Ars Politica

Once More Into The Breach...

It's kind of sad to run across a blog that hasn't been updated in a while. It looks lazy, unfinished. At least how I feel when I see one.

And although the Internet apparently didn't collapse because I withheld sophomoric snark for a couple of days (In fact, the Internet got even more robust, as there is now something called Google+ that I have to join, keep track of, and compulsively check.), I sort of felt bad about it.

It's been a couple busy weeks here and things are about to get busier.

I'm absolutely, unequivocally proud to say that my friend Shari and I are managing Charlie Gerdes for St. Petersburg City Council, District 1. And things are already off to a great start.

Quite honestly, I was a bit ambivalent when I was first asked about doing it. There are a million "consultants" around here with as many ill-fitting blazers as they have plans for chasing absentee ballots (which, as far as I can discern, are the two made ingredients in making a poltical consultant). Surely, one of them was available. And my law practice is getting busy (sort of) and I'd been getting into a routine (trying to, anyway). I wasn't sure I wanted to tack on the time demands and stresses of running a municipal race.

But then I met Charlie.

I didn't know Charlie, except by name. I just knew that people whose opinions I really respect loved the guy. After my first meeting, I knew I wanted to work for him. And more importantly, I knew we needed someone like him on city council.

Charlie is intelligent, thoughtful, nuanced, honest, and normal. That's a rare combination in everyday folk, but it's nearly non-existent in most candidates for public office. Charlie is a St. Pete guy. He loves this city, knows this city, and wants to work hard for this city. And I'm happy to be a part of a great team working to make it happen. The city needs someone like Charlie and he'll do well on council.

Knowing that I'll be able to help my town this way makes the long, tough slog of municipal politics worth it. Working for folks like Charlie is worth it.

 

 

 

All You Have To Do Is Ask

I'm sort of perplexed by the President's decision to carry on military action in Libya without seeking congressional approval, even in spite of sound advice to the contrary:

President Obama rejected the views of top lawyers at the Pentagon and the Justice Department when he decided that he had the legal authority to continue American military participation in the air war in Libya without Congressional authorization, according to officials familiar with internal administration deliberations.

Jeh C. Johnson, the Pentagon general counsel, and Caroline D. Krass, the acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, had told the White House that they believed that the United States military’s activities in the NATO-led air war amounted to “hostilities.” Under the War Powers Resolution, that would have required Mr. Obama to terminate or scale back the mission after May 20.

The decision seems to hinge on a rather tenuous, disingenous definition of "hostilities" as understood by the War Power Resolution. From the same article: 

The theory Mr. Obama embraced holds that American forces have not been in “hostilities” as envisioned by the War Powers Resolution at least since early April, when NATO took over the responsibility for the no-fly zone and the United States shifted to a supporting role providing refueling assistance and surveillance — although remotely piloted American drones are still periodically firing missiles.

The administration has also emphasized that there are no troops on the ground, that Libyan forces are unable to fire at them meaningfully and that the military mission is constrained from escalating by a United Nations Security Council resolution.

Well, that's just splitting hairs, isn't it? Clearly, we have assisted, and continue to assist, NATO's military action. But more importantly, I think, is the observation that, if the White House sought congressional approval, they would assuredly get it (as they should). And if the Administration believes--as it clearly does--that the great failing of the Bush Administration was its penchant for constitutional avoidance, love of secrecy, and predilection for unilateral action, isn't this a perfect opportunity to display a modicum of understanding of checks and balances, or at least some appreciation for transparency?

It's confusing, at best. At worst, it recalls the Bush Administration willfully ignoring counsel advising against the NSA eavesdropping program. As Glenn Greenwald writes:

Bush decided to reject the legal conclusions of his top lawyers and ordered the NSA eavesdropping program to continue anyway, even though he had been told it was illegal (like Obama now, Bush pointed to the fact that his own White House counsel (Gonzales), along with Dick Cheney’s top lawyer, David Addington, agreed the NSA program was legal). In response, Ashcroft, Comey, Goldsmith, and FBI Director Robert Mueller all threatened to resign en masse if Bush continued with this illegal spying, and Bush — wanting to avoid that kind of scandal in an election year — agreed to “re-fashion” the program into something those DOJ lawyers could approve (the “re-fashioned” program was the still-illegal NSA program revealed in 2005 by The New York Times; to date, we still do not know what Bush was doing before that that was so illegal as to prompt resignation threats from these right-wing lawyers).

