Cup O' Joel

Test

2009-06-30T13:20:00.002-05:00

Noise

2009-02-15T21:23:00.003-06:00

I'm taking a Twitter break. I'm attempting the same with Facebook, but that will probably prove trickier.

It's not that I'm against social media or the Internet or modernity, really. I couldn't make a living if I was. (And, uh, it'd be pretty silly for me to be blogging about it if I was.) But every now and again I find that my brain is filling up with too much noise: Too many RSS feeds. Too many Tweets. Too many status updates. Too much stuff.

Maybe I'm getting old. Maybe there's enough real noise in our real life -- the boy is on a teething bender -- that electronic noise is just a step too far. Or maybe I miss concentration. Contemplation.

Or maybe I'm getting old.

Baby Wars

2009-02-15T13:59:00.002-06:00

We're out for a walk with Shmoog when we cross paths with a woman and her mother pushing a baby carriage. "Baby wars!" the older woman says brightly.

"My baby will fuck your baby up," I growl back at her.

OK. Not really. But that would've been fun to do.

Tonight: Teething

2009-02-14T00:45:00.005-06:00

After five months, we occasionally start to fool ourselves that we've got this parenting thing down. The boy had started lobbying for post-midnight bedtimes, but we worked him hard this week, quieting down sometime between 10 and 11 p.m. for three nights in a row. We felt victorious. We felt smart.

Then there's tonight.

It's 1:45 a.m. Jocelyn is rocking the boy now in his room, singing "Hush Little Baby" for what she swears is -- no exaggeration -- the 100th time today. She is tired. She has earplugs in to dampen his occasional screams because -- this is key -- about 15 minutes ago he started shrieking. We think it was because of teething pain. The Orajel certainly seems to have calmed him down since. But it's tiring and it's certainly not easy. (And it's far more tiring and difficult for Jo, who after all has been with him here all day long.)

Plus, the cat has her own problems, breaking forth with her own yowl -- or sets of yowls -- every five to 10 minutes or so.

Test

2008-11-11T12:48:00.001-06:00

I mean it this time

2008-10-15T14:54:00.002-05:00

Sorry that I haven't been posting here much lately, but I think you'll understand why.

My blog home is moving -- again, this time to Philadelphia Weekly. Thanks to all of you who have followed me from spot to spot during the last year. This should be the final move for quite awhile.

I'll hang on to this Blogspot site just in case, you know, I have to move on again. But I hope that's not the case for a very long time.

Sarah Palin and identity politics

2008-10-02T13:55:00.000-05:00

I was in the shower this morning -- where I do some of my best thinking, probably to the detriment of my actual hygene -- when I had a moment of insight: If John McCain loses this election, you can expect certain conservatives to eventually use it as a reason to condemn affirmative action, "identity politics" and any other effort to help women or minorities get ahead.

Follow me here. I think we can largely agree that McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate mostly for reasons of identity politics: McCain wanted to stick a thumb in Barack Obama's eye -- and maybe pick up a few Hillary Clinton fans along the way -- by picking a female running mate. Sarah Palin had the social conservative bona fides, so -- presto! -- she was picked. And Republicans were gleeful about turning the ol' identity game (one that they'd long decried) back on Democrats.

And then Palin started visiting the media. And in nearly every case -- with the exceptions of visits to friendly "journalists" such as Hugh Hewitt or Sean Hannity -- proved herself woefully unprepared for the job she sought. It's hard to imagine a scenario unfolding in the next few weeks in which she undoes that impression, or the damage it has created.

So if McCain loses, I think we can expect to see my predicted attacks. "See?" we'll hear -- I'm guessing at The Corner. "Promoting somebody just because they're a woman or black only does damage."

And to an extent, I suppose, they'll be right.

