Next in our countdown of crosswords in film, TV, books and song: Leo McGarry berates the New York Times We warm to President Jed Bartlet in The West Wing . Why? Because he kills time waiting for the first lady to get ready for a reception, not by squeezing in some affairs of state but by calling out some crossword clues: JED: 'Laissez-faire doctrine', fifteen letters. ABBEY: Social Darwinism ...
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If you took all the clichs about horrible urban design and shoved them into 75 acres, youd probably end up with something pretty close to Dallas Victory Park. A pre-planned billion-dollar collection of imposing hyper-modern monumental structures, high-end chain stores, enormous video screens, expensive restaurants, a sports arena and tons of parking, completely isolated from the rest of the city by a pair of freeways, Victory Park is like the schizophrenic dream of some power-hungry capitalist technocrat.
Or in this case, his sons. The neighborhood? development? was built by Ross Perot Jr. as an urban lifestyle destination. But what it really is is an entertainment district: that swath of cityscape whose character has been preordained by a city council vote and is now identified by brightly colored banners affixed to lampposts. (The entertainment districts close cousin, the arts district, is often lurking somewhere nearby.)
What could be wrong with a district where nightclubs and galleries are encouraged to thrive? Nothing, necessarily; done right, a city can help foster these scenes with a gentle guiding hand. Constructing an entire milieu from whole cloth, however, is where cities get into trouble. The problem with these created-overnight districts is that youre trying to create a culture as opposed to letting one grow, says Nathaniel Hood, a Minneapolis-based transportation planner. Youre getting the culture that one developer or city council member thinks the city needs, as opposed to the ground-up culture that comes from multiple players.
Victory Park is an extreme example, hyper-planned right down to the performances to be held at its American Airlines Center. (A U2 concert is fabulous, Perot told the Wall Street Journal. KISS, not so good.) But the Dallas Arts District, though less micro-managed, has struggled with its identity as well. Conceived in the 1970s by design consultants in faraway Boston, it relocated the citys arts institutions to the northeast corner of downtown. Another planning consultancy drew the boundaries of the district, and one by one, the citys cultural icons were moved there. Today, it contains the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, the Nasher Sculpture Center, the Dallas Museum of Art, and the Winspear Opera House. Its home to buildings by Renzo Piano, I.M. Pei, Rem Koolhaas and Norman Foster. In fact, youll find everything in the Dallas Arts District except a lot of people, says Patrick Kennedy, owner of the Space Between Design Studio and the blog Walkable DFW.
A district inherently becomes a single-use idea, says Kennedy. Everything has to be art. You end up with a bunch of performing arts spaces and when theyre not in use it becomes a vacuum. This vacuum has made the district itself a museum of sorts, something impressive to observe but strangely inert. (The Chicago Tribune called the area the dullest arts district money can buy.) It has few apartment buildings; one is the new Museum Tower, a 42-story condo residence that, as of last month, had sold only 16 of its 102 units. The Museum Tower recently made news when its glass facade began reflecting 103-degree sunlight directly into the Nasher Sculpture Center next door. Now the towers developers and the Sculpture Center are embroiled in a fight over which party should alter its building essentially, arguing over whether art or residents should reign supreme in the Dallas Arts District.
Thats a defeatist choice to have to make, but the monocultures created by urban districting make it almost inevitable. At last weeks 20th annual Congress for the New Urbanism, Hood spoke about the folly that is Kansas Citys Power & Light District, an $850 million entertainment district whose neon signage is as blinding as its eagerness to be hip. But no one would mistake Power & Light for a neighborhood created by cool kids. Land costs are higher downtown, so you have to create something genuinely unique, says Hood. It cant just be an outdoor mall with slightly cooler bars.
But thats exactly what you get in the Power & Light District: themed venues catering to neatly delineated tastes, Epcot-style: the Makers Mark Bourbon House & Lounge (Southern Hospitality rises to a new level), the Dubliner (true Irish ambiance), Howl at the Moon (a completely unique dueling piano entertainment concept) and PBR Big Sky (every cowboy and cowgirls nighttime oasis). The model suggests that city life is nothing more than a selection of personal consumption experiences. But at times, the district feels more like a very enthusiastic ghost town one with a $12.8 million budget shortfall.
Its not just that the developers are boring people the economics of single-owner districts incentivize blandness. Chain stores and restaurants can afford to pay higher rent, so they get first dibs. To boost rents even higher, tenants are sometimes promised that no competition will be allowed nearby. Starbucks will be willing to pay the higher rent if [the developer doesn't] let other cafes into the area, says Hood. And forget about occupying the Power & Light District youre on private property. For a full list of the rules (no bicycles, panhandling, profanity on clothing) you can consult its website.
A true [arts or entertainment] district is always sort of moving around, says Kennedy. Its wherever the bohemians find cheap real estate. For instance, compare Power & Light or Victory Park or even the Dallas Arts District with Bostons Kenmore Square, which developed in the 80s and 90s as a wildly diverse barrage of punk venues, rock clubs, dive bars, sports bars and beloved hole-in-the-wall restaurants, all anchored by Fenway Park, bringing together an unlikely cross-section of Bostonians into one spontaneous not-an-entertainment-district for freaks, foodies and sports nuts alike. And despite being unplanned and unsubsidized (or, more accurately, because of that), Kenmore eventually upscaled in exactly the way city leaders hope for.
