What Bittman Said
by tristero
On a day when far more serious news should be rightly commanding our attention – I’m talking about the increasingly ghastly descent of post-Bush Iraq into a Hobbesian nightmarish state, not the comical defeat of a nasty lunatic congressman by someone even nastier and more lunatic – Mark Bittman published a nearly perfect column on food issues. Don’t miss it.
Wrong Question
by tristero
Dear Will Bunch,
You ask: America: What the Hell is Wrong with Us? It’s a good question, but has nothing whatsoever to do with what you discuss, namely the right-wing manufactured non-controversy over the return of an American POW.
So don’t blame me or my pals for this shit, Will, not for a second. This is not an American problem. This is a problem with a very specific group of Americans. The real question should be:
Republicans, what the fuck is the matter with you?
Love,
t
by tristero
Alessandra Stanley in the New York Times:
I miss Barbara Walters already.
Brian Williams of NBC News did a good job of letting Edward J. Snowden say what he wanted to say. Someone a little nosier would surely have pressed the exiled National Security Agency leaker on what he held back.
Is he being followed? Where does he live? Is he alone? Is he learning Russian? Who pays his bills, and do Russian women consider him a catch?
You gotta be fucking kidding me.
But wait, maybe what she wrote really is high snark ‘n sarcasm. Let’s read on:
Mr. Snowden spoke lucidly, without remorse or emotion, expressing himself politely and calmly, without an “um” or a “like.” He was so fluent it almost seemed acquired – like Eliza Doolittle, of whom Zoltan Karpathy said in “My Fair Lady, “Her English is too good, he said/which clearly indicates that she is foreign.”
There was a tinge of superiority to his tone, telling Mr. Williams when his questions were “fair” and answering others as impersonally as possible. At the end, Mr. Williams finally addressed Mr. Snowden’s private life, asking what it was like to move from Hawaii to Moscow. “You know, it’s — it is — a major cultural gap,” Mr. Snowden said coolly, flicking his hand like a wine connoisseur evaluating a vintage. “ And it requires adjustment…”
He nevertheless was a far better ambassador for himself than Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who published his secrets and is a frequent spokesman for Mr. Snowden’s cause on television, where he mostly comes across as smug and unreasonable. Mr. Snowden, a high school dropout and a fugitive living in an authoritarian country, seems much more pleasant and even-keeled.
You gotta be fucking kidding me. My Fair Lady? Let’s take this real slow:
Snowden is not a celebrity – unless he really is Miley Cyrus, which I’ll go out on a limb here and say I think is pretty unlikely. Nor aside from his treatment at the hands of his government should Snowden be of much interest (except to family and friends) when compared to the incredible documents he revealed. Ditto Greenwald.
The NSA – that’s an incredible story. Let’s not forget it.
.
Dear George Packer
by tristero
First of all, get an editor, for crissakes. Too long by half.
Secondly, Snowden ain’t the story, never will be. NSA – that’s the story.
Third, Greenwald ain’t the story, never will be. NSA – that’s the story.
Finally, I dislike libertarianism as much as you do. But Snowden’s politics doesn’t change the story. Which in case you haven’t heard is the NSA – that’s the story.
Hope I was helpful.
Love,
tristero
Update by digby (sorry tristero — 2 days in a row!)
More on Packer by Henry Farrell
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by tristero
Eric Cline, professor of classics and anthropology at George Washington University:
THIS month, a report issued by a prominent military advisory board concluded that climate change posed a serious threat to America’s national security.
The authors, 16 retired high-ranking officers, warned that droughts, rising seas and extreme weather events, among other environmental threats, were already causing global “instability and conflict.”
But Senator James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee and a stalwart believer that global warming is a “hoax,” dismissed the report as a publicity stunt.
Perhaps the senator needs a history lesson…
Nope. Inhofe needs to be defeated, is all.
Very interesting article, aside from his gratuitously elevating Inhofe to the status of the educable. Well worth reading.
