On this day in 1924, Bette Nesmith Graham was born. Who, you ask? In the 1950s, she lived in Texas and worked in a bank. But to show you how much things have changed, the highest position in the bank that was open to women was executive secretary—the position that Graham held. But to supplement her earnings, she painted the windows of the bank during holidays. Remember when they did that? It was cool.

Anyway, the point is that Graham was an artist and a secretary. And she realized that rather than erasing mistakes, which is what typists did, it would be better to do what artists did: paint over them. She later said, “So I decided to use what artists use. I put some tempera water-based paint in a bottle and took my watercolor brush to the office. I used that to correct my mistakes.” She had invented liquid paper.

She didn’t do anything with the invention for five years other than use it. Although her bosses didn’t like it to be used, it became popular with other secretaries at the bank. And in a detail right out of a very boring Breaking Bad spin-off, she worked with her son’s chemistry teacher to improve it. Eventually, she started a business and employed 200 people. And she sold the company to Gillette shortly before she died. She is a true entrepreneur.

Happy birthday Bette Nesmith Graham!

I took my father to see Gravity at the cheap theater today. And our reactions were exactly the opposite. We both rather liked it. But I loved the first hour and thought the last half hour was total rubbish. My dad thought the first hour was kind of boring and the last half hour was a thrill ride. He even seemed a little wobbly as we walked out of the film.

I was not prepared for just how realistic the film was. Almost from the first shot, I was squirming in my chair. And then, when the debris hit, I was lost. Part of this was due to the way the physics was done in the film. I’m sure that there were some things that were wrong, but by and large, Gravity was a treatise on Newton’s first and third laws. Once Dr Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) starts rotating, she continues to rotate. There is no friction to slow her down. That’s the first law! Later in the film she uses a fire extinguisher to propel herself to the space station. When it is empty, she is still floating away. So she throws the empty can and moves in the opposite direction. What a great example of the third law and conservation of momentum!

But none of that exactly explained why I so liked the film. The essence of it is Stone’s character. She isn’t a professional astronaut. She a medical engineer who has been taken up to space to add something on the Hubble Space Telescope. She is not having fun. In fact, she is behaving very much like I would. She is, in other words, a real person. Along with her is veteran space shuttle captain Matt Kowalski (George Clooney). He is the action hero cliche—albeit a more nuanced one than we usually get. As long as he is around, Stone can depend upon him. When he’s gone, she kind of freaks out. Again: just like I would. And I suspect like all of us would.

The problem comes at the one hour mark. At that point a little movie magic happens and Stone goes from “person doing her best to deal with unimaginably difficult situation” to Ripley at the end of Aliens. Suddenly she can do anything. But it isn’t just her attitude that changes. It is the plot. Before then, everything was careful. The parachute was caught on the space station, so she had to remove it. Stuff like that. But then, in the third act, it was all “will to succeed.” She still had to be smart and brave as she had been throughout the film, but suddenly she had a silly self-confidence and the unreasonable good luck that comes to Americans who are true of heart. (That’s interesting given that it is mostly a Mexican production.)

Ultimately, Gravity is a disaster film. It is just that it happens in space. And it is interesting because the main character is so poorly suited to the challenge. But at the end, it is clear that Stone is not behaving as she does for her own sake; she is doing it for ours—and this takes away from the realism that existed up to that point. Or at least that’s the best take on it. It is also possible that the writers decided to change a relatively complex character into a simple character. I don’t think so. Regardless, the last act has no drama in it. It is pure momentum—the plot speeding to its end as inexorably as the escape pod speeds to earth. Both are entirely predictable.

But two good acts is two more than most films have. And endings are always hard—especially when the beginning has been so good. Certainly, my father had a better experience. It’s better to end well. But I still thought the film worked. I was just disappointed.

