Sticking it To the Telemarketers

Blogger Grobstein wrote a post a while back about clever ways he likes to deal with telemarketers. I'm not personally in favor of just hanging up, or being rude, mostly out of pity for the poor soul whose job it is to call people's houses unsolicited. I am in favor of clever solutions and ways to turn the situation into entertainment. I think this would be a good opportunity to share my favorite methods of blowing off telemarketers:

Ask them to loan you money. If they decline, try to get them to loan you whatever they're selling to exchange for money.

Act as if you know they're a friend or a relative pretending to be a telemarketer, "I know it's you Jim. Ha ha. Very funny, you can stop pretending now."

Act very old and lonely and ask them to be your friend.

Tell them that you only pay for things with sex.

Tell them that whoever they asked for on the phone is dead, then go into a whole bereavement routine and try to elicit sympathy.

Tell them you need 911 and ask them to call for you.

That's all I can think of for the moment, and I know some of those are fairly random. If anyone has any other favorite methods, don't hesitate to post them in the comments section!

Update: Note that I've never actually used any of these...

War President Hopeful

Andrew Sullivan, whose blog you should check out if you have the chance, provides something of an answer to the question I posed earlier asking whether personal experience in a particular domain gives someone more credibility in making decisions involving that area.

My good friend Lawrence rightly decries the assertion by the Kerry campaign that somehow having been in combat makes you better suited to be a war-president.

I don't agree, especially for this election. This misses the main point, which I think those who emphasize Kerry's war experience are getting at, that someone who has been in a war has more appreciation for the gravity of the act and the horrors it can entail than someone who only deals with it in the abstract. Having been in a war doesn't make you a more effective military leader or strategist (being a general in a war is another thing), but it will guarantee a respect for the import of war which will lessen the chances of needlessly endangering troops. Some people (doves) think that this is the only important thing to consider. I see other important factors, such as national security in both the short and long terms, and to some extent tactial geopolitical factors, none of which is much affected by combat experience. So being a veteran in a war isn't a deciding factor for me.

However, given that there are legitimate questions surrounding the necessity of the war we were led into, and that we are currently fighting a War on Terror - which very likely will mean more instances that could call for some kind of military action, many of them ambiguous and preemptive - and given that this war is based very heavily on intelligence gathering and interpretation which is all undergone in secret (much of it by the executive branch), it's very important to me to have some ability to asses the president's judgment and level of respect for war. I'd say that issues that tell me something about a candidate's attitude / likely attitude toward war are very relevant.

Political Self-abnegation

This is worse than Kerry positioning himself as the herald of more aggressive taxation of the rich.

Guns Don't Kill People

See, video games do cause violence.

Tell Me How It's Different

Dennis Prager, whose opinion I respect but do not always agree with, makes an excellent point in this column:

The first thing you have to do when hearing Hollywood stars make foolish comments is to avoid being surprised.

As a rule, over the last few centuries, artists have been more likely to be morally confused than members of almost any other profession (except academia).

Many, perhaps most, great artists are geniuses in one area and underdeveloped elsewhere in life. It seems that when God grants great artistic talent to an individual, that individual is given few other gifts, least of all moral clarity or wisdom.

I also get annoyed when artists speak out about political issues, as if their talent and competence in one area translates to universal virtue or ennoblement of perspective. There is however another, much more interesting question brought up by this. Does being smart and articulate and even persuasive give you any more authority to opine on politics and global issues? For instance, there are plenty of people who have an opinion about the military draft, or about the policy establishing democracies in place of oppressive theocratic societies that limit freedoms, but most of these people haven't been in the military or lived in a theocracy (or will be directly affected by policies aimed at eliminating them for that matter). So I would ask, what makes people who are smart and can construct convincing arguments who argue about how the country should conduct itself any different than artists who are socially prominent, and maybe even revered for their talent, pontificating about the right thing to do?

This is where the issue of credibility comes in. It certainly helps to be in the field of whatever issue you're addressing. But is there some kind of general moral credibility, and if so, how can one gain it? I suppose one philosophical answer would say that given any moral question, there is a correct answer that all humans would eventually reach if given the time and the ability to think it through sufficiently (perhaps this is Kantian). Following from this, it would be true that the more intelligent among us would be bestowed a natural moral advantage (or at least latent advantage). In this case, someone could through contemplation alone claim moral superiority even without having experienced anything. Or does someone need to have some kind of personal experience with the issue that they're dealing with to have a legitimate opinion? What does this say about the opinionists that litter our literary and journalistic landscape?

College: Why isn't it Fair and Balanced?

It's a well-known fact that academics tend to be much more liberal than the average professional. I remember reading a poll that the highest proportion of faculty campaign contributions to Republicans of any Ivy League school was at Princeton, where the faculty gave something like 17 percent (how's that for reliable fact reporting). The question that's gone unanswered is why.

Intellectuals on the whole, including writers, artists, thinkers, tend to be liberal. This has led many to infer that the more intelligent or intellectually engaged one is, the more likely one will be liberal, and hence that liberalism is somehow a more correct or thoughtful stance. But this is based on a faulty premise. The problem with this is that intellectuals are by no means necessarily smarter than their professional counterparts. Speak to someone who goes to an Ivy-League or equivalent school and you'll hear time and time again that the brightest people were routinely going into competitive high-paying competitive careers in business and finance. More discussion on the relationship between intelligence and intellectualism on Oren Cass's blog, here.

We could take the Arnold Schwarzenegger approach and say that intellectuals as a class don't do manly things, like build things, or make vital decisions, that they are "girlie men" who fear war, want to nurture the sick and needy, prefer peace and negotiation to conflict and aggression etc. - and hence become Democrats. But there are some better answers I think.

For one, take the free market. Intellectuals (the definition of which seems to me to be a worker whose product is not produced for the market) don't participate to the same extent as their professional counterparts in the market economy, and aren't rewarded as much when they do. Works of art, scholarly ideas, purely intellectual products don't command nearly as high a price in the free market as products that were specifically designed for the market. But the work that goes into producing a great painting or doing thorough research isn't any easier than the work it takes to produce something marketable. So it could be that intellectuals tend to be liberal as a matter of self-interest, because liberalism tends to de-emphasize the market, in which their efforts are rewarded less.

Another explanation is more psychological in nature, but I think it might have some credibility. Everyone's job affects their way of thinking, and hence to some extent their perspective on life. If you're an academic, your job is to constantly learn new things, and to think of new ways to categorize what we do know or explain what we don't know. If an academic is constantly required to learn new facts and new advancements in the field, they're going to naturally benefit from having as open and accepting an approach to new ideas as possible. It's possible that this approach is translated into openness and acceptance on the political front as well, which amounts to pluralism, multi-culturalism, multilaterism - all views that you would find in liberalism. The identification with liberalism in this case would be in some way due to force of habit.

Whatever the liberalism of academics is due to, it is not some kind of superior intellectual contemplation. As I wrote in a previous post, professors now, humanities included, are specializing in narrower and narrower areas of scholarship. Within the boundaries of their fields, they may be serving a very practical end, but when it comes to global pragmatism nothing much is required of them. I would not say someone with a PhD. who spends his or her life studying the literature of the Southern Caribbean is any more qualified to assess this country's political situation than someone who didn't end up thinking for a living, but went to college, did well, and pays attention to the what's going on in the world. In fact I'd say that the second person is probably more in touch with the whole range of issues that politics involves and thus can be expected to take the more thoughtful, intelligent position when it comes to politics.

(Note: this is not to say whether or not liberalism originates in deep thinking, just that the liberalism we see associated with professors does not originate from their qualities of thoughtfulness and learnedness.)

(Counterpoint: But political science professors surely are better equipped to assess political causes and effects than the layperson or the obscure academic specialist, and even political science departments are heavily left-leaning. Perhaps the other two factors are still at play here. Also, perhaps the schemes and dreams of the left have up until this point provided much more fodder for idealism. After all, if you're not going to actually be implementing any of your ideas isn't it more interesting to spend your time meddling in the possible, rather than the practical?)

Academic Specialization continued...

