Anybody else…

The New Neo Posted on by

…experiencing a lull in their interest in the 2012 election? I am.

I have little doubt it will spark up again. But the idea of comparing the latest of Perry’s gaffes to the latest of Romney’s flipflops to the lastest of Biden’s stupidities to the latest of Obama’s bamboozles fills me with ennui at the moment.

Instead, let us rejoice at “Dancing With the Stars.”

No, really. I happen to think that JR Martinez and Ricki Lake are excellent dancers, considering they’re not professionals. Yes, I know the show is a piece of trash. But that’s why I like it. We’ve all got to eat bon-bons and unwind sometimes.

Here’s Ricki and then JR, each doing the quickstep (it’s quick! And it’s got a lot of steps!):

I adore JR. What an upbeat personality, and the guy’s a natural dancer. If you’re not familiar with his amazing story—for which the word “inspirational” might have been coined—please take a look.

Mad Men

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve finally gotten around to watching the first few episodes of the TV series “Mad Men.” I’d heard it was set in the early 60s—an era I remember well, although from a child’s eye view—and so I was predisposed to like it.

I gave it a good try and watched about three episodes. But it seemed soulless and empty, a stylized and shiny surface with nothing underneath. The writers were focused mainly on conveying the thought, “we’re so smart and good and aware nowadays; and they were so dumb and bad, but so much fun to look at!”

I wasn’t in a Manhattan ad agency in the early to mid 1960’s, it’s true. But I remember the times in general, and people had a lot more emotion and variety than that. They were not just smooth (and often reptilian) facades, and men didn’t automatically hit on their secretaries the moment they were introduced.

In short, people were as varied and complex as now, and not the unaware and power-hungry idiots depicted in the film, although of course some were. The heart of things has been taken out. Maybe more is put back in as the series goes on, but I don’t feel like sticking around to find out. And I know it’s a show, and not meant to be reality. But for me to continue to watch it, there has to be some emotional hook other than emptiness and the opportunity to congratulate myself on my own illusory superiority.

Ah, but the clothes! Now, that’s the interesting part—and, for you guys, Christina Hendricks’s formidable ta-tas. However, her character Joan’s girdled underpinnings (necessary in order to wear those sheaths effectively) bring back very unpleasant memories for me. Even thin women word girdles back then so as not to jiggle and look trashy, and one of the rites of passage for a young girl was to wear a panty girdle to hold up her stockings and appear generally refined.

But those things hurt. They were constructed of an iron-like material that not only harnessed the gut, but effectively stopped digestion. I’ve got no nostalgia for those suckers.

Changing out of Pajamas into PJs

The New Neo Posted on by

Pajamas Media announces a name change: it’s now PJ Media. Its new URL is, appropriately enough, pjmedia.com (although the old URL pajamasmedia.com will still get you there).

Well, most of us already called it “PJ” anyway, didn’t we? But, according to PJ Media head Roger Simon, the new name gives PJ more gravitas and signifies that “we are here to stay.”

It’s been six years since PJ was formed, with the snazzy kickoff party in Manhattan that Roger calls “in retrospect a bit too snazzy.” Well, those were heady days in the blogosphere, and it sure wasn’t too snazzy for me. I had a great time meeting and greeting so many other bloggers, and the food was good, too. But in the relative austerity of the post-2008-crash world, we can’t expect that again, although we can dream.

I’ve always been partial to the name Pajamas Media, though. I think you can call a company almost anything, so long as it performs. After all, funny names didn’t stop Google or Apple, did they?

[NOTE: Here’s a piece I wrote back in those early days of Pajamas Media’s formation.]

Obama: not a good politician?

The New Neo Posted on by

Ramesh Ponnuru doesn’t think Obama is a very good politician:

Obama never had to fight for and win the votes of people who don’t agree with him. Both his biggest political setback and his biggest political accomplishment — his defeat by Bobby Rush in a 2000 U.S. House primary and his victory over Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008 — came during struggles within a liberal universe.

