I can't believe I'm even asking that question, but the grotesque over-coverage of the Michael Jackson* story has me really wondering.
The 24 hour news channels completely lost their minds about this story. It's as if there has been no other news for the past week -- you literally couldn't find out what's going on in the world by turning on the news channels for 55 minutes out of every 60. And the network news is so bare-bones to begin with, when you start doing five-minute lead Michael Jackson stories, you're left with, what, 15 minutes for everything else -- and everything else always includes human interest and other uninformative filler.**
And the thing is, I really believe that news matters -- that an informed public is necessary for a democracy to work.
The commercial news channels are run like any other business trying to sell something -- they put out the cheapest product they can that they feel people will consume, and it's far, far cheaper to send a few crews to LA for a week than to send a lot of crews to a lot of different places for that same week. The eyeball-catching power of a major celebrity death means big returns for little investment.
So one obvious question is, who's at fault, the consumer who buys the crap or the producer who makes it? When I thought about it that way I realized you could compare it to other businesses, like, say, mortgage lending. People should definitely take responsibility for their own finances, do their homework, and not borrow money they aren't likely to be able to repay. But if experience shows that many consumers can't be trusted to do that, and lenders certainly can't be trusted to protect people from themselves, I believe that for the good of the economy as a whole, the government should build in regulations that prevent people from making terrible mistakes.
But not every industry is the same. Take food. People should be responsible for eating healthy foods. The health problems caused by bad eating habits end up putting a strain on the medical system and a financial burden on society as a whole, not to mention that it seems immoral not to save lives. But on the other hand, it seems like an unreasonable infringement on personal freedom to pass laws that forbid people from eating too many fast-food meals in a week, or to ration cake, or whatever. So in that case, the government mandates that certain information be provided to make it easier for people to make good choices, and, in the case of kids in taxpayer-funded situations (aka public school), they actually regulate the food itself. This all seems reasonable to me, too, though when I really think about it, it's hard to come up with a logical defense for treating money and food differently. I need to think about that some more.
But anyway, news. I believe that it's detrimental to a democratic society to have an uninformed population, but I don't think it's practical to issue required reading lists and subject the public to pop quizzes. But there does need to be a way to make it as easy as possible for the public to access information about politics, world events, etc. Just as the free market can't be relied upon to make healthy eating or responsible borrowing easier, experience indicates that it can't be relied upon to provide the information the public needs to remain well informed.
So -- does the government step in? My first reaction is that this is a terrible idea -- that government-provided or regulated news is the antithesis of the free flow of information in a free society. But then there's the BBC -- it's damn hard to argue with the BBC. I mean, they're not perfect, but I listen to the World Service many mornings, and I learn more in a week about what's going on around the world than I would in a year of CNN. Of course, that's not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison, because 24 hour news channels have so much time to fill that, when you tune in at a random hour, you're not necessarily getting the big picture -- and then of course there's also the fact that cable news has completely blurred the line between opinion and news, so that subjectivity colors actual reporting. One hour of World Service is designed to give you everything the editors consider to be most important at that moment in time, with an effort to present a balanced, objective story. Imperfect, certainly, but much better than the alternative. (I believe that the journalistic values of balance and objectivity, while unattainable ideals, are much better than the alternative -- the abandonment of all attempts to be objective.)
I guess I really do blame consumers for gobbling up stupid news hour after hour, but I also believe that we've reached the point where the public is completely uneducated about WHY they need to know other stuff. It's hard to recognize that you're not making informed decisions when you don't even know what information is out there. The commercial news media are failing to inform, and I don't believe the internet has provided a viable alternative because of problems like a lack of news-gathering resources, the unreliable credibility of sources, and lack of general standards.
It still really rubs me the wrong way to say that the government should tell news media what kinds of information they have to provide, let alone that the government should get into the news business itself. I may be a leftie who hates all the right-wing "government is evil" rhetoric, but I'm not crazy enough to believe the government is good at telling the truth, either. OTOH, why is news not like food or money? It's something we all need, and if we do it wrong, democratic society falls apart. The government can provide funding with a set of general outlines for the news product to be produced, but also with strict rules about not ever interfering in the reporting itself. The funding would free news gathering agencies from the commercial decisions that drive them to do 24/7 Michael Jackson coverage, but the regulatory limits would prevent the authorities from controlling the specific information produced. Wouldn't it?