Conservatives would contend otherwise, but I've always thought that (for example) affirmative action -- at its best -- creates a more meritocratic society. In education, it provides opportunities for people to obtain qualifications that would've been difficult for them to otherwise obtain. And in the professional world (in which your ability to do a job is only part of the reason you get hired; often, it also includes who you know), it provided opportunities to break through the network of "good ol' boy" defenses to allow qualified people -- people from outside the GOB network -- and chance to penetrate the inner circle.

Has this system been perfect? Of course not. And those imperfections have allowed conservative critics to paint affirmative action, identity politics, etc., as the precise opposite of a meritocratic system. And because they saw those efforts in caricatured terms -- "Give a minority a job, regardless of other qualifications." -- they stumbled badly when they used Palin to try to play the game.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are both the fruits of a Democratic Party system that has made real efforts to reach out to women and minorities. In other words: Yes, they got to where they were in large part because they were a woman and black, respectively. And yet: I think it's established by now that -- whatever you think of their politics -- they're both familiar with the issues facing this country and the political landscape it's played on. They're qualified for the job, in other words.

Sarah Palin isn't. But that will be ignored in the campaign aftermath -- assuming, again, that McCain loses. There's a joke that Republicans have proved the inefficacy of government by their own ineptness at running it. I think we're about to see a similar dynamic with identity issues.

Sorry

2008-10-01T09:07:00.001-05:00

Regular blogging should resume shortly.

Headlines that make you despair of successful parenting

2008-09-23T10:14:00.001-05:00

"Girl's hand reattached after jump rope accident"

Damn straight

2008-09-22T04:51:00.002-05:00

Death of a "Superfan"

2008-09-21T11:43:00.004-05:00

The New York Times gives "relatively significant person" obituary treatment today to Joan Winston, who died Sept. 11 at age 77.

Who is she? Only one of the most important "Star Trek" fans ever:

Ms. Winston earned the love of “Star Trek” fans everywhere by helping to orchestrate an afterlife for the series beyond the television set — initially by organizing conventions and persuading stars from the series to attend, later by appearing at the conventions as a star in her own right, a superfan whose undying devotion inspired awe among “Star Trek” devotees.

That's right. Before Joan Winston, people used to watch television shows -- and move on with their lives. After Winston, people were increasingly able to create lives that centered around their favorite entertainments. "Star Trek" is the most notorious example of this, but far from the only one. (See also: D&D, Society for Creative Anachronism, any form of cosplay, etc.)

Winston didn't really create this phenomenon -- she was just one of the catalysts. But it's telling that our culture has come to this: You get a NYT obituary for really liking a TV show. You get a NYT obituary for really liking a TV show. Hey, I like "Star Trek" too; same for "Lost" and "Battlestar Galactica." Where's my 1,500 words in the Times?

Even the Amish are using green sources of energy

2008-09-20T09:50:00.003-05:00

Fascinating story in today's Philadelphia Inquirer. Apparently the Amish are embracing solar power:

The Amish shun connections to the outside, including the power grid, to run their buggy batteries, electric fences, refrigerators and sewing machines. But within their religious framework, using the sun to charge their batteries is acceptable, at least for some purposes, says Donald Kraybill, an expert on the Amish at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College.

"It's like tapping into God's grid instead," he said.
The Amish fear becoming too materialistic and worldly, which is why they do not use solar to power batteries for iPods, TVs, laptops but do use them for water pumps, washing machines, and battery-powered floor lamps.

"I could run a Game Boy on the same power I run the refrigerator," solar vendor Beiler explained. "But it's hard to maintain your culture if you have a TV. Then your kids are worshipping the latest rock star. Eventually, it would erode our culture and ultimately destroy it."

This probably doesn't prove much, if anything, about the utility of solar power -- the Amish don't really have an oil-addicted culture to retrofit. But it's interesting, nonetheless.

When my iGoogle "random art of the day" feature goes horribly wrong

2008-09-19T05:58:00.005-05:00

What'll we call these? "Hooverville" is taken. "Bushville?"

