Bloomberg

Michael Bloomberg definitely ought to apologize for his suggestion that the bomber was "someone who didn't like the healthcare bill or somethin'". He'd probably counter that it was a throwaway comment, but, then, throwaway comments sometimes tell us quite a bit about people's character sometimes. One need only re-contextualize the comment to see this truth manifest. What if, for instance, he had seen someone lying dead from a gang-related murder and had said, if he had to guess at who did it, he would bet "fifty cents" that it was an African American male (albeit, one acting alone)? This would rightly offend every civil rights leader from China to Peru, and they would be rightly offended also. It is depressing that Bloomberg's cosmopolitan supporters will probably not only give him a clean bill-of-health, but will probably claim that his idiotic comment was insightful.

Reflections on the Election in Great Britain

Apparently, David Cameron's Tories are falling behind the Liberal Democrats in Britain's May elections. I am not sure how to feel about this. There have been conservatives (or "conservatives" of the compassionate variety, such as David Frum and Joe Scarborough) lining up to support Cameron in the United States and conservatives (or "conservatives" of the anti-tax fundamentalist variety) who have been lining up to use Cameronism as a punching bag. Personally, I have very little respect for David Cameron and don't believe for a second that his "Cameronism" is a sustainable social project. (If, on the campaign trail, President Obama had so much as suggested that Saul Alinsky was an inspiration to him, then his campaign would have been in trouble; and yet, Cameron opening embraces Alinsky in his speeches and campaign documents.)

That being said, I am not sure how I feel about the conservatives falling behind in Britain. My primary reason for embracing a Tory victory would be that, while I don't believe Cameronism is sustainable, I don't believe that Cameronism is sustainable; in short, I am curious to see it tested. That being said, if Tories did lose, it might put to rest the notion of certain conservatives in America that Cameronism is the future; there are thinking conservatives who have, more or less, embraced certain aspects of Cameronism via Philip Blond's Red Toryism (see Front Porch Republic), but most mainstream recommendations for emulation (see FrumForum) have ended in policy proposals that sound like the Diet Coke version of the Democratic platform.

Anyway, their are pluses and minuses for both electoral outcomes; I'm just glad that I'm not a citizen of that country because I honestly have no idea which way I would vote.

Image from the Dictatorship of Venezuela's "Elected Leader" (Sean Penn)

The Problem with (Contemporary) Moderates

Most of the media's talk during the past few weeks has concentrated on the problem with partisanship in America. However, I tend to think that it is not the partisans in the senate, but rather the so-called centrists who are doing more damage to American democracy.

Senators who are most frequently praised for bipartisan courage are the ladies from Maine, Arlen Specter (until his recent switch) and Bill Nelson. But since when have they cast a vote that they honestly thought would endanger their chances of reelection with their constituencies?

True, Bill Nelson's poll numbers have sharply declined since he sold his vote to Obamacare, but the Nebraska senator did try very hard to ensure that this would not happen--and, therein, is the problem: the centrist senators cast their votes, at least on the most controversial legislation, through a process of institutionalized bribery.

Olympia Snowe, for example, can sell her vote to the Republicans in exchange for a naval base remaining open or to the Democrats for priority high way work on the routes leading to Portland, but this is a sort of centrism that profiteers off partisanship. Were the senate not in veto-gridlock, there would be no space for this sort of "moderation".

This is not to say that there cannot be moderates with guiding principles. There have been. Senators Moynihan and D'Amato and Governors Casey and (Mitt) Romney all took positions that were somestimes more conservative or liberal than the mainstream of their party or in their state. But they were principled. Regardless of what one thinks of the rightness or wrongness of the positions they took, one could rest assured that these positions had their origin in these men's conscience, not their self-ambition for reelection.

Looking Good for the Fall, but Are They Even in Touch with Their Party Members?

