Sorry for the low-tech rerouting, but: 

If you reached this page because of a link to a numbered item that is no longer on my main page, you can get to it by adding "#" and the number -- e.g. "#731" -- to the end of the URL above.

The Nation has a late double review in its Dec. 6 issue of the Taylor and Lucas books on Orwell. Unfortunately the review, by a Columbia professor named Bruce Robbins, is only available to Nation subscribers. (Subscribers: your account number is on your mailing label.) It's less a review of the books than of the current tug-of-war over claims to Orwell's legacy. Robbins takes some clever swipes at Christopher Hitchens but defends Orwell from Lucas' unfair decision to blame the dead writer for the antics of his loudest living disciple. Robbins isn't breathtakingly original but he does point out the biggest mistake that both Lucas and Hitchens have been making: their refusal to consider how Orwell's anger at the colonial category of injustices might influence his present opinions.

11/29/04 9:18 p.m. (Link here)

Per Molly Ivins' November 23 column, Sen. Tom Coburn labors under the otherwise unconfirmed impression that there's an outbreak of lesbianism in southeastern Oklahoma.

Now, that, folks, is a thought: Southeastern Oklahoma suddenly filled with Volvos and Subaru Outbacks full of practical women in sensible shoes....opening bookstores and organic restaurants...defending battered wives...prosecuting slumlords...improving paramedic response times...even...gasp...founding softball leagues?

The horror, the horror....

11/25/04 3:16 p.m. (Link here)

Just out for a country walk that took us closer than wanted to an oblivious pheasant hunter. No damage done except to pheasants, but am at moment favoring the right of the people to keep and bear the rest of our bodies -- legs, heads, etc.

11/24/04 8:11 p.m. (Link here)

Spent some time off today reading most of the December Harper's magazine straight through. It's especially good. Lapham, beyond mere anger, dripping pure Swiftian wormwood; de Zengotita riffing on celebrity, mediated self-regard, and the lost ability to look up to real-life heroes; Jonathan Lethem on his childhood subway stop in Brooklyn; one of John Leonard's fancy word salads; the fact that the average adult American acquired 52 items of clothing in 2002.

Funny: The Nation takes the basic editorial position that the republic is, as always, going to hell in a handbasket -- but Harper's, especially in Lapham's own columns, projects a more urgent, more sweeping outrage because it represents a mainstream liberalism that can remember having faith in its public servants & that retains the capacity to be shocked.

BTW as a public service, Harper's has posted Ben DeMott's October issue rant on the 9/11 commission. Haven't read it myself yet but good writers have recommended it.

11/23/04 2:58 p.m. (Link here)

South of Market in San Francisco, there's a little less there there. The "Captain" died last week, reportedly of AIDS. He was a genial older man in a sparkling white captain's hat who did odd jobs at cafes and kept an eye on the block. Some people had a memorial service for him a few nights ago on his corner opposite BrainWash, and an unofficial shrine started up. Candles and some nice flowers. He was one of the last great neighborhood fresh-air inspectors. Dammit, we're running out of those.

11/20/04 3:25 p.m. (Link here)

The city of Salinas is about to close its public libraries. This unutterably sucks.

11/19/04 2:01 p.m. (Link here)

OK, finally. Kerry brushes himself off and steps up to lead the loyal opposition. I can't find a text of the speech other than the one that was mass-emailed today, but the recording of Kerry delivering it is at the link I've just given. The speech text is different from, and better than, the stuff about a health bill that's written there. The speech is good, and Kerry sounds tired but angry and ready to go back in.

...This is the beginning of a second term effort to hold the Bush administration accountable and to stand up and fight for our principles and our values. They want you to disappear; they are counting on that. I'm confident you will prove them wrong, and you will rewrite history again....

11/19/04 10:07 a.m. (Link here)

The SF Chron's Mark Morford sees much more than cuteness in the Sorryeverybody website of Americans' apologies to the world. Maybe he's on to something. I just surprised myself by getting very emotional at some of the European answers on Apologiesaccepted.

11/19/04 12:01 a.m. (Link here)

Blogger archy has more thoughtful comment on the Democrats and rural America. Worth a look.

