The reason I put "debate" in quotation marks is because there is very little disagreement among the Republican contenders: Pataki accepts that abortion is legal, Rand Paul does not want to build up the military the way the other candidates do, and that is about it for dissent from the party line: tax less, spend less (except for the military, where more needs to be spent), bomb the hell out of those who we think are out to get us. The candidates also don't like Hillary Clinton, who Bobby Jindal says "would take us down the road to socialism" (he didn't need to say he thought that would be a bad thing; he has been complaining about the left and socialists continuously). Ted Cruz at one point said that listening to the Democratic debate was like listening to a debate between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, though I wonder how much of the audience understood that remark.
Each candidate tried to emphasize either their experience in government ("I balanced the budget") or outside it ("I made difficult decisions"), while trying to portray themselves as tougher than any of the other candidates. Lindsey Graham did the most saber-rattling and each candidate had some voodoo economic scheme, most of which relied on dubious and disproven supply-side ideas. Everyone praised the working class, often giving their own personal histories of deprivation, but once again there was nobody to defend -- or even mention -- unions, collective bargaining being one of the most successful ways to raise wages.
Ted Cruz complained that the moderators would not let them discuss the issues. What issues? Everyone wants to be rid of Obamacare, for instance, but no one had any suggestions about how to make sure that the people who need healthcare get it. My favorite comment in the debate was from the self-styled populist Rick Santorum, who said that Obamacare was designed to drive small insurance companies out of business, demonizing large insurance companies and then insisting that that proved we need single-payer healthcare! Would that it were so. I think we started on the road to a single-payer system with Medicare and we will get there eventually, long after every other country has it.
With all the militarism in this debate I am only slightly surprised that none of the candidates suggested reinstituting the draft. That they are correctly afraid of the risk of doing this is, to me, an indication that most voters are not as fond of wars as the candidates, especially younger voters who would have to do the fighting.
The strangest question in the debate was asked of all the participants: do you think the day after the Super Bowl should be a national holiday? I did not understand that question at all, unless it was meant to suggest that everyone is hung over that day, which doesn't seem like a reason to have a holiday.
Friday, October 30, 2015
Thursday, October 15, 2015
Democratic Party Debate Oct 13,2015
I don't have too much to say about the Democratic debates. All of the candidates seem to be decent people, each one trying to emphasize at least one aspect that makes them unique: Webb with his military service, Chafee with the fact that he has never been associated with any scandal, O' Malley with his support of renewable energy, Clinton with being female (I also was annoyed by Clinton's constant references to the potential of every child's "God-given" talent. Suppose one does not believe in God?), Sanders with his anti-billionaire populism. My vote, on the issues, goes to Sanders. He is the only candidate advocating a single-payer healthcare system, free college tuition for public colleges, expanded social security and the importance of privacy. He was attacked for being a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, which is actually to his credit, and voted against the war in Iraq, i.e., he doesn't believe in useless,destructive and stupid wars. It was suggested that, as a senator from a rural state, he is not as much of a supporter of gun control as he should be but he did make an important point about that: many people who need to see mental health specialists do not do so because either they cannot afford it or their insurance will not pay for it.
I was slightly disappointed that with all the references to inequality there was no reference whatsoever to labor unions, whose shrinking size and power correlates with O'Malley's repeated statement that 70% of us are making the same or less than we were ten years ago. Nor was there any reference to art or books of any kind; Clinton repeatedly referred to experts but never identified them. Perhaps it is too much to expect busy politicians to read books or go to the opera and ballet performances, though I think they could benefit enormously by doing so.
I was slightly disappointed that with all the references to inequality there was no reference whatsoever to labor unions, whose shrinking size and power correlates with O'Malley's repeated statement that 70% of us are making the same or less than we were ten years ago. Nor was there any reference to art or books of any kind; Clinton repeatedly referred to experts but never identified them. Perhaps it is too much to expect busy politicians to read books or go to the opera and ballet performances, though I think they could benefit enormously by doing so.
