One thing we should toss out: Marie Arana’s rant April 20, 2009

This weekend, Marie Arana wrote an editorial for the Washington Post detailing how the Nobel Prize in Literature is decided by a bunch of anti-American meanies and we should get rid of it. I don’t have a problem, necessarily, with her thesis, but her reasoning is so shallow and strange that I had to draft a response:

Marie Arana’s derisive depiction of the Nobel Prize in Literature in the Post’s feature “10 Things We Should Toss” was such a thinly cloaked move towards inserting politics where there are none that I’m surprised you ran it. To read an argument that several of the Academy’s selections are out of touch with modern literature would be interesting; however, Arana’s editorial concludes that we should dismiss the Nobel Prize in Literature because a) the academy is snobby towards Americans and b) they have failed to recognize several great authors.

While compelling works such as Lolita stand out among their peers, they do not confer the sense of “idealism” the literature prize seeks to reward. The prize is awarded to those whose body of work, and specific work during the year of their award, conveys a sense of idealism– not excellence alone. Books are not rewarded solely for their literary merit; they’re rewarded for meeting Nobel criteria. These are not left-wing or right-wing beliefs. They don’t even register on the conventional American political spectrum. This editorial is the literary equivalent of demanding that a popular snack be re-named Freedom Fries.

Additionally, the Academy is under no mandate to be kind towards American attempts; take a look at the NYT bestsellers list and you will see little American proclivity towards literary fiction. Suggesting the elimination of a worldwide literary prize because an Academy member was snide towards Americans is the very type of provincial hubris that frustrates much of the rest of the world.

Selecting a few controversial choices for commentary and deigning the Prize irrelevant because of those choices is also disingenuous. I would say that I found it disappointing that Salman Rushdie was not recognized, but recognizing him would certainly be providing a reward to someone who meets the Nobel criteria and whose cause could be construed as “liberal”– so I have no doubt she is pleased about his exclusion. Marie Arana failed to mention whether J.M. Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, or Toni Morrison fall within her 15 deserving laureates, but I would be shocked to hear otherwise. If Arana wishes to argue against the Nobel Prize again, I hope she will choose meaningful criteria for her critique, and will provide an example of a worldwide literary prize that does a better job.

…Thoughts?

Why GM has to fail (and the sooner the better) April 15, 2009

There are plenty of blogs out there with this headline, or something similar, tacked on top. Most of them commence with dissections of General Motors’ bloated budget, taking side bets on bankruptcy proceedings, or blasting the Americans who bought GM’s giant cars as the real scapegoats. GM is in the news a lot lately– after all, they just had the auto show in Detroit a few months ago, and there’s that pesky extended bailout keeping them in the headlines.

Despite all this media attention, I have yet to read these words: “Wow. These guys are completely out of touch with reality, and they have terrible ideas.” So let me illuminate for you what the geniuses over at General Motors are using your tax dollars for.

At the North American International Auto Show in January,General Motors had a sweet trick up the sleeve of their collective lab coat– a state-of-the-art solution to the drag caused by sideview mirrors. Those little glass discs mounted on your I-beams are costing you fuel and slowing you down! The solution? Replace them with tiny cameras, mounted on the sides of the vehicle. These cameras will transmit a real-time image of what’s going on behind your car straight to little screens on your dash.

In one stroke of design genius, Ed Welburn– GM’s VP of global design– has taken a feature that is difficult to break barring a physical accident, is more or less essential to safe vehicle operation, and (most importantly) works simply, and has actually spent time and money developing a replacement for said feature that is unreliable, potentially buggy, and unnecessarily complicated. And need I even point out that the screens, wiring, and hardware for this little gadget probably clock in over 100 lbs? Plus, it’ll require energy, generated from your gas-powered engine, to operate. I’d imagine that gain in fuel efficiency is negated by the added weight and energy drain of these little gems.

This is before I even ask: Seriously? This is the company that builds the H2, and this is their approach to improving fuel economy? Tiny cameras? You make cars that get 8 miles to the gallon and you want to talk about fuel economy? Really?