That George Bush would knowingly order an eavesdropping program to continue which his own top lawyers were telling him was illegal was, of course, a major controversy, at least in many progressive circles. Now we have Barack Obama not merely eavesdropping in a way that his own top lawyers are telling him is illegal, but waging war in that manner (though, notably, there is no indication that these Obama lawyers have the situational integrity those Bush lawyers had [and which Archibald Cox, Eliot Richardson and William Ruckelshaus had before them] by threatening to resign if the lawlessness continues).

To be clear, the Bush Administration had roundly nefarious motives; their national security power grab was wholly about the neo-cons (notably, Dick Cheney) showing everyone that the Executive Branch could act unilaterally to protect the country. They were wrong. But I'm wondering whether the Obama Administration is taking a polar opposite position; in other words, I get the feeling that it believes that because the action in Libya is multilaterally sanctioned by international groups--NATO, the UN--it sufficiently authorizes the action.

Although I am certainly a mulitnationalist, and think we need to work collectively to solve these kinds of problems, the Constitution does not work that way. Morally, I certainly think military action is warranted; I want to be a country that feels obligated to stop innocent people from being killed. But there are legal ways to do and all the Obama Administration has to do is ask.

 

Newt Gingrich Needs A Dog

Today was one of my top 10 worst days I have ever had at work. Hands down, without a doubt, it was completely rotten. If I had this kind of day a week ago, I'd have come home thoroughly depressed. But today was different. I managed not to let my disaster of a day affect my mood. At all. My tension--hyper and otherwise--didn't creep up on me. There's only one reason that today seemed bearable, when just a few days ago, it would have seemed devastating.

This guy:

Last Wednesday, as I've said before, we adopted Sampson, a 4 year-old puggle. He's perfect in nearly every way.

And I love coming home to him.

I talk to people all day long who don't really want to speak to me--clients with significant and complicated problems, overworked judges, attorneys who are mad that they are attorneys. It's not fun.

But Sampson is always happy to see me (though I understand that a large portion of that affection is because I feed him and make going to the bathroom easier). Sampson--as far as I can tell--is never angry at me, no matter how long I've left him alone at home. I mean, in less than a week I've posted two photos of him and that's two more than I thought I'd ever post of a pet.

No matter how hard a day I've had at work, Sampson makes it better.

Newt Gingrich had a pretty rough day at work last week, too. His entire campaign quit, all at once. It was already the most inauspicious start to any campaign ever (with the possible exception of my student council representative effort in my junior year of high school. I really thought my "Cut a brother some slack, Jack" slogan was going to resonate better. It's still the greatest miscalculation of my political career). ANYWAY, yeah, they all quit:

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign imploded Thursday afternoon with his entire senior staff resigning en masse, according to multiple sources familiar with the moves.

“When the campaign and the candidate disagree on the path, they’ve got to part ways,” said Rick Tyler, a longtime Gingrich spokesman who was among those who left the campaign.

Tyler as well as Rob Johnson, Gingrich’s campaign manager, Dave Carney and Katon Dawson, senior strategists to the effort, media consultant Sam Dawson, Iowa strategist Craig Schoenfeld, South Carolina operative Walter Whetsell and Georgia-based adviser Scott Rials have all stepped aside. Much of Gingrich’s early state operation was also headed for the exits, according to a one senior campaign source.

Turns out that after you foul up your own campaign announcement by making your base angry, run up a $500,000 jewelry tab while refusing to explain how that is even remotely possible, and justify your serial philandering by saying you're too patriotic, it's bad form to go on a two-week Mediterranean cruise while leaving your staff behind to slog through the bullshit you managed to leave behind (I know; I was shocked too.). Seems everyone back at Gingrich HQ had enough and split.

