bush wins) @ 28, 35, and 44. Did some state-by-state trading, too, which was marred only, it appears, by what I thought was a good value buy on Bush-Wisconsin @ 35. In short, woo-hoo, a couple hundred bucks for me! Then I steeled myself and took a look at oil. Up over a buck from the close. One of the approximately one zillion ironies of the election. The prospects of victory of Mr. "Blood-for-oil, pump ANWAR" Bush have been positively correlated with crude futures. I think the idea is that Bush will continue to build the SPR, while Kerry would have released some stock. By the way, I suspect that goosing crude prices by a couple of bucks, which the Bush admin fill-rate of SPR has accomplished (in my opinion), contributes a heck of a lot more to reducing consumption than doing anything with those much-ballyhood CAFE standards. [Ben H.: 11/3/04 06:57]

Politics and Markets I'm watching the Bush and Kerry contracts on Intrade and plotting it against the major equity indices. Perfect correlation today: as Bush is fading, equity market selling off. That's not so surprising. The more interesting correlation has been in the oil market. The oil market has been leading Intrade all day. As Kerry's fortune improves, oil gets whacked. I suspect this has to do with the relatively likelihood of SPR release under Kerry as opposed to under Bush. Crude traders, it would seem, have an acute sense of the political winds. [Ben H.: 11/2/04 16:13]

Eurabia Update When the green flag flies over Eurabia, it looks like the asperity of sharia will extend to film criticism. A Dutch film-maker learned the hard way that the barbs of Islamic critics are not just rhetorical. But, hey, I'm sure Elvis Mitchell iced a few directors in his time, right? hat-tip: reader BvC [Ben H.: 11/2/04 14:59]

Dull Careers for Dull People Came across this surprising choice for an advertising photo today. [Doug: 11/2/04 09:17]

Third Option I've been wanting to see Shaun of the Dead, on the strength of the opening of Anthony Lane's capsule review: "It is only natural to be scared of zombies, and to prevent them from laying waste to your home. A more relaxing approach, however, is to be bored and vaguely annoyed by them, or, better still, not to notice them in the first place. This is the premise of ..." [Doug: 11/2/04 09:12]

Election Night Entertainment You should go see Dawn of the Dead. You see, it's a lot like election day: the dead will rise. In the case of the movie, they rise to eat brains. On election day, they'll rise to vote brainlessly. [Ben H.: 11/2/04 08:55]

Best Film of 2004 If you missed "Anchorman: the Legend of Ron Burgundy", and it's hanging around in a theater somewhere up there, that would be my advice. [Doug: 11/1/04 23:04]

I Approve This Quiz I scored 9 out of 21 on this [Ben A.: 11/1/04 20:06]

Various It's the "Irving Kristol" award! Also, I need some help. In 2000 I left the house late election eve, and saw a midnight show of Charlie's Angels. This was the best election day decision I ever made. Now I need another trashy movie. Any recommendations? [Ben A.: 11/1/04 15:57]

Annals of Uselessness The contractors are still putting the finishing touches on our new floor, even though we moved in two weeks ago. Today a workman finally put signs on the bathroom doors ("Men", "Women, and "Disabled"). Each sign contains the word in question, but also, in line with the ADA, an icon (for the illiterate?), and some braille. This is very special braille though. It consists of the usual arrangement of dots, yes. But these dots are not raised. We're dubbing it "visibraille." [Ben H.: 11/1/04 13:08]

Wrong Answer, Presumably The American Enterprise Institute Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence? [Doug: 10/31/04 23:11]

Quiz Time What is the name of the American Enterprise Institute's highest honor? [Ben A.: 10/31/04 23:04]

Scenes From Cambridge A sign outside a neighborhood bar reads: Tonight's Special Shrimp-lobster Avocado Rosotto GO PATRIOTS [Ben A.: 10/31/04 21:22]

