The Health Care Debate in a Nutshell

Arianna Huffington: Sunday Roundup
Thursday's health care summit could have been dubbed Talking Points-Palooza. The GOP stayed ferociously on message, with speaker after speaker calling on the president to "start over" with a "clean sheet of paper" and take a "step-by-step approach." For their part, Democrats were committed to sending the message that, as Max Baucus put it, "We're really not that far apart." That might be the case -- if Republicans were actually interested in coming to an agreement. But they're not -- as the last 14 months have made abundantly clear. No matter how many conciliatory steps Democrats take in their direction, Republicans just keep backing away. President Obama will announce his plan for moving forward this week. Let's hope he scraps his delusions of bipartisan agreement, and pushes Congressional Democrats to beef up the bill and pass it through reconciliation.

Huckleberry Finn (4)

I come to the end of my 4th and probably final reading of this classic novel. Next I am going to reread "Tom Sawyer." There will be a symposium at the Birmingham Public Library on March 20 on this novel.

It seems that many critics have a problem with the ending when Tom Sawyer shows up providentially and then finally Aunt Polly shows up at the very end to help save Jim. I have no problem with the way the book ends. After all, this is fiction, and don't we like a neat and conclusive ending?

Otherwise, how could Twain have ended it? We expect Jim to gain his freedom; how could it have come about unless Miss Watson freed him before she died and word comes from Tom & Polly with this news?

Let up, critics! The ending is fine.

Why I Don't Talk to Republicans Anymore

Jonathan Chait, my favorite political commentator from The New Republic, talks about how you can't talk to Republicans about health care. Either they're not informed, they lie, and/or all they have are their talking points which are false---for example, a "government takeover of health care." Chait's point works on all subjects with regard to Republicans, which is why I don't talk to them anymore. It's pointless so I just walk away.

From Jonathan Chait


Most of the Republicans have relied upon scripted talking points and generalized denunciations of big government and a "government takeover." Numerous Democrats in the room have explained why it's not possible to ban insurance companies from discriminating against those with preexisting conditions without also covering everybody and subsidizing those who afford it. (Short answer: people would just game the system, going without insurance until they get sick.) Obama has spoken at enormous length today about why letting insurance companies sell policies across state lines would let insurers siphon out the healthy and leave the sick behind.

John Boehner, the House Majority Leader, simply repeated the GOP talking point about scrapping the 2,000 page bill and doing the easy popular stuff: "Why can't we agree on those insurance reforms we talked about? Why can't we agree on purchasing across state lines?" It's like he wasn't even there. Does he not understand what the other side is saying? Does he not care at all? It's not that he's provided an answer to Obama's arguments that I disagree with. He's just totally unable to acknowledge or engage at any level with the arguments presented. You're debating a brick wall.

The closest thing I've seen to a substantive rebuttal from the GOP has been from Paul Ryan, the right-wing rising star. Ryan objected that the Senate health care bill does not really reduce the deficit, because it raises taxes and reduces spending over ten years, but pays out benefits over just six. If that was true, it would be a sharp rebuttal to Obama's claim of reducing the deficit. And you could certainly design a bill like that. By spreading out the savings over a long time and delaying the benefits, you'd have a bill that technically saves money over a ten year window, but starts to lose money by year ten, and to bleed more red ink after that.

But it's not true. The benefits do phase in slowly, but so do the savings. The CBO finds that the Senate bill reduces the deficit in year ten. It would reduce the deficit by more than a trillion dollars in the next ten years.

(Those few conservatives who engage with this point typically point to the fable of the mythical doc fix, to undergird their belief that the savings won't actually materialize. This myth has also been debunked on multiple levels. The "doc fix" was not intended to save a lot of money for the government, it has saved more than it was projected to save, and most Medicare cuts do stick.)

Now, Democrats did not refute Ryan's claim. The following speaker was Democratic Rep. Xavier Becerra, who failed to take the point on at all. (It was another instance of Obama letting his teammates try, unsuccessfully, to make a layup instead of grabbing the ball and dunking.)

The thing is, that kind of debunked objection is the deepest and most detailed reply I've seen from the GOP all day. The best ones have specific but misinformed views. The worst ones are like Boehner. Now, I'm sure a great many Democrats in Congress also have a pretty sketchy understanding of the issue. But this summit is showing the sheer impossibility of trying to find intellectual common ground. John Podhoretz calls Obama "startlingly condescending at moments." How can that be avoided when you're trying to have a high-level discussion with people who reply either on debunked claims at best and talk radio-level slogans at worst?

Reading and Technology

The following cute video says something about how young people and future generations view reading, information, and technology.

The Future of Reading

If this person is correct, that reading will create an elite class, then libraries will become more important than ever for people (most of us) not in the elite class (financially).


Karin SlaughterPosted: February 22, 2010 12:55
Will eBooks Create An Elite Class?

When Walker Percy won the National Book Award, he was asked why the South has so many great writers. His response was deceivingly simple: because we lost the war. While I think the south's defeat in the Civil War certainly resonated for generations, when I am asked the same question (though under decidedly less auspicious circumstances) I generally refer to something Mr. Percy probably discounted: air conditioning.

