Jon Swift Memorial Roundup 2014

(The Best Posts of the Year, Chosen by the Bloggers Themselves)

(A 2008 Jon Swift picture.)

Welcome to a tradition started by the late Jon Swift/Al Weisel, who left behind some excellent satire, but was also a nice guy and a strong supporter of small blogs. As Lance Mannion put it in 2010:

Our late and much missed comrade in blogging, journalist and writer Al Weisel, revered and admired across the bandwidth as the "reasonable conservative" blogger Modest Jon Swift, was a champion of the lesser known and little known bloggers working tirelessly in the shadows . . .

One of his projects was a year-end Blogger Round Up. Al/Jon asked bloggers far and wide, famous and in- and not at all, to submit a link to their favorite post of the past twelve months and then he sorted, compiled, blurbed, hyperlinked and posted them on his popular blog. His round-ups presented readers with a huge banquet table of links to work many of has had missed the first time around and brought those bloggers traffic and, more important, new readers they wouldn’t have otherwise enjoyed.

It may not have been the most heroic endeavor, but it was kind and generous and a lot of us owe our continued presence in the blogging biz to Al.

Here's Jon/Al's 2007 and 2008 editions. Meanwhile, here are the revivals from 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.

If you're not familiar with Al Weisel's work as Jon Swift, his site features a "best of" list in the left column.

Meanwhile, Blogroll Amnesty Day (cofounded by Jon Swift and skippy) is a celebration of small blogs coming up again the first weekend in February.

Thanks to all the participants, plus a special thanks to DougJ at Balloon Juice for posting an open submission thread every year. (It earns some special consideration in the roll call below this year.)

Apologies to anyone I missed who wanted to participate. You still can, by linking your post in the comments. Whether your post appears in the modest list below or not, feel free to tweet your best post with the hatchtag #jonswift2014. (My goal is to find the right balance between inclusive and manageable.)

As in Jon/Al's 2008 roundup, submissions are listed roughly in the order they were received. As he wrote in that post:

I'm sure you'll be interested in seeing what your favorite bloggers think were their best posts of the year, but be sure to also visit some blogs you've never read before and leave a nice comment if you like what you see or, if you must, a polite demurral if you do not.

Without further ado:

Shakesville
"This Is Not a Solution; This Is the Problem"
Melissa McEwan: "On the criminalization of need, the myth of bootstraps, and what it really looks like when nobody helps you."

His Vorpal Sword
"The End of the Trail"
Hart Williams: "After a successful ten year run (which included attacks ON IT by Ted Nugent, Sean Hannity and Brent Bozell on Faux Nooz), the author explains why the blog is ending and some highlights of that decade."

A Blog About School
"School budget cuts are only the beginning"
Chris Liebig: "It's about Iowa's apparent determination to exponentially increase its spending on standardized testing even though the school districts are already struggling with cuts to curriculum."

Mad Kane's Political Madness
"Inconvenient Facts"
Madeleine Begun Kane: "2-verse limerick about executive action and Republican hypocrisy."

Zencomix
I Wish I Had A Watermelon
Dave Dugan: "In celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the resignation of Richard Nixon, I made a comic about my experience as a 9 year old boy in the summer of 1974."

Kiko's House
"Pennsylvania State Police Botch Frein Manhunt"
Shaun D. Mullen: "The manhunt for cop killer Eric Frien could not have come at a worse time for the Poconos. Its economy crapped out long before the rest of the nation, and for a while it led all counties nationwide in home foreclosures per capita. This is because local bigs, not content to try to build the tourist industry and brand the Poconos as a special place with beautiful woodlands chockablock with trails, waterfalls, creek and rivers, as well as golf courses, ski slopes and family friendly resorts, climbed into bed with rapacious developers and usurious financial institutions after the 9/11 attacks to sell the Poconos as a safe haven from a world gone crazy."

World O' Crap
"Strong Enough For a Man, But Made For a Really Insecure Man"
Scott Clevenger: "After years of having to share the Bible with women, at last men have their own, super-secret Men's Bible. It teaches important Bronze Age lessons about male friendship and bonding with men usually found only in an episode of My Little Pony. Also, there's porn in it."

David E's FaBlog
"Zero Dark Salo"
David Ehrenstein tackles the Senate's torture report.

Strangely Blogged
"Men Who Hate Women"
Vixen Strangely: "In the wake of Elliot Rodgers' killing spree, I felt the need to write on the connection between misogyny and violence."

Poor Impulse Control
"Of the World, Looking Over the Edge"
Tata: "America’s mental health system is a failure. Being mentally ill may actually prevent you from being able to afford treatment that could save your life."

Ramona's Voices
"Derange Wars: The Cliven Bundy Story"
Ramona Grigg: "Crusty old rancher in Nevada has standoff with the Feds over range rights. Starring the Second Amendment, with walk-on parts by warring militias who don't know what any of it means but it sounds like a party so why not?"

The Way of Cats
"How to Subtitle Ourselves"
Pamela Merritt: "We can bridge the communication gap between cat language (they speak with their body) and human language (we use words, but can "subtitle" with our body). It's like a translation device!"

Pruning Shears
"New York Times visits Youngstown, discovers huge and nonexistent transformation"
Dan: "The Times reports on how fracking is remaking a region's economy, minus any relevant details."

Simply Left Behind
"The Wages of Capitalism"
Actor 212/Carl: "Because capitalism as practiced in America is in direct conflict with democracy, liberty, and morality, capitalism as practiced in America must go."

Anibundel: Pop Culturess
"Martin Struggles to Explain Game of Thrones' Race Problem"
Ani Bundel: "Martin tries to respond to his fans to explain why the race problems in Game of Thrones is baked into the text from his own novels, with limited success."

TBogg
"I was the NRA"
Tom (TBogg) Boggioni: "How the gun nuts and cosplaying “great white hunters” ruined hunting for me and turned the NRA into a murder-enabling lobbying group. Fuck those guys."

You Might Notice a Trend
"At What Point Can The Stupidity of Racism End?"
Paul Wartenberg: "My thoughts on the first week of protests in Ferguson over the shooting death of Michael Brown. Also the moment I picked up the Quote of the Year (via a Business Insider article): 'We rolled lighter than that in an actual war zone.' "

Real American Liberal
"Stop this Liberal President"
John Sheirer: "Imagine our once great nation's future if we allow this liberal president to continue his attack on our founding traditions. Those who do not share our views could be insane enough to carve this liberal president's face into the side of a mountain, as outlandish as that may seem."

Kathleen Maher's Pure Fiction
Crazy Women
Kathleen Maher: "My flash fictions are stories in 500 words or fewer. This one shows a family visiting the husband's grandmother in a nursing home."

Watergate Summer
"Holding Time"
enigma4ever offers an end-of-year meditation.

We Are Respectable Negroes
"The Culture of Cruelty is International: From Lynchings to Eric Garner and the CIA Torture Report"
Chauncey DeVega: "America is a society that tortures people as a matter of public policy. The CIA's torture of supposed "terrorists" abroad is part of a continuum of torture and cruelty from the lynchings of blacks in the 19th and 20th centuries to the tortures committed against American citizens in the country's prisons and by its police in the present."

BeggarsCanBeChoosers.com
"How Unions Are Unfairly Scapegoated For Detroit's Woes"
Marc McDonald: "There are many reasons for the catastrophic decline of the once-mighty U.S. auto industry over the decades. But it's unfair and inaccurate to point the main finger of blame at unions, the usual scapegoat."

Bluestem Prairie
"In Facebook status, Big Stone Co GOP chair calls Muslims "parasites," writes "frag em" at Mecca"
Sally Jo Sorensen: "Bluestem Prairie broke the story about a Republican county party leader advocated murdering Muslims during the Hajj in Mecca. Like many other Bluestem original reports, this story made national news online."

Just an Earth-Bound Misfit
"Quite Possibly the Last Post That You'll See Here on Climate Change"
Comrade Misfit: "Why it may be too late to do anything about climate change, other than 'embrace the suck.' "

bjkeefe
"Rough Night"
Brendan Keefe: "Haven't been doing much blogging this year but I thought this picture from this past spring, and its follow-up, might be of some encouragement in these short dark days."

Perrspectives
"10 Lessons from Bush's Fiasco in Iraq"
Jon Perr: "Foaming-at-the-mouth Republicans and their furious right-wing allies aren't just wrong that "Obama lost Iraq." They are desperately trying to evade paternity for a world-historical calamity they birthed and still support because Iraq was lost the moment the first U.S. troops crossed the border from Kuwait."

Bark Bark Woof Woof
"Give Us A Reason"
Mustang Bobby: "It takes more than a little gall for Marco Rubio to shed crocodile tears over discrimination against gays and lesbians and then turn around and explain in detail why he does it."

The Hunting of the Snark
"Those Whiny, Lazy, Greedy Millennials"
Susan of Texas: "After the financial industry gutted the economy they needed a way to deflect the anger of the losers in their economic battle. As always we can depend on Megan McArdle to support the rich, so let's watch her blame our young people for being their victims, claiming that their bleak prospects are a result of their laziness and fecklessness."