Reader P.F. responds:

I still think college experience is unique. At this age, in this well-developed country, and being the fortunate people that we are, sources of knowledge are readily available at our finger tips and within the reach of our grasps (or our commuting distance). But how many people, if they don't feel intellectually stimulated, will go to local library and spend hours exploring arcane subjects (starting from introductory books that everyone can read!) after work? Yes, there will be a few, but the majority of them have their other priorities pile on top of out-of-work intellectual pursuit.

Compared with this scenario, for most of us, being a student in college is the most carefree time where you are not burdened with bills to pay, food to cook, family to take care of, utility bills to pay and a life to earn, not to mention the duty or privilege of a student is to learn.

This seems to be missing the drift of my argument. Nowhere am I claiming that your college years aren't a unique opportunity to learn. The question is of how you're going to use that opportunity.

Are you going to use it to learn lots of things that come straight out of books? Book knowledge won't change very much over a lifetime (unless it's cutting edge science), and college presents itself as no special advantage when in comes to learning this kind of knowledge. By your logic that the thing that makes college special is that it is a carefree time free from responsibilities, you would be just as well served during your college years if you were sent off to a desert island for four years with a bookcase full of books.

What does make college unique is your almost unlimited access to professors, the people who spend their entire lives advancing the frontiers of knowledge and thinking of new ways to use that knowledge. Yes, some of your professors can help you to understand your academics better. But I would argue that by college age, one should be moving towards the goal of teaching him or herself things. When you're out in the real world, in a job, no one sits by you telling you what the relevant skills to learn are and making sure you learn them. It's up to you to pick out and pick up on these things, so I would argue that having a teacher be intimately involved with your own learning process all the time when you are college aged is regressive and counterproductive. What is the use of professors then? Most professors, I would hope, are producing something of value to the world beyond their small academic field. Even an african-american literature professor can be an "expert" on black cultural trends and attitudes in contemporary America who may be interviewed on a TV talk show or cited in the newspaper. This kind of knowledge is not purely academic, but that doesn't make it any less valuable. Now, it is this, rather than book knowledge, that you get the unique opportunity to experience in college.

In one of you previous comments you wrote: "The main aim of college is to educate us in academics. After all, where else can you go for an education like that?" Actually, I think that high school is a pretty accurate answer to your question. I for one would hope that my college experience offers something my high school experience didn't.

We Have a Comment!

Itt looks like my previous post on academic specialization has generated a comment. Reader P.F. writes:

Specialization is inevitable as our knowledge branches out to every known and unknown corners of this world, physical and theoretical. There is indeed, more and more to learn, and more basic information in every subject to swallow. The question is, at what point should we start specialize and does specialization put us on an irrevocable path that is devoid of real world attachment and application?

I, on the other hand, have thought that your undergraduate education provides what you probably will never experience once you step into the work force. Classes in esoterics, ancient history, classic theories and advanced science are doors that will likely never be opened again for you after college. Certainly, most of them have no practical value in the real world. They don't necessarily make you a better citizen. The society as a whole teaches you how to be a good citizen, not an institution. In college, you still have time off school to get a little taste of the the world outside of the academia through your part-time jobs, internships, traveling, etc. In school, it depends on the individuals to seek out problems to solve and challenges to take on academically and socially. Out in the real world, problems thrusted upon you no matter how ready you are. So it is a personal choice as to how much exposure of the real world you want to have before entering the jungle; college neither limits or, in your words, broadens such opportunity. The main aim of college is to educate us in academics. After all, where else can you go for an education like that?

A few points:

The point is not to end specialization. Specialization is inevitable at this point in history, barring some kind of massive civilization meltdown. The point isn't that we should halt the progress of knowledge from probing deeper into specific areas of inquiry, or that we should prevent the formation of a class of specialists who get to know limited areas of knowledge very well; both of these are probably inevitable given the limitations of the human intellect and the current stage of sophistication in many fields.

And there's nothing inherently obscure or inapplicable about specialization. In the sciences at least, specialization simply reflects the wide scope of things capable of being explained by research.

About the "college experience," I don't at all agree with the view that college is the last time you have to study impractical, intellectual things, that once you graduate some door to learning is closed behind you. If you have a job that doesn't stimulate you in this respect then go to a library after work. There are more scholarly works available to you in your local library network than you could possibly care to finish. You're not going to be getting a class in them, but are books in classics, ancient history or history of science so difficult that you'll require a class to help you understand them? To motivate you?

Given that the world is becoming a more complicated place with "problems being thrust upon you no matter how ready you are," the goal of any college concerned with the future well-being of its students should be to cultivate the skill of applying known knowledge to new problems. The best way to do this is to teach how the methods of the past and today are being used to solve today's problems, not studying some narrow academic field devoid of context.

David Brooks on Why You Shouldn't Go to College (again)

Judging from his previous column on the utter baselessness of college admissions, one would think that David Brooks really hates college. But this column which critiques esoterica in academia makes a much needed point:

It is no accident that Worthen and so many others are drawn to a teacher who is not a lifelong academic, but who was active in the real world. Yet our universities operate too much like a guild system, throwing plenty of people with dissertations at students, not enough with practical knowledge.

Why aren't there more scholars, like Hill, Gaddis and Kennedy, who teach students to be generalists, to see the great connections? Instead, the academy encourages squirrel-like specialization.

Too many universities have become professionalized information-transmission systems, when teaching should instead be this sort of relationship between the experienced Hill and the young Worthen, on whom little now is lost.

Bomb Breaks 4 Month Lull in Israel

In more unfortunate news, there was an explosion set off by Palestinian militants in Tel Aviv today, killing one. It was the first explosion like it in Israel since March 14th.

Let's listen to the international response:

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in Bangkok, Thailand, for the World AIDS Conference, condemned the attack and sent his "sincere sympathy to Israel and the families of the victims."

"No cause whatsoever can justify terrorism," he said. "In this connection, the Secretary-General urges the Palestinian Authority to do everything possible to end terror."

Does referring to yourself in the third person constitute a weaker form of a statement? I don't know what that's about. Next response:

"We are against all bombings like this," said Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

I think he should just say "no comment" from now on.

The real news, however, is to be made by Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the group claiming responsibility for the bombing, whose spokesman asserted after the bombing, "This says that we can reach every place, even when there is a fence." This strikes me as very unlikely. I suppose the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades could have waited until everyone thought they were completely safe, and then suddenly detonated a huge surprise attack to shatter everyone's sense of confidence. But the authorities are reporting that this blast was caused by a five pound bomb, hidden in the bushes alongside a bus-stop - hardly the kind of blast that says, "see, you're not safe anywhere." I'm not an expert in terrorist bombs, believe it or not, but that does seem like a relatively small bomb.

Actually it seems to me that Palestinian terrorist groups would be trying as hard as possible to sustain their previous level of attacks in spite of the wall, since what better endorsement is there for a temporary security wall than the fact that it's working? Certainly I have been converted to a supporter of the wall. At first I thought it was merely going to be inflammatory but now it's clear that it's saving lives on both sides. It also continues to put pressure on the Palestinian leadership to reform itself into a viable negotiating partner or lose out in the negotiating process altogether. Certainly the people who condemn Israel whenever it defends itself with force should be happy that the wall is making it less necessary. If they're not, what's their good alternative, and do they expect Israel to just do nothing?

It should show the double standard which Israel is weighed against that it is internationally criticized whenever it raids militant groups responsible for attacks on its citizens, but then also criticized when it enacts a plan for unilateral disengagement so that it doesn't have to. Ultimately the wall is supposed to be a temporary measure, and I hope it is. But for now, it gives Israel a non-violent way to unilaterally disengage itself from the Palestinians while protecting its own citizens from terror attacks.

John Kerry Chooses...YOU!

So it looks like Kerry chose a running mate while I was away. Newspapers don't usually screw this kind of news up, but when they do it's always kind of funny. The New York Post, New York's version of the Boston Herald, was behind the latest lapse of journalistic veracity, by printing a story that announced that Gephardt was John Kerry's VP candidate.