The Diffident Halloween Mobs of Brooklyn Until this year, since I moved back to New York I had lived in a geriatric building amidst a relatively childless neighborhood. As such, Halloween passed each year without as much as a single knock on my apartment door. This Halloween marks my first in stroller-choked Cobble Hill. While I came to the holiday without any first-hand knowledge of the pattern of its celebration in this part of town, I could be certain I would get more trick-or-treaters than in Murray "Geezer" Hill. On Friday, I went to CVS to lay in a store of candy. I selected my quantity with some trepidation, knowing that whatever I bought, none would be left over after Halloween; the only question was whether it would end up in the bags of the trick-or-treaters or my own too-ample belly. Wanting to avoid the health and aesthetic consequences of the latter, yet reluctant to disappoint the ragamuffins, I settled on what I thought was an ample, but not excessive supply. Five bags of candy, totalling approximately 60 pieces. At around 4pm today, the first costumed moppets starting appearing on my street. Out my window, I saw them streaming by, but not one rang my bell. My only real experience of the ritual comes from my boyhood in Pleasantville. There, one had to trudge a considerable distance from one house to the next, and even if every window lay dark, one would still try the doorbell, usually repeatedly and insistently. After a half-hour of puzzling silence this afternoon, I set out to reconnoitre the neighborhood. THe children (and their parents) only alit on those houses where people stood out on the stoop dispensing candy. GIven the density of houses in Cobble Hill (and the steepness of the stoops) the trick-or-treaters faced more houses than they could possibly cover. They utterly bypassed any house that wasn't a sure thing. Clued in, I grabbed my candy bowl and plopped down on my stoop. Where i continued to be ignored. I reconsidered the popular houses I had seen on my reconaissance mission: at most of these houses, the house was decked with fake cobwebs or elaborate jack-o-lanterns and, most strangely of all, the dispenser of candy was himself or herself dressed up. Since I can barely cut a loaf of bread, making a jack-o-lantern remained out of the question. And while I have no particular attachment to the "tradition" of Halloween, having to get dressed up to give away candy seemed too dramatic an inversion of my Halloween experiences (not to mention a clear violation of the laws of arbitrage) to seriously contemplate. Instead, as groups passed my house, I decided to wave and make myself conspicuous. This seemed to do the trick. Within 40 minutes, my candy supply was entirely exhausted, though i stuck scrupulously to a one-kid-one-piece policy. Though the traffic seemed to be thinning, and still mindful of the consequences of getting stuck with excess candy, I headed back to CVS. The bulk candy shelf was more-or-less denuded of stock, but I did manage to get another five bags of candy. This supply, once I returned to my post, evaporated in about a half-hour. Some other random observations on Halloween in Cobble Hill: - I have never seen the streets so full of people. A river of Spider-men, mummies, ghosts, witches, Harry Potter impersonators, firemen, etc, and their doting parents flowed down every street. Trick-or-treating back in Pleasantville, my little group rarely ran into other trick-or-treaters. In fact, we avoided it carefully, for it usually ended up with my group getting sprayed with shaving cream, pelted with eggs, or beaten up. Needless to say, no such mischief goes on here. - The trick-or-treaters were by-and-large younger than what I remembered from my childhood, mostly of an age where they had to be accompanied by their parents. Lots of them could barely manage a "trick-or-treat" and just thrust out their candy-bags and looked cute and shy. - People trick-or-treat retail establishments here. That strikes me as strange; stores are in business to make money, so taking candy from them seems too naked an economic exploitation. Besides which, if the store is open, the proprietor can't just pretend he's not in the way a homeowner can. All trick-or-treat transactions have an undercurrent of extortion, but asking for candy at stores seems like the real thing. - One "Harry Potter" came to my stoop accompanied by his mother, a woman covered in Kerry-Edwards buttons. "I like your costume," I told the kid, "but I have to say, your mother's is scarier." It coudl have been worse though.. she could have taught him to say, instead of "trick-or-treat", "vote-or-die." [Ben H.: 10/31/04 19:22]

Alive! So, this is a big deal: Bin Laden alive, and seemingly thinking strategically about the election. Some initial thoughts: 1. Who thought *this* would be the October surprise! A massive Kerry windfall, you would imagine. 2. Why no earlier videotape? Was it the desire to maximize the influence on the election(if so, very patient!), or some lack of capacity? 3. That's a farily healthy looking guy. Dialysis must be easier to get hold of in Waziristan than I imagined. 4. My Pet Goat! He mentioned My Pet Goat! Michael Moore must be ecstatic! 5. Ok, this seems deeply calculated to nail Bush. I guess we know who UBL wants to win! 6. Thinking over #2 and #3 above, is it possible that this is a fake? And how long has Al Jazeera had it? [Ben A.: 10/29/04 18:16]

Arafish in Paris This guy is like Lazarus. Yesterday, he's basically dead; today he is on his way to Paris to recuperate from "exhaustion." He struck a good bargain for himself when he sold his soul to the devil. I found the reaction of the Israeli markets to the news surprising. The currency sold off on the open this morning, but recovered most of the lost ground when it became clear that the flesh-lipped, wall-eyed terrorist would be allowed to seek treatment in Paris and assured of the right to return. None of these moves, however, were more than a blip compared to the big gyrations we saw early yesterday when Netanyahu threatened to resign from his post as Finance Minister. (He has managed to perform the Herculean feat of reigning in Israel's public sector unions and getting the budget under control). It seems like the Israelis have basically moved on from worrying about who controls the P.A.. They're going to build a wall and leave the monkey-house to the monkeys, as it were. [Ben H.: 10/28/04 14:18]

