Republican candidates before they loved Reagan

REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES: Before they loved Reagan. Money quote, from Rick Perry's Fed Up: How to Save America from Washington: "During the Reagan years of the 1980s, federal spending still doubled, numerous federal agencies expanded, and there was a proliferation of federal criminal laws. Only 12 of 94 programs the administration proposed to eliminate actually ended. And programs that were ‘scaled back’ simply returned in full force in the face of a relentless Democratic Congress." One suspects that the now frequently-demonstrated Republican affinity for Reagan's presidency is drawn from a lack of a single, coherent image for the party. Do they honestly hope that Reagan could be that figurehead? I hope not. Perry explained it himself: Reagan wasn't a particularly good fiscal conservative.

Even the Associated Press is reporting that the 'fiery book' in which the afore-quoted criticism appeared could come back to haunt Perry. It's certainly difficult as a candidate with published opinions, like many who have graced the ranks of candidacy on both sides of the political spectrum over the past few years: all your opinions (from a particular place and time) are all laid out for everyone to see. Suddenly, flip-flopping – now considered a great crime in American politics – becomes that much easier. We've discussed this before, remember?

In defense of government investments

PICKING WINNERS: Erza Klein defends government investments. I can't say with any measure of honesty that I'm particularly fond of them; my view is more aligned with that of Doug Mataconis on this issue.

Rick Perry and the death penalty, continued

RICK PERRRY AND THE DEATH PENALTY, CTD: Radley Balko is thoroughly unimpressed with Perry's record, particularly his involvement in the Todd Willingham case. He writes: "While Perry’s record is better than most, I still think his actions in the Willingham case should disqualify him from the White House, for a reason that goes beyond crime and the death penalty: Faced with the prospect that the state of Texas may have done the worst thing a state government can possibly do to one of its citizens, Perry has expressed resolute faith that the government got it right, refused to even consider the strong evidence indicating otherwise, and has spent the years since trying to prevent the public from knowing what happened. Again, this goes beyond capital punishment. When you consider what we’ve seen from the last two administrations on issues like torture, rendition, black sites, state secrets, the innocent detainees in Gitmo, and a host of other issues, Perry’s demonstrated instincts in the Willingham case are disturbing. And they certainly aren’t the instincts you’d hope to find in a guy claiming to run as the limited government candidate." Agreed.

The responsibility of intellectuals, in the words of Noam Chomsky

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF INTELLECTUALS: The linguist and renowned public intellectual Noam Chomsky explores the idea of using privilege to challenge the state, making a number of important historical points to compliment his usual thematic undertones: those associated with what he might have us believe is a great governmental conspiracy. Regardless, it's an excellent (albeit long) esssay, with a number of intriguing passages, including the following:

The honorable term “dissident” is used selectively. It does not, of course, apply, with its favorable connotations, to value-oriented intellectuals at home or to those who combat U.S.-supported tyranny abroad. Take the interesting case of Nelson Mandela, who was removed from the official terrorist list in 2008, and can now travel to the United States without special authorization.

Twenty years earlier, he was the criminal leader of one of the world’s “more notorious terrorist groups,” according to a Pentagon report. That is why President Reagan had to support the apartheid regime, increasing trade with South Africa in violation of congressional sanctions and supporting South Africa’s depredations in neighboring countries, which led, according to a UN study, to 1.5 million deaths. That was only one episode in the war on terrorism that Reagan declared to combat “the plague of the modern age,” or, as Secretary of State George Shultz had it, “a return to barbarism in the modern age.” We may add hundreds of thousands of corpses in Central America and tens of thousands more in the Middle East, among other achievements. Small wonder that the Great Communicator is worshipped by Hoover Institution scholars as a colossus whose “spirit seems to stride the country, watching us like a warm and friendly ghost,” recently honored further by a statue that defaces the American Embassy in London.

Chomsky goes on to explain similarly interesting cases, finally returning to the death of Osama bin Laden, which served as the original starting-pont for the entire essay.

Appreciating fiction, according to Virginia Woolf

APPRECIATING FICTION: Although the quote was found what some might describe as an unlikely context – Giles Harvey's post on his learning to appreciate football – I've discovered that Virginia Woolf had some pertinent advice for those wishing to understand and appreciate great novelists. It is reproduced in the following lines (aptly headlined as our quote of the day).