Newt had a bad day.

To be clear, I don't like New Gingrich. I never have. I've always cringed whenever some idiot has referred to him as the Intellectual Leader of the Republican Party (though that label might be accurate in a party that includes Sarah Palin and George W. Bush) or an Idea Machine (I mean, yeah, he has a lot of ideas but 80% of them are shitty. He's a Shitty Idea Machine, kind of like the WB Network. For every Dawson's Creek or Smallville, there are a hundred Steve Harvey Shows). He's a liar and a bloviator and seems to have the worst political instincts of any major figure that I can recall.

And now he is a candidate with no campaign.

As I type this I'm watching the recorded broadcast of tonight's GOP New Hampshire Debate, and it's painfully clear. To everyone. He's essentially being ignored and when called upon to answer a question, he really can't.

It's hard to watch (and I'll probably stop watching in a moment and not only because of Gingrich--I mean, I actually just heard Herman Cain say he wouldn't be comfortable appointing a Muslim to his adminstration and that he's deathly afraid of U.S. courts imposing Sharia law (notwithstanding that that has never, ever happened. Thankfully, I don't think--unless we're including the Kiwanis Club--we'll have to worry about a Cain Administration.).

But the point is that the Pizza Guy is doing better than Gingrich in the debate. Newt is losing to that guy, who this week trotted out the Birther horeshit again when he said that the President was raised in Kenya. He's losing to Michele Bachmann, who thinks black people have had a swell time since they got here. And he's losing to Rick Santorum, who actually believes that if you legalize gay marriage it will lead to man-dog unions. Oh, and Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House. It's kind of sad.

No one likes the guy, with the possible exception of his Tiffany's account manager. He doesn't need to be running for president and I suspect that in short order, he won't be.

No one likes the guy. But I think I know who would like him.

A dog.

Newt needs a dog. A dog doesn't judge or criticize. It won't quit his job on you. A dog doesn't require substantial fundraising and he wouldn't even ask how you felt about Don't Ask, Don't Tell or the Ryan budget (though I suspect that the dog probably would want to confer with the generals on the former issue, and on the latter, he doesn't think we should mess around with Medicare. He's a pragmatist that way.).

Quit the campaign, Newt. It's already quit on you. Get a dog. He'll always be happy to see you.

The Problem With Weezer

Obviously, I didn't get around to writing about politics or anything else the later part of the week, but to summarize anything I would have written: "Anthony Weiner...penis...snark...Gingrich....sarcasm....Rick Scott...sigh...snark...etc."

I did, however, get to carry out the task of telling a nice Bulgarian woman with two kids that No, there's nothing I can do to save your house now. I've done all I can. I'm about out of moves here. The sheriff said you have to be out by Monday. That felt good.

I also didn't get around to writing about music, but I am now.

________

I've been thinking about Weezer again. Since I was 15, I've devoted an inordinate amount of time to thinking about Weezer (probably more than the people who are actually in Weezer, but probably less than the average Japanese girl). They are the most complicated, frustrating, distressing, and depressing band I know. But they weren't always, and I used to love them.

This week I had occasion to listen to Weezer's cover of Radiohead's "Paranoid Android."

 

I'm not exactly sure why they covered this song, other than perhaps they wanted to know what it was like to play a good song recorded after 1996, since they quit making anything decent at about that time.

When I heard the cover, I snarkily commented: "This is the best Weezer song in 15 years." But it's true and this cover is a microsm of the exact problem with Weezer. This performance of the song is a completely literal, note-by-note replica of the original. On the band's last album Hurley, they included a similarly straightforward cover of Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" (an objectively bad song by a band that's about as interesting as my living room furniture). These two examples belie the fundamental problem with Weezer and, more specfically, frontman Rivers Cuomo: Their art is so literal and so earnest that it's hard for Weezer fans to accept. When I first listened to Weezer's version of "Paranoid Android" I kept waiting for the punchline, or some hint of kitsch or irony. But there is none. They seem just to want to play the song exactly as Radiohead recorded it, and Cuomo seems to be completely unironic. This has become the band's defining ethos and why they disappoint the exact same people with every album they have released since Pinkerton. Pinkerton and Blue are now understood to the falsely empathetic. Cumo wasn't trying to connect to his fans at all; it just seems like he was. It was an accident. Sadly, the first two Weezer albums (two of my favorite albums ever) are accidentally good.

