One of my very favorite songs is “The Girl’s on Fire.” And my favorite line in it is, “This is my darkness now, only I can see in it.” There’s a lot of meaning in that line.
It’s about pain. It’s about how no one can share your pain. We all lie to ourselves that we are part of a greater whole. But we aren’t. We are alone. We are so alone that most people won’t even allow themselves to think about it. That’s because it is so terrifying.
You Just Can’t Know My Pain, and I Can’t Yours
I spend a lot of my time as I’m waking up thinking about what it will be like to die alone. Since I don’t expect to live long and I am lucky to have a number of friends and family members who care about me, I expect that there will be people around to see me die. But they will only be spectators. It will be like a sporting event. They’ll be watching, but they won’t be on the field — in the game.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think of myself as so much an individual that no one can know what it’s like to be me. The fact is, I’m making an argument for us all. There will be no one around who truly understands your pain — or anyone’s.
“This is my darkness now, only I can see in it.” –Jules Shear
Oh certainly, we all know roughly what it is like to be dumped out of a long-term relationship. We know what it’s like to lose a job or something far less ephemeral like a child. We can all watch Love Story and sob when Ali MacGraw dies.
But we don’t know what it’s like for you. Because we aren’t you. Just as you aren’t us. Others can’t see in our Darkness and we can’t see in theirs.
The Pointlessness of Trying to “Cheer Up” Another
This is why people trying to cheer you up always works the opposite as intended. To begin with, even though you know they are trying to be helpful, they’re stealing from you. That pain belongs to you not them. And it’s pathetic too! Because they don’t know what you are feeling.
Words Don’t Help
Indeed, “cheering up” someone usually has the opposite result, because it makes the person feel even more alone. It’s like someone commiserating with you about a dear pet that just died as though you’d just lost a car. Regardless, the only thing that can be said in such a situation is a platitude that you’ve not only heard before, but have probably used. So you feel bad hearing the platitude and you feel bad knowing that you were being equally useless to another friend.
Life is hard. Don’t trivialize it with words. And good God never trivialize it with platitudes. Everyone knows them all. That’s what makes them platitudes.
The Only Relief to Your Pain
What if you can embrace your pain. I mean really do it: love your pain. Then you might have a chance. But that is a hard thing to do. And there is no one who can help you.
Otherwise, your only hope is death. And that’s not so bad. Because it comes to us all. And most of us have control over it. If the pain ever gets too bad you can kill yourself. This is a thought that cheered up Stevie Smith very much. And it cheers me up to.
That doesn’t mean you should do it. In fact, I think most people are wrong when they do it. But it’s nice to know that if things get so bad that you just can take it, you have the option.
Image of The Third Party taken from Amazon and licensed under Fair Use.
I keep hearing from Republicans that the tax cuts for middle and lower-income people will not expire. The reason is the Congress won’t let them expire because they will be so popular.[1] I just have one question.
Why Aren’t Tax Cuts on the Rich so Great They Would Be Renewed?
If the tax cuts on capital gains are going to create so many jobs the people will love them. If the tax cuts on huge estates are going to trickle down to the poor people, then people will love them. So there should be no problem making them temporary given that they will be so popular.
In fact, the way things should go is that they should make the tax cuts for the lower classes permanent because we know they will be popular. But we don’t know that the other tax cuts will work and be popular. So it would make more sense to make them temporary. Then after 8-years we can see if the people really do love them.
Tax Cuts for the Rich Aren’t and Won’t Be Popular
We won’t do that of course. That’s because the tax cuts are only there to give money to the rich. The tax cuts to the middle and lower classes are only put in there to take pressure off the fact that the Republicans one purpose of the tax cut — Ever! — were giving huge amounts of money away to the rich.
So what is clear is that the Republicans are simply conning the American people. They know that the capital gains tax will be unpopular because it is unpopular now.[2] They know the estate tax cut will be unpopular because it is unpopular now. They are only popular among two groups of people those who get the tax cuts and those voting for them.
The Media Used to Like Getting the Evil-Doers
The rich will be given money that they don’t need and the poor will be deprived of programs that they do need. Children will starve. This is the America we live in. Forget the American Dream, which died decades again. Now America itself has died.
What I find remarkable is that the news is not talking about this all the time. It would seem an obvious thing. The people want to hear about it when their government is conning them. Or at least the media use to like to tell the people that. That’s what made 60 Minutes the first news show to make a profit.
But now for some reason, they are afraid to tell the truth. They are afraid to anger the people with information that will make them angry. Why is that? Aren’t they still trying to sell papers and get people to watch them?
Why the Media Doesn’t Care That America Is Being Ripped Off
I have come up with a reason for why this is. The people who own the media companies are all rich and will make a huge amount of money from this tax bill. And all the reporters are in the top 20% so while they may not make as much money they’ll do very well with this tax cut bill. So why kill a good thing? Who cares about the prols? Certainly not the Republican Party and the “journalists” who cover them.
Cynicism Has Set In
But it hardly matters because everyone has just gotten to the point where they know the game is rigged against them. The rich will be given money that they don’t need and the poor will be deprived of programs that they do need. Children will starve. This is the America we live in. Forget the American Dream, which died decades again. Now America itself has died.
It’s very sad. But it’s also the sign of an Empire that is dying. So we won’t have to put up with it for very much longer.
The super-power is dead; long live the new super-power.[3]
Image was altered from a public domain image from pxhere.
[1] In general, people of smaller incomes don’t notice tax cuts. A big part is that they are paid by the hour and so their paychecks change every week. When Obama gave a bigger tax cut than this one to the middle class in 2009, half a year later, over 50 percent didn’t think their taxes had changed at all, and more people thought their taxes had gone up than thought they had gone done.
A big reason for this was because the Obama administration didn’t make a big deal out of the tax cuts. They wanted people not to notice them so that they would just spend more and help restart the economy. The Republicans, of course, will be screaming about how much money they have given to the middle class. Still, I don’t think it will work. Because we just aren’t talking about that much money. They may notice them, but they’ve already been primed to respond, “Yeah, but these are temporary, and you only gave them to us so you could help out your rich friends.
Generally, people don’t notice tax cuts and they don’t reward politicians who give them out.
[2] For the record, I’m all for reducing the capital gains tax. But it has to go along with the elimination of loopholes. The way it works now is that the super-big corporations don’t pay the going rate — often they pay nothing at all. It is the small the medium-sized businesses that pay it. So sure: cut the capital gains rate down to 28 percent. But then make sure that Walmart is paying 28 percent every year. Instead, the publicans lowered the capital gains rate far too much and they introduced new loopholes — the worst possible thing tht could be done.
[3] Actually, America died the moment it became a super-power. And if not, it definitely did once it became the only super-power. November 9, 1989 — a day that will live in infamy.
In the past, I’ve written articles like, A Slightly Pissy History of “Man of Constant Sorrow.” And while I love them, no one else seems to. I figure that is because most people don’t want to listen to different versions of the same song five times in a row. But it would make a very compelling series of articles.
Born and Livin’ With The Blues
So let’s do a week of Brownie McGhee. He was a practitioner of Piedmont blues. It is a special form of guitar playing that sounds a lot like ragtime played on a guitar. The best example of the art form is probably Blind Boy Fuller. It was very big in the 1920s. After World War II it fell out of favor. But in the late 1950s, it really came back thanks to the folk revival. They really liked it for what I think are pretty obvious reasons.
I’ll have more to say about McGhee throughout the week. For now let’s just listen to one of his better known songs, “Born and Livin’ With the Blues.” Playing with him is harmonica player Sonny Terry. I’ll have more to say about him too.
Rainy Day
I was first introduced to Brownie McGhee in one of my favorite films, Angel Heart. In it, he plays a voodoo worshiping blues musician, Toots Sweet. He gets one of the best lines in the film, “We ain’t all Baptists down here, sonny!” He’s great in the film. It amazed me to find out that he wasn’t some old character actor. But if singing the blues doesn’t make you an actor, I don’t know what does.
In the film, we get to hear him perform the end of one of his songs, “Rainy Day.” It is a beautiful song. It’s even in the script. Harry Angel comes up to him and say, “That’s some beautiful tune you was singing there, Mr Sweet.” I’m sure you will agree:
Red River Blues and Crow Jane
Sonny Terry was blinded early on in life, and without the ability to farm, he turned to music out of desperation. At some point, he hooked up with Blind Boy Fuller. That’s pretty much being at the top of the profession. Fuller was such a great guitar player. But he died in 1941, and so Terry hooked up with Brownie McGhee. The two of them played together pretty consistently for decades until Terry died in 1986. In fact, the two of were in The Jerk together. I didn’t much like that film. But now I’m going to have to track it down, just to see them.
In the following video, we get to see the two of them do two classic blues numbers. The first is a Peg Leg Howell tune, “Red River Blues.” I must admit to finding Howell extremely uneven. And his performance of this song leaves much to be desired. But it’s a great song and McGhee and Terry do well by it. They move from it seamlessly into Skip James’ “Crow Jane.” In the latter song, Sonny Terry does some great hollering (or whatever you want to call it). You can see in this video why these two were popular: they seem like they’re having a great time and it’s infectious. This video is from the DVD Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry: Red River Blues 1948-1974.
Stranger Blues
Moving on with our week of Brownie McGhee, we have another song with his longtime collaborator Sonny Terry. This one is an Elmore James song, “Stranger Blues.” Of course, it’s always hard to say who wrote what. It is an entirely standard 12-bar blues. What’s more interesting here is that it is clearly done on a television stage. It seems like someone may have had the idea of creating something like an African American Hee Haw. But actually good.
Musically, the song is interesting because of the vocal harmony during the refrain. This is the sort of thing that made people refer to McGhee and Terry as “country blues.” It works really well — gives the music that something extra. Of course, the two of them are so great, they hardly need it. I just love this stuff.
My Baby’s So Fine
Doing these posts with Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry are a great pleasure musically. But in terms of research, they are a real pain. I find that I spend a lot of time trying to track down just what songs they are doing. They don’t tend to do standards. Even the classics that they do are not widely known — at least to me. And then, like all great blues musicians, they make the songs their own — including by changing the lyrics.
In the following video, they do a song called, “My Baby’s So Fine.” It seems to come from an album that McGhee did with Earl Hooker (John Lee Hooker’s cousin), I Couldn’t Believe My Eyes. Although Sonny Terry’s name was not on the album, he was playing on the whole thing. And he wrote the song.
This video also includes a medley of “Poor Man” and “Fighting a Losing Battle but Having a Lot of Fun Trying to Win.” The first song I’m not sure about. The second song is written by Brownie McGhee. I suspect that the first one is too; it’s his style. Unfortunately, it gets cut off just a bit. Still, the whole video is worth listening too.
Cornbread and Peas
Here is a song that I assume was written by Sonny Terry, “Cornbread, Peas, and Black Molasses,” off California Blues. I don’t know why. It just seems like a more standard blues — although not entirely. Anyway, it is a fun little song. But if you feel you must have more today, check out their version of Randy Newman’s song Sail Away off their album, Sonny & Brownie. It’s really great! I think Arlo Guthrie is doing background vocals on it.
This video has a brief introduction to the song. I didn’t know that Brownie McGhee had suffered from polio as a child. These two were quite the pair.
A Whole Set of Brownie and Sonny
Let’s end this Brownie McGhee week with a whole set by him and Sonny Terry. Why not? It’s the weekend. You have a half hour. This is from a 1974 BBC concert. It includes just one song that I featured earlier in the week — and how could it not feature that one. It’s interesting to see how they work the audience. Clearly, it is Terry who is the extroverted of the two. And he has a stage presence that is exactly what you would expect from a lifetime of working in front of folk audiences. There’s a good deal of “joke folk” in Sonny Terry.
What’s amazing with these guys is that once they get going, it seems like a whole lot more than just two guys. Part of it is just that McGhee is an amazing guitarist. Another part is that Terry manages to move back and forth from singing and playing without missing a beat — literally! He is also a much more varied harmonica player than I’m used to. And he’s great at playing backup when that’s called for, as with, “Born and Livin’ With the Blues.” Enjoy!
Jim Croce was the great musician of my youth. He was born in 1943. It’s hard to believe, but he was only 30 years old when he died.
He looked, and still looks like he had been beaten up by life. He was a great storyteller and that came across in his songs. I was only 9 when he died, but it was terrible. I remember my older sister calling me to tell me the news. Another one of my projects (and perhaps the one that I am most excited about) is a one-man play, “Deconstructed.” It is simply a number of deconstructions of various things. One of them is a deconstruction of Croce’s song, “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim.”
It may surprise you, but I get ten minutes out of it. You see, I know every song off Croce’s three official albums by heart. I even know many of them on guitar. So I’ve thought about them in much more depth than any sane person should. And I have decided that he totally screwed up on that particular song. I’m not going to go into it. You will just have to wait until I start my tour. But if you listen to the song carefully — and I mean 100 times carefully — all will be revealed.
But see if you can find the many problems with the story that is told in the song.
That Time Jim Croce Made the First Issue of People (He Was Dead)
In 1974, the first issue of People was released. It was then referred to as People Weekly. I know that issue very well. When my parents owned a 7-11 store, my father was in the habit of grabbing of the first issues of everything that came in. That included Hustler, as I recall. But the reason that I most remember People is because it had an article in it, “Jim Croce: Million Dollar Music Legacy.” This was about 6 months after Croce had died. And people were apparently still not tired of him, given that he was a whole lot more popular after he died than before.
But the cover featured Mia Farrow as Daisy Buchanan in the 1974 filmed version of The Great Gatsby — you know: the Robert Redford one. I remember seeing it on television later and being surprised at how much my 11-year-old self liked the film. I’ve seen it since. I missed a lot when I was a kid. I don’t much care for the look of the film. But I think the movie captures the book perfectly. And Farrow was perfect as Daisy.
People Weekly: It Was All About Sex
When I was having tea with my cousin yesterday, we discussed the nature of romance and how it was doomed. Well, that was my conclusion anyway. The problem is that two people who are really compatible don’t tend to generate that romantic spark (or let’s be real: sexual) that “love” requires. The kind of person who I could stand to live with would never be the kind of person who I would be attracted to in that way. Now, it would be easy enough to just write this off as my own neurotic nature. But I’ve seen it too much in others to think that I’m not representative of the vast majority of people.
Anyway, I doubt that I’ve opened another copy of People since that first one. The only magazines I open these days have either recipes or Sudoku puzzles inside. Yes, I suppose I’m old.
Croce’s Number 1: Maury Muehleisen
Maury Muehleisen is best known as Jim Croce’s lead guitarist. In fact, Croce always toured as a duo with Muehleisen. Before that, Croce was playing guitar for Muehleisen, but after the poor sales of his first album, Gingerbreadd, that changed. Most important, Muehleisen was a huge influence on Croce’s writing. Until he started working with Muehleisen, Croce wrote pretty standard, three chord, folk songs. Muehleisen taught him a more sophisticated approach to composition — with leading tones and jazz chords. The results are striking. Just check out the album, The Faces I’ve Been. Compare the writing before and after Muehleisen showed up on the scene.