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Perhaps the quickest way to understand the elements of what a novelist is doing is not to read, but to write; to make your own experiment with the dangers and difficulties of words. Recall, then, some event that has left a distinct impression on you—how at the corner of the street, perhaps, you passed two people talking. A tree shook; an electric light danced; the tone of the talk was comic, but also tragic; a whole vision, an entire conception, seemed contained in that moment. But when you attempt to reconstruct it in words, you will find that it breaks into a thousand conflicting impressions. Some must be subdued; others emphasised; in the process you will lose, probably, all grasp upon the emotion itself. Then turn from your blurred and littered pages to the opening pages of some great novelist—Defoe, Jane Austen, Hardy. Now you will be better able to appreciate their mastery." – Virginia Woolf, How Should One Read a Book. 

SuperPACs, explained by Stephen Colbert's lawyer

SUPERPACS, EXPLAINED: By Stephen Colbert's lawyer, naturally. Money quote: "The primary purpose of superPACs and other independent groups, Potter explains, is to spend a lot of money. Mostly on TV ads."

Loyalists continue to flee Libya

FLEEING LIBYA: The Times is reporting that even more loyalists are fleeing from Libya to its southern neighbour – Niger. The movements of a long convoy are of particular interest: the string of up to 250 Libyan army vehicles was reported to have crossed the border to Niger on Tuesday, and there is speculation that the convoy's movements mark a significant shift in power following six months of intense conflict in the region. It also seems that normality is on its way to restoration in Libya: "In Tripoli, more shops and businesses began to open, many rebel checkpoints disappeared from the streets, and celebratory gunfire diminished noticeably. The Libyan dinar’s value soared against the dollar on the official market, leading to the collapse almost overnight of a parallel or black market in the currency." Good to see.

Remembering 9/11; it's cultural legacy

REMEMBERING 9/11: Andrew Sullivan reflects on the events of the past ten years, and argues that in perpetrating the attacks on the United States in 2001, Osama bin Laden offered the West bait – and we took it. He writes: "Bin Laden and his henchmen failed ... But our own fear won. Fear stopped us, overwhelmed us, as our ra-tion-al-ity deserted us. Yes, it was understandable, given what we endured that September morning. But we need to admit that our response was close to fatal. A bankrupted America that tortured innocents and disregarded its own Constitution is barely recognizable as America." Indeed.

Michael J. Lewis, in the New Criterion, explores its cultural legacy:

Before the sun set on September 11, it was already a commonplace that the attacks would “change everything,” as the phrase of the day went. How precisely this would happen was not entirely clear. Roger Rosenblatt, in a widely noted essay in Time, suggested that it would bring about the end of irony (an era of neo-sincerity presumably succeeding that of ironic detachment). Surely so violent a shock to the national consciousness must somehow change that consciousness itself.

Or so it was believed, for it was universally sensed that the events of the day represented something new in human experience. Through almost all of human history the scope of collective experience was limited by two strict physical limits, by how far the human voice could reach and by how many people could be squeezed into a given space. Plato’s ideal number of 5040 male citizens for a democracy is a realistic figure, given the acoustic properties of a Greek theater and the requirement that citizens take active part in debate—even in our lifetimes few theaters or opera houses have surpassed it.

 Read the rest of his piece. Also, The Guardian has an interactive graphic on the '9/11 Decade'.

100 years of style

100 YEARS OF STYLE: An excellently produced compilation of various fashion styles throughout the years, coupled with a medley of music and a nicely choreographed dance. How this was shot really impresses me.



This video is currently sitting on a much-deserved 1.3 million views. - posted by Ciaran

Romney's Tea Party problem

ROMNEY'S TEA PARTY PROBLEM: He struggles to earn their support. "Mr. Romney has never been a favorite of Tea Party supporters, who dislike the health care overhaul he carried out as governor of Massachusetts. And when he was announced as a speaker for the Tea Party Express national bus tour, FreedomWorks, a libertarian advocacy group that has fostered the growth of the Tea Party movement, withdrew in protest. Along with a coalition of a dozen other Tea Party and liberty groups, FreedomWorks also organized a protest before Mr. Romney’s speech Sunday. But attendance at the protest was sparse, drawing a little more than a dozen supporters." I'd hate to say I'm pleased, but that happens to be accurate.