The New York Post, in a front page gaffe reminiscent of the 1948 headline wrongly announcing President Truman's defeat, proclaimed Tuesday that Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry would select Rep. Dick Gephardt as his running mate.

"KERRY'S CHOICE," read the headline over the page one "exclusive" story. "Dem picks Gephardt as VP candidate."

It's good to know that their journalists have such an intrepid respect for the facts that they printed up an entire story ahead of time about something that never happened. On the other hand, it's only the New York Post, a third-rate newspaper. Oh, but it's not their first time!

Last October, after the New York Yankees defeated the Boston Red Sox in the American League playoffs, the Post mistakenly ran an editorial bemoaning the home team's loss. Post Editor in Chief Col Allan blamed that foul-up on a simple production error.

Production error? Like we went ahead and produced two versions of the story and the one we released turned out to be not the one that happened? This is especially troubling because it was an editorial, and editorials are supposed to be gut reactions to actual events, not something some guy writes up hypothetically, although in this case I think the error speaks more to the fact that Yankees fans have far less confidence in their corporate monstrosity of a team than they like to convey.

In the case of the latest gaffe, the post cites "inaccurate information" as being responsible for the mixup:

Post editor in chief Col Allan said in a statement that he made the decision to go with the Gephardt story based on information that turned out to be inaccurate. He did not elaborate.

I wonder what the source of that bad tip was? Hmmmm:

The Daily News gleefully chortled Wednesday's front page about the embarrassing Tuesday "exclusive" by its fierce rival in naming Rep. Richard Gephardt rather than Sen. John Edwards as Democrat John Kerry's choice to be his running mate for the White House.

In the latest skirmish between the morning newspapers in their nearly century-old battle for New York's blue-collar readership, the Daily News cover blared "KERRY'S REAL CHOICE," with a picture of Kerry and Edwards.

"N.C. Sen. John Edwards will be the Democratic veep candidate, and the Post is wrong again," added the Daily News, which is privately owned by publisher Mort Zuckerman.

Welcome Adam

Following Noah's lead, I will take it upon myself to welcome myself back from my 5 day long stay in New York City. A large contingent of my family lives in New York so I'm no stranger to the place. But being in New York for the first time without parents allowed me to put some things I've always noticed about New Yorkers into light:

* They're all obsessed with shopping. I used to just write this off to a culture of japiness, whatever that means. Now I understand what's behind it: in New York there's so much to buy, and so much of it is good stuff you would want, as opposed to the stuff you can buy around here.

* They're status and image-conscious. Then I realized, when you're from New York, it's not like you live in a rich town or a poor town, you live the same place as everyone else. The only way to define yourself status-wise is to wear it on your sleeve, literally.

* They have this sense of self-importance, like they're living at the center of the world. Because they do, at least financially speaking, and probably commercially as well. They have every right to be proud and self-important. New York is a microcosm of everything that works about America: open free society, capitalism, lots of ethnic diversity melding harmoniously - and it works so well that it's the greatest city in the world. I think that's something to be proud about. Going from one amazing building to the next, I couldn't help but think that these buildings are the equivalent of royal palaces in other countries, except the difference is that in this country they're completely open to anyone and everyone. And then I thought that's what makes our country great.

Brooks Still a Sociologist

David Brooks has apparently not given up on sociology, as evidenced by his column this week. I'll put on my sociologist's hat and do my best to keep up. This week, David writes about one of his favorite things: cultural segregation. After doing lots of research, he puts forth the conclusion that political and cultural polarization in America are increasing, and that this effect is structural. This is because a) Americans are better educated and b) the information-based economy leaves people more flexible in choosing their residence.

To a large degree, polarization in America is a cultural consequence of the information age. This sort of economy demands and encourages education, and an educated electorate is a polarized electorate.

In theory, of course, education is supposed to help us think independently, to weigh evidence and make up our own minds. But that's not how it works in the real world...

Once you've joined a side, the information age makes it easier for you to surround yourself with people like yourself. And if there is one thing we have learned over the past generation, it's that we are really into self-validation.

I think he's right, but the point is a little too ambitious to try to get across in a single column, and leaves questions. Like why would education make people more radical? Maybe it's time for another treatise.

This clip highlights one of David Brooks' favorite ideas, his "social modules" idea. Basically, it states that American culture is on the whole remarkably unhierarchical, because it lacks a uniform basis for defining status. Bankers, lawyers, inventors, sports stars all populate America's elite, and likewise, no singular kind of excellence holds preeminence over any other. On the other hand, within any given endeavors, there are clearly defined criteria for achievement which in turn define status within that field. So America is modularly hierarchical. The problem with this is that it's a little too utopian. A preeminent sports star certainly has more status than a preeminent school teacher, and Brooks has to know this. What determines the differential value of various endeavors?

Here's an answer I would venture: Say there's a social role for both athletes and teachers. The value of each profession as a whole is determined by how much money it can bring in. Even if sports stars and teachers are equally valuable to a society, there are many more teachers than sports stars, and thus the benefits of that profession are spread thinner and individual teachers are valued less than individual sports stars.

Hyperbole, Conspiracy, and the Best Target a Liberal Could Wish For

Like Bowling for Columbine and even more than Roger and Me, Michael Moore’s latest film is skillfully crafted piece of rhetoric. Facts, speculations, opinions and conspiracy theories are combined to provide what is supposed to be a K.O. indictment of the Bush administration. From the misguided war in Iraq, to the Patriot Act, to incompetence of our current commander and chief, the Bush administration supplies Moore with plenty of ammunition. An effective critique of the president should not require either hyperbole or conspiracy. That Moore relies on such strategies, as he does in his previous films, is therefore a disappointment. The time Fahrenheit 911 spends exposing dubious ties between the Bush and Bin Laden dynasties could have been used to more thoroughly dissect the Patriot Act or examine the administrations stonewalling of the press. The effect of Moore’s overkill is that in searching for a sinister plot he overlooks many of the most relevant and important, though perhaps more banal, transgressions of the administration.

That being said, there was much I liked in the film and I didn’t expect anything else from this filmmaker. Moore is to the left what Rush Limbaugh is to the right: a polemicist entertainer for whom provoking a reaction is of greater importance than giving a coherent, or completely truthful, argument and in this role he’s damn good. A scene in which Bush reads Peter and the Wolf to a group of elementary school kids for several minutes after being told that America is under attack (the truth of this is confirmed by the 9/11 Commission’s report) visually exemplifies the Commander and Chief’s utter incompetence. As he sits there he looks confused and nervous, like a man who is way, way over his head and that is exactly what he is.

That's My Line

This has been a time of rapid change at KrisKraus, and I will do my best to clarify any confusion. Having co-founded this blog with me and bestowed the "Kris" half of the name KrisKraus, Kris Jenson has decided to leave us after a scant one post. Now Noah Kistler, my old friend from when I used to live in Stow, has stepped up to replace Kris as my blogging partner. He's not a socialist, but he does go to Wesleyan, so that's pretty close I figure.

It's good that Noah took it upon himself to welcome himself so I didn't have to do it. To that fine introduction to Noah Kistler I would just like to add that because of where Noah goes to school, I'm not supposed to affiliate with him or like him at all. But I'm a deep person and Noah's a complex guy, so I can overlook that aspect of him.

As you can see, Noah leads a riveting life eating, surfing the internet, reading, watching movies, and occasionally doing something productive. Maybe if we have this blog long enough we'll add a web-cam feature to capture Noah in action. With continued reader support / donations, one day we'll be able to make that happen.

Hopefully the format will be the same, with each of us responding to each others' posts, but it may end up that we post on separate topics. Noah's more politically engaged than I am so maybe he'll take up posts on that topic. He's also a big movie buff who knows about all kinds of films, American and foreign. In fact, he has a photographic memory and can give you the dialogue at any point in any movie made between 1986 and 2001. Well maybe the last part's not true. Either way, Noah will surely play a valuable role helping to defend the blog from right-wing attacks.