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Linda Chavez on Donald Trump
As an addendum to my comments on the Republican debates I want to recommend "Donald Trump's America" by Linda Chavez in the October issue of Commentary. Chavez gives us a much-needed history lesson, pointing out:
The anti-immigrant rancor that is fueling Trump's popularity is nothing new in American history. A populist backlash has accompanied every wave of large-scale immigration, whether we are talking about German and Irish immigrants in the 19th century or Jews, Italians, Poles, and other Southern and Eastern Europeans in the early 20th century.
The same concerns were directed at earlier immigrants --crime, stealing jobs, lack of assimilation --that are now directed at today's immigrants from Latin America. One reason for the rapid assimilation of these earlier groups, especially in the second generation, is that everyone born here is an American citizen, and now Trump wants to revoke that birthright!
Trump also wants to deport all illegal immigrants, something that would take up to twenty years to accomplish and would cost more than $400 billion dollars, not to mention the havoc it would wreak with families. Trump probably does not even know that this has been tried before: during the Great Depression more than 400,000 Mexicans were deported, using tyrannical and unconstitutional methods. What we most need to do is find a pathway to citizenship or legal status for illegal immigrants, nearly two-thirds of whom have lived here for more than ten years.
The anti-immigrant rancor that is fueling Trump's popularity is nothing new in American history. A populist backlash has accompanied every wave of large-scale immigration, whether we are talking about German and Irish immigrants in the 19th century or Jews, Italians, Poles, and other Southern and Eastern Europeans in the early 20th century.
The same concerns were directed at earlier immigrants --crime, stealing jobs, lack of assimilation --that are now directed at today's immigrants from Latin America. One reason for the rapid assimilation of these earlier groups, especially in the second generation, is that everyone born here is an American citizen, and now Trump wants to revoke that birthright!
Trump also wants to deport all illegal immigrants, something that would take up to twenty years to accomplish and would cost more than $400 billion dollars, not to mention the havoc it would wreak with families. Trump probably does not even know that this has been tried before: during the Great Depression more than 400,000 Mexicans were deported, using tyrannical and unconstitutional methods. What we most need to do is find a pathway to citizenship or legal status for illegal immigrants, nearly two-thirds of whom have lived here for more than ten years.
Friday, September 18, 2015
Republican Debates Sept. 16, 2015
The Republican debate on Sept. 16 was a sorry sight of hypocrisy and demagoguery. The only candidates that showed any sense of intelligence or dignity were Rand Paul and George Pataki, staking out their libertarian and liberal Republican positions, respectively. Rand Paul stated that the invasion of Iraq made things even worse and Pataki stating that we should follow laws on which the Supreme Court has ruled. All the other candidates tried to outdo each other in how much they would beef up the military and bomb the hell out of anyone who doesn't "respect" us. At one point the question was raised about birthright -- should everyone born here be a citizen -- since few other countries allow this, but no one said we should have single-payer healthcare because everyone else does! Obamacare received much criticism but no one suggested an alternative that would help those without health insurance. (My own feeling is that we will have single-payer healthcare eventually, especially now that Medicare is generally accepted.)
Medicare was originally demonized as "socialized medicine" and it was mordantly amusing to hear Bobby Jindal rail against the Democrats because they had a "socialist" running for President, making it sound like something akin to a child molester. Most of the other candidates repeatedly referred to themselves as conservatives, with Obama and Hilary Clinton as "left-wingers." And the specter of communism was not far away, as references were made to Putin backing Syria as a way of re-establishing "the evil empire." Rick Santorum was the only one attempting to establish himself as a populist, without using that word (most of the audience would probably not know the term), supporting an increased minimum wage and concern for the working class. Scott Walker of the Progressive state of Wisconsin said he thought increasing the minimum age was not the answer, but rather more education to allow people to get better jobs. That was okay as far as it went, except that Walker had engineered a drastic reduction in the budget for the University of Wisconsin. Education was only mentioned once, with a passing reference to "the common core," otherwise it was totally absent from the debate, and of course no one even mentioned Obama's plan to make community college free. Also not mentioned, and I blame this on the CNN softball questioning, were labor unions. Many of the candidates have bragged about their union-busting successes , though the evidence strongly indicates a relationship between the decline in unions and stagnant salaries, all those suffering people living, as Marco Rubio put it, " from paycheck to paycheck." No one had any suggestions for what could be done about this.