Kenmore Square, by the way, also disproves the conventional wisdom that the presence of a stadium or arena automatically dooms neighborhoods. Fenway Park is a beautiful example of a large entertainment-type building sitting in a neighborhood thats very vital, says Dean Almy, director of the Dallas Urban Laboratory, and one of the things that makes it vital is that it isnt all about Fenway Park.
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Re "Altered term limits OK'd" (Page A1, June 6): Count another victory for doublespeak, distortions, and wholesale falsifications of reality. Big Tobacco and its defenders, under the guise of all taxes are evil libertarianism, played to the ignorance and laziness of California voters. Every single argument that their distorted ads presented to the voters could easily be proven false if voters had taken the 15-20 minutes it takes to read the 13 pages of the California Cancer Research Act. Fortunately for Altria, R.J. Reynolds, and other organizations that denounced the CCRA, words like "accountability", "bureaucracy", and "political appointees" create a Pavlovian response among ignoramuses who think 30-second ads on TV tell the whole story. -- Jason Knowles, Rocklin
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Jon Stewart kicked off last nights Daily Show by discussing yesterdays gubernatorial election in Wisconsin. While Republican governor Scott Walker survived the recall, Stewart offered a dire prediction for the states future.
During a focus group with Wisconsin public schoolteachers, Stewart was quick to notice, a prophetic symbol. The room was decorated with portraits of Americas presidents. Curiously, one womans hair blocked the bottom half of Regans face, giving him a slightly sinister stache. Notice how that womans hair transforms Ronald Regans portrait into, I dont know, Stalin! he exclaimed.
For more information from the badger state itself, Stewart turned to Daily Show correspondent Wyatt Cenac, who sat down to chat with Jeremy Levinson, attorney for the Wisconsin Democratic Party.
Levinson asserted that popular support for the recall demonstrates Walkers inadequacy. 1 million Wisconsinites cant be wrong, he said.
But apparently 1, 123, 591 can, Cenac noted. Thats how many voted for walker in 2010.
Cenac asked Levinson what exactly Walker had done to warrant such drastic action. Did he break a law or get caught with prostitutes? he asked. Levinson said no but described the recall as a safety valve used only in rare circumstances.
You say rare circumstances. You mean when somebody gets elected you dont agree with? Cenac said.
Cenac also sat down with Wisconsin Republican Isaac Weix. This is ridiculous! Cenac fumed. You dont just recall every dumb person because theyre a dumb person! After a short, contemplative pause, Weix nodded in agreement.
As Cenac noted, at least the state of Wisconsin has something to be grateful for: two political parties that are both ethical and mature.
In the second segment of the show, Stewart discussed double-digit unemployment among Americas blacks and Latinos. That could really hurt Obamas chances among, well lets be honest, just Latinos, he said.
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All thanks to extensive public subsidies. (Mary Altaffer - AP) Tim Lee offers up a brief history of New York Citys subway system, based on Clifton Hoods book 722 Miles. Private companies had been building above-ground lines in the 19th century on their own. But there was no way to build an underground system without public subsidies:
The public subsidies for the subway system turned out to be quite large: The city eventually chipped in $36.5 million in 1900 and then an additional $123 million in 1911 to extend the lines. Those two early spurts of spending alone equal roughly $3.8 billion in todays dollars.
Lee goes on to ask whether these sorts of infrastructure projects pose a challenge to libertarianism. Were the critics of the vast subsidies used to build New York Citys subway wrong? After all, without the publicly funded system and its extensions, the bucolic farmland in Harlem, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens might never have been transformed into todays dense urban neighborhoods. A subway-less New York, Lee adds, would not only have a smaller population, it would likely be poorer per capita. ... Maybe over the long run, those subsidies paid for themselves through the expansion of the citys tax base.
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If an ad man like Don Draper saw the groveling, apologetic PR coming from big corporations today, Fred Smith thinks hed be appalled.
(SOURCE: CEI) Smith is president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a think-tank dedicated to advancing the principles of limited government, free enterprise, and individual liberty. On Tuesday evening, the group hosted a Mad Men-themed, $250-a-head gala dinner, where they lamented that todays corporations have lost the self-assurance business possessed in the 50s and 60s.
The advertisements of Drapers 1960s were offering the good life, products that allowed us to be healthier, wealthier, Smith told the packed ballroom at Washingtons Hyatt-Regency, standing in front of giant vintage photo of a nuclear family watching TV. These days, Smith continued, modern Mad Men have a rather more dispiriting message for consumers. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, he said, with mock chagrin. They dont say what theyre proud about. Instead, they say theyre not as bad as you think they are. He singled out BP as the exemplar of corporate Americas new era of shame. BP rushes around and asks customers to use less energy, he said. We shouldnt be ashamed of using it! The audiencea 600-strong room of conservatives and libertariansburst into wild applause.