Tough questions.
* Full disclosure: I think MJ was creepy and his music is well-produced, catchy pop. I think Thriller is a brilliant video, I cringe every time someone compares MJ to John Lennon, I wouldn't have left my kids alone with the guy for all the money in LA, and I think it's sad the guy never got the help he probably needed. I think it's cool that white kids liked his music, but I also think it's bizarre to laud him for breaking down racial barriers without taking note of the bizarre cosmetic surgery and the terrible message that sent.
** I'm a great defender of newspapers, but I'm not even bothering to bring them into this because a) I don't believe you can get enough people to read them, and b) they're so hard up for cash that they've all gone down the crapper anyway.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
I'm seeing a lot of excitement and enthusiasm about what's going on in Iran -- in many ways, with good reason. And also, there's a lot of excitement about the use of the Internet to disseminate information -- also, with good reason. But I'm also disturbed that I'm not hearing enough cautionary voices -- the voice of experience that says, "Just because you have protesters in the streets facing down powerful government forces does not mean there's a simple right/wrong, good/evil dichotomy going on. And just because you saw it on Twitter doesn't mean it's true."
My familiarity with Iranian politics is minimal, so on that side, I'll link to and quote a NY Times piece. But I'd also like to share some things I learned from having been eyewitness to a similar situation.
First, from the NY Times: An Insider Turned Agitator Is the Face of Iran's Opposition.
His followers have begun calling him “the Gandhi of Iran.” His image is carried aloft in the vast opposition demonstrations that have shaken Iran in recent days, his name chanted in rhyming verses that invoke Islam’s most sacred martyrs.
But he is in some ways an accidental leader, a moderate figure anointed at the last minute to represent a popular upwelling against the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He is far from being a liberal in the Western sense, and it is not yet clear how far he will be willing to go in defending the broad democratic hopes he has come to embody.
Mr. Moussavi, 67, is an insider who has moved toward opposition, and his motives for doing so remain murky. He was close to the founder of Iran’s Islamic Revolution but is at odds with the current supreme leader. Some prominent figures have rallied to his cause, including a former president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. So it is not clear how much this battle reflects a popular resistance to Mr. Ahmadinejad’s hard-line policies, and how much is about a struggle for power.
The rest of the article is well worth reading. I think we in the West need to be aware that our politicians and media tend to portray in a positive light protests and revolutions against governments we don't like, manipulating public opinion to suit our own agenda. So, for example, when it's anti-communist protesters, it's portrayed as a home-grown democratic movement, and its leader is glorified. Remember Boris Yeltsin? He didn't exactly turn out to be all he was cracked up to be. Yes, in Iran it's about a stolen election. But when Mugabe stole the Zimbabwe election, Western interests were unaffected and coverage was minimal.
But the thing that has me most concerned now is the way the informal, grassroots dissemination of information via social networking sites and other internet-based services is being uncritically lauded. Yes, it's good that the images are getting out, but I'm convinced that Americans (and possibly Europeans, I don't know) have little idea how quickly rumors and misinformation spread in that kind of environment, and how very dangerous that can be.
In 1991, I was in Bucharest, Romania when a horde of coal miners from the the Jiu Valley descended on Bucharest and rioted in the streets for nearly a week. (This was about a year and a half after the Communist Ceausescu regime fell.) I covered the story for the NY Times. The whole situation was extremely confusing. Why were the miners here? Whose bidding were they doing? The previous year, they had come to Bucharest at the call of the government of President Ion Iliescu to put down student protests, and the miners beat students brutally in the streets. This time, they were protesting against the government, presumably because promises made after the last time had gone unfulfilled.
So there I was, trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. I could report what I saw -- the tear gas, the bullets, the fires, the tanks, the angry miners -- but I was trying to understand the who and the why as well. I asked everyone -- the miners, the Romanian reporters, government officials, friends, random people in the street. And let me tell you, what an education THAT was.
In a country where everyone assumes that the government and the media do nothing but lie, and where paranoia is ratcheted up to an excruciatingly high level, people become accustomed to holding opinions and beliefs with absolutely no evidence or hard information to base them on -- because evidence and hard information are impossible to come by. Age-old prejudices are as good as facts, and disseminating lies that you KNOW are lies in order to further your own agenda is 100 percent okay, whether you're an electrician or a journalist.
