Marcus' World

Looting After Katrina

A few days ago, Mississippi's good ol' boy governor, Haley Barbour, promised to deal "ruthlessly" with looters in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  Yesterday Barbour compared Katrina's devastation to Hiroshima, which was unnecessarily inflammatory.  Hiroshima was an act of man, while Katrina was an act of nature.

Of course, government officials have no choice but to insist upon law and order at all times.  Even though I disagree with Barbour's language, in his shoes I would have made the same point.

Since I'm not a government official, I can say that the term "looters" is being applied too generally to the people in Louisiana and Mississippi.  Yes, some people are taking advantage of the situation and stealing anything they can find.  But many people are simply taking food and water, because they don't know when things will get back to normal.

Is Barbour really going to be ruthless with these people? Katrina has been brutal enough.

Librarianship's Darwinian Moment

Scott has a good post today about his candidacy for the Board of the Medical Library Association. The thrust of his position: In the 21st century, it's about being librarians rather than managing physical libraries.

Before reading Scott's post, I happened upon an article by Mr. Thomas Mann of the Library of Congress. Mr. Mann argues for the continued validity of old-fashioned subject catalog headings (i.e., Banks, Marcus--Establishment Liberalism, To Some Extent) even in our Google age. Mr. Mann still highly values the physical library, and finds Google to be wanting in many ways.

I can't disagree with him about Google's limitations, but Mann misses the more important point: The Web has changed everything, and we aren't going back to a time when people had to know their Library of Congress subject headings in order to find things.  Librarians must find a way to cope with this, or we will become increasingly irrelevant.

Vote Proud

Mr. Brian Ellner is one of the Democratic candidates for Manhattan Borough President; the primary is on September 13.  Because Manhattan is so Democratic, whomever wins the primary will be the next borough president.  Ellner has an impressive biography, and I am leaning toward voting for him.

One aspect of his candidacy bothers me, however.  Although the fact is downplayed on his web site, one of Ellner's central themes is that he would be the first openly gay borough president. Many of his campaign posters feature the slogan, "Vote Proud. Vote Ellner."

Is Manhattan such a backwater that a candidate must call attention to his sexual orientation? Ellner's campaign would have been revolutionary 40 years ago, and daring 30 years ago. But now, within the confines of the bluest part of a blue city, he's fighting yesterday's battles.

The obvious rejoinder: You're not gay, Marcus, so what do you know? True enough. All I can say is that I would naturally gravitate to Ellner and don't need a politically correct nudge to do so. 

Another rejoinder: Every candidate relies on their ethnic base. As a rich white Manhattanite, Ellner can't do that as easily. So he's going to his own base, the gay community.  Again, true enough, but I've never been a fan of any flavor of identity politics.  If you believe you can represent the interests of 1.5 million Manhattan residents, you should be able to do so on your own.

A Book Club Moment

The ambitious book club I'm in keeps charging along. I'm not sure how long I will be able to keep up. The latest book is Dostoevsky's The Idiot.

Last night I had the book with me as I ate dinner before watching the quirky and delightful film Reel Paradise.  The restaurant hostess saw it was Dostoevsky and said, "I love him. I'm from Russia."

That was cool, but I thought it was over as I prepared to eat and read. As I got ready to leave, my waiter asked, "What's the book about?" I said it was about a man perceived to be an idiot, because he's much nicer than everyone around him. The waiter said, "Yeah, yeah, people think he's naive. But those people can be the smartest ones," and walked off.

I should have invited him to the book club.

Street Fair Article Published

After four revisions and lots of editing, my article about New York City street fairs is the "Topic of the Day" in today's Gotham Gazette.  The Gazette is one of my favorite NYC resources.  Working with them was enjoyable, and also made me much more aware of the perseverance required to be a freelance writer. But I'll keep doing it, for the Gazette and elsewhere.

In a time of white crosses erected down the road from a delusional President, carping about street fairs feels indulgent.  I'm very lucky to be able to ponder such things.

Intelligent Design Redux

This is my week to be obsessed by the intelligent design controversy.  I thought I was done with the topic, but today I came across an excellent editorial by Richard Gallagher in the latest issue of The Scientist. I think everyone should read it.

Gallagher exhorts scientists to actively engage this debate.  This is no time for bemoaning the nation's conservative drift or its  general scientific ignorance.  Now is the time to fight, and to prove the foundations of Darwinian theory to people far removed from the laboratory. 

As Gallagher says, this is an opportunity for a "rare public examination of a set of ideas that are pretty much taken as Gospel." Preach on, brother Gallagher--secular fundamentalism is every bit as irritating as the religious variety.

Of course, engaging the unwashed masses is a lot of work. So perhaps scientists will choose to stare glumly at their petri dishes instead, as they make empty threats about moving to Canada.  Or they could follow Hendrik Hertzberg's example and write articles that will only be read by people who already agree with them.