Welcome Noah

I'd like to introduce myself before I contribute any more blogs. My name is Noah Kistler and I am the newest contributor to the soon to be renamed KrisKraus blog. A little bit about myself. I'm a tentatively a philosophy/government double major at Wesleyan University where I just completed my sophomore year. At home I bide my time between eating, surfing the internet, reading, watching movies, and occasionally doing something productive. I'll be posting sporadically on politics, film and whatever else happens to catch my interest.

This Review Gets a Good Review

Just a follow-up to the earlier review of the review of Clinton's book. Here's a review from the New York Times that is much more on target:

William Jefferson Clinton's "My Life" is, by a generous measure, the richest American presidential autobiography - no other book tells us as vividly or fully what it is like to be president of the United States for eight years...

D.A.R.E. to Create a Program That Works

Why are these people so happy?

Are they celebrating their anniversary, 40 years and counting? Or did they just ask their doctor about Levitra? Actually, they're smiling about the good news, that "Teen drug use continues to decline in America, and use of Ecstasy is down by 25 percent in two years." I'd be happy about that too and everything, but is it really arranging flowers (sniffle-free!) and windsurfing through fields of ragweed, Allegra good news? I didn't think so.

Silly pictures aside, there is an actual post I want to do here. If you went to school when I went to school you remember the D.A.R.E. program. And if you're from my age group you know that the results of the program are hardly something to smile about. Drug use actually increased in the group of kids receiving the original D.A.R.E. program. Why? Probably the same reason many parents objected to it in the first place: too much information about the specific drugs and their use.

Back in the day the officer came into your classroom and would tell you all this information, "This drug increases your heart rate and blood pressure, and if you do it long enough you can get cancer. This drug plays with your emotions and can psychologically scar you for life. This drug is addictive after only one use." For me, as someone who was not liable to use drugs very early on anyway, the drug education approach was effective. If someone offered me a drug then I would know all about it and therefore all the reasons I didn't want to do it. But you have to be incredibly naive to not know that in the majority of kids, all this is going to do is feed their curiosity and produce the opposite effect you want.

Except for that one major flaw, D.A.R.E. is a really good idea. That's why I'm happy the program has revised its mission statement:

D.A.R.E. gives children the skills needed to recognize and resist the subtle and overt pressures that cause them to experiment with drugs or become involved in gangs or violent activities.

I read through most of the basic information on the site, and from what I gather the new D.A.R.E program forgets about drug education and instead emphasizes learning to resist peer pressures (not the singular,"peer pressure," which was always kind of a dumb concept).

Conservative Bias in the Liberal Media

Perception of liberal bias in the media has grown in the last several years. According to a September 2003 Gallup Poll 45% of the American public thinks the news media is too liberal while only 14 % think it’s too conservative. This perception doesn’t accurately reflect reality. Some of the mainstream news media is clearly liberal. The New York Times is a fine example. For instance, an article in May titled “Darwin-Free Fun For Creationists,” clearly took a mocking tone toward the religious dinosaur theme park it described. Furthermore, the Times war coverage has far less hawkish and far more skeptical than most other news outlets. The bias, though, is subtle and sophisticated. A liberal perspective is endorsed through article placement and strategic writing. Support for the liberal position is never stated overtly, but is sometimes implied. A reader can therefore read the Times and still come away with conservative interpretation of the news. By comparison, the position of New York’s other newspaper, The Post, is never subtle. The paper’s war reporting has been at least pro-war and at most jingoistic (i.e. using the rhetorical language of the Bush administration in articles and Iraq headlines that read like action movie slogans). To the Post’s credit I don’t think it makes much of a claim to non-partisanship.
A somewhat similar situation exists in cable news networks. CNN is considered by most to be centrist, while Fox, the news station that laughably claims to be “fair and balanced”, is staunchly on the right. A recent Maureen Dowd article claims that eighty percent of Fox News viewers believed: W.M.D. had been found, that Al Qaeda and Iraq were tied, or that the world had approved of U.S. intervention in Iraq. Misconception among viewers of other networks was significantly lower.
The situation in radio is no different. NPR catches a lot of slack for its supposed liberal bias. Admittedly many of the stations hosts are openly liberal off the air. However, their work on radio displays a genuine effort to balance left with right in order to facilitate probing and insightful discussion. In his nightly show On Point Tom Ashbrook works as a moderator, not a pundit, when he bridges conversation between commentators and callers on both sides of the issues. Here in Massachusetts the other major talk radio station is 96.9 FM Talk. With a few notable exemptions the station’s personality lineup is a list of far right rabble-rousers. From 1 PM to 1 AM it features Bill O’Reilly, Jay Severin, Laura Ingraham, and Sean Hannity. Each of these caustic conservatives uses their time to deliver liberal bashing monologues and answer calls from listeners who either agree completely or occasionally offer an opposing opinion, which is crushed by the belligerent host. Whatever you may think of NPR, it cannot be argued that 96.9’s Bill O’Reilly and NPR’s Teri Gross, whose shows air simultaneously, provide an equal right/left balance.
My point, finally, is not that the media is too conservative or too liberal, or that conservative bias exists in greater quantity than liberal bias. The point is that they both exist throughout the media and to unequivocally call the news too liberal is to ignore the fierce conservatism that has an equal, if not greater, presence in the press.

Write your own book

Even though I haven't read the book yet, I was very disappointed by this review of Bill Clinton's memoir. The reviewer seems more interested in finding out the juicy details of Clinton's scandals than he is about evaluating how well the book transmits Clinton's experience as president. Almost everything he finds wrong with the book relates to the scandals and their inadequate coverage:

In truth, it is hardly an edge-of-your-seat experience. Throughout its leisurely 957 pages, however, every facet of Clinton's complex, nuanced and sometimes maddening personality is on display. He is by turns introspective and willfully obtuse, expansive and curt. One moment, he forces the reader on a joyless march through an arid policy debate. The next, he offers up a raw, confessional moment that almost makes the book seem worth the $35 price of admission...
For such a big book, there are a lot of things curiously missing. Clinton denies sexually harassing Paula Jones, but doesn't give his account of what did, and didn't, happen during that infamous hotel encounter...

This is not a serious enough review of a what is meant to be a serious memoir. Does the reviewer really expect Clinton to produce something worthy of the tabloids?

And though he says more than once in the book that he knows he let people down, he never seems to grasp just how much anger and disappointment he caused—not just among his enemies, but among those who believed in him most. But then, did anyone really expect Clinton to make himself the villain of his own book?

Clinton is an interesting and inspiring guy. I am much more interested in hearing about what it was like to be president, how he got there, and what he was thinking along the way. I would not give the book a lukewarm review because he failed to condemn himself.

Scapegoating Israel

For people who say that the kind of anti-Zionism you see coming out of the middle east is a legitimate criticism of Israeli policies, read this statement made by the Prince of Saudi Arabia to his country after the latest series of Al Quada attacks there. It always amazes me what they're able to get away with saying over there and still be heard. Such statements should serve as proof that misleading, completely untruthful and harmful propaganda directed at Jews is still commonplace in the middle east, and actually in other places in the world as well.

NBC News translated Crown Prince Abdullah remarks from Arabic: "Zionism is behind it. It has become clear now. It has become clear to us. I don't say, I mean... It is not 100 percent, but 95 percent that the Zionist hands are behind what happened."

Other senior Saudi officials reaffirmed the claim that supporters of Israel - Zionists - were behind the terror attacks.

Prince Nayef, the Saudi Interior Minister said, "Al-Qaida is backed by Israel and Zionism."

Apparently it wasn't just a slip-up either. Saudi officials continue to defend the statement:

As for the alleged Saudi doublespeak, a Saudi official in the United States defends the remarks, arguing that Zionists and others who argue for regime change in Saudi Arabia "share the same objective as Osama bin Laden."

My friend Oren did a nice discussion on the sheer stupidity of the people who believe these claims. A Saudi Arabian has to have the information available to him to make the easy conclusion that Israel supporting Al Quada is absurd. Just because they share the same objective of regime change in Saudi Arabia - and for totally opposite reasons; Israel would like to insert a regime that doesn't spew dangerous demagoguery and instigate hatred of Israel, Al Quada would like a regime that practices Islamic totalitarianism - doesn't make collaboration between the two anything but completely unlikely. Or does the statement mean "Israel has inflamed and fomented these extremists, and now we have to deal with them in our own back yard?" This reading is incompatible with the main premise, which is that Israel backs Al Quada and is behind the latest series of attacks in Saudi Arabia.