Any Southern writer of a certain age will tell you that the reason we were first drawn to reading was not a grand passion for the written word or even above-average intelligence (though to be sure we all possess both) but because the local library was the only building in town that had central air conditioning. I can clearly trace my passion for reading back to the Jonesboro, Georgia, library, where for the first time in my life I had access to what seemed like an unlimited supply of books. This was where I discovered "Encyclopedia Brown" and "Nancy Drew," "Gone With the Wind" and "Rebecca." This was where I became inspired to be a writer.

The notion of a public library is a fairly new one. Prior to the Civil War, most libraries were either privately owned or housed in universities or churches. While we can rightfully thank Andrew Carnegie for helping bring libraries to the masses, Women's clubs started over seventy-five percent of our public libraries. These ladies understood that access to the written word equals access to opportunity. If there is still an American dream, reading is one of the bootstraps by which we can all pull ourselves up.

With this in mind, I have to wonder what Mr. Carnegie and the Women's clubs would think of eBook readers. On one hand, here is a device that can put a limitless supply of books at your fingertips. On the other hand, here is a device that is so expensive that only a select few can afford it. It seems to me that with digitized books, we are taking a giant leap into the past, when access to literature was available only to those of means.

The possibility of a new "reading class" isn't that far-fetched. If the great prognosticators are to be believed, we will be looking at a completely digitized book industry within the next ten to fifteen years. Understandably, publishers and booksellers are worried about their place in this future. As for me, I am worried about my readers.

According to the latest census statistics, the more affluent the members of a household, the more likely they are to own a computer. When income, race and education come into play, the percentage of people without a computer is cut by almost half. One can assume these skewed demographics translate to eBook readers. Minimum wage still trails behind the price of most paperbacks. Do we really expect a person who has to work roughly three and a half hours a day in order to earn the price of a hardcover book to shell out the money for an electronic reader?

Of course, as with any electronic device, prices on readers are bound to drop, but at what point does the cost of a reader become negligible enough to justify its purchase? Books are not like albums, where you can simply download and enjoy your favorite chapter and ignore the rest. iPods now cost between sixty and two hundred fifty dollars, but the device revolutionized how we purchase and listen to music. I don't think many can argue that an eBook reader does the same for books--they have replaced a printed page with a digital one--but, barring the technological leap, can we honestly tell ourselves that just as many people are interested in reading books as are listening to music? Anyone with a teenager in their home can attest to that folly.

If we are in the middle of a publishing revolution, I have a few questions. Primarily, which books are we going to offer people who cannot afford readers? That seems to be the Sophie's Choice looming on the horizon. Surely, even with an eBook in every pot, there are still going to be actual paper books in the marketplace. Who wants to bet only a certain type of author will be on offer to paper book buyers? Who wants to bet that education, race, and economics will play an even larger role in deciding who has access to certain types of books?

More importantly, who is going to control access to these books? Digitization represent a boon to censors. How easy will it be for a school district or state to simply wipe out the existence of a book they deem too provocative? Can you imagine what would happen to classics such as "Huck Finn" and "The Catcher in the Rye" if eradicating them from existence was as easy as deleting a file? What is going to happen to these works if we no longer have them on our shelves, in our closets, hidden under our beds? What sort of chasm will be opened up by this Brave New World of digital publishing?

As much as we would like to deny it, reading is not vital to human survival. We won't die if we stop reading. The earth will not stop spinning if publishers fall. Reading is exercise for our brains in the guise of pleasure. Books give us insight into other people, other cultures. They make us laugh. They make us think. If they are really good, they make us believe that we are better for having read them. You don't read a book--you experience it. Every story opens up a new world. My only worry is that I'm not sure how much longer a lot of people are going to be able to afford the price of admission.

The Bankruptcy Boys by Paul Krugman

Here it is in one place. Dr. Krugman lays out the Republican plan plain and simple. Postpone action until the fiscal crisis explodes. Then abolish Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. This is chilling.




__________________________________________________________________

For readers who don’t know what I’m talking about: ever since Reagan, the G.O.P. has been run by people who want a much smaller government. In the famous words of the activist Grover Norquist, conservatives want to get the government “down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”

But there has always been a political problem with this agenda. Voters may say that they oppose big government, but the programs that actually dominate federal spending — Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — are very popular. So how can the public be persuaded to accept large spending cuts?

The conservative answer, which evolved in the late 1970s, would be dubbed “starving the beast” during the Reagan years. The idea — propounded by many members of the conservative intelligentsia, from Alan Greenspan to Irving Kristol — was basically that sympathetic politicians should engage in a game of bait and switch. Rather than proposing unpopular spending cuts, Republicans would push through popular tax cuts, with the deliberate intention of worsening the government’s fiscal position. Spending cuts could then be sold as a necessity rather than a choice, the only way to eliminate an unsustainable budget deficit.

And the deficit came. True, more than half of this year’s budget deficit is the result of the Great Recession, which has both depressed revenues and required a temporary surge in spending to contain the damage. But even when the crisis is over, the budget will remain deeply in the red, largely as a result of Bush-era tax cuts (and Bush-era unfunded wars). And the combination of an aging population and rising medical costs will, unless something is done, lead to explosive debt growth after 2020.

