…was smashing:
Take the Civic Literacy Exam
[Hat tip: Maetenloch.]
If you like to test yourself, here’s one that’s kind of interesting. It doesn’t take too long, either.
I don’t mean to brag (actually, yes I do) but I got 31 out of 33 correct, which is pretty decent. And one of the two I got wrong had no truly correct answers, IMHO.
Are you more knowledgeable than the average citizen? The average score for all 2,508 Americans taking the following test was 49%; college educators scored 55%. Can you do better? Questions were drawn from past ISI surveys, as well as other nationally recognized exams.
Fascinating. “College educators” are only slightly better than the average citizen—and the average citizen is not very knowledgeable, because although some of the questions on the test are somewhat difficult, most are not.
Explains a lot.
Turning the corner?
Bob Woodward seems to have had a recent epiphany about Obama.
First there was this. And now this:
The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward ripped into President Barack Obama on “Morning Joe” today, saying he’s exhibiting a “kind of madness I haven’t seen in a long time” for a decision not to deploy an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf because of budget concerns.
“Can you imagine Ronald Reagan sitting there and saying, ‘Oh, by the way, I can’t do this because of some budget document?'” Woodward said.
“Or George W. Bush saying, ‘You know, I’m not going to invade Iraq because I can’t get the aircraft carriers I need?'” Or even Bill Clinton saying, ‘You know, I’m not going to attack Saddam Hussein’s intelligence headquarters,’ … because of some budget document?”
The Defense Department said in early February that it would not deploy the U.S.S. Harry Truman to the Persian Gulf, citing budget concerns relating to the looming cuts known as the sequester.
“Under the Constitution, the President is commander-in-chief and employs the force. And so we now have the President going out because of this piece of paper and this agreement. ‘I can’t do what I need to do to protect the country,'” Woodward said.
Woodward no longer is the mover and shaker he once was. So why am I paying any attention to him at all? Well, it doesn’t make much of a story at this point to talk about those MSM figures who think Obama is just great; their Pravda-esque propaganda has been duly noted and is continuing apace as expected. But Woodward seems to (perhaps) be in the throes of some sort of more basic change regarding Obama, and I can only hope that he is not alone in this.
Plus, of course, the whole topic of political change is of interest to me.
Something in the blatancy of Obama’s behavior about the sequester—his lies, combined with his lack of interest in protecting the United States while simultaneously blaming others for decisions he is so clearly in charge of—seems to have reached Woodward and told him who Obama really is, probably for the very first time. And he’s shocked enough to speak out about it.
Are there others seeing the light? And if so, how many? I see no evidence of it, although I’m on the lookout.
Plus, I wonder whether Woodward will go silent again.
[Hat tip: Ace.]
Hagel confirmed
No surprise whatsoever that Hagel has been confirmed, but it’s still bad news.
I had predicted from the start that Hagel would be confirmed, and there was never any reason to waver from that assumption. The Republicans in Congress seem to lack both the numbers and the will to have blocked him, and I’m not sure which of the two is more important (that is, if they had the numbers, would they have the will?).
So now Obama has the foreign policy crew he wants, a perfect storm of mediocrity combined with ineptitude combined with destructiveness combined with lack of protection of America’s interests. And all of those qualities combine to make it highly likely that his underlings, including Hagel, will do his bidding, in part because they are in agreement with him on policy and in part because they have no expertise of their own with which to challenge him.
I sometimes think you can’t be too cynical about Washington, but my own ever-increasing cynicism is still having a bit of trouble keeping pace with events. It’s not Obama who surprises me the most—almost nothing he does at this point would surprise me, unless it were to be something that bodes well for this country, or the appointment of someone I respect—it is the behavior of the Republicans.
And believe me, I thought I had no illusions about them, either. Apparently I had some lingering belief in their fighting spirit that was sadly misplaced. Of course, there are isolated exceptions to this rule (such as, for example, Ted Cruz). But they are few and far between.
But I should not be surprised. Courage in the political sense is very, very rare. Politicians want to be loved, and they tend to support what Bin Laden (of all people) called the strong horse.
We are in quite a pickle, aren’t we? And by “we,” I don’t just mean the Republican Party or conservatives, I mean the nation.
[ADDENDUM: And I understand the Republicans’ reasoning here, but I still think it’s a bad, bad, bad idea.]
Minor to major
[NOTE: It’s been a long time since I took any classes in music theory, and even back then I never learned very much of it. So I’m uncertain whether I’ve used the right musical terminology here when I compare major to minor. But I bet that, if I’ve gotten it wrong, some of you will be sure to set me straight.]