Call me E.O. Wilson

Have you ever thought about culture, why it is unique to humans, and why it exists in the first place? Being of a relatively scientific ilk, I have come up with this answer, within the framework of evolutionary theory:
Mammals learn skills and strategies from their parents. Think of the kitten that learns to hunt for mice by watching a parent (cats who haven't watched a parent hunt generally don't learn how to hunt), or baby hyena who learns to avoid lions from its mother. Communication of learned information from parent to child, generation to generation, is adaptive and helps the species survive. Humans pass this kind of information too when they teach their kids to look both ways before crossing the road, or how to do their laundry. But humans are much more sophisticated than other mammals. And what is culture but the body of what has been thought, said and done in the arts, sciences, civilization etc? Culture must then be a body of transmissible information, albeit a very sophisticated human version of it, which is passed from one human generation to the next.

Time for some observations from the world's worst sociologist...

Me! -- about the world's second worst sociologist: David Brooks. For those who don't know him, he's the New York Times' very own conservative op-ed columnist. To his credit, that's a tough position to be in. It's like getting tossed into a roomful of wolves with a big sign that says "Sheep". I wonder if he gets bashed by the Times' staff as much as he seems to get bashed by its readers. Certainly the blog-world has taken notice, mostly to his disadvantage.

I kind of feel bad for David Brooks. As the Times' liaison to the world of conservative thought (comparatively), he's either dismissed or hated by liberal readers, because that's what he's paid for. But the really sad thing is I can't imagine conservatives wanting to own him either.

Would you want to call someone one of your own who engages in relatively thoughtless generalization such as:

'When it comes to yardwork, they [Red States] have rider mowers; we have illegal aliens,'

'The energy that once went into sex and raving now goes into salads...bathroom tile is their cocaine.'[refering to the new generation of young adults]

'In America, it is acceptable to cut off any driver in a vehicle that costs a third more than yours. That's called democracy.'

More importantly, many allege that Brooks isn't really a conservative. Michael Kinsley voices the doubt in a review of one of Brooks' books:

When he ridicules consumer appetites, Brooks is safely within the permissible, rueful conservative critique of capitalism's ''contradictions.'' When he writes of the 'tediousness of pod after pod of the highway-side office parks'' and the 'sheer existential nothingness of an office-park lobby,'' he sounds quaintly like the cultural critics of American capitalism in the 1950's and 60's. But when he declares that hard-working business executives are living their 'whole lives'' in a furrow -- 'I'm that furrow, your personality becomes a mere selling device. Friendships become contacts. The urge to improve deteriorates to mere acquisitiveness. Money becomes the measure of accomplishment'' -- well, frankly, that sounds more than a bit like Karl Marx, doesn't it?

Theories abound in the blog world for why The Times gave Brooks the job, and why they are letting him keep it. Here's a particularly direct, if undiplomatic, statement of opinion, entitled 'Fire Brooks'...its best lines are:

I suspect they didn't realize how rabid he was at first, and, now that they know, don't want to look weak by removing him.

and,

I have this fantasy that the editors systematically refuse to publish letters that point out Brooks's stupidity because it reflects poorly on their hiring decision and general mental soundness.

I honestly think the first statement has some plausibility. There are lots of possibilities. Maybe The Times' rationale is that Brooks is a particularly easy target for its conservative-weary readership who won't challenge their assumptions too much. Or he could be a kind of ideological double-agent, destroying the neoconservative agenda's credibility from within. I would definitely be curious to hear from a strong supporter of neoconservative agendas as to what they think of Brooks.

Being the world's worst sociologist, I'm not normally qualified to assess someone else's sociological work. But, in this case, I can say that after reading a bunch of reviews of Brooks' books, I'm quite sure that the ideas Brooks puts forth as 'sociological analysis' are things I could and would come up with if you asked me to write a piece of pop sociology on the spot. From reading a few columns, I can also say that Brooks, with his fondness for coining terms, like 'Crunchy Zone,' 'Meatloaf Line' and 'Patio Man,' along with his tendency to exaggerate - about '16-foot refrigerators with the through-the-door goat cheese and guacamole delivery systems,' S.U.V.'s 'so big they look like the Louisiana Superdome on wheels' - writes columns that read like the columns I used to write for my high school newspaper. Read Kinsley's review for a critique of Brooks' latest book and general methodology. You'll see that Brooks defends himself by saying he's in the business of illuminating and clarifying what we already know by presenting it in an entertaining form. I say, if you're not going to tell me something I don't know, or going to present something I already know in a useful and new way, then you are not really an authority on anything and shouldn't be presenting yourself as one. I surely hope that Brooks doesn't think he's producing anything profound.

It's Called Lying

Ronald Reagan sure is turning out to be a great president. The only thing is, he's not president anymore, in fact, he's not even alive. But dying never hurt anyone's legacy. Now, I do think it's nice to honor our deceased by emphasizing what was good about them in memory, but frankly the homage being paid to this man and revisionism going on about his presidency are ridiculous. The press is heaping a ridiculous amount of praise and doing an amazing job of spinning his recognized bad points. Here is a perfect example from an msnbc piece titled "Reagan: Man of Contradictions?"

In his speech at the 1980 Republican convention, candidate Ronald Reagan announced, "Indeed, it is time our government should go on a diet."

From the very beginning he was a man of contradictions: a deficit cutter who, over eight years, almost tripled the size of the federal budget.

In the 1988 State of the Union address he emphasized the size of a report, "1,153 pages report, weighing 14 pounds."

He engineered the biggest tax cut in history in his first year in office, and then raised taxes every year after.

He promised to eliminate the Education Department, and then let it flourish...

...But perhaps the biggest contradiction in his record was his promise to get tough with terrorists. "Our policy will be one of swift and effective retribution," he announced on Jan. 27, 1981.

Still, when terrorists killed 241 sailors and Marines in their Beirut barracks, Reagan withdrew the troops.

And despite his early denial that he was trading arms for hostages, "Those charges are utterly false," he said on Nov. 13, 1986.

When the Iran-Contra scandal threatened his presidency, he apologized on Mar. 4, 1987: "A few months ago, I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages my heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not."

The title of this article is so utterly absurd in relation to the content that it makes me wonder if it was intended to be some kind of ironic rhetorical question. After the title states quizzically, "man of contradictions?" the article goes on to assert "From the very beginning he was a man of contradictions." So why the question mark in the title then? But that's not the best part: Isn't it great how this article spins the everyday phenomenon of a politician lying into sophistication of character? If only all politicians were such men of mystery and contradiction...

Update: The sub-heading states, "His words conflicted with his deeds on many issues." That's a welcome, to the point clarification. Perhaps the article's title is getting at the distinction between contradicting yourself and being a man of contradictions.

J. Lo / Homosexual Conspiracy to De-sanctify Marriage Proceeds as Planned

Time for a little change of pace here at KrisKraus. A topic suggested by reader Nate.

If Bush is Dumb, Does It Matter?

I thought I'd jump in on the "is Bush a stupid president" debate, seeing that it is just as big, if not bigger, than the "is Kerry a douche" debate. This question is getting a lot of play over at the blog belonging to my colleague and embattled Bush supporter, Oren Cass, who seems to think that not only is Bush not stupid, but that Kerry is actually stupider, and challenges Kerry supporters to prove otherwise.

Ok, a bunch of things need to be defined here, such as what is intelligence, and what is intelligence in the context of politics and political leadership, and is there a difference? First of all, political acumen is a great quality, but I don't think that's the relevant kind of intelligence we're talking about here. For instance, Hitler was politically very astute, and that's what allowed him to rise to power rapidly and completely, but that doesn't make him a desirable leader. Political shrewdness is good for the politician, not the country.