The free-marketeers at the dinner saw themselves as the natural compatriots of Don Draperthe debonair, hard-driving, sometimes ruthless ad man, in the words of Loren Smith, the federal judge who MC-ed the program in a Guys and Dolls-style fedora and gray pinstriped suit. But its not clear whether Draper himself would have agreed.
Certainly, Jon Hamms character has no compunction about glorifying a corporate client amid accusations of harm to the public good. In a recent episode, Draper tells Dow, the chemical giant, how he would contain the backlash over the use of napalm in Vietnam. The government put it in flame-throwers against the Nazis, impact bombs against the Japanese, he tells them. The important thing is, when our boys are fighting and they need it...when America needs it...Dow makes it. And it works.
But Don Draper and his colleagues ultimately care more about the success of their own business than an ideological defense of free-enterprise capitalism. After Lucky Strike decided to dump his firm, Draper pens a vindictive letter published in the New York Times that channels the concerns that every public health-advocate and government regulator that cracked down on the cigarette industry at the time.
For over 25 years we devoted ourselves to peddling a product for which good work is irrelevant, because people cant stop themselves from buying it, he writes. And then, when Lucky Strike moved their business elsewhere, I realized, here was my chance to be someone who could sleep at night, because I know what Im selling doesnt kill my customers.
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. But Don Draper doesnt write the letter because he believes the public-health crackdown is justified. He does it because he knows he wont get Lucky Strikes business backand perhaps because it could bring in new business from the likes of the American Cancer Society, as he explains to his colleagues while puffing away at a cigarette.
Likewise, BPs public-relations campaign after the 2010 oil spill didnt mean the company suddenly had a change of heart. It was an image-rehabilitation strategy meant to ensure that BPs business was protected in an era in which both customers and public officials will demand that our energy industry is, in fact, Beyond Petroleum. A mea culpa attitude can also be a pragmatic approach to business in the face of external constraintsbe they limited natural resources or new regulations.
The free-market advocates at CEI, however, dismisses the idea that corporationsor their ad menmust adapt to such constraints. The Malthusian dystopia that liberals warned about in Don Drapers time never came to pass, asserted Matt Ridley, the British author who received an award at the gala. In a video acceptance speech, Ridley listed the previous eras supposed paper tigers, to the audiences amusement: Global famine, food aid, cancer epidemics, nuclear winter...oil spill increases. And American businesses are going through the same charade today, with products walking through a minefield of political correctness, Smith said, bemoaning the ongoing war on sin products. (The galas gift bags each containing a cigar, ash tray, highball glasses, and candy cigarettesdrove his point home.)
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A member of the German Pirate Party, with its logo shaved in his hair, attends the party's two-day conference in Neumuenster, Germany, on April 28.
A member of the German Pirate Party, with its logo shaved in his hair, attends the party's two-day conference in Neumuenster, Germany, on April 28.
They don't have a plan to save the euro or draw down the war in Afghanistan, nor do they have clear policies on an array of issues, but the German Pirate Party is winning converts and elections with its vision of digital democracy through "liquid feedback."
Despite public relations mishaps and a haphazard organizational structure, the Pirate Party is shaking up the stolid, bureaucratic world of German politics and jolting rival parties with its rising popularity.
Supporters of the Pirate Party react after early results are announced during elections in Duesseldorf, Germany, on May 13.
Supporters of the Pirate Party react after early results are announced during elections in Duesseldorf, Germany, on May 13.
On Tuesday night in Neukolln, a disheveled yet trendy Berlin district, the Kinski Bar buzzes like it's the weekend. The sparsely furnished tavern is filled with casually dressed 20-somethings chatting, laughing, smoking and debating in between bites of pizza and sips of cheap draft beer. As it is every Tuesday, it's Pirate Party night. It's a night for political discussion, not a party party, but it can sometimes be hard to tell the difference.
"Many things of the Pirates are so unprofessional and thereby so charming that you see, 'Well what they can do, I can do also; I can contribute to this,' " says 29-year-old Thorsten Fischer. Dressed in a casual, hip outfit of a pastel-colored T-shirt, skinny jeans and a smart haircut, Fischer belies the image painted in some of the German press that the Pirates are all computer nerds.
Fischer is now working on his second startup company, developing an app for mobile devices. In some ways his entrepreneurial spirit brought him to the Pirates. He says he was attracted by the party's tech savvy, libertarianism that stresses freedom of expression, transparency in government and Internet freedom.
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In the wake of Mayor Bloomberg?s proposes big soda ban, I have some suggestions for paternalistic nudges for economists who advocate such paternalism. One idea is when they go to a restaurant, by default they should be seated at the table that places them in the most proximity to people near the median income level. ...
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Theres a whiff of liberal fascism coming out of the Land of the Free. The Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, has announced plans to outlaw the sale of large fizzy or sugary drinks in an effort to cut down to size his citys obesity problem. Itll affect about 20,000 establishments; even the humble street cart will have to comply. No longer will New Yorkers be able to cry Super-size that! as a litre of pure diabetes is poured into a paper cup. It might be political correctness gone mad, but London is sure to follow suit.