Blue Gal
"And the boys cat-call, just up for each other..."
Fran Langum/Blue Gal: "A different take on the NYC Hollaback catcalling video."

driftglass
"Bob Benson's Loveless Erector Set"
driftglass: "How Madison Avenue invented, sold and then destroyed the Idealized Nuclear Family."

The Professional Left Podcast
"Ep. 262: Ferguson, Torture, and The Wish of Angels"
Blue Gal and driftglass: "We discuss the last time the system worked, and what went wrong."

Mock, Paper, Scissors
"The Further Adventures of Peggy Noonan"
Tengrain: "As in other years, I think my Anatomy of a Column series on The Further Adventures of Peggy Noonan continues to be my favorite work. I especially liked this episode, which features Peggy losing an argument with a cardboard cut out of St. Ronnie."

The Debate Link
"Innocent Until Proven Nazi"
David Schraub: "We lack confidence in our ability to accurately identify something as racist, anti-Semitic, or otherwise hateful. Too often, we shy away from these issues unless we have an obvious crutch (like a Nazi connection)."

Last Left Turn Before Hooterville
"Dear White People: a Perspective on White Privilege"
Alicia Morgan: "An attempt to explain to my white friends who claim to be color-blind and not ‘see’ race that the very act of ‘not seeing race’ means that you have white privilege – the privilege to not see racism, and to choose not be around it. White privilege does not mean you are a racist, but it does mean that white folks need to look a little deeper to see that racism is alive and well in 2014, and by acknowledging it you can begin to be part of the solution."

Lance Mannion
"A very short, true story about a good dog"
Lance Mannion: " 'Golden retriever,' he said. But now he didn’t seem satisfied with his own answer. Her breed was beside the point. It didn’t describe the most important thing about her."

Scrutiny Hooligans
"Fighting A Command Economy With Monopoly"
Tom Sullivan: "I have long been wary of the fetish among the business and political classes for "efficiency." Like "shareholder value," when you hear it, prepare for your "betters" to screw you ... again."

Self-Styled Siren
"Gigi (1958): A Defense"
Farran Smith Nehme: "In which I argue that the contemporary view of the exquisite, joyous Gigi as somehow endorsing pedophilia is ahistorical, priggish, literal-minded nonsense."

The Reaction
"President Obama's cautious, restrained, responsible leadership on the Ukraine situation"
Michael J.W. Stickings: "Obama's apparent weakness, according to his idiotic critics like John McCain and Bill Kristol, is actually strength, an expression of caution, restraint, and responsibility that is really the only viable option at the present time and that could, over time, lead to a long-term resolution to this crisis. Obama's critics are salivating for war, or something. Thankfully – for America, for the Ukraine, for Europe, for the world – they're not the ones calling the shots."

The Rude Pundit
"Random Observations on a Reaming: That'll Teach That Negro to Be President"
Lee Papa: "The day after the midterm election, the Rude Pundit licks wounds and kicks some asses."

Spocko's Brain
"How Foster Farms Used the USDA, Big Chicken Lobbyists and Lawyers to Avoid a Recall"
Spocko: "In this piece I examine how Foster Farms avoided a recall of Salmonella contaminated chicken."

Mister Tristan
" 'Journalist' and War Criminal"
Gary, a relative of Mister Tristan: "A former 'Today Show' host obliterates the line between journalists and the people they cover."

darrelplant.com
"To the Pole!"
Darrel Plant: "The truish story of Roald Amundsen's 1907 plan to achieve the North Pole by polar bear."

Lotus: Surviving a Dark Time
"Racism and that Boston Herald cartoon"
LarryE: "Some thoughts on racism and (my) white privilege arising from that notorious Boston Herald cartoon about Obama and 'watermelon-flavored toothpaste.' Like most of my posts, this one is drawn from my local cable access TV (and YouTube) show called 'Left Side of the Aisle.' "

M.A.Peel
"Love is the jewel that wins the world": Inspiration for a birthday, for every day
Ellen O'Neill: "My dear friend Barbara Geach died in August, after 22 years in a locked-in syndrome condition. She kept up a vibrant correspondence with friends around the world, which I share because it is so, very, inspiring."

Confession Zero
"The Day That…"
Mark Prime offers a poem.

This Is So Gay
"Laying Layers and the Lays They Tell"
Duncan Mitchel: "Critical thinking for thee, but not for me!"

Stonekettle Station
" Self Evident Truths"
Jim Wright: "Turns out there is nothing 'self-evident' about any of our rights."

Gaius Publius
"Are Democratic Leaders Already 'Tea Partying' The Progressives?"
Gaius Publius: "If you noticed that Steve Israel, the rest of his ilk, and the DSCC, are willing to surrender the House and the Senate to keep you out of power, would it really be … a bridge too far, a hanging offense, bad manners … to consider returning the favor?"

Hillary Rettig
"Why Tough-Guy Metaphors About Creativity Don’t Work"
Hillary Rettig takes on the trope of the tortured artist.

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"A Suggestion for Heterosexual Men"
Dallas Taylor "wrote this at the height of the #notallmen silliness."

The Cosmogonic Grunt
"To Shoot a Boy"
C. V. Danes considers events in Ferguson, Missouri.

Schroedinger's Cat
"Time to Move On, Time to Get Going"
Schroedinger's Cat: "A takedown of David Brooks and his half-baked but scholarly sounding ideas on the economy."

Zombieland—Now Brain Free!
"Too Hard:
Hawes remembers a student.

House of the Dread
"Trading Places"
Comrade Dread: "Since I slid away from fundamentalism, I’ve been going back and re-examining some of the stories I was taught growing up and I’ve been finding that if they really are read as the ‘literal word of God’ then God is rather monstrous."

YOPD
"Parkinson's since 2006, Brain Surgery & Stroke 8/13, Heart Attack 2/14, Triathlete Yesterday"
yopd1 celebrates a milestone.

My Ready Room
"Whatchu Talking ‘Bout, Tillis?"
Ben Cisco: "A look at a flaming jackass (and now, sadly, Senator-elect)."

Alicublog
"Bringing a Putty Knife to a Culture War"
Roy Edroso: "It has two of my favorite subjects — libertarians, and culture-war schlemiels; but I repeat myself — and gave me a chance to be playful."

Balloon Juice (best post)
"On Darren Wilson"
Soonergrunt reflects on his four combat tours, police officer Darren Wilson and the notion of a clear conscience.

Balloon Juice (best series)
"Not being stupid is smart"
One post in Richard Mayhew's series on the Affordable Care Act. You can scroll back through all of his posts here.

dagblog
"The Statue of Liberty Wears Shackles"
Eric L. Wattree: "Little known fact: The original prototype for the Statue of Liberty resembles a black woman with a broken shackle in her hand. The French abolitionist who conceived the idea in 1865 intended to celebrate the emancipation of American slaves, not the American Revolution."

Doctor Cleveland
"An Armed Society Is a Bloody Society"
Doctor Cleveland: "When gun-rights advocates say, "An armed society is a polite society," they mean, "I am entitled to kill people for being rude." Doctor Cleveland exposes the twisted logic and bloody consequences of Stand-Your-Ground laws."

Vagabond Scholar
"Lucky Duckies and Fortunate Sons"
Batocchio: "Those who benefit from a rigged game are reluctant to acknowledge that the game is rigged."

Thanks again, folks. Happy blogging (and everything else) in 2015.

Mike Nichols (1931–2014)

Mike Nichols was a great actors' director. He made some excellent camera choices, but what set him apart from his peers was his consistent facility for coaxing superb performances from his cast. Nichols started in theater as a performer and continued to direct for the stage throughout his life. He was extremely intelligent about analyzing the essence of a story and scene, breaking down the beats (especially the subtext), and helping the performers make them into living moments. If you listen to his commentaries or interviews, it's a real pleasure to hear him discuss small moments in a performance and little tricks he used on set or in rehearsal to get an actor into the right mental space. He possessed great empathy as a director, and had a fine understanding of human behavior, particularly what was going on below the surface and how it drove people to act – the indirect, circuitous, and even self-defeating ways we funny human beings behave. Watch The Graduate, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? or any of his other films, and you'll encounter wonderfully human moments – comic, tragic, or both—of poorly managed anxiety, fearful hope, constrained despair, displaced anger, petty spiteful revenge, small understated kindness, and relaxed grace. Actors and directors who take the art and craft seriously could do far worse than to study the work of Nichols (along with that of Ingmar Bergman and a handful of other directors). Even Nichols' more uneven films (such as Wolf and Primary Colors) contain some accomplished scenes that can serve as master classes on acting and directing.

