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The Public Interest


The Public Interest: Committed to Common Ground and Intellectual Enhancement

AWFUL OFFICE

September 1st, 2010, 1:09 pm by Dan Lehr


Former Chattanooga resident Adrienne Royer and I don’t often agree politically, but her critique of the recently-redone Oval Office is spot-on:

“I know Obama is a fan of Man Men, so why didn’t he go with couches from a decade earlier? These are straight up 1970s ugliness. I spend a lot of time shopping in thrift stores for 1940s-1960s stuff. The White House Historical Society could have gone shopping with me one Saturday at Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore and bought these couches for $25 each. The fabric is equally awful. It’s a hybrid of toned-down harvest gold and baby poop.”

And:

“That coffee table should be punished for crimes against humanity.”

ON TURNING THE PAGE

September 1st, 2010, 12:37 pm by Dan Lehr

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George Packer’s take on the President’s speech on Iraq last night crystallizes my thoughts on the matter. The whole thing’s worth your time, but especially:

“It’s hard to have an honest emotional response or even know what one feels. After seven years of war, the occasion deserves some weight of feeling, but many Americans stopped paying attention a long time ago. And that’s exactly why the President made his announcement: because Americans want the war to be over, have wanted it for years. Tonight he told us what we wanted to hear. August 31, 2010, will go down in history as the day Americans could start not thinking about the war without feeling guilty.”

I think it is part of our civic duty now to keep those still in Iraq in our prayers. Not just our U.S. troops but all those who live every day with our decision to go to war.

I also think it is worth remembering what a huge foreign policy mistake the war was – it’s easily the biggest blunder I’ve seen my country commit on the world stage in my lifetime – and how we can prevent being misled into a similar type of war again.

And before you get on me for ‘Bush-bashing,’ please know that I’d make this exact same argument if President Gore made the same choice. Yes, Saddam Hussein’s removal from power was a plus. But it came at too high a cost of our most precious resource.

I have written on Iraq extensively in my past two years of blogging, and you can get a bigger sense of where I’m coming from in this post in my prior Public Interest posts on the topic, and here at the Vote08 blog.

And feel free to weigh in with your thoughts in the comments.

FURTHER READING:

Ross Douthat

(Chattanooga native) Andrew Exum

IF BEATNIKS TAUGHT OUR KIDS

August 27th, 2010, 2:31 pm by Dan Lehr

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Above: John Drew Barrymore as a 2nd language, dropping the Columbus bit.

Below: A hip take on a fairy tale from Don Morrow.

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Both from the late 50s, when Beatniks were in full swing.

Figuring out each phrase’s meaning in these clips is akin to solving a puzzle.

Both available on the incomparable ‘the Beat Generation‘ box set.

MATTHEW BRADY’S CHATTANOOGA

August 23rd, 2010, 10:35 am by Dan Lehr

Feast your eyes on a Flickr feed of the Civil War’s most famous photographer’s shots of Chattanooga and Chickamauga during the Civil war.

Hat tip: Chattanooga native Andrew Exum, whose foreign policy blog Abu Muqawama is a continual must-read.

RETHINKING RON’S RECALL

August 19th, 2010, 11:39 am by Dan Lehr

Two pieces in the Chattanooga blogosphere today provide food for thought for those eager to see Mayor Ron Littlefield ousted in a recall.

The movement’s gathering steam.

But NewsChannel9 General Manager Mike Costa wonders how much the movement’s proponents have thought out their strategy:

“A tenant of good management is to not just bring the problem to the table, but to also bring a solution.  So, what’s the solution once the necessary number of petitions are certified and we have a mayoral election this November.  Oh yeah, how much will that cost?”

And Joe Lance, arguably the sharpest political blogger in Chattanooga, has similar reservations:

“Maybe you didn’t bother to vote last year, but are genuinely engaged in the process now, having experienced a civic awakening. If you fit either of these descriptions, I ask that you also lend your energy to promoting a future solution, rather than just tearing down what you perceive as the problem.”

Lance and Costa are keeping it local, but I’d add their message is one many who are looking to oust President Obama in 2012 – and give him a drubbing this coming November – need to hear.

