Angles

I keep asking myself, what is the angle behind the failbill?

What is the inverted syntax?

I’ve suspected this sort of thing too. And why not?

The way Davis sees it, the system has become dysfunctional. Bush has so destroyed the party’s public standing and Congress has become so infected with a win-at-all-costs mentality that there is no point in staying. “You know, the Cubs fans used to put the bags over their heads,” he told me when we met for eggs at Mickey’s Dining Car in St. Paul the first morning of the Republican National Convention. “That’s what I feel when you say you’re from Congress, because there are just so many things we’re not doing.”

This might be dismissed if it came from a fringe player on Capitol Hill, but for years Davis was one of the rising stars, a quintessential inside player who as part of the leadership managed to steer his party to election victories in even-numbered years while working with Democrats on legislation in odd-numbered years. He ran the House Republican campaign committee for two elections and later bypassed more senior congressmen to become chairman of the House Government Reform Committee until his party lost control of Congress. He spent a lifetime getting to this point and is now washing his hands of it, even as he foresees a fiscal reckoning after so much unbridled government spending, most recently to bail out Wall Street.

It’s not really the narrative that matters here. But the “kind” of work being done. Which doesn’t appear to be much. The votes mentioned sound like maneuverings.

Relationships

From Michelle Goldberg

It was an appalling display. The only reason it was not widely described as such is that too many American pundits don’t even try to judge the truth, wisdom or reasonableness of the political rhetoric they are paid to pronounce upon. Instead, they imagine themselves as interpreters of a mythical mass of “average Americans” who they both venerate and despise.

In pronouncing upon a debate, they don’t try and determine whether a candidate’s responses correspond to existing reality, or whether he or she is capable of talking about subjects such as the deregulation of the financial markets or the devolution of the war in Afghanistan. The criteria are far more vaporous. In this case, it was whether Palin could avoid utterly humiliating herself for 90 minutes, and whether urbane commentators would believe that she had connected to a public that they see as ignorant and sentimental. For the Alaska governor, mission accomplished.

Tracing the Paths

A wonderful conversation here between Shelley Jackson and Vito Acconci at The Believer.

From the perspective of, say, his Mur Island—a floating island in Graz, Austria, that is simultaneously bridge, theater, café, and playground—Acconci’s early poems look like odd little landscapes, with corridors and columns, through which the reader can stroll. Mur Island, in turn, looks like a poem. As a writer whose own words have a way of wandering off the page, I often ask myself why writing, of all the arts, is so narrowly defined. What new books might we write, if we could learn to use objects and spaces, buildings and bodies—the way Acconci learned to make architecture from words on a page?

Speech Night

I ran home yesterday from a wonderful gallery talk to watch Speech Night with Governor Sarah Palin and Senator Joe Biden. I caught the first part on the radio and watched the remainder on TV, and my impressions are that this is all pretty sorry stuff.

But what do we deserve? Not much else.

First the format. It was a speech session, not really a debate. Gwen Ifill asked a question and both candidates responded with a speech that had passing relation to the matter of the question. Interestingly enough, the questions set the stage for this. Here’s Ifill’s first question: “As America watches these things happen on Capitol Hill, Senator Biden, was this the worst of Washington or the best of Washington that we saw play out?”

Well, Gwen (I can call you by your first name, right), it was the worst of times and it was the best of times here in good ol Warshington.

This reads as a rhetorical question, as the subject “Washington” is fairly loaded and vague, as are “worst” or “best.”

And so the speech begins. Biden:

I think it’s neither the best or worst of Washington, but it’s evidence of the fact that the economic policies of the last eight years have been the worst economic policies we’ve ever had. As a consequence, you’ve seen what’s happened on Wall Street.

and Palin:

You know, I think a good barometer here, as we try to figure out has this been a good time or a bad time in America’s economy, is go to a kid’s soccer game on Saturday, and turn to any parent there on the sideline and ask them, “How are you feeling about the economy?”

It’s hard to believe that both speech makers were not aware of the questions before hand.

Second, the context and method. You could take two people who know absolutely nothing about economics and war, provide them with stock points and statistics, and you’d have pretty much the same result. It was a puppet show. Sarah Palin continually referred to the list she had on the lectern and recited nonsense regardless of the topic with “you can’t stump me” glee and Joe Biden, who has it all in his head, could sound a little more natural without the notes, but basically listed this and that when required, regardless of context.

None of this assists anyone. Nothing of intelligence and mental effort here, and, like a fool, I sat there watching hoping that the one I support didn’t make some major mistake (and would initiate debate points) and the one I think is a disaster waiting to happen would stutter with confusion.