To be fair to Bloomberg, New York does have an obesity problem. A trip on the subway at rush hour can feel like a ride in a Mini with a sumo team. Statistics show that 58 per cent of New York Citys adults and nearly 40 per cent of its public school students are overweight. That compares unfavourably with a national obesity rate of roughly one third.
But New York, like the rest of America, is a land of extremes. On the streets youll see plenty of overweight folks hogging down hot dogs. But youll also spot a number of scarily thin people sipping tomato juice. The difference between these groups is measured in race and wealth.
According to 2010 national statistics from the US Department of Health and Human Services, African-Americans are 1.4 times as likely to be obese as non-Hispanic whites and, shockingly, four out of five African-American women are overweight. Higher-income women are less likely to be obese than low-income women, and theres a correlation between better education and lower weight.
Therefore, the problem Bloomberg is tackling is often one suffered by poor people. By cutting into the potential profits of fast-food eateries, hell not only be denying poor folks their sugary fix, but he could also cause outlets to close losing them jobs, too.
Bloombergs goal has always been to turn New York into a city better suited to the lifestyles of liberal rich whites. He has also banned the use of trans fats in restaurant foods and outlawed smoking in public. This obsession with other peoples health is un-American. The USA is a country founded on the principle of individual liberty, and inherent within liberty is the freedom to make mistakes. Yet Bloombergs effort to create a more aesthetically pleasing populace poses a challenge to the American libertarianism. One paradoxical outcome is that in a few months time, it might be legal to buy a gun in Manhattan but illegal to buy a large cup of Coke.
Bloombergs campaign feels more European than American, and thats why it probably wont be long before we see it introduced to London. The city also has a problem with obesity 36 per cent of 11-year-olds are overweight and Boris Johnson is also committed to creating a leaner, fitter London. British campaigners have leapt on the Bloomberg plan and pressure on Johnson will grow to follow suit just as Britain copied the US public smoking ban in 2007.
The problem is that no matter how conservative a politician might be, give them a little bit of power and the temptation is too great not to use it. Whereas time could be spent promoting healthy, voluntary choices, its usually poured into oppressive new laws instead. Given that government expands as fast and as unpleasantly as the average New Yorkers waistline, it wont be long before the Brits lose their right to super-size, too.
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The full weight of the law comes down on super-size New Yorkers
In another effort to attack obesity (and libertarianism) in New York City, three-term Mayor Michael Bloomberg is attempting to institute a ban on sodas in the city. Under Bloomberg's plan, it would be illegal for "food-service establishments" like mall food courts, delis, sports arenas, and food carts to sell sodas and other sugar-laden drinks in cups or bottles larger than 16 ounces. The ban could take effect as early as March of next year, at which point New Yorkers can say goodbye to giant glasses of Coke in restaurants. Say goodbye to 20-ounce sodas from the bodega on those sweltering summer afternoons.
Naturally, Bloomberg is facing blowback from many Americans who feel like he's restricting freedom. "[I]t is patently absurd for Bloomberg to claim he is not limiting freedom when he uses force to stop people from doing something that violates no one's rights, whether it's selling donuts fried in trans fat, lighting up in a bar whose owner has chosen to allow smoking on his own property, or ordering a 20-ounce soda in a deli," Jacob Sullum wrote in Reason, referencing Bloomberg's past bans on smoking and trans fats.
Sullum is right that Bloomberg has limited freedoms time and again during his years in office, a violation most foul in the eyes of Reason's ultra-libertarian editorial board. But there's no arguing with the fact that his attacks on freedom have had the desired effects. According to a report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the trans fat ban cut the amount of saturated fat and trans fat in French fries sold by New York City's restaurant chains by more than half. And the smoking ban saw New York City's smoking rate fall to 14 percent. In fact, Bloomberg's inveighs against consumer choice have been so successful that numerous politicians in places far away from New York have started to follow his lead, introducing public-health bans of their own. The soda ban, however, may be Bloomberg's first big, embarrassing defeat.
The first and most important problem with Bloomberg's soda ban is that, unlike with his trans fat ban, it won't be illegal for places to carry soda. Everyone can continue selling sugary drinksremember, even pure orange juice has a lot of sugar in itand some places, like grocery stores, can even continue selling sodas larger than 16 ounces. Also exempt will be the convenience store 7-Eleven, which will be able to sell its 40-ounce Big Gulp because the store is classified as a "grocery establishment," not a food-service establishment. That means that if you live in New York and want to drink 32 ounces of Mountain Dew in one sitting, you can do that; you'll just have to order two 16-ounce glasses, or go to 7-Eleven.
Essentially, this so-called "soda ban" isn't a ban on soda at all; it's a ban on being able to have soda conveniently. Destroying the convenience of smoking by outlawing it in bars and parks was part of Bloomberg's war against cigarettes. But he also bolstered those salvos with a heavy tax on tobacco that made smoking an expensive pastime. Without that financial incentive, it's unlikely the smoking ban would have been as effective. The soda ban has no such incentive.