Palin's warning to Tea Party

PALIN'S WARNING: Sarah Palin addresses rally, warns of "media-incited internal quarrels."

News International to sell Wapping plant

CLEANING UP: News International intends to sell its Wapping plant, the site of a bitter 1986 union dispute. I can't imagine how this could ever be a bad idea.

On the humanities

ON THE HUMANITIES: Ian Bogost writes: "The humanities needs more courage and more contact with the world. It needs to extend the practice of humanism into that world, rather than to invite the world in for tea and talk of novels, only to pat itself on the collective back for having injected some small measure of abstract critical thinking into the otherwise empty puppets of industry. As far as indispensability goes, we are not meant to be superheroes nor wizards, but secret agents among the citizens, among the scrap metal, among the coriander, among the parking meters. We earn respect by calling in worldly secrets, by making them public. The worldly spy is the opposite of the elbow-patched humanist, the one never out of place no matter the place. The traveler at home everywhere, with the luxury to look."

Nietzsche, a perspectivist?

NIETZSCHE, A PERSPECTIVIST? Dave Maier writes at 3QuarksDaily:

Nietzsche is often described as a "perspectivist" about knowledge and truth. His remarks on the matter, however, render the issue far from straightforward. He clearly means to reject some form of absolutism, but which? And what does he leave in its place? One's answer to this question depends quite a bit on whether or not one wishes to see Nietzsche as an ally in contemporary disputes. Postmodern relativists, for example, see Nietzsche as a champion of their cause, breaking the chains of "objectivity" and liberating us from the logocentric hegemony of Western rationality or some damn thing. Defenders of metaphysical realism (or of Christianity, NIetzsche's explicit target) are generally happy to agree, allowing them to dismiss him along with his postmodern disciples as wild-eyed lunatics.

However, a recent trend in Nietzsche studies has been to claim him as an exponent of scientific rationality rather than as a critic (as in the work of Brian Leiter and Maudemarie Clark). On these latter readings, Nietzsche's "perspectivism" must then be understood as not at all relativistic, and indeed compatible with, as Leiter puts it, seeing a naturalistic or scientific perspective as "the true or correct" one.

Read his full piece. Although not what one might expect of a light afternoon read, it's well worth your time.

Bachmann: hurricane, earthquake comments 'metaphorical'

BACHMANN'S NATURAL DISASTERS: In yet another episode of Bachmann Says the Darndest Things, the candidate – widely criticized over poorly-received comments she made about Hurricane Irene and the recent East Coast earthquake being signs from a divine power to cut spending – claimed on Monday that the comments merely constituted a harmless joke. Now, apparently, the comments were earnestly-made metaphorical observations. "Obviously, I was speaking metaphorically. That was clear to the audience. It was clear to me," she told Face the Nation. Not only does the whole idea of turning a disaster such as Hurricane Irene into a matter of political concern belittle the problems faced by those in its path, but it also highlights the absurdity of her thinking. One would have reasonable evidence to conclude, given our previous advancement in science and the like, that we'd surely be beyond the days of (public, if not all) superstition. Clearly not.

Furthermore, I don't know what's funny or remotely metaphorical about her comments, which I shall reproduce here (in the name of contextual disclosure): "I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We've had an earthquake. We've had a hurricane. He said, 'Are you going to start listening to me here?' Listen to the American people, because the American people are roaring right now. Because they know what needs to be done. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet. It’s got to rein in the spending." How hilarious (and deeply metaphorical, of course).

What happened to the social issues?

FISCAL CONCERN, NOT SOCIAL: David Weigel notices that something's missing from the GOP race. The social issues, anyone?

Huntsman ends speculation over possibility of independent run

HUNTSMAN ENDS SPECULATION: Over possibility of running as an independent, as opposed to a Republican. "I'm running as a Republican, proudly so," he told CNN. "And I think we will get a lot of Independent votes, no doubt about that." One contributor for the news service was unconvinced by Huntsman's decision. "It would seem that if Huntsman is still serious about being the next president of the United States, then instead of trying to win over the social conservatives who never liked him anyway, he should reboot his campaign and run as an independent." Agreed.