Someone I know recommended that I watch this video of a version of the song “Losing My Religion” set in a major instead of a minor key:
Major Scaled #2 : REM – “Recovering My Religion” from major scaled on Vimeo.
It’s interesting—although to me the original is much better (no surprise there). The song was written in that first key for a reason.
It made me think, though, of the last couple of minutes of the score of “Swan Lake.” In that lengthy, lovely, and well-known Tchaikovsky work, the musical theme (the leitmotif) that has been played intermittently throughout much of the action changes from minor to major in the last couple of minutes, after the lovers have committed suicide and as the evil magician is defeated by the force and power of their love. Different productions treat the scene differently, but usually, as the music changes key, the magician crumples (a bit like the Wicked Witch of the West at the end of “The Wizard of Oz,” only he doesn’t melt) and the lovers ascend to heaven as the sun rises.
They pulled out all the stops in those days, didn’t they? That’s a lot of images. No wonder the music has to change.
The changeover passage begins at about minute 2:56 in this video. I have to say that the evil magician character, who in virtually all productions seems to skirt the bounds of over-the-top and ludicrous, in this version ends up falling over that line and is actually an absurd and comic figure, which he definitely should not be. I have no idea why they decided to do it that way. But leaving that aside, the rest of the production is fairly decent, and I especially like the effect at the end with the lovers (their spirits, or whatever) united in the rising sun. The rising sun of course is a cliche, but “Swan Lake” is a cliche too, and if they do it well it transcends the cliche aspects.
Anyway, here it is; pay attention to the musical change at 2:56:
[ADDENDUM: As far as those technical musical aspects go, I did find this:
…B minor is the key of the swans’ enchantment. Some 60 bars later, when Odette and Siegfried throw themselves into the lake, the music breaks through to B major and Rothbart’s tower crumbles; that’s when the spell is broken, and that’s when Rothbart should die.
So, it’s B minor to B major. Aha.]
If you call someone a Marxist you’re a McCarthyite…
…and of course that’s much worse than a Marxist.
Even if the “Marxist” charge is true.
if you note that Marxists are indeed Marxists it’s supposedly a sort of Hate Crime up with which we must not put.
Who made this odd rule?
Would I be correct in guessing that Marxists themselves created it and Marxists themselves (and their fellow travelers) are the major proponents of it?…
Why is there any moral objection to saying something that is true?
The only objection can come from the Marxists themselves, who prefer to work in secret, and the Democrats, who prefer their alliance with the Marxists not be noted, lest it embarrass them politically.
I’m liking Ted Cruz more and more
He seems to get it:
Cruz’s career follows an upbringing filled with political discussion around the family table. He even memorized the U.S. Constitution as a teen in high school.
“I gave probably 80 speeches all over the state on free market economics and the Constitution, and it became really my passion,” Cruz said. “What I wanted to do in life is fight to defend those principles and I feel incredibly blessed to have the opportunity to do that.”…
“Life, liberty, and property, the fundamental natural rights of man are given to every one of us by God, and the role of government fundamentally is to protect those rights,” Cruz said…
For now, Cruz said he’s focused on the job at hand and that includes a new Republican Party.
“I think President Obama is the most radical president we’ve ever seen, but I think an awful lot of Republicans fail to stand for principle and contributed to getting us in this mess,” he said.
Heidi Cruz knows her husband will stand for principle and she learned something else about him during that uphill battle for the Senate.
“He only got better and better as things got tougher and tougher…
Of course, the attempt will be made to destroy him. And not just one attempt either; it will be a full court press as long as he is in public life. One of the bases of the attack will almost certainly be his religiosity. But it sounds as though he’s ready, and not the least bit naive about what he faces.
Anne Frank: are people good at heart?
[NOTE: This is a repeat of a previous post.]
I’m currently reading Francine Prose’s Anne Frank: the book, the life, the afterlife. It’s about the process by which Anne Frank wrote and then rewrote her diary, with an eye to its ultimate publication, and how her father edited her two versions into a third, the one the world ended up knowing. Then Broadway and Hollywood got into the act, as well as writers such as Philip Roth, until the diary and its message had morphed quite a bit from the original (or, more properly, originals).