So the beast is starving, as planned. It should be time, then, for conservatives to explain which parts of the beast they want to cut. And President Obama has, in effect, invited them to do just that, by calling for a bipartisan deficit commission.

Many progressives were deeply worried by this proposal, fearing that it would turn into a kind of Trojan horse — in particular, that the commission would end up reviving the long-standing Republican goal of gutting Social Security. But they needn’t have worried: Senate Republicans overwhelmingly voted against legislation that would have created a commission with some actual power, and it is unlikely that anything meaningful will come from the much weaker commission Mr. Obama established by executive order.

Why are Republicans reluctant to sit down and talk? Because they would then be forced to put up or shut up. Since they’re adamantly opposed to reducing the deficit with tax increases, they would have to explain what spending they want to cut. And guess what? After three decades of preparing the ground for this moment, they’re still not willing to do that.

In fact, conservatives have backed away from spending cuts they themselves proposed in the past. In the 1990s, for example, Republicans in Congress tried to force through sharp cuts in Medicare. But now they have made opposition to any effort to spend Medicare funds more wisely the core of their campaign against health care reform (death panels!). And presidential hopefuls say things like this, from Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota: “I don’t think anybody’s gonna go back now and say, Let’s abolish, or reduce, Medicare and Medicaid.”

What about Social Security? Five years ago the Bush administration proposed limiting future payments to upper- and middle-income workers, in effect means-testing retirement benefits. But in December, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page denounced any such means-testing, because “middle- and upper-middle-class (i.e., G.O.P.) voters would get less than they were promised in return for a lifetime of payroll taxes.” (Hmm. Since when do conservatives openly admit that the G.O.P. is the party of the affluent?)

At this point, then, Republicans insist that the deficit must be eliminated, but they’re not willing either to raise taxes or to support cuts in any major government programs. And they’re not willing to participate in serious bipartisan discussions, either, because that might force them to explain their plan — and there isn’t any plan, except to regain power.

But there is a kind of logic to the current Republican position: in effect, the party is doubling down on starve-the-beast. Depriving the government of revenue, it turns out, wasn’t enough to push politicians into dismantling the welfare state. So now the de facto strategy is to oppose any responsible action until we are in the midst of a fiscal catastrophe. You read it here first.

About Progress

Progress might have been all right once, but it has gone on too long.

-Ogden Nash

Books Will Outlast the Screen: Revenge of the Literate

by Ed Hamilton

Posted: February 19, 2010

With the book industry virtually moribund, isn't it odd that teen literature is taking off: these are the kids who are not supposed to even be able to read, except (possibly) from a computer screen. But maybe the familiarity with computers has increased literacy (although, forget about spelling!) For after all, you do generally need to read to get the most out of the Internet. Oh sure, you can play games and watch videos, but much of the information for whatever you're interested in will inevitably be presented in print form.

But whatever the cause, at any Barnes and Noble in town you'll see cliques of teenagers browsing the young adult section, discussing the latest releases. Though I was a reader as a teen, it was always a solitary pursuit. The idea of getting a group of my friends together to hang out in the bookstore would have struck me as wildly improbable, to say the least. Beginning in the sixties and continuing until just recently, the trend has been toward decreased literacy, probably due to the ascendancy of the TV. But now the dominance of TV is being challenged by the Internet.

TV has responded by--surprise, surprise--becoming even more silly and vacuous, appealing to an even lower "common denominator" than anyone would have ever thought possible.
Isn't it at least conceivable that the proliferation of ridiculous "reality" shows that immediately alienate any thinking adult might also be alienating intelligent teenagers.

These more discerning teens will grow up--in fact they already are growing up, even as we speak. It won't be long before they tire of Stephenie Meyers-style vampire novels and look for something a bit more challenging. The book industry needs to be prepared with intelligent, entertaining books on mature subjects.

The book industry has lately seen the internet as a threat, but it may turn out to be a boon. TV was the real, longstanding threat, and now, inevitably, TVs are going to be phased out. You can already get plenty of TV shows and movies on the Internet. TV sacrificed the only unique thing it had going for it when, in a short-sighted money-grab, it switched to digital. At that point a lot of people around the country simply stopped watching, many no doubt realizing that the switch simply presaged the eventual conversion to computers. So how much longer before we trash our digital TVs? Two years? Five? Maybe somebody can sell us another conversion box in the meantime.

Even if Kindle and various devices take over a part of the book market (exposing the book industry to the same problem of piracy that plagues the music and movie industries), they have yet to duplicate the intangible "thingness", the quidity, of a book, that which makes it a unique experience. A new generation of readers seems to have discovered this; I don't see any groups of teenagers hanging out by the Nook counter.

Thus I find it an irony of the highest order that low-tech paper-and-ink books are going to be around much longer than those futuristic cathode cannons. That will the truly be the revenge of the literate, and though I must say it's been a long time coming, it will be all the sweeter for that.

Glenn Beck - King of the Right Wing Crazies

Here is the summary of an account of Glen Beck's keynote speech to the CPAC convention. Beck even outdoes Palin and Ron Paul in his incomprehensibility and craziness.