“Not that guy” is less than half the battle. And merely presuming so many voters will take any ol’ alternative over the supposed ‘hated’ incumbent is, from where I sit, a sure-fire way for your side to lose.

What do you think?

90 YEARS AGO TODAY..

August 18th, 2010, 12:48 pm by Dan Lehr

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..Amendment 19 was ratified to the U.S. Constitution, giving women the right to vote.

You may not be aware of how crucial the words of this McMinn County Tennessee mother were in making that happen.

Tennessee was the crucial, last state in ratifying the vote, and the vote to do so came down to McMinn County’s Harry Burn, who himself was no fan of giving ladies the right to cast a ballot.

Until his mother Febb stepped in. From the New York Times:

“The suffrage forces were still one vote short in the Tennessee House when a local paper ran a cartoon of an old woman chasing the letters ”RAT” with a broom, trying to drive them up in front of ”IFICATION.” (Then as now, editorial pages sometimes had trouble making their point crystal clear.) Febb Ensminger Burn, a widow back in Mouse Creek, Tenn., saw the picture and wrote a letter to her son, Representative Harry Burn, a 26-year-old fledgling state legislator who was at the moment in the Capitol, walking around with a red rose — symbol of the suffrage opponents — stuck in his lapel.

”Dear Son,” she wrote. ”Don’t forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt put the RAT in ratification.”

”I know that a mother’s advice is always safest for her boy to follow,” said Burn, in what may have been the only truly useful political speech ever on the subject of motherhood. He cast the deciding vote, suffrage became law, and women went to the polls for the first time.”

I join all voters in the Tennessee Valley and across the nation in paying tribute to the efforts of Febb Burn in helping realize the greatness promised by the Founding Fathers. And for proving how every single vote counts.

Addendum/asterisk: Mike Byrd (correctly) points out to me on Twitter that it took a little longer for African-American women in America to gain the right to vote.

JUMPING THE SHARK* ON THE COMICS PAGE

August 18th, 2010, 9:25 am by Dan Lehr

My nominee for this iconic comic are these two strips from 1978.

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(hat tip: Marcia Kling, who recently gave me the compilation featuring these two strips)

Now, this is not to be interpreted as a slam against disco music. In fact, one could make a case that disco never really died.

Rather, it’s more about its embrace by the strip’s author, who certainly wasn’t alone in 1978 as co-opting “the disco scene,” such as it was, in 1978.

*definition of the phrase “jump the shark” here.

ON DISCERNING THE TRUTH

August 17th, 2010, 1:15 pm by Dan Lehr

The truth is out there, but you shouldn’t rely on any one person in the media to deliver it to you.

Michel du Montaigne spoke to this point four and a half centuries ago, while pointing out the differences between good and bad historians, and I think the point is even more crucial in today’s world of pundit shoutfests on cable TV news outlets:

“For the middle sort of historians, of which the most part are, they spoil all; they will chew our meat for us; they take upon them to judge of, and consequently, to incline the history to their own fancy; for if the judgment lean to one side, a man cannot avoid wresting and writhing his narrative to that bias; they undertake to select things worthy to be known, and yet often conceal from us such a word, such a private action, as would much better instruct us; omit, as incredible, such things as they do not understand, and [perhaps] some, because they cannot express good French or Latin. Let them display their eloquence and intelligence, and judge according to their own fancy: but let them…leave us something to judge of after them, and neither alter nor disguise, by their abridgments and at their own choice, anything of the substance of the matter, but deliver it to us pure and entire in all its dimensions.”

HOW NOT TO LOSE

August 17th, 2010, 1:12 pm by Dan Lehr

How can the right wing emerge victorious in 2010 and 2012?

In what I think is a brilliant strategic essay, Conor Friedersdorf says a good start would be to not do what it’s doing now:

“What I’d like you to do is to reflect upon the sudden controversy over the construction of a mosque and community center near Ground Zero. Forget about the merits of the issue. Is it good for your agenda that this is suddenly the most controversial matter in America? Doesn’t it worry you when the public conversation shifts into culture war territory, where right-of-center politicians can garner votes and support without having to address the issues you ostensibly care about most? A campaign about the bank bailouts, health care reform, and deficit reduction might be more difficult to win, but victory would give the GOP a mandate to reverse the worst excesses of the Obama domestic agenda.