2008-09-19T05:58:00.002-05:00

Coast to coast, tent cities rising

— A few tents cropped up hard by the rail-road tracks, pitched by menleft with nowhere to go oncethe emergency winter shelterclosed for the summer. Then others appeared —people who had ...read more...

My last David Foster Wallace post (for now)

2008-09-18T18:42:00.003-05:00

I do not often weep for the deaths of major cultural figures, or at articles from The Onion, but I did tonight. (Yes, I'm a sap.)

A friend sent me this article: "NASCAR Cancels Remainder Of Season Following David Foster Wallace's Death." As is often the case with The Onion, it's both brilliantly funny and brilliant.

It was the last paragraph that brought me to tears:

"Racing and literature are both huge parts of American life, and I don't think David Foster Wallace would want me to make too much of that, or to pretend that it's any sort of equitable balance," Helton added. "That would be grotesque. But the truth is that whatever cultural deity, entity, energy, or random social flux produced stock car racing also produced the works of David Foster Wallace. And just look them. Look at that."

It's a magnificent world. It's a magnificent country. And though he couldn't feel it at the end, DFW was part of what makes it all magnificent.

Barack Obama is a politician

2008-09-18T12:58:00.000-05:00

Our friend Hamilton ls fond of using the word "messiah" to describe Barack Obama every time Obama gets mentioned. But I don't think Obama is a messiah. I think he's a politician -- one with the (mostly) right ideas about how to run a country, yes, but with all the foibles that implies.

The truth is, I hesitate to be described as a "Democrat" -- and, in fact, only registered as a Democrat for the first time in my voting life this year (if memory serves) -- because I like to think my allegiance is not to a party and its structures, but to a set of ideas about what's right and wrong, good and bad for our country.

One of my ideas -- and I know, I'm naive -- is that we're all on firmer ground when we deal in truth. I know: "Politics ain't beanbag." But I think that truth, facts and honesty are the foundations of a well-functioning democratic government. Which is why it pains me when campaigns take liberties.

Well: The Barack Obama campaign is taking some liberties, implying that John McCain is in league with Rush Limbaugh on an anti-immigration crusade. And, well, we all know that's not true. From my perspective, McCain (and George W. Bush) has mostly been on the side of angels on this topic. It saddens me to see the Obama campaign resort to distortions and smears.

They're all politicians. Though I'll vote for him -- I live in a swing state now! -- I don't expect Obama to save the world. And this is an example why.

It's about governance

2008-09-17T10:12:00.001-05:00

I'm not sure if it's possible to win an election these days by describing how you'd like to govern the country -- John McCain, it would seem, doesn't think so. But Barack Obama seems to. Dull? Sure. But this is the stuff the election is about:

This is the debate we need to have.

McCain and the financial crisis

2008-09-17T05:39:00.002-05:00

Ben and I will be tackling the financial crisis in this week's Scripps column. But you can be sure that the following information will make it into my half:

In 2002, McCain introduced a bill to deregulate the broadband Internet market, warning that "the potential for government interference with market forces is not limited to federal regulation." Three years earlier, McCain had joined with other Republicans to push through landmark legislation sponsored by then-Sen. Phil Gramm (Tex.), who is now an economic adviser to his campaign. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act aimed to make the country's financial institutions competitive by removing the Depression-era walls between banking, investment and insurance companies.

That bill allowed AIG to participate in the gold rush of a rapidly expanding global banking and investment market. But the legislation also helped pave the way for companies such as AIG and Lehman Brothers to become behemoths laden with bad loans and investments.

McCain now condemns the executives at those companies for pursuing the ambitions that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act made possible, saying that "in an endless quest for easy money, they dreamed up investment schemes that they themselves don't even understand.

Finding the sweet spot between appropriate regulation and over-regulation is tough, I realize. I'm not smart enough to know where that spot is. Neither, it appears, is John McCain.