I was also amused that most of the candidates introduced themselves by making reference to their long marriages and their children, probably an indirect attack on Trump and his multiple wives. The old Republican term "family values" was never mentioned. There was also no mention of the controversial National Endowment for the Arts and no mention of literature, music, painting, dance, etc.
It was interesting, and probably a coincidence, that PBS broadcast its documentary "Walt Disney" on the two days before the most recent debate. Neil Genzlinger mentioned, in his review in The New York Times, Disney's "staid, white-washed view of America" (the film was written by Mark Zwonitzer and directed by Sarah Colt). The Republican candidates seem to want such a world, which those of us who grew up in small towns know never existed and never will. Though Vietnam was not mentioned in the debate it seems that many people did not learn anything from that destructive war. Rand Paul gets credit for at least saying that war is a last resort, not a first, and should be declared by Congress and not the President.
Medicare was originally demonized as "socialized medicine" and it was mordantly amusing to hear Bobby Jindal rail against the Democrats because they had a "socialist" running for President, making it sound like something akin to a child molester. Most of the other candidates repeatedly referred to themselves as conservatives, with Obama and Hilary Clinton as "left-wingers." And the specter of communism was not far away, as references were made to Putin backing Syria as a way of re-establishing "the evil empire." Rick Santorum was the only one attempting to establish himself as a populist, without using that word (most of the audience would probably not know the term), supporting an increased minimum wage and concern for the working class. Scott Walker of the Progressive state of Wisconsin said he thought increasing the minimum age was not the answer, but rather more education to allow people to get better jobs. That was okay as far as it went, except that Walker had engineered a drastic reduction in the budget for the University of Wisconsin. Education was only mentioned once, with a passing reference to "the common core," otherwise it was totally absent from the debate, and of course no one even mentioned Obama's plan to make community college free. Also not mentioned, and I blame this on the CNN softball questioning, were labor unions. Many of the candidates have bragged about their union-busting successes , though the evidence strongly indicates a relationship between the decline in unions and stagnant salaries, all those suffering people living, as Marco Rubio put it, " from paycheck to paycheck." No one had any suggestions for what could be done about this.
I was also amused that most of the candidates introduced themselves by making reference to their long marriages and their children, probably an indirect attack on Trump and his multiple wives. The old Republican term "family values" was never mentioned. There was also no mention of the controversial National Endowment for the Arts and no mention of literature, music, painting, dance, etc.
It was interesting, and probably a coincidence, that PBS broadcast its documentary "Walt Disney" on the two days before the most recent debate. Neil Genzlinger mentioned, in his review in The New York Times, Disney's "staid, white-washed view of America" (the film was written by Mark Zwonitzer and directed by Sarah Colt). The Republican candidates seem to want such a world, which those of us who grew up in small towns know never existed and never will. Though Vietnam was not mentioned in the debate it seems that many people did not learn anything from that destructive war. Rand Paul gets credit for at least saying that war is a last resort, not a first, and should be declared by Congress and not the President.
Friday, August 7, 2015
August 6 2015: Republican Debates and Jon Stewart
The Republican debates were a sorry spectacle indeed. Only a couple of relatively intelligent things were said. Chris Christie outlined a proposal to change Social Security benefits and governor John Kasich of Ohio felt the need to defend taking healthcare money because it would help those who needed it. The candidates had apparently all forgotten about Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan and they all advocated building up the armed forces, sending ground troops where needed and bombing the hell out of anyone who did not "respect" us. Everyone was opposed to abortion (with the honorable exception of former governor George Pataki, who said it had been the law for 42 years and it was time to stop trying to change that), some even backpedaling on their acceptance of exceptions for rape and incest. Everybody wanted to get rid of Obamacare but no one offered an alternative. Both Rand Paul and Rick Perry gave Donald Trump a hard time because he had once supported single- payer healthcare, a position they both said was not allowed to Republicans! All the candidates said they wanted to restore the "American Dream" but none of them suggested how that could be done. The only mention of unions was by Christie and Jeb Bush, who bragged about how they had fought and defeated the teachers' unions. That one of the well-established reasons for the shrinking of the middle class is the shrinking power of unions was not even mentioned by any of the participants or the well-coifed moderators. Chris Christie, Trump, and Rand Paul competed for worst "hair."