Intelligent Design

This week the Times is running a fascinating series about how the politically savvy "intelligent design" movement is threatening the Darwinian bent of high school biology classrooms.  The earlier "creation science" movement was less savvy, because its proponents insisted that Darwin be scrapped in favor of Genesis.  Intelligent design's proponents say instead that it is only fair to give competing claims equal respect in the classroom.  In one corner, Darwin; in the other, the hypothesis that human life is too complex to have arisen by chance. It must have required an "intelligent designer," who you might know as God.

The flaw in this reasoning is clear: the two sides do not have equal scientific merit, even though President Bush said so earlier this month.

So I'm strongly among the 1/3 of Americans who side with Darwin, according to figures cited by Hendrik Hertzberg in last week's New Yorker.  But even so, I found myself greatly annoyed by Hertzberg's condescending tone in the piece. Although he notes that 45% of Americans prefer Genesis to Darwin, he never pauses to consider why this might be the case.    It's pretty simple, actually: It's more inspiring to believe that you arose from a higher being than from a mutated bacteria.  This doesn't mean it's true, but the attraction is clear.

Rather than pondering this aspect of the debate, Hertzberg chose to play it safe and preach to the secular choir. An understandable choice, but the result is a shallower piece of writing than Hertzberg usually delivers.

Museum Going

My trip to the Guggenheim Museum resurrected a long-running debate between Helen and myself about the value of visiting museums.  She finds most museums to be boring, and thinks that many people attend because they're supposed to and not because they want to. It's a pose, and she resents the social pressure to go along with it.

There is no doubt some truth to Helen's views. But she always seems to single out the "educated pose" as worthy of criticism.  It's just one of many poses, so why focus on this one? For example, I feel social pressure to pretend that the dogs who block my way on the sidewalk are incredibly cute. Usually, they aren't cute and I can't wait until they're gone.

Incidentally, my evening at the Guggenheim reminded me of the pleasures of going to a museum.  Sure, sometimes it feels like an obligation.  But at other times it is a joy.

An Evening at the Guggenheim

Last night I ventured to the Guggenheim Museum, which is mere blocks from where we live.  I visited years ago, well before we moved to New York.  But I had not been there since we arrived.

This is the final week for the exhibit "Robert Mapplethorpe and the Classical Tradition." Mapplethorpe, of course, aroused the ire of Jesse Helms  and other GOP puritans in the 1980s.  This exhibit juxtaposes his work with classical sculpture and painting.  In one quote, Mapplethorpe reflects that he would have been a sculptor had he lived in an earlier era.  By the end, it is clear that he was  no deviant and that his work represented a contemporary manifestation of a venerable tradition.

One of the most amusing photos was a 1976 print of Arnold Schwarzenegger, well before he became a GOP icon and California's  governor.  I'm surprised that somebody in California's right wing has not attempted to hold this tangential connection to Mapplethorpe against him.

The exhibit was worthwhile, but the best part was discovering again the genius of the Guggenheim's design.  Although the facade is showing its age, the sloping ascent through the museum feels as fresh as ever.  I would go through a section, look back down the curve I had just traveled, and marvel that I had come so far so fast. The galleries that compliment the main displays are delightful as well.  I had anticipated a pleasant evening, and  it turned out to be even better than I expected.
 

Pedigrees

While in Ohio last weekend I saw Bill Cash, one of my oldest friends and an occasional commenter on this blog.  I  met Bill in fourth grade, through our school district's "Enrichment" program for gifted and talented students.  Bill is one of the smartest people I've ever met.

He is currently in law school at Capital University, which is highly respected in Ohio but not well known otherwise.  Bill lamented the fact this lack of name recognition could preclude him from joining the country's most prestigious law firms, where he would flourish.

I was completely oblivious to the importance of connections and one's pedigree while growing up.  The main reason I knew that Northwestern University was a good school was because Ohio State demolished NU on the football field every year (until last year, thank you very much!). 

When I arrived at NU, I was startled by the Type A drive of most everyone I encountered.  In retrospect, it's obvious that these students had come to campus yearning to burnish their resumes. A fair number of people seemed bitter to be at Northwestern, and it wasn't because of the Chicago winters.  I eventually understood that NU was a "safe school" for these people, who would have been somewhere in the Ivy League if it was up to them. Meanwhile, I was grateful for an educational experience that was far superior to anything I had encountered before.

Bill's concerns brought back these memories.  Although we like to think we live in a meritocracy, it is obvious that this is not the case.  Connections matter, as do your early choices in life.

With that said, it is possible to surmount such artificial barriers.  Who cares that your Dad isn't a trustee at Yale?  With enough gumption, you can grow up to be the Yale University president.