Conclusion: Shame on me.

Lightness and Choice

Susan Gibb on Tereza

It is the control of the relationship that is the lightness or weightiness that is at question here for Tereza. The burden she claims to carry which weighs on her, that is, the knowledge of his infidelity and attitude towards love and lovemaking, may in fact be the opposite; the freedom of not having to make that decision. Yet she is about to test that theory as she flirts with the notion of indiscretions of her own.

Inherent Incorrectness

I’ve enjoyed my debate with Josh in the comment space of this post. Comment space isn’t the best place to keep things going so I’ve decided to pose a question to my friend. It’s basically become a question of epistemology: how is it that we can know something.

Here’s the poser from Josh

I also think the leading intellectual on evolution (whomever that is) and Karl Marx are inherently incorrect. As a Christian and a capitalist, how is it logical for me to read work from either of those persons as anything but incorrect?

For me, there is a simple response: you assimilate the arguments and when the logic and the conclusions have been proffered, you attempt to disprove the ideas, if possible. We can attempt to disprove the conclusion that comes with 2 + 2, but we should never consider that disagreement with the person is proof against their ideas. Krugman, the economist, may offer conclusions that the reader may not like, but the disagreement should come as a counterargument, which should involve two items: a counterclaim and analysis to back it up. Josh proposes that since he is a Christian, he must by reflex disagree with some leading intellectual on evolution. This I can’t comprehend, as I think there’s no epistemological relationship between belief and faith and the goals of science.

Our disagreement came down to one hinge: the essence of the financial crisis stems from too much regulation or political influence (Josh claimed it was the democrats’ fault) or an essential market/bubble argument (I argue that the casino lost it’s game). We both agree that the bailout shouldn’t happen.

Wonders of Logic

From Janet Stemwedel.

To Prove: Is it [sic] not better to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with healthcare, housing, gas, and groceries–allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy–instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess.

Proof

1. Healthcare reform is needed to shore up our economy. (premise)
2. Job creation is needed to shore up our economy. (premise)
3. One in five jobs created today are created in the trade sector. (premise)
4. Taxpayer money will fund the $700 billion bailout. (implicit premise)
5. Reducing taxes has got to accompany tax reductions. (tautology)
6. ???? (modus ponens?)
7. Job creation is trade is healthcare reform is tax relief. (constructive dilemma??)
8. Therefore, bailing out the big financial institutions is no worse than spending $700 billion helping middle-class families. (something here about “completeness”?)

An analysis of Palin’s response to a K Couric question.

We’re Winning (Not)

From Steven Thomma

A majority of Americans think the United States isn’t winning the war on terrorism, a perception that could undermine a key Republican strength just as John McCain and Barack Obama head into their first debate Friday night, a clash over foreign policy and national security. A new Ipsos/McClatchy online poll finds a solid majority of 57 percent thinking that the country can win the war on terrorism but a similar majority of 54 percent saying that the country is NOT winning it.

Well, we’re no doing well on a couple of other fronts: stupidity and speculation, either. The fault here is not with strategy but with language. There is and has been no “war on terrorism” because such a grammatical object is false. You cannot fight metaphor. Such thinking can only be reactionary as the war would be lost with a single person’s act in some small out of the way place.

Still in bizarro world.

Chain Reactions

Susan Gibb is still on the case with Kundera and hypertext. She writes:

But in hypertext, we can form loops that return us to these points of betrayal–or change, choice, etc.–and from that point, decide upon a new tactic to choose another unknown path, still significantly different from the original choice.

in response to this from The Unbearable Lightness of Being

But if we betray B., for whom we betrayed A., it does not necessarily follow that we have placated A. The life of a divorcee-painter did not in the least resemble the life of the parents she had betrayed. The first betrayal is irreparable. It calls forth a chain reaction of further betrayals, each of which takes us farther and farther away from the point of our original betrayal. (p. 92)

Kundera here focuses on the chain, indeed, a narrative chain along a path. It could indeed be that from another angle, A’s betrayal might play deeply on a sister or father, extending the narrative itself “farther away from the point of our original” node yet related or linked.

The human significance is obvious: betrayal is one path in the confluence.

Subtlety

Here’s a trick.

First you propose a plan that you don’t want. Get lots of talk going about it, find grudging support, then slowly ease in another idea that makes those who supported the first plan look like idiots and regulators. Those who supply the second option look like cooler, more rational heads, and provide a hole for the mavericks who opposed the first outright.