Ponnuru adds that Obama has been the beneficiary of good luck, not only during the 2008 campaign (particularly the financial crisis towards the end), but also earlier “in November 2004 because his first Republican opponent self-immolated in scandal and his second was Alan Keyes, a fringe figure who came from out of state to run.”

That’s certainly true, as far as it goes. But Ponnuru doesn’t go nearly far enough. As I’ve described here, that “self-immolation in scandal” to which Pnnuru refers (involving Obama’s 2004 Republican opponent Jack Ryan) was preceded by a similar “self-immolation in scandal” of Obama’s Democratic primary opponent in the same race (Blair Hull), and the latter’s scandalous revelations may have been helped along by forces in the Obama camp. Then, of course, there was the matter of what Obama did to Alice Palmer during the primary of his very first run for office, a story that should be required reading for anyone seeking to understand Obama the politician, but not widely-known even today.

So while it is true that Obama has rarely had a strong political opponent, and that he’s been the beneficiary of much good luck, it also appears that some events that at first glance appear to have been good luck were actually helped along by Obama and/or his forces in a series of rather nasty and strategic machinations. Therefore, we could say that some of Obama’s strongest political skills have long been in the realm of dirty tricks.

This runs so counter to the picture Obama presented the world during his 2008 campaign that it’s been almost universally ignored, despite the fact that it was a prominent and early part of his political history—perhaps because, until now, another of his strongest political skills has been to get the press to cover for him.

So, is Obama a good politician? Well, it depends what the meaning of “good” is.

Springtime for Islamists in Libya?

The New Neo Posted on by

The headline reads “interim [Libyan] ruler unveils more radical than expected plans for Islamic law.”

There’s that word again: expected. But those who thought they knew what to expect in Libya were either arrogant or daft, or both. And one of the many things that was clearly possible there was the ascendance of Islamist elements.

At any rate, here’s the announcement:

Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the chairman of the National Transitional Council and de fact president, had already declared that Libyan laws in future would have Sharia, the Islamic code, as its “basic source”.

But that formulation can be interpreted in many ways – it was also the basis of Egypt’s largely secular constitution under President Hosni Mubarak, and remains so after his fall.

Mr Abdul-Jalil went further, specifically lifting immediately, by decree, one law from Col. Gaddafi’s era that he said was in conflict with Sharia – that banning polygamy.

In a blow to those who hoped to see Libya’s economy integrate further into the western world, he announced that in future bank regulations would ban the charging of interest, in line with Sharia. “Interest creates disease and hatred among people,” he said.

It seems somewhat minor in the scheme of things. But is it an ominous portent for the future?

David Warren contrasts the irony of the relatively orderly Bush-overseen judicial end of Saddam Hussein with Gaddafi’s extra-judicial lynching under forces promoted by Obama. He adds:

In Libya itself, we will see what we will see. The reports I read suggest we may soon be nostalgic for the days when Gadhafi was alive, to unite the various opposing factions. Different militias, that despise one another, are in possession of different parts of Tripoli; old regime loyalists are still not entirely extinguished even in that city; and the rest of the country is far from peace. Contempt is also being expressed for the transitional government, by its various fickle allies…

No one is responsible in Libya, now, and such international assistance as the transitional government may require, to create security and make life less cheap, will come after the fact of chaos.

Not unexpected at all. That’s why there is something to be said for what happened in Iraq, where—because we invaded and stuck around, despite the huge cost in blood and treasure—that country has at least a chance of coming out relatively well compared to others in the region.

Steve Jobs refused to meet his biological father…

The New Neo Posted on by

…Syrian-born Abdulfattah “John” Jandali, because his father had bragged that he’d met Jobs in his restaurant, and that Jobs was a good tipper.