Recently, I was told about the film The Human Centipede. I figured it was something campy like “bug man.” But no. It is about an evil scientist who connects three people together, mouth to anus. Hence: human centipede. I have not seen it. I will not see it. I have a problem with scatological material. But I haven’t been able to get the film out of my head. So I figured that I would relate a couple of thoughts.

First, in the tradition of William Castle, the film’s writer-director Tom Six claimed that the idea was scientifically valid. It isn’t. Other people have mentioned this, focusing on the problem of nutrients in the second and third segments of the “creature.” Another problem is bacteria from the first segment would kill the other two (this actually happens in the film, although you would think that the doctor would have thought about that). But I’ll admit, neither of those problems would happen immediately and I assume the film takes place over a short period of time. The bigger problem is that defecating into someone’s mouth would cause them to vomit. The only place the liquid could go is out the rather constricted nose and so the second segment would surely drown almost immediately.

There really is no way around this without doing a complete reworking of the esophagus and windpipe. I know: it’s just a film. I have two responses to this. First, if I’m going to complain about the physics of Iron Man 3, I’m definitely going to complain about the biology of The Human Centipede. Second, I bring this up as a way of making the horror of the film less intense. The truth is that in a general sense, this kind of human experimentation has gone on before, most notably at Auschwitz.

This brings me to my second point. The idea of the film came from a “joke” that Tom Six made “about punishing a child molester [he] saw on TV by stitching his mouth to the anus of an overweight truck driver.” As the impetus for a film, I find this very troubling. It makes the film into a kind of torture fantasy. It is made all the worse when the head of the centipede admits to the doctor that he deserves his fate because he treated his family poorly or something.

I understand the desire for vengeance. And I can be as angry at cruelty and injustice as anyone. But if the Angel of Death himself, Josef Mengele, were left to my justice I would not torture him. Certainly I think he deserved to be executed—a fate that sadly never befell him. To some extent, it is just a matter of what torture says about us. If a human screams or cries because of me, I feel bad—regardless of how awful he may have behaved. Because I am the one doing the harm.

But it’s more than just that. What is done is done. Our job should be to stop such madness—such cruelty. And vengeance is not about justice. It is not about protecting the innocent. At base, it is about what causes people like Mengele to prey on the weak—the pleasure of violence. It’s obviously complex, but knowing that the society does the same kinds of thing only makes such freelance behavior more likely. When these people are in our custody, they are the weak.

Having said that, the film itself looks really well made. It is an update of the mad scientist genre that we so associate with Vincent Price and John Carradine. I don’t like the basis for the film and I don’t think it speaks well of Tom Six. But with regards to the film itself, the only reason I won’t watch it is that I can’t deal with the scatology of it. My understand is that the film is not explicit—or extremely so. But I’m having a hard enough time just writing this article without running to the bathroom to vomit. But if you are different, you may want to check it out. But if you do, please don’t tell me about it.

Afterword

In the sequel, The Human Centipede 2, the antagonist is not a doctor and apparently uses a staple gun to connect his ten-person centipede together. As a result, the film has far more explicit scatological content. Reading about it, I’ve begun to wonder if it isn’t a fetish for Tom Six. Such films always have a large aspect of this.

Two great musical composers have birthdays today, so let me start with the one I don’t like: Andrew Lloyd Webber. Now notice: I do think he is a great composer. I just don’t especially like him. He’s not big of melody. I mean, he can do it. But he usually limits such exercises to two songs per show. Also, I don’t especially like him as a lyricist. For that, we have to wait for the second great musical composer today.

The very great Stephen Sondheim is 84 today. He writes a lot of catchy melodies. Call me old fashioned, but I like a tune I don’t have to hear a half dozen times to remember. But even more than that, Sondheim is one of the greatest lyricists ever. That was very clear in 1957 with West Side Story. I also happen to think that the music by Leonard Bernstein is perhaps the best of any musical I’ve ever heard. And then he followed that up with Gypsy, where the great Jule Styne wrote the music.