The problem with Jon Stewart is that most of what he parodies -- politicians and media -- is already something of a parody. Are those who found him funny totally unfamiliar with Chaplin, Keaton, Preston Sturges, Lubitsch, Evelyn Waugh, Lennie Bruce? I strongly recommend the book Parodies: An Anthology from Chaucer to Beerbohm --and After. Compiled with an introduction and notes by Dwight Macdonald (1960, The Modern Library), particularly the sections "self-parodies: conscious" and "self-parodies: unconscious."
The problem with Jon Stewart is that most of what he parodies -- politicians and media -- is already something of a parody. Are those who found him funny totally unfamiliar with Chaplin, Keaton, Preston Sturges, Lubitsch, Evelyn Waugh, Lennie Bruce? I strongly recommend the book Parodies: An Anthology from Chaucer to Beerbohm --and After. Compiled with an introduction and notes by Dwight Macdonald (1960, The Modern Library), particularly the sections "self-parodies: conscious" and "self-parodies: unconscious."
Thursday, July 30, 2015
The Golden Age of Radio: June 26, 2015
Max Schmid's The Golden Age of Radio (WBAI, 99.5, 7-9 PM Sundays) this Sunday was a fund-raiser, but also had time for tributes to Peg Lynch, who died on July 24, and two important radio personalities who were born on July 26: Gracie Allen (1895) and Jean Shepard ((1921). WBAI does not have underwriters or corporate sponsors of any kind, raising money exclusively from their listeners.
Peg Lynch is sometimes credited with inventing the sitcom, by now a rather decadent format. But her show, Ethel and Albert (it ran from 1944 to 1950) was not about nothing, but rather about how important and symbolic even the smallest things can be. Schmid played a later version of the show, The Couple Next Door, from 1957, script by Lynch (she wrote all her shows) in which the car keys are lost in the snow and then when they are found there is no car: it had been brought in for repairs and no one had bothered to pick it up. As John Dunning wrote in The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio (Oxford University Press,1998), "Entire episodes could be consumed with the principles standing at the kitchen sink, talking and doing the dishes." and the humor came from the interplay of the stars, Lynch and Alan Bunce, not from glib one-liners.
Then from Schmid, came George and Gracie, from 1940, in which George Burns tries to talk Gracie out of running for President (the symbol of her "Surprise Party" was going to be a kangaroo with a baby in its pouch, the slogan "it's in the bag."). Burns and Allen had brought their vaudeville act to radio and even the addition of numerous bit players and singers did not keep the act from becoming rather tired, though Gracie, in the brilliant manner of Stepin Fetchit, used her daffy persona to deploy her underlying intelligence.
I first encountered Jean Shepherd in Playboy, which ran his amusing stories on a regular basis when I was an adolescent. Then when I came to New York for college I started to listen to his monologues on WOR, until he went off the air in 1977, coming on WBAI in the 90's to read his stories. Many of these monologues are quite dated, though they are fascinating artifacts of the 60's and 70's. But when he concentrated on stories of his childhood I find his monologues funny and moving, whether they actually happened or not (irrelevant, just as with Knausgaard's stories). This Sunday Schmid played a program from July 15, 1966, in which Shep rides for the first time on the roller-coaster called, for some reason nobody knows, "The Bobs," in River View amusement park, with a wonderful evocation of the combination of bravado and fear felt by a teen-ager.
