Pilgrims in an unholy land

It's official: on April 10th, Marian and I will be headed to Berlin for a week! Ticket wasn't bad--$500 round trip.

If anyone's been there and can tell me what's good to check out--please do!



PS: I tried to find good footage of that awesome dissolve from the Berlin signpost to the Nazi rally, but alas, none seem to exist on the YouTubes.

NYT to add Twitter section alongside Sports, Business, etc.

Another Twitter article! But I take exception to this:

“Basically, for 99.9 percent of people on Twitter, it is about updating friends and colleagues about how the cat rolled over,” he said. “For a tenth of a percent it is a marketing tool.”

What about making jokes?

Sheer excitement

This part of an exchange between Obama and the astronauts in the international space station is, I think, pretty funny:

THE PRESIDENT: ...Can I ask, how exactly do you end up installing these solar panels? What's involved? Somebody want to give us a rundown on how you go about doing it?

MISSION SPECIALIST SWANSON: Yes, sir. First it comes up on a truss segment, about five feet long. We use a robotic arm to attach it to the -- into another truss segment.

I can't help but think that Swanson sounded somewhat defeated as he finished that last sentence. You expect space to be grand and amazing, but in reality you just end up spending an inordinate amount of time dealing with trusses.

Obama having it both ways with tax rates

I just got done watching (the rather dull) Obama news conference, and something caught my attention about Obama's position on the tax deduction for charitable giving:

And what we've said is: Let's go back to the rate that existed under Ronald Reagan. People are still going to be able to make charitable contributions. It just means, if you give $100 and you're in this tax bracket, at a certain point, instead of being able to write off 36 percent or 39 percent, you're writing off 28 percent.

...

And so this provision would affect about 1 percent of the American people. They would still get deductions. It's just that they wouldn't be able to write off 39 percent.

In that sense, what it would do is it would equalize -- when I give $100, I'd get the same amount of deduction as when some -- a bus driver who's making $50,000 a year, or $40,000 a year, gives that same $100. Right now, he gets 28 percent -- he gets to write off 28 percent. I get to write off 39 percent. I don't think that's fair.

So Obama seems to be arguing for tax deductions to be "flat"--for a person making $50,000 a year to receive the same percentage deduction on charitable giving as a person making $500,000. But this is just the converse of the flat tax! The same logic that argues for a progressive tax structure on the disincentive side also argues, conversely, for a regressive tax structure on the incentive side. In other words: if we can tax Bill Gates a higher rate because giving up 39% feels way less painful to him than it does to me, then we must also incentivize Bill Gates at a comesurately higher rate, because his gaining 28% feels way less pleasurable to him than it does to me.

(Related post here.)

Some stretchers about Iceland

Like most people, over the last month or two I've been relaying interesting facts about Iceland that I read about in Vanity Fair, including that in order to get a building permit, you must first verify with the government that there are no elves living on the premises. Well, it turns out that a lot of the more colorful details in the article are probably horseshit:

8. The nation has to deal with “elves — in whom some large number of Icelanders, steeped long and thoroughly in their rich folkloric culture, sincerely believe.” Alcoa, an aluminum-smelting multinational with operations outside of Reykjavík, had to “defer to a government expert to scour the enclosed plant site and certify that no elves were on or under it.”

Right. I’ve heard the elf thing mentioned in tired travel articles (normally wedged between paragraphs on the beauty of waterfalls and tips for eating ram testicles), but I personally know no one on this island who believes in elves. Not one. As for Alcoa, their rep believes Lewis is likely referring to a law regarding environmental-impact assessments. The assessment includes an archaeological survey to ensure no important artifacts or ruins are destroyed, and the site’s history is also surveyed to see if it was ever named in any Icelandic folklore. And yes, some of that folklore involves elves. But if you’re going to introduce the notion that some kind of Ministry of Elf Inspection exists within the ranks of the Icelandic government, you might as well also note that we take the Hogwart’s Express to the office every day.

I suppose it was too silly to be true.

Logo, first draft

So this evening instead of going right home, I decided to screw around with Illustrator trying to make a logo for myself. Here's what I have:



Oh my god. So badass.

Oh, what? It's just some Helvetica with a few blocks of color? Huh? I can't hear you over how awesome this logo is. DavMo OUT. [I do a vaguely gangsta folding of my arms and then inexplicably "beam out", Star Trek style.]

Jester

Something that I've recently decided I'm interested in is the court jester--or fool--of medieval times. It was such an odd role: the jester was an entertainer, and typically not pulled from the ranks of the ruling elite--so he could enjoy a completely loose tongue with impunity, insulting kings and queens and just generally blurting out whatever witticism came into his head. The jester provided a rare instance of fearless criticism of a king, and could sometimes act as an influential adviser. It's all pretty neat.