When I was in law school, I  read an article about Weezer in Rolling Stone. Make Believe had just been released and I was in the midst of pretending to like songs about Cuomo actually wanting to live in Beverly Hills. feeling like an asshole for buying and defending his music, and ignoring lyrics peppered with stilted hip-hop slang. The article finally made me understand where Cuomo had gone wrong and why Weezer would never be good again. It seems that during his self-imposed exile from music, Cuomo did some studying. He began compiling notebooks, collecting the sheet music and guitar tabs for bands like Nirvana and Green Day. He studied those songs' chord progressions and note structures. He said he wanted to know what made those songs commerically successful, radio-palatable. He wanted to write songs that would maximize his fame. I knew it was all over for Weezer at that point. Surely, there's nothing wrong with wanting to be publicly successful and , but that was his primary objective. Even worse, he believes there is a formula for it.

And to Cuomo's credit, there probably is a formula for it and he's figured it out. He's cracked the code. He knows how to make the most amount of money while expending the least amount of effort. And good for him.

He won't trick me again, though.

Bachmann-Palin Overdrive*, Lying Rednecks, A Rock Show, and My New Dog

What a crazy couple days it has been for me.

Last night, I saw a great show at Czar in Ybor City. The Thermals and Matt & Kim. I'm not going to write a full review or anything but those two bands Rocked. My. Ass. Off. I had seen Matt & Kim before and they were incredible. So I was looking forward to this time and they did not disappoint. The energy of the duo is amazing. They're just generally happy--sort of like if the cast of Yo Gabba Gabba said "fuck" a lot.

This morning came early and I spent most of my day feeling more like a bookie and less like a lawyer. Chasing around money is the least favorite part of my job, and that's saying something because all other aspects of my job are tied for Second Least Favorite Part. (Oh, and I didn't actually get any of the money; I just asked for it a lot.)

But this evening redeemed itself because--on a lark--Tina and I drove up to the SPCA in Largo and 20 minutes later, walked out with a dog--a 4 year-old puggle, specifically.

Meet Sampson:

He was only $70 at the rescue. I'm going to make a killing when I sell him on Craigslist next week. I'm only (mostly) joking. So far, things are working out splendidly. He's active enough, without being annoying. He likes to lie around on the couch. Those last two sentences generally describe me so I think it'll work out. There's only been one problem as far as I can tell: His papers indicate clearly that he is housebroken. This is a lie. He was in our house for exactly three minutes before he shit on my floor. And if I'm not mistaken, he was looking at me and smiling as he did it.

Oh, and two of my favorite writers--Chuck Klosterman and Bill Simmons--have teamed up to create a website I think I'm going to enjoy: Grantland. The project was just released today and it's off to a great start.

______

So with all these goings-on, I haven't had a ton of time for news-watching and news-thinking.

But there've been a couple of non-Weiner-related things that have caught my attention:

Haley Barbour is a liar:

President Barack Obama is deliberately trying to raise gas prices to cut pollution and make clean energy alternatives more attractive, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour charged on Sunday.

“This administration’s policy has clearly been to drive up the cost of energy so Americans will use less of it,” he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “That’s environmental policy, that’s not energy policy. But that’s their policy. They think it will give you less pollution, make alternative energy solutions more competitive.”

Barbour, a Republican who has just opted against a 2012 presidential run, said gas prices were about $1.80 per gallon when Obama took office in early 2009. Now, they're about $4 a gallon.

There's nothing to support this. Nothing. In fact, oil production has (unfortunately) gone up 11% under Obama:

But honesty--or at least perception--has never really been Barbour's strength. According to him, the Citizens Council wasn't really all that bad (Fact: It was very, very bad).