If a new Congressman knows that he owes his election to populist wedge issues like the so-called Ground Zero mosque, is he going to propose tough spending cuts when he gets to Washington DC? Or is he going to become addicted to wedge issues, and never do the hard work of persuading voters that our current fiscal course is unsustainable? Too often we’re electing precisely the politicians who are most adept at exploiting wedge issues.”

Now, this by no means is a problem endemic to the Right. But these cultural wedge issues seem to be coming one after the other. They continue one of the mistakes of the Bush administration (mistakes which are, make no mistake about it, are the single biggest reason Barack Obama is president today): all tactics, and no strategy.

As Friedersdorf points out:

“Either the project will be built 2 blocks from Ground Zero, or else the organizers will bow to pressure and relocate elsewhere. Maybe 20 blocks from Ground Zero. And what a victory that would be for the right. The New York Post would get its momentary hike in newsstand sales, its readers would feel 10 minutes of fleeting emotional satisfaction, and the politicians most adept at exploiting culture war issues would be marginally more likely to win a Congressional seat.

And when some Republican member of the ruling class is next faced with an issue where a party whip or a lobbyist wants him to do one thing, and his conservative constituents want him to do another? He’ll think to himself, “I wonder if I can afford to lose some support from my base on this vote, and make it up by taking a populist stance on a culture war issue that doesn’t cost me anything.” In the past, the answer to that question has usually been yes.”

For the Right to succeed in the long term, it’s crucial that it start thinking about where it wants to be, say, four years from now, as opposed to where it wants to be in the current news cycle. And that means that sometime it’s the best idea to sit on one’s hands and keep one’s powder dry for future battles.

And I also want to repeat a caution I’ve said before: if you are convinced that the American people are already fed up with President Obama and voters will deny him a re-election two years hence, I strongly suggest you expand your media diet to include those who don’t necessarily buy into this view.

I have personal experience with this – I was convinced that the American people would not stand for the policies of the Bush administration, making the day after the election in 2004 a very emotionally painful one for me. Trust me, it’s not fun.

It’s big picture time. Stop thinking about what’s directly in front of your face and, if victory is your ultimate goal, start thinking about how to position yourself now, to win then.

2012 TEA LEAVES

August 13th, 2010, 9:29 am by Dan Lehr

Yesterday a competing station in town conducted an online survey that asked “if the presidential election were held today, which party’s candidate would you most likely vote for?”
No offense, but frankly, that’s a lazy question.
Predictably, the vast majority of respondents – 74% – chose the GOP.
But it conveniently dodges the question worth asking: who exactly should the GOP candidate be?
As a presidential politics junkie since I was able to read, this is an issue I spend a lot of time thinking about. As early as late 2006, I predicted that Barack Obama would be the next president of the United States, and as early as June 2008 – two months before she was rolled out as the VP candidate, I looked at how Sarah Palin could help the GOP ticket.
So I hope you read this with that in mind.
As of August 13th, 2010 I remain convinced that Barack Obama will easily win re-election. And not because he’s necessarily a great president deserving it – but rather the GOP remains mired in dysfunction.

Disagree?
Then tell me exactly which candidate on the horizon right now has the chops to defeat the president.
Palin has higher unfavorable ratings than Hillary Clinton did for her entire political career.
Mitt Romney’s an empty suit, a weather vane.
Tim Pawlenty has yet to distinguish himself, and honestly I doubt that he ever will.
Newt Gingrich seems to be following Palin’s path, which I don’t think is a strategically sound choice.
And Mike Huckabee? He’d be President if the majority of NewsChannel9 viewers had the only say. But I’m convinced his campaign’s doomed as long as the likes of Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the business wing of the GOP stand against him.
So who, then? If you’re a Republican &/or are wanting/expecting Obama to lose 2 years hence, it’s time to get serious in thinking about this. You had better start rooting for someone besides those named in the piece linked above – not to mention someone who has a heck of a lot of political courage – to emerge, & soon.