Nichols confessed that he didn't love performing, that he found it draining, in contrast with his stage (and occasional writing) partner Elaine May, who thrived on it. As a result, he was extremely sympathetic to his actors and tried to support them as much as possible, especially in emotionally vulnerable scenes. My favorite interview moment with Nichols came when he was asked about his directing style (by Charlie Rose) and he spoke about these dynamics. Nichols talked about how lonely and naked it can on stage or in front of the camera, and what he tried to give his actors to alleviate that. Rose then played a clip of Kathy Bates (who justifiably received a Oscar nomination for Primary Colors) gushing about Mike Nichols – with other directors, it was often different, but with Mike, you weren't alone out there. (Brenda Blethyn said something similar in a Q&A session – if she felt her director's support, that level of trust, she could "go anywhere" in a scene.) Nichols was slightly embarrassed but moved by the Bates clip. What she said is about the greatest compliment a director can receive, and for Nichols, it was well-deserved.

From The New York Times, an obituary, an appraisal by Ben Brantley and reactions from colleagues. The obituary has some choice passages:

“A director’s chief virtue should be to persuade you through a role; Mike’s the only one I know who can do it,” Burton said after the film was finished, a remarkable compliment from a renowned actor for a fledgling director. “He conspires with you to get your best. He’d make me throw away a line where I’d have hit it hard. I’ve seen the film with an audience and he’s right every time. I didn’t think I could learn anything about comedy — I’d done all of Shakespeare’s. But from him I learned.” . . .

“I’ve always been impressed by the fact that upon entering a room full of people, you find them saying one thing, doing another and wishing they were doing a third,” [Nichols] said in a 1965 interview with the weekly newspaper The National Observer, now defunct. “The words are secondary and the secrets are primary. That’s what interests me most.” . . .

“But what I really thought [improvisation] was useful for was directing,” he said, “because it also teaches you what a scene is made of — you know, what needs to happen. See, I think the audience asks the question, ‘Why are you telling me this?’ And improvisation teaches you that you must answer it. There must be a specific answer. It also teaches you when the beginning is over and it’s time for the middle, and when you’ve had enough middle and it’s time already for the end. And those are all very useful things in directing.”

Los Angeles Times coverage includes an obituary and a full archive of new and old pieces on him, covering his versatility, how he worked with stars, and what he learned from success and failure.

The Washington Post provides an obituary and reactions from colleagues.

NPR offers multiple pieces on All Things Considered, Morning Edition, The Two Way, a text obituary with video clips, and older interviews on Talk of the Nation and Fresh Air.

Charlie Rose interviewed Nichols several times, and spoke about him for CBS News.

Elaine May's salute to Nichols for his AFI Life Achievement Award is predictably funny. For his Kennedy Center honors, she observed, "Mike has chosen to do things that are really meaningful and that have real impact and real relevance, but he makes them so entertaining and exciting that they're as much fun as if they were trash."

Roy Edroso has a good remembrance.

Mark Evanier posts a great Nichols and May sketch, recommends a commentary track (and Todd McCarthy's 2012 appreciation of Nichols for The Hollywood Reporter) and passes on Nichols' five rules for filmmaking:

1. The careful application of terror is an important form of communication.

2. Anything worth fighting for is worth fighting dirty for.

3. There's absolutely no substitute for genuine lack of preparation.

4. If you think there's good in everybody, you haven't met everybody.

5. Friends may come and go, but enemies will certainly become studio heads.

Thanksgiving (and Food Banks) 2014

This is a good time of year for those with the means to donate to their local food banks and for those in need to get assistance. In my area, the Los Angeles food banks make a little go a long way. The Feeding America site has a useful national food bank locator.

Best wishes to all those in need.

Armistice Day 11/11/14

(Click on the comic strip for a larger view.)

In 1959, Pogo creator Walt Kelly wrote:

The eleventh day of the eleventh month has always seemed to me to be special. Even if the reason for it fell apart as the years went on, it was a symbol of something close to the high part of the heart. Perhaps a life that stretches through two or three wars takes its first war rather seriously, but I still think we should have kept the name "Armistice Day." Its implications were a little more profound, a little more hopeful.

You said it, brother.

Thanks to all who have served or are serving, on this Veterans Day, or Remembrance Day, or Armistice Day. (This year is the centennial of the start of the Great War.)

This post is mostly a repeat I run every year, since I find it hard to top Kelly.

Five years ago now, I wrote a series of six related posts for Armistice Day (and as part of an ongoing series on war). The starred posts are the most important, but the list is:

"Élan in The Guns of August"

"Demonizing of the Enemy"

"The War Poetry of Wilfred Owen"

***"Giddy Minds and Foreign Quarrels"

"The Little Mother"

***"War and the Denial of Loss"

The most significant other entries in the series are:

"How to Hear a True War Story" (2007)

"Day of Shame" (2008)

"The Poetry of War" (2008)

"Armistice Day 2008" (featuring the war poetry of Siegfried Sassoon). (2008)

"They Could Not Look Me in the Eye Again" (2011)

"The Dogs of War" (2013)

I'll update this post below the photo with links to other folks' pieces for 11/11 as I find them. If you've written one, feel free to leave a comment or e-mail me. Thanks.

Hello Again and Again to All That

1914 marks the centennial of the start of World War I, and Armistice Day (or Remembrance Day, or Veterans Day) originally commemorated the Great War's end. Back in January, William Kristol, a zealous and unrepentant warmonger's warmonger, wrote a piece commenting on one of the great war poems, Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est." The results were illuminating – not of the poem, or Owen himself, or World War I, or war in general – but of Kristol and those of like mind.

It's worth rereading the poem itself first:

Dulce et Decorum Est
By Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

As the British website War Poetry explains:

DULCE ET DECORUM EST – the first words of a Latin saying (taken from an ode by Horace). The words were widely understood and often quoted at the start of the First World War. They mean "It is sweet and right." The full saying ends the poem: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori - it is sweet and right to die for your country. In other words, it is a wonderful and great honour to fight and die for your country.

(Christopher Eccleston, Kenneth Branagh and Ben Whishaw perform good renditions of the poem.)

Owen's view of war isn't rare among those who served in WWI; similar views can be found in the poems of his friend Siegfried Sassoon, or in Robert Graves' bitingly satirical memoir, Good-Bye to All That. WWII vet Eugene Sledge, among many others, admired Owen's ability to capture the experience of war. It's a disturbing but honest perspective, and should not be surprising.

In a January post, William Kristol quotes a 1997 David Frum piece that touches on Owen's poem and the loss of respect for authority. Kristol comments that:

As Frum pointed out, Horace’s line is one “that any educated Englishman of the last century would have learned in school.” Those pre-War Englishmen would, on the whole, have understood the line earnestly and quoted it respectfully. Not after the War. Living in the shadow of Wilfred Owen rather than Horace, the earnestness yielded to bitterness, the respect to disgust. As Frum puts it, “Scoffing at those words represented more than a rejection of war. It meant a rejection of the schools, the whole society, that had sent Owen to war.”

This year, a century later, the commemorations of 1914 will tend to take that rejection of piety and patriotism for granted. Or could this year mark a moment of questioning, even of reversal?

Today, after all, we see the full consequences of that rejection in a way Owen and his contemporaries could not. Can’t we acknowledge the meaning, recognize the power, and learn the lessons of 1914 without succumbing to an apparently inexorable gravitational pull toward a posture of ironic passivity or fatalistic regret in the face of civilizational decline? No sensitive person can fail to be moved by Owen’s powerful lament, and no intelligent person can ignore his chastening rebuke. But perhaps a century of increasingly unthinking bitter disgust with our heritage is enough.

(Kristol goes on to recommend the "The Star-Spangled Banner" instead of Owen's poem, remarking that "[T]he greater work of art is not always the better guide to life.")

In a post at Crooked Timber titled "Some Desperate Glory," John Holbo marvels:

Amazing. Bill Kristol is hoping that, after a full century of unwillingness to go to war, because Wilfred Owen, this might be the year we consider – maybe! – going to some war. For the glory of it! Wouldn’t a war be glorious? If we could only have one? "Play up, play up, and play the game!" For the game is glorious!

Why have we been so unthinkingly unwilling to consider going to war for an entire century? Doesn’t that seem like a long time to go without a war?

Couldn’t we have just one?

Indeed, Kristol's column is awfully odd in that it ignores that the world has seen plenty of war since 1914, but more pointedly because it ignores that William Kristol himself has not only fervently pushed for numerous wars – he's gotten many of them. There's also the matter of the assumptions he glosses over in his argument. Kristol likely defines "piety" and "patriotism" far differently than I would, but he nonetheless doesn't bother to provide evidence of their "rejection." Likewise, he doesn't provide any proof of "a posture of ironic passivity or fatalistic regret," let alone "civilizational decline." As CT commentator bt puts it, "I love the part where Bill Kristol links Civilizational Decline with our regrettable lack of enthusiasm for a glorious War." It's really an Orwellian marvel by Kristol. (The rest of the CT comments are well worth reading, too.) Besides that central gem, it's darkly hilarious how Kristol claims that opposition to war is "unthinking." Requiring a high threshold for war is the mark of basic sanity and maturity, and questioning those eager for war is both a moral necessity and a simple act of bullshit detection.

