;)
The Commentariat -- Feb. 18, 2013
Happy Presidents' Day George Washington's Birthday
Peter Grier of the Christian Science Monitor: "... there is no federal Presidents' Day holiday. We don't care what your mattress ad says -- is that a legal document? The official name of today's day off is 'George Washington's Birthday.' It's supposed to honor the Father of Our Country, and only him.... [According to] the Office of Personnel Management list of 2013 holidays..., 'This holiday is designated as 'Washington's Birthday' in section 6103(a) of title 5 of the United States Code, which is the law that specifies holidays for Federal employees.... Though other institutions such as state and local governments and private businesses may use other names, it is our policy to always refer to holidays by the names designated in law.' Washington's Birthday has been a national holiday since 1885." Aw, shucks:
My column in the New York Times eXaminer takes down Tom Friedman's latest effort to "reform entitlements"; i.e., cut Social Security & Medicare. ...
... Dean Baker does an excellent job of debunking all of Friedman's economic arguments.
** Rick Hertzberg of the New Yorker on naked Dubya & naked power, with reflections -- literal & figurative -- on the state of the GOP.
Philip Elliott of the AP: "The White House is downplaying its draft immigration proposal as merely a backup plan if lawmakers don't come up with an overhaul of their own. It won't be necessary, Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike are telling the Obama administration." ...
... Jamelle Bouie, in the Washington Post: despite the high degree of similarity between Obama's plan (which actually contains some detail) & Rubio's plan, "Rubio has come out against the administration's proposal.... Is Rubio interested in passing immigration reform, or does he want credit for being the kind of GOP senator who is interested in immigration reform."
Margaret Hartmann of New York: as the deadline for a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline looms, President Obama will have to choose between the environment & our Canadian friends. ...
... Suzanne Goldenberg of the Guardian: according to organizers, a crowd of 35,000 "protesters descended on Washington DC on Sunday demanding Barack Obama shut down the Keystone XL pipeline project to show he is serious about taking action on climate change.... The event, billed as the largest climate protest in US history, was intended as a show of force before Obama renders his decision on the pipeline project in the next few months. Protesters were bussed in from 30 states and Canadian provinces."
Paul Krugman: "... just about everyone except Republican men believes that the lowest-paid workers deserve a raise. And they're right. We should raise the minimum wage, now." ...
... John Cassidy of the New Yorker agrees. CW: an excellent explanation of why.
New York Times Editors: The sequester cuts, "which will cost the economy more than one million jobs over the next two years, are the direct result of the Republican demand in 2011 to shrink the government at any cost, under threat of a default on the nation's debt.... Last week, Senate Democrats produced a much better plan to replace these cuts with a mix of new tax revenues and targeted reductions. About $55 billion would be raised by imposing a minimum tax on incomes of $1 million or more and ending some business deductions, while an equal amount of spending would be reduced from targeted cuts to defense and farm subsidies. Republicans immediately rejected the idea; the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, called it 'a political stunt.'" ...
... MEANWHILE, the ever-brilliant Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) says a good solution would be for "the government [to] protect the Defense Department from automatic spending cuts by slashing $1.2 trillion from the Affordable Care Act," as Josh Israel of Think Progress reports. As Israel notes, not only would that cost 30 million Americans the opportunity to obtain health coverage, "Obamacare actually reduced the deficit. [Graham's] proposal to put its elimination on the table would mean increasing the budget deficit by an estimated $109 billion over the same 10-year period, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office." CW: do you think Lindsey Graham gives a rat's ass about the deficit? He just doesn't want you to have affordable healthcare. Of course, he has great government-sponsored health insurance.
Max Rivlin-Nadler of Gawker: "During the year it went public, Facebook made $1.1 billion in profits. But thanks to some nifty accounting, the company won't be paying any federal or state taxes on it -- instead, it will actually be receiving a federal tax refund of about $429 million.... Not only that, but Facebook is actually carrying 'forward another $2.17 billion in additional tax-option tax breaks for use in future years.' Basically, they would like to do this every year. One of our most successful new companies is not paying a dime in taxes. Yes, let's please cut Medicare. That's the thing that's broken." CW: a good answer to Tom Friedman.
Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "Marco Rubio ... has now capitalized on [his Big Gulp] moment to raise more than $100,000 for his Reclaim America political action committee by selling branded water bottles. A source close to Rubio tells BuzzFeed that the water bottles, which were sold on the senator's PAC website to anyone who makes a donation of $25 or more, sold like hotcakes. In the period since they went on sale Wednesday, more than 3,100 of the PAC's 'Marco Rubio Water Bottles' have been sold."
Obama Planning to Put Chips in Every American Brain. Here's the genuine New York Times headline: "Obama Seeking to Boost Study of Human Brain." Oh, the story sounds benign enough: "The Obama administration is planning a decade-long scientific effort to examine the workings of the human brain and build a comprehensive map of its activity, seeking to do for the brain what the Human Genome Project did for genetics. The project, which the administration has been looking to unveil as early as March, will include federal agencies, private foundations and teams of neuroscientists and nanoscientists in a concerted effort to advance the knowledge of the brain's billions of neurons and gain greater insights into perception, actions and, ultimately, consciousness." CW: If this doesn't bring the conspiracy theorists out of the woodwork, I'll eat my ... brain.
Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Washington Post: United Arab Emirates helps poor communities in third-world nations -- like the United States. CW: the low-tax, no-union GOP mentality, most prevalent in the South, is responsible for where we are today, a country that can't afford to or chooses not to pay for basic needs.
Satire Alert. Andy Borowitz: "The chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology said today that the committee would hold hearings next week 'to settle the question, once and for all, of whether meteors exist. The media has been in something of a frenzy recently on this whole topic of meteors,' said chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas). 'I think it's irresponsible of them to frighten the public about something that, at the end of the day, may be about as real as unicorns.'"
The Big News from the Barack Obama-Tiger Woods Golf Game -- White House Press Corps Is "Livid":
Speaking on behalf of the White House Correspondents Association, I can say a broad cross section of our members from print, radio, online and TV have today expressed extreme frustration to me about having absolutely no access to the President of the United States this entire weekend. There is a very simple but important principle we will continue to fight for today and in the days ahead: transparency. -- Ed Henry, WHCA president & Fox "News" correspondent
I really can't tell you how important it is to me -- and to history -- to know the particulars of that golf game. -- Constant Weader
Hillary Cashes In. Dan Amira of New York: Clinton will begin her career as a well-paid speaker in April or May. And she write another book/cash-cow.
Local News
Emory University Needs a New President, or at Least Three-Fifths of One. Max Rivlin-Nadler: "Writing in the winter issue of Emory Magazine, President James Wagner rhapsodizes about the need for compromise in a politically turbulent society. He points out that the constitution was in itself a compromise. Another example he cites, is the Three-Fifths Compromise, which legally represented slaves as less than a person.... He then goes on to explain that compromises, like the Three-Fifths Compromise, keep our country great." ...
... With all due respect to those 19th-century do-gooders who had the idea of repatriating American blacks to Africa, it would have been a far, far better thing if, after the Civil War, the U.S. had deported all the white people in the Confederate states.
Here's the Maggie Smith interview, by Steve Kroft, which I mentioned in the Comments section. There are some Web extra segments here:
My tilting teapot.
News Ledes
Washington Post: "Rejecting a push by Britain, European governments on Monday decided against providing weapons to Syrian rebel forces, expressing fears that more arms would only lead to more bloodshed in a conflict that already has taken nearly 70,000 lives. The decision, by European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, illustrates the difficulty that Europe and the United States have had in dealing with the two-year-old Syrian civil war despite their unanimous condemnation of President Bashar al-Assad and his ruthless battle to remain in power."
Reuters: "Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa reveled in a sweeping re-election victory that allows him to deepen his socialist revolution even as he seeks to woo foreign investment in the resource-wealthy Andean nation."
Reuters: "Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made a surprise return [to Venezuela] from Cuba on Monday more than two months after surgery for cancer that has jeopardized his 14-year rule of the South American OPEC member."
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Reader Comments (17)
Re: the Sequester: to quote Chistina Romer abou the economic collapse, but it applies here "We're pretty damn fucked:" Especially my wife and me, and others who depend on the VA and TriCare for retirees.
An interesting article about the so-called "Texas Miracle."
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/17/1187052/-Go-home-Rick-Perry?showAll=yes
The Sequester will be really painful for Texas because they're so dependen on the MIC.
I'll try again.
Re: the Sequester: To quote Christina Romer "We're pretty damn fucked!" She was referring to the economic collapse, but it keeps on being applicable.