Let’s give them some credit though– GM is thinking outside the box. They’re “collaborating” and coming up with radical new solutions to existing problems! That’s what Toyota does– GM can come up with new ideas, too! Like the PUMA! (That’s Personal Urban Mobility & Accessibility unit to you.) Check it out: Partnering with the increasingly obsolete Segway company, they’ve figured out a way to build a small, two-wheeled gadget capable of carrying people and a few parcels around town! According to NPR, they’re hoping that municipalities will designate smaller lanes next to major roads just for these innovative little gadgets. Genius!

Portland, Oregon, I can see you rolling your eyes. It’s called a bicycle– you have them all over. Look, it’s a nice little idea in some ways. But once again, completely out of touch with reality. It looks like a less-functional, more-dangerous version of the SmartCar– and it would require municipalities to dramatically change how they manage traffic instead of working within the existing frame.

All this amounts to reinventing the wheel, over and over again, but making it square. It’s like trying to bail out a sinking cruise ship with a Dixie cup. General Motors, please go the way of the dinosaurs (except don’t, for the love of all that is sacred, do anything remotely linked to oil…). They’ve gotta go before they have another chance to think or build things.

Dear Barack Obama: Where’s my job? December 7, 2008

So this is appropriate… President-elect Obama’s speechwriters can party hard and that’s fine. But please explain to me how someone so inarticulate that they have to grope a cardboard cutout of Senator Clinton instead of scathingly critique her– and so misogynistic that this is how they treat women in politics– is head of speechwriting for the whole freaking White House?

Mr. Obama, give me a break. If you’re going to give this silver-platter job to some twenty-something screwup… I’ve got your screwup right here. See, I thought I wasn’t bestest and brightest enough to make the cut for the Obama dream team… but seeing staffers such as Favreau makes me realize I, too, have a chance! If this kid is qualified, I’ve no doubt that my intellectual prowess and communications skills are up to snuff. I have… what’s that… word… hope!

I’ll tell you this much: Closeted skeletons or past e-mail indiscretions aside, I’d definitely disable my Facebook upon acceptance of the job– and I can promise you I’d find better criticisms of political rivals than pointing out that they have breasts. Oh yes, yes I can.

So give that speechwriting gig to me instead, President-elect Obama. I may not have the Heineken-drinking skills or cardboard-breast-groping talents of Jon Favreau, but I promise you I could do the job at least as well as that guy.

This is for my bitches November 6, 2008

This is for everyone who said we couldn’t rock the youth vote…

This is a referendum on the poor choices that 51% of the electorate made in 2004…

It’s a real mandate for change, instead of a Supreme Court-delivered sham victory grotesquely twisted to allow a group of diabolical men to wreak havoc on the United States under the guise of a “mandate from the voters”…

It’s my generation standing up and saying, We’ve done this your way for 40 years. It’s not working. It’s our turn.

This is about realizing that it’s Christian to stop worldwide hunger, pollution, rape, and needless death at least as much as it is to blindly prohibit abortion.

This is me saying I didn’t just vote Obama for selfish reasons — I did it for my mom, and for my grandmother, because I believe he is the right choice for young and for old, for Americans.

It’s my answer to four years of asking, America, do we misunderstand each other so fatally?

This is me having my Michelle Obama “proud” moment. Not just feeling patriotic about living in a country where civil liberties most people only dream of are guaranteed; the pride that must have been felt by greater generations when they realized their achievements were more than the sum of their parts.

This is about the right to belief being contingent upon upholding the Constitution that protects it.

This is the first day of the end of Republican anti-intellectualism. This is the rejection of Karl Rove’s tactics. This is the moment when attitudes of individuals around the nation will start to shift as they learn that the quality of a person’s mind is more nuanced than the color of his skin.

This is not going to fix everything, but it’s a start.

Let’s talk about guns for a minute. June 26, 2008

The Supreme Court’s first-ever ruling on the Second Amendment– a sharp 5-4 split striking down the Washington, D.C. ban on handguns that’s been in effect since I was a child– touched off a lively discourse between myself and my significant other about politics, guns, and the law. It also revives the “bitter-guns-religion” comment the RNC seeks to use against Obama every day between now and the general election.

So let’s talk about it for a minute. Let’s talk about why the handgun ban was (and remains) entirely appropriate, why Bittergate is founded on a comment that, linguistically, makes a whole lot of sense, and why the positions I hold don’t run counter to my belief that law-abiding deer-hunting, target-practicing, crime-avoiding citizens in all 50 states have a protected right to own firearms. (AND I support the Brady ban.)