Without recounting all of Bill Kristol's sweetest, most glorious hits, it's worth noting that he advocated invading Iraq in the 90s (and has rarely met a war he hasn't liked). He was one of the biggest cheerleaders for the Iraq War. In 2003, he dismissively claimed that Iraq had "always been very secular" and that concerns about religious or sectarian conflicts were overblown. He was, of course, disastrously wrong, yet despite his remarkable knack for being wrong about almost everything, he has a long history of "falling upward" and being a permanent fixture on the pundit circuit. Nor has Kristol shown any noticeable sign of contrition; this year, he's urged the U.S. to send the military back into Iraq, and recycled many of his arguments from 2002. (For Iraq War advocates, the operating rule seems to be that any positive situation in Iraq, no matter how many years later, somehow serves as retroactive vindication; moreover, the goal is not merely to be right, but to have been right.)

Perhaps Kristol is sincere and simply consistently, horribly wrong about matters of grave importance. However, it's notable that he also played a key role derailing health care reform in 1994, and for political reasons. Similarly, he was one of the most enthusiastic boosters for Sarah Palin becoming John McCain's vice presidential running mate – and it wasn't for her command of policy. (He was still singing her praises earlier this year.) Not that being a true believer is an excuse for consistently terrible judgment, but the evidence suggests he's at least as much a hack as he is an ideologue.

It's worthwhile to recall the bullying atmosphere leading up to and extending past the start of the Iraq War – it did not invite the 'thinking' and 'questioning' Kristol supposedly values. For instance, there was Ari Fleischer's "watch what they do and what they say," Richard Cohen's "fool – or possibly a Frenchman," combat-hardened Megan McArdle's two-by-four to pacifists, Ann Coulter's call to "invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity," Andrew Sullivan's "decadent Left" as a "fifth column" and Tom Friedman's eminently mature macho posturing, "Suck. On. This." (The era yielded many other lovely moments in thoughtful discourse, overwhelmingly from Kristol's side of the aisle.)

One of the striking aspects about the Iraq War turning 10 last year was the lack of introspection. (James Fallows covered this very well.) This dynamic stretches beyond a rejection of reflection – there's still a rejection of basic facts. To quote a 2013 post:

It also isn't rare, even today, to hear conservative pundits insist (often angrily) that the Bush administration didn't lie in making the case for war, despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary (and plenty of misleading, dishonorable rhetoric besides). Sure, one can quibble in some cases whether those many misleading false statements were technically lies versus bullshitting versus the product of egregious self-delusion, but in no universe were they responsible. Meanwhile, it's disappointing but not surprising that the corporate media, who were largely unskeptical cheerleaders for the war and prone to squelching critical voices, would be reluctant to revisit one of their greatest failures in living memory (let alone doing so unflinchingly).

It's worth revisiting one of Kristol's most sneering statements, right before the invasion of Iraq in 2003 (emphasis mine):

We are tempted to comment, in these last days before the war, on the U.N., and the French, and the Democrats. But the war itself will clarify who was right and who was wrong about weapons of mass destruction. It will reveal the aspirations of the people of Iraq, and expose the truth about Saddam's regime. It will produce whatever effects it will produce on neighboring countries and on the broader war on terror. We would note now that even the threat of war against Saddam seems to be encouraging stirrings toward political reform in Iran and Saudi Arabia, and a measure of cooperation in the war against al Qaeda from other governments in the region. It turns out it really is better to be respected and feared than to be thought to share, with exquisite sensitivity, other people's pain. History and reality are about to weigh in, and we are inclined simply to let them render their verdicts.

These are the words of someone who wasn't merely disastrously wrong, but also was an immature asshole (and who knew full well he wouldn't be the one to suffer the consequences of his positions). Advocacy for war should necessitate more seriousness. And Kristol has been too cowardly to acknowledge who was clearly wrong about weapons of mass destruction and political reform, and too dishonest to face history and reality's verdicts. Estimates of deaths caused by the Iraq War vary significantly, but it's a true – if terribly impolite – point that thousands of people are unnecessarily dead because of a position Bill Kristol zealously pushed, and continues to support. It's not that war can never be advocated for, but it is not something that should advocated lightly or cavalierly. Perhaps the weight of such a significant decision – and such a monumental error – should be felt; perhaps some acknowledgement is in order; perhaps those who have been unrepentantly, disastrously wrong should be shunned from public commentary rather than allowed to continually peddle the same old deadly crap "with such high zest." This smug belligerence is why, in more polite company, Kristol has been denounced as an armchair warrior, and called far worse in other venues.

To be fair, Kristol is far from the only warmongering pundit, and the blithe imperialist faction in the political establishment spans both major political parties. Seemingly, no Beltway pundit has ever gone hungry or lost credibility for agitating for war, no matter how farcically unnecessarily it may be. In one sense, Kristol's continued prominence, even on supposedly legitimate media platforms, is an indictment of the mores of Beltway culture. In (the somewhat tongue-in-cheek) stupid-evil-crazy terms, Kristol is mostly evil, in that he knows (or damn well should know) the all-too-likely consequences of his positions. But his a perfectly respectable evil in certain high circles, as is advocating for torture or opining that the poor should suffer. Alas, although the precise stench may vary, Kristol's rot is far from uncommon. (That said, it would be wrong to minimize Kristol's signature, despicable awfulness.)

It would nice to think that no one could ignore or deflect what "Dulce et Decorum Est" or the many phenomenal art works, memoirs and histories say about the costs of war, but trusty ol' Bill Kristol has shown himself up to the challenge. He can't plausibly deny outright the power of Wilfred Owen's work, so he has to make a planned concession and then pivot to his undying cause – glorious, glorious wars. Great art and good history have a knack of surviving misappropriation, but as with our nominal democracy – which in theory, is a bulwark against unnecessary wars – they still need their champions. Kristol's signature, despicable awfulness.)

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo.)

The End of Roy's Weekly Wingnut Roundups

Alas, after six years, the Village Voice has canceled Roy Edroso's brilliant weekly column looking at conservative bloggers. The columns were anthropologically fascinating, historically valuable, politically insightful, and damn entertaining to read. Roy would cover the sincere, rabid and crazy conservative base as well as the professional conservative hacks (and the former auditioning to join the latter). Dissecting insanity and bullshit is always valuable (and a good work in too short supply), but to also make the whole endeavor not only funny but genuinely witty is quite the feat. It's also a difficult act to sustain, but Roy did it, and made it look easy. Although he's continuing to post great stuff at his site, alicublog, the Village Voice columns were a concentrated and thorough examination of "rightbloggers" and their manufactured scandals of the moment. It's the kind of feature that some other outlet should pick up and fund.

"In "#EmployRoy: The ‘Employ Roy Edroso Because He Is A National Treasure And Not The Girl In This Picture’ Project," TBogg makes the case for just this (and supplies a hatchtag). Quoth the Bogg:

Needless to say this is a national disgrace because Roy is a Fucking National Treasure, who should have a regular paying gig writing commentary somewhere, slipping his rhetorical shiv in between the 7th and 8th rib of a conservative and giving it a delicate twist and wiggle.

While the secret leftwing email listserv, DestroyAmerika!!!AbortBabiesList, will no doubt get the word out, please see your way to maybe possibly sorta kinda dropping a hint here and there at one of those websites you visit when you’re at work and you’re supposed to be working on next years budget or awaiting for the launch codes in order to destroy mankind as we know it.

Some good political bloggers have managed to acquire decent-paying gigs, but that number remains relatively small. There's not a robust liberal counterpart to conservative wingnut welfare or the conservative Wurlizter. It's also far more common for conservative hacks to be given lucrative gigs over genuinely insightful analysts, even at supposedly legitimate media outlets. The commentators at alicublog ("the alicurati") are trying to pressure Roy to install a donation button at least, but it'd be great if some other outlet picked up his canceled feature. (I can think of several other writers on my blogroll who deserve steady gigs as well, but any progress would be welcome.)

Robin Williams (1951–2014)

I wanted to post something, however belatedly, for Robin Williams. His death is a tremendous loss, and I know several people who were more affected by his passing than by any other celebrity death. If it felt like we knew him, it was because, as several of Williams' real-life friends put it, we kind of did – Williams put a tremendous amount of himself into both his comedic and dramatic performances. He was astonishingly, breathtakingly funny, but also possessed considerable depth. His mind simply worked at a faster pace than those of mere mortals, and his intelligence was stunning – some of the tossed-off jokes he would improvise – witty, slightly esoteric, biting – were jaw-dropping. If ever there was a living embodiment of Albert Einstein's observation that "creativity is intelligence having fun," it was Robin Williams.

Other performers such as George Carlin stuck to standup comedy more than Williams, but Williams definitely makes the short list of best standup comics ever, and he'd periodically come back to the medium even after making it big as a TV and movie star. The only comedian comparable to Williams in style was his idol, Jonathan Winters, but while Winters would do goofy humor, and was similarly playful, Williams' toolkit added some scathing political comedy. In terms of a comedian earning mainstream praise as a serious artist, the closest analogy would probably be Charlie Chaplin, who was wildly successful but also became respected as a filmmaker. Williams did some dumb movies, of course, but his comedic chops were never in doubt, and he earned several Oscar nominations for roles that were primarily serious (finally winning Best Supporting Actor for Good Will Hunting).