Why, even though I'm fond of print, it is doomed

2008-09-17T05:19:00.002-05:00

Today's front page:

And today's business section:

Reminds me of the time I went to see a movie and the projectionist actually ran the final reel -- with the ending -- as the second reel.

Obligatory Sarah Palin post

2008-09-16T21:11:00.004-05:00

Over at The Corner, they post Laura Ingraham's takedown of her fellow conservative, David Brooks, who is insufficiently enamored of Sarah Palin. Ingraham concludes:

It is silly to criticize her at this early stage until we know a lot more about her abilities as a leader.

Um, that's kind of the problem. Isn't it?

Proof that I listened to too much Dr. Dimento as a kid

2008-09-15T10:50:00.003-05:00

Here's a song I've been singing to Tobit, during diaper changes, to the tune of "Dead Puppies."

Tobe's poopies
Tobe's poopies
Tobe's poopies aren't much fun.

Tobias poops in the hall
Tobias poops anywhere at all.
Tobe's poopies aren't much fun.

Tobias poops will only grow.
He poops high, and he poops low.
Tobe's poopies aren't much fun.

And so on. You get the idea.

What's that falling? I think it might be the sky.

2008-09-15T00:02:00.001-05:00

Sometimes there's nothing left to say

2008-09-14T20:37:00.002-05:00

Fly on the wall

2008-09-14T09:40:00.002-05:00

I guess I would have enjoyed listening to the plane flight conversation between Ben Stein and Tom Morello.

David Foster Wallace

2008-09-13T23:14:00.004-05:00

I'm sorry to hear tonight that David Foster Wallace is dead, having hanged himself at age 46.

Wallace will be most remembered for his novel, "Infinite Jest," which contained 1,000 pages of narrative and an additional 100 pages of footnotes. Like all his other writing, "Jest" couldn't just be read on its own; you needed a second bookmark, to flip back to the footnotes -- which were very important -- and a dictionary, to look up words that Wallace, and only Wallace, used in his writing.

It's been more than a decade since I read "Infinite Jest," (and yes, I read the whole thing) and while I remember it as being perhaps too precocious -- it's been a doorstop in every literary hipster's home since its publication -- some images stand out. Oddly, they're the deaths:

• A character commits suicide by cutting a hole in a microwave oven door, sticking his head through the door and starting it up. The result: Think a hotdog in the microwave. Wallace compounded the awfulness of this by having the character's son arrive home thinking something smelled good.

• Another character with a cold dies because he's been tied up in his home, the victim of a robbery, tape placed across his mouth. His sinuses already filled, he suffocates horribly on his own mucus.

Wallace's own death -- as far as we can glean -- was relatively pedestrian.

"Jest" and his other fiction was inventive and, well, daunting to the average reader. It was his reporting and other nonfiction, though, that was really stunning: Penetrating, thoughtful, incredibly detailed and, often, very funny.

The best of his reporting can be found in two books that I recommend you buy: "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again," and "Consider the Lobster." The centerpiece of that second book is a controversial essay that, well, considers whether lobsters feel pain when cooked -- and thus, whether it's ethical to eat them. One can disagree with his conclusions and still be fascinated and amazed by the thoughts displayed and how they're expressed.

He could write about cruise ships and dictionaries and tennis and, yes, pornography with amazing skill. And he sometimes turned off readers because, in his displays of virtuosity, he didn't slow down to let them catch up. In coming days, you'll likely re-read his reporting of John McCain's 2000 campaign -- a classic on par with Timothy Crouse's "Boys on the Bus" -- with a fresh and amazed eye.

It's cliché to say we've lost a singular talent, but it's true -- I can't think of anybody else who does was David Foster Wallace did, much less did it so well. Because of generational similarities, it's tempting to say that writing has lost this generation's Kurt Cobain, but that's too easy. Instead, I think of Hall of Fame tight end Kellen Winslow -- about whom I once read: "He was so much of a revolutionary that he changed the way the position was played; and when he retired, it went right back to what it had been before."

Rest in peace.