Personality
by tristero
Michael Kinsley reviewing Glenn Greenwald’s book:
It’s a great yarn, which might be more entertaining if Greenwald himself didn’t come across as so unpleasant. Maybe he’s charming and generous in real life. But in “No Place to Hide,” Greenwald seems like a self-righteous sourpuss….
Good to know that Michael Kinsley spends his time in the review on such an essential issue as Greenwald’s likability. Apparently, Glenn doesn’t quite match up to Michael’s Cary Grant savoir faire.
Me, I’d have a drink with Greenwald any day of the week. And Glenn? I’m buying.
Update by digby:
If you haven’t seen the NY Times public editor, Margaret Sullivan’s response to Kinsley it’s well worth reading.
At Least They’re Sincere and Open
by tristero
Nick Lemann reviewing a book about the Koch brothers:
[The author Daniel Schulman] grants Charles and David two key concessions: They have sincere political views that go beyond being just a cover for their companies’ interest in lower taxes and fewer regulations, and many of their political activities have been right out in the open, rather than lurking in the shadows.
Well yes. And while we’re at it, let’s grant that Henry Ford really wasn’t so bad, at least he was sincere in his anti-semitism and he surely never tried to hide it. And y’know let’s also cut old Roger Taney some slack, too: heck, at least he was both sincere and open about his racism in the Dred Scott decision.
We can play this game all day. The bottom line: sincere and openly held malicious beliefs are still malicious. Sincerity and openness are for all intents and purposes virtue-less when employed in a bad cause and Schulman, assuming he does grant them these “key concessions” in his book, is quite mistaken to do so.
As for Nick’s conclusion:
If Schulman winds up denying his readers the satisfaction of believing that if only two malign figures can somehow be beaten back, American conservatism would be crippled, that’s probably a good thing. Even the Tea Party movement is not entirely dependent on intravenous feeding from the Kochs or that other favorite liberal villain, Fox News.
As Maxwell Smart might say, it’s the old The Situation Is More Nuanced Than You Liberal Naifs Believe It Is trick.
Actually it’s not. Without the moolah flowing from the Kochs or the loon whisperers at Fox News, there’d still be too much funding and exposure of rightwing extremists but there would be a lot less of it. And yes, I would be satisfied that things were flowing in a good direction if the Kochs and Fox were “beaten back.”
Don’t underestimate them, Nick. These are not good people. And by the way, given they don’t openly admit their racism like their daddy did, nor permit detailed examination of their businesses, they are neither sincere nor open.
.
Quote of the Day
by tristero
You can oppose the death penalty and still see the merit in making executions more humane.
Actually, no, you can’t.
by tristero
My friend Doug Smith, one of the founders of Econ4, sent me a link to a fascinating proposal to establish a maximum wage for employees of any company that wants to do business in Rhode Island:
The Rhode Island Senate’s Finance Committee is considering Senate Bill 2796….
Section 37-2-81 empowers and directs the head of the department of administration to establish rules and regulations that give priority in contract and/or subcontract awards to business enterprises whose best-paid executive receives compensation and/or salary equal to thirty-two times or less than the compensation and/or salary paid to its lowest-paid full-time employee.
A great idea, and if you live in Rhode Island, write your state senators and voice support.
by tristero
Now here’s a great idea, by my friend, Doug Smith, writing in the NY Times:
PRESIDENT OBAMA’S planned directive to increase the minimum wage for employees of federal government contractors has prompted the usual tiresome reactions in Washington and the media echo chamber we euphemistically call “debate.”
But the national discourse continues to sleepwalk past this out-of-the-box question: How about setting a maximum wage for government officials and top-paid government contractors?
Here’s how it would work:
If the minimum wage for employees of federal contractors rose to $10.10 an hour from $7.25, the president’s $400,000 salary would move to 20 times that of the lowest-paid worker, from roughly 27 times.
We should then enact laws to ensure that top-paid federal executives — and, critically, top-paid executives of companies that do business with the federal government — are never paid in excess of 20-to-1 (or perhaps even 27-to-1) compared with their lowest-paid workers.
I’m in.