The recitation, and the whole speech, was captivating, it was a little scary, it was almost completely incomprehensible. It was, in other words, pure Glenn Beck. Watching him walk the audience through his absurd fantasies and his melodramatic bluster, you had to wonder what would have happened if he'd been on the CPAC straw poll ballot with the GOP's list of would-be presidents. All weekend long, there wasn't anyone else who held the stage with the presence -- or the craziness -- Beck did.

Huckleberry Finn (3)

"It's lovely to live on a raft."

-Huckleberry Finn (p. 97)

Shutter Island - The Movie

I enjoyed it immensely. The movie goes right along with the book. I knew the ending, but I still enjoyed it. Go see it. It's good entertainment.

One thing I like especially is that there is a clear ending. This is not one of those movies with an ambiguous ending. Everything is explained, and I like that.

The only I would criticize is that the occasional political references---the HUAC, atomic weapons, the Cold War---from 1954 are forced and largely unnecessary. The flashbacks to WW II are good.

I like it when movies stick to the book.

CD Books

Can one say that he or she read a book if he or she only listened to it on CD?

Huckleberry Finn (2)

The original plan was to stop at Cairo where the Ohio River emptys into the Mississippi and then go UP the Ohio so that Jim would be free. The canoe they could have used to go back upstream is missing. They continue south in the raft hoping to find another canoe. So they continue further South into futility for Jim. Why is this?
(I am on page 77 of my Norton Critical Edition where they first realize that they missed Cairo)

The Republicans Only Wish to Win Elections & Regain Power

by William Galston (from The New Republic online)

And that’s the issue: Will the Republican party remain beholden to the forces that Grover Norquist and The Wall Street Journal represent? Does the party just want to mobilize popular grievances in the effort to regain power, or is it willing to help govern our country and address its mounting problems? Beyond undermining campaign finance legislation, Mitch McConnell is interested in only one thing—winning elections—an outlook apparently shared by two-thirds of his colleagues. The question is whether the minority of the minority party can ever get together with the majority of the majority to find real solutions—and then level with the people about what these solutions will mean. The alternative to a new governing coalition is the intensification both of our problems and of public contempt for its elected representatives.

Huckleberry Finn

On this day, the 125th anniversary of the publication of this famous novel, I am rereading it for the fourth time. Each time I've revisited Huck, he has been a source of delight.

Sharon Davies - Rising Road

This is one of the most compelling books I have ever read. We're talking about a true story of murder in downtown Birmingham in August of 1921. A Methodist minister killed a Catholic priest, the Rector of St. Paul's Catholic Church on 3rd Avenue North. This was during a time of incredible racial and religious bigotry. I can understand the racial bigotry; it's harder to understand the anti-Catholic prejudice that was prevalent in Birmingham and in the country at large.

People honestly thought that Roman Catholics were scheming to take over the country. The Methodist minister was incensed that his daughter had become a Catholic and had married a Puerto Rican---so incensed that he murdered the marrying priest on his front porch in broad daylight.

The author is a lawyer and the account of the trial is riveting. I won't divulge the verdict, but you can guess that in Alabama in 1921 in this atmosphere it wasn't Birmingham's finest hour.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story. This is the first I've ever heard of this. It's not something Birmingham should be proud of.

Republican Lunacy

Paul Ryan's Ideology
Jonathan Chait
Senior Editor


Today's WSJ Scare QuotesLast week, I called Republican budget sorta-kinda point man Paul Ryan "crazy but honest." Today, some of the intellectual influences behind the first half of that description are coming out. TPM reports that Ryan is a big fan of Ayn Rand and "Atlas Shrugged." The Daily Beast, interviewing Ryan, reports that he was influenced by Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism."

What do those works have in common? They're written by people who don't understand liberalism and the left at all, and are thus unable to present liberal ideas in terms remotely recognizable to liberals themselves. The specific lack of understanding lies in an inability to grasp the enormous differences between American liberalism and socialism or communism, seeing them as variants on the same basic theme. The historical reality is that the architects of American liberalism saw it as a bulwark against communism, and communists and socialists in turn viewed the liberals as in implacable enemy. (Yes, you can cherry pick a few data points of commonality, but these are the exceptions rather than the rule.) The result is a tendency to see even modest efforts to sand off the roughest edges of capitalism in order to make free markets work for all Americans as the opening salvo of a vast and endless assault upon the market system.

Ryan clearly has a passion for ideas and isn't just interested in short-term positioning. It would be nice if the party had people like that who didn't also happen to be loons.

More Articles On: Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, Jonah Goldberg, Paul Ryan

All Reading is not the Same

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The Medium Matters
Nicholas Carr is the author of “The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google.” His new book, “The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains,” will be published in June.

The printed word long ago lost its position of eminence in the American library. If you go into any branch of a public or school library today, you’ll almost certainly see more people staring into Internet terminals than flipping through the pages of books.

It’s hardly a surprise, then, that some educators, librarians, and parents would begin to see books — expensive, cumbersome, distressingly low-tech — as dispensable. Once an oxymoron, the “bookless library” is becoming a reality.