Rick Perry and the death penalty

RICK PERRY AND THE DEATH PENALTY: In spite of the significance they used to have in American politics, candidates' views on the death penalty no longer play a defining role, writes Juana Summers. Even for Rick Perry (whose home state of Texas is planning to add six more executions to the 'already record tally' it has accrued under his governorship), the death penalty is seen as an unlikely factor for realizing presidential ambitions. It states: "That’s a big change from the days when Bernard Shaw pressed Michael Dukakis at a 1988 debate about whether he’d still oppose the death penalty for someone who’d raped and murdered his wife, or when Bill Clinton took time off the trail in 1992 to attend the execution of a brain-damaged cop killer." That said, it is speculated on the second page of Summers' article that Perry's unequivocal support of the death penalty may play a role should he (shudder) win the nomination. “Opponents and critics of him, primarily from the Democratic side, are already singling him out. I think it will be an issue, and he’s pretty strong on it," Michael Rushford, president of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, told Politico. As to whether it will play a major role in deciding the outcome of this year's election, I'm fairly certain (as are most others, surely) that it won't.

Roger Lewis reviews Anne Sebba's new biography of Wallis Simpson

ON WALLIS SIMPSON: Roger Lewis reviews Anne Sebba's new biography of socialite Wallis Simpson, who seems to be the subject of increased interest as of late – particularly following the release of the highly-acclaimed film The King's Speech, in which her marriage to Prince Edward played an important role.

While we can all agree that the ex-King was a petulant pipsqueak, who would have made a disastrous monarch, it does seem that everyone took it out on Wallis. She was generally vilified as a “prostitute, a Yankee harlot”, “sadistic, cold, overbearing, vain”, “mean and grasping” and, in the words of the late Queen Elizabeth, “the lowest of the low”. Well prior to the Prince of Wales commencing his open pursuit of her, Wallis was correct to surmise that the Royal family was “filled with an icy menace for such as me”. Part of Wallis’s appeal, clearly, was that she represented the very polar opposite of the stifling Victorian court protocol. She implied freedom. But as Anne Sebba shows, Wallis was cramped by her own “mounting nervous tensions”.

Read the rest of Lewis' piece on Simpson.

Phillip Lopate reviews Christopher Hitchens' new book

'ARGUABLY': Phillip Lopate reviews Christopher Hitchens' new book.

The rise of the non-religious

RISE OF THE NON-RELIGIOUS: Now that we can mostly agree that there's a trend, why is it happening? One theory: "Michael Hout and Claude Fischer, sociologists at the University of California, Berkeley, claim—and I think they are basically right— that it is part of the reaction to the religious right’s rising visibility in the 1980s. That is, before 1990, people who were raised, say, Catholic or Baptist, but were socially and politically liberal and already religiously inactive, would still be comfortable enough with their religious background to tell a pollster they were Catholic or Baptist. And then they saw all this conservative politics happening in the name of religion, in the name of their own religion maybe, and said, “You know what, I’m not that.” It pushed them across the line. They were less comfortable affiliating with the religion in which they were raised. Now, they are more likely to respond to a religious preference question by saying “none” because that is a way to say, “I’m not like them.” Again, we’re talking about the most religiously inactive people anyway. That’s one hypothesis for at least part of the trend."

Heads-up, readers

HEADS-UP, READERS: I'm going to be running some design updates on the site over the next few hours. Sorry if this diminishes the quality of your reading experience. I hope to be up and running normally (and much better!) by later this evening. See you tomorrow!

Quote of the Day: Fred Feldman

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Suppose we find some coherent way to formulate the view that a person’s death is a misfortune for him because it deprives him of goods. Then we face another Epicurean question: when is it a misfortune for him? It seems wrong to say that it is a misfortune for him while he is still alive — for at such times he is not yet dead and death has not yet deprived him of anything. It seems equally wrong to say that it is a misfortune for him after he is dead — for at such times he does not exist. How can he suffer misfortunes then?" – Fred Feldman, “Some Puzzles About the Evil of Death,” The Philosophical Review, April 1991 (via Futility Closet)

Rethinking secularism

RETHINKING SECULARISM: Tariq Modood rebukes the notion of a 'crisis of secularism', and suggests instead that this is simply the challenge of multiculturalism.