EXILE ON MAIN STREET

August 12th, 2010, 12:00 pm by Dan Lehr

Which has more power? The United States of America, or the 9/11 attacks?

There appears to be a lot of folks lately who are arguing the latter, in their opposition to what’s now known as Park51 in downtown Manhattan, also (incorrectly) called the “Ground Zero Mosque.”

Those who say it’s a bad idea are free to make that argument; but it’s my view one can’t take that position and still claim to be conservative, according to the definition of the term, which includes

“disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.”

Preventing Park51 from being built would represent a step away from our American values that go all the way back to the Founding Fathers – see here how the statements of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both contradict the anti-Park51 argument.

It would also hand Osama bin Laden a victory. He’s long argued that the West in general and the United States of America in particular is intolerant of Islam.

Also implicit in the anti-Park51 argument is the belief that the U.S. government has a right to dictate where and whether a religious institution can exist. Are those who make this argument aware of the precedent this sets?

John McCain (accompanied by his running mate) argued on TV in 2008 that New York elites “think that they can dictate what they believe to America rather than let Americans decide for themselves.” – Isn’t this the exact same thing, in reverse?

I believe that much of the opposition is borne out of fear, an ignorance that causes many to paint an entire group with a broad brush – similar to the way I’ve seen some people consider homosexuals, or religious conservatives.

And despite what some are saying, Muslims have just as much right to sit at the American table as anyone else.

The views expressed in this post are mine alone. And you’re welcome to disagree with them in the comments.

ON MAXIMIZING YOUR MEDIA CONSUMPTION

June 29th, 2010, 10:25 am by Dan Lehr

So I’m spending the summer reading the Essays of Michel du Montaigne, generally considered the first man in the Renaissance to perfect the essay form.

He’s also considered one of the world’s first bloggers by many, including Andrew Sullivan:

“A passionate skeptic, Montaigne amended, added to, and amplified the essays for each edition, making them three-dimensional through time. In the best modern translations, each essay is annotated, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, by small letters (A, B, and C) for each major edition, helping the reader see how each rewrite added to or subverted, emphasized or ironized, the version before. Montaigne was living his skepticism, daring to show how a writer evolves, changes his mind, learns new things, shifts perspectives, grows older—and that this, far from being something that needs to be hidden behind a veneer of unchanging authority, can become a virtue, a new way of looking at the pretensions of authorship and text and truth. Montaigne, for good measure, also peppered his essays with myriads of what bloggers would call external links. His own thoughts are strewn with and complicated by the aphorisms and anecdotes of others. Scholars of the sources note that many of these “money quotes” were deliberately taken out of context, adding layers of irony to writing that was already saturated in empirical doubt.”

I’ve tried to read at least one a day, and I came across a passage this morning in his essay “Of Pedantry” that shows not only was he skeptical about the world around him, but also over his own work:

“We only labour to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void. Like birds who fly abroad to forage for grain, and bring it home in the beak, without tasting it themselves, to feed their young; so our pedants go picking knowledge here and there, out of books, and hold it at the tongue’s end, only to spit it out and distribute it abroad. And here I cannot but smile to think how I have paid myself in showing the foppery of this kind of learning, who myself am so manifest an example; for, do I not the same thing throughout almost this whole composition? I go here and there, culling out of several books the sentences that best please me, not to keep them (for I have no memory to retain them in), but to transplant them into this; where to say the truth, they are no more mine than in their first places. We are, I conceive, knowing only in present knowledge, and not at all in what is past, no more than in that which is to come. But the worst on’t is, their scholars and pupils are no better nourished by this kind of inspiration; and it makes no deeper impression upon them, but passes from hand to hand, only to make a show, to be tolerable company, and to tell pretty stories, like a counterfeit coin in counters, of no other use or value but to reckon with, or to set up at cards.”

Well, ~zing. This passage makes me question my role as a blogger and a representative of the news media. Describing the sharing of news nuggets as “like birds who fly abroad to forage for grain, and bring it home in the beak, without tasting it themselves, to feed their young” hits home, and makes me question how I can do a better job not just bringing about information, but understanding.