There's a saying that clowns make the best tragedians, and there's some truth to that. I've long been fascinated by the intersection between tragedy and comedy, where they mix, where they switch, where one can transcend the other. Robin Williams really understood those dynamics, far better than most people. His best performances all display that understanding – in The Fisher King, Dead Poets Society, Good Will Hunting and Good Morning, Vietnam (among others). It was that depth that I found so captivating and admirable – coupled with his lightning-fast wit. (I inadvertently had entire sections of some routines memorized from watching them so much.)

I would have liked to have thought that Robin Williams had conquered his demons, that he had an adequate support network in place, that he had some way to handle his depression and avoid suicide. After his death, countless stories emerged about his generosity, and many of his acts of kindness were done in private. To paraphrase his friends, it's tragic that he wasn't able to give himself (or otherwise receive) what he so selflessly gave to others.

Salon has a great set of 13 memorable moments.

Slate collected some Hollywood reactions.

Here are obituaries from the Los Angeles Times The New York Times and The Washington Post.

His friend David Letterman gave a lovely tribute.

Conan O'Brien remembered Robin Williams, " The Best Talk Show Guest In The World."

His daughter Zelda wrote a moving, public goodbye. (A story from Williams about Zelda is also pertinent.)

"Michael J. Fox Reacts to Robin Williams's Parkinson's Diagnosis."

Jerry Leichtling, GottaLaff, Lizz Winstead and Joel Silberman have remembrances.

"Terry Gilliam Breaks Down a Particularly Hard Night With Robin Williams on The Fisher King."

NPR: "What Robin Williams Taught Us About Teaching."

PBS: "Robin Williams Hones his Craft."

"Broadway's Cast of Aladdin Pays Tribute to Robin Williams."

Questlove on Robin Williams: “Ain’t no way this old white dude knows my entire history and discography!”

"Norm MacDonald May Have Just Written the Best Tribute To Robin Williams Yet."

"Lewis Black Responds Perfectly To Rush Limbaugh" (Limbaugh, being an asshole, used Williams' death as an opportunity to attack liberalism).

"Ethan Hawke on Robin Williams: It Was Obvious He Was in Pain."

Williams was an avid fan of video games, and World of Warcraft is heeding fan requests for an in-game tribute.

Colin McEnroe: "Robin Williams burning brightly: There was just one human being who could do this thing."

Balloon Juice had an open thread remembrances.

Robin Williams on addiction and comedy back in 2009 or so.

Finally, there's some hilarious footage of Robin Williams outtakes from some promotional spots in the early 80s (about 14 minutes long).

Blogiversary IX: Nine and Half Posts

I don't have much time for writing, alas, but yeah, this blog is still going. It turned nine back in late July. Thanks to those who have stopped by for my infrequent posts.

As usual, I'll give a (brief) retrospective of posts since the last retrospective.

"Our National Political Discourse" is an attempt to "visualize how our national political discourse should work, and discus how it does work instead."

"The Dogs of War," a piece on the vanity that drives blithe cheerleading for war, was my post for Armistice Day last year.

I can blame guest-posting for Digby for most of my activity. The VS versions of the significant posts are "Lucky Duckies and Fortunate Sons," "Artificially Equalizing Unequal Views on Inequality," "The Fallacy of the Golden Mean" (a "both sides" reader) and "You're Intolerant of My Intolerance!"

My annual post-Oscar film roundup (a pre-blog tradition that continues) appears in parts One, Two, Three and Four.

My post on Pete Seeger is probably the most significant in the too-full Obituaries category.

Finally, on the good karma front, I've done my usual stints for Mike's Blog Roundup over at Crooks and Liars, and there's the 2013 Jon Swift Memorial Roundup.

Peace, good art, and happy blog reading and writing.

Banned Books Week 2014

Banned Books Week is drawing to a close, but that doesn't mean we have to stop celebrating banned books and the ability to read them! As usual, the best resources are the official Banned Books Week site, the American Library Association and the National Council of Teachers of English (its related anti-censorship page is good, too). The Banned Books YouTube channel has some great read-out videos. The links on the ALA's Frequently Challenged Books page are highly useful. (I'm always interested in reading the reasons books have been challenged or banned, although the sites could do a better job of making that information accessible.) Meanwhile, my archives on banned books feature some extensive posts.

The ALA provides some useful statistics:

Background Information from 2000 to 2009

Over this recent past decade, 5,099* challenges were reported to the Office for Intellectual Freedom.

• 1,577 challenges due to "sexually explicit" material;
• 1,291 challenges due to "offensive language";
• 989 challenges due to materials deemed "unsuited to age group";
• 619 challenged due to "violence"' and
• 361 challenges due to "homosexuality."

Further, 274 materials were challenged due to "occult" or "Satanic" themes, an additional 291 were challenged due to their "religious viewpoint," and 119 because they were "anti-family."

Please note that the number of challenges and the number of reasons for those challenges do not match, because works are often challenged on more than one ground.

1,639 of these challenges were in school libraries; 1,811 were in classrooms; 1,217 took place in public libraries. There were 114 challenges to materials used in college classes; and 30 to academic libraries. There are isolated cases of challenges to library materials made available in or by prisons, special libraries, community groups, and students. The vast majority of challenges were initiated by parents (2,535), with patrons and administrators to follow (516 and 489 respectively).

*We receive challenge reports after the top ten list has been published. This number reflects all the challenges we received since July 31, 2013 for the 2000-2009 time period.

One of my favorite pieces this year comes from Dav Pilkey, creator of the Captain Underpants series:

This makes some key points I've attempted to make before. There's a huge difference between saying "I don't wan't to read that book" or even "I don't want my kid to read that book" and saying "No one should be able to read that book" or "No one's kid should be able to read that book." These are not equivalent positions.

Stan Lee also has a good video on the value of comic books:

(More comic-related links are below, but the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund site remains one of the best.)

Slaughterhouse-Five and Kurt Vonnegut

As it so happens, I recently finished reading a banned and challenged book, Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut. I've read a fair amount of science fiction, but somehow missed most of Vonnegut's work, so this had been on my "overdue to read" pile. I've seen the (superbly edited) film adaptation multiple times, so I knew the premise and plot. (Protagonist "Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time." Very mild spoilers to follow.)

Vonnegut's writing style is smooth, clear and uncluttered, rarely drawing attention to itself. This makes Slaughterhouse-Five a quick read. Vonnegut pens some memorable lines, but his focus is on telling the story, not dazzling us with a turn a phrase; he's more interested in character, plot and structure, and ideas. Structurally, the novel jumps around in time with Billy Pilgrim, who often seems blasé to some of those around him, because he knows both what's going to happen and that he can't change it. (The effect is a bit Brechtian.) My one major criticism of the novel is that Vonnegut overuses a key phrase, 'So it goes," which is supposed to sum up the absurdity of life. It does so effectively, but sometimes he'll use it three times on two pages, or twice in a single paragraph, which undercuts its strength. That said, Slaughterhouse-Five is an ambitious novel, mixing meditations on the horrors of war and mass destruction with the arc of a human life with time travel and aliens. It's to Vonnegut's credit that what was surely seen as genre-hopping when the book was released in 1969 goes down so smoothly. Among other things, the book explores how human beings cope with mortality and trauma, hardly light subjects, yet Vonnegut's satirical, slightly removed outlook and brisk prose ensures that the affair isn't ponderous, despite its weight. Part of Vonnegut's artistry lies in hiding his craft, because the structure of the novel is fairly intricate – when and where it jumps in time, and what is doled out versus hinted at versus withheld, is quite deliberate. We're not supposed to notice all this during a casual reading, but there's a fair amount going on below the surface, hinted at by the slightly open ending.

Slaughterhouse-Five has been banned or challenged multiple times. The Banned Books Timeline states that:

In 1982, a sharply divided Supreme Court found that students’ First Amendment rights were violated when Slaughterhouse-Five and 8 other titles were removed from junior and senior high school libraries. The Island Trees (NY) School District School Board removed the books in 1976 because they were “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and just plain filthy.” In Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico, the Court found that “local school boards may not remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books.” Vonnegut’s satirical novel, published in 1969, considers themes of war and human nature, and is widely regarded as his most influential work.