Besides the fact that people will still be able to get soda everywhere they could before, and in whatever quantities they'd like, the ban curiously exempts "dairy drinks." That means that while someone going into a bodega for big bottle of Pepsi will be turned away, that same person can go into a Starbucks and get a venti Frappuccino (200 calories and 34 grams of sugar in every 12 ounces) at their leisure. The fancy milkshakes at all of the upscale restaurants now specializing in "comfort food" will also remain legal. These dairy drinks are loaded with sugar just like any sodaplus a healthy dose of fatand yet they made the cut while the sodas didn't. Why? Consider the difference in clientele: Black people get more of their calories from soda than any other ethnic group, while Starbucks is a place that caters to people willing to pay $3 or more for a cup of coffee (read: wealthier white people). To many outsiders, Bloomberg's latest gripe appears to be powered by classism; he doesn't like cheap soda and the poor people who consume it in large quantities.
Only time will tell if the soda ban even goes into effect, let alone if it works at helping curb obesity in New York City. In the meantime, perhaps Bloomberg can fix the legislation's gaping loopholes in time to get more people on his side. It's unlikely that he will, of course, which is to be expected from a man who sometimes appears to like the hatred he receives. He likes it so much, in fact, that he wants you to live a long life so you can hate him more.
Photo via (cc) Flickr user Boss Tweed.
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T.I./ Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for AXE
Jay-Z and the new crew of publicly gay-friendly rappers
For those keeping score at home, the list of rappers who are ostensibly in favor of same-sex marriage now includes Ice Cube, T.I., 50 Cent, and Kendrick Lamar. I don't know this because they made bold, formal statements like Jay-Z. I know this because they were asked by Ad Age, MTV, Vibe, and DJ Drama's Streetz Is Watchin' Sirius/XM radio show, and then their answers were turned into blog fodder and disseminated across the Internet. The impulse to ask rappers what they think about same-sex marriage contributes little to the discussion of this important issue, though it is a page-view win-win: If a rapper is cool with it, well, there's a story; If you ask them and they disagree, well, you've got an even bigger news story. Hopefully, they might slip up and say something homophobic!
As you might expect, all four rappers answered with fairly hedged responses. Ice Cube came the closest to responding like a sensible human when he said this to Ad-Age: "I don't want to discriminate on nobody." None of these answers are painful to read, though T.I., 50 Cent, and Kendrick Lamar sound pretty unsophisticated. T.I. told MTV: "I don't care...if it's not something that directly affects youwhat difference does it make to you what other people are doing with their lives?" 50 Cent to Vibe: "I think everyone should be happyI don't have strong personal feelings towards it because I'm not involved in that lifestyle, but I want people to be happy." And Lamar to DJ Drama: "I don't give a fuck about people doing what they do. That's your lifestyle...Do what you got to do to be happy. Fuck it man, it's fuckin' 2012, people need to stop crying over some bullshit." I suspect this well-intentioned, half-assed "live and let live" pseudo-libertarianism will become the new hip-hop party line.
Because of how prevalent and unchecked homophobic language has been in hip-hop, the same-sex marriage issue doesn't seem like an unfair topic to broach with a rapper. However, turning rappers into mouthpieces for an entire genre seems unfair, as well as unproductive. Hip-hop's homophobia is treated as a given, which turns any utterance on the issue into a mini-event. How many rappers have to half-heartedly agree with Jay-Z before it stops generating headlines? We're frequently confronted by thinkpieces that highlight open-minded rappers and pockets of "queer rap." Maybe it needs to be acknowledged that perhaps hip-hop is progressing?
Late last week, Pitchfork called out Action Bronson after he posted a photo on his Instagram of a woman on the ground, covered in water. He tweeted along with it, "Close up of drunk Mexican tranny after Bes poured a bottle of water on its head." He later apologized, in typically Bronson-like style: "I love gay people. Trannies not so much." He added, "In no way was I trying to offend anybody from the Gay and Lesbian Community. It wasn't even a transvestite it just honestly looked like one." He also told "everyone" to "blow [him] from the back." The whole thing is terribly insensitive (it may even constitute a hate crime), but not out of character for a rapper who jokes about fucking prostitutes and throws around the insults "half-a-fag" like he's doing shtick from a Scorsese movie.
We shouldn't demand rappers live up to their on-record persona, but we shouldn't be shocked when they do. If they say something enlightened like Jay-Z and, to a lesser extent, Ice Cube, T.I., 50 Cent, and Kendrick Lamar, well, that's great. Bronson's statements, though, don't say anything more about hip-hop and homophobia than the emphatic support of Jay-Z and the hedged statements that will certainly start coming in more and more often in the coming months and years. Playing the "who's more open-minded?" game however, seems dangerous and besides the point. T.I., 50 Cent, and Lamar probably represent the average American's feelings on the topic. But that makes for a much less interesting story: Rap is maturing at about the same pace as the rest of the country. For every four or five reasonable people out there, you've got one ignorant fuck who thinks it's funny to pour water on a "tranny."
