Posts tagged "america"

And one that has nothing to do with whether Greenwald is wrong or right about PRISM (he’s wrong, by the way) and why that matters. Ultimately, in a debate like this, the best thing a politically engaged intellectual can do is write in a way that does not short-circuit thought. And my, oh, my, does Greenwald’s style of political discourse short-circuit thought—with a fierceness.

Rick Perlstein, “On Glenn Greenwald and His Fans,” The Nation, June 18, 2013

And:

The bottom line is that there’s an attitude out there that anything bad anyone says about the NSA must be a priori true, and that anything bad anyone says about the NSA must have already been said by Glenn Greenwald, and that anyone who questions Greenwald about anything must be questioning Greenwald about everything, and thus thinks the NSA (and its boss Barack Obama) is swell.

This is why I find Glenn Greenwald tiresome, even though he has done and will continue to do valuable work. I don’t doubt his honesty, but I do question his judgment. As a thinker he’s suspect. His mindset is of a man forever readying for total war.

2
media america politics
Jun 18

Here is a book about Detroit. I wrote a review of it for the latest issue of American Review. (Full disclosure: I am a subeditor at AR.) I was introduced to America’s motor city in the winter of 2005, landing at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport at dawn off a red-eye flight. I was there to visit a family friend who lived, like so many other white folks in the city’s metropolitan area, not in the city itself, but in one of the less dysfunctional suburbs that ring the outskirts — in her case, a working class neighbourhood in the Westside enclave of Livonia. It was getting ready to snow that day, and the grey skies did little to brighten the city. As my host and I drove around downtown — Detroit long ago gave itself over entirely to the automobile — the overcast conditions lent even the parts of the city yet to succumb to urban decay an air of hard scrabble gloom. The refurbished Fox Theatre, the gleaming Renaissance Center hulked over the river, the gigantic sculpted tigers prowling the outskirts of the pristine new ballpark, the uncharacteristic bustle of Greektown, and the rare neighbourhoods in which lavish mansions left over from the city’s more prosperous days were still well-kept seemed less a sign of life and more a stubborn refusal to succumb to the popular conception of Detroit as a 139 square mile urban hospice. My host didn’t try to pretend Detroit was not disintegrating, and tolerated well my prurient fascination with its evacuated boulevards and its acres of inner-city prairie interrupted by the odd boarded-up shopfront or what locals call “party stores” — outlets catering for the ever-resilient demand for liquor, lottery tickets, and payday loans. But she insisted that I also see the parts of the city that defied the death sentence the rest of the nation had written for it. Detroiters, understandably, get prickly if you start to pretend theirs is a city that exists as a relic rather than a real place where actual people — seven hundred thousand of them, in fact — live and, in lesser numbers, work. [and etc.]

Here is a book about Detroit. I wrote a review of it for the latest issue of American Review. (Full disclosure: I am a subeditor at AR.)

I was introduced to America’s motor city in the winter of 2005, landing at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport at dawn off a red-eye flight. I was there to visit a family friend who lived, like so many other white folks in the city’s metropolitan area, not in the city itself, but in one of the less dysfunctional suburbs that ring the outskirts — in her case, a working class neighbourhood in the Westside enclave of Livonia.

It was getting ready to snow that day, and the grey skies did little to brighten the city. As my host and I drove around downtown — Detroit long ago gave itself over entirely to the automobile — the overcast conditions lent even the parts of the city yet to succumb to urban decay an air of hard scrabble gloom. The refurbished Fox Theatre, the gleaming Renaissance Center hulked over the river, the gigantic sculpted tigers prowling the outskirts of the pristine new ballpark, the uncharacteristic bustle of Greektown, and the rare neighbourhoods in which lavish mansions left over from the city’s more prosperous days were still well-kept seemed less a sign of life and more a stubborn refusal to succumb to the popular conception of Detroit as a 139 square mile urban hospice.

My host didn’t try to pretend Detroit was not disintegrating, and tolerated well my prurient fascination with its evacuated boulevards and its acres of inner-city prairie interrupted by the odd boarded-up shopfront or what locals call “party stores” — outlets catering for the ever-resilient demand for liquor, lottery tickets, and payday loans. But she insisted that I also see the parts of the city that defied the death sentence the rest of the nation had written for it. Detroiters, understandably, get prickly if you start to pretend theirs is a city that exists as a relic rather than a real place where actual people — seven hundred thousand of them, in fact — live and, in lesser numbers, work.