This naturally has been a continual process for me since I began my career as a journalist back in 1991.

But media, and the consumption of it, is a two-way street. Even though – as Montaigne points out – one can describe what I do as a certain delivery system, I still can’t guarantee that those to whom I deliver information will have greater understanding, or use the information in the way I intend for it to be used.

You don’t need me to tell you we live in a world where access to information is increasing by orders of magnitude in a very short span of time. Which gets us back to a two-way street. Just as I have the responsibility to bring you the news fairly and accurately each day, you as a media consumer also bear responsibility – if only to yourself.

Two pieces I’ve come across this week have some great advice on how to do that.

The first is from David McRaney on what he calls “confirmation bias.” You ever come across a phrase or story or song or book or movie – and then all of a sudden over the next few weeks you hear repeated mentions of the same thing? Coincidence? Or is the universe playing games with you? McRaney says the answer is neither:

“If you are thinking about buying a new car, you suddenly see people driving them all over the roads. If you just ended a long-time relationship, every song you hear seems to be written about love. If you are having a baby, you start to see them everywhere.

Confirmation bias is seeing the world through a filter, thinking selectively.

The examples above are a sort of passive version of the phenomenon. The real trouble begins when confirmation bias distorts your active pursuit of facts.

Punditry is a whole industry built on confirmation bias.

Rush Limbaugh and Keith Olbermann, Glenn Beck and Arianna Huffington, Rachel Maddow and Ann Coulter – these people provide fuel for beliefs, they pre-filter the world to match existing world-views.

If their filter is like your filter, you love them. If it isn’t, you hate them.

Whether or not pundits are telling the truth, or vetting their opinions, or thoroughly researching their topics is all beside the point. You watch them not for information, but for confirmation.”

And this tendency for many people to limit their media diet to only those who confirm their already-established beliefs, I think, is behind the rancorous partisanship that’s infected our national discourse for so long. It is worth your while to expose yourself to views that challenge your deeply-held beliefs – if only to help strengthen them by passing them through a filter of doubt and skepticism.

So how can you do that? Dan Gilmour has some fantastic advice for how the media consumer can become more literate, including:

1. Be skeptical of absolutely everything. We can never take for granted the absolute trustworthiness of what we read, see or hear from media of any kind. This is the case for information from traditional news organizations, blogs, online videos and every other form.

2. Don’t be equally skeptical of everything. We all have an internal “trust meter” of sorts, largely based on education and experience. We need to bring to digital media the same kinds of parsing we learned in a less complex time when there were only a few primary sources of information.

3. Go outside your personal comfort zone. The “echo chamber” effect — our tendency to seek information that we’re likely to agree with — is well known. We need to seek out and pay attention to sources of information that will offer new perspectives and challenge our own assumptions. Certainly it’s easier than ever to join the echo chamber; but it’s also easier to avoid it. When you watch Fox News on television, you are rarely exposed to contrary viewpoints. But when a political blogger eviscerates a contrary viewpoint, that blogger usually links to the other person’s views — they’re just a click away. And it’s in your interest to click that link, to seek out material from different cultures and perspectives, as not understanding how other people see the world can lead to bad decisions.

Which brings me back to Montaigne. What inspires me most about his writings so far is that he does not settle for taking the world simply as he knows it – he constantly tries to examine his surroundings, to poke his established sensibilities, and to learn of areas for improvement – setting an example from five centuries ago that is crucially relevant today.

So what do you think?

EARLIER POSTS ON THIS SAME TOPIC:

-”The ‘Big Macs Every Day’ Diet

-”Advice on Consuming Campaign ‘08

DESTIN, FLORIDA, JUNE 23rd, 2010

June 25th, 2010, 9:26 am by Dan Lehr

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Watch as a tourist takes us on a tour of the oil-splatterd beach in Destin, Florida – one of the Chattanooga area’s more popular vacation destinations – and finds a child screaming for her mommy to get the oil off her feet.

It’s surprising to me that this needs saying, but I would highly recommend to all parents that they not let their children play in this stuff.