As Oren points out, one can mean a lot of different things by calling someone "stupid." Specifically, is Bush lacking verbal skills? Is he not able to comprehend the complex realities that make up the international scene and which should dictate any prudent policy decisions? Stupid can also mean imprudent, such as being short-sighted or reckless. Maybe a president, being the elected representative of the nation, is supposed to demonstrate adequacy in all recognized areas of intelligence. Bush may or may not be any of these things. But the kind of intelligence that really matters, I think, is the ability to effectively manage a government and to steer the country in the best direction, domestically and internationally.

But, in the case of the Bush administration, these matters are much less affected by Bush than the various members that make up the administration. Unless you're Clinton, who regularly brainstormed about policy with his appointed officials, the major input a president has in his administration's various policy agendas is who he appoints as advisers. No one claims it was Bush's inspired initiative to staunchly support Israel and back the Sharon plan. It was most probably a combination of the neo-conservative agenda which strongly influences Bush policy, and the calculation of his political strategist, Carl Rove (incidentally, this move demonstrates political intelligence of the highest order).

I'm not going to take sides and make an assertion to the effect that Bush is stupid or not; I'll save that for a later post. But assuming the worst judgments about him are true, that he is a complete idiot when it comes to understanding the salient policy issues of the day, you're still going to get, basically, what you've already seen. Cheney would still be bent on Iraq, Rumsfeld would be trying for more funding for a better, sleeker and more devastating military, Wolfowitz would also be harping on Iraq, except from the framework of visionary nation-building, Richard Perle would be pushing support for Israel. The members of Bush's administration seem to be the ones who run the show, not Bush. And realistically, I can't think of a circumstance where one stupid decision by Bush could doom the country to catastrophe. It seems more sensible to object to the Bush Administration because of its policies, not because Bush is dumb.

It's possible that when she objected to Bush being stupid, Oren's mom was expressing concern about the kind of example that is set when a leader is openly ignorant or doesn't value education. That's valid. It's also the same condemnation issued towards President Clinton when the country found out about his scandalous behavior and lying. This presupposes that the president is uniquely influential in setting the tone of the whole social fabric of society. There's something to be said for this argument. I'm not sure how much though.

Blatantly Creepy Lurking

Don't ask me how I found this guy from Yale's blog site. I don't have any friends from Yale, and the people I do know who go there I don't particularly like. I have no idea what series of links brought me to this random kid's site, but I would bet that if you mapped out and then traced the links geographically according to IP location, you would travel the circumference of the earth approximately seven times. So anyway, in the vain of being an anonymous cyber-lurker, I am going to quote and link to a post written by a kid I don't know.

There's a reason I'm going to do this. I think this post has something to contribute to the gay marriage debate. According to this guy's friend who's stationed in Iraq, the incidence of male homosexuality in Iraqi society is amazingly high. In the inimitable words of my stranger friend:

I have reached the tentative conclusion that in male-dominated societies where women are treated as subhuman, homosexuality is much more acceptable, or maybe unacceptable but is more common. The men feel bad about having sex with women, so it's much more acceptable to have sex with someone who is worthy, another man. Ancient Greece fits this theory, as (seemingly) do Muslim dominated countries.

I'm not going to link to the post because this guy's friend also happens to be somewhat of an amateur telescopic-lens photographer, and some of the pictures he's taken to help visually corroborate his observation are rather unsightly. I will link to the main page, where you can read the text-only version of the post.

Now I'm not going to treat this guy's theorizing as gospel or anything, and I don't think I agree with the contention that in male-dominated societies "men feel bad about having sex with women" because they are less worthy, but I think there may be insight in the observation that homosexuality is more common in patriarchal, oppressive societies. It may have something to do with the natural human tendency to rebel against authority. If a society is based on a strict code of masculine behavior and scorns anything unmasculine, people are naturally going to want to rebel and do things that are less masculine. It's like how in Europe, where the drinking age is much lower, kids drink, but juvenile alcohol abuse is not nearly as widespread as it is in the states, where underage drinking prohibition is much more strictly enforced.

This observation seems to at least call into question the argument that if we condone homosexuality by instituting gay marriage, tacitly accepting it in our religious institutions etc., there are going to be more homosexuals in the future.

Dumb Criminal

'Spanky' the child sex-predator posing in his almost-foolproof masquerade.

"This man's profession as Spanky the clown brought him into contact with hundreds of families," said agent Albert Fitchett Jr. in Wilmington, North Carolina. "Behind the clown nose, however, this man appears to have been supporting an industry that trades in the exploitation of children."

This has to qualify as one of those stupidest criminal stories. If you're going to be a child sex predator, can you at least be a little more subtle than to call yourself 'Spanky the clown?'

The New Conservatives

With all the name-calling and ideological labeling that's going on in politics right now, which will only increase as November draws near, no one seems to have a good idea of exactly what they're saying when they label someone a 'conservative' or a 'liberal.' It's not that we don't have associations; there are plenty of those i.e. liberal = anti-Vietnam, multicultural; conservative = religious, anti-abortion, family values. When asked the question, "What is a conservative," the answer almost anyone would give, including these researchers, would include: unprogressive, intolerant, closed-minded, narrow, resistant to new ways of thinking, deference to authority, dogmatic. However, in my experience, these descriptors apply much more to liberals I have met than to conservatives.

Probably the most intolerant and authority-following people I know are liberal. How can you be intolerant and liberal? Easily. Preach and require everyone around you to follow a doctrine of uncompromising and thoughtless tolerance. Subscribe to fanciful ideas that the races have no inherent differences, that no cultures breed more violence than others, or that people deserve special exceptions simply because they are a minority race, and incriminate those who don't. This is the reason you read about 'intolerant liberals' or 'oppressive PC' in college guides much more than 'bigoted conservatives.'

The brainchildren of liberalism, such as political correctness and egalitarianism, have become unquestionable codes of conduct and thought, imposed dogmas that pre-determine what is right and what is wrong. Especially at our colleges, where much of our adult thinking is shaped, these doctrines reign as the supreme law. Some people conform the rules more than others, but on the whole, the more you follow it, the better a person you are thought to be. Why do we live under such a, for lack of a better word, doctrinaire code? The reason is because 100 years ago people lived under a different kind of code, which said that black people were a lower class and that women weren't fit to be educated. These were obviously incorrect ideas, but unfortunately, as we all know, social change takes a long time to happen on its own. So socially conscious people invented opposite policies (i.e. black people deserve a certain number of spots in institutions REGARDLESS of merit; women are completely equal to and exactly the same as men, in fact they're more powerful than men) to change the majority's opinion by force, and accelerate social change. Well, the good news is that it worked; we live in a better and fairer world than we did 100 years ago. But guess what, it's still a dogma, just as much as the dogma that used to say "believe in Christ and obey His law for if you don't you will go to hell." And, as usual, the people that are the most dogmatic and least flexible are propounding these dogmas the most piously and inflexibly, dismissing and denouncing anything that doesn't adhere to the simplistic notions fed to them as mechanisms of liberal values.

Don't get me wrong: liberals and conservatives should continue to fight it out until they're blue in the face, and people should continue to debate and discuss issues until changes are made. But I don't ever want to hear the cavalier categorization that liberals are more open-minded, tolerant, thoughtful or intelligent again.

THIRD PARTY WRITE-IN CANDIDATE ADAM KRAUS for PRESIDENT

Democracy may be the best political system, but it breeds some weird things. Like picketing for instance. Does picketing actually work? I'm not talking about in little dinky town elections, I mean in high stakes elections. The way I see it, it only has potential to work on two kinds of people. 1) People who weren't going to vote 2) People who are going to vote but don't know who the candidates are.

I suppose the first category could exist. There are plenty of apathetic people who don't care about issues or know about elections, but who will be reminded or inspired or whatever by seeing a sign for a candidate, and, having been exposed to a particular candidate's name first, are more liable to vote that way. Call this the honorary tobacco company strategy, because it's likenable to the way these companies "get 'em while they're young."

The second category is more absurd. It's kind of funny, though, to imagine someone at the polls, looking over their choices saying "Well I've HEARD OF this guy," or voting by process of elimination. Hey, it could happen though.