First of all, the argument for gun ownership that’s predicated on the immediate availability of a citizens’ militia is a joke. It would take a catastrophe we can’t even imagine for United States citizens to get off their sofas, load up their guns, organize, and take on an enemy. Prime example: on 9/11, I didn’t see all the gun owners protecting the Pentagon or encircling the gates to airports cracking down on passengers and sniping potential terrorists. The U.S. military & government handled that. Besides, wars aren’t fought by troop formations in militias anymore. The closest thing I can foresee to minutemen enforcing the law of the land is a solo vigilante enforcing his own brand of justice across the land. We call those “mass shootings.” The closest thing I can see to Americans protecting their way of life from a meddling or misguided government? Waco. So don’t tell me that gun ownership is some form of national security. It isn’t. That’s why we have a military and defense budget that are beyond compare.

Next up: The handgun debate. I grew up an hour outside of Washington, D.C. and I remember (even after the handgun ban was in effect) being keenly aware that Southeast was a good place to go if you wanted to get clipped by a stray bullet. Now, I know what you’re going to say: Handguns legally purchased by law-abiding citizens aren’t the issue in gun crime. And you’re right. They’re probably not. But the D.C. handgun ban is an important tool for law enforcement agencies. If they spot pistols on petty criminals who can’t be charged with much else, there is a law on the books that allows prosecution of those individuals, instead of letting them drive up the rate of gun violence. Banning handguns in the District gives law enforcement reason to believe that anyone who would willfully break that ban and carry a gun is probably not going to use it for shooting Pepsi cans.

The handgun ban doesn’t necessarily stop handguns from getting into the hands of would-be criminals. But it does create a scarcity of handgun dealers within the District. If handguns are outlawed, you can bet fewer stores will stock the clips and magazines for 9- and 8mm guns or .357s. The ban does make it just a little bit harder to commit a gun crime… and when one is committed, it makes the punishment a little harsher.

So some do-good lawyers are up in arms about this (no pun intended, but I’m keeping it). It’s a total violation of civil rights. Right? Is it really, or is it a wedge issue that the right wing can dramatize to keep their coffers full of donations during a campaign cycle? If the self-professed small-government types were that concerned about civil rights, they’d take up the issue of tweezers and shampoo in a carry-on bag long before they’d take up handguns in D.C., don’t you think? Oh but wait. That’s no longer a civil rights issue, it’s a national security issue?

Washington D.C. is unique from all the other states in the union. It’s not a state, and it’s not a city belonging to the State of Maryland or the Commonwealth of Virginia. It’s an independent federal district governed by Congress. D.C. is the international representative of the United States across the world, home to our embassies, our agencies, and our entire judicial, representative, and executive system. There are all kinds of bizarre laws that apply to the District and its residents– diplomatic immunity, an absolutely zero-tolerance DWI policy (if you get pulled over after one beer, it’s off to the chokey), can’t build higher than the top of the Capitol. You can’t even carry a pocketknife there. Why? Because it’s the nation’s capitol. And it’s different.

If banning handguns in the District of Columbia is part of a program to dramatically reduce overall crime (which it did) and make D.C. that much closer to a model city, I don’t see the problem. Owners of rifles, shotguns, and anything else that could be construed as a recreational firearm are welcome to own them in D.C. But handguns don’t make law-abiding citizens that much safer– in fact, in situations where the victim pulls a handgun on their attacker, they’re more likely to have the weapon turned against them than they are to debilitate the attacker. If you’re really that worried about it, get some damn mace!

Now, onto Bittergate. Let’s parse this sentence, and I’ll explain to you why Barry would have defended it if the average American newsviewer didn’t have the attention span of a hamster. About the former Southern Democrats, the Blue-Collar Blue Staters who have gone red, Barack Obama said the following:

“So, it depends on where you are, but I think it’s fair to say that the places where we are going to have to do the most work are the places where people feel most cynical about government” … In a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn’t buy it.”