The ALA has a more exhaustive list:

• Challenged in many communities, but burned in Drake, ND (1973).
• Banned in Rochester, MI because the novel "contains and makes references to religious matters" and thus fell within the ban of the establishment clause. An appellate court upheld its usage in the school in Todd v Rochester Community Schools, 41 Mich. App. 320, 200 N. W 2d 90 (1972).
• Banned in Levittown, NY (1975), North Jackson, OH (1979), and Lakeland, FL (1982) because of the "book's explicit sexual scenes, violence, and obscene language."
• Barred from purchase at the Washington Park High School in Racine, WI (1984) by the district administrative assistant for instructional services.
• Challenged at the Owensboro, KY High School library (1985) because of "foul language, a section depicting a picture of an act of bestiality, a reference to 'Magic Fingers' attached to the protagonist's bed to help him sleep, and the sentence: 'The gun made a ripping sound like the opening of the fly of God Almighty."'
• Restricted to students who have parental permission at the four Racine, WI Unified District high school libraries (1986) because of "language used in the book, depictions of torture, ethnic slurs, and negative portrayals of women."
• Challenged at the LaRue County, KY High School library (1987) because "the book contains foul language and promotes deviant sexual behavior.”
• Banned from the Fitzgerald, GA schools (1987) because it was filled with profanity and full of explicit sexual references:' Challenged in the Baton Rouge, LA public high school libraries (1988) because the book is "vulgar and offensive."
• Challenged in the Monroe, MI public schools (1989) as required reading in a modern novel course for high school juniors and seniors because of the book's language and the way women are portrayed.
• Retained on the Round Rock, TX Independent High School reading list (1996) after a challenge that the book was too violent.
• Challenged as an eleventh grade summer reading option in Prince William County, VA (1998) because the book "was rife with profanity and explicit sex."
• Removed as required reading for sophomores at the Coventry, RI High School (2000) after a parent complained that it contains vulgar language, violent imagery, and sexual content.
• Retained on the Northwest Suburban High School District 214 reading list in Arlington Heights, IL (2006), along with eight other challenged titles. A board member, elected amid promises to bring her Christian beliefs into all board decision-making, raised the controversy based on excerpts from the books she'd found on the internet.
• Challenged in the Howell, MI High School (2007) because of the book's strong sexual content. In response to a request from the president of the Livingston Organization for Values in Education, or LOVE, the county's top law enforcement official reviewed the books to see whether laws against distribution of sexually explicit materials to minors had been broken. "After reading the books in question, it is clear that the explicit passages illustrated a larger literary, artistic or political message and were not included solely to appeal to the prurient interests of minors," the county prosecutor wrote. "Whether these materials are appropriate for minors is a decision to be made by the school board, but I find that they are not in violation of criminal laws."

The mention of book-burning raised an eyebrow for me – somebody burned copies of a book that, among other things, depicts Germany during WWII. No irony there! The site Letters of Note reprints a letter by Vonnegut responding to the incident, and provides more context:

In October of 1973, Bruce Severy —a 26-year-old English teacher at Drake High School, North Dakota — decided to use Kurt Vonnegut's novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, as a teaching aid in his classroom. The next month, on November 7th, the head of the school board, Charles McCarthy, demanded that all 32 copies be burned in the school's furnace as a result of its "obscene language." Other books soon met with the same fate.

On the 16th of November, Kurt Vonnegut sent McCarthy the following letter. He didn't receive a reply.

Vonnegut's letter is remarkable:

November 16, 1973

Dear Mr. McCarthy:

I am writing to you in your capacity as chairman of the Drake School Board. I am among those American writers whose books have been destroyed in the now famous furnace of your school.

Certain members of your community have suggested that my work is evil. This is extraordinarily insulting to me. The news from Drake indicates to me that books and writers are very unreal to you people. I am writing this letter to let you know how real I am.

I want you to know, too, that my publisher and I have done absolutely nothing to exploit the disgusting news from Drake. We are not clapping each other on the back, crowing about all the books we will sell because of the news. We have declined to go on television, have written no fiery letters to editorial pages, have granted no lengthy interviews. We are angered and sickened and saddened. And no copies of this letter have been sent to anybody else. You now hold the only copy in your hands. It is a strictly private letter from me to the people of Drake, who have done so much to damage my reputation in the eyes of their children and then in the eyes of the world. Do you have the courage and ordinary decency to show this letter to the people, or will it, too, be consigned to the fires of your furnace?

I gather from what I read in the papers and hear on television that you imagine me, and some other writers, too, as being sort of ratlike people who enjoy making money from poisoning the minds of young people. I am in fact a large, strong person, fifty-one years old, who did a lot of farm work as a boy, who is good with tools. I have raised six children, three my own and three adopted. They have all turned out well. Two of them are farmers. I am a combat infantry veteran from World War II, and hold a Purple Heart. I have earned whatever I own by hard work. I have never been arrested or sued for anything. I am so much trusted with young people and by young people that I have served on the faculties of the University of Iowa, Harvard, and the City College of New York. Every year I receive at least a dozen invitations to be commencement speaker at colleges and high schools. My books are probably more widely used in schools than those of any other living American fiction writer.

If you were to bother to read my books, to behave as educated persons would, you would learn that they are not sexy, and do not argue in favor of wildness of any kind. They beg that people be kinder and more responsible than they often are. It is true that some of the characters speak coarsely. That is because people speak coarsely in real life. Especially soldiers and hardworking men speak coarsely, and even our most sheltered children know that. And we all know, too, that those words really don’t damage children much. They didn’t damage us when we were young. It was evil deeds and lying that hurt us.

After I have said all this, I am sure you are still ready to respond, in effect, “Yes, yes–but it still remains our right and our responsibility to decide what books our children are going to be made to read in our community.” This is surely so. But it is also true that if you exercise that right and fulfill that responsibility in an ignorant, harsh, un-American manner, then people are entitled to call you bad citizens and fools. Even your own children are entitled to call you that.

I read in the newspaper that your community is mystified by the outcry from all over the country about what you have done. Well, you have discovered that Drake is a part of American civilization, and your fellow Americans can’t stand it that you have behaved in such an uncivilized way. Perhaps you will learn from this that books are sacred to free men for very good reasons, and that wars have been fought against nations which hate books and burn them. If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely your own.

If you and your board are now determined to show that you in fact have wisdom and maturity when you exercise your powers over the education of your young, then you should acknowledge that it was a rotten lesson you taught young people in a free society when you denounced and then burned books–books you hadn’t even read. You should also resolve to expose your children to all sorts of opinions and information, in order that they will be better equipped to make decisions and to survive.

Again: you have insulted me, and I am a good citizen, and I am very real.

Kurt Vonnegut

Why, it's almost as if the letter's author is a good writer and reading his work might have value! (The section about "civilization" and how books are "sacred" is probably my favorite.) The funny thing is, Slaughterhouse-Five seems relatively tame compared to some other banned and challenged books. How repressed and authoritarian does someone have to be not only tp ban a book, but to burn it, over a little profanity?

(I've posted earlier about a superb term paper assignment Vonnegut gave out when teaching at the Iowa Writer's Workshop.)

Links

(A graphic by Reading Addicts.)

io9: "The 12 Weirdest Reasons For Banning Science Fiction and Fantasy Books"

Publishing house Simon and Schuster, at Buzzfeed, provides "11 Quotes From Authors On Censorship and Banned Books" (including Vonnegut).

The Columbus State Community College Library, at Buzzfeed, provides "20 Life Lessons Learned From Reading Banned & Challenged Comics."

The Huffington Post supplies "10 Gorgeous Quotes From Banned Books" and a neat set of infographics.

Reading Addicts' poll of readers' 15 Desert Island Books contains several banned or challenged titles.

Meanwhile, in a piece of good news, the public schools in Rochester, Minnesota voted to keep a "controversial" book in the curriculum, The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich.

If you wrote a post celebrating reading banned or challenged books, feel free to link it in the comments.

Labor Day 2014

Happy Labor Day! I've featured Billy Bragg before, but via Blue Gal, here's his rendition of another classic:

Here's Robert Reich from last year, about celebrating labor on Labor Day:

Digby has clips of Barbara Kopple and her Oscar-winning documentary Harlan County U.S.A. (I met Kopple years ago, and she's a cool person in addition to being a great documentary filmmaker.)

Digby also passes on "The True Story Of How One Man Shut Down American Commerce To Avoid Paying His Workers A Fair Wage" by Ian Millhiser and "Anti-Labor Day" by Ed Kilgore.

ThinkProgress also offers "Conservatives Protest Labor Day by Staging a Work-In" and Daily Kos Labor gives a reminder of what unions do.

At the Campaign for America's Future, Dave Johnson provides "Why Fight For Unions? So We Can Fight An Economy Rigged Against Us."

At Pharyngula, PZ Myers has posted Sarah Palin's incoherent Labor Day video (Pailn tries to portray herself as pro-labor but opposed to union leadership, and drops entire words in addition to her "g"s. The comment thread is fun, though.)

Erik Loomis' series, This Day in Labor History, is well worth a look.

The PBS series American Masters recenty aired an episode on Depression-era photographer Dorothea Lange, and Yale's site, Photogrammar, in collaboration with the Library of Congress, is "a web-based platform for organizing, searching, and visualizing the 170,000 photographs from 1935 to 1945 created by the United State’s Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information (FSA-OWI)."

At Balloon Juice, Anne Laurie and Kay have good posts for the day.

My most in-depth post for Labor Day was this 2011 post.

If you wrote a post celebrating the day, feel free to link it in the comments.

You're Intolerant of My Intolerance!

Discussions about gay marriage and other LGBT rights, as well as the recent Hobby Lobby decision with its issues of religious belief, have occasionally featured an argument that amounts to 'you're intolerant of intolerance.' Sometimes that argument appears verbatim, or almost so. For instance:

"I should be able to express moral views on social issues, especially those that have been the underpinning of Western civilization for 2,000 years — without being slandered, accused of hate speech, and told from those who preach 'tolerance' that I need to either bend my beliefs to their moral standards or be silent when I'm in the public square."