And it’s a wonder the beach has not been closed.

Truly disgusting and heartbreaking.

OVAL OFFICE ADDRESSES

June 15th, 2010, 9:18 am by Dan Lehr

President Obama gives his first tonight. Delivering a message from this setting is a means of presidential communication that’s used only on special occasions, as you can view below.

Read the rest of this entry »

IN DEFENSE OF REGULATION

June 14th, 2010, 9:13 am by Dan Lehr

James Surowiecki writes:

“Given that we still spend tens of billions of dollars on regulation every year, it may seem odd that attitudes can matter this much. But the history of regulation both here and abroad suggests that how we think about regulators, and how they think of themselves, has a profound impact on the work they do. The political scientist Daniel Carpenter, in “Reputation and Power,” his magisterial new history of the F.D.A. (one of the few agencies that’s been consistently effective), argues that a key to the F.D.A.’s success has been its staffers’ dedication to protecting and enhancing its reputation for competence and vigilance. That reputation, in turn, has made the companies that the F.D.A. regulates more willing to respect its authority. But that’s a rare success story. In most other cases, as the idea of regulation began to seem less legitimate, regulators became less effective and companies felt more free to ignore them.

Read the rest of this entry »

WHENCE COMES THE CREAM OF THE CROP?

June 3rd, 2010, 9:29 am by Dan Lehr

What makes a person stand above and beyond all the rest?

Several items I’ve come across recently that have converged into this question in my head this week.

By far the most fascinating has been this report by a pair of neuroscientists, who believe Michelangelo painted a secret diagram of the human brain on this image from the Sistine Chapel, based on his experience drawing cadavers:

“Art critics and historians have long puzzled over the odd anatomical irregularities in Michelangelo’s depiction of God’s neck in this panel, and by the discordant lighting in the region. The figures in the fresco are illuminated diagonally from the lower left, but God’s neck, highlighted as if in a spotlight, is illuminated straight-on and slightly from the right. How does one reconcile such clumsiness by the world’s master of human anatomy and skilled portrayer of light with bungling the image of God above the altar? Suk and Tamargo propose that the hideous goiter-disfigured neck of God is not a mistake, but rather a hidden message. They argue that nowhere else in any of the other figures did Michelangelo foul up his anatomically correct rendering of the human neck. They show that if one superimposes a detail of God’s odd lumpy neck in the Separation of Light and Darkness on a photograph of the human brain as seen from below, the lines of God’s neck trace precisely the features of the human brain.”

From depicting a human brain to the backstory of what happened to one of the world’s most famous. The man who illegally stole Einstein’s brain at his autopsy risked his entire career to keep it, even though it went against the wishes of Einstein’s family. And as it happens, thanks to his efforts, we now know (partly) what it was about Einstein’s brain that made him one of the great thinkers of modern civilization.

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From art and science to music. Lou Reed – who broke musical ground in the 1960s as a founding member of the Velvet Underground, a band who never enjoyed commercial success during its lifespan – is being called the poster child of “Advancement,” a theory about musicians that may turn your opinion of several artists on its head. The theory says Sting is ‘Advanced’ but Bob Dylan is not. Which I don’t necessarily agree with – I’m still trying to wrap my head around this one.


And finally, this ‘cream of the crop’ series isn’t limited to human beings. This past week I read the downright-wonderful “Laika” by Nick Abadzis – a graphic novel that blends fact and fiction in telling the tale of the first-ever living being to be sent into space. (Warning: it’s a narrative with an ending quite similar to Old Yeller. I hope that doesn’t stop you from checking it out.

What makes Laika rise to the top? Russian scientists looking for the right dog chose strays from Moscow’s streets because they believed they were best equipped to handle extreme environmental conditions – such as hunger and cold. Laika not only met these conditions, her easy-going disposition – not minding having a harness put on her, absolutely loving the flights that simulated zero-G conditions – also helped her get picked for the historic mission.

I’m not sure why all of these stories have passed in front of my eyes in the past week, but they’re all interesting.

What do you think? What makes someone – or something – rise to the top?

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