Rappers are presented as violent, vulgar sexists and homophobes, and then they're not only expected to have fully-formed opinions on social issues, but progressive ones. This is an ugly update on the always implicit, often explicit demand that hip-hop, if it is to be lauded and celebrated, must espouse a strong, left-leaning political message. For too many, Public Enemy remains the blueprint for legitimate, significant hip-hop. That ideal is impossible because very few rappers or rap groups will ever be as musically incredible as Chuck D and company. Meanwhile, the actual political messages of hip-hop have far outgrown P.E.'s radical rhetoric. Kanye West made anti-homophobic comments back in 2005. As random as they are, songs from "gangsta" rappers like the late Pimp C and Z-Ro feature pro-gay lyrics. Not to mention, Public Enemy's music contains homophobic lyrics ("The parts don't fit aww shit," from "Meet the G That Killed Me"). This hangover from the '60s, where the clunky rockist ideal that "important" music has to "matter," in an activist sense, now has been updated to include rappers' ability to speak cogently on a particular issue in interviews. An issue, mind you, that until three weeks ago, our own president wouldn't discuss.
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Students at the University of Colorado Denver will be able to take a new class on conservative thought this summer thanks to the efforts of the Leadership Institute, a Virginia-based organization dedicated to taking campuses back in time. The class, Conservative Political Thought in America, incorporates the writings of some big thinkers from the pantheon of conservatism/libertarianism, like Russell Kirk, Murray Rothbard and George Nash, and will be taught by Department of Political Science instructor Ryan McMaken.
UCD's information on the class, available on the poli-sci department's website, reads, "This is a course covering the intellectual history of American right-wing movements since the New Deal. The course will seek to help students gain a better understanding of these movements by examining the sometimes bitter debate between conservatives and libertarians on the American right." More information is available at a site called http://www.rightwingthought.com, and the Leadership Institute has apparently implemented similar programs at Brown University, the University of Virginia and American University.
It's unclear how many of UCD's other classes are designed by outside organizations with specific agendas a spokeswoman for the university didn't return a call from Off Limits seeking comment, and another UCD employee declined to speak on the record but we're guessing that a class designed by conservatives for conservatives might benefit from a few suggestions for term-paper subjects in Conservatism 101 that deal with the realities of being a conservative today. Here are two possibilities:
How to communicate with an Obama birther or Tea Party member
Conservative political principles have little to do with conspiracy theories about the birthplace of Barack Obama or lowest-common-denominator radio pundits, but you're all under the same GOP tent now. To keep the crazies from voting for like-minded nuts, how do you explain old-school conservative principles?
How to compromise on a candidate
Your candidate campaigned on promises of lower taxes, smaller government and conservative fiscal management. But once he got into office, he signed on to a bill endorsing a gay-marriage ban and then directed millions of dollars to a pet project being financed by a donor one that will actually make government bigger. Oh, and then he cut taxes for the rich, but not for you. Ah, politics. Explain that compromises can be hard to take and what a conservative can do to rationalize what is happening.
News cycle: With so many topics to handle in this election cycle, students in UCD's new class on conservative political thought may not have time to take on bike sharing. But that wasn't the case back in 2010, when GOP gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes insinuated that Denver B-cycle was part of a mysterious United Nations plot.
But perhaps they should be concerned after all. According to Denver Bike Shares director Parry Burnap, B-cycle is trying to help poor people. In 2011, the nonprofit received a $25,000 grant from the Kaiser Foundation's LiveWell Colorado to help B-cycle recruit users from poor neighborhoods and people living in Denver Housing Authority projects. It wasn't an easy task: To check out one of the red bikes, you need a credit card something a lot of low-income people don't have and you have to deal with throngs of hipsters standing in line with you. So B-cycle issued free annual passes in card form to some people and waived the usage fees.
But it didn't work, at least not right away. "The response was startlingly low," Burnap says. But B-cycle tried again this year and is getting a better reaction. "It's a complicated process," she notes. "This should be a transportation alternative for everyone, not just early adopters, who, according to our surveys, tend to be wealthy, well-educated and white. We want to make it accessible and affordable for everyone. We are not there yet."
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Author Jeremy Waldron — and those like him who reject libertarianism — would be unlikely to take notice of Rothbardian criticism of hate-speech laws. But another line of inquiry might be of more interest to them. We can ask how good Waldron's arguments are if we judge them on their own merits.
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As everyone knows, the Republican Party is in serious trouble with Latinos. If Mitt Romney gets any less popular with Hispanics, he'll disappear from their consciousness altogether.
The reasons for Latinos' antipathy toward the GOP include the endless insults that Republicans have lobbed at Hispanics, along with the fact that Latinos are not as socially conservative as people think.
Still, one would think more Hispanics would embrace that offshoot of conservative thought known as libertarianism. This philosophy, which holds that the individual is the basic unit of society and must be subject to as little governmental influence as possible, should really resonate with people who have roots in lands where the government crushes all free thought. It should also appeal to people who often have to pull themselves up from their bootstraps (to use a favorite conservative clich) and start over in a new country.