Why do all moribund dictators seem to end up here? [Doug: 10/28/04 14:01]

Best Season Ever Interviewer: "Do you believe in curses." Manny Ramirez: "I don't believe in curse, I believe you make your own destination." Damn right, Manny, damn right. [Ben A.: 10/28/04 13:38]

The Rise of the Cringe-Jerker You might guess a priori (upon release from the windowless box in which you were raised, say) that humans wouldn't like having their negative feelings artificially stimulated; you might expect them to spend their entertainment dollars on happy, inspiring, funny stories, to the exclusion of sad, dark ones. Of course everyone raised outside a box realizes this is false. And some (going at least back to Aristotle) have tried to figure out why we'll go out of our way to hear stories that trigger negative emotions. Although the Poetics was pretty much in one ear out the other for me, I seem to recall Tragedy being the main subject. If I were to guess which negative emotions most interested Aristotle (without even making a superficial attempt to Google some basic facts) I would say sadness, compassion, awe at humanity's ultimate powerlessness against fate, and that catharsis thing. Note that this is a small subset of negative emotions. I don't recall Aristotle talking about horror, nausea, or boredom. Well, I guess the eye-gouging thing in Sophocles was pretty rough. Nonetheless it's only recently (it seems to me) that these emotions have come into their own in entertainment. Modern cinema opened up a market for horror and nausea, and I submit that Camille Claudel opened a new era in the history of boredom. Now another bad feeling has joined the dramatic repertoire: mortification. Although there must be one, I can't think offhand of any precursors of Punch-Drunk Love, that strange flick where the Adam Sandler character stumbles into predicaments so embarrassing that they'll deflect your face away from the screen more powerfully than the goriest horror scenes. Or of American Movie, the documentary about a borderline-retarded goofball trying to make feature films. The currently playing example is Sideways, which we saw last night. It's a good movie, but maybe a little too derivative of Swingers. The most cringe-inducing scene in the history of film must be the one where the loser character in Swingers leaves a sequence of phone messages to his ex-girfriend. Sideways has no one scene as memorable as this, but its cumulative effect is similar. Despite the great acting and intelligent writing in Sideways, it's too emotionally manipulative. The "loser" character is an utter loser, and there isn't much subtlety in the way the film uses his loserdom to evoke cringes. The filmmakers must have faced choices about how far to go with his loserdom; they could have made him more complex, but the appeal of the easy cringe may have been too much. I suspect that filmmakers build up, over the course of their artistic development, subconscious regulators that keep them from evoking the easy laugh or the easy sob. Mortification may be so fresh a dramatic device that nobody worries yet about laying it on too thick. (Another reason to avoid making your characters overly loserish: you make it implausible that the female lead should go for him in the end, as she always does. This problem really killed Punch-Drunk Love for me; it's not quite as bad here, but it is a problem.) [Doug: 10/26/04 23:45]

I can't think of an answer to either of your questions. I could imagine a transnational ruling family in South America, or Africa, but not in post-Habsburg Europe or in Asia. Also I have only a vague grasp of the U.S. constitution but I doubt anything there prohibits the Clinton scenario you're talking about. There must be laws to disclose potential conflicts of interest like this, but I doubt there are any to prevent them. (Cheney, if I understand things correctly, divested from Halliburton not because he had to legally, but because it was politically smart. True?) [Doug: 10/22/04 10:46]

Bill Clinton To Succeed Kofi Annan? UPI reports that Bill Clinton has set his heart on the UN Secretary Generalship. I don't blame him. Think of the sheer variety of hot interns available to him, many of them coming from cultures even more tolerant of intramural hanky-panky than the U.S. Turtle Bay might well be Bill Clinton's Elysian Fields. Should Bill obtain his wish -- and how rarely has he failed! -- he may once again dash Hilary's hopes. For how could she run for President if her husband currently sits atop the U.N. Secreteriat? That smashing noise you hear on Old School Road in Chappaqua may sound like hurled dishes, but it's really the clash of titanic ambitions. As it stands, Hilary's current position as Senator isn't free of conflict with Clinton's dream post. She has a vote on treaty ratifications, some of which might involve the U.N. as subject or broker, she has a vote on budget appropriations for the U.S. contribution to the U.N.. Can you guys think of any legal reason why the Clintons could not simulataneously serve as Senator and SecGen respectively? I leave aside ethical reasons, because we all know that these sorts of restrictions don't apply to those who really mean well, an exception the Clintons have made liberal use of during their careers of dedicated public service. Finally, this raises a little trivia question. Can you think of any other situations where family members hold positions of trust in different countries or international organizations? [Ben H.: 10/22/04 08:46]