Here are a couple of Muehleisen songs. The first is “I Remember Mary,” which was the first song of his I had ever heard him sing. (I had, of course, heard Jim Croce’s performance of Muehleisen’s song “Salon and Saloon” — still one of my favorites.) It’s quite good:
And here is another off Gingerbreadd, “Free To Love You”:
Muehleisen, of course, died with Jim Croce in that plane crash at the age of 24. It’s very sad. He certainly would have gone on to do great work.
Jim Croce’s Music
I used to do a morning music feature on this blog and I featured Jim Croce on a number of times. I’ve put them all together here.
Old Man River
For no good reason, I thought that I would spend the week listening to Jim Croce singing songs that he didn’t write. This is probably because I’ve had “Old Man River” going through my head all day. I first heard it on the album The Faces I’ve Been — a reference to his song “The Hard Way Every Time.” It was released after his death (like pretty much everything else). It was kind of a biography of him.
According to the extensive liner notes, they had Croce record “Old Man River” to show to the record companies that he could perform other people’s music. And it’s very true. Croce had an amazing ability to make whatever song he sang his own. Or at least that was true in the later years. Sadly, The Faces I’ve Been has never been released on CD. But you can get it on 8-track!
Jim Croce was a singer-songwriter during that period when that was the thing to be on Top 40 radio. And he was a great songwriter — especially so because he was a great storyteller. If you’ve listened to him perform live, you know that he easily spent more time telling stories than singing. But one thing that often surprises people is that Croce’s hit song “I Got a Name” was not written by him. It was written by two movie theme hacks (great hacks, but hacks nonetheless) Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox for the film The Last American Hero.
Because Croce did almost exclusively his own music, people don’t appreciate his amazing ability to make other people’s writing his own. This is quite apparent on Old Man River and the Maury Muehleisen song Salon and Saloon. But here he is performing “I Got a Name” live with Muehleisen on lead guitar and producer Tommy West on piano:
Working at the Car Wash Blues
As my sister was getting ready for work today, she mentioned one of my favorite Jim Croce tunes, “Working at the Car Wash Blues.” It was off his last album, I Got a Name. It’s a very funny song — very much in the tradition of Roger Miller. The singer is talking about his new job working at a car wash after having been released from jail for “non-support” (not paying child support). In one way, it’s a very nasty song because the singer does not come off well.
On the other hand, it’s hard not to love the guy. He’s just gotten out of jail — basically for not having any money — but, as Croce says in the introduction to the song, he “thinks he should be ruling the universe.” I have a certain love for these kinds of people because I think I’m kind of the opposite. Yes, I have a lot of skills, but I probably should be working at the car wash.
And especially in this country, can we say that the man is wrong? I’ve met lots of rich people in my life and very few of them are worthy of their wealth. The film Trading Places had it right. Some old meth addict could well be running a Fortune 500 company while some superstar executive in an air conditioned office with a swivel chair might be more correctly working at the car wash.
Ball of Kerrymuir
In 1989, Jim Croce Live: The Final Tour was released. It was very exciting, because I had never seen Croce live (he died when I was 9 years old) or even heard anything live except one song on Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert. The amazing thing about the disc is that roughly half of it is Croce telling stories. He was a great storyteller, which is hardly surprising given his many great story songs.
Today, we listen to “Ball of Kerrymuir.” It is a humorous song. Croce had quite a good sense of humor. An early song from his folk days was “Pig Song.” But also many of Croce’s own songs were funny like “Speedball Tucker” — with the line, “95 was the route you were on, it was not the speed limit sign.” In fact, on this live album, Croce introduces the two minute song with a seven minute story.
According to Croce, “Ball of Kerrymuir” was written down by Robert Burns. I think this is a common belief, but it isn’t true. Regardless, it is an old and very bawdy song:
Thursday
On Jim Croce’s last official album, I Got a Name, there was a song “Thursday” by this mysterious guy named Sal Joseph. It turns out that Joseph (real name: Joe Salviuolo) was a college friend of Jim Croce’s. He was later a communications professor at Glassboro State College, where he taught Maury Muehleisen. So Joseph introduced Muehleisen and Croce. You can read all about it at Sound Click, where you can also hear a number of Joseph’s songs including “Groundless,” which appears to be about Jim Croce’s death.
“Thursday” is very much a Jim Croce kind of song. It’s a man’s lament that he loves a woman more than she loves him. There’s also a fair amount of bitterness — similar to Croce’s own songs “Lover’s Cross” and “One Less Set of Footsteps.” But the refrain is nicely understanding, “I was looking for a lifetime lover, and you were looking for a friend.” It’s good when people can see that truth.
Chain Gang Medley
We have another song off the album The Faces I’ve Been. Or rather, it is a medley of Sam Cooke’s “Chain Gang,” Butler, Carter, and Mayfield’s “He Don’t Love You (Like I Love You),” and Leiber and Stoller’s “Searchin’.”
I believe that the musicians on the song are — at least in part — Tommy West and Terry Cashman who produced all his albums and were a well known songwriting team. I’ll point out Tommy West later in the week. In general, when you hear a piano in a Croce tune, it is West.
Salon and Saloon
On Jim Croce’s last official album, I Got a Name, he performed three songs by other writers. The best of them was “Salon and Saloon” by his lead guitarist and friend Maury Muehleisen. It’s totally unlike any other song that Croce ever performed. Even though he was much younger, Muehleisen had a profound impact on Croce’s song writing. He taught Croce basic music theory. Up to that point, Croce’s music had all been very much in the folk tradition of of I-IV-V chords.
The song is harmonically complex, with lots of dominant, minor, and even major sevenths. But it is also interesting in how it plays with time signatures. When I was ten years old, I didn’t like it. I just couldn’t hear it. But when I rediscovered it in my mid-teens, it blew me away. It’s such a beautiful song.
Jim’s Son: Adrian James Croce
Not surprisingly, Jim Croce had a son who is an incredibly talented musician. (It isn’t just jim; his wife Ingrid is also a talented musician.) He does rather different music from his father, and almost never does his father’s songs. Below, we get a real treat: Jim and Ingrid’s son performing one of Jim Croce’s big hits: “Operator.”
His name is Adrian James Croce (usually known as AJ Croce) on the 40th anniversary of its release. (Well, that’s what he says. The performance is on 8 June 2012 and according to Wikipedia, the song was released on 23 August 1972. Maybe he means it was recorded that day. Or first performed. Or maybe it means AJ is just wrong, given that he was less than a year old.)
AJ Croce as His Own Man
AJ Croce is a great musician. I heard a whole concert of his many years ago and I was very impressed. I especially remember his cover of Bernie Taupin and Elton John’s “Take Me to the Pilot.” Anyway, AJ Croce has stayed very much away from riding on his father’s shirttails. For example, he does not sing like him and doesn’t write the same kind of material. Actually, I think he’s a much greater musical talent than his father — but obviously, he had many advantages.
Operator: The Story
Like a good fraction of Croce tunes, “Operator” tells a story. In this case, it tells the story of a man trying to reconnect with an ex-girlfriend who ran off with his best friend. But as the song continues on, it is clear that the singer does not wish to reconnect; he only wishes for someone to talk to. It’s like in the the Janis Ian song “In the Winter” where she sings, “And for a dime I can talk to God.” In Croce’s case, it is the operator.
The song is outdated. Not only is a payphone call a lot more than a dime, you can hardly find a payphone anymore. What’s more, there are no longer human operators. Hell, there are very few human anythings. Soon, you’ll have to hire a prostitute just to have someone to talk to. And yet, I think that “Operator” works as well today as it did 40 years ago. It all comes down to the story, which is eternal, and Croce’s performance, which sounds like he’s lived it.
But here is Jim’s only son singing his father’s hit. And it is well worth a listen.
Image of Jim Croce cropped by public domain image. People Weekly cover taken from People website. Licensed under Fair Use. All album covers are licensed under Fair Use. “AJCroceByPhilKonstantin” by Philkon Phil Konstantin – Own work. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
It’s Christmas, 2017. The Republicans are happy as can be because they learned that even the most moderate members of their caucus can be bought for peanuts. We learned that Susan Collins was willing to deprive 13 million people of healthcare for the promise that the Senate would vote on stabilizing the Obamacare exchanges. But the deal doesn’t apply to the House, so it means… nothing. I don’t think she’s stupid. Like every national-level Republican, she hates everyone except the rich.
In a few months, even she won’t be able to deny that she did extreme damage to the United States of America in exchange for nothing. “Oh, how could her fellow Republicans be so nasty!” But she didn’t make a deal with the Republicans — she made a deal with the Republicans in the Senate. So at best, all this means is that Susan Collins is just stupid. I have no doubt of that. But the bigger issue is that Susan Collins is evil. I really hope there’s a hell and she burns in agony for all eternity. I mean that! But I’d be willing to go with a century.
Susan Collins Is Just a Synecdoche for the Republican Party
I don’t mean to be down on Collins. She’s just a symbol. She’s the “most moderate Republican in the Senate.” And that means she’s just about the most moderate Republican in Washington. Yet if you replaced her in the Senate of 1980, she’d be the most extreme. That’s modern America: we’ve gone off the rails. The Republican Party is crazy. They have control of the country, so the country is crazy.
But I guess we can be forgiven. This is how empires fall. What is interesting is that most people — the power elites especially — don’t think so. They think that the good times will go on forever. But it won’t. It’s like what Bertrand Russell said:
The man who has fed the chicken every day throughout its life at last wrings its neck instead, showing that more refined views as to the uniformity of nature would have been useful to the chicken.
Yeah, every day it is just great! You fed and pampered and then one day is very different. That’s what will happen to us. There will be a new superpower. And then one after that. And so on and on. Yet the power elite will never learn. They’ll think the party will go on forever. It always has. No one has wringed its neck yet!
Aren’t Humans Better?
I know a lot of you think that humans are better. So do I! The problem is that the people who crave power and money, they are different. They lack empathy. They don’t know or care what it’s like to worry if their children will have enough to eat. They don’t know or care that others live lives of little fulfillment or choice. They don’t care that we are destroying the planet. They just care that their lives are great. And they convince themselves that it is all because they are so great.
At Christmas time, they should think of God. They should imagine that even if they are better — smarter, stronger, harder working — they aren’t that way because they made themselves that way. They are that way because God made them that way — or because of pure chance.
Meanwhile, all the people who learned the lessons of kindergarten — to share and treat others well — they do, at best, so-so. Because we don’t create societies designed to reward nice people; we create societies based on the law of the jungle with a tiny bit of humanity sprinkled on top so that the non-complete psychopaths can live with themselves.
The first Trump Christmas
This is the first Christmas we’ve had with President Donald J Trump. And really: I’m glad. He’s the president we deserve. He’s the president who represents the nation that we built. You know the Revolutionary War? The southern states went with it because they were afraid that if they stayed in the British Empire, they might soon be deprived of their peculiar institution. And northern slave ships might have been deprived of all that sweet, sweet slave money!
“No Taxation Without Representation!” That was just a slogan for the prols. England would give them representation. The Americans didn’t want it because their revolution had nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with money.
Putin is right to worry about the United States. We are dangerous and unpredictable. And we don’t care about our own citizens, much less those of other countries. Will we get out of the Trump presidency without a nuclear war? I give it a 50-50 chance.
I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t care. But it’s more that I can’t care. All I see is suffering. And what does our government do? It stops refugees from getting asylum. It lets US citizens struggle after a natural disaster because they speak the wrong language and have the wrong skin color. They are throwing 13 million people off their health insurance so they can give more money to people who are already ridiculously wealthy.
And don’t believe the propaganda! These companies getting tax breaks are going to use the money to further automate their facilities so they can lay-off even more people. And to top it off, they are allowing dead people to give even more money to their kids tax-free. $5.5 million wasn’t enough; now it is double that. And they wanted to get rid of it altogether! It’s just that a few Republicans thought that might look bad. Oh, all those tough choices!
Merry Christmas 2017!
This is why we need Santa Claus and Frosty the Snowman and all these other myths. We can’t believe our leaders. Remember when Trump ran as a populist and then filled his cabinet with people from Goldman Sachs? Remember when he said his tax bill would cost him a fortune? It is estimated that it will make him $15 million extra every year! And his family will be similarly enriched.
I don’t know what to tell you. Certainly, it is true that Trump supporters would still love him if he jabbed them in their eyes with a dagger. Republicans, of course, think that in February, people will see they have more money and be thrilled with Trump. But Obama gave middle and lower-income people a bigger tax reduction. When asked about it in November — after they had had it for almost a year — over half of them said their taxes were the same. More people said their taxes had gone up than people who said (rightly) that their taxes had gone down.
So the good news is that in the 2018 elections, the Republicans are likely to get slaughtered. My only hope is that this lasts to 2020, and that the Democrats get complete control of Washington and fix all the damage the Republicans have caused.
I don’t want anything for Christmas in 2017, 2018, or 2019. In 2020, I want to see professional politicians who actually care about America and Americans back in power. If that doesn’t happen, I don’t know what we are going to do.
But if a group of people can mess this up, it is the American people. Thus far, they seem to understand that the Republicans are destroying this country. They are right. I hope they keep remembering this. Because I love this country. And I don’t want to see it destroyed so Donald Trump and his friends can get even richer.
There was this little cafe in Cotati, California that used to serve this thing they called Grandma’s Eggs. My first wife and I really liked it. But over the years as I got more into cooking, I saw that it had many problems.
First, the potatoes in it were cut too large. And they were fried and not usually cooked enough. So I’m going to explain to you the proper way to make this delicious breakfast dish. It also has the advantage of being fast to make.
The Potatoes
The first thing you must do is get a couple of good russet potato and clean them as much as you think is necessary. I personally think that as a culture, we are way too hygienic. You don’t need to clean everything so much. That includes your bodies. Geez, people, give it a rest. There are only a few parts of the body that are really disgusting. And most people don’t clean them very well because they are disgusting. The anus is disgusting. The bellybutton is disgusting. Women seem to do a very good job on their vaginas. Men don’t tend to do as good a job on their penises. It’s no wonder most women don’t like giving blowjobs. And here’s something most men won’t admit to: blowjobs aren’t very pleasurable. Men seem to like them because women tend not to like to give them. I’ve talked to a lot of men, and mostly they don’t much like them. On the other hand, most men find a nice clean vagina a source of endless erotic enjoyment.
Where was I? Oh yes, potatoes. Cut the potatoes up into squares of about 3/8″ to 1/2″. Then put them in a microwave-safe dish and pour a little olice oil on them. Then mix. The reason for this is to stop the cut potato parts from sticking together. Cook them on high for about 4 minutes. Then take them out, mix them again, and cook for another 4 minutes.
Now this is tricky because the bowl will get very hot. What I usually do is to use two bowls. Transfirst the first cooked set into a second bowl.
Fry the Potatoes and Onions
Add about 2 tablespoons of butter to a skillet and then heat to the point where the potatoes are in that position where it really is hard not to eat them. while they lightly fry, get a small onion out and dice it. Add it to the potatoes. Then spice with about a half teaspoon of salt and an eighth a teaspoon of pepper. Cook until delightful.
In a separate mixing bowl, crack 5-6 eggs. Or 7. Or 8. I think it’s better for more eggs. But you don’t want it to overwhelm the potatoes and onions.