But if we care about the depth of our intellectual and cultural lives, we’ll see that emptying our libraries of books is not an example of progress. It’s an example of regress.

The pages of a book shield us from the distractions that bombard us during most of our waking hours. As an informational medium, the book focuses our attention, encouraging the kind of immersion in a story or an argument that promotes deep comprehension and deep learning.

When we read from the screen of a multifunctional computing device, whether it’s a PC, a Smartphone, a Kindle, or an iPad, we sacrifice that singlemindedness. Our attention is scattered by all the distractions and interruptions that pour through our computers and digital networks. The result, a raft of psychological and neurological studies show, is cursory reading, weak comprehension and shallow learning.

We may not want to admit it, but the medium matters. When we tell ourselves that reading is the same whether done from a screen or a book, we’re kidding ourselves — and cheating our kids.

Dylan Sings at the White House

Bob Dylan performs along with various other artists at the White House for Black History Month. He has never sounded better as he does a slow and deliberate version of The Times They Are-A Changin'. Backed by a bass and a hypnotic piano, Dylan does chords on a guitar and thrills the audience. I wish he would perform this way in his concerts!
P.S. You can Google Dylan's performance.

For the Love of Books

by Arielle Ford

"I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library". -- Jorge Luis Borges

We are tactile creatures. We run our hands over furniture before we buy it. We feel the fabric of clothing before we ever consider trying it on. For many of us the same is true for the experience of buying a book. For me it starts with the smell when I first walk into a bookstore -- ahh, fresh crisp pages! Even if I can read the endorsements on a cover without taking it off the shelf, I still pick it up and I feel the texture of the cover and the pages inside. I LOVE BOOKS. I love the way they feel in my hands. I love the portability and share-ability of them.

Many of my friends are Kindle lovers but I find myself resisting getting any type of a digital reader. As a former book publicist I thought perhaps I was being a bit biased with my desire to always buy books from a bookstore. In order to get a better perspective, I recently solicited the opinions of others through social media outlets and I realized my adoration was shared among many. Can you feel the devotion in these responses?

I love having a collection of books at home that I can come back to anytime.

My bookshelf beckoned me to visit old friends again for inspiration, and to highlight what speaks to my heart.

The smell of a bookstore with a coffee shop is the most comforting smell ever!

Going to the library! The magic of being a kid and turning the pages on a colorful book, even if you're too small to read the words

I've met so many cool strangers who have walked by and said "I read that book, isn't it great?", and a great conversation started.

I love highlighting, folding back corners and reading the gems over again years later -- when they take on new meaning for me. I look at a computer screen all day and when I want to relax I want to turn pages, not scroll down.

I often buy extra copies of my favorite books when I see them at used bookstores -- this way I always have one on hand to give to someone. One of my favorite places is the library. I can't imagine a world without libraries either.

I cherish the smell and texture of the page. Even those that have been dropped in the tub!

I love to read a book then leave it on a train, or in an airport, or even in a hotel. I thank it for the journey it provided for me and then send it on its own journey to other readers.

I love books in my home -- there is something comforting about them -- old friends who made me laugh, cry, think, hope, grow. I mark pages in some and love to review my thoughts later! I love used books inscribed with love to someone or to congratulate on a milestone, it tinkers with my imagination!

I like my best friends in hardcover and they are my most valued possessions. I have a book of fairytales my Nana gave me when I was about 3. 42 years later, Nana is gone, and that book is like gold to me!

The other side of the page...

I do think a Kindle would be great on an extended trip because I'm a fast reader, and like to travel light.

There's nothing like losing yourself in a bookstore or library. That said, I received a Kindle for my birthday and it is a truly amazing device. I love it! What turned me around about the Kindle was that I found I was able to lose myself as easily in the text of a novel or non-fiction book as easily as the real thing. Borrow one and dive into a book and see if you find this is true for you. Plus, it is GREEN.

Here's hope for the best of both worlds

I remember going to movie theaters when I was very young and there were people with petitions trying to stop cable TV from coming to town because it would mean the end of movie theaters... guess what? Now we have the best of all of it... hoping the same is true for books and Kindle.

Let's all agree that when we are giving gifts this year that we BUY BOOKS at real BOOKSTORES. Every occasion is a great time for a new book or an old favorite. Birthdays, Mother's Day, baby showers -- could you imagine reading a bed-time story to a child on a digital reader?

Arielle Ford has launched the careers of many NY Times bestselling authors including Deepak Chopra, Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Neale Donald Walsch & Debbie Ford. She is a former book publicist, literary agent and the author of seven books. To learn how to get started writing a book please visit: http://www.HowToWriteMyBook.com

The Forthcoming Anniversary of the Publication of Huckleberry Finn

The 125th anniversary of the publication of this famous book is coming up February 18. Maybe it's time to reread.

Huck Finn - Still Controversial

by Steve Courtney

It happened a couple of years ago in Manchester, Connecticut, about a 16-minute drive from the rambling brick house where Mark Twain wrote Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in longhand at a small table tucked into the corner of his billiard room. A parent complained that the book was demeaning to African Americans because of its frequent use of the word "nigger," sparking a moratorium on classroom use of the classic. Meetings and hearings followed, where the value of the book and its use of the word was debated thoroughly, with plenty of bitterness and resentment on both sides.