Political secularism has been destabilized, and in particular the historical flow from a moderate to radical secularism and the expectation of its continuation has been jolted. This is not because of any Christian desecularization or a “return of the repressed.” Rather, the jolt is created by the triple contingency of the arrival and settlement of a significant number of Muslims; a multiculturalist sensibility which respects “difference”; and a moderate secularism, namely, that the historical compromises between the state and a church or churches in relation to public recognition and accommodation are still in place to some extent. To speak of a “crisis of secularism” is highly exaggerated, especially in relation to the state.

Read the rest of the piece. Very insightful.

Obama vs. the left

OBAMA VS. THE LEFT: Jonathan Chait, in a column for the Times, argues that the left's persistent criticism of Obama (particularly regarding his fiscal policy) is misguided, overstated, and counterhistorical. Money quote: "President Obama underestimated the depth of the crisis in 2009 and left himself with bad options in the event the economy failed to recover as quickly as he hoped. And yet the wave of criticism from the left over the stimulus is fundamentally flawed: it ignores the real choices Obama faced (and the progressive decisions he made) and wishes away any constraints upon his power." I remain sympathetic to Obama and his cause, though I often find myself cringing at some of his political decisions. In more realistic terms, the left is really the only side of the political spectrum from which the president can hope to garner any support; he needs to cultivate that support, now more than ever. Particularly in the lead-up to his re-election challenge, the true test will not be in whether he can unite both Republicans and Democrats (as some might argue he did in 2008) but whether he can unite Democrats alone. Perhaps pleasingly, much of the scrutiny from GOP candidates seems to have shifted away from him as they focus more of their criticism on each other – but, it should be noted, even that won't stop the non-candidate.

On the topic of air quality, continued

ON THE TOPIC OF AIR QUALITY, CTD: Kate Sheppard of Mother Jones seems thoroughly unimpressed by this most recent development in environmental law.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the announcement came on day when the Labor Department released the worst jobs report in 11 months. The move certainly plays right into the "jobs vs. the environment" frame that the opponents of any and all regulations have constructed. Worse, though, is that it feeds the idea that it's perfectly okay for the administration to ignore the advice of agency scientists. It's also not clear whom Obama thinks he's going to win over with this. I'm pretty sure this won't send the American Petroleum Institute or the Chamber of Commerce rushing to donate to his reelection bid, or make Republicans start saying nice things about him.

Her last sentence happens to be congruent to my views on the matter. She's right: this won't change the Republican rhetoric on Obama, nor will it give him greatly augmented opportunities for funding. However, you cannot deny that handing out a $90 billion bill to businesses over the next nine years is hardly a politically intelligent move, even if you are a Democrat.

Palin, kingmaker instead of contender?

PALIN, KINGMAKER: Instead of candidate? Weigel imagines how it might work.

On the topic of air quality

ON THE TOPIC OF AIR QUALITY: New regulation abandoned. "The president rejected a proposed rule from the Environmental Protection Agency that would have significantly reduced emissions of smog-causing chemicals, saying that it would impose too severe a burden on industry and local governments at a time of economic distress." Indeed, environmental causes (much to the activists' dismay) must take a back seat in a time of economic downturn. Sorry. On the wider issue of air quality, this reminded me of smoking on planes. Was it a good idea to ban it? Stephen Fry says no.

Will Wilkinson irked by libertarian view of Ron Paul

LIBERTARIAN DISAPPOINTMENT: Many libertarians view Ron Paul as their last hope and savior. Will Wilkinson disagrees profoundly. "It irks me that, as far as most Americans are concerned, Ron Paul is the alpha and omega of the libertarian creed. If you were an evil genius determined to promote the idea that libertarianism is a morally dubious ideology of privilege poorly disguised as a doctrine of liberation, you'd be hard pressed to improve on Ron Paul." That may be, but one need only look at the alternatives and support is found.

Coffee snobbery, an ad compilation

COFFEE SNOBBERY, A COMPILATION: Shaun Clayton compiled a number of clips from old television commercials, with a common thematic thread: husbands being jerks about their wives' coffee. Rather amusing, I must say.