But that hasn't happened. Currently, libertarians "are largely white, well-educated, and affluent." One could even say that "libertarians are mostly rich young white guys who, compared to most other Americans, live comfortable and financially secure lives."
Of course, there are Latino libertarians out there. But in general, talking Hispanics into espousing the Ron Paul agenda is only slightly easier than getting the pope to show up at the Stonewall Inn for a drink.
Libertarianism is still overwhelmingly the privilege of white men, who have a cultural advantage over other groups, regardless of what economic class they were born into. As such, they may believe they have achieved success solely through their own initiative. They may be blind to all the help they received, especially if their consciences are clear and they never discriminate against other ethnicities. They are certain they can do anything they set their minds to, because quite frankly, they often have done so (with society's help, of course).
However, this mindset blinds them to the fact that certain things -- and this is un-American to say -- are beyond their individual control. These can range from sudden health issues to global economic upheavals. They can also include the fact that the game is rigged to benefit the rich and that people's freewill decisions can be manipulated more easily than you think.
Perhaps Latinos, with our cultural baggage of Catholic fatalism and dictatorial governments, are more likely to know that a single person does not have unlimited power. Or maybe our emphasis on family provokes us to think beyond our individual needs. Or perhaps we realize that, despite a work ethic second to none, ceaseless labor and ambition are not always sufficient to get a person ahead in life.
Or maybe it comes down to the possibility that it's very easy to demand a libertarian system when one has gotten a good start in life and reaps the benefits of being on top of the socioeconomic pyramid. It's less common to advocate for that when you're still trying to claw your way upward.
In any case, I'm sure that if she had it to do all over again, Ayn Rand would have included at least one plucky Chicano objectivist named Hernandez in Atlas Shrugged.
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A worker builds a Ford Focus at the Ford Motor Co.'s Michigan Assembly Plant December 14, 2011 in Wayne, Michigan.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Editor's note: Jeffrey Miron is senior lecturer and director of undergraduate studies in the economics department at Harvard University and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Miron is the author of "Libertarianism, from A to Z."
Cambridge, Massachusetts (CNN) -- In a recent discussion of what his administration might accomplish, Mitt Romney claimed that "by virtue of the policies that we put in place, we'd get the unemployment rate down to 6%, and perhaps a little lower," over a period of four years.
Is this goal attainable?
It is. Indeed, it is not that tough a task. If the United States avoids new growth-retarding policies, such as the tax hikes scheduled for January 1, the economy's natural adjustments will lower unemployment substantially. These include downward adjustments in wages, reallocation of job-seekers from slower to faster growing sectors and regions, reduced in-migration plus increased out-migration, and withdrawals from the labor force.
Jeffrey Miron
These adjustments do not always work quickly or for everyone (not every former construction worker can become a computer technician). But history suggests the adjustments do occur, as they have since the recession began. Over the next four years, they will continue to lower the unemployment rate, if not to 6%, at least near that territory.
The more important task for either presidential candidate is restoring the economy to its prerecession growth path. Real GDP has historically grown about 3% per year, and major downturns have been followed by strong recoveries. Within two to three years, therefore, output is typically "back where it would have been."
In this recession, the rapid recovery phase has so far been absent; real GDP is still well below where one would have predicted pre-2008, and with average growth under 3% since the recession ended, the gap grows larger every quarter.
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If you thought the debates over the debt ceiling last year one of the most striking examples of political dysfunction and gridlock in recent memory were over, think again. Although Republicans agreed to a small raise and to put off discussion of the issue until after the upcoming 2012 elections, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told Fox, Well be doing it all over in 2013. Clearly, the partisan rupture thats dividing Washington is not going to heal any time soon, but how did things get so dire to begin with?
When congressional scholars Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein say Its Even Worse Than It Looks the title of their book theyre being serious (subtitle: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism). Mann, the W. Averell Harriman chair and senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, and Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, began the Congress Project in the midst of the 1978 midterm campaign to track the institution as it evolved. What theyve found since hasnt been encouraging.
In their book, Mann and Ornstein trace political dysfunction to the present, illuminating the basic incompatibility they see between the U.S. constitutional system and two highly partisan, parliamentary-like parties. Mann and Ornstein argue that the adversarial, winner-take-all climate we find ourselves in today makes it extremely hard for a majority to act in our two-party governing system. Though both parties engage in corruption, they believe the current Republican Party which they argue is unpersuaded by fact and science, and has little in common with Reagans GOP tilts the political system into asymmetric polarization with its refusal to support anything that might help Democrats, no matter the cost to collective interest.
Meanwhile, changes in mass media, a populist distrust of non-military leaders deemed suspiciously elite, and the insidious connection between money and politics join to create the terrible recipe for a truly dysfunctional political system. At a time when were facing serious national and global problems, they write, The country is squandering its economic future and putting itself at risk because of an inability to govern effectively.But theres hope. Mann and Ornstein dedicate the second half of the book to outlining what specific institutional restructuring wont work and what will, as well as what the public and media can do to be part of positive change.