_____________

So I was wondering when the Palin-Bachmann feud would start. Turns out the answer is yesterday. And so far it's pretty funny. I think the cheap and easy thing for the media to do is to lump Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann together as the same kind of person, and this drives Bachmann crazy (even if they are exactly the same kind of person). She hasn't quit her office; she hasn't had a reality tv show; she's serious. Though Bachmann is, like Palin, a moron, at least she's a hard-working one. And she can inexplicably raise a shit-ton of money. With all that in mind, Bachmann Central couldn't resist:

The spat between their advisers began Tuesday when Rollins disparaged Palin in a radio interview. “Sarah has not been serious over the last couple of years,” Rollins said. “She got the vice presidential thing handed to her. She didn’t go to work in the sense of trying to gain more substance. She gave up her governorship.”

In an interview with Politico, Rollins made the point again. Bachmann will “be so much more substantive. People are going to say, ‘I gotta make a choice and go with the intelligent woman who’s every bit as attractive.’ ”

He has a point, and I suppose he's right. Bachmann is marginally more substantive, but at the end of the day it's moot; Palin isn't going to run for president. That's really hard. It's far easier (and more lucrative) to ride around in a bus and make up stuff.

But, to be fair, both women seem to have similar grasp of American history.

Bachmann bizarrely revised our entire, sad history of race. To wit:

 

While this week Palin sputtered something about Paul Revere ringing bells to warn the British, or something: 

 

I always have a hard time figuring how to end blog posts. So I'll just describe textually my physical reaction to watching those videos and thinking about either Bachmann (who is running), Palin (who wouldn't dare), and Barbour (who mercifully decided not to run after he realized he'd been mistaking the "fire in the belly" for chicken wings) as President of the United States: Sigh. Eye Roll. Chuckle. Grimace. Sigh.

*I've been waiting months to use this and am glad I had an opportunity.

 

Anthony Weiner's Dick and Other Distractions: This week In The Idiocracy

I hate stories like this. I hate how they're covered. I hate defending, and then apologizing for, and  then criticizing, people I really admire. I hate thinking about the stories we're not covering sufficiently because we're forced to have an adult conversation about Twitter. I hate too-clever-by-half headlines in the NY Post ("Weiner's Weiner" is not funny; it's easy. If you think it's funny you'd probably make a teriffic morning dj).

But we have to cover it, I guess. For his part, Congressman Weiner didn't really help. His handling of this in the press has been horrific. That's a bit surprising, since--up until now--Weiner has been so adept at handling the media. The coverup--please pardon the cliché--is always worse than the crime.

This is a shame and I hope he sticks around because he's such a good congressman when those are in scarce supply. I mean, I think he'll be able to weather this (Come on, David Vitter actually fucked prostitutes a lot and he gets to keep his job.).

I've already said too much about this.

Oh, Christ...Sarah Palin...and I've already said too much about this. Besides, Ben Kirby over at the Spencerian already said it better. And the blatant revisionism is distressing. I'm so tired of the glorified anti-intellectualism, the LarryTheCableGuyization of America.  As Kirby wrote:

Two things bother me about this.  First, it's a blatant pander to the constituency subscribed to the Dumbing Down of America.  History as it actually happened, of course, is for snotty liberals and elites.  Facts are for suckers.  Palin has managed to hook people who feel a kinship to her mis-steps and blunders.  I never went to any Ivy League school.  I don't care what Paul Revere really did.  She's like me!

Yep. It looks like the 2006 Dax Shepard vehicle Idiocracy was less a warning and more of a documentary. It's happening; keep the sheep's remote controls in hand and their bellies Miller Lite-filled and you don't have to worry about them. Keep them distracted with tabloid stories and nonsense, and they won't realize that corporations now have all the the rights they have, except the corporations actually bother to exercise them. They won't even notice that the police can bust through the door when they used to need a warrant. And they won't even care that 5 American solders were killed in Iraq today--the deadliest attack in two years.

Review: My Morning Jacket--Circuital

I said I wasn't very good at this.