Finishing Up
Now you just cook it until the eggs are solidified. And serve. It’s delicious. Really.
It’s the perfect example of how you just can’t go wrong with a dish of good ingredients. You can add other things too. Throw in some frozen peas or corn. Add anything else that you think will make it more delicious. You can also add grated cheese, but I really do think that’s a bit much. But sliced mushrooms? Can’t go wrong there! Whatever you like.
Left Overs
It is almost always the case that I make more potatoes than I need. So you can just put the extras in a container and use it for a future batch of Grandma’s Eggs. After you make the recipe a few times, you’ll get a good idea of how much potato you need for your guests.
I’m not planning to show up for Christmas until about noon. So I’ll make enough for me and not worrying about the rest of the clan.
My plan for the day is to make myself some wonderful Grandma’s Eggs, and then drink quite a lot more than I need to. All the difficult stuff has already been cooked. But I’d be fine eating Grandma’s Eggs for dinner. It’s delicious.
It goes really well with a bagel or an English muffin. But then I’m going to have to go on a diet. I’ve gotten so fat! It’s amazing! I didn’t think I was capable of putting on this much weight. It’s a good thing that I really don’t care anymore!
What follows is what I have written on previous Christmases when I didn’t even think something like this was possible.
–FM (25 December 2017)
The First Secular Christmas
Since I first started this blog, I have been creating posts for Christmas. I am, of course, an atheist. But I love Christmas. I love any opportunity I have to cook for large groups. So what follows will include a lot of stuff about food, but also material that will appeal to anyone who likes Christmas in a secular way.
I agreed to make dinner for five on Christmas day—not so much because I wanted to, but because I wanted to have prime rib for dinner. It turned out to be twelve people, but the bigger problem was that I created a four-course menu and had a wholly unsatisfactory kitchen. It was stressful and the results were so-so; but it worked. Many thanks go out to Brian Pricer for his amazing taste buds and invaluable help
Ceasar Salad
For this I used a standard recipe that I mostly ripped off from a magazine without a cover. I’ve made it before, but this time it was utterly disappointing. This can be attributed to the fact that I used a tube of anchovy paste instead of making my own. Learn from my mistakes: always make your own anchovy paste. I don’t like making anchovy paste; the smell of the anchovies makes me gag, but this is a small price to pay for an acceptable Ceasar.
Cream of Tomato Soup
This may seem like an odd choice, but I thought it was a nice link between the salad and the main course—maybe because I love cream of tomato soup and have been searching for the perfect recipe for the last fifteen years and this represented an excellent opportunity to experiment. For me, this was the high point of the meal. The previous day, I made the recipe and it wasn’t so good. I made a few changes—a big one from Brian—and it made all the difference. Here is the recipe. It is based upon an idea from Cooks Dot Com to use cream cheese rather than heavy cream. (Actually, it had a fair bit of heavy cream too; I can’t help myself.)
Main Course
I am too suceptible to the opinions of others—at least it comes to cooking. As a result, the prime rib (11 pounds!) ended up being over-cooked by about a half-hour. It was still very good; you can’t really make a prime rib that doesn’t taste delicious.
With the beef, I made an artery-clotting Asiago and Sage Scalloped Potatoes using an online recipe (it has errors in it, so if you try it, study it first and figure out how you will deal with them). It was very good, but it really needed more cooking time. In general, I prefer to have scalloped potatoes twice baked; I should have done that this time.
Finally, there were Julienne of Fresh Snow Peas and Carrots. I started with another online recipe, but my early experiments did not inspire. In the end, I added a little ginger (I like ginger a lot) and replaced the olive oil with grape seed oil (another suggestion of Brian’s). The grape seed oil made all the difference; it was great.
Dessert
For dessert, I had planned to make a cheese cake. Brian stepped up, however, and did the dessert for me. He made a cheese cake that was not exactly to my liking; I think mine is better, but it was still delicious; you can’t go wrong with four pounds of cream cheese and a pound of sugar, right? But he also made a pumpkin pie that also included two other squashes. It was by far the best pumpkin pie I have ever tasted. It was amazing. I will get that recipe if I can and post it here.
In the end, at least it was an interesting dinner. And I didn’t have to eat turkey. And I learned a bit about managing a large dinner. And then I collapsed.
–FM (29 December 2009)
Merry Secular Christmas: The Second
For those who dread this day, but have nothing like cooking to distract you, I provide a few diversions.
Some Talks
First, there is Robert M. Price interviewing Tom Flynn on Point of Inquiry:
I’ve put together three Christmas Anti-Carols in a YouTube playlist. First is Porn Orchid channeling Tom Waits and Bauhaus with a cheery ditty (Oh! Give me a noose I can hang from the tree!), Christmas Sucks. Then we have the real Tom Waits with Christmas Card From a Hooker. And last is Eric Idle’s Fuck Christmas, with lyrics so you can sing along!
As we celebrate Christmas, the family has been listening to a local station playing holiday oriented songs. And then on came Bob Dylan doing one of the Christmas classics, Positively 4th Street. You can’t get enough bitterness and anger during the holidays. Merry fucking Christmas!
What Christmas is All About
My friend Will really loves this bit from A Charlie Brown Christmas. Or at least he did. I used to like it too. Now, I see it for what it is: Charles Schulz cramming his religion down my throat. He even repeats the damned speech in voice over! If you look back at his comic strip, he threw a lot of Christian mythology into it. To each his own. But I do think it is heavy-handed.
Of course, Schulz lost his faith and died more or less an atheist. Because he wasn’t an idiot.
It’s Not a Wonderful Life
The following parody of It’s a Wonderful Life isn’t all that funny. But I include it for personal reasons. You see, I’m a big Frank Capra fan. It Happened One Night is one of my very favorite films. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Lost Horizon are both excellent films.
But I can’t stand James Stewart. How he became a star, I’ll never know. His minor role in Philadelphia Story almost ruins the film, but even he can’t destroy something with Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn. But without a doubt the film he most completely destroys is It’s a Wonderful Life. Of course, even I have to admit that the film also suffers from Capra’s own excesses.
So any time someone parodies the film, I’m for it. Regarding this SNL parody: it has more real human emotion than the actual film.
Give the Jew Girl Toys
In my long standing commitment to ruining every holiday, here is Sarah Silverman performing Give The Jew Girl Toys:
–FM (25 December 2012)
I’m Mysterious, Folks — Live With It
Christmas would not be complete without a little thought about God. And this gives me the perfect opportunity to demonstrate that I am an atheist and why few other atheists believe that I am.
In the following amusing scene from Keeping Mum, Reverend Goodfellow quotes from Isaiah 55:8, about the mysteriousness of God. I’ll give you a bit more than he does. It’s from the Old Testament. What’s more, it is rather older than other Old Testament books we know and love like Leviticus. Like most of the entire Bible, but especially the Old Testament, Isaiah is not what it purports to be. It was written by at least three different people over the course of 200 years. What we are looking at comes from around 600 BC, and is an excellent example of what a jerk God is:
[8] “For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.
[9] “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways
And My thoughts than your thoughts.”
Here’s the clip. It is Rowan Atkinson. You’ll enjoy it, I promise. Consider it a gift to me:
But Goodfellow’s take on it is correct: “I’m mysterious, folks. Live with it.” Of course, the whole anthropomorphizing of God is silly. But in a broader context, it is how one must live if one thinks about these things. I suppose that most people are too busy or just plain reasonable to worry about such cosmic unanswerable questions. But this is why I say that the best theists are better than the best atheists, even though I am most clearly an atheist. Goodfellow understands that there are no answers, but he values the question. By saying that God is mysterious, he isn’t providing the tired platitude, “God behaves in mysterious ways.” It isn’t apologia; it is acceptance.
Now Goodfellow probably thinks that God loves him. I don’t know; I haven’t seen the movie (but it looks good). But given the observation—”I’m mysterious, folks.”—and the quote from Isaiah, it is meaningless to claim that God loves you. How would you possibly know? God is unfathomable. But I think, despite everything, we have to look at the universe(s) and think that it is a great privilege to have existed. And if someone wants to call that “God’s love,” I have no problem.
Personally, I have a hard time ascribing any kind of motivation to the universe(s). And if there is a motive, I am far too humble (And if you read me, you know that I am not humble!) to think that I am the result of that motivation. If the universe has a purpose, I am a byproduct. And that’s fine. Regardless, I am blessed. I have grace. And now you know, why none of the other atheists want to let me join in their atheist games.
Merry Christmas or whatever!
Sam Seder’s War on Christmas
From year’s ago, it is still a classic: Sam Seder’s battle with Bob Knight about the War on Christmas. (It’s embedded below.) Seder is hilarious in this segment. But the more serious thing here is that Knight actually claims that, “The war on Christmas is really the culmination of a war on faith.” Look, I’m pretty hard on atheists around here, but at least they are a minority group that is by and large despised in this country. They have real reasons for feeling marginalized. But Christians? According to Wikipedia, between 73% and 80% of Americans call themselves Christians. The fact that they play this victimization game is appalling. It is also shameful. I don’t think that Christians, without prodding from “leaders” like Bob Knight and Bill O’Reilly, would ever think there was a war on Christmas. Christians are allowed to celebrate the holiday any way they want.
I discussed this last year in, Happy Holidays vs. Merry Christmas. The issue is not that Christians are being harmed in any way. It is that their religion is so powerful in this country, that they feel persecuted when the entire society doesn’t rise up and say, “But we understand that, unlike all those other religions, your religion is true.” And this kind of thing coming from a huge majority is simple bullying. As I wrote:
Another aspect of this is the use of majority status to silence the minority. The argument goes something like this, “Most people in the United States are Christians, so why not just say, ‘Merry Christmas’?” This would be a strong argument if anyone were avoiding a discussion of the holiday. But “Happy Holidays” does not exclude Christmas, while “Merry Christmas” does exclude others. The truth is that minority groups are, for a number of good reasons, insecure. So if anyone is unhappy it ought to be the Muslims, Buddhists, atheists, and so on. With almost 80% of Americans being Christians, what do they have to worry about?
The whole issue is made worse because the very Christians who hate “Happy Holidays” want to “put the Christ back in Christmas!” This creates a problem for those of us who think that Christmas is a secular holiday having nothing to do with religion. (I’ll discuss this later today.) We have no problem with “Merry Christmas” because it is just that federal holiday when you are expected to give everyone gifts and cook a lot of food. But if somehow people manage to turn Christmas into a religious holiday, then we will have a problem with “Merry Christmas.”
And really, if I were a Christian, I wouldn’t want atheists going around saying, “Merry Christmas!” I would think that was profane. Ditto for corporate retailers trying to suck up to Christian customers. But as I have noted many times before, most Christians talking in public are idiots. I don’t think for an instant that Bill O’Reilly speaks for the Catholic Church. He’s a “Catholic” because he was raised a Catholic. His religion, like those of most of the people you hear talking about this, is money.
There is no war on Christmas. There is no war on faith. That is psychotic delusion talk. And shame on any news organization that takes it seriously. Sam Seder takes it exactly as seriously as it deserves:
A Brief History of Santa
The great CGP Grey put the following video together two years ago this Christmas. It is “A Brief History of Santa.” Now I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the video, but in general, Grey has his facts together. So if it is wrong, I’m sure it’s just stuff around the edges. The main thing in this that I know is true (And important!) is that Santa Claus has basically no real connection to the fourth century Greek Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra. And as anthropologist have long known, he (Just like Jesus if he walked the earth) was not white. That’s him there over on the left.
So enjoy and learn how we got Santa Claus as we now find him, including interesting facts about where he is supposed to live:
Special Christmas Birthday Bonus
On this day in 0 AD, Jesus was born. I tell ya, that one never stops cracking me up! According to scholars who are inclined to believe the Bible, Jesus is thought to have been born between 7 and 2 BC. And where the data 25 December comes from is open to debate. By around the start of the fourth century, the Church was just using the date without any real justification. Of course, because of gradual changes in the earth’s orbit, the actual date ought to have been slowly changed to some time in January. According the Wikipedia, “The date of Christmas may have initially been chosen to correspond with the day exactly nine months after early Christians believed Jesus to have been conceived, or with one or more ancient polytheistic festivals that occurred near southern solstice…” In other words, it’s a mess.
But this much is very interesting to me: there is a whole academic industry devoted to trying to tweeze history out of a clearly (and purely) religious text. And then people say things like, “Hey, Luke and Matthew agree on this point!” Like Luke and Matthew aren’t based on either the Q document or Luke based on Matthew itself. It’s all so silly. I’m with Robert Price: maybe Jesus was a real guy, but by this point, he has been so papered over with myth that there is nothing left of the historical figure. If you are a believer, you’ll just have to wait until you get to heaven. If you aren’t a believer, I think you should just place Jesus in the same category as Thor. And by that I don’t mean that Jesus doesn’t exist and isn’t God. I just mean that Jesus is some God that some people believe in now, or once believed in. The historicity question is nothing more than intellectual masturbation.
Bottom line: if Jesus was an actual man, there is roughly a one in 365.25 chance that he was born today. And who really cares? It’s an excuse for a party.
Afterword
I do wish that Christians would stop getting upset about the use of Xmas. It is an abbreviation that goes back at least a thousand years. The X is just the closest that we have in English to the Greek letter Chi, which early Christians used as an abbreviation for “Christ.” Unfortunately, as in most things, it is the people with the most ignorant of ideas who are the loudest.
–FM (25 December 2013)
Christmas Music Doesn’t Have to Suck
I had wanted to put together some music for Christmas. But you know: music that doesn’t suck. This is a lot harder a chore than it sounds like. The truth is that most traditional Christmas music really is terrible. And I don’t say that out of some desire to be iconoclastic. Part of it is just that I really do have a low opinion of Perry Como. But I will admit that most of it is simply the fact that I’m just really, really bored with it.
Another problem is that most Christmas music is not organic. At some point in a star’s career, someone who worries about money says, “It’s time to release a Christmas album.” The star doesn’t understand why at first, but as soon as it is explained, he is on board. Everyone likes free money!
But despite the fact that most Christmas music is primarily about money (Fitting!) and tired, there are some songs that I like. Let’s start with a classic, “Blue Christmas” by Elvis. I just like his affected singing. Plus, it’s just a love song with some clever lyrics:
“Santa Baby” is a silly song. But Eartha Kitt is wonderful:
You know, there was a kind of “new wave” music that didn’t suck. Mostly, it was when they didn’t take themselves seriously and didn’t use synths. That’s why Tom Tom Club was better than the first Talking Heads album. And that why one of the most enduring Christmas songs is The Waitresses’ “I Know What Boys Like” “Christmas Wrapping”:
I’m sure there are others, but I don’t have time for a bunch of research or reflection. Ultimately, I think the best thing for Christmas is just to put on some great music regardless. But thus far this holiday season, I’ve been forced to turn off Bill Evans and Jacques Brel. But personally, I think that Mozart is very festive:
I hope you have a Merry Christmas, even if the music sucks all day long!