On the so-called "Texas Miracle:" http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/17/1187052/-Go-home-Rick-Perry?showAll=yes
Re; Here; there,check out the hair; Just watched the Presidents morph; where the hell was the portrait hairdresser for the first twenty-five sittings? William Henry Harrison had it going on with the "comb down", the rest of them look like my poodle-terrier mix nine months past the dreaded groomer appointment.
As one changed into the next I mulled over Ken's midnight question as to whether a man who seeks power can be trusted with it.
I think it depends on the moral fiber of the person. I think Ken used the masculine pronouns because at the time of his musings not many females were in positions of power. Now I think we can include the other gender in the overall question and add one. Given a woman in power or a man which do you trust to not abuse the power?
Those that crave power; will abuse it. I don't believe there is much difference between men and women when it comes to the passions of power. I do think women might have a more communal genetic hardwiring then men. Making women better leaders for the group as a whole.
Close your eyes and make believe that the portrait parade of prezs was all women. What kind of a country would we have?
All for one; one for all. Not many of the old goats in power today would pledge for that, would they?
I like Ike. Dick never looked so good. JFK had the toof thing goin'.
Ronald fuckin' Reagun was president for the eighties? No wonder things are fucked up beyond all recognition.
And; I thought the musical accompaniment was as syrupy as an ice cream sundae left out in the noonday sun.
Charles Fried has a lovely homage to Ronald Dworkin, the legal philosopher, in the New Republic today. I somehow missed his death notice and was sadden to learn of it. I always found his essays in the NYRB enlightening and profound. I hadn't realized that he once clerked for Learned Hand, someone whom Achilleus* and I mentioned some time ago. And this brings me to something else I just learned: During the Brown v Board of Education court case William Rehnquist was clerk to Robert Jackson whose pragmatism left him doubtful of the decision at first, but came around in the end. However, Rehnquist wrote a memo denouncing integration which came to light during his confirmation hearings which most certainly would have derailed his nomination, but he claimed that he was voicing Jackson's view which simply wasn't true, but it went uncontested. And guess who then clerked for Rehnquist––none other than Ted Cruz. Another one of those never ending circles.
* Poor Matthew, killed off last night in D.A. whatever will become of Mary and the baby? And your description of Mrs. Hughes as the "moral heart of the whole place" was on evident display.
@Marie: Enjoyed your slam dunk on Tommy F. Question: why on earth does he have such a large mansion? What's it for? This is a man who quotes taxi drivers and orange peddlers in India to make his points that somehow don't correspond to those sumptuous surroundings. It's like an advocate for cleaner air who keeps a large pig farm whose dung emits huge amounts of methane.
@P.D.Pepe: Friedman married money. From his Wiki entry: "Friedman's wife, Ann, is a graduate of Stanford University and the London School of Economics.[7] They were married in London on Thanksgiving Day 1978. Her father, Matthew Bucksbaum, was the chairman of the board of General Growth Properties, a real estate development group.[8] As of 2007, Forbes estimated the Bucksbaum family's assets at $4.1 billion, including about 18.6 million square meters of mall space, but the firm's value later plummeted.[9][10] The family's trust declined in value from $3.6 billion to $25 million. On April 16, 2009, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, after failing to reach a deal with its creditors. The GGP collapse marked the largest real estate bankruptcy in U.S. history."
I don't think it was I who said Mrs. Hughes was "the moral heart of" Downton Abbey, but I would agree with that. What I got out of the show appeared in the previous episode when the dowager (Maggie Smith) had somebody to tea at her own digs -- Edith, I think. The dowager character had this terrific tilting teapot on the table, & I just had to have one. Sure enough, there were several on ebay. I picked the style I wanted & the price I could afford, put in my bid (9 seconds before the close) & my teapot is in the mail. I've already invited two ladies to tea. I can hardly wait to show off; of course I always openly laugh at myself when I put on airs, so it's not much of a show. An ornate tilting teapot is totally over-the-top, even for someone like me, who often does sit down to a nicely-dressed tea table with my husband &/or neighbors.
I'm posting an interview of Smith, by Steve Kroft, which aired on "60 Minutes" last night.
Marie
PD,
I only just heard of Dworkin's passing this weekend. A great man. His battles against legal positivism are reminiscent in scope, integrity, and philosophical ability to Karl Popper's massive takedown of logical positivism, the 800 lb gorilla of early 20th century philosophy.