This things were apparently not untrue, mind you: the two men apparently had met briefly in the father’s restaurant, which Jobs had patronized a couple of times, and had shaken hands. And, although no information is given one way or the other about it, it’s probably also the case that Jobs was a good tipper.

When all of this happened, Jandali had no idea Jobs was his biological son. Here’s the fuller story:

When I heard the tape, I wondered from whom Jobs had heard that “little bit” that he didn’t like about Jandali. Was it from a report by the man’s ex-wife, Jobs’s biological mother? She may be a wonderful person in all other respects, but no ex-wife should be the most trusted person to report fairly on her ex-husband (and I say that as an ex-wife, and I think I’m ultra-fair). Or did Jobs learn about his biological father from Mona Simpson, Jobs’s sister, who seem to have had her own issues with a father she only knew as a very young child (after their parents had gotten married and before their divorce when she was four)?

I know nothing about what sort of a person Jandali really is; he may be every bit as abominable as Jobs seems to have thought he was, and more. But I also know that these divorces stories are not always what they seem. When a father drifts away and is heard from no more, sometimes it is indeed abandonment by that father. But sometimes the mother has kept him away by being uncooperative about his visitation right, or even by dropping out of sight herself with the child and and becoming somewhat difficult to find (especially in those pre-Google days of Jobs’s youth). IMHO, unless a biological parent is a criminal and/or psychopath, if a child decides to search it’s probably a good idea to get information from the horse’s mouth rather than secondhand.

Jandali’s crime of wanting to impress Simpson, his long-lost daughter, with the fact that he was once a big shot who knew Steve Jobs is hardly the sort of thing that one would think would be judged so very harshly. We all have our flaws, and a father or mother is often an imperfect creature, full of the minor foibles common to humanity, such as looking back on a glory time and saying “I used to be somebody!” An adoptive child in particular can face a powerful dilemma when deciding whether or not to search for, and then to talk or meet with, a biological parent who has given him or her up. The parent is usually unequal to the task of being perfect or anywhere near it. And although the child is absolutely not required to forgive, it would be nice if the child gave the parent the chance to tell his or her own story at last before making that judgment.

[NOTE: Here’s a WSJ piece about Jandali.]

Voter ID: now, here’s a profile in courage

The New Neo Posted on by

Sort of, anyway.

In this article Artur Davis, former Democratic Congressman from the 7th District of Alabama and an African-American, recognizes that voter ID laws can be good and are not inherently racist when well-drafted.

So, better late than never, Mr. Davis! He starts his piece with an unusually forthright declaration and admission, which fits right in with the theme of this blog:

I’ve changed my mind on voter ID laws — I think Alabama did the right thing in passing one — and I wish I had gotten it right when I was in political office.

You can see why I’m choosing to highlight Davis’s article. He goes on to write:

When I was a congressman, I took the path of least resistance on this subject for an African American politician. Without any evidence to back it up, I lapsed into the rhetoric of various partisans and activists who contend that requiring photo identification to vote is a suppression tactic aimed at thwarting black voter participation.

Davis then goes on to explain how the Alabama law has provisions that protect potential voters (such as the elderly, who don’t drive) from being unfairly shut out of the registration process. Davis adds that he’s been disappointed to hear Bill Clinton, a president he admires (Davis is still a Democrat, after all), “compare voter ID to Jim Crow, and it is chilling to see the intimidation tactics brought to bear on African American, Democratic legislators in Rhode Island who had the nerve to support a voter ID law in that very liberal state.”

If Davis keeps paying attention, he may discover a lot more out there that’s chilling—and a large proportion of his cold shudder will be engendered by the actions of his own party.

What’s up with these dancers who don’t age?

The New Neo Posted on by

First there was Maya Plisetskaya at eighty.

Then the other day I came across some recent photos of the dancers Carmen De Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder. I’d completely forgotten about them—although I saw both perform long ago—and to be honest I was surprised that they were still alive (although it turns out I thought they were even older by now than they actually are—80 and 81, respectively).