It was not a new story for Huckleberry Finn. It has been one of the most-banned books in the United States, ever since the Concord, Mass. Public Library rejected it for its "coarse language" in 1885, the year the book was first published in the United States. But as we near the 125th anniversary of that publication on February 18, the debate, if anything, has gotten hotter. An "achingly poignant example of mistaken protest is the widespread repudiation of Huckleberry Finn, now one of the most beleaguered texts in American literature," wrote Harvard Law professor Randall Kennedy in his deeply scholarly Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word (Random House, 2002).

At The Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford, where I work, this troublesomeness is a matter of never-ending discussion and affects all our lives. We like to think we take the issue on directly -- at dozens of sessions for teachers our Education Director, Craig Hotchkiss, talks in blunt terms about how tough the word is when brought into the classroom. It's a rude word. Using it thoughtlessly would, in fact, be acting rudely toward our community, and Clemens, for all his rough edges, put a great deal of stock in good manners and decency toward his neighbors in Hartford.

The instinct is to leap to the defense of the book, which is after all completely defensible. Huck and his friend, the slave Jim -- like Clemens in his own youth -- live in a place and time where slavery is the natural order of things. No one in Huck's circle would think of referring to a black man as anything else. This authenticity is vital to the book -- it just doesn't survive censoring that word. And it sets up Huck's world, and his famous epiphany. Given the choice between going to hell (as anyone helping an escaped slave would naturally be expected to do) and helping a friend, his quiet response evokes cheers: "Well then, I'll go to hell."

And Clemens wasn't just writing about the slavery of decades past. Over the years he worked on the book, the South was regressing after the hopeful era of Reconstruction to the long night of economic slavery, lynchings and segregation for African Americans.

During the Manchester controversy, staff members from the Mark Twain House were sent over to help discuss the issue with parents and school officials. It didn't go over too well. Pointing out that Mark Twain also wrote virulently about the murderous prejudice abroad in America -- wrote, in fact, an essay called "The United States of Lyncherdom" -- didn't cut it.

One Mark Twain House guide, acting independently in his capacity as a member of the racism committee of his church, knew all about the literary and anti-racist merit of the book, but spoke at a meeting to convey the feelings of the community. After all, how could you not be protective of children when they were asked to read a book with that word in it more than 200 times?

"It's not about Huck Finn and it's not about Mark Twain," Manchester school administrator Bruce Thorndike wrote in The Hartford Courant. "It's about responding to a legitimate parent concern in a measured, sensitive and unbiased manner." Ultimately, the school district lifted the moratorium, counseling such sensitivity in its presentation.

Which is as it should be. And speaking of sensitivity, as we approach the anniversary date, how can we best observe it at the place where Clemens lived when he worked on it, late at night, seated at that table in the corner of the billiard room? The Mark Twain House has chosen to do it in two ways on Feb. 18. One is to provide dramatic readings from Huckleberry Finn performed by a local political street theater group in the mold of the famed San Francisco Mime Troupe -- the Hartford version being called The HartBeat Ensemble. And musical entertainment will be provided by an extraordinary group of performers who play frequently in the subway station beneath Grand Central in New York City, The Ebony Hillbillies. They are an uncommon breed: African American performers who play Southern string band music often considered "white."

Their leader, Henrique Prince, explains: "These songs are part of Americana, but because of the directions commercial music has pushed everyone into -- and the fact that in black communities, mainly because of the banjo, the music was maligned because of its association with Jim Crow and other unpleasant things -- the art form has been somewhat forgotten... The roots of the modern jazz and blues, including the first evidence of syncopation, can be found there."

In other words, this group is trying to move us past stereotypes to the kind of authenticity Mark Twain sought when he sat at that table in the corner, carefully choosing his wording for Huckleberry Finn. Let's hope the rest of the world will be able to follow these men one day.

The Huckleberry Finn 125th Anniversary Celebration takes place at The Mark Twain House & Museum Hartford, on Saturday, Feb. 18, at 7:30 p.m. For information and tickets call 860-280-3130.

Steve Courtney, publicist at The Mark Twain House & Museum, is the author of Joseph Hopkins Twichell, The Life and Times of Mark Twain's Closest Friend, which won the 2009 Connecticut Book Award for biography. Previously, Courtney was a journalist at the Hartford Courant for thirty years.

Palin Unqualified to Be President- Duh!

Palin Unqualified To Be President, Says Vast Majority Of America
First Posted: 02-11-10 12:27 AM | Updated: 02-11-10 01:40 AM

According to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, 71% of Americans do not feel that Palin is qualified to be President. That includes a sharp drop in Republican support, where 45% believe she is qualified compared to 66% who thought she was last fall.

Overall, 37% have a favorable view while 55% have an unfavorable view of the former Alaska Governor.