Avoiding Christmas Conflict
Are you wondering how you are going to get through this holiday season without killing your family members? Last year, I offered up a little advice, Pigeons and Politics. It was a little serious guidance from my years of both having reasonable political discussions and having ones that came to blows. Ultimately, the best thing to do is to avoid everything except maybe, “How about them Ravens?!” That is unfortunately as far as I can go. One of the best moments in The Birdcage was where Armand says, “How do you feel about that call today?” to Albert as they practice not being gay. Albert responds, “How do you think I feel? Betrayed, bewildered… wrong response?” But the truth is that Armand doesn’t know any more than Albert.
Luckily, The Onion offered up some helpful advice, Avoiding Family Conflict During the Holiday Season. Much of it is just amusing like, “Try to end thousands of years of entrenched prejudices before flying home and talking about current events.” Or: “Avoid anything that could trigger fights, like a history of family depression.” Or even: “Change name. Start new life.”
That last one is part of a broader category of actually useful advice. For example, “Split potentially huge family blowouts into smaller, more manageable bickering matches over the course of the holiday season.” Or: “Ensure each family member has their own table at which to eat dinner.” But most of all, there is this rather too detailed plan for the day:
If you become frustrated during the festivities, consider going for a walk to the end of the driveway, continuing on for half an hour, reaching the town limits, entering a train station, buying the first available ticket, arriving in a town called Rockport, heading to the edge of the ocean, and just screaming.
Some of them, however, are just hysterically funny (not that the last one wasn’t). Consider, “Take the time to consider things from your brother-in-law’s point of view so you can fully appreciate how f**king stupid his perspective is.” Or: “Make yourself appear larger than you are around your father-in-law by standing up on your hind legs and puffing out your chest.” But my favorite sounds like something I’ve experienced, “Encourage family members to seek personal space when they need it by telling them the front door’s right f**king there anytime they want to use it.”
I hope this helps to make your holiday experience better. And if not: there’s always the train.
The Reason for the Season Is a Myth
The idea is that the canonical and non-canonical gospels are none of them biographies in the modern sense. Some were simply collections of sayings attributed to Jesus or stories about Jesus, some of them allegorical, some legendary, few historical. Others were attempts to write for Jesus the sort of literary and edifying biography then written about certain great Greco-Roman figures like Pythagoras and Apollonius of Tyana. But these, too, were far from what the modern scholar would consider to be historical.
Thus the work of the student of the historical Jesus is rather like looking for a historical needle in a legendary haystack. There is little to find, and it is not easy to find even that. Even so, some scholars have done a passable job reconstructing possible versions of the historical Jesus. Some paint him as a peasant revolutionist, violent or non-violent. Others make him a magician. Some an apocalyptic prophet, others a wandering sage.
And of course some of these Jesus-constructs are combinable. Each is a “historical Jesus” in that each is a viable product of the science of historical reconstruction. The trouble is, there is really no way of knowing how close to the real thing any of these reconstructions has come. And there never will be until someone smarter than us New Testament scholars invents a time machine.
The “historical Jesus” in the sense of “Jesus as he really was,” must remain, I am convinced, unknown to us. Thus it is fair, though admittedly a bit clever, to say that whether or not there was a historical Jesus, there is no longer. That is, even assuming Jesus of Nazareth to have been a historical character who actually lived, we have no access to him and never will.
Chris Blattman is a political scientist at Columbia University. He wrote an interesting article this last week, The True Meaning of Christmas. I came upon it through a link at Economist’s View, and so I figured that it was going to be about the meaning of Christmas being commerce. It is good for the economy, as I note when I’m forced to drop by Target and I see that there are literally ten times as many people shopping as normal. But that wasn’t Blattman’s point at all. It’s rather the opposite.
Tim Harford: In Praise of Scrooge
Last week in FT Magazine, Tim Harford wrote, In Praise of Scrooge. It starts with the questionable claim that misers make the rest of us richer. While I accept that’s true if we had limited resources, it seems to me that misers (or people who burn money) are limiting economic flow and thus keeping most people poorer. But that’s not the main part of his article. He’s interested in the deadweight loss of Christmas: the fact that a lot of money is spent on stuff the recipient doesn’t want. Again, I’m not sure that matters at the macroscale. It doesn’t really matter what all those people at Target are buying so long as they are buying something.
Chris Blatman’s Response
“Giving gifts also creates inequalities, very much on purpose. These gifts quietly say, ‘I did something nice for you. Now we’ll see if you pay me back and how. I’m watching and waiting.'” —Chris Blattman
Chris Blattman responded to this by noting that gift giving really isn’t about economic efficiency but rather cultural signaling. Clearly, that signaling can itself be economic as when the rich give to the poor. (Did you think that the Gateses gave all that money without getting something priceless in exchange?) But on the other side Blattman noted, “Think about gift exchange between relative equals. Cash would be pointless. I’d give you $50 and you give me $50. What would be the use of that?” Indeed, there is no use in doing that, and gift exchanges between equals must have to do with something else.
But think about that for a moment. Christmas really is good for the economy. But the most efficient system, by Tim Harford’s thinking, would be if we did no giving whatsoever. Or, to take Blattman’s example, if I gave my sister fifty bucks and she gave it back to me. This would clearly result in less economic activity. There would be fewer jobs. We would be in a state of constant recession. Now, from an environmental standpoint, that might not be bad. But given that our modern economy is based upon consumption and more consumption, we might want to work out how all of this would affect the working class before we call off the practice of holiday gift giving.
Gift Giving as Emotional Negotiation
The way gift giving really works is summed up by Chris Blattman this way, “Giving gifts also creates inequalities, very much on purpose. These gifts quietly say, ‘I did something nice for you. Now we’ll see if you pay me back and how. I’m watching and waiting.'” Now, he claims this sounds cynical, but I don’t think it does. People are constantly appraising their relationships. That’s all this is. It isn’t about wanting to make good on your financial investment, but on your emotional investment.
Gift giving is about that dance that characterizes our relationships. We are all still that teenager pulling off flower petals, “She loves me… She loves me not…” Gifts allow us to signal that we care. And it allows millions of people to have jobs in the winter that they wouldn’t normally have. It’s a winning custom for the whole of society.
Odds and Ends From Christmas 2015
Merry Christmas everyone! As you read this, I will probably be suitably toasted as I serve dinner to my family. But in Christmases past, I’ve written some rather interesting articles about the holiday and I want to share them with you. There are also other odds and ends that aren’t as directly related to me. It’s all quite interesting I think.
The Little Drummer Boy
I remember Christmas shows like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town. I’ve seen them so many times, I have them largely memorized. But I have only the vaguest of memory of the other big Rankin/Bass Productions Christmas show, The Little Drummer Boy. It’s possible I blocked it out. I found the following video through Paul Bibeau’s article, The Five Most Traumatic Christmas Special Moments. It is a video with Jane Edith Wilson reading her essay about how The Little Drummer Boy scarred her. It’s very funny:
A Brief Political Interlude
This is too good. I often like Bill Maher. But when it comes to Muslims, he’s a flat-out racist. And that makes him a complete apologist for all kinds of vile government action. Mostly, he finds himself in the company of people who won’t battle with him. But this exchange with Glenn Greenwald is fantastic. Maher tries to extricate himself by mumbling, “That silly liberal view that all religions are alike because it makes you feel good.” Greenwald will have none of it. He comes right back with, “No, it makes you feel good to say our side is better… You get to ignore the responsibility that your own government has for the violence and instability in the world by saying, ‘Look! It’s that primitive religion over there that’s the blame!'” Exactly. Maher just “knows” that the problem is Islam, even though the closest he’s ever come to the religion is hosting Sam Harris.
La Luna
Okay, this has nothing to do with Christmas, but somehow, I think it fits. It is an animated short by Enrico Casarosa called, La Luna. It’s wonderful:
Pasty White Guy Gets Cool Gift
Danger, Will Robinson! Very large picture of dumpy old white guy ahead!
The cool things about friends is that they know things about you. Yesterday, Will stopped by to drop off a Christmas gift to me. I knew that he had bought me a t-shirt and I figured it was something with Bernie Sanders on it. But no. It was a Gil Scott-Heron t-shirt, “Must be something we can do.”
And Will bought it before my Gil Scott-Heron week. Anyway, it is one of the best gifts I’ve ever gotten. To prove it, I’m providing this embarrassing (And blurry!) picture of myself:
The Santa Claus Conspiracy
As regular readers know, I think Paul Bibeau is one of the great treasures of the modern world. I still find it amazing that he isn’t a big star. But there is a quote told to struggling artists, “If you wonder why you aren’t successful even though your work is great, that may be the reason.” For most artists, that’s not true. But in Bibeau’s case it probably is. If he were half as smart and half as talented, he probably would be a star.
Back in 2012 he wrote, The Truth About Santa Claus. It is about the uncoordinated conspiracy of parents to play Santa. But in keeping with the undeniable fact that if you scratch a cynic you will uncover an emotional marshmallow, he wrote this:
And the heart of it is this: that we are here to love one another. That our most important job is to help the people around us build a life in this world. That the best we can ever hope to accomplish in our short time here is to someday be someone’s happy memory. Parents know this. And so do couples and friends and anyone holding anyone else’s hand under our shared and difficult circumstances.
As an emotional marshmallow myself: I agree.
Bob’s Burgers
And let’s finish off with the most recent Bob’s Burgers Christmas episode, “Nice-Capades.” It will only be around for another month, so you should watch it. Now. Trust me: your family will love it! (For the record, this includes one of the best jokes ever. After the mall Santa says, “You just kicked Santa out of the massage chair,” Gene says, “Isn’t that a song?” That’s brilliant.)
[Note: you have to pay for this now that Hulu has figured out that they are such idiots they can’t make money streaming a 22 minute show peppered with 7 minutes of commercials. -FM]
That’s it for now! Have a wonderful Christmas and try to be someone’s happy memory!
–FM (25 December 2015)
A Merry Christmas for Edwards and MacLiammóir
Once filming was complete, MacLiammóir, Edwards, and Cloutier were flown first to Marseilles, en route — as they believed — for Morocco again; but instead of North Africa, they were transported to the idyllic artists’ colony at Saint-Paul-de-Vence in Provence, where they were greeted gloomily by Welles, who immediately set off for Paris. A few days later they joined him there. No explanation was ever offered for any of these bewildering peregrinations. Their lives had turned into a major-key rehash of Waiting for Godot, with a dash of Kafka — major key because they were excellently fed and watered and the locations were all charming, but the sense of disorientation was acute. They were beginning to doubt whether they would see Dublin that Christmas: “feel sure that Orson has plans for large Christmas tree in marketplace at Mogador, entertainment probably to include brief but startling appearance of O himself as Santa Claus.” As if in defiance of the chaotic reality, Welles made a public announcement that Othello had completed filming and that he would soon be starting work on Ulysses, which was certainly putting a brave face on things.
The truth of the matter was that he was increasingly anxious about money; his last earnings had been in April, on The Black Rose. With no handy $100,000 on offer from a passing blockbuster, he had started to think in terms of a theater tour, to kick off in Paris and then to play such centers as Brussels, Antwerp, Lille, and Amsterdam. It would consist of a double bill comprising The Importance of Being Earnest (slightly cut) and Marlowe’s Dr Faustus (savagely cut). Edwards would direct Earnest and play Canon Chasuble and Marlowe’s Prologue; Welles would direct Faustus and play Algernon Moncrieff and Faustus; while MacLiammóir would play Jack Worthing and Mephistopheles, having by now presumably accepted that villainy was well within his range. Suzanne Cloutier would play Cecily and — “poor child,” remarks MacLiammóir — Helen of Troy, while Fay Compton, if they could get her back, would be Lady Bracknell. They would ask Dior to design the costumes and André Derain to do the set. Of course they would.
After a few more days of ebullient planning, still at the stage where everything seems possible — Dior? pourquoi pas? Derain? mais naturellement — Edwards and MacLiammóir gratefully returned, just in time for Christmas, to Dublin, where a card from Welles was waiting for them: “Miss you badly already and hope for wonderful things in New Year.” There were affectionate phone calls on Christmas Day, but no certainty as to what was going to happen next. Welles wrote to them from the Hotel Lancaster in Paris, by no means encouragingly: “As 1949 prepared to die of old age I want to acknowledge that I’ve made it pretty awful for both of you. Come what may (and it probably will) you deserve to know how earnestly I’m going to balance the budget before next Christmas…” But then, in the New Year, something wonderful happened, just as Welles had hoped: the French-Algerian financier/producer Edmond Tenoudji of Films Marceau came through with 12 million francs in exchange for the French distribution rights, so filming could resume.
Image cropped and reduced from original at Getty Images. Licensed under Fair Use.
Odds and Ends From Christmas 2016
Another Christmas. It’s a little interesting to mix Christmas and death. Better would be Easter and death. But whatever. Christmas is just an excuse to cook. But we now have a baby, Hector, who is the result of a US-Mexico collaboration. And I think it is very important that he grow up bilingual. So I bought him books on colors and shapes that are in both English and Spanish. And I got him a “first” Spanish-English dictionary.
But most of all, I got a Spanish translation of Are You My Mother?, ¿Eres Mi Mamá? The great thing about it is that it is properly translated. Many years ago, I got a Spanish-English edition of Green Eggs and Ham, and the Spanish was literally translated — no rhyming or anything. But check out how ¿Eres Mi Mamá?
La mamá pajarito
empollaba un huevito.
Anyway, let’s get on with our odds and ends…
The Reason for the Season
I remember whenever we would visit my aunt at Christmas she would make some statement about remembering the “reason for the season.” She, like most of the people on my mom’s side of the family, is a conservative Christian. And so the “reason” is Jesus and his miraculous birth. It’s kind of funny. My aunt is a nice person and all, but like most people in my family, she’s not educated. The Christmas story is so obviously fable! How can adults believe it? Even if you are a serious Christian, you have to admit that this is nonsense! And really: Easter is what the the religion is all about. Jesus’ birth means nothing.
The idea is that the canonical and non-canonical gospels are none of them biographies in the modern sense. Some were simply collections of sayings attributed to Jesus or stories about Jesus, some of them allegorical, some legendary, few historical. Others were attempts to write for Jesus the sort of literary and edifying biography then written about certain great Greco-Roman figures like Pythagoras and Apollonius of Tyana. But these, too, were far from what the modern scholar would consider to be historical…
The “historical Jesus” in the sense of “Jesus as he really was,” must remain, I am convinced, unknown to us. Thus it is fair, though admittedly a bit clever, to say that whether or not there was a historical Jesus, there is no longer. That is, even assuming Jesus of Nazareth to have been a historical character who actually lived, we have no access to him and never will.
Any reason for a party, but let’s not start setting people on fire.
The Trouble with Transporters
I’ve written about the Star Trek transporter a few times before. In particular, Using a Teleporter Is Suicide! And then more recently, More on Teleporters: It’s Murder! You know I feel strongly about something when I write two articles about it and each title ends with an exclamation mark.
CGP Grey dealt with the subject in the following video. It’s good. And it is easier than reading my articles. But he doesn’t touch on what is really the most important issue, which is that we die every instant (or at least each Planck time — roughly ten to the negative 43rd power[1]). Consciousness itself is a lie. But that’s kind of a downer, and CGP Grey tries to stay upbeat.