I also said that Fridays are reserved for music here at Ars Politica, but that assumes that, you know, I write some other stuff in the rest of the week. Also, it's Sunday, which is, by definition, not Friday.

I say a lot of things.

In my defense, however, I had some significant technical difficulties this week and was without a computer a few days. I'm back in business now. So we'll do Friday's gimmick today and I'll endeavor to be better this week. At any rate, it seems the Internet didn't collapse without the 23 daily page views to my blog.

I spent a lot of the last week listening to music, though.  That's not unusual, but what is unusual is the amount of listens My Morning Jacket's Circuital received.

It's a great album.

Whenever you talk about My Morning Jacket, you almost necessarily have to talk about Band of Horses and Fleet Foxes. I think that's probably a bit too easy and a little unfair, but it bears mentioning. Even though My Morning Jacket released their debut in 1999 and Band of Horses and Fleet Foxes didn't come along until 2006 and 2008, respectively, they all seemed lumped together in the Folk Rock Revival of the last few years (even though it seems clear to me the latter two bands are derivative of the former). But I suppose that by 2008, indie music was so awash in beards, banjos, and reverb that the three bands could have formed a supergroup called Band of Fleet Jackets (a phrase I thought I had just coined, though it turns out I was wrong).

But in the years since the apex of this indie-folk genuflection, I think we've seen some separation. And My Morning Jacket has won. They may never make an album as good as Band of Horses' Everything All The Time (and I also really liked BOH's followup, even if Cee Lo Green covered the album's best song), but they've grown in more creative and unexpected ways. Band of Horses hasn't been able to keep up, as last year's Infinite Arms indicates. Fleet Foxes has the same problem. Their debut was incredible, but their recently released second album Helplessness Blues seems aptly titled.

My Morning Jacket's sixth studio album Circuital, however, moves the band forward. It is at once something of a return to the band's roots and adventuresome. It's less consciously weird than 2008's Evil Urges, which seemed intentionally like a Prince album. While certainly closer to 2008's z, this album is tighter, more focussed.

"Victory Dance" opens the albums and builds nicely for the rest of the album. Lead singer Jim James introduces the song with some oddball mouth-trumpet furling, which leads into a much more earnest, driving rocker, which transitions into the album's title track whose clanging guitar and reverb recalls the band's earlier stuff.

These first two songs set the stage for the rest of the album. As good as those songs are, I am most interested in the four or five songs in the middle of the album--beginning with "The Day is Coming" to "Holding On To Black Metal." While none of those songs are remarkable on their own, they work together, in spite of each song's distinctiveness. "Wonderful (The Way I Feel)" is sappily sweet while the French-cinema esque "Holding On To Black Metal" is interesting but borders on silly. "Outta My System" invokes early 60s pop and that's a compliment.

Still, none of My Morning Jacket's albums can come close to recreating the band's mythical live performances (and they are every bit as good as you've heard). That's a shame, because as excellent as this album is, its production seems to restrain Jim James's powerful voice a bit too much.

Circuital is unpredictable, ebbing and flowing, and building and lowering. This is a remarkable effort and has solidified My Morning Jacket's position atop the other bands in the quasi-southern rock, slow-cooked set.

(This is my first review. Do I need a rating system, or is that too flip? If so: 8.2/10.)

UPDATE: My original rating of 7.7 seemed a bit low for how much I liked it and how good or bad I think I will find other albums relative to this one, so I've bumped it up a half-piont.

A Short Note On Patriotism

On this Memorial Day, I've been thinking about liberals and patriotism.

I am a liberal. And I think one of the major problem with liberals is our all-too-often kneejerk, reflexive, annoying disdain for patriotism. I've never shared in this disdain.

The reason for many liberals' rejection of patriotism is unclear, muddled, which is to say, unclear and muddled to them. I think that if you asked some of them why they view patriotism negatively they would be hard-pressed to articulate exactly why. You'd likely get some brand of effete elitism or snarky sarcasm or a throwaway comment about Larry the Cable Guy or Toby Keith. You'd hear about George W. Bush and the Iraq war. And almost all of those arguments would be right. But none of them would be complete.