The couple has been married for 56 years, no mean feat. She is still (actually, they are still) as elegant as ever, and she especially seems to have held on to the aspect of youth. In almost all her recent photos, De Lavallade is wearing black or red or both (note to self: get a signature color to stick to as you get older!) and very dramatic jewelry.

Here’s a panel discussion with De Lavallade (recorded in July of 2011) that gives you an idea of how youthful her affect still is. Yes, keeping in shape through exercise is part of her secret, not to mention the fact that the sun is kinder to brunettes and black people than it is to the more light of skin. But I think the most important aspect is the je ne sais quoi of attitude (note those earrings!):

The following gives you an idea of De Lavallade when she was young in actuality and not just in spirit, and of the genesis of the Holder/Lavallade romance (he proposed four days after they met, but it took her a whole month to say “yes”—and oh yeah, Holder’s on the tape, too):

The fine art of insulting half your audience

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: I thought it might be a good time to republish this. I’ve revised it a bit, since in its original manifestation the references were to Bush as the object of the trash talk. But other than that, it’s still relevant—unfortunately—although it’s one of the earliest posts that ever appeared on this blog.]

It happens nearly every time. I’ll be reading a short story, let’s say, enjoying myself, lost in the experience—when suddenly, there it is: the gratuitous and mean-spirited and out-of-context slap at Republicans or Tea Partiers or those who support them. It’s not as though the story is even tangentially about politics, either; it can be about anything at all, it doesn’t really matter.

The Republican-dissing will be thrown in when you least expect it, just to let the reader know—well, to let the reader know what, exactly? To let the reader know that the author is hip, kindly, intelligent, moral—oh, just about everything a person ought to be. And that the reader must of course be a member of the club, too—not one of those Others, the warmongers, the selfish and stupid and demonized people who happen to have voted for Republican.

Back when I was one of the gang, too, back when I was in with the in crowd (“if it’s square, we ain’t there”), did I notice when authors dragged in their political credentials from left field? Or perhaps it wasn’t quite as commonplace back then for them to do so?

At any rate, now it seems positively obligatory. I’m reading along, sunk deep within the story, bonding with the characters—and then, suddenly, it’s as though the author has reached a hand out of the pages of the magazine (OK, I’ll confess, sometimes it’s the New Yorker—yes, I still read it for the fiction, just as some people claim they read Playboy for the interviews) and slapped me across the face.

Authors, do you really want to do this? Because, with a single sentence, you’ve managed to alienate and offend (not to mention insult) up to half your audience.

I don’t think this even occurs to you. I think you just assume that anyone perceptive and intelligent and downright nuanced enough to be reading your fabulous work couldn’t possibly—no, say it isn’t so, Joe!!—support those disgusting, repulsive, lying POS Republicans. Or maybe you just don’t care. Maybe you don’t want people like that for your audience.

It’s not just authors. It’s plays, concerts, performances of all kinds, even those given by friends of mine, people I know and otherwise respect, people with good hearts. It’s poetry readings most particularly. It’s gotten so bad that I go to all cultural events girding my loins and waiting for the blow to fall, waiting for my intelligence and judgment and ethics to be insulted. And this from people who consider themselves culturally and morally superior, although this sense of superiority doesn’t seem to reside in their needing to prove themselves to be well-informed or logical or knowledgeable about the issues—just in letting the world know that they’re on the right side of them (which would be the left side, naturalment).

Occupy Wall Street: New Yorkers say…

The New Neo Posted on by

…NIMBY:

“They are defecating on our doorsteps,” said Catherine Hughes, who lives one block from Zuccotti Park, according to the New York Post. “A lot of people are very frustrated. A lot of people are concerned about the safety of our kids.”

Particularly annoying, suggested several community members at the meeting, was the repetitive drumming late into the night.

New Yorkers would have done a lot better with a bunch of Tea Partiers camping out in the neighborhood.