Explaining that it works through an advertising-like effect doesn't seem convincing to me. I can understand how constant advertising can affect consumer purchases, since these tend to be more impulsive and possibly more unconscious decisions than choosing the president of your country. Seeing positive messages associated with a product on a regular basis can make a person more likely to buy the product in the long run, if you figure that sometimes the buyer will be in a rush, or will be undecided between two brands. But what the manufacturers care about is not individual purchases, but rather the continuous buying habits of consumers over the long term, which may be easier to manipulate. When it comes down to elections, aren't the people who are going to vote going to be informed enough to make these subliminal tricks negligible?

Hey, Kris, I know you don't agree with me because I've already shared this opinion with you. So write a post about it. Come on Kris, you're being out-blogged.

Update: reader Dan believes voters who do not know the names of the major candidates is probably the norm in most states.

Public Enemy (Defender) #1

I thought the defense attorneys who jumped at the chance to defend the D.C. snipers were questionable. But this guy has taken the sleazy stigma of being a criminal defense attorney to a new level. He's a truly world-class criminal defense attorney sleazeball.

The French lawyer known for defending Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and
guerrilla Carlos the Jackal said on Saturday that Saddam Hussein’s nephew had chosen him to represent the deposed Iraqi president.

Klaus Barbie and "Carlos the Jackal" (who is "Carlos the Jackal" anyway?)... apparently he also he also has a self-destructive streak. Oh yeah, he lost,

Verges has taken on tough cases before. Barbie, known as the “butcher of
Lyon,” was jailed for life in 1987 for crimes against humanity in Nazi-occupied France. Carlos the Jackal, whose real name is Illich Ramirez Sanchez, is serving a life sentence in France for a string of deadly attacks in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s.

In all fairness, the job has to be done by someone, right. He's kind of like the middle school janitor who cleans the bathrooms, who you may look at with disgust, but who actually does everyone a great service by performing a necessary job no one else wants to do.

Unflattering Promotion

Seems like a lot of people are calling Kerry this nowadays. It makes sense that most of the people who pass this judgment are Democratic voters, so what is up with Kerry that inspires them to call him a douche? He has a respectable history of accomplishments and he's certainly competent. So what if he's a Democrat and he comes from a lot of money, so does every other politician. Why wasn't Howard Dean a douche? (He was). Ok, but here are some more substantial reasons why I think he is regarded as a douche.

1) He wavers, which many interpret as hypocrisy, or worse yet, indecisiveness. Welcome to the worst criticism of liberalism embodied.

2) He says things to try to please people. No different from any other politician, but with his tendency to hedge his positions on points, it's more pronounced.

3) He's not very likeable. He's aloof. People think that politicians who claim to fight on the side of the common man should interact with the common man.

4) He's an elite. I know I already got to the money thing, but there's something off-putting about an almost billionaire heiress's husband who lives a lavish lifestyle with 6 houses and yet claims he wants to reinstate taxes for the rich.

Of course all of this should be disregarded by Kris, who will undoubtedly vote for the socialist party's candidate.

Get Out the Duct tape and Plastic Sheeting!

I don't have anything great to say. But that's what I like about blogs. Blogging seems to me to reward productivity much more than deliberative quality; I can make a bad post today and tomorrow it will be totally forgotten if I have a decent post up.

These people think America is currently in the process of rotting from within. According to their historical / futurological analysis, large-scale social life goes through repeating cycles of 4 roughly generation-long phases. What we're headed for next, of course, is a giant catastrophe.

First came the postwar High, then the Awakening of the '60s and '70s, and now the Unraveling. This audacious and provocative book tells us what to expect just beyond the start of the next century. Are you ready for the Fourth Turning?

While the thesis is interesting and merits further attention, I have to wonder, haven't there been people in every generation who have predicted an impending catastrophe for that generation? Someone should do a generational study of catastrophic generational studies to find out if there's any kind of regularity there. That would be a generational study worth reading.

Kris' first post

It seems that Adam has been busy for the past few days. Or perhaps the opposite is true. Either way, here's my first post.

The world of blogs is rather new to me. I've read a few over the years since they began catching on, but I never kept up with too many of them because they were either so right wing that I would get too frustrated to continue, or they were just a guy posting links to various articles saying things like "I found this amusing, check it out," or "This is fucked up. Seriously. I have no words." Not terribly engaging.

So when Adam and I began discussing the possibilities of running our own blog, I was interested but not very excited. I tried having a Livejournal once; that pretty much crashed and burned. Every time I've kept a journal it hasn't lasted me more than a week and I have no idea what to write about. So I have no expectations from this experience.

I think Adam pretty much summed up why we're doing this blog. We are not seeking to revolutionize blogging, nor are we trying to say that our posts will be free of all irony or narcissism; in fact, it seems to me that the act of blogging or posting anything about yourself on the internet is inherently narcissistic. But let's see where this goes. Feel free to comment away.

A vote for Bush is a vote for yourself?

A while ago, my dad made the statement that anyone who is educated and votes for Bush must be doing it for selfish reasons. At first I considered the statement too categorical and closed-minded, and therefore untrue. But coming up with an example that refuted the generalization was difficult. It's true that a handful of people in my more extended family who vote for Bush are either rich, or kind of selfish, or both. So assuming that the average vote for Bush is cast for selfish reasons, is there anything wrong with that? Or is that how we can expect people to vote, and more generally to express themselves politically? Is democracy merely a system for balancing selfish power and interests, or are there higher reasons for identifying with a political candidate or creed, such as philanthropy or ideology?

I tend to think that my dad is wrong. I don't think political affiliation is purely a function of interest for a couple of reasons: 1) The term "ideology" would lose its meaning then, since there is no place for ideals when every choice is a cut-and-dry instance of self-interest - although ideology could just be a way to rationalize self-interest, an analysis I don't subscribe to myself. 2) Most people cannot accurately assess how their interests will be served because a) they have imperfect or incomplete information about the precise consequences of most policies b) in the case of supporting a political party, they do not know for sure what policies will actually be implemented. 3) Lots of people (from the South, military) who vote Republican do not ostensibly benefit from the party's(economic) policies. This brings another question: is it somehow better to support a party which has hypothetically pernicious policies on the grounds of ideology, rather than because of interest?

One point I would like to make here is that as the inequalities among voters grow, so do their interests diverge, and this makes the role that interest plays in political activity more salient. Basically the domestic political forum becomes more like a fighting ring, rather than a place of collaboration. I don't know if it's bad or good, but it definitely detracts from a harmonious political system.

We'll surely be talking much more about inequality here at KrisKraus, because the so-far silent Kris is actually an avowed and vocal socialist.

Let's talk (about the gay marriage debate)

I don't think I know what my position is on the gay marriage issue yet. But I did notice an interesting point in the debate. There is a common argument you hear by opponents of gay marriage that is premised on the conviction that homosexuality is immoral. You hear this argument so frequently that you naturally assume it's at least valid, and it's only when you stop and think about it that you realize it doesn't seem to hold water.

Any non-religious idea of morality that we accept today in America is at the fundamental level based on the utilitarian necessity of not causing harm to someone or something - with the caveat that one may justifiably do harm where there is conscious consent involved (I would welcome objections if anyone's got them). Applying this standard of morality to many examples of so-called sexual perversions, you would conclude that most are in fact immoral. For example, the universally detested act of bestiality would be wrong not because it is aberrant and unnatural, but rather because it consists of the mistreatment of a powerless subject - much in the same way that picking up a cat and swinging it around by its tail would be abusive and wrong. Likewise, man-boy or man-girl (man-child)? relationships are immoral because the power disparity and plain immaturity of one of the participants prevents the establishment of acceptable consent. Homosexuality is of course between two presumably consenting adults, and not even the staunchest opponent of homosexuality makes the claim that it causes harm to either one of them - if it did, wouldn't it be more logical for them, as gay haters, to advocate it? To say homosexuality is wrong because it is unnatural or improper doesn't work I think, because we as a culture don't seem to define morality on those grounds. The only other justification for calling it immoral must lay in religious teachings. I should hope that we as a country are beyond the stage of basing any government affairs, especially legislation, on religious beliefs.

