Marcus' World

A Brief Hiatus

Uri's humorous response to my last posting made me realize that I need to lighten up! Lately my tone has become dark. 

I'll be busy acting like a librarian in Cape Cod next week, as I finally discover what people are talking about when they use the term "medical informatics." So it's time for a brief hiatus from Marcus' World. Hopefully my sense of humor will return with me to New York.

A Primitive Rite Designed to Channel Group Outrage

David Brooks hits the nail on the head in today's withering attack on the formerly thoughtful but currently apoplectic  Senator John Kerry:  "Doesn't this guy ever get bored? If Kerry ever makes an anti-Bush jab, he makes it again. The old DeLay jibes, he makes them again. The Wolfowitz attacks, he makes them again. Porn movies have less repetition than this, and yet the "Mission Accomplished" carrier deck scene gets hauled out again, for one feels this is not a normal speech designed to persuade or inform, but a primitive rite designed to channel group outrage."

I'm still on Kerry's e-mail list; it used to be for inspiration but is now for amusement.

Brooks's critique is just as valid for conservatives.  The exploitation of the Terri Schiavo tragedy was certainly a primitive rite.  And episodic doses of gay bashing not only channel group outrage, but also ensure that the pews are full and the coffers are overflowing.

It is extremely hard for non-demagogues to contribute meaningfully to political debate today, wherever they fall on the political spectrum. Perhaps it has always been this way, and my yearning for something more dignified will never be satisfied.  I hope not.

Educated Women Who Want to Stay Home

The Times reports that many women at elite colleges are preparing for motherhood, without apology.

People like Angie Ku, a student at Yale University, say flatly, "I accept things how they are. I don't mind the status quo. I don't see why I have to go against it."

This is hard for old lefties to accept. Dr. Laura Wexler, a professor of women's studies at Yale, says, "Women have been given full-time working career opportunities and encouragement with no social changes to support it."   I guess that Angie isn't entitled to make up her own mind.

Of course it is essential that women have just as many options as men. But even in a world of total equality, some women--perhaps many women--would choose to be mothers instead of  taking on a high-powered career.  This is their choice, and it is worthy of respect.

Times Select

I am a sucker. Or, if you prefer, a loyal member of my designated demographic.

Today the Times premiered Times Select, which is a way to squeeze more money out of the brand that is the New York Times.  The benefits of Times Select are cool, including early access to weekend articles and generous monthly limits for browsing the archives.  The most visible change is that opinion columns are part of the Select package, and no longer available for free.

If I subscribed to the print edition I could have added Times Select for free.  But I quit subscribing immediately after we moved to New York, once the paper was stolen from the steps outside our apartment building. By now I've grown used to picking it up at the newsstand.

So I had to pay to be select, and it didn't take much convincing.  The price is not bad, and I  jumped on the deal fast enough to get the early-bird discount.  Part of me is snickering at myself, but on the whole I'm content with yet another manifestation of Eastern Seaboard snobbishness.
 

The Pathetic State of Political Activism

Yesterday Representative Anthony Weiner conceded the Democratic nomination for New York mayor to Fernando Ferrer, former Bronx Borough president. Weiner is entitled to a run-off election against Ferrer that would decide who faces Republican Mike Bloomberg. But he decided that Democrats were better served by unity, and has opted to forego the run-off.

Today John Kerry and Howard Dean both exhorted me to donate money to the Ferrer campaign.  Overnight, Mayor Bloomberg has become Attila the Hun, and all loyal Democrats must rise up to defeat him from across the land.  The only problem is that I still think Ferrer advocates 1973 solutions for 2005 problems.  This is also what Anthony Weiner thought, until 12 PM yesterday.

The Kerry/Dean tag team was annoying enough, but then Dean sent me over the edge with another e-mail, "What I Know About John Roberts." Thanks so much Howard; I could never have reached my conclusions without you.  In case you're wondering, the Chair of the Democratic National Committee does not support the President's choice for Chief Justice.

Every message like this wants your money, your name attached to an e-mail petition drafted by an automaton, or both.  They desire a Pavlovian response, not actual thought.  The best thing to do would probably be to get off the mailing lists, but I usually find these messages to be amusing.

At least Republicans get to go to heaven for signing their e-mail petitions.  Maybe the smarter bet is to join those lists instead.