From then on, it was all “music and lyrics” by Stephen Sondheim. He did A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Sweeney Todd, and much more. This presents a problem in providing a song. I decided to go with “Everybody’s Got the Right” from Assassins. I just love how Sondheim manages to write upbeat songs about such dark subjects.

Happy birthday Stephen Sondheim!

Afterword

I do feel bad that I didn’t mention that William Shatner is 83 today. I think he is a totally awesome guy. Next year for sure!

Via the always and forever wonderful Digby, I found out that Last Week Tonight with John Oliver did parodies of those awful Republican “Millennials” commercials. All I’ve done is create a playlist so the original runs followed by the parody for the two. Enjoy:

Let me go through the history here, step by step, because it is a bit complex. First, Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote, The Secret Lives of Inner-City Black Males. In it, he argued that liberals should not be so upset about Paul Ryan’s racist dog whistle, because it is essentially the same thing that President Obama says. My only problem with what he wrote was the application of the term “liberal” to Obama and his supporters. But otherwise: that’s absolutely true, as I discussed recently regarding Obama’s “Popeyes Chicken” speech in relation to Adolph Reed’s excellent article “Nothing Left.”

Next, Jonathan Chait wrote a kind of apologia for President Obama, Barack Obama, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Poverty, and Culture. He argued that there is a very important difference between Ryan and Obama. But he isn’t all that clear as to what that difference is. Supposedly, Obama only believes that culture is part of the problem whereas Ryan, like a good Republican, thinks it the entire problem because, you know, racism is a thing of the past. Ultimately, Chait sees the difference in the conclusions. Ryan wants to pretend that all we need to do is take away any help from the black community and all will be fine. Obama does not.

It isn’t surprising that Coates found this argument wanting. After I first read it, I thought it was something of a straw man. After all, Coates was not saying that Obama and Ryan were exactly the same—only that their perspective is the same, which is that there is some cultural problem with the black community. So Coates came back yesterday with an extremely powerful article, Black Pathology and the Closing of the Progressive Mind. You should read the whole thing because it is finely argued. But it really comes down to this: there is no evidence that black oppression is due to cultural problems. There is an enormous amount of evidence that black oppression is due to, you know, oppression—for lack of a better term: white power.

What really stands out are the jailing statistics. Is it a black cultural problem that black men are arrested for cannabis possession far more than white men, even though they don’t use the drug any more? That sounds more like a white power problem than a black cultural problem. And something that Coates doesn’t talk about (although I’m sure he has elsewhere), the problem with incarceration is not the time spent in jail; it is the fact that you are labeled a felon for the rest of your life and your opportunities are greatly reduced. And this is on top of the fact that blacks already have many fewer opportunities. As Coates points out, black men without a criminal records are as likely to be hired as white men who were just released from prison.

What really is problematic here is that Obama shouldn’t place himself in the role of cheerleader for the black community. It is one thing for a black father to tell his son, “Regardless of the problems you face, you can succeed if you keep your nose clean and work hard!” When the President of the United States says that same thing, he is minimizing structural problems and maximizing individual problems. Rather than highlighting the social problem (white power is oppressing black individuals), he is highlighting the individual problems (blacks could succeed if they just tried hard enough). Everyone knows that a remarkable person with a fair amount of luck can overcome hardships. But that is not a social plan. And that is the basis of both Obama’s rhetoric and Paul Ryan’s.

H/T: Kathleen Geier

When I was a kid, H R Pufnstuf was a big show. It seemed to be on all the time. But I did a little research last night and found out that only one season of the show was ever produced—just 17 episodes. But my perception that it was on all the time was right. Although NBC did not make any more episodes, they repeated the show for a total of three years. Then they showed it on Sundays for a year and then over a decade in syndication. So the show was extremely successful.