– Kirk Cameron in 2012

"But you're saying we need to tolerate the intolerant!" — I see that objection every time I write something critical of liberal dogmatism and bigotry.

To which my stock response is: Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying — because that's what liberalism is, or should be, all about. Toleration is perfectly compatible with — indeed, it presupposes — disagreement. That's why it's called tolerance and not endorsement or affirmation.

– Damon Linker in 2014

Although such arguments are often sincere, I'd contend they don't survive close scrutiny. John Holbo recently wrote a good post responding to Linker, and pieces earlier in the year from Henry Farrell, djw and Scott Lemieux (one and two) also cover the subject nicely. (The Cameron link above goes to a solid rebuttal by John Aravosis.) Here's another crack at the issue myself (cribbing from some older pieces), on the off-chance a different framework helps. Basically, I'm suggesting that the 'you're intolerant of intolerance' argument stems from a semantic disconnect, ignoring power dynamics and failing to distinguish between beliefs about personal conduct and beliefs about how the overall system should work. There's also confusion about a tolerant system (legal rights) versus public manners (social and cultural norms).

These issues have broader applications, but for the purposes of this post, I'm going to concentrate on gay rights and opposition to them, especially when that opposition is justified by citing religious beliefs. Meanwhile, Linker supports gay marriage himself, but views criticism of anti-gay social conservatives as "intolerant." For the purposes of readability, when I mention anti-gay social conservatives, I generally also mean defenders such as Linker (there will be some obvious exceptions), but the difference is duly noted.

Power Dynamics and Levels of Belief

A tolerant person says, "I will live my life the way I like, and you can live your life the way you like." An intolerant person will say, "I will live my life the way I like, but you must also live your life the way I want you to." These are not equivalent. Both people have beliefs, it's true, but one is seeking power over the other. This distinction is clearest in the private sphere. For instance, compare the viewpoint that whatever consenting adults choose to do in the bedroom is fine versus the notions that homosexuality should be criminalized or birth control should be outlawed. Power dynamics shouldn't be ignored, but in debates over "tolerance," they often are. We can visualize a tolerant society, with equal rights for all, like so:

(Click any image for a larger view. These groups aren't drawn to scale, of course, and most of the graphics in this post are pretty simple, but I hope they do the trick.)

Meanwhile, an intolerant society is hierarchical; one group can imposes its will on others (at least in some areas), and looks something like this:

A 2012 post offered a framework for discussing this further, and although it focused on claims about religious persecution, the same dynamics hold true for many arguments against gay marriage even when religion is not invoked, or really any issue involving some form of social conservatism or cultural dominance:

Most of the time, when conservatives say "freedom," they really mean "privilege." Typically, they do not recognize this, because they view their preferred power structure as the natural order. Theocrats and other religious authoritarians will raise a great hue and cry about their religious freedoms being violated. Most will honestly believe this, but they do not truly seek freedom of religion, which they already possess. What they seek is power and preferential status, the ability to impose their religious beliefs on others. Consequently, to use a shorthand, it's important to recognize the difference between personal beliefs – for instance, an individual's specific religious beliefs or lack thereof, that affect that person – and system beliefs – beliefs about how our overall system should be organized, including whether religious faiths (as well as no faith) should be treated equally and neutrally, or whether a particular faith or faiths should be given precedence. These are not equivalent, and when we discuss "belief" and "tolerance," we must put them in context. Individual, personal beliefs that affect that person primarily are categorically different from shared, public policies that affect everyone. The First Amendment contains both an exercise clause and an establishment clause regarding religion; theocrats consistently ignore the latter (in fact, that's one of the defining characteristic of theocrats). While the law makes a number of accommodations for religious beliefs (and individual communities may make far more), as a rule religious beliefs do not trump the law; a murderer could not successfully argue that prosecuting him was a violation of his First Amendment rights because he belonged to the Cult of Kali. Understanding these distinctions is crucial.

For a slightly silly example, "Vanilla ice cream is the best" and "Strawberry ice cream is the best" are both personal beliefs, and a fair system that's ice-cream-flavor neutral (as the Founding Fathers intended) treats them as equivalent. There are no legal repercussions for preferring one flavor over another, and people are free to argue about the best flavor. However, "Vanilla ice cream is the best, and all other flavors must be outlawed" is not equivalent to "Vanilla ice cream is the best" or "Strawberry ice cream is the best" – it's a system belief – and if it were allowed to dominate, would result in an unfair system. Likewise, to turn serious, "We should all have equal rights" and "You should be treated as a second-class citizen" are clearly not equivalent. Unfortunately, we keep on seeing arguments that they are, as well as arguments that objections to bigoted system beliefs are a form of intolerance.

Here's another way of visualizing the situation. Let's start with a basic setup:

For demonstrative purposes, let's say that Person B's intolerance is bigotry against gay people; he's a homophobe. Now let's add each person's desired influence:

In our example, everybody agrees on some issues and society considers them settled (murder should be illegal, etc.). But Person B doesn't just want to decide his own private conduct or to have a say in the public sphere; he wants to dictate what others do privately, too, even when it doesn't directly affect him. (Whether he obsesses about others' private conduct is his choice, but he has no automatic rights over them.) Although Person A and Person C both desire some basic influence in the public sphere, including shaping social and cultural norms – for instance, perhaps they don't want bigoted slurs shouted at a gay couple in a restaurant – they're not seeking to dominate Person B's private conduct. He's free to rail against gay people in his home. If he belongs to a house of worship that believes that homosexuality is morally wrong, he and his fellow congregants are free to inveigh against it there. He's also free to express his opinion in more public places that he shares with Persons A and C – but he doesn't have a right not to be criticized. Other people can exercise their own First Amendment rights and disagree, including calling him a bigot.

Continuing with the First Amendment, the Establishment Clause can be regarded as a system belief that trumps the Free Exercise Clause, which covers personal beliefs. This is as it must be, given that personal beliefs on religion (including atheism) sometimes clash. The system belief of fairness is what creates the space for different personal beliefs and mediates conflicts. Although reasonable accommodations for personal beliefs can be made (and are, in the U.S.), when there's a significant clash, the Establishment Clause should win (not that the courts always agree – ahem). The opposite system is theocracy, where the "Exercise" rights of one group supersede the rights of everybody else. For the sake of argument, let's suppose that the system of neutrality expressed by the Establishment Clause occasionally causes harm; it certainly makes some people upset. It's possible to acknowledge such incidents yet still note that it's the fairest system possible; the tradeoff is worth it. (For another example, thinking a specific defendant is "guilty" or "innocent" are personal beliefs, but "due process" is a system belief. Things don't turn out well when someone tries to do an end-run around it.)

Pushing for gay rights, including marriage and protection from getting fired for one's sexual orientation, isn’t about seeking elevated status, but mere equality. This is a crucial distinction. Yes, the push for gay rights makes social conservatives upset, and yes, it entails a change from decades ago. It is not, however, an assault on their freedom, which has not changed, only a diminishing of their privilege, which they took for granted. Cultural norms have shifted and no longer support what they view(ed) as the natural order. The same thing happened with slavery and women's suffrage and Jim Crow laws – things changed, and frankly, progressed. To quote another old post that can apply to bigotry or cultural narcissism in general, "of course people of faith have a role in the public square, they just shouldn't have a privileged role. They can propose public policies, but they don't automatically get to have their way by citing their religion. They don't automatically get to win."

Real Life and Real Harm

It's easy to discuss these issues as "a low-stakes cocktail party argument" (to borrow a phrase from Jamelle Bouie on discussions about racism). In some circles, the notion that gay people deserve fewer rights than everybody else may be stated, um, "politely." (We’ll come back to that.) Regardless, plenty of places exist in the U.S. and the world where that is not the case, and public, negative statements about gay people create a hostile environment. In some cases, these amount to threats, bullying, and precursors to violence. The CDC states that:

A 2009 survey* of more than 7,000 LGBT middle and high school students aged 13–21 years found that in the past year, because of their sexual orientation—
● Eight of ten students had been verbally harassed at school;
● Four of ten had been physically harassed at school;
● Six of ten felt unsafe at school; and
● One of five had been the victim of a physical assault at school.

LGBT youth are also at increased risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors, suicide attempts, and suicide. A nationally representative study of adolescents in grades 7–12 found that lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth were more than twice as likely to have attempted suicide as their heterosexual peers. More studies are needed to better understand the risks for suicide among transgender youth.

A 2010 study by the Center for American Progress estimated that 5% to 10% of youth are LGBT, but among homeless youth, that range shoots up to 20% to 40%, often because they are runaways from unsupportive homes. Some of the other estimates, about the "higher rates of abuse and victimization," are also sobering.