Palin has been able to count on support from the Tea Party, but the Washington Post indicates that the movement itself has split favorability and is poorly understood:

Nearly two-thirds of those polled say they know just some, very little or nothing about what the tea party movement stands for. About one in eight says they know "a great deal" about the positions of tea party groups, but the lack of information does not erase the appeal: About 45 percent of all Americans say they agree at least somewhat with tea partiers on issues, including majorities of Republicans and independents.
The movement's supporters were identified as, "overwhelmingly white, mostly conservative and generally disapproving of Obama."

If Palin intends to become a key player in Washington, she would share something in common with those already there. The poll also shows that two out of every three Americans are "dissatisfied" or "angry" at the federal government. That's the worst result for Washington in nearly 14 years.

In another revealing question, the poll found that taxpayers estimate 53% of their money is "wasted."

April & Oliver by Tess Callahan

It is entertaining, but I was not enthralled by it. The jacket promises a "surprising revelation," but what happens is neither surprising nor a revelation. Plus, it occurred too early in the story; I did not think that it could be the surprising revelation, so I kept waiting for something else, only to find that was it.

However, Callahan finely delineates the different personalities of the story. Each character is drawn very well. I think the ending is satisfying, as it leaves you wondering what happens next.

Of Palin Again: A good summary

Share Comments 61 She took great umbrage at Rahm Emanuel's use of the phrase " retards," then excused Rush Limbaugh's subsequent reference to a "retard summit" as "satire." She snarked to the Tea Partiers about President Obama's use of a teleprompter, then was caught during the Q&A sneaking peeks at her hand, where she had pathetically scribbled crib notes in the idiotic belief that no one would notice them. ("Energy," "Tax," and "Lift American Spirits" -- she was afraid she'd forget those deep thoughts?) And, of course, there was, "How's that hopey-changey stuff workin' out for ya?" which, in all my years of watching politics, is the most viscerally nauseating utterance I've ever heard. And these are just from the past week.

After a year and a half of exposure to this virulently toxic presence, the question on the table is: In our lifetime, has there ever been a worse human being in American politics than Sarah Palin? For all the morons and criminals and bigots we've been subjected to, has there been anyone else who has combined all of the fetid qualities -- the proud ignorance, the sadistic viciousness, the shameless hypocrisy, the arrogant laziness, the congenital dishonesty, the unctuous sanctimony, the bilious resentment, and whichever others I'm forgetting for the moment -- that this morals-free harridan so relentlessly displays? (Not to mention that atonal bray with which she communicates it all.)

Talk amongst yourselves.

The Teabaggers

I've been reading lots about the so-called Teabaggers. They had a convention in Nashville last weekend where 600 hearty souls showed paying $549 a head for the privilege of hearing speakers question Obama's citizenship, rail about deficit spending without in any way suggesting how they would cut federal spending or raise taxies (God forbid!) to balance the budget, and the usual tirades about states rights and socialized medicine (what is Medicare if not socialized medicine?) And of course, there was Sarah Palin reading her notes off her hands.

Sure, there is the usual racial element in all of this. There is the usual right-wing nonsense that surfaces in this country every 10 years or so when Democrat is in the White House. Historically, there is nothing new about the Teabaggers.

However, I do think there is genuine and proper anger in this country about the bankers, the callous indifference of some politicans about the suffering going on in the heartland, and the long-term sustainability of govermental obligations. Sure, we need changes, but they won't come from these rightly in some ways angry people but completely wrong in any of their solutions.

The Politics of Budget Deficits

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: February 4, 2010

These days it’s hard to pick up a newspaper or turn on a news program without encountering stern warnings about the federal budget deficit. The deficit threatens economic recovery, we’re told; it puts American economic stability at risk; it will undermine our influence in the world. These claims generally aren’t stated as opinions, as views held by some analysts but disputed by others. Instead, they’re reported as if they were facts, plain and simple.


Yet they aren’t facts. Many economists take a much calmer view of budget deficits than anything you’ll see on TV. Nor do investors seem unduly concerned: U.S. government bonds continue to find ready buyers, even at historically low interest rates. The long-run budget outlook is problematic, but short-term deficits aren’t — and even the long-term outlook is much less frightening than the public is being led to believe.

So why the sudden ubiquity of deficit scare stories? It isn’t being driven by any actual news. It has been obvious for at least a year that the U.S. government would face an extended period of large deficits, and projections of those deficits haven’t changed much since last summer. Yet the drumbeat of dire fiscal warnings has grown vastly louder.

To me — and I’m not alone in this — the sudden outbreak of deficit hysteria brings back memories of the groupthink that took hold during the run-up to the Iraq war. Now, as then, dubious allegations, not backed by hard evidence, are being reported as if they have been established beyond a shadow of a doubt. Now, as then, much of the political and media establishments have bought into the notion that we must take drastic action quickly, even though there hasn’t been any new information to justify this sudden urgency. Now, as then, those who challenge the prevailing narrative, no matter how strong their case and no matter how solid their background, are being marginalized.

And fear-mongering on the deficit may end up doing as much harm as the fear-mongering on weapons of mass destruction.

Let’s talk for a moment about budget reality. Contrary to what you often hear, the large deficit the federal government is running right now isn’t the result of runaway spending growth. Instead, well more than half of the deficit was caused by the ongoing economic crisis, which has led to a plunge in tax receipts, required federal bailouts of financial institutions, and been met — appropriately — with temporary measures to stimulate growth and support employment.