Checking in With the Belchers
It wouldn’t be a Christmas post without a short word about Bob’s Burgers. Although I have to say that the show now has some competition. Bob’s Burgers really is the show of my life growing up. But Rick and Morty is more the show of my life now. I’ll explain that later. (Maybe I already have.)
This year’s Christmas episode was, “The Last Gingerbread House on the Left.” In it, Linda, Teddy, and the kids go caroling, while Bob gets drawn into yet another of Mr Fischoeder’s crazy adventures. The whole thing reminded me of my last few years of college.
Christmas Caroling
I spent a lot of time with Andrea and her then husband Eric. Eric was a very good person to have around because he always had ideas for things to do. So in those years, the three of us — and a number of other friends — often found ourselves doing stuff that was, all and all, pretty cool.
There were two things that Eric wanted to do that we never did. The first was to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. I’m so glad we never did that, because I did not then know that my acrophobia was so extreme that I couldn’t have made it more than a couple of feet onto the bridge.
The other was that we should all go caroling. I liked that idea. But Bob’s Burgers shows what happens when people who can’t sing go caroling. It isn’t a gift you give to others; it is a gift you demand of others. And that isn’t really so bad — as long as you leave after one song. And if you can’t remember more than a couple of lines, so much the better.
Fairytale of New York
As I noted before, there are good Christmas songs. James reminded me of “Fairytale of New York” by The Pogues with Kirsty MacColl. You probably know of MacColl because of her heroic death. It’s a wonderful song.
A History of Christmas
Several years back, R Elisabeth Cornwell wrote, A Very Atheist Christmas. And she takes on the issue of the supposed hypocrisy of atheists celebrating Christmas:
Some Christians have accused me of being hypocritical for celebrating a Christian holiday. However… celebrations are a natural part of human culture, and Christians simply appropriated local celebrations to suit their own peculiar beliefs. Christmas is only “Christian” because ancient winter pagan celebrations were incorporated by the Church.
The Christmas tree, which became a part of English and American tradition through German influence is a recent tradition. The English took on the German tradition of the Christmas Tree during the Victorian era under the influence of Prince Albert. Americans, on the other hand, were likely influenced by the Prussians during the American Revolution as well as the many German immigrants who came to the fledgling nation. But evergreens have been part of human celebrations at least as far back as the Egyptians as a symbol of the triumph of life over death…
Christmas belongs to anyone who wants it, and just because I gave up believing in a god doesn’t mean I gave up believing in the love and joy of family. I did not give up the joy of celebration with my abandonment of the absurd. So to my religious and non-religious friends, I wish them all a Merry Christmas or a Happy Hanukkah from the heart and I hope they take it with the true spirit with which I give it — that of the spirt of humanity — something we can all celebrate.
Merry Christmas!
And that seems like a very nice place to end this special edition of Odds and Ends. I wish you all a wonderful Christmas. If for no other reason, Christmas gives us all one more reason to be less of a dick than we usually are.
Chait goes on to talk about the negative stereotypes that America has about the two parties. Democrats work to counter these negative stereotypes (eg, “Democrats are spendthrifts”), but Republicans don’t (eg, “Republicans just want to give away money to corporations and the super-rich”).
Why Care About Bad Stereotypes
There are a couple of things to think about this. The first thing is that most of the negative stereotypes about Democrats are not based on facts. The Democrats are not spendthrifts. Despite most people thinking the Republicans are fiscally conservative, they aren’t. Whenever they are in power, they start expensive wars they don’t pay for, and give away huge amounts of money to the rich that they don’t pay for.
So given that the bad stereotypes are based on lies, why would anyone believe that telling America the truth would matter? Bill Clinton gutted traditional welfare in this country, and most Republicans I know still think that poor people can stay on welfare their whole lives. America has bought a bill of goods and nothing will stop them from believing them — regardless what the facts are.
When the Democrats were in power, they provided healthcare for the country because the positive stereotypes are correct: they are compassionate and generous. But they paid for it.
When the Republicans decided to give big tax breaks to the rich, they didn’t pay for. They cost the US government at least a trillion dollars. And note: that’s the absolute lowest estimate based on the most rosy assumptions. My bet (ask me about it in ten years) is that unless the Democrats get back in power fast and reverse things, this tax bill will be more like five trillion dollars.
Why Bad Stereotypes Don’t Change
When the bill for the tax cut come comes due, it is likely that the Democrats will be in power. And you can bet that Republicans will be on all the television shows talking about what spendthrifts the Democrats are. They will probably even blame Obamacare (which was paid for) or Social Security (that comes from a different revenue stream, and is also paid for). But don’t expect any journalists to push back on this other than to say, “But the Democrats say…” As though it is just a matter of opinion.
Look at the History
The Republicans new tax bill is nothing new. Republicans have been doing this for decades. Remember in 1980, Ronald Reagan criticized Jimmy Carter for the federal debt, even though it had been going down Carter’s entire term? Then what happened? Reagan was elected. He cut taxes for the rich and greatly increased spending on the military. The result: the debt went way up.
Now I don’t actually care about the debt. But Americans do. They just didn’t notice. Carter didn’t get credit for reducing the debt and Reagan didn’t get condemned for increasing it. America doesn’t care.
This happens again and again.
Look at the Facts on the Ground
Right now, Republicans control Washington. Even if Clinton had won the presidency, that would still be true. And they control most of the states.
So why should Republicans care that they are doing all these things that America hates? If it hurts them, it will only affect them for one (and in rare cases two) election cycles.
So I don’t believe Chait. I think Republicans know what they are doing is extremely unpopular. They just don’t care. They are getting a big win. And it might — Might — hurt them in 2018. Most likely by 2020, all will be forgotten, and the Republicans will get to gerrymander the districts so they will have another 8+ years of almost total political control of the nation.
Until the American people get hurt really badly and start paying attention to what’s really happening they might as well get all the goodies they can. And if the country regains its sanity, the Republicans will go back to being a traditional conservative party, and that will be the end of it. There will be no long-term harm done to them. Meanwhile, look at all the goodies they gave themselves and their friends.
Meanwhile, we liberals just need to hit the streets and limit the damage they continue to do.
Last night I was dancing in my room — alone. Doug Jones won the Senate seat in Alabama. I had donated to his campaign (see below). But I assumed he would lose. The truth is that I just couldn’t deal with hoping. The last few years have not be easy ones for supporters of the Democratic Party. And the truth is that a Doug Jones win would open up a number of possibilities. In particular, it made the vile Republican tax bill (Never call it reform!) had a chance of dying, and it made Democrats retaking the Senate in 2018 a possibility. I couldn’t allow myself to hope with so much on the line.
So I considered my contribution to Doug Jones the way I normally do: as almost a tithe — something I do for the sake of my beliefs and because I am lucky enough to be able to afford it. But the most recent political donations I recall are first for Bernie Sanders, who lost, and then for Hillary Clinton, who lost. (Yes, she lost only because we don’t live in a true democracy, but she’s still not in the White House.) As a result, I was thrilled that Doug Jones won.
Waiting to Lose
I spent most of the day waiting for the time when Google News alerted me, “Associated Press Call Alabama Senate Race for Roy Moore.” Indeed, the first thing I saw was a CBS article that showed that Roy Moore was beating Doug Jones by over ten percentage points. This was when the folks at the Roy Moore campaign headquarters were screaming with excitement. But one who understood the demographics of Alabama probably already knew that Roy was in major trouble.
These early returns were from white and rural areas. If Roy Moore was winning by this little, it meant trouble. And as soon as I read that news, I got a call from Will. He said, “That’s old news! With 92 percent of the vote counted, Doug Jones is winning by one percent, and it seems to just be getting better. Thus, with my phone in one hand, I danced around my room. Good news! Good news for a Democratic supporter! Who would have thought such a thing was possible?!
Hope or Something Like It
I’ve always felt that Emily Dickinson lied. At least, I don’t think she was the kind of person for whom hope flew inside like a bird. But for many, hope is necessary. For me, the tithe works. I will donate and volunteer out of commitment and duty. I question how many people this works for. So others must grab on to hope. Or to anything — anything that works — anything that makes you keep up the struggle. Because that’s what it is all about: the struggle. I know that hope is what keeps Will moving forward, even with a friend like me.
“Hope” is the thing with feathers —
That perches in the soul —
And sings the tune without the words —
And never stops — at all —
And sweetest — in the Gale — is heard —
And sore must be the storm —
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm —
I’ve heard it in the chilliest land —
And on the strangest Sea —
Yet — never — in Extremity,
It asked a crumb — of me.
But there is a little hope that exists inside me. I believe (but it’s nothing more than hope) that in the end, the truth will triumph. Yes, in general, I agree with Ezra Klein, Why Doug Jones’s Narrow Win Is Not Enough to Make Me Confident About American Democracy. But I cannot allow that. If I allow that, nothing else works. Without that, I really would kill myself. And I have no intention of killing myself.
Do whatever is necessary to keep moving forward. Yes, these are dark times. And it really makes no sense to me how the Republicans can be so successful when all they do is harm 90 percent of their base voters. But if we give up, the nation is lost. It is only with us that democracy and decency survive. Do whatever you need to keep fighting.
My Original Doug Jones Article
Right now, Roy Moore and Doug Jones are deadlocked in the Alabama Senate race. In one way, this is really good: a Democrat might actually become Alabama’s junior Senator. But in another, it’s awful. Roy Moore is clearly guilty of having sexual relationships with high school girls while he was in his 30s, yet most Republicans could not possibly care less.
I ask my fellow countrymen in Alabama, “Are you going to allow this?
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t too much care about the personal lives of politicians. And although I think even flirting with a 14-year-old girl unconscionable, it certainly isn’t something like raping a six-year-old. But even though I’m not even that outraged about hypocrisy, this case is different. This is a man who would never justify such behavior on a defendant who came before him.
I don’t much mind hypocrisy coming from people who show mercy. But Roy Moore shows no mercy. His reading of the Bible makes it a vile document. And I understand, any long religious document like the Bible can be used to say whatever you want. But what you make it say says a whole lot about you. And what it says about Roy Moore is that he is a vile man who should never be given any power.
The Attacks on Doug Jones
It’s been funny to hear the attacks on Doug Jones because we’ve heard these same things so many times before. I especially like this, “He’s weak on crime!” Donald Trump said this. Of course, Donald Trump is the man who still thinks the Central Park Five should have been put to death despite the unquestioned evidence that they are innocent. So for Trump, like most Republicans, being “tough on crime” really just means locking up and killing dark-skinned people.
The thing is, Doug Jones used to be a prosecutor. He was the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. But he prosecuted the Ku Klux Klan members, so I guess that doesn’t count. The Republican Party does almost nothing but harm its base. Just look at the new tax bill. The one thing that the Republican Party does do — and the only reason it has a base — is because it is racist and it tells its base in every way that it is perfectly fine to be racists.
Locking Up the Wrong People
Interestingly, The Daily Beast reported, Doug Jones Locked Up Men Who Did What Women Say Roy Moore Did. But again, none of this matters because the Republicans don’t believe in equal protection. They believe in the kind of government where their allies get to do anything they want while all others are robbed, locked-up, and killed. When listening to Republicans, you have to bear in mind that words mean different things to them. The way almost everyone defines “weak on crime” indicates that Doug Jones is strong on crime. To Republican elites, it’s only people like Neshoba County Sheriff Lawrence A Rainey who are strong on crime.
Of course, Doug Jones is also accused of wanting to raise taxes. He doesn’t. But this is a very funny criticism coming from a political party that just raised taxes on the poor and middle classes and took healthcare away from 13 million people, all in the name of enriching the already rich.
But most of all, they attack Doug Jones for not being a Republican. He will vote with the Democrats. Well, I guess they’ve got that right. What a horrible thing that would be! To trick the people of Alabama into voting for someone who will actually look out for their interests! The horror!
Where Doug Jones Stands on the Issues
Doug Jones is, literally in a word, a Democrat. He’s pro-choice, but like all other Democrats, it isn’t because he wants to see more abortions. As Anna Almendrala wrote earlier this year, We Already Know How To Safely Reduce Abortions. “Hint: It has nothing to do with restricting access.” If those anti-choice people really want to reduce abortions, they wouldn’t be restricting access to abortion; they’d be increasing access to sex education and birth control — two things they are also against. Regardless, Doug Jones is no radical on this issue. Like most Democrats, he’s just a pragmatist who wants to decrease abortion in the ways that actually work.
When it comes to economic policy, Doug Jones goes right along with Republican voters. Polls consistently show that Republican voters are economically liberal. It’s just that the Republican elite are so good at getting them to focus on things like bad abortion policy, bad immigration policy, and racial animus, that they don’t even think about the economy. Unlike Roy Moore, Doug Jones will vote the way that Republican voters want him to.
When it comes to immigration and the environment, Doug Jones does disagree with a lot of Republicans. But he’s hardly an extremist. And I think that Republicans really need to ask themselves, “How much longer am I going to vote on issues that have no relevance to my life and ignore the issues that do?”
Doug Jones Is No Extremist
The bottom line regarding Doug Jones is that he is no extremist. He’s a politician who will legislate in a way that he thinks will be best for most of the people of Alabama. You can’t say that about Roy Moore or almost any Republican on the national level. Look at the new tax bill: almost every Republican voted to raise taxes on the poor and middle class, and to increase the national debt, just so that they could give more money to the rich.
The fact that Roy Moore is a pedophile is probably enough of a reason not to vote for him. But I think an even bigger reason is that Roy Moore will not do what he thinks is best for the people of Alabama. He will vote for what he thinks is best for his super-rich donors. And if that means allowing children to unnecessarily die from disease so that the Billionaire Class can have even more money, he will do it. And that is even worse than what he was doing to high school girls when he was a 30-something district attorney.
Vote for Doug Jones. See what it’s like to have someone in the Senate who is actually looking out for the interests of the people of Alabama.
I watched Al Franken’s resignation speech on Thursday. It was broadcast live on local news here in Saint Paul. My wife watched the last half of it with me. Like me, she’d been an ardent Franken supporter before he was accused repeatedly of sexual misconduct. The speech seemed sincere, and Franken appeared to be fighting back tears through most of it. He did not admit to abusive sexual behavior, yet he affirmed how all such accusations must be taken seriously.
When his speech ended, my wife said, “At least he didn’t make his wife stand behind him.” And this is true. By announcing live on the Senate floor, Franken avoided using her as a prop, the way so many politicians do at press conferences when pleading innocent to similar charges. (Frannie Franklin was in the gallery, along with the Senator’s soon-to-be-unemployed staff.)
The contradiction was jarring. Here is someone who obviously respects his wife enough not to make her publicly bear his disgrace. And yet his disgrace centered around accounts of demeaning women. Franken’s political service itself remains a contradiction. He was a great Senator for Minnesota, and a good one for America. Yet his personal failings resulted in our losing a key progressive voice, who could work easily with both wings of the Democratic Party, right when such figures are needed the most. His fall almost feels like an abandonment — even if it was deserved.
Did Franken Deserve It?
In his speech, Al Franken pointed out the irony of his resignation when Republicans are backing politicians accused of far worse — one of whom was caught on tape bragging about sexual assault.