It looks like the Republicans are already going to be heading into trouble if they voice too excessively their support for the Supreme Court's recent Citizens United decision. It turns out that the American people are overwhelmingly supportive of McCain-Feingold. And more importantly, Republican voters are in favor of it by a margin of about sixty percent.

Good-Bayh to All That

It is official: Evan Bayh has announced that he will not seek reelection. This may or may not be a wise move. After all, the mood of the country could easily swing in the opposite direction just as quickly as it has, as of recent, swung from left to right. The Republicans aren't particularly trusted right now, and it is telling that they are running not as "Republicans" but rather as "outsiders".

The more interesting question that the Evan Bayh retirement raises is this: President Obama more or less hung Democrats in moderate districts out to dry with his health care and cap-and-trade legislation. Is it possible that Bayh will return the favor and mount a primary challenge against Obama in 2011? It all depends on the mood of the country, but if it continues to shift rightward, I would rule it out.

Ideology really can make smart people stupid:

"There are many theories about the import of Scott Brown’s upset victory in the race for Edward Kennedy’s former Senate seat. To our minds, it is not remotely a verdict on Mr. Obama’s presidency, nor does it amount to a national referendum on health care reform"　

Ｔｈａｔ＇ｓ　ｆｒｏｍ　ｔｈｅ　Ｎｅｗ　Ｙｏｒｋ　Ｔｉｍｅｓ．　In all fairness, though, the same could probably be said about many-a-Republican.

The Obligatory Post on the Massachusetts Thing

No one thought the Sox could win, and they did. No one thought the Republicans could win, and they did. Massachusetts does still have a few tricks up its sleave.

Pat Robertson? Oh no.

Once again, with his Haiti comments, Pat Robertson says something which only succeeds in making him look ridiculous. If this doesn't make people run away from his political endorsements come '010, then nothing will. What I am wondering, though, is who is this hack co-anchor sitting with him? Doesn't she know to pull the camera off him or something when he says something like that?

Avatar: Film Review

At one point during the movie Avatar, I tried to brush away a fly but then realized that it was on the movie screen. This is what 3D graphics can do, and, I must say, the result is quite impressive. So are the shots of the flora and fauna of Pandora, the setting of James Cameron's new space-adventure/Cooperian-romance movie set sometime in the twenty-second century. One can always expect Cameron to outdo himself with all technical dimensions (pun intended) of the work; if only he had someone else to write his screenplays.

Anyone who follows popular culture may have recognized that Avatar has gotten outstanding reviews from most major publications: Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The New Yorker. But, in what Ross Douthat has referred to as a revolt of the fan-boys and nerds, there has been some blow-back on the internet. This is because, in spite of the film's technical depth, its characters and themes are as shallow as a water drop on oak.

The protagonist is a perfect example of this shallowness: His name is Jake Scully (given the film's ardent pantheism, something like Emerson Spinoza might have been more appropriate) and, apparently, he is a former marine. We don't know much about his service (or even if he was good at it), but the lifestyle appears to die harder than his legs do--in his human body, he's confined to a wheelchair (and, yes, if you're wondering, his skinny legs look more convincing than anything else in the movie). The only back story that Cameron provides is that Scully had a scientist brother who died at some point and that, at one point or another, he was in Venezuela (do I detect a Stone-ism here?)

Perhaps Cameron would object that he does not too overly-humanize the, well, human characters because they represent the assumed Military Industrial Complex of the Robber Barons, Corp. The problem is that when he introduces the indigenous tribe, they aren't really much more distinctive. Scully's attraction to them is predictable (after all, this movie was made after Dances with Wolves and A Man Called Horse) but also incomprehensible, given that there is nothing intriguing--or even attractive--about them. Their platitudinous speech is ridden with cliches one might expect from any Hollywood picture. However, they are unrealistic on a deeper level than their silly dialogue and cat ears would suggest. (They also have a tail, but that's not the strangest thing.)