11/18/04 11:54 p.m. (Link here)

Will wonders never cease. George W. Bush pardons six low-level felons and two Thanksgiving turkeys. I guess Alberto Gonzales didn't write the clemency memos.

11/17/04 11:54 p.m. (Link here)

Obvious statement of the day: the news from Iraq has gotten unspeakable.

Pat Oliphant explained the situation a few days ago. Not good.

...and coming back to domestic politics, I don't agree with all Orcinus says here, but it's interesting he's also talking about rural food issues as a place to start having a constructive American conversation.

11/16/04 10:37 p.m. (Link here)

Last month the NYRB got around to Tom Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas. The review is a stemwinder from Jason Epstein. As with Lapham, he's writing with foursquare solidity and righteous anger, out of the core of the liberal intellectual tradition. Some younger writers need more of that certainty. Go read it. And don't miss the zinger at the end.

11/16/04 1:10 p.m. (Link here)

When have the people of any country ever followed a foreign election with this intensity?

11/15/04 12:52 p.m. (Link here)

I've been thinking out loud in writing on a thread over at Harry's Place about food as a subject where maybe environmentalist and corporate-accountability liberals could find literal common ground with salt-of-the-earth conservatives, especially in farming-dependent Blue States. Was especially thinking about my 99-year-old Pennsylvania great-aunt-in-law who probably voted Republican but who can't understand why the nursing home doesn't serve the good local fruits and vegetables in their respective seasons. Today Ben Brumfield of Horizon has contributed a nice find from the National Review about "crunchy conservatives," the gist of the interesting part being:

I don't remember being told when I signed up for the GOP that henceforth, I was required to refuse broccoli that tastes like broccoli because rustic socialist composters think eating it is a good idea.

11/14/04 1:11 p.m. (Link here)

Via the SF Chron, here's the Canadian Skilled Worker Self-Assessment quiz. Nice to know there's a place where French language skills and university education can get you something other than sneered at.

11/14/04 11:25 a.m. (Link here)

Critical Mass comes to Chile as the Furiosos Ciclistas. Part of their effort, unexpectedly, is to raise the image of bicycling, which is stereotyped as the ride to work for people who can't afford better.

11/13/04 5:59 p.m. (Link here)

We were just out for a walk. Saw a bunch of flyers hanging from doorknobs. Wondered if another political campaign had started. Realized the flyers were takeout menus from a restaurant. Heaved sighs of relief. Finally, now, everything's not political. You'd think lots of political activity would be a sign of a healthy democracy, but there's such a thing as too much politics. I think it's Hannah Arendt who says it's an unhealthy sign when all aspects of life become political.

Well, I suppose it is political to wish everyone a nice bowl of curry and a little peace and quiet, but at least it's a nicer kind of political than we had in October.

11/13/04 11:33 a.m. (Link here)

Just when you thought it was safe to cross the pond...

(That's J's line.)

....this "Chav" argument starts up, and I wander into it over at Harry's Place, and I wander away minutes later with the bejeezus confused out of me.

It seems "Chav" is a word for a wigga-esque UK subculture involving Burberry sportswear, big gold jewelry, baseball hats, and track suits tucked into socks. But the conversation about it is sometimes about "the poor" and sometimes about a cultural fad that involves willful tackiness but no particular economic status. UK rudeness about "chavs" sounds like, on one hand, the kinds of rude things Americans say about (white) residents of trailer parks, and, on the other hand, the kinds of rude things Americans say about (black) baggy-pants rappers, and, on the third hand, the kinds of rude things American law-and-order types say about heavy-handed policing being Good For The (poor) Ghetto even when a drug interdiction team happens to break down the elderly neighbors' door by mistake. And then there's a sub-discussion about the specifically "white" nature of the supposed Chav culture, which has resonances that cause acute political itching in any American who can remember when our own national conversation took desegregation seriously. Seems like there's something in this "Chav" business that doesn't fall into any pre-made groove of the fantastically complicated UK social status tradition, so it keeps skipping from one groove to another. And I don't entirely see why, because there's a Mack the Knife/Bill Sykes feeling, at least to the tough-guy end of the stereotype, that seems entirely and even archaically English. Maybe the problem is that the "chav" culture in the first place is not authentically a culture of "poverty" or of "the working class" so much as an ironic stylization thereof, and outside critics get tied into knots by thinking of it as somehow "authentic"?