Peg Lynch is sometimes credited with inventing the sitcom, by now a rather decadent format. But her show, Ethel and Albert (it ran from 1944 to 1950) was not about nothing, but rather about how important and symbolic even the smallest things can be. Schmid played a later version of the show, The Couple Next Door, from 1957, script by Lynch (she wrote all her shows) in which the car keys are lost in the snow and then when they are found there is no car: it had been brought in for repairs and no one had bothered to pick it up. As John Dunning wrote in The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio (Oxford University Press,1998), "Entire episodes could be consumed with the principles standing at the kitchen sink, talking and doing the dishes." and the humor came from the interplay of the stars, Lynch and Alan Bunce, not from glib one-liners.
Then from Schmid, came George and Gracie, from 1940, in which George Burns tries to talk Gracie out of running for President (the symbol of her "Surprise Party" was going to be a kangaroo with a baby in its pouch, the slogan "it's in the bag."). Burns and Allen had brought their vaudeville act to radio and even the addition of numerous bit players and singers did not keep the act from becoming rather tired, though Gracie, in the brilliant manner of Stepin Fetchit, used her daffy persona to deploy her underlying intelligence.
I first encountered Jean Shepherd in Playboy, which ran his amusing stories on a regular basis when I was an adolescent. Then when I came to New York for college I started to listen to his monologues on WOR, until he went off the air in 1977, coming on WBAI in the 90's to read his stories. Many of these monologues are quite dated, though they are fascinating artifacts of the 60's and 70's. But when he concentrated on stories of his childhood I find his monologues funny and moving, whether they actually happened or not (irrelevant, just as with Knausgaard's stories). This Sunday Schmid played a program from July 15, 1966, in which Shep rides for the first time on the roller-coaster called, for some reason nobody knows, "The Bobs," in River View amusement park, with a wonderful evocation of the combination of bravado and fear felt by a teen-ager.
Monday, July 20, 2015
Scooby-Doo
The other animated show my daughter (who will be four in September) likes is Scooby-Doo. The Boomerang channel shows two versions of this show, both from Hanna-Barbera, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! (1969-86) and What's New, Scooby Doo? (2002-2006). There is little difference between the shows except that in the later version there are cell phones and laptops and more (insipid) songs. The plots of the shows -- or should I say the plot, since they are all the same and as rigid as a Noh drama (to which there are actually similarities, including humans masquerading as ghosts) --are how a bunch of kids exposes monsters who turn out to be crooks trying to scare people off so they can cash in one way or another. When the culprit or culprits are exposed they always blame "those meddling kids." Fred, Velma, Daphne and Shaggy, with their dog Scooby-Doo always run from the monster until they figure out how to trap and expose him (or, less often, her). I think what appeals to children about this show is the helpful and intelligent dog, who can "talk" to a limited extent, and the fact that a group of kids are not too scared to solve a mystery that baffles adults. The group consists of the beatnik Shaggy, the all-American Fred, the glamorous Daphne and the nerd Velma, who is always losing her glasses. In other words, most kids can identify with one or more of these characters.
The animation in these shows, like others from Hanna-Barbera, is cheap and crummy. It is done by a process called limited animation, which means very limited and repetitious movement: a good portion of each show consists of the same shots of the lead characters running to or from something, matted against slightly changing backgrounds, Obviously most kids don't care much about the quality of the animation; my daughter loves to see which supernatural phenomenon the gang is going, in their van call The Mystery Machine, to solve. The monsters are only moderately scary and I think my daughter always feel reassured that the kids will solve the mystery and the bad guys will be exposed, i.e, there is order and justice in the world.
The animation in these shows, like others from Hanna-Barbera, is cheap and crummy. It is done by a process called limited animation, which means very limited and repetitious movement: a good portion of each show consists of the same shots of the lead characters running to or from something, matted against slightly changing backgrounds, Obviously most kids don't care much about the quality of the animation; my daughter loves to see which supernatural phenomenon the gang is going, in their van call The Mystery Machine, to solve. The monsters are only moderately scary and I think my daughter always feel reassured that the kids will solve the mystery and the bad guys will be exposed, i.e, there is order and justice in the world.
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