(via Boing Boing)

A reunion with boredom: our lives without technology

A REUNION WITH BOREDOM: Charles Simic writes in the NYRB:

Do people still suffer from periods of boredom even with computers, smart phones and tablets to occupy them endlessly? There’s also television, of course, which in homes of many Americans is on twenty-four hours a day, making it harder and harder to find a quiet place to sit and think. Even neighborhood bars, the old refuge of introspective loners, now have huge TV screens alternating between sports and chatter to divert them from their thoughts. As soon as college students are out of class, cell phones, and iPods materialize in their hands, requiring full concentration and making them instantly oblivious of their surroundings. I imagine Romeo and Juliet would send text messages to each other today as they strolled around Verona, though I find it hard to picture Hamlet advising Ophelia to betake herself to a nunnery. 

These and other thoughts came to me as I sat in a dark house for three days in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene. Being without lights and water is a fairly common experience for those of us who live in rural areas on roads lined with old trees. Every major rainstorm or snowstorm is almost certain to bring down the lines, which, because of the relative scarcity of population, are a low priority for the power company to fix. We use oil lamps and most often candles, so our evenings around the dining room table resemble séances. We sit with our heads bowed as if trying to summon spirits, while in truth struggling to see what’s on our dinner plates. Being temporarily unable to use the technology we’ve grown dependent on to inform ourselves about the rest of the world, communicate with others, and pass the time, is a reminder of our alarming dependence on them.

Often struck with similar bouts of boredom, although spurred by events of far less severity, I find myself with similar sentiment. When feeling somewhat fatigued from extended use of technology (let it be known: I spend a potentially unhealthy amount of time staring at a screen each day), I find myself looking for something else to occupy my time. Thanks to numerous online booksellers, I am rarely found in short supply of the printed word, and so the substitute tends to be a book, but even then I feel a strange sense of disconnection, as if I'm missing something truly important. To overcome these feelings, much of my reading tends to be at nighttime. It leaves me a little tireder, but concentration is easier to come by without distractions.

I suppose that's why I could never bring myself to take iPad-based reading seriously. Sure, I can make my way through a magazine article or newspaper without the allure of Angry Birds taking hold, but what about a book? Writing, too, has its challenges in the company of an ever-present internet connection. The author Jonathan Franzen once wrote: "It's doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction." In fact, Franzen believes in this disconnected philosophy so strongly, he uses only a Dell laptop for writing, a laptop which has had its ethernet port permanently blocked with superglue. I wouldn't go quite this far, but I occasionally consider the benefits a little boredom might bring once in a while.

Quote of the Day: Charles Darwin

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "As man advances in civilization, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races. If, indeed, such men are separated from him by great differences in appearance or habits, experience unfortunately shews us how long it is, before we look at them as our fellow-creatures…The very idea of humanity, as far as I could observe, was new to most of the Gauchos of the Pampas. This virtue, one of the noblest with which man is endowed, seems to arise incidentally from our sympathies becoming more tender and more widely diffused, until they are extended to all sentient beings. As soon as this virtue is honoured and practised by some few men, it spreads through instruction and example to the young, and eventually becomes incorporated in public opinion." – Charles Darwin.

Bachmann and Perry: worthy of scrutiny?

WORTHY SCRUTINY: Ed Kilgore opines on Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry. "Major presidential candidates like Perry and Bachmann really are something new under the sun. They embody a newly ascendant strain of conservatism that is indeed radical or extremist in its claims to represent not just good economics or good governance, but eternal verities that popular majorities can help implement but can never overturn. They deserve all the scrutiny they have attracted, and more." Well put.

Saving the Taj Mahal

SAVING THE TAJ MAHAL: Years of neglect and rising pollution have had truly worrying effects on India's most famous landmark, a great architectural achievement and widely-recognised symbol – not just of Indian culture and glory, but India itself. Jeffrey Bartholet reflects on its history:

Part of the Taj Mahal’s beauty derives from the story the stones embody. Though a tomb for the dead, it is also a monument to love, built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, fifth in a line of rulers who had originally come as conquerors from the Central Asian steppes. The Mughals were the dominant power on the Indian subcontinent for much of the 16th to 18th centuries, and the empire reached its cultural zenith under Shah Jahan. He constructed the Taj (which means “crown,” and is also a form of the Persian word “chosen”) as a final resting place for his favorite wife, Arjumand Banu, better known as Mumtaz Mahal (Chosen One of the Palace). A court poet recorded the emperor’s despair at her death in 1631, at the age of 38, after giving birth to the couple’s 14th child: “The color of youth flew away from his cheeks; The flower of his countenance ceased blooming.” He wept so often “his tearful eyes sought help from spectacles.” To honor his wife, Shah Jahan decided to build a tomb so magnificent that it would be remembered throughout the ages. For more than 15 years, he directed the construction of a complex of buildings and gardens that was meant to mirror the Islamic vision of Paradise.