Most of us have read Anne Frank’s diary, or at least parts of it, in some form or other, and even those of us who did not are probably familiar with at least a few of its quotes, the most famous of which may be Anne’s observation: “in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
It’s instructive to look at the quote once again, embedded in its original context. When we do, we find it to be far more complex and dark than it appears when as a single famous sentence standing alone, just as Anne Frank’s achievements as a writer and thinker are far more complex than the simplifications popular culture have worked on her diary. Remember as you read the following that she was only fifteen years old when she wrote it [emphasis mine]:
Anyone who claims that the older ones have a more difficult time here certainly doesn’t realize to what extent our problems weigh down on us, problems for which we are probably much too young, but which thrust themselves upon us continually, until, after a long time, we think we’ve found a solution, but the solution doesn’t seem able to resist the facts which reduce it to nothing again. That’s the difficulty in these times: ideals, dreams, and cherished hopes rise within us, only to meet the horrible truth and be shattered.
It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually turning into a wilderness, I hear the ever-approaching thunder, which will destroy us too. I can feel the sufferings of millions, and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.
Anne Frank seems to take the long view. Hers is a consciously willed optimism that takes into account some of the greatest horrors the world has ever known, and includes her own untimely death, which she correctly foresees. Whether the peace and tranquility she ultimately envisions are temporary or permanent, and whether they are of this earth or beyond it, her message has nothing of the innocence or simplicity of a trusting child, although it has often been portrayed that way.
John Kerry was just following…
…a long line of illustrious inventors of mythical countries when he referred to the non-existent “Kyrzakhstan” instead of our ally Kyrgyzstan (good thing he’s not a stupid Republican).
Of course, most of these inventers were entertainers and writers, not secretaries of state. But (as I wrote earlier today) the line between entertainment and this administration has become increasingly blurred.
You might point out that Kerry is not the least bit entertaining. I submit that he is at least as entertaining as much entertainment these days, which is to say not very.
This story puts me in mind of the film “Borat,” which used the name of an actual country and offered a fictional and satiric (and rather revolting) depiction of it. At least Kerry didn’t go that far. The natives of the real Kazakhstan were not amused by “Borat”:
The “Kazakhstan” depicted in the film has little or no relationship with the actual country and the producers explicitly deny attempting to “convey the actual beliefs, practices or behaviour of anyone associated with Kazakhstan” in the “all persons fictitious” disclaimer. The scenes showing Borat’s home village were filmed in the Gypsy village of Glod, Romania. The name of Borat’s neighbor, Nursultan Tuyakbay, is a cross between the names of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and opposition politician Zharmakhan Tuyakbay.
No Kazakh language is heard in the film. Borat’s neighbors in Kazakhstan were portrayed by Roma people, who were unaware of the film’s subject. The Cyrillic alphabet used in the film is the Russian form, not the Kazakh one, although most of the words written in it (especially the geographical names) are either misspelled, or make no sense at all. The lettering on the aircraft in the beginning of the film is merely the result of Roman characters on a reversed image, while promotional materials spell “BORДT” with a Cyrillic letter for D substituted for the “A” in Faux Cyrillic style typically used to give a “Russian” appearance. Sacha Baron Cohen speaks Hebrew in the film, while Ken Davitian speaks Armenian. They also use several common phrases from Slavic languages: Borat’s trademark expressions “jagshemash” (jak siÄ™ masz) and “chenquieh” (dziÄ™kujÄ™) echo the Polish (or other related languages) for “How are you?” and “thank you”. While presenting his house, Borat says “tishe” to his house-cow; “tiÅ¡e/тише” is Russian (similar words exist in other Slavic languages) for “quiet(er)” or “be quiet”…
In 2005, following Borat’s appearance at the MTV Movie Awards, the country’s Foreign Ministry threatened to sue Sacha Baron Cohen, and Borat’s “Kazakh-based” website, www.borat.kz, was taken down.[90][91] A meeting between Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and U.S. President George W. Bush in September 2006 had Kazakhstan’s post-Borat international image among the items on the agenda.[92] Kazakhstan also launched a multi-million dollar “Heart of Eurasia” campaign to counter the Borat effect; Baron Cohen replied by denouncing the campaign at an in-character press conference in front of the White House as the propaganda of the “evil nitwits” of Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan is, throughout the film, referred to by Borat as his nation’s leading problem””leaving aside the Jews.
The Central Asian distributor of 20th Century Fox, Gemini Films, complied with a Kazakh government request to not release the film.