And the kicker:

“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Please tell me what is wrong with that statement? Because I understood it the first time I read the transcript. And this is not me parsing words, this is just me paraphrasing what I hear in that statement:

“People in working-class areas feel frustrated with their government because, 25 years after manufacturing jobs have packed up and left town, it feels like their government’s economic policy has forgotten them. They don’t feel like trusting government solutions anymore because they have been burned. This economic mistrust has translated into a broader general mistrust of the United States government. Since the broader economic worry isn’t something that’s easily divided or articulated, these voters focus on easy explanations and arguments about illegal immigrants stealing jobs, or whether the government is interfering with their right to own guns, because they are easier positions to debate and defend. Since the government isn’t listening to them about the economy, they speak up about more divisive, hot-button issues in order to express their frustration.”

Now are you seriously going to tell me that isn’t totally true?

In conclusion. President Obama isn’t going to take away your .386 deer rifle, and he’s not making fun of your religion. He might try and put some windmills on your Appalachian mountains in place of the mountaintop coal removal that’s decimating the landscape, but he’s not going to destroy your way of life. You don’t need a pistol in the District of Columbia and you don’t need a damn M-16A2 to shoot opossums.

Is it our fault they’re famous? May 1, 2008

Could music junkies be to blame for the rapid proliferation of shamelessly awful, overproduced pop music soaking the airwaves? I was marinating on the sad state of pop music this afternoon, and developed a little theory. Ride along with me here. I’m doing more than just bitching.

I pretty much break down pop music into the following categories: First you have the Top 40-type music, which has somehow become diverse in genre classification while converging in originality. All the American Idol winners and their “genres” (pop country, pop pop, pop rock) alongside a cohort of singers who don’t happen to also be songwriters. Michelle Branch, that sort of thing. These entertainers appear squeaky-clean and aspire to heavy rotation on the office-safe mix stations. Their songs are mass-penned and have the lyrical and auditory subtlety of the Jell-O jingle.

Next is what I like to call post-alternative. While I dug alt-rock in the 90’s, it’s thoroughly dead, and it’s been replaced by groups like Linkin Park, Nickelback, and Puddle of Mudd (who are all extremely pissed off at their parents). Case in point: As a kid, I used to make mixtapes by recording anything from Beck to Nine Inch Nails off of a 98 Rock broadcast. Listen to those stations now, and each song sounds like the one before it. They’re mostly terrible songs. Sure, it’s the distorted guitar and screaming, but there’s once again a lack of nuance. All the angsty, misdirected rage of alterna-kids is neatly packaged here.

You’ve also got the “hardcore” R&B that rocks all the thugs in their Jettas. I’m talking about the Supermans and Hot in Herre’s of the world– tunes by guys like Ludacris and Chris Brown. You can throw dance jams by Rhianna and Fergie in that dance-rap pile. These beats are easy to groove to, trademark on lowbrow rhymes and puns, and usually remix an obscure hook from James Brown or Earth, Wind & Fire.

Now, what do these acts all have in common? Two things: First, very simple, overproduced, catchy songs. That’s because these ditties are either blatantly written for the performers or receive heavy input from marketing executives. Following that calculated catchiness is tie-in merchandising. By and large, adults don’t buy CDs anymore– but kids and adolescents do. And they also buy posters, books, magazines, DVDs, and outrageously priced concert tickets.

The record industry isn’t making money on album sales anymore. Through the 1990’s, the model was to book an act with the ability to sell albums. Labels would turn a huge profit on sales, while the artist chiefly made money by backing up their album with quality live performances. The various incarnations of downloading have fundamentally changed the model– illegal filesharing is still a popular method of music acquisition. Even those who buy their music legally are only bound to buy two or three tracks they like from iTunes, as opposed to $12.99 on a whole album.

So what’s a record company to do? They’ve recruited and managed talent, only to find that they’re not making money. They need acts who don’t just attract fans; they need rabid fanbases, eager to snap up dolls and cosmetics branded for their favorite stars. They need kids. Even if teenaged fanatics get their hands on a computer and download tracks, they’re still going to buy posters, clothes, and other high-profit tie-ins.

Hence: Wal-Mart is teaming up with Disney Consumer Products to build “Hannah Montana Shops” inside Wal-Mart locations across the nation. Hannah-branded sportswear, flip-flops, bath beads, and board games will be sold to millions of consumers for the birthdays, Christmases, and middle-school graduations of girls nationwide. And Wal-Mart/DCP are going to make boatloads of cash off of the squeaky-clean Miley Cyrus they’ve produced.