As a result of this spurt of interest, I sat down and watched the first episode. It holds up rather well. But what’s most notable about it is how revolutionary it was. It premiered in 1969 and I don’t think there had ever been anything like it. But the success of Sid and Marty Krofft greatly affected children’s television with their many later shows like Sigmund and the Sea Monsters and most especially Land of the Lost. And then, of course, there scores of people copying them.

Based upon the shows, I always thought that the Kroffts were a couple of hippies. Certainly the Mr Show parody of their work—Sam and Criminy Kraffft—went right along with that thought. So I don’t think I was alone in assuming that. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend watching it. It is a loving and very funny tribute:

But it turns out that the Kroffts were not hippies but rather members of that small group that brings joy and light everywhere they go: puppeteers. In fact, Sid Krofft started working vaudeville, circuses, and burlesque shows, and eventually had his own one-man show, “The Unusual Artistry of Sid Krofft.” Marty is eight years younger and joined with Sid when the older brother got a gig opening for Judy Garland in Las Vegas.

I doubt that the impact of Sid and Marty Krofft can be overstated. It seems that every decent children’s show that comes out draws a direct line back to them. And that often involves explicit allusions to their work. For example, check out this opening to Pee-wee’s Playhouse:

We don’t tend to appreciate the artistry of stuff that we enjoy as kids. It’s always fun to go back and check them out. It’s also a good reminder of just how boring adult life tends to be. And sadly, adult entertainment. It’s why The Muppet Show still works. You can’t go wrong appealing to kids.

Afterword

Both the brothers are still alive and (I assume) well. Sid will turn 85 this July.

Sometimes a headline will tell you everything you need to know about a news story. That was certainly the case with the Metro headline, Husband Locked Wife in Shed for Singing “Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead” When His Mother Died. There is slightly more to it, but it’s in the weeds. Like the husband’s comment, “She never really got on with my mum or any of my relatives and when my mum died she was horrible and offered me no support—she was extremely unsympathetic.” He also thinks she’s having an affair.

It’s funny, but it is also really, really sad. Many marriages go this way. Clearly the man behaved very badly but it was quite explicitly provoked. And I’m sure that this is not an isolated episode. These two should not be together. Now, I don’t know what the divorce laws are like in the United Kingdom. And it is certainly true that a lot of people stay in bad marriages out of inertia. But it does bring to mind the conservative push to make divorce harder. The assumption is that marriage is a public good. See, for example, ever other Ross Douthat column.

I’m highly skeptical about this. From my own experience, the single most important component of marital bliss is economic stability. Having problems paying your bills infects every part of the marriage and doubtless does all kinds of harm to the kids. Pushing marriage as the answer to our social ills is just avoiding the big issues and focusing on the small. The tragedy of this is that if we instituted policies to make people economically more secure like a living wage, it would strengthen marriage and families. So I really think that when conservatives push marriage as an answer to all our problems, they are doing it as a way to avoid doing anything productive that might, you know, take a little money away from the rich.

Dean Baker brought up this issue this morning regarding George Will’s most recent column, George Will: A Man Impervious to the Evidence In His Own Column. Will, like the good social conservative he is, argued that out of wedlock births are the real cause of poverty. Baker notes that this rate is higher among whites today where the poverty rate for them is 10% than it was for blacks 50 years ago when their poverty rate was 40%. So the numbers seem to indicate that if marriage is an issue, it is a small one.

Baker goes on to explain the primary problem:

The whole “social dysfunction” argument of conservatives strikes me very much like the guy searching for his keys under a street lamp. When a good Samaritan helps and finally asks where the man dropped his keys, the guy says, “Down the street, but the light is much better here.” Conservatives create a kind of ideological darkness over all the policies that they don’t like. So they look only in the bright spots, which turn out to be either minor help or actually harmful.

And this leads us back our poor English couple. There is no doubt that making divorce harder to get will keep some marriages together. But it will at least create some where people stay together and one ends up locking the other in the shed. It’s not at all clear to me that bad marriages prolonged will be offset by the happiness of marriages saved. Regardless, the issue from the government’s perspective should be its overall social value. And the conservative economic argument for it is very weak.