What is least believable about the tribe is the love that all of them have for nature; this seems much more reflective of the tastes of the bourgeoisie bohemian producer of this piece than any indigenous tribe that has existed in any place in history. Love of nature is a product of urbanization; for those who depend on nature and constantly struggle against its darker side for survival, fear is the default position (and rightly so); it is true that nature yields plentifully, but it does not do so for humanity. To conceptualize of nature--as the Na'vi tribe in the movie does--as a maternal goddess is simply absurd.

To say that nature is cruel is, as Stephen J. Gould has pointed out, somewhat quaint, given that it occupies an entirely different wavelength of moral order; nature is neither cruel nor kind, but comfortably amoral and diverse (though, as Darwin argued in the Origins of the Species, it tends to be fairly intolerant of diversity within species--perhaps the reason why all of Cameron's Na'vi look pretty much the same.) Nature being what it is, humanity is almost a perfect corollary to it for, unlike nature, men progress by devolution rather evolution: the sword is made by the man who can't lift a stone, the bow by a man who can't wield a sword, the rifle by a man who can't pull a bow string and the nuclear weapon by the man who can't shoot straight. Nature is beautiful, as long as it is contained within the consciousness but the humanity which Cameron purges by the end of the film provide, by merit of being fully human, the only compass by which anyone's actions in the film could be gauged as moral or immoral.

Naturally, the most lasting feature of the film will not be these themes but rather the new technology that went into its production and created a fly so real that (as I noted at the beginning of this essay) I tried to brush it away. What can be said for this? Mainstream critics have already said it all so I will only add that I hope that filmmakers of equal technical talent as that of James Cameron and greater storytelling ability will, like that carrion fly I waved at, tear off some slice of inspiration from this production which may be tasty but also as dead as the carcasses which ultimately turn to nothing but a naked skull and rib cage.

Of Communitarians and Christians

Patrick Deneen at Georgetown University has a piece arguing that George Bailey (of It's a Wonderful Life fame) is not so heroic after all; that he is actually the destroyer of Bedford Falls. Here's a revealing highlight:

"Attempting to comprehend what has happened, and refusing to believe Clarence’s explanations, George attempts to retrace his steps. He recalls that this awful transformation first occurred when he was at Martini’s bar, and decides to seek out Martini at home. Martini, in the first reality, is one of the beneficiaries of George’s assistance when he is able to purchase a home in Bailey Park; however, in the alternate reality without George, of course the subdivision is never built. Still refusing to believe what has transpired, George makes his way through the forest where Bailey Park would have been, but instead ends in front of the town’s old cemetery outside town. Facing the old gravestones, Clarence asks, “Are you sure Martini’s house is here?” George is dumbfounded: “Yes, it should be.” George confirms a horrific suspicion: Bailey Park has been built atop the old cemetery. Not only does George raze the trees, but he commits an act of unspeakable sacrilege. He obliterates a sacred symbol of Bedford Fall’s connection with the past, the grave markers of the town’s ancestors. George Bailey’s vision of a modern America eliminates his links with his forebears, covers up the evidence of death, supplies people instead with private retreats of secluded isolation, and all at the expense of an intimate community, in life and in death."

You can find the rest on Front Porch Republic if you like. My response to this was "Let the dead bury the dead". Do you agree? Sub-question: Is Prof. Deneen's communitarian-ism reconcilable with Christianity, which is a fundamentally cosmopolitan religion?