The Boy in the Bubble

Maureen Down has been back from summer vacation for a little while now, and her latest  column about President Bush is smoking.  Dowd pointed me to a long Newsweek piece about Hurricane Katrina, "How Bush Blew It."  The most amazing tidbit is that White House adviser Dan Bartlett had to make a DVD of the TV coverage for Bush to watch on his first trip to the Gulf, because he had ignored it until then.  Recently departed FEMA chief Michael Brown and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff also had trouble finding the remote control in the wake of Katrina

As the horror over the response has begun to subside, I've realized anew that I am a fatalist.  I believe that, even if Bush had been fully engaged, the response would have been disastrous. Katrina was too much to handle, no matter how detailed the plans were or how many disaster drills had been conducted in advance.

None of this excuses Presidential ignorance. Bush prides himself on ignoring the media and going with his gut; as Newsweek points out, this can be an asset.  But because of this,  he must rely upon sycophants who can only tell him what he wants to hear.  This arrangement contributed to the debacle in Iraq;  lots of people doubted the existence of WMDs, but they did not have the President's ear.   And it has now led to an embarrassing lack of awareness  of one of the nation's greatest natural disasters.

It's good for Presidents to keep some distance between themselves and the Washington press corps.  But this President has gone much further, and encased himself in a hermetically sealed bubble.

September 11, 2005

After four years, I am still not sure how to acknowledge the events of September 11, 2001. It would be grotesque to claim some type of personal effect, as I was not directly affected at all.  But there is no doubt that this was a world-changing day, so acting as though it were the same as any other day is not right either.

Yesterday Helen and I visited an open house sponsored by a local Islamic organization, which sought to introduce a proper understanding of Islam to the wider community.  The lady beside us came because some of the imams had come to her church, and she wanted to return the favor.
I had mixed feelings about the appropriateness of hosting this event on the anniversary of the attacks. There is no doubt that a perverted form of Islam led to these attacks, and that many peaceful and decent Muslims are feeling unfairly besieged.  At the same time, there are 364 other days in the year to make this case. It seemed unnecessarily provocative to do it yesterday.

Our other major event was attending a rollicking musical version of Shakespeare's "Two Gentlemen of Verona" in Central Park.  It was  a very playful adaptation of a light-hearted work.  But even here politics were not absent: the Duke of Milan cavalierly starts wars to serve his political purposes, which felt uncomfortably familiar given the President's deceptive linkage of the war in Iraq to 9/11. And if you had any doubt about this point, it was removed when a "Mission Accomplished" banner appeared on the stage, in Italian.

As we watched the performance, the two beam Tribute in Light was in the sky where the towers used to stand. They first appeared six months after the attacks, and now return on every anniversary. By this  morning the beams were gone, and we all got back to normal.

Canadian Compassion

As I mentioned a few days ago, one of my favorite sights in Toronto last weekend was a young boy singing to raise money for victims of Hurricane Katrina.  Here is a picture of the boy. It's somewhat blurry, so you can't see that his sign says, "New Orleans is sinking," and that all the money he raised would go to the Red Cross.

Incidentally, he was singing "Heart of Gold" by Neil Young when we gave money. I like the symmetry--Neil Young was born in Toronto.  And the symbolism wasn't bad either, because the boy really was asking for hearts of gold.

T-Shirt Slogans

Walking back from lunch today, I saw a man--definitely overweight, but not terribly obese--wearing a t-shirt that read, "I'm in NO shape to exercise."

It cracked me up, although it would have been more noble to thoughtfully reflect about the health problems of obese and overweight Americans. Perhaps it was just what I needed after the last two sobering weeks.

The President's Failure

Scott had a great post about the reaction to Katrina last week, which has generated good discussion. I'm torn between outrage at the response and a realization that it would have been disastrous whomever was in charge.  My college pal Eric, urban planner and New Orleans resident, is disgusted by the finger-pointing. He says it would have been a failure in any case, and that it wasn't just Bush who underfunded the levees.  On the other hand, it is true that the media were able to move about in New Orleans for several days before help arrived, and that leading federal officials did not know that thousands of people were starving at the Convention Center.

Some of the heat about the response is bound to fade over time, as the reconstruction begins.  What will linger for me is the impression that the president just could not be bothered  on his vacation. The White House trumpeted the fact that he ended his vacation two days early, as though this were an extraordinary sacrifice.  But even after taking this bold step, Bush could not bring himself to get out of his plane as he flew over the Gulf coast last Wednesday. Instead, he blathered about the destruction from his airplane window, and flew on to Washington.

Love him or hate him, the President was decisive after September 11, 2001. That event called for a muscular response, and he knew what to do.  Katrina called for compassion and empathy,  and he was out of his league.