The problem with liberals' uncomforable relationship with patriotism has a couple sources:

1. Defeatism and Reaction. Defeatism has been a problem haunting liberals for decades. We've rolled over, capitulated, apologized, and defended ourselves for years. As I write this, I struggle to think of one issue that we've been able to shape and define, one message that we've cultivated and disseminated. We've let them frame every debate and we resign ourselves simply to reacting to it. Patriotism is no exception. Why should we let them decide for us what patriotism means? It's not the unquestioning, the blind allegiance, the love-it-or-leave-it nonsense. Patriotism is nuanced and critical and principled. It's steeped in history and built on a principle and on promise.

On the other hand, all too often, I get the feeling that liberals define patriotism as only our right to dissent, to disagree. That's an important part of it--perhaps the most important part--but I can assure you that patriotism is more than that.

2. Elitism. Right before I began writing this post, I thought of a few paragraphs Chuck Klosterman wrote in Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs (If you've not read that book, stop reading this stupid post immediately and go read that instead). I think Klosterman really got to the point of liberals' discomfort with patriotism (albiet in an essay about Billy Joel):

Several months before nineteen unsmiling people from the Middle East woke up early on a Tuesday in order to commit suicide by flying planes into tall New York office buildings, I sent out a mass e-mail to several acquaintances that focused on the concept of patriotism. At the time, "patriotism" seemed like a quaint, baffling concept; it was almost like asking people to express their feelings on the art of blacksmithing. But sometimes I like to ask people what they think about blacksmithing, too.

So ANYWAY, here was the content of my e-mail: I gave everyone two potential options for a hypothetical blind date and asked them to pick who they'd prefer. The only things they knew about the first candidate was that he or she was attractive and successful. The only things they knew about the second candidate was that he or she was attractive, successful, and "extremely patriotic." No other details were provided or could be ascertained.

Just about everyone immediately responded by selecting the first individual. They viewed patriotism as a downside. I wasn't too surprised; in fact, I was mostly just amused by how everyone seemed to think extremely patriotic people weren't just undatable, but totally [freaking] insane. One of them wrote that the quality of patriotism was on par with "regularly listening to Cat Stevens" and "loves Robin Williams movies." Comparisons were made to Ted Nugent and Patrick Henry. And one especially snide fellow sent back a mass message to the entire e-mail group, essentially claiming that any woman who loved America didn't deserve to date him, not because he hated his country but because patriotic people weren't smart.

That last response outraged one of my friends, a thirty-one-year-old lawyer who had been the only individual in the entire group who claimed to prefer the extremely patriotic candidate to the alternative. He sent me one of the most sincerely aggravated epistles I've ever received, and I still recall a segment of his electronic diatribe that was painfully accurate: "You know how historians call people who came of age during World War II 'the greatest generation'? No one will ever say that about us," he wrote. "We'll be 'the cool generation.' That's all we're good at, and that's all you and your friends seem to aspire to."

The four preceding paragraphs are better than anything I'll ever write in this space, and I think it really cuts to the quick. The lawyer in the above anecdote is correct. I think too many liberals think patriotic people just aren't very smart, that they don't think for themselves. This, apart from just being untrue, is condescending, insulting, and mean. People can hold opposing views from your and still be thoughtful, earnest, and intelligent people.

But I did not mean for this post to be a deconstruction of the liberal ethos; my goal is much more modest.

I just want to say thanks.

Thank you to every man and woman who has served our country. You have done what I will never be brave enough to do. You believe in this country and the ideas upon which it is founded so much that you would die to protect it. All I do is type for a living. Thank you.

And for my part, I promise to do whatever I can to make sure your commitment is not in vain and that your service is properly honored. I'll write and cajole and advocate and discuss and persuade. We need to work to protect your veteran's benefits, to make sure you have sufficient equipment to be successful. We need never to allow us to get lied into a war again. That's patriotism.

Thanks for everything you've done for us and Happy Memorial Day.