On Immortality and Selfishness

Here's an interesting paradox: Today, there exist several institutions not unlike the Immortality Institute; the purpose of these organizations is to reverse aging and, by doing so, gain the benefits of religion without any of the devotion. The curious thing is this: if everyone on the planet were to live 1000+ years, how would we ever make room (quite literally) for such things as procreation? Are we immortals to halt population growth all together? No doubt the CEO of the Immortality Institute would answer in the affirmative, at least until we have developed the necessary technologies to allow us to colonize other planets (that is, if living in a five-hundred-year-old body doesn't sterilize all of us.) And leaving aside this problem, other issues emerge: putting the breaks on aging won't save those in developing countries from epidemics or those of us in developed countries from car accidents. The effect that it would have--it seems to me--is to make us much more paranoid about health, work, diet, etc. ("Artificial sweetener can cause cancer, ya know.") My point is, much as we dislike mortality, shedding it will not create utopia; humans--or at least humans who live beneath the floor of heaven--may be selfish, but not nearly as selfish as they would be were they (tentatively) immortal.

The President's New Afghanistan Policy

I finally got around to watching at least part of the speech at West Point in which President Obama announced his new Afghanistan policy. I had already, to some degree, formed an opinion before watching it, so I'll just lay out my thoughts on the matter: Do I support his Afghanistan policy? Yes. I don't find the timeline to be particularly tasteful (considering that Al Qaeda and the Taliban could lie low until the United States begins to withdraw), but President Obama knew that a surge in Afghanistan of any sort would be controversial with his party's far-left wing. He did it anyway. I think that's something that we can all admire. This doesn't mean that I have any intension of becoming an Obama supporter; I still disagree with him on 90% of the major issues, and, even though the surge plan is the most courageous decision, I can only pray that it is also the best one. That being said, this might make for an interesting chapter should anyone ever decide to write Profiles in Courage 2.

Lou Dobbs for President?

According to the Wall Street Journal (Nov. 25th) Lou Dobbs is considering a run for the White House. Has he NO mercy?

The Gaseousness of H. Bloom

From Harold Bloom's review of Peter Aykroyd's new rendering of the Canterbury Tales:

Shakespeare's greatest contemporary, the epic poet Edmund Spenser, derived directly from Chaucer, whom he praised as the "well of English undefiled." That prompted the 18th-century poet-critic John Dryden to term Chaucer "a perpetual fountain of good sense.

Question: Is it possible to do more pretentious name-dropping in such a short space?

On the Pleasures of Civic Irresponsibility

Thank God I'm in the 28th--and not the 23rd Congressional District of New York; otherwise, I might feel obligated to get out and vote tomorrow.

Celebrity Editorials

Thought experiment: When the nation's two leading newspapers publish op-ed columns by Bono (The New York Times) and Rush Limbaugh (The Wall Street Journal) in the same weekend, what does it say about the well-being of print media that it is soliciting celebrities for their "insightfulness". (In case you are wondering, I have read both columns; neither of them was the worst that I had read in either paper--for the Times that prize would go to most anything by Paul Krugman or Frank Rich and for the Journal it would go to Sarah Palin's column last month on the health-care debate--but was the fact that both columns were "not terrible" the reason why they were printed?)

On the Ridiculousness of Obama's Peace Prize

Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize is remarkable: Remarkable because the Nobel Prize Committee has just hit a new low. I don't know when it began (though I suspect that it was when Jimmy Carter won the award earlier in the decade) but the Nobel Peace Prize has simply become a passive aggressive cleaver with which the Parliament of Sweden comments on American foreign policy. If nothing else, I suppose, it demonstrates that America still has a huge impact on the world. The Nobel Prize Committee is apparently so concerned that they have awarded the prize to a president in advance, based on what he has said he will do, rather than what he has done.

Does a Dream Constitute a Whole, or Partial, Experience?

I should preface this post by noting that one of my pet-peeves is when someone relates his or her dream to me. There is a reason why, when God created us, He did not put a television screen floating ethereal above our heads so that people could watch what we thought: Because the head is private space, and it shouldn't be leased to strangers on a whim. I have no desire to step inside someone else's head, and I don't want anyone else to take me there. After having said that, I'll now say that I am discussing dreams in this post, and I have decided to use two of mine as case studies. So, if you are at all like me, dear reader, then please, read no further. Also, for Freudians or any others who are like to see a sub-conscious symbol at any turn, I have no interest in these subjects and my readers--if there are any--probably do not have an interest in these topics either; please comment elsewhere. What interests me is how the dream applies to our conscious modes of experience, not how it reflects subconscious desires (if these do, indeed, exist--I am no expert.)