Salon spoke with Thomas E. Mann about how the media plays into the partisan warfare, the role of the Citizens United decision in the upcoming election, and what we can do to make American politics less dysfunctional.
Im wondering how you chose the books title.
It is a rather unusual title, isnt it? We were thinking through titles and somehow we got in our minds Mark Twains quip about Wagners music, which is Its better than it sounds. And so we were thinking relative to how our dysfunctional political system looks and we said, Well, weve gotta say its worse than it looks, but that would make no sense to people who think it looks horrible already. So we put the even in it Its even worse than it looks.
We are two long-time students of American politics and Congress. Weve really become exceedingly discouraged about developments in our politics and in thought. And weve become frustrated by what we think is a commentary about it that ends up not being especially accurate and, frankly, reinforces the destructive dynamics of the system by leading the public to think its all hopeless: Theyre all the same, its a corrupt system, its an utterly incompetent system, and therefore removing, in many respects, any basis on which a public could actually change that system. Instead you get a kind of visceral reaction: Throw the bums out! And that usually has the effect of reinforcing whatever you have now or making it worse.
How is partisan confrontation more serious today than it has been since you began studying American politics?
Its the worst weve seen in our 40 years of observing up-close Congress and the presidency and the American political system more broadly. Weve gone through very difficult periods in our politics: polarized times in the post-Reconstruction period; turn of the 2oth century; weve, of course, just had exceptionally traumatic times before the Civil War; and difficulties in the early 1800s as well. So we make no claim that this is the worst ever, but if were comparing ourselves now to the pre-Civil War period, thats not such good news, is it? What we can say is that the parties are more polarized than they have been in over a century. We can say that the Republican Party is more conservative than its been in over a century. We can get that evidence from looking at behavior within the Congress and patterns of voting, but we can also see how, in many respects, that public aligns with those polarized parties.
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A worker builds a Ford Focus at the Ford Motor Co.'s Michigan Assembly Plant December 14, 2011 in Wayne, Michigan.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Editor's note: Jeffrey Miron is senior lecturer and director of undergraduate studies in the economics department at Harvard University and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Miron is the author of "Libertarianism, from A to Z."
Cambridge, Massachusetts (CNN) -- In a recent discussion of what his administration might accomplish, Mitt Romney claimed that "by virtue of the policies that we put in place, we'd get the unemployment rate down to 6%, and perhaps a little lower," over a period of four years.
Is this goal attainable?
It is. Indeed, it is not that tough a task. If the United States avoids new growth-retarding policies, such as the tax hikes scheduled for January 1, the economy's natural adjustments will lower unemployment substantially. These include downward adjustments in wages, reallocation of job-seekers from slower to faster growing sectors and regions, reduced in-migration plus increased out-migration, and withdrawals from the labor force.
Jeffrey Miron
These adjustments do not always work quickly or for everyone (not every former construction worker can become a computer technician). But history suggests the adjustments do occur, as they have since the recession began. Over the next four years, they will continue to lower the unemployment rate, if not to 6%, at least near that territory.
The more important task for either presidential candidate is restoring the economy to its prerecession growth path. Real GDP has historically grown about 3% per year, and major downturns have been followed by strong recoveries. Within two to three years, therefore, output is typically "back where it would have been."
In this recession, the rapid recovery phase has so far been absent; real GDP is still well below where one would have predicted pre-2008, and with average growth under 3% since the recession ended, the gap grows larger every quarter.
Read the original post:
A worker builds a Ford Focus at the Ford Motor Co.'s Michigan Assembly Plant December 14, 2011 in Wayne, Michigan.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Editor's note: Jeffrey Miron is senior lecturer and director of undergraduate studies in the economics department at Harvard University and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Miron is the author of "Libertarianism, from A to Z."
Cambridge, Massachusetts (CNN) -- In a recent discussion of what his administration might accomplish, Mitt Romney claimed that "by virtue of the policies that we put in place, we'd get the unemployment rate down to 6%, and perhaps a little lower," over a period of four years.
Is this goal attainable?
It is. Indeed, it is not that tough a task. If the United States avoids new growth-retarding policies, such as the tax hikes scheduled for January 1, the economy's natural adjustments will lower unemployment substantially. These include downward adjustments in wages, reallocation of job-seekers from slower to faster growing sectors and regions, reduced in-migration plus increased out-migration, and withdrawals from the labor force.
Jeffrey Miron
These adjustments do not always work quickly or for everyone (not every former construction worker can become a computer technician). But history suggests the adjustments do occur, as they have since the recession began. Over the next four years, they will continue to lower the unemployment rate, if not to 6%, at least near that territory.
The more important task for either presidential candidate is restoring the economy to its prerecession growth path. Real GDP has historically grown about 3% per year, and major downturns have been followed by strong recoveries. Within two to three years, therefore, output is typically "back where it would have been."
In this recession, the rapid recovery phase has so far been absent; real GDP is still well below where one would have predicted pre-2008, and with average growth under 3% since the recession ended, the gap grows larger every quarter.
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