Read his entire piece. Money quote: "Standing before the Taj Mahal, it’s comforting to know that it is not, in fact, of another world. It is very much part of this ephemeral, unpredictable one we inhabit—a singular masterpiece that will likely be around for many years or even lifetimes to come, but which, despite our best efforts, cannot last forever."

Nate Silver on Lichtman's re-election certainty

ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY: Lichtman seems awfully confident on Obama's re-election chances. Nate Silver picks his prediction apart.

For Al Sharpton, a departure

FOR SHARPTON, A DEPARTURE: As a host on MSNBC, he is no longer allowed to back candidates, having spent years as a politically-active civil rights figure. The Journal reports: "Over the years many New Yorkers, whether they agree or disagree with Mr. Sharpton, have come to expect him to play an oversize role in the high-profile political contests taking place in the city, the state and the nation. So, for many, watching a significant political race without a Sharpton endorsement will be like observing the Fourth of July without fireworks." Well, I wouldn't go that far, but it's big news regardless.

'Longform' for culture nerds

'LONGFORM' FOR CULTURE NERDS: I've been a fan of Longform.org for a while now, but things just got even better: they're launching a sister site dedicated to cultural criticism, to be titled, rather cleverly (but also cringe-inducing-ly) Let's Get Critical. Duly bookmarked.

The soap opera: a short history

THE SOAP OPERA: A short history of one of my most hated forms of entertainment.

Does cursive matter?

DOES CURSIVE MATTER? Graham Beck writes:

The litany of moral, practical, and cultural worries surrounding the fall of cursive script reflects a few basic assumptions about handwriting that confuse much of the form’s complicated past. The worries also cast a telling light on our own particular fears about the future, which may or may not include an electricity-less, memory-deficient world, where poorly understood documents are ratified with iterations of a droolingly scrawled X. But before we start stockpiling pens and manuscript-ruled paper, let’s look back a bit and take a deep breath, because handwriting hasn’t always been the sort of sign that it is today. 

Long before schools in this country stopped teaching cursive, most didn’t teach writing at all. Though reading, which afforded colonists direct access to the scriptures, was a crucial part of the education of children in 17th- and 18th-century America, writing, as well as the ability to read handwritten documents, was a rare skill reserved for the wealthiest boys and girls, as well as for young men with accountant’s dreams or aspirations for the itch of a barrister’s wig. 

This is particularly interesting, given that I'm currently in the process of learning myself, albeit a little later than would be considered ideal. I felt, though, that the handwriting I had until recently relied upon simply wasn't doing it (to use an annoying phrase); I felt its messiness imposed a feeling of lesser quality on my work. Petty, I know. The danger is that I now spend my time in math class practicing cursive, much to my teacher's dismay – Lord knows how much time I've wasted. Perhaps one day I'll calculate an approximate measure of time wasted, but that's math, and I'd rather be practicing cursive.

Copyright Bill comes into play

Copyright Bill comes into play: Well, the New Zealand copyright amendment bill will be coming in very shortly, and by very shortly, I mean in seconds. The latest attempt to curtail the illegal downloading of copyrighted material has been met with controversy, outrage and also people pointlessly blackening their profile pictures in a futile attempt to fight against this inevitability. The question is: will this all work? In the short term: Sure, why not? This will probably decease the number of Internet users illegally downloading, due to fear of being met with the consequences, these now being a fine to upwards of $10,000, or one's Internet access being cut for a period of 6 months. In the long term: Undoubtedly no. The cost of maintaining surveillance on the large group of people downloading these copyright materials will be substantial and both ISPs and copyright holders will lose interest in maintaining a level required to effectively stop people from doing this. At the end of the day, this is all pointless; people are going to this content whether the copyright holders like it or not. - posted by Ciaran