In his speech, Al Franken pointed out the irony of his resignation when Republicans are backing politicians accused of far worse — one of whom was caught on tape bragging about sexual assault. Feminist writers such as Dahlia Lithwick and Ramona Grigg have defended him to some degree. They have argued that, given such a vast degree of difference between the criminality involved in these accusations, Franken’s resignation represents a gift to the forces of evil.
Make no mistake, Franken’s ouster is the GOP’s gain. There are several highly principled and intelligent individuals Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton can appoint to fill Franken’s seat. (My favorite is apparently not on Dayton’s shortlist.) Yet none would be able to match Franken’s legislative influence. (That’s particularly so as the appointment will only last until next November when a special election will be held.)
However, those accusations — if true — indicate a kind of behavior that cannot be tolerated in any workplace.
Was Franken Guilty?
This is, of course, the pertinent question. The opinions of people in Minnesota are varied. Some believe it’s all slander. Others believe he’s probably gotten away with worse. My opinion is, “I don’t know what happened.”
Eyewitness testimony is, as we know, an unreliable form of evidence. Human memory isn’t that good. And that’s just the beginning. It’s entirely possible that Franken’s alleged groping behavior at photo shoots was accidental. It’s harder to believe the instances of forced kissing were accidents.
The Guardianquoted Larry Jacobs, a University of Minnesota political scientist. He said, “I didn’t know of any of these accusations but he’s a very self-confident person who thinks of himself as special. With some of the accusations you see that: what he felt was being goofy or having his way was clearly unacceptable.”
Self-Confidence or Harassment?
I could see that being the case. Al Franken, after all, got away with books titled Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot and his anti-Fox NewsLies And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them. Those titles were meant to be provocative, and they were. (Unlike similarly-provocative titles “written” by right-wingers, Franken used fact-checkers.) Also, Franken spent years working at Saturday Night Live, described as having a backstage environment where “everyone hates everyone else and is jealous of everyone’s success.”
Where Franken Came From
If you can thrive in the vicious worlds of political polemics and a Lorne Michaels program, you may very well become accustomed to getting away with Alpha behavior that less competitive people rarely display. I’ve had jobs where I was extremely valuable, and I knew it. At that time, I got into heated arguments about how correct my plans were. I cringe now to remember this behavior. I’d hopefully never talk to a colleague like that today.
But no matter the degree of gray areas in accusations against Franken, I believe it was time for him to go.
The Perils Of A Persona
Some politicians (LBJ, any mayor of Chicago) present themselves as tough guys who “know the game.” Consummate insiders. They don’t expect voters to approve of them personally. Instead, they promise to deliver policies the voters want enacted. And they remind us about how the sausage gets made.
That was not Al Franken’s style.
He claims to have had no interest in politics before the death of (still beloved) Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone in a plane crash in 2002. Franken said he was particularly incensed by Wellstone’s successor, Norm Coleman, a career opportunist who told one reporter “I am a 99 percent improvement over Paul Wellstone.” He said it while waving a cigar — the very picture of DC corruption.
Al Franken’s Rise
Franken beat Coleman by a handful of votes. But he took office and established a reputation as one of the hardest working, most dedicated liberals in Congress. He frequently toured every last corner of Minnesota, holding town halls even in non-election years. He made nice with local Democratic Party insiders who’d tried their hardest to defeat his primary nomination. When in Washington, Franken would post, on his website, hours where he’d be having coffee in publicly-accessible Senate spaces. If you were in town, you were welcome to join him.
Al Franken’s image was one of absolute political integrity. He was in office, not for power, not to secure some board membership once he’d delivered favors to donors, but to serve his constituents. He was re-elected by a far larger margin. Even some conservative Minnesotans who disagreed with his politics believed in his sincerity.
And so, once the sexual accusations began to accumulate, Franken’s shine was tarnished. (His first, most famous accuser originally said she forgave him; had that been the only instance, he wouldn’t be stepping down.) Even if his statements about “I remember the incident differently” were 100% honest, they sounded exactly like what any other politician would say. Al Franken wasn’t supposed to be like any other politician; he was supposed to be something different.
Come Back, Shane
I bought it. And I’d enjoyed Franken ever since his days on the old Bill Maher program Politically Incorrect. (You remember: back when Maher was willing to let his guests do most of the talking.) I’d heard his radio show; I’d read his books. And Norm Coleman was (And still is!) human slime — your typical ex-liberal who switched sides when it became convenient. He ran one ad which featured an honest-to-God cancer kid; it would have made Elvis Costello sick.
A Personal Recollection of Franken
The man aspiring to good ruined, perhaps deservedly so. The man wallowing in evil triumphant, and certainly not deservedly so.
At the time of Franken’s first campaign, I was working at a residential facility for adults with disabilities. We took all of them to the State Fair, as every Minnesotan except me loves the State Fair. We went very, very early in the morning — 6:00 am! — because the crowds are thinner that early, and pushing wheelchairs is difficult in a big crowd.
At one point, we ran into Franken. We were taking a break — it was still early, but we needed coffee — and I spotted Franken similarly caffeine-ing up a few feet away with his wife. I walked over; he looked exhausted. “Hi, I’m sorry to bug you,” I said, “but this guy I know over there is a big politics junkie, and if you could just take a picture…”
Now, that individual isn’t just a politics junkie (which he is, he’ll watch city council meetings on public-access cable), but one of the most outgoing souls I’ve ever known. Half the time he looks like he’s about to die of pure old age right there in his wheelchair. Then he meets someone he’s happy to see, and his whole face glows with joy.
Al Franken came over, got the Joy Face at full strength, and you could see Franken’s spirits lift. A corncob tasting at some unholy hour on a Sunday morning, that’s the drag of campaigning, but the good moments — they’re worth it.
The picture of them together still hangs in that person’s room. When frustration or physical pain or low pay was getting me down at work, sometimes I’d go look at that picture, and remember one time when my feeble efforts helped make someone very happy.
Tarnished Memories
And now that memory is partially ruined.
As is the memory of how much my wife enjoyed listening to Franken’s last book, Giant Of The Senate on CD. She particularly liked Franken talking about how, in that 2008 campaign, his adult children asked him if the opposition would dig anything up they needed to know — and Franken said no, their family was safe from that shame.
The day after my wife finished that book, the first accusations came out. Her response was very angry and straightforward, “He lied to his family.”
The Scum Also Rises
So, quite likely through faults of his own, Al Franken is gone. While worse certainly remain, and worse certainly served a full career without any accountability for their darkest behavior.
Bob Packwood
In 1995, I was living in Oregon, during the forced resignation of senator Bob “The Tongue” Packwood. (He not only was accused of worse than Franken, he kept a diary about it.) A GOP congressman who pressured Packwood to resign later said, “we had a choice: Retain the Senate seat or retain our honor. We chose honor, and never looked back.” That was Mitch McConnell, current Senate majority leader and apologist for Donald Trump and Roy Moore. Honor, indeed.
Norm Coleman
Our old friend, Norm Coleman? He’s doing great! He became a lobbyist, naturally, serving all kinds of wonderful clients, including a stint pimping for Saudi Arabia. Now he’s chairman of a Israeli lobbying group (show me the money, honey!) which shared on their website Coleman’s bliss over Trump announcing that America would no longer recognize Palestinian claims on Jerusalem as a historic capital. “No more false news,” Coleman was quoted. (Lord, he can’t even get his dogwhistle catchphrases right.)
Sheldon Adelson
This group, the Republican Jewish Coalition, is funded by scumbucket Vegas casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson. They threw an exclusive gala at the Trump International Hotel in DC Thursday night. What a glorious day for Coleman; knowing how lushly he’s been rewarded for stooping so low, and how disgraced his old opponent was, who tried to behave with such dignity.
Aspirations Aren’t Enough
The man aspiring to good ruined, perhaps deservedly so. The man wallowing in evil triumphant, and certainly not deservedly so. I’ve always liked to believe this recurrent American story would someday change. But I am considerably less hopeful about the possibility than when I used to look at that smiling Al Franken State Fair picture.
This is a compilation of a four-article series that I unfortunately titled “Beautiful, Intelligent, and Learned.” But I rarely talked about the beauty aspect of it. It wasn’t generally my intent for beauty to be seen as physical beauty. I only wanted to feature women who were doing work that improved the world. A better word would have been “grace,” but I feel certain that would have been as misunderstood too.
I have long gotten into trouble by using idiosyncratic language. (Usually, the words I used were exact in their definitions, but I was using less-common definitions.) If I say I have a crush on Kory Stamper, it means I want to discuss grammar with her over tea, not that I want to date or have sex with her. You will notice in the Kory Stamper article that I also refer to having a crush on Peter Sokolowski, and have never been particularly attracted to men in a sexual way.
I’ll think I can leave it at that. If people read all my work, they will certainly understand. That’s especially true given that I’ve been very open about my vow of celibacy eight years ago. (Friends will note that wasn’t a huge sacrifice given that I’ve never been much interested in sex.)
Salima Ikram
Ladies and gentlemen: Salima Ikram. She is professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo. So in addition to being really smart and learned, she’s really cool. I discovered her on a mediocre documentary Egyptian Secrets of the Afterlife.
I know her from MSNBC news shows where she is often an analyst and sometimes a guest anchor. And as I’ve stated before, I wasn’t that taken with her at first. But like many things (from movies to food to people), those I like best I often started out by not liking.
She was on The Last Word last night. As I watched highlights of the show, I was impressed, as usual, by the historical context she put current events into (in this case, Herman Cain’s sexual harassment problems). I was impressed, as usual, by her insights into these events (in this case, she noted that the sexual harassment charges may actually improve Cain’s standing with Republican primary voters).
Dr Harris-Perry is Professor of Political Science at Tulane University and the author of such books as Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought and Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America.
Originally Published: 1 November 2011
Barbara J Fields
When I first watched Ken Burns: The Civil War 20 years ago, like most people, I was very taken with Shelby Foote’s southern charm and great storytelling. But this last week when I watched the series again I was blown away by Barbara J Fields, the historian at Columbia University. She speaks more incisively about the Civil War than anyone else when it comes to its broader meaning. Certainly, Foote is still the best when talking about the war on the micro-scale — about individuals caught up in it. But I’m not really interested in that anymore. In that way, the war was a catastrophe. It is only in the broader context that all that suffering means something.
In Her Own Words
Here is Fields talking about exactly that:
I think what we need to remember, most of all, is that the Civil War is not over until we, today, have done our part in fighting it, as well as understanding what happened when the Civil War generation fought it. William Faulkner said once that history is not “was” it’s “is.” And what we need to remember about the Civil War is that the Civil War is in the present as well as the past. The generation that fought the war, the generation that argued over the definition of the war, the generation that had to pay the price in blood, that had to pay the price in blasted hopes and a lost future, also established a standard that will not mean anything until we have finished the work. You can say there’s no such thing as slavery, we’re all citizens. But if we’re all citizens, then we have a task to do to make sure that that too is not a joke. If some citizens live in houses and others live on the street, the Civil War is still going on. It’s still to be fought and regrettably, it can still be lost.
I’d never thought about this, but we are at war with each other. And this is why the claims of Romney that raising the top tax rate is “class warfare” are so offensive. There is a class war in this country, but it isn’t found there. But then, I don’t suspect that Romney and his ilk see many homeless people.
Barbara Fields is a great intellectual. And is also a very compassionate person.
Originally Published: 9 May 2012
Afterword
In 2011, Fields gave a speech at the 150th anniversary of the South Carolina Low-country Sesquicentennial Observance. Unfortunately, I can’t embed it. But you can see it on C-SPAN.
Originally Published: 9 May 2012
Update
I have come to see Ken Burns: The Civil War as a fundamentally racist documentary. I don’t think that Ken Burns is any more racist than I am or than pretty much any American white person is, and a majority of American blacks. It’s almost impossible not to have to deal with subconscious racist thoughts bubbling up from time to time when we live in a society that is based on racism and still is so overwhelmingly racist. But a big chunk of the racism in The Civil War comes from Foote and the way that he completely removed slavery from his narrative of the war. It was just “War Is Hell!” from him. And again, I don’t think he was especially racist. But it’s people like him who keep the poison flowing.
Two years ago, I wrote an anniversity post for the Thirteenth Amendment. And I still think this is true and sadly sums up so much of what is wrong in this country:
I keep remembering this line from Ken Burns: The Civil War. When poor southern soldiers were asked why they were fighting, they replied that it was because the northern soldiers were there. Well, first: they weren’t northern soldiers, but the soldiers of all of them. Second: isn’t that typical that the elites could convince poor southern whites to fight and die for an institution that doubtless made them poorer than they would have been?
Originally Published: 8 December 2017
Elizabeth Warren
Elizabeth Warren has been on my mind for a long time. I think most people know that she’s a Harvard Law School professor, an expert at bankruptcy law, and the reason we have the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — something so good it makes Republicans apoplectic. And, of course, everyone knows that she’s running for the Senate in Massachusetts against Scott Brown. If she loses it will greatly reduce my opinion of that fine state.
What most strikes me about Warren is her combination of erudition and empathy. Even after this evil political campaign, she still radiates sensitivity — especially compared to the plastic Mr Brown.
A week and a half ago, one of Bill Maher’s “New Rules” was that “Elizabeth Warren has to stop dressing like the ‘before’ woman in a beer ad.” It is a funny line. But it is hardly fair. For one thing, I think that Warren is very attractive. But more to the point, what does Bill Maher (at 56 years old) want? He mostly dates women who are in their twenties. (Note: well below the creepy line.) Warren is 63. And I think she has more important things to do than worry about what 20-year-old boys (and Bill Maher) think of her looks.
Originally Published: 16 September 2012
Update
The the most recent poll shows Warren ahead of Brown by 6 points. It’s too early to tell, but this is good news.
Originally Published: 17 September 2012
Image of Salima Ikram taken from a frame of Egyptian Secrets of the Afterlife. Licenced under Fair Use. Image cropped from Melissa Harris-Perry speaking at Politicon in Pasadena, California by Gage Skidmore. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Image cropped from one on Barbara J Fields author page at Verso Books. It is licensed under Fair Use. Image of Elizabeth Warren is in the public domain.
Matt Bruenig is a very interesting guy. Most people know of him because of his spicy twitter feed. I never followed him on Twitter and it wouldn’t have mattered if I had. I don’t check out Twitter very often. In fact, I get annoyed when people complain this or that person said something stupid or unfair or whatever on Twitter. What else is Twitter for. But it’s telling that Bruenig had almost a quarter million followers on Twitter. But his blog, where he shows himself to be one of the greatest young intellectuals in the world, didn’t have that much more traffic than Frankly Curious.
So when he had his little fight with Neera Tanden, I tended to side with him. So he said something rude? Why was it all these outraged people weren’t reading his insightful articles at Demos.com and MattBruenig.com? To make matters worse, Tanden didn’t seem terribly bothered. (I’ve found Tanden to be a very reasonable person who understands the difference between an enemy and an ally, even when they disagree on minor points.) Sadly, Bruenig lost both his jobs, and as a result, shut down his website for almost a year.
When he first shut-down his website, I wrote this:
The MattBruenig.com Downtime Clock
MattBruenig.com came back online on 1 April 2017. He’s been publishing frequently since then.