I was reading about the subject here.

Yes, good friend, I did mean that

Sometimes, the internet is damn good:


Those of you familiar with my Twitter feed are undoubtedly slightly sickened at how much you've been able to glean about the last half hour of my life or so. Or if you're Eric, sickened again.

Putting your money where your mouth is

Kottke says:

This is the peculiar thing about financial markets: if you know something bad is going to happen (you know, like the global collapse of the financial markets), you can either sound the alarm and save a lot of people a lot of grief or you can make a billion dollars.

I would think that betting billions of dollars on the markets collapsing actually is the most convincing way to "sound the alarm" about the markets collapsing.

Not too bad

If you're an AIG executive, you've got to be thinking: it's really not too bad. I mean, think of it: you and your colleagues, as a class, have contributed to the collapse of the world economy, causing trillions of dollars of wealth to evaporate, millions of jobs to disappear, and all the rest of it. And do people want to throw you in jail? Do they want to banish you from the country? Do they want to seize all your assets? No--all they really want is some symbolic gesture of humility that demonstrates that you acknowledge that you're not such hot stuff after all. Apologize in front of a Congressional committee--give back your bonuses. That's all.

The AIG execs should be thanking their lucky stars that they live in a country where even the most pitched populist rage amounts, substantively, to so little.

"Asymmetrical agency" in action

In a recent post I talked about the idea of people in the Israel-Palestine debate employing "asymmetrical agency" to defend their position. Here's an example of what I was talking about, from a pro-Israel Sullivan reader:

You're probably right that Avigdor Lieberman is going to be a major headache. But at least acknowledge one thing regarding the advancement of Lieberman into Israeli politics. The intifadeh and the incessant rocket attacks from Lebanon and Gaza are what laid the groundwork for Lieberman's success and also had the not insignificant result of effectively killed off the liberal peace camp within Israeli society. It wasn't a triumph of Israeli neo-conservatism or innate Jewish racism against Arabs or what have you. It was the fact that the Palestinians, or at least the groups who represent the Palestinians, through their intransigence and the willful malice of characters like Yassir Arafat wiped out the political credibility of anyone in Israel who wanted a final and peaceful settlement for both peoples.

So what the reader does here is admit the badness of Avigdor Lieberman, but turn things around by ascribing agency to the Palestinians only: suddenly, in this discussion of "who is to blame", Sullivan's reader gives us a (naturalistic) causal account of how Lieberman came to power as a consequence of the actions of the Palestinians. The subtle shift in perspective renders Israelis into not fully-formed individuals with free will and moral duties, but sociological subjects to which moral blame is not applicable. Arafat is all-too-human, capable of "willful malice"--but Lieberman is an inhuman empirical fact, a spinning cog in the machine that Arafat decides how to operate.

Of course, Sullivan's reader is not saying anything untrue (I don't think): it's pretty clear that Hamas' various attacks and rhetoric have radicalized Israel and ushered in the current hawkish, right-wing government, elevating certain extreme factions to power. But what does this true causal fact have to do with assessing moral blame? If elevating someone like Lieberman to power is blameworthy, then it is for reasons independent of the moral standing of the Palestinians or the causal chain of events that led to Lieberman's rise. Hamas being evil doesn't justify illiberalism any more than, say, the destruction of the World Trade Center justifies illiberalism.

So Sullivan's reader isn't uttering falsehoods so much as making an argument that never gets off the ground. Sure, Arafat "made" Lieberman; but you could argue back that some Israeli politican or action in the past "made" Arafat. Wherever you choose to pin the first instance of agency is arbitrary and can always be moved one step further back. Neither side can use this method of argument to make any headway in attributing blame to the other side.

So how can we sort out this dialog? There are a couple of different conversations that can be had. The first is a conversation about moral blame, and in this you attribute agency to everyone and judge everyone according to universal moral principles.* The second is a conversation where you try to gain a scientific understanding of the situation, and in this you attribute agency to no one--every actor is treated as the subject of naturalistic enquiry, and normative concepts like moral blame are left out of the picture. The third is a conversation about practical wisdom, where you try to dispense advice to one side as to what actions that side can take to achieve its strategic goals--in this case, you ascribe agency to your audience only (the faction you're advising), properly framing them as moral agents in a naturalistic world that they must carefully navigate in order to survive.