But now I see I'm getting all tangled up in quotation marks, which T.J. Clark once memorably pointed out is a sign that the language you've got is inadequate to the circumstance and it's time to think of something new to say.

Hell, don't ask me, I'm just a confused Yankette.

11/12/04 9:21 p.m. (Link here)

Finally, it all makes sense. It was hard to figure just how spiritual things could be so important to hard-headed Americans that evangelical Christian demagogues could lead them by the nose. Finally, Barbara Ehrenreich explains: it's the church social programs, stupid. Yes, it turns out the megachurches provide all the same kind caring brother's-keeper services to their parishoners that they don't want public servants to provide for the general public.

11/12/04 10:50 a.m. (Link here)

A small if broad-beamed gray beast has been staring at me on and off all morning, clearly wishing me to replace a certain bowl of Seafood Medley with some nice starchy kitten chow. Sorry, not gonna happen. Kitten chow was for the scrawny little stray who moved in here four months and three pounds ago. Ms. Megakitty is getting straight Atkins Diet.

But I mention the said beast here for a deeper purpose. She and I are concerned about the future of John Ashcroft. The man is out of the Justice Department, yet has announced no plans for decorous retirement in South America or similar. That leaves him at large in our very own U.S. of A. And we've heard tell he has a thing about calico cats being agents of the Fiend, which may or may not qualify as a foreign power, but which in any case does not sound good for cats. (Caveat: I'm writing satire here, and the cat story has been officially denied.) Worrying part is, Mr. Ashcroft now has a muchness of spare time. The existence of a heavy equipment item called a Putzmeister Katt-Kreter has meanwhile come to our attention, and in our gloomier moments we picture Mr. Ashcroft at its controls. Of course, the personal house monster of this particular household is not actually calico, tending instead to generic tiger/tabby, but if a certain former AG were to emerge as head of an activist Canine Security Corps denouncing an internal feline enemy -- well, even the non-calico might have to look to their nine lives.

Hence our fervent hope that Mr. Ashcroft will take to a peaceful retirement. Potter in his garden. Read the Good Book. Lead a smallish prayer meeting at most. Guard his bird feeder if he must. But we do wish him to please let freedom-loving Americans and their kittycats alone. Mrrrow.

11/11/04 7:34 p.m. (Link here)

About Alberto Gonzales, the nominee to replace Mr. Salad Oil as AG: we can't let him pull another Clarence Thomas and use his inspiring family story as a defense against pointed questions. The man needs to take personal responsibility for his own actions. For example, his memo trying to weasel us out of the frickingGeneva Convention.

OK, if this strikes you as a thing anyone could say on any blog, go read over at Horizon. If I've said anything original today it's over there.

11/11/04 10:20 a.m. (Link here)

Quite a WTO ruling issued today at the request of Antigua and Barbuda: it seems U.S. laws against Internet g*mbling (sorry, had to munge the word to avoid spam) turn out to violate the terms of U.S. trade agreements. Again proving, though our ruling Bible-bangers may never notice, that Moral Values are not really consistent with Free Trade.

11/10/04 9:32 a.m. (Link here)

LB at BadAttitudes has some excellent points about local control of elections, and local prosecutors' power to prosecute local election fraud. These are big reasons to be skeptical about the "vote hack" meme.