Exact numbers can be elusive, but the American Association of Suicidology summarizes:

Many studies have found that LGB youth attempt suicide more frequently than straight peers. Garafalo et al. (1999) found that LGB high school students and students unsure of their sexual orientation were 3.4 times more likely to have attempted suicide in the last year than their straight peers. Eisenberg and Resnick (2006) found LGB high school students were more than twice as likely as their straight peers to have attempted suicide.

Meanwhile, opposition to anti-bullying efforts in schools has been lead by the religious right and other social conservatives because they believe that "All of it is being used as an opportunity to force homosexual teaching into the schools." It is their belief, whether justified by religion or otherwise, that it's important to be able to bully gay kids to enforce what they see as social norms and the natural order. (It also ties into their "gay cooties" theory, that it's contagious.)

Personally, I'd call the anti-anti-bullying efforts dangerous, asshole behavior, not tolerance. Let's grant that certain prominent anti-gay pundits and their defenders don't condone such behavior. But let's also note that feeling upset about being called a bigot, while unpleasant, is categorically different from facing the real threat of violence. Even with shifting attitudes, in the nation as a whole, hostility toward LGBT people is not theoretical. Anti-gay social conservatives may be verbally chewed out in some arenas, but there aren't wide swaths of America where they're routinely beaten up for their views or identity. (Not to mention that being a bigot, unlike being gay, is a choice, even if one makes caveats about upbringing.) If publically calling out not only anti-gay behavior but rhetoric is necessary to create a less hostile environment for gay youth (as it surely is on some level), but this comes at the cost of making some social conservatives uncomfortable, that's not a remotely hard tradeoff.

Not long ago, Josh Barro, who's both Republican and gay, tweeted that, "Anti-LGBT attitudes are terrible for people in all sorts of communities. They linger and oppress, and we need to stamp them out, ruthlessly." The last part's a bit inartful perhaps, but as Roy Edroso chronicled, right-bloggers jumped on it as a call for violence versus a call to speak out, and started invoking Kristallnacht and making other Nazi analogies, with no fucking irony at all. (As those who weren't asleep through history class will remember, the Nazis killed homosexuals, and the pink triangle branding they employed was repurposed as a gay rights sign in memory of this. Also: Godwin!) So, for those of you keeping score at home, in right-wing land, speaking out against anti-gay bigotry is just as oppressive as gay people getting murdered.

We'll get to more polite expressions of anti-gay sentiment in a second, but while those have their problems as well, let's note the standards of tolerance and discourse here, and make no mistake, this level of animosity is more common than the "polite" stuff. This isn't just a sense of privilege – it's ideological and cultural narcissism. It's a sense of entitlement so deep that they can act like complete dicks to other people yet still insist that they're the victims. (In other words, movement conservatism. The politics of tribal aggrievement have made Rush Limbaugh very rich.)

The Public Sphere

Can someone believe that another group, by virtue of some immutable characteristic, deserves to be treated like second-class citizens, yet be truly "tolerant"? I believe that Cameron, Linker and Ross Douthat, among others, would argue that there's a relatively polite form of opposition to gay marriage and other gay rights that represents "tolerance." I would argue that no, that position – that someone else deserves fewer rights (justified because of religion or tradition or personal discomfort or whatever) is inherently and inescapably bigoted. (Use "prejudiced" if you prefer, and want to designate gradations.) Such people may be pleasant enough on other issues, but it doesn't change that they do not support a system of tolerance.

Here's where I think it's useful to distinguish between tolerance on a system level (especially involving legal rights) and tolerance on the (inter)personal level, and what could be called "public manners." This chart is a bit tongue in cheek, but might be helpful:

("Liberal" is, as noted, liberal in the Enlightenment sense, which would include tolerant small "c" conservatives and the like, anyone who is committed in general to basic social equality.)

Using these definitions, both Cameron and Linker seem to be conflating (inter)personal "tolerance" in a social situation with support for a tolerant system. They can coexist but they are not the same thing. It's absolutely fine if they feel that, say, Bill Maher, Richard Dawkins or Josh Barro (or yours truly) is an asshole on a personal level. But their complaint is about a social interaction, about speech in the public sphere. This group ("smug hipster asshole" in the chart) nonetheless supports a tolerant system (unless I've missed some public statement otherwise). They support the right of Cameron, for instance, to speak out, and would oppose him being jailed for his views. In this sense, they are tolerant of him (on the system level). However, they also will exercise their right to call him out on his bigotry. Flipping this, Mike Huckabee has a pretty amiable manner, but he opposes gay marriage. He may be personally "tolerant" in that he wouldn't use gay slurs when meeting a gay person, but he still doesn't support a tolerant system (he'd be a "friendly but misguided authoritarian" on the chart).

Using these definitions, (inter)personal "tolerance" isn't always a virtue, either – imagine a teacher who witnesses one student making a bigoted remark to another – a good teacher would intervene on behalf of the victim, which would necessitate being personally "intolerant" to the student making the bigoted remark while simultaneously upholding a tolerant system that protects the victim. That wouldn't mean the insulter was an irredeemable kid, either, and the teacher could work with him later. But in the immediate moment, the teacher's duty is to uphold a community standard, a system, of tolerance. Those who speak out against anti-gay bigotry in the public sphere, whether gently or bluntly, gracefully or clumsily, are essentially trying to do the same thing.

"Tolerance" can be a somewhat ambiguous term, unfortunately. For someone ignoring the power dynamics involved, it's possible to sincerely view bigots who believe that other people should be treated as second-class citizens as "tolerant" and people who object to that view and speak out about it as "intolerant."

There's something to be said for the more polite forms of bigotry – it's definitely better than violence, or bullying. It's the relatively, um, enlightened bigotry of a certain breed of missionary, that "you people are inferior, but you still deserve some degree of decent treatment." Social conservatives who adopt "the missionary position" can still screw things up royally, but admittedly, they're much better than their side's more belligerent and hateful wankers.

It might help to delve further into the concept of public manners. One last chart might prove useful:

(Click the image for a larger view, or you can read a text version here.)

The main points here are that some people will recognize prejudice in themselves, but nonetheless realize it's their own hang-up, trust "the better angels of their nature" and support equality for others. No one is really giving such people grief. On the contrary, activists for gay rights appreciate the support.

Other people will be prejudiced as well, but will oppose equality. They'll also keep this largely to themselves and only talk about it with a small few. Their bigotry, typically of a more mild form, is restrained in the broader sphere by their sense of "public manners." They might feel uncomfortable from time to time, but no one's really giving them grief either, because their discretion prevents it, as intended. Eventually, their side will probably lose the vote. Some may eventually change their mind.

The real conflicts arise from the more vocal opposition, when social conservatives bring their views into the public sphere but also expect them to dominate and go unchallenged. Basically, this is what Linker, Cameron, and others are asking for – special privileges for anti-gay activists in the public sphere. (Obviously they don't see it this way.) They want to define "public manners" in a way that allows anti-gay activists to express their bigoted views (sorry, there's no honest way around it) yet simultaneously prevents gay rights advocates from criticizing them on those grounds. Hey, they're free to make that pitch, but the boundaries of acceptable public discourse are an ongoing negotiation between different groups. (djw's post is especially good on these points. I'll add that "We get to win because of religion" isn't a convincing argument – it's not a good system belief – about how public discourse should operate.)

The Overdue Finale

As Henry Farrell points out:

Bigotry derived from religious principles is still bigotry. . . .

And if [Conor] Friedersdorf wants to defend his sincerely-religiously-against-gay-marriage people as not being bigots, he has to defend the sincerely-religiously-against-racial-miscegenation people too. They fit exactly into Friedersdorf’s proposed intellectual category.

The standard, the "system belief," proposed by Linker, Friedersdorf and others as an alternative to the liberal one of equality, where instead bigotry justified by religion gets special treatment, is fundamentally unworkable. As Scott Lemieux puts it, "I am not arguing that the religious beliefs are trivial; I am arguing that the burden on these beliefs is trivial."

Gay marriage makes Ross Douthat, Kirk Cameron and their fellow social conservatives uncomfortable, and they believe it harms society somehow. Okay, duly noted. Now let's weigh that against the happiness of gay couples and the sometimes significant financial burden that not being able to marry imposes on gay couples. That's not a hard tradeoff. Similarly, Kirk Cameron, Damon Linker and others don't like that social conservatives are called bigots, or intolerant – also noted. Let's weigh that once more against bullying, violence and general hostility against LGBT youth, and the value gained from challenging such behavior and attitudes. Again, it's no contest. It's not that the social conservative position hasn't been given a fair hearing – it's that it's not a good one, and an increasing number of people don't find it convincing. As this trend continues, and cultural and social norms shift, the freedom of social conservatives remains the same, but their privilege is being diminished. This is not a bad thing. But of course they don't like it, and not all of them are dealing with it gracefully.

Apologies for a long and somewhat repetitive post. (As it is, I didn't address some arguments, but I think the posts I linked at the start handle other points extremely well.) I do hope some scrap of this helps break through those recurring arguments about "tolerance," especially from the 'you're intolerant of our intolerance' crowd. It's vital to remember – they're not being oppressed. They're simply losing a fair fight (and some are whining about it).

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo.)