A First Post

This will be the first post, so I figure it will be a good place to explain my vision of what this blog will be. This blog is meant to be different from other blogs. Instead of displaying only what I think, or what Kris thinks, this blog will be an unplanned online conversation between both of us. Blogs are supposed to be windows into the spontaneous world of someone else's thoughts or something, and this blog really will be: what follows will be an unplanned and ongoing debate between two people with different viewpoints. We're not sure what the format will be yet, whether each topic will be strictly composed of two sub-posts, or if we'll use an Onion-style point-counterpoint format, or maybe we'll just ignore each other. Hopefully not though. Feel free to take sides in your comments, or contribute additional facts or arguments we may have left out. We don't fight or argue a lot in real life, even about the kind of topics we'll handle over here, we're just kind of exhibitionistic. Hopefully the end result will be less narcissistic and more meaningful than other blogs. We will promise never to do anything like post our academic papers on the blog, or anything else that upsets the blog-gods.

We're going to try to each post about any chosen topic, although on occasion we'll post about separate topics. Kris, if you feel I have misinterpreted the project, let me know.

Why Jazz

Pre-jazz, I studied classical music with a local teacher, with a mixed level of interest. In 9th grade I learned the jazz lexicon and repertoire. In my view, the advantages of jazz over other forms of music include:

Versatility: People of all ages enjoy it; old people find it nostalgic, young people still tend to think it's hip, at least as compared to same-era popular music. In another sense, it's versatile in terms of appropriateness. It would not be improper or obtrusive to play as background music, accompanying dinners, cocktail hours, or social events, while it functions equally well as "feature" music in similar settings. Jazz can be played at concerts, or performed solo. In New Orleans it's even played at funerals!

Scope and transferability: The skill developed by reading jazz lead sheets is applicable to virtually every style of music except classical. (Of course, I am leaving out non-western forms of music, but I have no knowledge of these or their written form). And in the 17th century, classical music was recorded on lead sheets too as figured bass. For reasons I haven't figured out, I have a natural advantage reading lead sheets in symbolic notation over musical scores written note-for-note. Nevertheless, I can say to anyone who is in a position similar to mine that the ability to read scores can be developed, through practice and mental techniques.

Snob appeal: No, only kidding. But, jazz is the ideal balance of listening accessibility and musical sophistication. The problem faced by any serious musician faces is that the popular music of today is not challenging enough to hold even the slightest bit of musical interest. At the other end of the spectrum, classical music is the pinnacle of musical development and exactingness, however its context is much more limited. There are opportunities to study and share classical music in certain contexts, but they tend to be academic, more formal, and attended by a select group of afficionados. Certainly, the snob value of classical music and the classical music world is unmatched. But it is still possible to find jazz that is of comparable musical interest and depth. A partial list of composers I would recommend along these lines includes George Gershwin (considered pseudo-classical), Art Tatum (performances, not material), Bud Powell, Dave Brubeck, and Louis Armstrong. Of course, my appraisal is biased toward piano music.

Potential for creativity: All music is creative of course; however I'm refering to creative potential for the performing musician. Like ancient folklore, jazz has historically been transmitted through generations by way of ear, which allows for each person to contribute something. For this reason, when jazz is written down, it is presented in barest possible terms. Lead sheets require active musical input just to play (at least for polyphonic instruments). Improvisation is the creative aspect of jazz that gets the most credit, although in my opinion it is not the most important.

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My Music

As a sophomore in high school, I began playing solo jazz piano in restaurants, country clubs, golf-club dinner rooms, and private functions, which is harder to do than you would think for those like myself who do not belong to a musician's union. If for some inconceivable reason you are impressed and/or desperate enough to wish to hire me directly over the internet based on this brief exposition of my skills and/or chutzpah, feel free to email me. All inquiries should be made with at least 2 months of advance notice.
See below for music performed by me:

Jazz

1998: The earliest dated recording I know of: / Bouncing with Bud / Misty / Dolphin Dance /
1999: / Bag's Groove /(duet)
2000: Natick Arts Center; all musicians from high school: / One Finger Snap / Boplicity / Nica's Dream / / I Mean You / Nostalgia in Times Square / Confirmation / Con Alma / "Jam" / Maiden Voyage /(solo)
2001: Herbie Hancock Tribute at the Center for Arts in Natick during a break from college: / Canteloupe Island / Three Wishes / Eye of the Hurricane /
2002: Pretty experimental, kind of free-style song solo: / Dolphin Dance /

Funk

2000: I staged a small funk concert in my high school theatre, pejoratively refered to by a musical friend as my "recital." From the CD: / Hang up your Hang Ups /
2001: These took place at a high school benefit concert for Amnesty International. Pardon the sound mixing issues on some tracks: / Actual Proof / Cissy Strut / Driftin' /
2001: An original funk song performed as an opener for the group Jiggle the Handle. The main section is written in groups of 6 measures: / Original /
2001: An impromptu, unrehearsed recording. The song we're playing is another original: / Original / 2

What attracted me to jazz.
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Prank Idea Collection

Here is a collection of benign high-school pranks (none of which I have ever actually done, of course) that were coincidentally an interest of mine during my last two months of high school. The following are all original, except for one, but maybe I will start accumulating others' ideas as well. Note that this page is the one area of my otherwise stingy site where the contents are most emphatically not my legal or intellectual property. In fact, I generously give whoever appropriates the information contained on this page immediate and unequivocal legal ownership of the intellectual property contained herein.

All of these pranks require access to the school for a solid chunk of time during which the school is unoccupied.

"Styrofoam Net": Buy some plastic mesh sheeting from a home supply store, the kind you can use to cheaply animal-proof a garden. Make sure it is see-through. Then, find a large quantity of styrofoam packing peanuts, like 10 cubic feet worth, which shouldn't be hard to obtain from a warehouse or other place that does shipping. Then, on the ceiling of a well-traveled hallway, non-destructively attach a surface of the mesh large enough to contain half of the peanuts, making sure to load them all in before you fully attach the surface. Now, do the same thing again right under the first surface, except this time permanently attach the lower surface to the top surface IN THE CENTER REGION OF THE SURFACE. If you wish to include a message of some sort, prepare it on a large sheet of paper, easily visible from the floor, and place the paper face-down inside the second surface. Finally, load the remaining packing peanuts into the second surface, above the optional message, and seal that surface as well. The idea here is that the school officials are faced with a choice: leave your message on display to anyone who walks down the hallway, or disassemble the aparatus and deal with cleaning up all the packing peanuts from the floor.

Kool Aid Cups: (This idea came from a friend) Obtain a large quantity of dixie cups, the smaller the cups the better. In a well-travelled hallway, line them up in rows with a density that makes walking through them impossible. The more rows the better, 10 feet worth seems ideal. Yes, the lining up process will be tedious, but not impossible. Afterwards you fill each cup with an inconvenient (but not permamently staining!) liquid. Obviously this will requires a container that will hold a large volume of the liquid and a hose to precision-fill the individual cups (no spilling). Congratulations, you have just accomplished the prank equivalent of violating the conservation of energy law from the perspective of human labor by putting more potential energy into a system than the work you expended on it.

The "get something really big into the school that they can't get out" Prank: The diversity of pranks following from this single concept is endless as long as you follow the simple principle assembly. Obviously, the quicker the assembly time and more extensive the object the better. If you are skilled with carpentry, you might build something out of wood, for the purposes of benign obstruction or just visibility. A particularly clever idea, I think, is to use water from a water supply to inflate a giant inflatable pool in the middle of some particularly inopportune location. Then, fill the pool with water as well.

(Note: All of these pranks cause incovenience. However, none of them are ultimately capable of causing any damage. If your goal is to cause damage, you don't need to try to be clever about it. Don't bother looking to these tips for help.)

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School Duties

Sorry, it goes against my code of ethics to post schoolwork on this blog. Posting schoolwork anywhere on the internet should be given a penalty.

If you are still unsatisfied, here's a collection of original and benign school prank ideas, properly used only once in a student's career as an expression of appreciation upon graduation.

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