As I alluded to last week — Josh Barro Is Blinded By His (Elite) Privilege — Matt Bruenig lost his job at Demos. In the process, he put his blog, MattBruenig.com, into maintenance mode. Go to any page on the site, and all you get it, “Contact me at matthewbruenig@gmail.com.” This caused a problem for me. For one thing, despite the fact that Bruenig is young enough to (barely) be my grandson, I’ve learned a tremendous amount from him. So I want him to be around. I relished each time one of his articles showed up on my RSS feed.
But there was another issue of a more practical nature. So I wrote to Bruenig about it. Part of it is a fan letter. I’m not above that:
Hi Matt Bruenig-
Over the years, you’ve been one of the most important public intellectuals for me. (Dean Baker is probably the only other writer who has had a more profound effect on my thinking.) As a result, I’ve written about you a lot — something on the order of 50 articles. My focus was almost always on your writing at your personal blog. But now that you’ve put the site in maintenance mode, all those links are useless.
I am more than willing to take the time to replace them with links from archive.org. But I don’t want to do that if your site is going to go back online soon. And I do hope that it is.
You are an important political voice in this country. And I hope this Demos nonsense doesn’t deprive us of your insights about the American political system. On the other hand, I don’t want to see you and your family suffer.
If you could let me know your plans for your blog, I would be most grateful.
-Frank
Matt Bruenig responded:
It will come back soon in exactly the same form. I just need to take it down for a bit.
Well, one man’s “bit” is another man’s, “Oh my God! Your site has been down for over a week!”
I certainly don’t want to get Bruenig into any trouble with his main employer. Just the same, I can’t imagine my little blog adding to places like Vox and Salon.
So here it is: The MattBruenig.com Downtime Clock. It counts time since Archive.org noticed that MattBruenig.com was put into maintenance mode. Each morning, I check to see if the site is back up. Once it is back up, I will stop the clock and take this post down from the menu bar. Until then, it will tick away.
The MattBruenig.com Downtime Clock
MattBruenig.com Was Down for 300 Days!
Your MattBruenig.com Fix
For those of you who just can’t wait, here are some articles that spring from Bruenig’s thinking:
It’s a little bit embarrassing to admit that I’ve learned so much from Matt Bruenig when he could easily be my son. To most of the people in my life, I’m a really smart and knowledgeable guy. But it is perhaps a function of this that I have a fairly good idea of all that I don’t know. I don’t see myself as the guy who comes up with great ideas. I’m the guy who can appreciate great ideas when they seem to radical to others.
So the rest of this article consists of Matt Bruenig quotes that I’ve highlighted on this site. The idea of my quotes pages was always supposed to be like what The Progressive does in its “No Comment” section. Mostly, it is something I think is simply brilliant. Somethings it is something I find interesting, but don’t necessarily agree with. And sometimes it is something so vile that I don’t think it needs elaboration.
All of the quotes from Matt Bruenig are in the first category. Anyone who is serious about liberal or socialist politics should read Matt Bruenig. Unless you are a lot smarter and well-read than I am (and with absolutely no humility: that’s a very small group), you should read him. You should hang on every word. You should hope he starts writing books. You should hope that this country gets to the point where it lionizes him. Because Matt Bruenig combines great empathy for the poor with a scary intellect. A society that admires him is one that is doing okay.
2017
The Violence Inherent in Capitalism
(17 April 2017)
United Airlines violently removed a passenger from an airplane earlier this week. …
No matter how you cut it, there does not seem to have been anything wrong with what happened here, under the logic of capitalist institutions. It may not have been a good PR move for the airline. They probably could have avoided it all by gratuitously offering more money to get the trespasser to leave. But none of these points turns the thing into a violation of capitalist ethics. It wasn’t.
Instead of soothing ourselves with the idea that this particular application of violence was illegitimate or extraordinary, we should instead confront it head on as a necessary feature of capitalist society. This kind of violence (or threats of it) is operating all the time.
Why does the homeless man sleep in the doorway of an empty office building instead of inside the building itself? Because the police has threatened to attack him just like they attacked this airline passenger. Why does a poor family go to bed hungry when they could just grab food from the supermarket a few blocks away? Because the police has threatened to attack them just like this passenger.
Of course, these threats of capitalist violence are so credible that few dare to act in ways that will trigger them. But the violence is always there lurking in the background. It is the engine that makes our whole system run. It is what maintains severe inequalities, poverty, and the power of the boss over the worker. We build elaborate theories to pretend that is not the case in order to naturalize the man-made economic injustices of our society. But it is the case. Violent state coercion like what you saw in that video is what runs this show.
Funding Social Wealth Fund: Mandatory Share Issuances
(15 February 2017)
Right now, the US taxes corporate income at a statutory rate of 35 percent (the effective rate is much lower). The way this works is corporations determine what their profits are and then take 35 percent of them (actually less) and remit that money to the state. If we wanted to build up the wealth fund quickly, we could replace the corporate income tax with mandatory share issuances.
There are two ways to do this. The first way, favored by Dean Baker, is to have companies give a one-time grant of shares to the government equal to whatever we think an appropriate tax rate would be. So, instead of taxing corporate income at 20 percent, we could have each corporation give the state shares equal to 20 percent of its outstanding shares. This would make the state the 20 percent owner of the company and would entitle it to 20 percent of the dividends, buybacks, and any other payouts to shareholders.
The second way, favored by Rudolf Meidner, is to have companies give an annual grant of shares to the government equal to some percent of their annual profits. So, instead of taxing corporate income at 20 percent every year, we would have companies give over shares equal in value to whatever their corporate income tax liability would be that year. So, if a company had profits of $100 million, the 20 percent mandatory share issuance would require them to give the state shares equal to $20 million. This is a much more aggressive strategy than the one favored by Baker because, in the long-run, it would result in far more of the company’s equity getting transferred into the social wealth fund.
One of the things I am not looking forward to in the coming elections are people who become sudden experts on the Nordic Model and the social democratic history of the Nordic countries. Partisans of various stripes, uninterested in understanding how the Nordic countries actually developed, will mobilize their considerable googling skills to conclude whatever they want about the election.
I thought it would be fun to also shoot from the hip and theorize on why libertarians… behave as they do as youths and later in life, especially regarding [Frédéric] Bastiat. Young libertarians are smug, arrogant, and contrarian. Above all else, they love to be the smartest and cleverest guys in the room. So they latch on to simplistic arguments that cut against what most people think in order to mock others as stupid and unlettered. I’ve met plenty of libertarians in my life, and a good 90% of them seem to regard themselves as the smartest and cleverest person in any room they happen to be in.
Bastiat is super-helpful for those pursuing contrarian cleverness. His little stories are comprehensible and allow you to laugh heartily at someone who supports things like the minimum wage. The problem arises when the dumb minimum wage supporter actually ends up being right for a more complicated reason. That enrages the libertarian because even though he was clearly cleverer than the average minimum wage supporter, he is ultimately wrong. That insufferable reality drives the ashamed libertarian to clutch on to Bastiat even as Bastiat is shredded. Bastiat still allows them to point out how stupid the reasoning of the bulk of minimum wage supporters is even if their policy conclusions wind up being right. In that way, Bastiat allows the libertarian to preserve his status as super-clever even if he is actually wrong.
Libertarians love really flashy simple arguments that ultimately fall to pieces. A sophisticated debate doesn’t score the big humiliation points because it’s so complicated. Since Bastiat is truly irrelevant when it comes to modern debates on the kind of issues he discusses, the libertarian is in a bad spot. He wants to pretend to be clever and better than everyone else in his grand powers of reasoning, but he cannot really do that anymore. So instead the modern libertarian brings up Bastiat to show how clever he is and how stupid everyone else is, and then makes up some post-hoc bullshit about how discussing Bastiat is actually meaningful when it isn’t.
Recently, much attention has been paid to cops behaving the way cops often behave: killing blacks, harassing blacks, abusing blacks, and so on. One line of commentary on this newfound interest in long-standing cop abuse is that this abuse is the fault of (or cannot be stopped because of) police unions. While I have no particular interest in police unions per se, I must say that I find this a rather laughable simplification.
For starters, police are unionized basically everywhere in the world. Canada has police unions. The United Kingdom has police unions. Australia has police unions. The Nordics (Finland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland) all have police unions, which are then further organized into a broader Nordic police union federation (Nordiska Polisförbundet), which itself is further organized into the broader European police union federation (EuroCOP).
Despite this rampant police unionization all over the world, you don’t see police abuse on anywhere near the scale you see in the US. Why might that be? I speculate that it’s because the issue is really something else entirely, perhaps unique levels of sadism, racism, urban soldier nutcase mentalities, and a political society that is, in fact, heavily supportive of police abuse directed at non-whites.
Are you big into economic policies that deliver for the poor and working classes? In much of Europe, that means you vote for the party that says “labor,” “social democratic,” or “socialist” in the name. In the US, that usually means you have no real option, but you vote for the Democrats because at least they aren’t the Republicans. Are you big into ethno-nationalism? Vote for the party that’s always going on about how immigration is super bad. You got options in nearly every European country, and they appear to be getting more popular by the day. In the US, that’s the Republicans. Are you super into environmental stuff? Look for “green” in the name. You mostly mad about gay marriage and abortion and whatnot? Usually, you can’t go wrong with a Christian Democratic party, or in the US stick with the Republicans.
Another great thing about Matt Stoker Bruenig is that he is married to another insightful intellectual: Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig. So I’m going to present some of the wisdom that I’m published from her. She does not generally write about economics. She is a liberal Christian, and it is really nice to be read someone talk about modern politics from that perspective. When I read her, I feel Jesus in her heart. There is no dogma. There is just a commitment Jesus’ teachings. It’s really refreshing.
2015
The Purpose of Vaccination
(2 July 2015)
Parents who identify vaccination as a personal choice made for themselves and their own children misunderstand vaccination as a concept. Most people will survive childhood illnesses without the aid of a vaccine; vaccines are not administered on behalf of these people, though they do help them avoid the non-lethal downsides of disease, such as temporary discomfort and long-term injury. Vaccines are rather administered on behalf of people who cannot receive them, and people who would not survive the illnesses they protect against based on deficits in their own immune systems. These people include the very old, the very young, and those already suffering: people with HIV/AIDS, people going through chemotherapy, pregnant women, and people who have never had strong defenses of their own. Widespread vaccination of healthy people creates “community immunity” or “herd immunity,” which prevents illnesses from penetrating groups where vulnerable people live, thus saving their lives.
Jeb Bush wants you to know he won’t be taking marching orders from Pope Francis when it comes to political or economic matters. “I don’t get economic policy from my bishops or my cardinals or my pope,” Bush said at a campaign stop Tuesday. “I think religion ought to be about making us better as people and less about things that end up getting in the political realm.” Bush’s comments echo similar statements made by Rick Santorum, who said in a June 7 interview that the Church should stay away from matters of science and policy and stick to “theology and morality.” As election season commences, questions about Pope Francis will likely surface repeatedly in candidate question-and-answer sessions, in no small part because the Republican primary field is stocked with Catholics: George Pataki, Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio (who also doubts Francis’s capacity to contribute to political matters), along with Bush and Santorum.
The categories Bush and Santorum rely on to restrict religious reasoning to convenient subjects are, of course, porous and unstable. Bush has shown no signs of attempting to exclude religion from politics per se; during the ugly, protracted 2005 struggle over the life of Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman on life support in a persistent vegetative state, Bush campaigned fiercely to keep Schiavo alive. As governor of Florida, Bush was also a reliable anti-abortion advocate. The same is true of Santorum. Both have linked their pro-life politics to their faith. These politicians appear to have no principled objection to religious reasoning governing aspects of political action; the objection that church and state should scarcely mingle only arises when religion becomes inconvenient to capital, as in the case of Francis’s entire papacy.
If you pay much attention to the media in the coming weeks, you might find yourself wondering whether or not Pope Francis is a communist. Bad-faith political mislabeling of Francis is, by this early point in his papacy, already distressingly common: Rush Limbaugh has accused the pontiff of espousing Marxism and socialism, a pair of claims that Fox host Sean Hannity later echoed. These feverish charges arose as a result of several of Francis’ statements about the failures of trickle-down economics and the ravages of inequality. But the latest round of McCarthy-esque red-spotting is due to conservative nervousness about Pope Francis’ upcoming encyclical on the environment, expected to be released June 18.
Though yet unreleased, the encyclical has already engendered anxious rightward fretting about Francis’ socialist and/or Marxist tendencies from the National Review Online, Catholic journal First Things, and even the BBC, which featured a June 7 article declaring that “[Pope Francis] will be a polarising presence, and the question ‘Is the pope a communist?’ will really matter.”
There are several reasons why this question will never really matter, and an almost infinite plenitude of reasons it is an absurd one in the first place. For starters, those probing whether or not Pope Francis is himself a communist, socialist, or Marxist (these terms are interchangeable on the right) are not really interested in discovering what Francis’ own personal politics are. After all, that information is readily available. As longtime Vatican reporter John L. Allen wrote last week in a Crux essay on Francis’ forthcoming encyclical, “If you asked, [Francis would] probably tell you he comes out of the moderate wing of Argentina’s Peronist movement.” Biographies of Francis, including The Great Reformer by seasoned Catholic journalist Austen Ivereigh, have similarly turned up no evidence that Francis has ever held membership in any communist party.
But the pundits accusing Francis of communism do not really seem to view communism as a political orientation, wherein one advocates for reform through participation in routine political activities, like campaigning, fundraising, electioneering, and so on. This is because in the United States, there are only two partisan avenues to political impact: Republican and Democrat. The presence of any partisan communists in America is so vanishingly small that communism is instead interpreted as an ideological pose, specifically opposite of the pro-capitalist priors common to both Republicans and Democrats. In other words, you don’t have to actually partake in any communist politics to qualify as a communist in the United States, you just have to show insufficient satisfaction with capitalism…
Suspicion of the types of accumulation that characterize capitalism — including the massive build-up of wealth among a small number of unimaginably rich plutocrats — is therefore more common to Christianity than the unreserved embrace of the same that is now typical of American right-wingers. Rather than asking if Pope Francis’ positions on reducing inequality and protecting the environment are products of communism, it would be much wiser and more insightful to ask if conservative rejection of environmentalism and egalitarianism are really products of Christianity. This would at least provide context for the tidal wave of rueful tears that will undoubtedly follow the publication of Francis’ encyclical on the environment, which will rankle the pontiff’s critics not because Francis’ thought is communist, but because it is Christian.
The sudden swell of praise for filial favoritism among conservative pundits comes as no surprise: combine a heavy emphasis on family values with an equally intense desire for money, and the outcome is what we from the South recognize as good ol’ boy networks, wherein a hapless dweeb who can barely manage a baseball team stumbles into the presidency because his daddy made a good run of it. Examples of the perils of nepotism are scattered throughout history, with lunatic kings and savage tsars and incompetent princes galore. But these are extreme cases. And furthermore, I suspect Williamson and Brooks are correct when they suggest that there really is neither an effective nor humane way to put an end to the many unearned advantages some lucky offspring glean from their kin.