So, when I asked people why the miners were rioting, I was told with absolute certainty by people from all walks of life (including Romanian journalists and officials) that the miners were either being controlled by the international conspiracy of Jews and Freemasons, or that they were protesting AGAINST the international conspiracy of Jews and Freemasons. Clearly, Jews and Freemasons were involved, because the Prime Minster of Romania, Petre Roman, was one-quarter Jewish and a Freemason. Depending on who you asked, the miners were either still doing the government's bidding as they had done the previous year (in which case they're working for the Jews and Freemasons), or they had turned against their former masters.
I was also constantly hearing complete misinformation about what was actually going on in the street. At various times, people told me with certainty that the parliament building had burned down (there had been a small fire); that dozens of people had been shot dead (two people had); that Petre Roman had fled the country (he hadn't, though he did eventually give in to pressure and step down); etc. I can only imagine how the echo chamber of the internet would have magnified that kind of misinformation.
At other times during my stay in Romania, I heard all kinds of crazy notions communicated as facts by people who you would think would have some idea about what constitutes reliable evidence. My favorite lie that I heard over and over again, including from physicians and orphanage directors, was that Romanian children were being adopted by Americans in order to harvest their organs (the proof: many adopted children were gypsies, and why else would anyone want them?).
This article, written by an American journalist who was a Fulbright Scholar in Romania at the same time I was there, rings true -- I can totally relate to being an American utterly befuddled by the Romanian mindset:
But behind the scenes—above politics and any notions of civil society—floats the fine hand of fate....Romania remains a deeply superstitious country, a place where intrigue and conspiracy are accepted as fact by everyone from unlettered peasants to elected officials.
My point is that I don't think most people in the West fully appreciate how incredibly fucked up things become in a society where people are unaccustomed to access to reliable information. We think Americans will believe anything, and that the American news media is a total joke. Yeah, American news media is on the decline, and it needs a lot of improvement, but it is still of enormous value, and our efforts should not be to replace professional journalism with any ol' blogger who wants to have his say. There's a role for that blogger, but it's NOT as a primary information source.
The media is guilty of presenting a skewed view of the world, but there are still lots of reporters on the ground working to verify information and to avoid reporting rumor as fact, and we need more of that, not less. Likewise, we need editors who hold their reporters' feet to the fire in terms of getting the story and getting it right. As consumers, we should demand more of that, not abandon traditional journalism altogether in favor of grainy videos from personal cell phones.
Going back to Iran -- I admire the people who want to choose their government and who are standing up for their rights. But just because I admire them doesn't mean I'm going to believe everything they say or assume their leader is the salvation of the Middle East. And I sure as hell am not going to rely on Twitter for my news.
But behind the scenes—above politics and any notions of civil society—floats the fine hand of fate....Romania remains a deeply superstitious country, a place where intrigue and conspiracy are accepted as fact by everyone from unlettered peasants to elected officials.
My point is that I don't think most people in the West fully appreciate how incredibly fucked up things become in a society where people are unaccustomed to access to reliable information. We think Americans will believe anything, and that the American news media is a total joke. Yeah, American news media is on the decline, and it needs a lot of improvement, but it is still of enormous value, and our efforts should not be to replace professional journalism with any ol' blogger who wants to have his say. There's a role for that blogger, but it's NOT as a primary information source.
The media is guilty of presenting a skewed view of the world, but there are still lots of reporters on the ground working to verify information and to avoid reporting rumor as fact, and we need more of that, not less. Likewise, we need editors who hold their reporters' feet to the fire in terms of getting the story and getting it right. As consumers, we should demand more of that, not abandon traditional journalism altogether in favor of grainy videos from personal cell phones.
Going back to Iran -- I admire the people who want to choose their government and who are standing up for their rights. But just because I admire them doesn't mean I'm going to believe everything they say or assume their leader is the salvation of the Middle East. And I sure as hell am not going to rely on Twitter for my news.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Wherein I gush about the Star Trek Movie
Not only did I love the Star Trek movie -- it turns out to be the perfect Mother's Day film! Who knew it was all about mothers? Well, sorta.
I absolutely loved the way they captured the characters but turned them up to 11. It was them -- the people who have been so central to my imagination for something like three and a half decades -- just more intense and complex. But the added intensity fits with the way I've been imagining them all along. You know what I mean -- the way we fill in the blanks by inferring so much from whatever characterization we see onscreen. It all somehow worked and didn't hit any sour notes for me.
I absolutely loved the way they captured the characters but turned them up to 11. It was them -- the people who have been so central to my imagination for something like three and a half decades -- just more intense and complex. But the added intensity fits with the way I've been imagining them all along. You know what I mean -- the way we fill in the blanks by inferring so much from whatever characterization we see onscreen. It all somehow worked and didn't hit any sour notes for me.
WARNING: Spoilers beyond
Kirk was true to the original, right down to the womanizing and the arrogance, but with enough real courage and intelligence to back it up so that you admire him. That was especially important to me, because Kirk has always been the person I wanted to be, and it always bothers me a little when he's ridiculed. (I am a bit miffed on behalf of Kirk's mother, who obviously put up with a lot of shit from that kid, but who never got to appear in the movie again after the opening sequence.)
Spock worked just as well, though I have to say that I kept thinking that the makeup made him look a bit like Ben Stiller. (It didn't help that they showed theNight at the Museum sequel trailer before the movie.) And I'm getting behind Spock/Uhura 100 percent, even if I did cringe just a little at the scene in the lift when she asked him to tell her what he needs. Just a wee bit over the top, that, but never mind. Hot is hot.
Uhura essentially got Enterprise character Hoshi's job description. It was always really odd that "communications officer" was a more complex, skilled job on a series set a century before TOS, but of course they were fixing the obvious lameness of Uhura's gig. Now Uhura is what she should have been from the start.
Great love for McCoy, whose pessimism balances the trio so well. Probably my major complaint about the movie is that there wasn't enough of him in it.
And, oh, Leonard Nimoy. Love. Just...love. (And wasn't it brilliant the way they aged his ears to match his face?)
As for the story, it kept rolling along just fine, and yeah, I don't really get some of it: I'm not at all sure what red matter is supposed to be, or why all those cadets ran off to serve on starships (didn't they already have crews?), or why creating a singularity within our solar system isn't a really big problem, or whether both timelines still exist and how old Spock's disappearance from the other one might affect it, or...you get the idea. But it's all good.
As for what is and what isn't canon -- I guess I'm the typical female fan who's far more concerned about continuity of character than about continuity of plot. If the characters feel wrong, no amount of accuracy in detail will salvage the thing for me; if the characters feel right, I'm content to shrug off other problems. In this case, I'm perfectly happy to roll with the alternate-reality premise, because it feels right.
And besides, they did an amazing job of incorporating all these little details that echoed the original, even if they are somewhat different: "I have been and always shall be your friend;" Sulu and his fencing; the hairstyles and miniskirts; Scotty yelling about giving it everything she's got; Pike in a wheelchair; the Kobayashi Maru; etc etc.
Also, it was wonderful sharing this movie with my sons, who loved it and now want to see more Star Trek. Sadly, my daughter wasn't interested in the least. Oh, well. IDIC. (Though I'm still hoping that her inner sci fi geek will emerge eventually...)
Oh, and we went out for a delicious Malaysian dinner after. The perfect Mother's Day.
I plan to see the movie again, by myself, no distractions. I'm going to enjoy that a lot.
Kirk was true to the original, right down to the womanizing and the arrogance, but with enough real courage and intelligence to back it up so that you admire him. That was especially important to me, because Kirk has always been the person I wanted to be, and it always bothers me a little when he's ridiculed. (I am a bit miffed on behalf of Kirk's mother, who obviously put up with a lot of shit from that kid, but who never got to appear in the movie again after the opening sequence.)
Spock worked just as well, though I have to say that I kept thinking that the makeup made him look a bit like Ben Stiller. (It didn't help that they showed theNight at the Museum sequel trailer before the movie.) And I'm getting behind Spock/Uhura 100 percent, even if I did cringe just a little at the scene in the lift when she asked him to tell her what he needs. Just a wee bit over the top, that, but never mind. Hot is hot.
Uhura essentially got Enterprise character Hoshi's job description. It was always really odd that "communications officer" was a more complex, skilled job on a series set a century before TOS, but of course they were fixing the obvious lameness of Uhura's gig. Now Uhura is what she should have been from the start.
Great love for McCoy, whose pessimism balances the trio so well. Probably my major complaint about the movie is that there wasn't enough of him in it.