The point is that running big deficits in the face of the worst economic slump since the 1930s is actually the right thing to do. If anything, deficits should be bigger than they are because the government should be doing more than it is to create jobs.

True, there is a longer-term budget problem. Even a full economic recovery wouldn’t balance the budget, and it probably wouldn’t even reduce the deficit to a permanently sustainable level. So once the economic crisis is past, the U.S. government will have to increase its revenue and control its costs. And in the long run there’s no way to make the budget math work unless something is done about health care costs.

But there’s no reason to panic about budget prospects for the next few years, or even for the next decade. Consider, for example, what the latest budget proposal from the Obama administration says about interest payments on federal debt; according to the projections, a decade from now they’ll have risen to 3.5 percent of G.D.P. How scary is that? It’s about the same as interest costs under the first President Bush.

Why, then, all the hysteria? The answer is politics.

The main difference between last summer, when we were mostly (and appropriately) taking deficits in stride, and the current sense of panic is that deficit fear-mongering has become a key part of Republican political strategy, doing double duty: it damages President Obama’s image even as it cripples his policy agenda. And if the hypocrisy is breathtaking — politicians who voted for budget-busting tax cuts posing as apostles of fiscal rectitude, politicians demonizing attempts to rein in Medicare costs one day (death panels!), then denouncing excessive government spending the next — well, what else is new?

The trouble, however, is that it’s apparently hard for many people to tell the difference between cynical posturing and serious economic argument. And that is having tragic consequences.

For the fact is that thanks to deficit hysteria, Washington now has its priorities all wrong: all the talk is about how to shave a few billion dollars off government spending, while there’s hardly any willingness to tackle mass unemployment. Policy is headed in the wrong direction — and millions of Americans will pay the price.

Andrew Sullivan on Palin

I was struck by this comment: Palin has the ability to make substance irrelevant and her cult following listens to her but not to what she actually says.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

The future former governor of Alaska in Sarah Palin: The Untold Story, now on magazine stands. Andrea Stone finds that Alaskans are happy to be rid of her:

Palin has "what any politician out there would kill for," said Andrew Halcro, who competed against Palin as an independent gubernatorial candidate in 2006 and is challenging U.S. Rep. Don Young in the Republican primary this year. "And that is the ability to make substance irrelevant."

Speaking of her new side job as a news-network analyst, Halcro said, "It's brilliant for Fox. She brings in a built-in audience who want to listen to Sarah Palin and not listen to what she says." It's also, he believes, an opportunity that fits her better than her old position did.

"This is her sweet spot. This is what she was always cut out to do. She's found her groove."

She's a beauty queen again! And her Fox gig is basically the equivalent of the interview segments of a pageant. Plus: she gets to rake in more moolah ... until the hole she has already dug for herself falls in on her.

Absolutely Clueless Republicans

by Paul Krugman

February 1, 2010, 4:48 pm
The Party Of “Look, You Know, I Was, Uh, Yeah”
Last week Mike Pence, the third-ranking Republican in the House, was asked what compromise he would agree to on health care. His answer, word for word, was

Well, look, you know, I was, uh, yeah, yeah, look, uh.

Today Tim Pawlenty has an article in Politico, which is a bit more articulate than that — but as Bruce Bartlett says,

he rants about the deficit without proposing any spending cuts and insisting on still more tax cuts.

Well, look, you know, he was, uh, yeah.

The moral here is that right now the GOP literally has no ideas about how the nation should actually be governed.

And the scary thing is that lack of ideas seems to be a winning platform

Synecdoche, New York

Since this blog has taken a turn toward discussing movies, let me chime in on Synecdoche, New York. I watched this a few days ago and am still thinking about it. It is a complicated movie that requires many viewings and much explication. It forges a dream reality and is solipsistic.

The basic gist is that a New York theater director gets a grant to design a new play. He gets an abandoned warehouse to stage this play and proceeds to build a life size replica of New York City. He hires a cast of thousands to play real people from his life and has them enact different episodes and experiences from his life. His hope is to better understand his life, himself, and life in general.

What makes this film fun is the dream reality. Obviously, a life size replica of New York City cannot be built inside a warehouse that is itself located in New York City. But in the film that happens. Then, because the replica is of New York City, in which there is this warehouse with the replica, the replica itself has a warehouse, inside of which is another life size replica of New York City, that then has another warehouse... and so on.

As another example, since the play recreates his own life, the theater director hires actors to recreate the staging of the play. So there are actors playing actors.

Because the theater director attempts to recreate his life, the production of the play never ends, as his life is continuing, thus meaning there is always more to be staged. He spends at least forty years creating this play.

As I continue to think about this film, what fascinates me most so far is the solipsism. The theater director is entirely consumed, as evidenced by the play, by his own perspective. He sees only his own viewpoint. I think this is how we all are. Reality does not exist; there is no reality out there to be accurately deciphered or that even can be accurately deciphered. Reality is, instead, a social construction filtered through our experiences, prejudices, emotions, and other internal censors. That different people can agree on anything is astonishing.