11/9/04 9:16 p.m. (Link here)

I'm trying to figure this out, but I'm not suffering from "an utter feeling of powerlessness right now." Maybe because I don't personally feel guilty: I did what I could in Pennsylvania to help protect the rights of new and minority voters, and it was my great privilege to see a lot of proud citizens walk in to exercise the franchise for the very first time. Maybe because I know those same proud voters will still be registered when it comes time for the next election. Maybe because Internet organizers of the MoveOn type had only begun learning their game when it was time for the big push, and they'll know their business better next time. Maybe because I would not have been entirely relieved by a Kerry presidency -- he was unquestioningly talking that security-and-strength talk, and hypocritically favoring a war much like the one he opposed thirty years ago, and suffering yet again from the terrible cowardly "moderation" syndrome, with its hairsplitting caution and loss of spontaneity, that seems to grab every Democrat who reaches the top of the primaries. Maybe I'm not feeling powerless because ideas like human equality are always unpopular and yet in the long run they win. Or maybe because this outcome wasn't truly a surprise, and while this administration does endanger every American civic value, its return to power is a challenge, not a disaster. It is not 1932, and if you think it is, go read up on 1932. Millions of us voted for the other fellow, and these millions of us are free and able to exercise our constitutional rights to speak, assemble, and petition for redress of grievances. I like a challenge. Don't you?

11/9/04 6:59 p.m. (Link here)

And here comes Strange de Joel to lighten the mood:

"Now I've heard everything -- 'Satisfaction' on an accordion."

11/9/04 11:50 a.m. (Link here)

From Jon Carroll in September, and still worth reading: "It seems to me that despair is a luxury item right now..."

11/8/04 11:19 a.m. (Link here)

Much debunkery going on at Horizon s'morning about that slave-states map. Not sure what I think myself, so if anyone has a fresh perspective on the matter please go over there and contribute.

Meanwhile I still dunno what to think about these claims that the vote count was unfair. Shaula Evans has a roundup of "vote hack" articles over here at BOP and so far the MSNBC fellow she cites there has it about right:

...there is a small but blood-curdling set of news stories that right now exists somewhere between the world of investigative journalism, and the world of the Reynolds Wrap Hat. And while the group’s ultimate home remains unclear - so might our election of just a week ago.

11/7/04 1:48 p.m. (Link here)

This is worth seeing at BadAttitudes: two maps suggesting a sad theory on the roots of the red-blue difference. [UPDATE: This comparison of Bush vs. Kerry states as of 2004 with slave vs. free states as of the early 1860s is also at the Blogging of the President site together with much discussion -- some of it thoughtful, some of it merely thought-provoking.]

11/6/04 6:28 p.m. (Link here)

Driving back to Massachusetts on Wednesday, I counted at least eight, maybe nine dead deer on Highways 78 and 287 alone. Couldn't help thinking of all those tired New Yorkers driving home on election night.

There must have been thousands of New Yorkers who came to Pennsylvania for election work. At Election Protection training the Monday night before Election Day, all the volunteers filled a room the size of a half basketball court and when the lawyers split off there were thirty or forty of us. Lots of serious, vigorous, picky New York lawyers, many of them women -- women from the generation that had to be twice as good to get any law job at all. Many had been through a comprehensive voter rights training at Columbia Law School. The Allentown/Bethlehem trainer muddled a little and got a steady chorus of "That's not what they told us in New York!" Two local Pennsylvania lawyers kept setting things straight. The rest of the lawyers were mostly New York, a few Southern, possibly one other from California, and then I was a Californian staying with local family.

It wasn't only New Yorkers by any means. My cousin, who doesn't do canvassing, threw a whole Sunday into voter-rights precinct walking and turned out to be a natural at it. First actual voter we met was a lady in her seventies who began by screaming that she was sick of canvassers and would call the police on us if we didn't buzz off. My cousin charmed her. We ended up chatting about elections past and incidentally doing what we were there for, which was verifying that the lady and her neighbors were ready to vote and could find their polling place. My aunt and uncle were doing Kerry work on Election Day. My uncle said there were two observers from Bosnia in the Kerry headquarters in Allentown. People threw themselves into voting and getting others to vote. I mean threw themselves into it.

Election Day itself, I was assigned to a polling place at a church in the Northampton County part of South Bethlehem. There was no unpleasantness or need for confrontation at all, but a lot of ID and registration mixups and redirections to other polling places. Lots of new voters, and lots of family members coming back multiple times bringing other relatives to vote. One lady offering to watch her neighbor's baby so she could come in. I don't know if we should have pushed some people to insist harder on a ballot, but we did at least help a lot of people to present the right ID or figure out where to vote so they could cast a real ballot, not a provisional one. Sometimes the folks in the polling place wouldn't grant provisional ballots to people with iffy registration data. That was about the worst of it.