And, oh, Leonard Nimoy. Love. Just...love. (And wasn't it brilliant the way they aged his ears to match his face?)
As for the story, it kept rolling along just fine, and yeah, I don't really get some of it: I'm not at all sure what red matter is supposed to be, or why all those cadets ran off to serve on starships (didn't they already have crews?), or why creating a singularity within our solar system isn't a really big problem, or whether both timelines still exist and how old Spock's disappearance from the other one might affect it, or...you get the idea. But it's all good.
As for what is and what isn't canon -- I guess I'm the typical female fan who's far more concerned about continuity of character than about continuity of plot. If the characters feel wrong, no amount of accuracy in detail will salvage the thing for me; if the characters feel right, I'm content to shrug off other problems. In this case, I'm perfectly happy to roll with the alternate-reality premise, because it feels right.
And besides, they did an amazing job of incorporating all these little details that echoed the original, even if they are somewhat different: "I have been and always shall be your friend;" Sulu and his fencing; the hairstyles and miniskirts; Scotty yelling about giving it everything she's got; Pike in a wheelchair; the Kobayashi Maru; etc etc.
Also, it was wonderful sharing this movie with my sons, who loved it and now want to see more Star Trek. Sadly, my daughter wasn't interested in the least. Oh, well. IDIC. (Though I'm still hoping that her inner sci fi geek will emerge eventually...)
Oh, and we went out for a delicious Malaysian dinner after. The perfect Mother's Day.
I plan to see the movie again, by myself, no distractions. I'm going to enjoy that a lot.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
On Madoff, the Jews, and Me
I found an essay by Joseph Epstein in Newsweek, called "Uncle Bernie and the Jews," about which I feel deeply ambivalent. It talks about the fact that Madoff bilked Jews more than any other group, and he speculates about what effect this might (or should) have on Jewish consciousness.
On the one hand, it describes very well my own visceral reaction to the rise of an ultrawealthy class of Jews emulating the WASP lifestyle they think their goyish counterparts lead -- a lifestyle of pettiness and intellectual flab, a loss of something in our culture that was valuable and great. The author brings as an illiustration the game of golf; that passage speaks loudly to me because it describes perfectly the yawning chasm between the values I was raised with by my middle-class Jewish academic parents, and a branch of my extended family that -- well, that plays a lot of golf:
There is something deeply trivial about golf that is unseemly for Jews, who have traditionally been accustomed to taking themselves seriously. Whacking away at a little ball, hoping, at the end of four hours' effort, to arrive at the finish a stroke or two fewer than the previous time one wasted a morning at this game—no, no, no, I'm sorry, but this is all wrong for Jews. Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers didn't undergo pogroms and the struggle to evade conscription in the tsar's army to come to America for their descendants to put on peach-colored pants, spiked Nike shoes and chemises Lacoste to appear on the first tee promptly at 8 a.m. A Jew should be studying, arguing, thinking, working, making money, contemplating why God has put him through so many trials. A phrase like "dogleg to the left" should never pass his lips.
And yet I find the conclusions of this essay deeply disturbing. The author seems to feel that Madoff will have done Jews a favor if they come away from the experience wiser about the pitfalls of trying to be like others around us -- that we'll realize the danger of losing our edge by fitting in too much. This is just what I was taught growing up: "The antisemites are everywhere -- the Holocaust can happen here, too. Don't ever get too comfortable." As I got older, I came to realize that I didn't like the logic of that. Just because there are those who do not accept me does not mean that I have to give up my demands for acceptance and withdraw myself to a safe distance. And just because I refuse to self-segregate and withdraw myself from society does not mean that I have to give up that which has made my people unique and has driven their achievements through the centuries.
...does it? I do believe that assimilation of any minority group into a dominant culture tends to result in the minority group replacing many of its own best attributes with most of the less-than-wonderful aspects of the larger culture -- homogeneity in the worst sense of the word, with implications of blandness and mediocrity. But is this just because I can't see the good things about the dominant culture precisely because it is dominant, the status quo, and its positive attributes are therefore not set off in contrast to anything else? Are Jews (or any other minority group) really trading down, or does it just seem that way? And is the trade really necessary at all? Can we really be the salad bowl and not the melting pot? America as salad bowl is a lovely conceit; the trouble is, I've always had a very hard time believing in it.
NB: I just googled the author and learned that he is also the author of a rather infamous homophobic essay published in 1970 titled "Homo/Hetero: The Struggle for Sexual Identity." So...hmmmm...not too surprising that I find this piece disturbing, I guess.
On the one hand, it describes very well my own visceral reaction to the rise of an ultrawealthy class of Jews emulating the WASP lifestyle they think their goyish counterparts lead -- a lifestyle of pettiness and intellectual flab, a loss of something in our culture that was valuable and great. The author brings as an illiustration the game of golf; that passage speaks loudly to me because it describes perfectly the yawning chasm between the values I was raised with by my middle-class Jewish academic parents, and a branch of my extended family that -- well, that plays a lot of golf:
There is something deeply trivial about golf that is unseemly for Jews, who have traditionally been accustomed to taking themselves seriously. Whacking away at a little ball, hoping, at the end of four hours' effort, to arrive at the finish a stroke or two fewer than the previous time one wasted a morning at this game—no, no, no, I'm sorry, but this is all wrong for Jews. Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers didn't undergo pogroms and the struggle to evade conscription in the tsar's army to come to America for their descendants to put on peach-colored pants, spiked Nike shoes and chemises Lacoste to appear on the first tee promptly at 8 a.m. A Jew should be studying, arguing, thinking, working, making money, contemplating why God has put him through so many trials. A phrase like "dogleg to the left" should never pass his lips.
And yet I find the conclusions of this essay deeply disturbing. The author seems to feel that Madoff will have done Jews a favor if they come away from the experience wiser about the pitfalls of trying to be like others around us -- that we'll realize the danger of losing our edge by fitting in too much. This is just what I was taught growing up: "The antisemites are everywhere -- the Holocaust can happen here, too. Don't ever get too comfortable." As I got older, I came to realize that I didn't like the logic of that. Just because there are those who do not accept me does not mean that I have to give up my demands for acceptance and withdraw myself to a safe distance. And just because I refuse to self-segregate and withdraw myself from society does not mean that I have to give up that which has made my people unique and has driven their achievements through the centuries.
...does it? I do believe that assimilation of any minority group into a dominant culture tends to result in the minority group replacing many of its own best attributes with most of the less-than-wonderful aspects of the larger culture -- homogeneity in the worst sense of the word, with implications of blandness and mediocrity. But is this just because I can't see the good things about the dominant culture precisely because it is dominant, the status quo, and its positive attributes are therefore not set off in contrast to anything else? Are Jews (or any other minority group) really trading down, or does it just seem that way? And is the trade really necessary at all? Can we really be the salad bowl and not the melting pot? America as salad bowl is a lovely conceit; the trouble is, I've always had a very hard time believing in it.
NB: I just googled the author and learned that he is also the author of a rather infamous homophobic essay published in 1970 titled "Homo/Hetero: The Struggle for Sexual Identity." So...hmmmm...not too surprising that I find this piece disturbing, I guess.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Would somebody please smack Rick Santelli upside the head?
Some points about Rick Santelli's rant against bailing out people who are behind on mortgage payments:
1. WARNING: IRONY AHEAD. This loudmouth pundit delivers his opinion to the cheers of a bunch of Chicago traders, and the media says he's tapped into the anger of average Americans. Do people really not realize that traders are not average Joes? All those crazy mortgage loans were made to people who couldn't afford them precisely because there was an insatiable market for mortgage-backed securities -- securities those same traders (or others like them) bought and sold and made fortunes from. It was the market's appetite for those securities that pushed banks into making ever-stupider loans, and no matter how much you try to blame the borrowers, the fact is that it's the LENDERS who are supposed to be the experts. Does anyone actually believe that banks don't expect to see a huge increase in loan defaults when they lower the bar on credit availability? Does anyone believe that banks actually expect borrowers to know their limits? Of course not! That's why banks vet you before loaning you the money -- unless of course the bank is being pressured to provide more mortgages to be bundled up into packages that can be traded as securities. But average Americans watch a bunch of traders -- TRADERS -- cheering the notion that it's all the borrowers' fault -- people with "an extra bathroom," as Santelli says -- and they think, "Yeah, those guys are speaking for me!" NO THEY'RE NOT!