Now all of that is cleared up, so let me begin by restating the question which is the title of this post: Does a dream consistute a whole, or partial, experience? (And to this let me add the sub-question of whether or not this experience is applicable to the real world.) I cannot address this topic myself, as my only expertise is as a dreamer myself.

Most dreams that I have had in the past have occurred more like montages and most I have not recalled in the morning (though I seem to have wakened with the sense that I had sensed something during the past night). This was not so with a dream that I had (or, should I say, experienced?) more than a year ago--I do not recollect the date. In this dream, I had a son out of wedlock. I realize that this would be seriously unethical in the world in which I actually live, but in the microverse of the dream, this issue was hardly raised. It was a dream which inhabited the bare facts rather than the contemplative ideals; the only reason that I mention the birth was out of wedlock was because it drives home the unexpectedness of the experience.

In the dream, I remember the white tile of the hospital, who was in the room and why, even the features of the muling infant. And I also remember that either I--or the alternative persona who I was inhabiting in the dream--was at first upset with the inconvenience of the responsibility but, when confronted with the reality of fatherhood for the first time, underwent what could only be called a rebirth through this birth; a certian moment of epiphany in which I realized that my identity would now be redefined and, though I had little experience in this new life, i knew from the alienated recollection of the past that this would be the happiest moment that I would ever have.

Since I could obviously not replicate this dream in the real world without serious ethical hazard, the only way to discover whether this constitutes a genuine experience (even though artificially induced) is to ask the vast web of blog-readers who are fathers whether they remember this sort of experience when their first child was born. In other words, since it happened in an alternate reality--one of which the mind alone is king--is this experience false, or was the sensational reaction genuine?

The other dream I mean to pose more as a thought experiment: I recollect taking a taxi home from my former place of work (The University Inn) in the middle of winter. The taxi is crammed with seven different people so I am forced to sit on the floor with no seatbelt (something which could not happen in reality, as it would be against safety regulations). A blizzard has broken out. Then, just twenty paces from where I am to step out of the vehicle, the taxi skids. I view the process by which the driver loses control through the backwindshield; I see the car tracks like a straight line in the snow become jagged and then curved as the taxi careens into the creek on the other side of the road. I first I do not believe that this could be a reality; people die in accidents all the time, but I never thought that I could be involved in an accident; then, through the backwindshield, I see the black tree branches pass against the white sky and I tbink, finally, some peace! and I close my eyes (an act which wakes me).

Is this how I would react were I confronted by this experience in actuality? I wonder. And i hope that you enjoy wondering about it also.

Follow-up on the Last Post

I should note that, last night, I left a cordial but critical comment on a column by a certain "Daily Mail" columnist. I took issue with his claim that neoconservatives were "uninterested in greater social and cultural issues". The comments on his site are monitored and, somewhat oddly, I didn't notice that he had published my comment on his blog. I'll just say here, then, that anyone familiar with the politics outlined in Irving Kristol's "Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea" knows neoconservatism began largely as a reaction to the secularized Burkeanism of Michael Oakeshott; it was precisely because the "intellectual" conservatives like Oakeshott and the Rockefeller Republicans were unwilling to confront the great moral questions of the era and because the populist conservatives of the South thought the great moral issue of the era was the protection of segregation that neoconservatives saw the need to find a third way for conservative politics; a third way that could criticize the moral catastrophes of the mid-twentieth century not from the perspective of the Romanticized Last Man of Yesterday or the Utopian New Man of Tomorrow but from the perspective of the informed mind of the present who could judge current crises according to the wisdom of the past while also avoiding its failures. Neoconservatism, once again, made present issues into moral issues.