Cloud Nine Hovers Directly Over Ninth Circle of Hell When I think Boston, I think "classy". [Ben H.: 10/22/04 07:08]

Dispatch From Cloud Nine I know I have had little to say here for several days beyond “Keep Hope Alive.” To do otherwise could have jinxed it, you see. Writing even this much worries me. I promise to emerge in a week with insightful remarks. For now let me quote the following: It was actually happening. The nerd was kissing the homecoming queen. Paper was beating scissors; scissors were beating rock. Charlie Brown was kicking the football. The Red Sox were beating the Yankees for the American League pennant. Also, for more than you want to know about The Cadaver that Saved Beantown, go here. [Ben A.: 10/22/04 01:32]

Secured vs Unsecured Debt $100K of unsecured debt is very different than a home mortgage. $30K of credit card debt, on top of $60K in student loans, for someone making $90K a year strikes me as pretty unmanageable. Anyway, the verbatim detail in the complaint all but reveals the existence of a tape. Yet why would she listen to this stuff for so long? I tend toward your view, Doug. From her prior stint at Fox, she knew the guy to be a reckless pervert and saw an opportunity to cash in with a sexual harassment lawsuit. [Ben H.: 10/21/04 21:12]

It's pretty sad if that's all Drudge can dredge up on O'Reilly's accuser -- these days, going to law school or buying a lilliputian NYC apartment will easiliy put the average person more than $100K into debt. ($62K of her debt, according to Drudge, is in student loans.) I would have thought the right-wing slander machine would have "turned up" pictures of her working in a whorehouse by now. Is this another sign that the bullies are in a precarious position? [Doug: 10/21/04 19:07]

She Owes $100K??!! Sheesh! That's a lot of falafel! [Ben H.: 10/21/04 17:54]

Well, the standard line seems to be that transcripts with that level of detail ("falafel"???) must have audio tapes to back them up. I can't think of any more plausible explanation for the accusation. I hadn't heard the $60M blackmail figure. That does cast some doubt on the victim's character here. I wouldn't be surprised if all the "strenuous pleas to desist" noted in the complaint had something of a pro forma character: I request that you cease conveying your sexual fantasies to me over the phone, but failing that, please speak slowly and distinctly. [Doug: 10/21/04 15:29]

Who Put This Pubic Hair on My Coke Doug, are you entirely sure the woman asking for $60mio hasn't exaggerated a bit or made it up entirely? On the other hand, O'Reilly is an annoying blowhard whose preparation for becoming a "serious commentator" was hosting the original tabloid TV show, A Current Affair. I won't be sorry to see him go if he turns out to be guilty. Poor guy, it's too bad his sin wasn't to forge evidence for his stories; if so, he'd have a lifetime hold on his anchor desk. [Ben H.: 10/21/04 13:21]

O'Reilly I don't know how I ended up being the last person on the Internetz to hear about this scandal. Of course one wants to be evenhanded, one wants to say that journalists of the left aren't saints either, one wants to find moral equivalence everywhere -- but it's hard to find a pro-Democrat analog of this twat. Could this be another omen that our right-wing bullies are about to be booted? [Also, you have to read this page of the complaint against O'Reilly until you reach the word "falafel".] [Doug: 10/21/04 10:29]

Theocracy ... (or at least faith-based government) may be coming to an end in America if this baseball series is an omen. Scrappy Massachusetts-based team comes from behind to beat rich arrogant team used to buying its way to victory? This message has to resonate for Kerry. However, Ben A points out that Kerry couldn't successfully name any of his hometown players when asked who his favorite was, so it would be hard for him to grab the Red Sox coat-tails too ostentatiously ... [Doug: 10/21/04 09:54]

Though the Red Sox Are My Mortal Enemies... ... I cannot disparage what they accomplished. Like Livy writing about Hannibal, I'll give the Sox their due for a really impressive performance without forgetting that they are enemies and without ceasing to hope that the NL champ cleans their clock in the Series. [Ben H.: 10/21/04 06:02]

Theodicy Damon, baby! [Ben A.: 10/21/04 00:40]

Keep Hope Alive! Keep Hope Alive! Unreal [Ben A.: 10/20/04 00:47]