Dworkin was roundly hated by the right, mostly because of his stance against conservatism's authoritarian approach to legal matters. Although the right routinely excoriated his somewhat relativistic consideration of legal doctrine, especially in its reflection (or deflection) of moral issues, ripping him for what they saw as a liberal bias, they never stopped to reflect on their own highly partisan rulings which in addition to being authoritarian, also managed to be extreme in their legal activism, attempting to change the law to suit their own ideology. If Dworkin sought a change to our understanding of law, it was always in search of a moral rightness, not political ideology.
As for Matthew Crawley, I knew he was dead the minute he left the hospital, happy as a lark after the birth of his son, driving down the road. The second I saw that overhead shot of him smiling and happy, I knew he was roadkill. Besides after all that loopy jumping up and dancing jigs and reels, smiling faces, and Mr. Moseley drunk as a skunk (again) up in Scotland, you knew that someone would have to pay for all that bonhomie. But that's Downton, in' it?
And wasn't sure I could ever feel empathetic towards Thomas, so go figure.
But Downton has an heir, Lord Grantham has seen the correctness of Matthew's business plan through Shrimpy's fiscal demise (that name!), and we have another 10 months to see what happens next.
Crikey!
Marie,
As befits the imminent possession of your very own Dowager Tilting Teapot ™, you must needs arm yourself with plenty of merciless ripostes with which to regale your tea party companions. If they marketed this sort of thing at Toys R Us, they might send along a little handbook full of age (and era) appropriate witticisms. I'm only afraid they'd all be of the "Yo mama" variety as in "Yo mama so ugly she makes blind babies cry". Although I can't quite hear the Dowager Countess saying those exact words, I can absolutely picture her delivering a similarly snarky stinkbomb.
I have to admit though, a tilting teapot is pretty awesome, especially one that looks like it fell out of a John Singleton Copley painting. Hope you're stocked up on silver polish.
Earl Grey, please, with just a little milk.
@Marie: I knows it wasn't youse whose phrase of praise of Mrs. Hughes–– it was Akhilleus who I marked with a * in my comment bout all them judges and such.
As for the tilting teapot: that's simply marvelous, and I suspect that somewhere in your bosom you harbor grand fantasies of having English tea with someone exactly like our exceptional Maggie who, as we learned last night from Hoffman, likes to say Fuck––a lot!
THE RICHEST AND THE REST
Draped across the slim alabaster wrist
The cashmere throw warms her
While she waits for tea
Served by someone whose quick step
Belies the heavy heart of servitude.
There’s a light exchange—a sign of acknowledgement;
Then, noticed by one, a tiny ant inches its way
Into the bowl of the porcelain
That is being filled with amber colored liquid—
Darjeeling, first flush, I believe.
2004
@Akhilleus: I don't have any problem with the writer (Julian Fellowes) knocking off a major character, but he killed off Matthew in a way that would make Chekhov spin in his grave. In real life, sometimes cautious people do get hit by buses, but in fiction, only careless characters get hit by buses. The characters should drive the plot, & in this case, Fellowes had no idea what Matthew's character was.
Matthew spent 3 seasons being a throwback to Victorian mores -- repeatedly & truculently insisting upon fulfilling a ridiculous knightly code of ethics in one situation after another. He was not just a cautious character -- he was nearly catatonic -- I can't marry you because of (a); I can't marry you because of (b); I can't save Downton because of (c), blah-blah. Again, if Matthew had showed signs of carelessness peaking out behind the Victorian code, killing him off in one of those momentary lapses would have been fine, but we never saw this aspect of his character until it -- conveniently -- killed him.
I too saw it coming the moment the film cut to the shot of him racing down the road, & my immediate, visceral thought -- which came before the crack-up -- was "What crap!" Even producing an heir would not immediately & completely change Matthew's character; in fact, if the writer were consistent, Matthew would have become even more cautious now that he had become a family man.
There were any number of other ways that Fellowes could have undone Matthew or the Matthew-Mary marriage -- someone could have shot Matthew up there in the Highlands (see Chekhov again -- rifle over mantle); Rose could have put him in a fake compromising position, consistent with the tradition of farce & pompous Mary could have kicked him out; one of the tenants he ousted from the estate cottages could have done him in, blah-blah. But no. Those all would have taken a little plot development, and who the hell can be bothered. The writer had to go with a car accident. Fucking stupid.