On this day in 1902, the great blues musician Son House was born. He’s one of the legends of Mississippi Delta blues, which more or less make him a blues legend across time and space. According to him, he met a young Robert Johnson who would have been 18 or 19. He said that the young Johnson was an acceptable harmonica player but a terrible guitar player. I find this hard to believe, because just six years later Johnson recorded some of the very best delta blues ever. There is no doubt, however, that Son House was a huge influence on Johnson.

Son House was more of less “discovered” by another of my favorite bluesmen, Charley Patton. The two of them began performing together. And House continued playing throughout the region long past Patton’s death in 1934. But ten years later, he gave up performing and moved to New York. Like other blues greats, he was rediscovered in the 1960s and became an even bigger star than he had been.

There is a surprising lack of live action video of Son House performing. So you are just going to have to settle with “Death Letter Blues,” which is the very best form of settling.

Happy birthday Son House!

The Monkey Cage is one of the best blogs going. Unfortunately, since it moved to the Washington Post, I don’t read it as much. There just isn’t enough coming from them to pay for a subscription, especially when the news and editorial page so often annoy me. However, I just noticed that they have lowered the price of subscriptions to $7.99 per month, which is slightly tempting. Regardless, earlier this week, Andrew Gelman published an interesting article, Why Do Asian Americans Mostly Vote for Democrats?

He talked about a recent article by political scientists Alexander Kuo, Neil Malhotra and Cecilia Hyunjung Mo published in Politico of all places, Why Are Asian Americans Democrats? The article is brutal to the Republicans. Basically, it finds that Asians identify with the Democratic Party because Asians see themselves as a minority group. And the Republicans can’t seem to utter more than a sentence without sending out the message, “White people are the only true Americans!”

But the authors do provide one potential way forward. In one experiment, they primed Asians by informing them of ways that Democratic policy helped Latinos at Asians’ expensive. This did indeed cause a fall in Asians’ self-identification as Democrat. But the effect was very small. When primed to see Latinos and Asians as a single group, 72% identified as Democrat. When primed to see Latinos as “the other” who take away from Asians, only 67% identified as Democrat. I don’t think this is surprising. The use of in-group/out-group politics is common. What’s more, I think that the Republicans already use this tactic, we just don’t see it much because the Asian community isn’t that large. Regardless, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of room for Republican growth in this study.

Gleman ads another potential cause of the heavy Democratic skew of Asians: urbanity. Asians tend to live in urban areas. But I’m not sure this isn’t just saying that Asians are more liberal. Whites in urban areas are more liberal than they are in rural areas. I know that part of this is that the hatred that is so critical to conservative thought is hard to maintain when you have to actually interact with different people. I remember a commentator (I think it was John Nichols) talking about how his experience of urban blacks was quite different from the stereotype: every day, he saw them lining up to take the bus to work at 6:00 in the morning. But the other side of why people are more liberal in cities is that more liberal people are going to choose to live in the cities.

Whatever the reason that Asians vote Democratic, it doesn’t seem like it is going to change any time soon. A more important question, for Democrats anyway, is why Asians vote at such low levels. According to census data, blacks have been been voting much more over the last 20 years and voted at higher rates than whites in 2012. Latinos have also improved their voting percentages but still have a long way to go. If you ignore the Obama elections, Asians have actually seen their voter participation decline. Even with Obama, they’ve only risen slightly. In the last election, Asians had the lowest turnout of any major ethnic group.

The way forward seems clear. Asians and Latinos seem like they are going to aligned with the Democratic Party for at least a generation. We need to encourage them to vote. The Republicans can work on why Asians don’t like them. I don’t think there is any secret as to why. But the Republicans work very hard at not seeming such obvious facts. If they didn’t, they would be forced to change. And change is not something the Republican Party wants to do. And until they do, that’s good for the Democrats.