It's like a doctor who prescribes a drug known to cause heart attacks in overweight, male, diabetic smokers with histories of heart problems to a patient who is an overweight, male, diabetic, smoker with a history of heart problems. When the guy has a heart attack, the doctor says, "Not my problem! He should have read the package insert!" And then the AMA blames the patient.
2. And to all those people saying Rick Santelli speaks for you: Why do you believe that poor people are lazy and stupid? "I've been paying my bills -- why should my tax money bail out people who haven't?" Because obviously all those people stopped paying their bills because they're too lazy to work or because they spent all their money on expensive sneakers and crack cocaine, while YOU, Mr. Smartass American, so wisely scrimped and saved. And we'll remind you of that when you lose your job and your health coverage, have a medical problem that runs up a pile of debt, and your home is foreclosed on.
1. WARNING: IRONY AHEAD. This loudmouth pundit delivers his opinion to the cheers of a bunch of Chicago traders, and the media says he's tapped into the anger of average Americans. Do people really not realize that traders are not average Joes? All those crazy mortgage loans were made to people who couldn't afford them precisely because there was an insatiable market for mortgage-backed securities -- securities those same traders (or others like them) bought and sold and made fortunes from. It was the market's appetite for those securities that pushed banks into making ever-stupider loans, and no matter how much you try to blame the borrowers, the fact is that it's the LENDERS who are supposed to be the experts. Does anyone actually believe that banks don't expect to see a huge increase in loan defaults when they lower the bar on credit availability? Does anyone believe that banks actually expect borrowers to know their limits? Of course not! That's why banks vet you before loaning you the money -- unless of course the bank is being pressured to provide more mortgages to be bundled up into packages that can be traded as securities. But average Americans watch a bunch of traders -- TRADERS -- cheering the notion that it's all the borrowers' fault -- people with "an extra bathroom," as Santelli says -- and they think, "Yeah, those guys are speaking for me!" NO THEY'RE NOT!
It's like a doctor who prescribes a drug known to cause heart attacks in overweight, male, diabetic smokers with histories of heart problems to a patient who is an overweight, male, diabetic, smoker with a history of heart problems. When the guy has a heart attack, the doctor says, "Not my problem! He should have read the package insert!" And then the AMA blames the patient.
2. And to all those people saying Rick Santelli speaks for you: Why do you believe that poor people are lazy and stupid? "I've been paying my bills -- why should my tax money bail out people who haven't?" Because obviously all those people stopped paying their bills because they're too lazy to work or because they spent all their money on expensive sneakers and crack cocaine, while YOU, Mr. Smartass American, so wisely scrimped and saved. And we'll remind you of that when you lose your job and your health coverage, have a medical problem that runs up a pile of debt, and your home is foreclosed on.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Is the right reaction sometimes the wrong reaction?
Saudi judge refuses to annul marriage of girl, 8
A Saudi judge recently refused to annul a marriage between an 8-year-old girl and a 47-year-old man -- a union apparently arranged by the girl's father to settle his debts -- a lawyer in the case told CNN.
This is the kind of news that elicits from me an immediate, visceral rage reaction. A second later, I'm raging about the American government and it's righteous indignation over the Taliban's refusal to permit the education of girls, while we play footsie with a wealthy oil nation that treats the institution of marriage as the most primitive form of slavery.
And of course, I'm right.
But it's possible to be wrong in being right. Right now, it's about five minutes after all that raging and ranting is done, and I'm feeling guilty. Because I know that sexism is my biggest button, and all my own righteous indignation is triggered when that button gets pushed.
At the same time on CNN.com, I find reports that a giant coal sludge spill just inundated a town in Tennessee; Zimbabwe is about to try a human rights activist for trying to overthrow Mugabe; Hamas is firing rockets at Israel again; a seemingly innocent financier committed suicide because he'd lost so much money with Madoff; the military has taken over in Guinea, one of the poorest countries in the world, following the death of the president; the Pope took a jab at gay marriage; and the Congo continues to be ravaged by violence so brutal and unending that 5 million people have died since 1998.
But that news about the little girl handed to a middle-aged man to pay off a debt -- the twisted feeling in my gut is reserved for that story. Why is that? My initial response is that it's an identification thing -- that could be me. But I know that's not true. I don't actually identify with an 8-year-old Saudi girl any more than I identify with a Zimbabwean peace activist or a French financier. I have a daughter about the same age, but the thought of her fleeing a raging battle or drinking water poisoned by coal ash is just as upsetting.