Marie
Marie,
Quite right about Matthew. Even though we've seen him at the wheel at least once previously (returning from the honeymoon), these people are chauffeured every freakin' where. Need to go to the end of the drive to pick up the mail? Call the chauffeur (no wonder Branson ditched that gig). I seem to recall some bit of dialogue that tried to cover for that, something about Matthew driving himself, etc, etc, but as you say, it still seemed hackneyed and trite.
If you're going to kill off a major character, at least have it mean something or do it in style. Have him struck by lightning crawling out on a rooftop to retrieve some memento from his courting days with Mary (a picture of Mr. Pamuk?). I don't know. Something better than running off the road (a nastily inverted metaphor for someone who spent the better part of three seasons getting Downton on the right path).
Anyway, now we have two orphans. I heard someone crack that these people are like the Kennedys of Yorkshire.
@P.D.Pepe: actually, largely because my husband is European, I have had tea or lunch or dinner with people that either were Dowager This or That or had married a titled person. My experience was that old money was -- generally -- way nicer than new. If the Countess So-&-So used to be the count's secretary, she might just be kind of snarky. But the descendants of Pope Whoever & the Spanish Infanta & the Hapsburg princesses are fabulously gracious table companions and not a bit too snooty to chat with hoi-polloi such as I.
My experience -- although I suppose it isn't all that extensive -- sort of makes some of the characters is Downton Abbey, come of think of it, ass-backwards. In real life, Lord Grantham would probably be the innovator who would try anything to save the family estate & Matthew would be the stick-in-the-mud, insisting on "keeping up tradition." It made little sense that Grantham was appalled Sybil had married the chauffeur when the Hugh Bonneville character had married an (untitled) American heiress. Grantham could have been pissed that Sybil didn't marry money, but he should not have minded that she "married down," since so did he & it worked out well.
Marie
I have to confess that in my absent mindedness, I thought last week was the finale of Downton based on it being 2 hours long. As I was waiting to see the end of Matthew. I anticipated that he would be beaned in the head with a cricket ball. Instead, the curtain fell, time passed, Mary popped an heir, Sylvia II started kindergarten ( well maybe that's a slight exaggeration) and Matthew was done in by a completely unsatisfying and frankly stoooopid car accident. The entire episode seemed like the end of the season suddenly appeared without warning and the ending had to be planned in a 5 minute storyboard session. Bloody disappointing. Certainly not their finest hour. Lord, can Lady Mary become any more obnoxious?
In today's news the "leaking" of the President's immigration plan is causing much angst among Republicans and the chattering classes. As if the bipartisan clown groups were going to do anything but slow walk to nothing. The President is really pissing politicians off - he seems to be the only one who understands that its time to accomplish stuff. Enough verbal masturbation. AND he has the nerve to play some golf outside of press access with another black person who isn't a politician. The alternative was to play golf in front of the press with some old white guys who hate him. Difficult decision huh.
Re: Downton Abbey
What a hack ending for goodness sakes! It seems both Lady Sybil and Matthew were killed off as their actors had other plans. See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/downton-abbey/9767764/Julian-Fellowes-No-option-but-to-kill-off-Downtons-Matthew.html
Spoil sports!
I'm going to make a cup of tea (Russian Caravan) to lift my spirits.
Ah, Julie explains the stupid: Daily Telegraph: "Lord Fellowes, who writes the award-winning series, has disclosed he 'didn’t really have an option' but to make Matthew Crawley die in a motoring accident, after actor Dan Stevens chose to leave the show."
Marie
@ Barbarossa: Read the Dailykos article on Perrys recruiting drive for California business. I was taken aback by the claim that unlike California, the Texas education system is a failure, as I have been looking at education in the US and came across a state by state ranking in the Huffpo which places Texas at #14 and California at #36. Taking relative costs of living into account, Texas spends 26% more than California on education. I had thought that California was relatively progressive but no longer.
@Marie: My wife admires your tilting tea pot greatly---but she would much rather have Carson.
Former Republican Congressional Staffer, Michael Lofgren, writes that the GOP has become Scientology for Rednecks, adept at skinning the right-wing paranoid rubes with a facility that would make L.Ron proud:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-s-lofgren/scientology-for-rednecks_b_2707087.html