The Kazakh tabloid Karavan declared Borat to be the best film of the year, having had a reviewer see the film at a screening in Vienna. The paper claimed that it was “…certainly not an anti-Kazakh, anti-Romanian or anti-Semitic” film but rather “cruelly anti-American … amazingly funny and sad at the same time.” Another favorable word came from Kazakh novelist Sapabek Asip-uly, who suggested Baron Cohen be nominated for the annual award bestowed by the Kazakh Club of Art Patrons. In a letter published by the newspaper Vremya, Asip-uly wrote, “(Borat) has managed to spark an immense interest of the whole world in Kazakhstan””something our authorities could not do during the years of independence. If state officials completely lack a sense of humor, their country becomes a laughing stock.”[95] Amazon UK has also reported significant numbers of orders of Borat on DVD from Kazakhstan. The film is also watched regularly by the Kazakhstan national football team’s players.
In March 2012, the parody national anthem from the film, which acclaims Kazakhstan for its high-quality potassium exports and having the second cleanest prostitutes in the region, was mistakenly played at the H.H. The Amir of Kuwait International Shooting Grand Prix in Kuwait. The Gold Winning medalist, Maria Dmitrienko, stood on the dais while the entire parody was played. The team complained, and the award ceremony was restaged. The incident apparently resulted from the wrong song being downloaded from the Internet.
I saw “Borat” in a movie theater when it came out. Didn’t think it was that funny. It was all the rage at the time, but when I tried to look it up to write this post I couldn’t even remember the name of it and had to do a fancy amount of Googling to find it.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
The demise of the necklace
I watched the Oscars last night for the same reason I usually do: the clothes.
I have less and less to say as time goes on about this particular tasteless attempt at extravaganza. And the seamless morphing of entertainment and politics represented by Michelle Obama’s remotely presenting the Oscar for Best Picture no longer has the capacity to surprise me in the least.
So I’ll just stick to the fashion (which of course is not irrelevant to the larger issues of culture and politics) and remark that almost all of the starlets (is that still proper word?) had donned their strapless gowns minus the necklaces that would have adorned the long bare stretch between cleavage and head. This creates an odd, unfinished, unglamorous look, as though their dresses were only just now being tried on for the very first time. In line with that, for quite a few, their hair looked about the way it must when they get out of bed in the morning.
Here’s an example (actually, one of the more attractive ones) of the Look from Jennifer Aniston:
I just don’t get it. But then, there are lots of things I just don’t get these days.
Oh, and one more thing: as a woman grows older, it seems she has a choice between looking old but normal and old but weird. The first comes from undisturbed aging, the second from the shoring-up efforts of cosmetic surgery.
[NOTE: If you think I’m exaggerating about the banning of the necklace, take a look at how few were in evidence.
And then there’s Jennifer Lawrence, who wore her necklace backwards.]
The sequester: Bob Woodward say Obama’s a liar
No, he doesn’t use the l-word. But he says it nonetheless, and in the WaPo.
Of course, the days when Bob Woodward could make presidents shake in their shoes are long gone. Not sure anybody cares now.
There’s much more detail on the story of the sequester here:
Why lie about this? Woodward explains that shifting blame is a necessary part of moving the goal posts…
Of course, there’s blame to go around on both sides. But the funny thing (and not funny-ha-ha) is that the public blames the Republicans and trusts Obama. Go figure.
I guess it’s hard to give up on a charming con man (although I, for one, have always failed to perceive Obama’s charm). But the Republican leaders in Congress lack even the charm.
Theodore Roosevelt, progressive
For all you history buffs out there, and for anyone interested in the roots of progressivism in the United States (which would probably include most readers here), Theodore Roosevelt and the American Political Tradition by Bowdoin professor Jean Yarbrough sounds like an excellent read.
But don’t take my word for it. Take James W. Ceaser’s (author of Reconstructing America: The Symbol of America in Modern Thought):
In this extraordinary book centering on Theodore Roosevelt, Yarbrough has combined three genres to produce a new kind of political writing. As biography, it offers a rich and compelling account of TR’s life, especially in the period of his mature years. As intellectual history, it supplies the best treatment to date of TR’s own political thought, situating it within the framework of the various strands of progressivism. Finally, as political theory in its own right, it explores TR’s political and constitutional ideas in the light of the thought of the founders and of Abraham Lincoln, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of TR as both a thinker and statesman. Yarbrough has pulled off the perfect intellectual trifecta.
Full disclosure here: Jean Yarbrough is a friend of mine.
And I have not yet read the book, although it’s on my list.
But I’d wager it’s every bit as good as Ceaser and all the other reviewers so far at its Amazon page say it is.