So then why?
I think the simple, plain truth is that, early in life, we each pick a cause to cling to; something that we hug close and hold dear all our lives; something that we reserve our moral outrage for. Whether the thing that twists our gut is the defiance of god's law, the rape of the environment, the scourge of poverty, the abuse of domesticated animals -- each of us has something that, at some early point in our lives, spoke to us in a way that left a permanent imprint on our brains, and forever after, THAT is the thing that draws a visceral response.
Is that a bad thing? I suspect it is, in the sense that it reflects how unreasoning we really are and how little we can be relied upon to assess need, risk, and the magnitude of tragedy with any semblance of balance and perspective. And then of course there are those of us who embrace the wrong outrages, who nurture venom toward the crime of being too dark, too irreligious, or too (insert random characteristic here). Maybe that's what evil is -- a misdirected urge we all share. And maybe if we didn't feel that way -- if we didn't elevate one evil above all others in that place in our brains where we store up our anger and our indignation -- maybe we'd actually be better off.
Or maybe we wouldn't give a shit about anything anymore. I really don't know.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
What we did
(Warning: Sentimental optimism ahead. Not for those with emotional-insulin deficiency or chronic cynicism.)
Ever since the amazing news last night that Barack Obama had won the presidential election, many of us have been repeating, “Yes we did!” But it pays to stop a moment and ask ourselves: What did we do? Because if we simply say, “We put a black man in the White House,” we will have told only a very tiny part of the story.
We chose the community organizer over the soldier.
We chose intelligence over witless platitudes.
We chose informed debate over homespun banality.
We chose articulate discourse over fevered rhetoric.
We chose calm reason over contentious quibbling.
We chose affirmation over denunciation.
We chose shared responsibility over greedy self-interest.
We chose the social contract over tribalism.
We chose unity over fragmentation.
We chose the ideal of peace over the reality of war.
We chose membership in the global community over world domination.
We chose quality of life over quantity of wealth.
We chose to be builders over hoarders.
We chose substance over form.
We chose the difficult, long road of progress over the facile dead-end of the status quo.
We chose change over stagnation.
But most importantly, we chose hope over fear.
Yes, we elected a black man president, and that is something as a nation of which we should be very proud. Yesterday’s election may be the end of that story, but it’s also the beginning of a long and complex story that has yet to be written, and which will not be completed during Barack Obama’s term.
Many are saying that too much is expected of Obama – that it will be impossible for him to deliver on all of his promises under current circumstances. And it’s true. This is far too much to put on the shoulders of one man. Which is why we need to remember what choices we made yesterday, so that we continue to make those choices again and again until we do begin to see the progress and to experience the changes we hope for. Too much for one man to shoulder, yes. But not too much for all of us to shoulder together.
Ever since the amazing news last night that Barack Obama had won the presidential election, many of us have been repeating, “Yes we did!” But it pays to stop a moment and ask ourselves: What did we do? Because if we simply say, “We put a black man in the White House,” we will have told only a very tiny part of the story.
We chose the community organizer over the soldier.
We chose intelligence over witless platitudes.
We chose informed debate over homespun banality.
We chose articulate discourse over fevered rhetoric.
We chose calm reason over contentious quibbling.
We chose affirmation over denunciation.
We chose shared responsibility over greedy self-interest.
We chose the social contract over tribalism.
We chose unity over fragmentation.
We chose the ideal of peace over the reality of war.
We chose membership in the global community over world domination.
We chose quality of life over quantity of wealth.
We chose to be builders over hoarders.
We chose substance over form.
We chose the difficult, long road of progress over the facile dead-end of the status quo.
We chose change over stagnation.
But most importantly, we chose hope over fear.
Yes, we elected a black man president, and that is something as a nation of which we should be very proud. Yesterday’s election may be the end of that story, but it’s also the beginning of a long and complex story that has yet to be written, and which will not be completed during Barack Obama’s term.
Many are saying that too much is expected of Obama – that it will be impossible for him to deliver on all of his promises under current circumstances. And it’s true. This is far too much to put on the shoulders of one man. Which is why we need to remember what choices we made yesterday, so that we continue to make those choices again and again until we do begin to see the progress and to experience the changes we hope for. Too much for one man to shoulder, yes. But not too much for all of us to shoulder together.
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