*It is usually in these conversations--about who is to blame--that the dreaded question "Are you pro-Israel or pro-Palestine?" crops up. The correct answer is that no one who embraces modernity is "pro-Israel" or "pro-Palestine", but rather pro-X, where X is some set of universal principles. Now, if I determine that Israel adheres more faithfully to X than Palestine, then I suppose that, as it happens, I am in a sense "pro-Israel"--but it must be understood that this support is contingent on Israel's behavior vis-a-vis X. So one very real possible outcome could be that one is neither "pro-Israel" nor "pro-Palestine", if it happens to be the case that neither side adheres to X. This whole thing of "choosing a side" obscures this "pox on both houses" possibility and turns the attribution of moral blame into a zero sum game--as if somehow if Israel does something wrong, then that means that Palestine has done something right.

Stewart, Colbert

Coates has a quote from formerly bow-tied right-wing pundit Tucker Carlson on the subject of John Stewart:

No, I think Jon Stewart is dishonest. And by the way, I also think he's a sacred cow. There's nobody who has the huevos to attacks Jon Stewart because he's too popular. The press sucks up to him like I've never seen -- it's like Oprah. Jon Stewart, all the kids watch Jon Stewart. He's brilliant. I would like to see somebody have the stones to come out and say, Jon Stewart's kind of a pompous jerk, actually.

Funny thing is, I kind of agree with him, except the part about John Stewart being a pompous jerk (that sentiment can probably be attributed to Tucker's sour grapes). But Stewart does seem oddly untouchable. I think there's a feeling amongst the media and even politicians that there's just no way to win in a tangle with the Daily Show. Stewart can eviscerate you with embarrassing video clips night after night, and anytime you try to attack him he retreats to his "I'm just an ordinary citizen" or "I'm just a comedian" position of low status, so that suddenly you find yourself in a public feud with the court jester. If there's something cynical about Stewart and the Daily Show, it's that he's mastered this low-status/high-visibility combination to devastating effect, all the while pretending to be a humble, ordinary guy just trying to make sense of it all.

Oh, and on a slightly different note: I've never really felt that John Stewart is himself, when it comes right down to it, particularly funny. He's okay. But I think John Stewart's genius isn't as a performer, but as an administrator and institutional leader. If he were a WWII general, he'd be Eisenhower--maybe not the most gifted tactician on the field, but certainly gifted at the political task of commanding the respect of everyone below him and making sure that everyone is doing their part to keep the great juggernaut moving forward (I always liked Eisenhower's quote that the most important weapons in the war were the Jeep and the C-47 cargo plane--war at his level was just one big logistics problem, wasn't it?). In interviews with him about the show I get the impression that after the day's frantic process of writing the bits and putting together all the clips and doing rehearsal, doing the actual show is almost an afterthought. And indeed, when you look at his performances, there's not a lot there: he's kind of the straight man to his own material, expressing outrage at outrageous things and smiling at funny things and generally behaving in a way that is aligned with the audience. It's literally an effortless performance. He's not making us laugh--rather, the material is making us laugh, and John's just kind of emceeing the whole thing.

Colbert, on the other hand, I see as Patton: pure tactical genius. Where Stewart is just kind of amusing in a get-along-go-along sort of way, Colbert is really fucking funny and just absolutely razor sharp at all times--born for battle, so to speak. Where Stewart gently leads his audience, Colbert completely owns his. He's a beast. And his performances--all done completely in character--are amongst the most effortful you see anywhere.

So anyway--yes, I think Tucker is right that no one has the balls to go after Stewart, but I think there's a good reason for that. I wouldn't want to go up against Eisenhower and Patton, either.

Dolphins are fuckers

Apparently all the endless screwing around in the water has finally yielded some results: the dolphins at Sea World have figured out how to blow bubble rings. Look at this fucker:



Fucking dolphins.

The affable stupidity of the internet

I think what makes this post (via Kottke) so great isn't the subject matter, necessarily--which seems to be a fairly run-of-the-mill meme--but how well researched it is. I especially like their tracking of the McGangBang phenomenon through various forums, "sprouting out from the passionate subcultures of video gaming, sneaker-lovers, and car enthusiasts".

On a related note, it never quite struck me before that internet memes often exhibit properties of absurdist exquisite corpse games like telephone: little touches or variations get added in, like the political theme that inexplicably accompanied the McGangBang's presence on MySpace.

I will close by doubling-down on the web-2.0-obnoxious-quotient of this post by citing a relevant tweet from @strutting:

I wanted a site that tracks the latest 4Chan trends so I wouldn't actually have to read 4Chan. Then I realized that site is The Internet.

Okay I'll stop now.

Stewart strikes back

Ok, this is a pretty bad pwn:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

In Cramer We Trust

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Economic Crisis

This kind of reminds me of the time I was on BART and these frattish Arizona State kids tried wise-assing some hardened bike messenger dudes, and the bike messenger guys just totally turned it around on them and belittled them the whole ride. Chris D'Anna (who was visiting) turned to me and said, "I don't think they expected them to defend themselves."