[and etc.]

5
america books detroit ya boy ussc cityporn
Jun 13

The “honor code” that Brooks claims was violated is perhaps nothing more than condescension mitigated by social obligation.

Amy Davidson, “David Brooks and the mind of Edward Snowden,” The New Yorker, June 11, 2013

But “condescension mitigated by social obligation” is basically David Brooks’s entire schtick right?

EDIT: “Brooks, as I’ve written before, seems to have a greater horror of impoliteness than of injustice.”

1
america media politics
Jun 12

Here, by the way, is one of the many reasons why I don’t buy the idea that “conservative civil libertarians” — or libertarianism in general — are a meaningful political force. Once a politician reaches a certain point of liberalism, she’s going to be suspicious of the surveillance state. In the realm of conservatism, opposition to government intrusion on civil liberties occasionally exists, but it’s mostly just an accident. 

Here, by the way, is one of the many reasons why I don’t buy the idea that “conservative civil libertarians” — or libertarianism in general — are a meaningful political force. Once a politician reaches a certain point of liberalism, she’s going to be suspicious of the surveillance state. In the realm of conservatism, opposition to government intrusion on civil liberties occasionally exists, but it’s mostly just an accident. 

5
politics america
Jun 11

Guys, I have it confirmed straight from the source. Official canon. Nemo and his dad are immigrant fish living in some kind of Little America in the Great Barrier Reef. I had no idea Australia’s aquatic communities were so multicultural!

Guys, I have it confirmed straight from the source. Official canon. Nemo and his dad are immigrant fish living in some kind of Little America in the Great Barrier Reef. I had no idea Australia’s aquatic communities were so multicultural!

9
movies australia america
Jun 11

When 19th century writers use contemporary slang.

Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (1861)

He considered the chambers and his own lodging as temporary residences, and advised me to look out at once for a “fashionable crib” near Hyde Park…

When 19th century American writers use contemporary Australian slang.

Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (1868)

She was a great favorite with her mates, being good-tempered and possessing the happy art of pleasing without effort.

3
books language america australia
Jun 09

[White House Press Secretary Jay] Carney — who off camera retains a reporter’s curiosity and charm…

Glenn Thrush & R.J . Epstein, “Jay Carney press briefing blues,” Politico, May 21, 2013

The two reporters reporting this story don’t mention whether Carney also retains a reporter’s sexiness, intelligence, or impeccably agreeable odor.

2
politics america media
May 24

The English played well, but the Americans played better, and contested every inch of the ground as strongly as if the spirit of ‘76 inspired them.

Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (1868)

This is a description of a game of croquet, featuring British visitors to the novel’s main characters. ILU LMA.

Also:

“Yankees have a trick of being generous to their enemies,” said Jo, with a look that made the lad redden, “especially when they beat them,” she added, as, leaving Kate’s ball untouched, she won the game by a clever stroke

USA! USA USA USA!

And:

Mr. Brooke looked up and said quickly, “Young ladies in America love independence as much as their ancestors did, and are admired and respected for supporting themselves.”

Tell ‘em Webbie:

I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T 
Do you know what that mean?
She got her own house!
She got her own car!

6
books america england history little women
May 23

“Get Lucky”: The American Daft Punk song

One of the songs I’m hearing everywhere here in the US is Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky.” This is no surprise, since it is a top 20 hit and the most successful Daft Punk single to date in America.

It is also their most American single to date. Oh yes, it is unmistakably Daft Punk, in full French House vivant. But it also has Nile Rodgers’s real disco guitar instead of the reconstituted funk of prior Daft Punk euro-dance. And the lead vocal isn’t the faceless vocoderized sample of the duo’s previous singles, but Pharrell Williams’s familiar amateur soul croon. It would be misguided to pretend it isn’t a transatlantic tune, but with two of its most recognizable elements being distinctly American — at a time when America has wholeheartedly embraced electronic dance music — is it best understood as a primarily American song?

(On the other hand, this is the most successful Daft Punk single of all time pretty much everywhere — their first number one in a slew of markets and their second in France, following “One More Time.”)

4
america music europe
May 22

Weaver D’s is not automatic for the people on Sundays. This is part two of two in a series of me visiting soul food restaurants referenced by Southern musical acts. 

Weaver D’s is not automatic for the people on Sundays.

This is part two of two in a series of me visiting soul food restaurants referenced by Southern musical acts. 

5
music the south food america
May 20


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