Keep Hope Alive! Unfortunately, I am now in San Antonio, and so could not take part in the looting. Onwards to the Bronx! [Ben A.: 10/19/04 01:45]

Just one from barrel may be discovered at origin of abysmal pie! (3,5) Hint: the relevant meaning of "pie" for encoding purposes is its verb definition. Answer. [Doug: 10/18/04 21:03]

Taking Business to The Next Level Americans have been known for centuries for overemphasizing business. (E.g. Thoreau: "If a man was tossed out of a window when an infant, and so made a cripple for life, or scared out of his wits by the Indians, it is regretted chiefly because he was thus incapacitated for -- business!") Even with this baseline of obsession, though, we seem to have become even more business-obsessed in the last 20 years. The current spate of "Apprentice"-knockoffs crowns this trend. Now we run the corporate rat-race twelve hours a day and come home, exhausted, to relax momentarily in the escapist fantasy of ... a televised corporate rat-race. Not incidentally, today marks my return to part-time work. [Doug: 10/18/04 20:31]

Mary Cheney Flap Elizabeth Edwards says that Lynne Cheney's anger over Kerry comment about Mary Cheney shows that Lynne Cheney harbours "a certain amount of shame" about her daughter's sexual orientation. Lynne Cheney was clearly pissed. I was waiting for her to respond: "We're not ashamed Mary's a lesbian. We're proud she knows how to drive!" [Ben H.: 10/18/04 15:02]

My Broom Goes Back In The Closet! [Ben H.: 10/18/04 06:03]

Keep Hope Alive! [Ben A.: 10/18/04 01:53]

Buy Me Some Hemlock and Cracker Jacks! Last night qualifies more as an ordeal than a ballgame. As we sat in the increasing cold, watching the Yankees convert good field position into a series of touchdowns and field goals, it was hard to think why we weren’t inside, by a fire, drinking. The answer: team spirit. The derisive applause that followed the 1-2-3 8th (courtesy of escaped serial killer Mike Myers) was worth the price of admission. Advanced baseball statistics put the chance of redemption at 6%. Go Sox! [Ben A.: 10/17/04 12:38]

Quite a Pitching Duel! Looking at the score, I wonder for a moment whether I am watching a baseball game or a football game... [Ben H.: 10/16/04 23:30]

A Sure Thing Check this sure-thing investment. No investor will be able to claim ignorance when he loses -- the project starts out under water. [Ben H.: 10/15/04 14:07]

Poncho Culture Let these avatars of "indigenous" clothing take their appreciation to the next level. On days you don the poncho, try peeing in an outdoor latrine, bathing in a river and cooking over an open fire. [Ben H.: 10/15/04 13:19]

My reluctance to talk about fashion stopped me from decrying the "poncho" craze, but now that Slate has done so, let me say that all these monkey-see-monkey-do types you see walking around with ponchos look totally stupid. What fashion statement are they conveying? "We as a culture have attained the stage where we can reliably make craft cloth into squares -- and then poke a hole through it!" Sleeves, collars ... you'd think these advances were a few centuries off. [Doug: 10/15/04 11:50]

P(ANTON)E [Ben H.: 10/15/04 11:30]

Ignore them if you will; I cannot stop posting the occasional cryptic clue. (It's preferable to a full relapse into making puzzles.) This one starts with "P". In gym class, Webern reveals chromatic system (7) [Doug: 10/15/04 10:16]

Binge and Purge in the Oval Office? LBJ varied 10-15 pounds a month! Don't worry Lyndon, we think you're beautiful. [Ben A.: 10/15/04 09:11]

LBJ's Pants I don't want to hear any criticism about Bush's diction from fans of the Great Society. Listen to LBJ ordering pants... [Ben H.: 10/14/04 14:02]

Frustration I swear, if the Sox don't score by the 4th inning of game 3, I am going to shoot Gary Sheffield with an air rifle. I bet the ushers will let me take it in. [Ben A.: 10/13/04 23:58]

Deconstruction = Scientology? Derrida's acolytes take a page out of L. Ron Hubbard's book and vigorously counterattack disparaging articles about their faith. Something like 300 litcrit types signed on to this letter to the NYT, complaining about the tone of the Derrida obituary [Ben H.: 10/13/04 11:05]

Better, Indeed Yeah, Moose could have pitched 9 perfect innings instead of 6! I didn't get to see it (I was on a plane), but it sounds like it got kind of sloppy... [Ben H.: 10/13/04 07:46]

Well, that could have gone better. [Ben A.: 10/12/04 22:22]

Ben A.

Ben H.

Doug

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