 

Ars Musica: iTunes Soc Hop

Fridays are for music here at Ars Politica. With that in mind, this is the first installment of the iTunes Soc Hop, where we randomly put the iTunes on shuffle and see what she's into today:

1. Bon Iver-Holocene: (Listen here) In 2007, when Justin Vernon disappeared into the Wisconsin woods with just his guitar, some Northern Exposure DVDs, and a broken heart, and then re-emerged with Bon Iver and For Emma, Forever Ago, I knew I'd be a fan for a long time. The songs on that album are ethereal and haunting and true. I'm happy to report that none of this was lost on Bon Iver, his self-titled followup. "Holocene" exemplifes the best of Bon Iver--honest, plaintive, at once soaring and sad.

2. Sleepy Vikings-Dear Long Distance: (Live performance at last year's Tropical Heatwave) When I saw Orlando-based Sleepy Vikings open for Ra Ra Riot at Crowbar I was blown away. Shortly thereafter, I got their debut album and was equally impressed. Sleepy Vikings--along with New Granada labelmates The Pauses--have put out some of the best music this year. Vocalist duties are split between Tessa McKenna and Julian Connor. Toward the end of the album Connor takes over, as in on "Dear Long Distance" and while very good, Sleepy Vikings are at their best when McKenna is bearing the load.

3. XTC-Dear God: (Listen here) Simply put, the best atheist anthem ever. And ever good song needs a pickup and this one has a great one at about 2:35. I should add that "Skylarking" is an incredibly underrated album. Rivaling "Dear God," "Earn Enough For Us" is a gem.

4. The Airborne Toxic Event-All At Once: (Listen here) I am an unrepetent, unreconstructed Neil Diamond fan (Once, in college, I received both Neil Diamond's greatest hits and a pair of argyle socks for Christmas, prompting my dad to look at me and say, "God, you're white."). Upon listening to The Airborne Toxic Event's Followup All At Once, it occurred to me--HE SOUNDS LIKE NEIL DIAMOND! It turns out I am not the only one who has made this comparison (as this cursory Google search reveals). And this is why I like the band so much, even when they get a bit smarmy and muddled and annoying. I challenge you to listen to the album's title track and not hear "Coming to America" and "Shiloh." See you guys tomorrow at the Backyard BBQ.

5. Bear Hands-Tablasaurus: (Listen here) Evolution is good. Being flexible is good. I've been accused of having sort of inflexible music tastes, but I don't think it's true. A year ago, I would have hated this song. I might have described it as "computers fucking" (giving little care to whether the music is actually computer-generated; it's not), but I have come to really like the dancey, cheerleader chanty stuff. It started with my absolute disdain of Sleigh Bells and then inexplicably I found myself some months later at their show. Bear Hands are good kind of like MGMT that tries less hard and has a sense of humor.

Fuzzy Math

It was annoying--though not surprising--that Governor McSecondRoofForMyMansionInStorage (Seriously. See, e.g., here) vetoed a record $615 million from the budget at The Villages (not, to be clear, The Village, but nearly as terrible), where he was surrounded by rich, white people and the school-aged children of rich, white people. It was like an incredibly annoying force field that protected against letting the inconvenient real world problems of teachers, medical workers, and other public employees bother the governor. Being surrounded by kids while Scott engaged in stilted benefit also had the added benefit of making him looking more like a human and less like an android that is programmed by a control panel located in the center of his chest.

Anyway, the budget....

I'm a lawyer (as of this morning, anyway, when I last checked). I've never been particulary good at math. I mean, 700,000 certainly seems like a big number. Creating that many jobs in this bad an economy seems a daunting, if not damn near impossible, task. To that end, I remained nonplussed at how this budget intends to create jobs, when it seems specifically and obviously designed to destroy them. Not only does it gut public school funding--doing everything we can to ensure an illiterate work force in state unattactive for families to live in and move to--but it undermines Florida's economy in myriad other ways (better said here). The budget signed today will eliminate thousands of jobs for hardworking Floridians. Public jobs count too, Governor Scott. Seems we have a ways to go to get to 700,000.