As she ages, struggles with her identity as a woman, and works to transition from kiddie icon to adult popstar (as Lindsey Lohan has failed to do, and as Justin Timberlake has quite successfully done), Disney will probably throw her under the bus in lieu of the next hot seller. Record companies have figured out that signing contracts with American Idol rejects sells tee-shirts and photoprinted folders. That’s why they don’t sign and promote exciting, original acts anymore. New acts can’t live the paradigm of “selling out” if they try– nobody’s buying.

Record companies also sell a lot of cellphone ringtones, and you can bet that the girl next to you blasting T.I. on her iPhone shelled out $2.99 for that clip. That’s pretty profitable, too. Those I-hate-my-parents rockers appeal to the “alternative” kids with disposable income–the ones too jaded for High School Musical will gladly snap up heavily promoted acts such as Anberlin and that annoying guy who sings “hey there Delilah.” Rhianna’s pretty and she sells lip gloss for CoverGirl. Gwen Stefani hawks schoolgirl vests. Talented? No. Profitable? Absolutely. Disposable? As soon as they stop bringing in the cash.

Beyond the cash cows, the majority of what’s listenable still carries a recognizable brand. That’s why the most inventive performers today include Justin Timberlake (had you told me ten years ago I’d be listening to a former boy-bander and calling his beats interesting, I’d have laughed in your face). The record industry’s message to musicians is clear: If you can’t bring in the cash, you’d better stick to distributing your tracks on MySpace.

Ergo: We, the music junkies who jumped at the chance to download fifty-seven obscure tracks by the Smashing Pumpkins back in 1998, or to get ahold of every Radiohead remix on every Japanese single released, for free– we are responsible for the new paradigm in performer promotion. If we had just shelled out the thirteen bucks at Best Buy, we might’ve at least kept these acts to the Britney Spears level for a few years; that level seemed incredible at the time, but Miley Cyrus is now wealthier than Brit-Brit will ever be. The record industry had to figure out a new way to make money, and this is what they’ve come up with.

When it comes to bitching about “music nowadays,” we may have no one to blame but ourselves. Oh well, at least we still have our iPods…

McCain camp embarrasses self, others unnecessarily early in campaign April 18, 2008

This one really makes me cringe from The Maverick, the one who’s promised that a contest between himself and Barack Obama would define a new kind of politics, you know– the one who’s above partisan attacks and negative ads?

Yeah, that guy– John McCain– he’s plucked his favorite from a list of dubious articles on a shoddy conservative website in order to pit his donors against known terrorist-coddler, Barack Obama. In a new fundraising e-mail, the Senator Above the Fray highlights a Hamas leader’s quote: “We like Mr. Obama and we hope he will win the election. He has a vision to change America.” Right up there in eloquence with the fake-ass anti-America quotes on Ahmadinejad’s blog.

The fundraising e-mail alleges that the “difference is clear” and that Obama’s policy approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict– especially the part where he acknowledges the organization that sort of, well, runs the Palestinian territories and won an election there– makes him a surrender monkey. To quote the e-mail: “Senator Obama would surrender in Iraq and hold talks with the Iranian regime, John McCain will never surrender in the struggle with Islamic extremists.”

So Obama will surrender in Iraq, talk to Iran, and (by deduction) surrender to the Islamic terrorists? Class act, you are, Senator McCain. I at least thought he’d wait to strike the bigots in their terrorist-fearing hearts until the general election.

But the real motive behind this fundraising shennanigan is revealed in its timing– before the Democratic nominee has been selected. It’s just one more example of how the Republicans are crossing their fingers that HRC is the nominee– she’s divisive enough that McCain just might beat her. Just one more reason (as if she needs one) for HRC to drop out ASAP. Hey, I wonder what her Israel policy is? Oh, oh that’s right, a single-state solution. Brilliant! Make that the newest reason +1 on my list.

I really wish with all these stunts for attention, the Obama camp would just say “your behavior is embarrassing and we’re not acknowledging it” than issuing a denunciation. Just ignore the children, Barry O.