Except that a weird thing happened, possibly a prank directed at the Election Protection project itself: around 5 p.m. an election official turned up to investigate a strange report. To one group of us volunteers, he said vaguely that he had received reports of people telling Hispanic voters to vote November 3. I was at a different entrance to the polling place with another volunteer. He came to us second. He began by testing the waters with some general questions, and apparently satisfied himself of our honest intention to help people vote, and then said an anonymous call had come in to his office claiming that someone specifically at our polling place was giving the phony advice. This was as far as I know impossible because at least four Election Protection volunteers and a lawyer from the Kerry campaign had been watching both polling place entrances, from both church parking lots, at all times since voting began that morning.

Oh, and the Democratic Party lawyer said he had heard something about canvassers on the weekend telling people to vote at a different church on a different street. Some of us with Election Protection asked several more people about the rumor but it didn't resurface. We mentioned it to the election official & he said the other church was in fact the district's former polling place. So it could have been an honest mistake. Or not.

Got back to my mother's house late Wednesday night, back aching from a slip/fall I took on a wet supermarket floor Monday, plus the long day of election work, plus the six-hour drive. Molly Ivins recommends beer and laughter as antidotes for living in Texas. Wednesday night demanded a large Scotch and a hot soak.

More generally:

I don't know what to think of this stuff circulating on the Net about the Ohio and Florida votes not being honestly counted.

I do think the anti-gay stuff was more effective than I'd predicted it would be. Americans really do still swallow hate-talk appeals. I had thought better of us.

Unfortunately I fear what we're dealing with is a version of the anti-Dreyfus playbook: setting up Nation, Church, Army and Tradition against difference, foreignness, cosmpolitanism, humanism, intellectualism, empiricism. According to Hitchens, the word "intellectual" was itself invented by the anti-Dreyfus faction in France a hundred years ago, as their idea of an insult. If you haven't heard of Alfred Dreyfus I'm not gonna bother explaining here. Go Google him. In the world we're in now, you need to know his story. Look up Galileo's while you're at it.

Not much else to say except that, as usual, "the earth is still going round the sun." Yeah, and as of the next election a whole lot of young and poor and minority voters will still be registered to vote.

11/1/04 9:18 a.m. (Link here)

Am doing nonpartisan voter rights work in Allentown, PA, and in case you're interested I am scrupulously not sharing my personal views with anyone while working as a voter rights volunteer: the purpose of the project is to support all registered voters' rights to vote for the candidates of their choice.

Yesterday out canvassing with voter rights literature in a poor downtown precinct in Allentown, meeting several other groups of volunteers in the process -- some nonpartisan, some Kerry. A fair percentage of actual residents were fed up with being harassed about the election in general, though most were surprisingly patient & some had genuine questions about polling place hours etc. The Allentown Morning Call yesterday was calling this "the battleground of the battleground." Yesterday was beautiful Indian summer weather and surprisingly warm. Today a little more overcast.

Last night at dinner my aunt & uncle in a nearby suburb got three robocalls: two from Giuliani and one from an unfamiliar organization saying something sarcastic about Senator Kerry's duck-hunting. Sign-stealing is a fact of life & political rudeness occasional though not as common as you might think. On Highway 378 there's a yard with two signs: "Kerry/Edwards" hand-lettered, and "You can steal my sign but not my vote." At ACORN they said some jerks around Pittsburgh were fraudulently "announcing," over a forged logo, that all Democrats were to vote November 3 to ease crowding at the polls. Thank heavens they're not seeing anything quite like that around Allentown, but supposedly some group was holding up signs downtown a few days ago reminding voters of the penalties for fraud.

Tomorrow should be interesting. At this point the thing I want to preserve most of all is the honesty of the process & justified public confidence therein.

[UPDATE: I forgot to mention the most important thing: most of the people we met while canvassing, in this very poor, fairly tough neighborhood of Allentown, were in fact registered voters and did in fact know where to vote.]

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