Families will always prefer their own, and parents will always be inclined to do whatever is in their power to secure a future for their children. None of this is inherently wrong; indeed, these are the same impulses that have perpetuated the human race. The trouble is that some dynasties accumulate so much wealth and influence that the social mobility of other, less fortunate children becomes increasingly unlikely. Where Williamson and Brooks are wrong is to presume the solution to this problem needs to involve some tinkering with families themselves…
So I guess that, in the end, I’m with Williamson and Brooks: nepotism is here to stay, and there’s no sense in fighting the partiality of parents for their children, especially when it comes to jobs. To respect the sanctity of those family relationships — and to save the conservative commentariat the horror of anti-nepotism policies — we need only to make sure no other person’s future is compromised, which means putting a strong system of wealth transfer programs in place. Thus, poor kids everywhere can rejoice: welfare is (rich) family-friendly after all!
In his Tuesday column, “The Cost of Relativism,” The New York Times’ David Brooks cites a new book of research on “the growing chasm between those who live in college-educated America and those who live in high-school-educated America,” and highlights several “horrific” profiles from the latter group. Brooks uses their stories — which feature drugs, violent crime, unintended pregnancies — to argue for the reintroduction of social norms, which “were destroyed by a plague of nonjudgmentalism.” …
Now, if Brooks imagines that improving social norms is just a sliver of the solution, then he’s right: making poor families better off won’t erase all behavioral differences between the wealthiest and poorest. But it would go a long way. Despite all paranoia about poor people nursing addictions and indulging themselves before spending money on necessities, programs that distribute cash to the poor have been repeatedly proven as wise investments. People who use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or “food stamps,” tend to make healthier food choices than those who don’t use SNAP; they also tend to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables when provisions (such as small credits for buying fresh fruits and veggies) are made that account for the extra cost of cooking multi-item meals. And, as a 2005 British study found, low-income parents who are given benefits to help raise young children “increased spending on items such as children’s clothing, books, and toys, and decreased spending on alcohol and tobacco.” In other words, reducing poverty through infusions of cash appears to correct many of the behaviors poor people are regularly maligned for, including neglectful parenting and unhealthy lifestyles, bringing them more in line with the habits of the well-to-do.
Morality should teach us how to live a good life. But to impose the easy virtue of the well-to-do on the poor is to request the most stressed and vulnerable members of society to display impossible moral heroism. To abstain from relationships, sex, and childbirth until financially secure enough to raise a child without assistance would mean, for many, a life of celibacy; to pour limited resources into education in order to score a respectable job would mean failing to make rent. If the problems plaguing poor communities persist after poverty is drastically reduced, that would seem an appropriate time to pursue the matter of a better “moral vocabulary,” as Brooks calls it — and even then, the participation of low-income communities would be essential. But before that conversation can happen, the obvious solution to the “chaos” Brooks observes among poor communities is to reduce poverty, and let its moral quandaries resolve on their own.
In Forbes, Steve Moore accused Pope Francis of advancing a “modern pagan green religion,” and proclaimed that the encyclical will, through circuitous routes, “make the poor poorer.” On a December 30th edition of Fox‘s Special Report, correspondent Doug McKelway surmised the letter would put Pope Francis in line with “environmental extremists who favor widespread birth control.” Crisis Magazine, a hard right Catholic publication, featured a piece by Rachel Lu suggesting the unpublished encyclical “smack[s] of intellectual faddism,” while Maureen Mullarkey opined in a First Things post that Francis’ letter is evidence that “he is an ideologue and a meddlesome egoist.” …
I’m sure most of these people have no idea why they reject this stuff strongly enough to accuse Pope Francis of being a narcissist, pagan, and supporter of eco-terrorism based on an encyclical they haven’t read a word of because it hasn’t been published yet. However, it is pretty clear to me why the issue is such a nightmare for rightwing thought-generators.
The liberal story on property is that civil society, and thereby the flourishing of all, is premised upon a kind of absolutized system of property rights, in which the self-sovereignty of each person is guaranteed by their right to self-ownership and ownership of goods…
Of course, as I have repeatedly shown, the Christian theory of property has always been premised upon the good of humanity and the flourishing of all people; the Lockean-liberal story on property, on the other hand, “includes a neat justification of gross inequality,” as per [Ellen Meiksins] Wood. If Pope Francis’ encyclical says we are obligated to use all our tools (states included) to regulate the use of property so that future generations and persons outside our immediate geographic zones don’t endure the runoff of our carelessness, then his statement will be entirely in keeping with Christian tradition.
Which is precisely why the rightwing should be afraid.
Right now, Roy Moore and Doug Jones are deadlocked in the Alabama Senate race. In one way, this is really good: a Democrat might actually become Alabama’s junior Senator. But in another, it’s awful. Roy Moore is clearly guilty of having sexual relationships with high school girls while he was in his 30s, yet most Republicans could not possibly care less.
I ask my fellow countrymen in Alabama, “Are you going to allow this?
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t too much care about the personal lives of politicians. And although I think even flirting with a 14-year-old girl unconscionable, it certainly isn’t something like raping a six-year-old. But even though I’m not even that outraged about hypocrisy, this case is different. This is a man who would never justify such behavior on a defendant who came before him.
I don’t much mind hypocrisy coming from people who show mercy. But Roy Moore shows no mercy. His reading of the Bible makes it a vile document. And I understand, any long religious document like the Bible can be used to say whatever you want. But what you make it say says a whole lot about you. And what it says about Roy Moore is that he is a vile man who should never be given any power.
The Attacks on Doug Jones
It’s been funny to hear the attacks on Doug Jones because we’ve heard these same things so many times before. I especially like this, “He’s weak on crime!” Donald Trump said this. Of course, Donald Trump is the man who still thinks the Central Park Five should have been put to death despite the unquestioned evidence that they are innocent. So for Trump, like most Republicans, being “tough on crime” really just means locking up and killing dark-skinned people.
The thing is, Doug Jones used to be a prosecutor. He was the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. But he prosecuted the Ku Klux Klan members, so I guess that doesn’t count. The Republican Party does almost nothing but harm its base. Just look at the new tax bill. The one thing that the Republican Party does do — and the only reason it has a base — is because it is racist and it tells its base in every way that it is perfectly fine to be racists.
Locking Up the Wrong People
Interestingly, The Daily Beast reported, Doug Jones Locked Up Men Who Did What Women Say Roy Moore Did. But again, none of this matters because the Republicans don’t believe in equal protection. They believe in the kind of government where their allies get to do anything they want while all others are robbed, locked-up, and killed. When listening to Republicans, you have to bear in mind that words mean different things to them. The way almost everyone defines “weak on crime” indicates that Doug Jones is strong on crime. To Republican elites, it’s only people like Neshoba County Sheriff Lawrence A Rainey who are strong on crime.
Of course, Doug Jones is also accused of wanting to raise taxes. He doesn’t. But this is a very funny criticism coming from a political party that just raised taxes on the poor and middle classes and took healthcare away from 13 million people, all in the name of enriching the already rich.
But most of all, they attack Doug Jones for not being a Republican. He will vote with the Democrats. Well, I guess they’ve got that right. What a horrible thing that would be! To trick the people of Alabama into voting for someone who will actually look out for their interests! The horror!
Where Doug Jones Stands on the Issues
Doug Jones is, literally in a word, a Democrat. He’s pro-choice, but like all other Democrats, it isn’t because he wants to see more abortions. As Anna Almendrala wrote earlier this year, We Already Know How To Safely Reduce Abortions. “Hint: It has nothing to do with restricting access.” If those anti-choice people really want to reduce abortions, they wouldn’t be restricting access to abortion; they’d be increasing access to sex education and birth control — two things they are also against. Regardless, Doug Jones is no radical on this issue. Like most Democrats, he’s just a pragmatist who wants to decrease abortion in the ways that actually work.
When it comes to economic policy, Doug Jones goes right along with Republican voters. Polls consistently show that Republican voters are economically liberal. It’s just that the Republican elite are so good at getting them to focus on things like bad abortion policy, bad immigration policy, and racial animus, that they don’t even think about the economy. Unlike Roy Moore, Doug Jones will vote the way that Republican voters want him to.
When it comes to immigration and the environment, Doug Jones does disagree with a lot of Republicans. But he’s hardly an extremist. And I think that Republicans really need to ask themselves, “How much longer am I going to vote on issues that have no relevance to my life and ignore the issues that do?”
Doug Jones Is No Extremist
The bottom line regarding Doug Jones is that he is no extremist. He’s a politician who will legislate in a way that he thinks will be best for most of the people of Alabama. You can’t say that about Roy Moore or almost any Republican on the national level. Look at the new tax bill: almost every Republican voted to raise taxes on the poor and middle class, and to increase the national debt, just so that they could give more money to the rich.
The fact that Roy Moore is a pedophile is probably enough of a reason not to vote for him. But I think an even bigger reason is that Roy Moore will not do what he thinks is best for the people of Alabama. He will vote for what he thinks is best for his super-rich donors. And if that means allowing children to unnecessarily die from disease so that the Billionaire Class can have even more money, he will do it. And that is even worse than what he was doing to high school girls when he was a 30-something district attorney.
Vote for Doug Jones. See what it’s like to have someone in the Senate who is actually looking out for the interests of the people of Alabama.
One of my very favorite songs is “The Girl’s on Fire.” And my favorite line in it is, “This is my darkness now, only I can see in it.” There’s a lot of meaning in that line.
In the past, I’ve written articles like, 
Let’s end this Brownie McGhee week with a whole set by him and Sonny Terry. Why not? It’s the weekend. You have a half hour. This is from a 1974 BBC concert. It includes just one song that 
In 1974, the first issue of People was released. It was then referred to as People Weekly. I know that issue very well. When my parents owned a 7-11 store, my father was in the habit of grabbing of the first issues of everything that came in. That included Hustler, as I recall. But the reason that I most remember People is because it had an article in it, “Jim Croce: Million Dollar Music Legacy.” This was about 6 months after Croce had died. And people were apparently still not tired of him, given that he was a whole lot more popular after he died than before.
Like a good fraction of Croce tunes, “Operator” tells a story. In this case, it tells the story of a man trying to reconnect with an ex-girlfriend who ran off with his best friend. But as the song continues on, it is clear that the singer does not wish to reconnect; he only wishes for someone to talk to. It’s like in the the Janis Ian song “In the Winter” where she sings, “And for a dime I can talk to God.” In Croce’s case, it is the operator.
Since I first started this blog, I have been creating posts for Christmas. I am, of course, an atheist. But I love Christmas. I love any opportunity I have to cook for large groups. So what follows will include a lot of stuff about food, but also material that will appeal to anyone who likes Christmas in a secular way.
The following parody of It’s a Wonderful Life isn’t all that funny. But I include it for personal reasons. You see, I’m a big Frank Capra fan. It Happened One Night is one of my very favorite films. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Lost Horizon are both excellent films.
From year’s ago, it is still a classic: Sam Seder’s battle with 
The great CGP Grey put the following video together two years ago this Christmas. It is “A Brief History of Santa.” Now I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the video, but in general, Grey has his facts together. So if it is wrong, I’m sure it’s just stuff around the edges. The main thing in this that I know is true (And important!) is that Santa Claus has basically no real connection to the fourth century Greek Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra. And as 
On this day in 0 AD, 
I had wanted to put together some music for Christmas. But you know: music that doesn’t suck. This is a lot harder a chore than it sounds like. The truth is that most traditional Christmas music really is terrible. And I don’t say that out of some desire to be iconoclastic. Part of it is just that I really do have a low opinion of Perry Como. But I will admit that most of it is simply the fact that I’m just really, really bored with it.
Are you wondering how you are going to get through this holiday season without killing your family members? Last year, I offered up a little advice, 
The idea is that the canonical and non-canonical gospels are none of them biographies in the modern sense. Some were simply collections of sayings attributed to Jesus or stories about Jesus, some of them allegorical, some legendary, few historical. Others were attempts to write for Jesus the sort of literary and edifying biography then written about certain great Greco-Roman figures like Pythagoras and Apollonius of Tyana. But these, too, were far from what the modern scholar would consider to be historical.
Chris Blattman is a political scientist at Columbia University. He wrote an interesting article this last week, 
Merry Christmas everyone! As you read this, I will probably be suitably toasted as I serve dinner to my family. But in Christmases past, I’ve written some rather interesting articles about the holiday and I want to share them with you. There are also other odds and ends that aren’t as directly related to me. It’s all quite interesting I think.
Once filming was complete, MacLiammóir, Edwards, and Cloutier were flown first to Marseilles, en route — as they believed — for Morocco again; but instead of North Africa, they were transported to the idyllic artists’ colony at Saint-Paul-de-Vence in Provence, where they were greeted gloomily by Welles, who immediately set off for Paris. A few days later they joined him there. No explanation was ever offered for any of these bewildering peregrinations. Their lives had turned into a major-key rehash of Waiting for Godot, with a dash of Kafka — major key because they were excellently fed and watered and the locations were all charming, but the sense of disorientation was acute. They were beginning to doubt whether they would see Dublin that Christmas: “feel sure that Orson has plans for large Christmas tree in marketplace at Mogador, entertainment probably to include brief but startling appearance of O himself as Santa Claus.” As if in defiance of the chaotic reality, Welles made a public announcement that Othello had completed filming and that he would soon be starting work on Ulysses, which was certainly putting a brave face on things.
Early Monday, Jonathan Chait wrote, 
Right now, 
It’s been funny to hear the attacks on Doug Jones because we’ve heard these same things so many times before. I especially like this, “He’s weak on crime!” 
I watched Al Franken’s resignation speech on Thursday. It was broadcast live on local news here in Saint Paul. My wife watched the last half of it with me. Like me, she’d been an ardent Franken supporter before he was accused repeatedly of sexual misconduct. The speech seemed sincere, and Franken appeared to be fighting back tears through most of it. He did not admit to abusive sexual behavior, yet he affirmed how all such accusations must be taken seriously.
Ladies and gentlemen: 
When I first watched Ken Burns: The Civil War 20 years ago, like most people, I was very taken with Shelby Foote’s southern charm and great storytelling. But this last week when I watched the series again I was blown away by Barbara J Fields, the historian at Columbia University. She speaks more incisively about the Civil War than anyone else when it comes to its broader meaning. Certainly, Foote is still the best when talking about the war on the micro-scale — about individuals caught up in it. But I’m not really interested in that anymore. In that way, the war was a catastrophe. It is only in the broader context that all that suffering means something.
Elizabeth Warren has been on my mind for a long time. I think most people know that she’s a Harvard Law School professor, an expert at bankruptcy law, and the reason we have the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — something so good it makes Republicans apoplectic. And, of course, everyone knows that she’s running for the Senate in Massachusetts against Scott Brown. If she loses it will greatly reduce my opinion of that fine state.
Matt Bruenig is a very interesting guy. Most people know of him because of his spicy twitter feed. I never followed him on Twitter and it wouldn’t have mattered if I had. I don’t check out Twitter very often. In fact, I get annoyed when people complain this or that person said something stupid or unfair or whatever on Twitter. What else is Twitter for. But it’s telling that Bruenig had almost a quarter million followers on Twitter. But his blog, where he shows himself to be one of the greatest young intellectuals in the world, didn’t have that much more traffic than Frankly Curious.
The Wisdom of Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig
