It's National Farmers Market Week. Where are you doing your food shopping?
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Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Mini-Review: "The Big Sort"
The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart by Bill BishopMy review
rating: 5 of 5 stars
I like to mix it up with people who do not share my worldview. If Bill Bishop is right, this makes me an American oddity.
According to this book, since the 1960s, Americans have been sorting themselves out into like-minded tribal communities, whose members reinforce one another's already-existing views, attitudes, and prejudices. The end product of this "Big Sort" is an increasingly polarized body politic, more ideologically pure parties, the urban-rural electoral split I've remarked on several discussion boards, and quite possibly the end of America as we've known it (a conclusion Bishop does not reach in the book, which ends with an answer posed in the form of a question).
Are we "one nation, after all"? You might indeed wonder after reading this book, which offers many useful insights into how our politics and culture reached its current curdled state.
View all my reviews.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
The Fix for Our "Broken" Primary System Has Already Been Implemented
There is still much wailing in the press about our "dysfunctional" primary process, accompanied by calls to reform the system. These can be considered of a piece with the every-four-years calls to junk the Electoral College and elect our president by direct popular vote.
Such calls indicate a widespread misunderstanding of the nature of our federal system, born out of the increasing homogenization and nationalization of our culture, politics and institutions. They also indicate a failure on the part of just about everyone to realize that the reforms needed to make the system work have already been implemented, and are working exactly as designed in this first year since 1952 when there is truly a wide-open contest for the Presidency.
They can be found in the way the Democratic Party has chosen to allocate delegates to its national convention.
In case you haven't noticed, the two contenders for the Democratic nomination have delegate count totals that roughly reflect their level of support among the Democratic electorate both as a whole and in each state. That's because the party awards elected delegates based on each candidate's vote totals in each Congressional district, with the district winner getting the majority and the statewide winner getting bonus delegates.
As a result, in this open contest, every Democratic primary vote cast has mattered, and from the looks of it, every vote will continue to matter right through the Pennsylvania primary near the tail end of the primary season.
Isn't that what everyone was complaining about? About the only thing further we could do to ensure this result is to prohibit incumbency -- even to the point where the sitting Vice President would be ineligible to run for President, absurd though that may sound.
I should note that a similar approach to allocating Electoral College votes has also been adopted in at least two states, Nebraska and Maine. Those states award their House electors to the winner in each Congressional district and their Senate electors to the statewide winner. Once again, the process strikes just about the right balance between representing the popular will and the will of the states, which is what our federal system was designed to do.
Such calls indicate a widespread misunderstanding of the nature of our federal system, born out of the increasing homogenization and nationalization of our culture, politics and institutions. They also indicate a failure on the part of just about everyone to realize that the reforms needed to make the system work have already been implemented, and are working exactly as designed in this first year since 1952 when there is truly a wide-open contest for the Presidency.
They can be found in the way the Democratic Party has chosen to allocate delegates to its national convention.
In case you haven't noticed, the two contenders for the Democratic nomination have delegate count totals that roughly reflect their level of support among the Democratic electorate both as a whole and in each state. That's because the party awards elected delegates based on each candidate's vote totals in each Congressional district, with the district winner getting the majority and the statewide winner getting bonus delegates.
As a result, in this open contest, every Democratic primary vote cast has mattered, and from the looks of it, every vote will continue to matter right through the Pennsylvania primary near the tail end of the primary season.
Isn't that what everyone was complaining about? About the only thing further we could do to ensure this result is to prohibit incumbency -- even to the point where the sitting Vice President would be ineligible to run for President, absurd though that may sound.
I should note that a similar approach to allocating Electoral College votes has also been adopted in at least two states, Nebraska and Maine. Those states award their House electors to the winner in each Congressional district and their Senate electors to the statewide winner. Once again, the process strikes just about the right balance between representing the popular will and the will of the states, which is what our federal system was designed to do.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
A Tip for Writers: Why Word Order Matters
In the course of randomly surfing the 'Net, free-associating as I am wont to do in the course of learning about my company, its products and its customers, I found myself wandering through material about Microsoft as the target of criticism for its business practices and strategies.
As I work for a company that has developed useful products through both in-house effort and through the acquisition of other companies' technologies, the subject is of more than trivial relevance. But in the course of reading a spirited defense of Microsoft on the Center for the Advancement of Capitalism's Web site, I ran across a passage that I thought weakened the excellent point it made merely by a word that belonged somewhere other than where it was. See if you can spot the misplaced word in the passage below:
As I work for a company that has developed useful products through both in-house effort and through the acquisition of other companies' technologies, the subject is of more than trivial relevance. But in the course of reading a spirited defense of Microsoft on the Center for the Advancement of Capitalism's Web site, I ran across a passage that I thought weakened the excellent point it made merely by a word that belonged somewhere other than where it was. See if you can spot the misplaced word in the passage below:
It is true that Microsoft itself did not invent the graphical user
interface or the web browser or a number of other features it has
since incorporated into Windows. But innovation does not mean using only those ideas developed by a company's own designers. It does not mean embracing the "not invented here" syndrome—the stagnant refusal to accept anything not produced by a firm's in-house engineers. Innovation means recognizing a good idea when you see it and matching it with one's own best efforts.
Can't find it? Try reading the following and see if it stands out:
It is true that Microsoft itself did not invent the graphical user interface or the web browser or a number of other features it has since incorporated into Windows. But innovation does not mean using only those ideas developed by a company's own designers. It does mean not embracing the "not invented here" syndrome—the stagnant refusal to accept anything not produced by a firm's in-house engineers. Innovation means recognizing a good idea when you see it and
matching it with one's own best efforts.
The two paragraphs differ in only one respect: I've moved the first "not" in the sentence about the "not invented here" syndrome from before the word "mean" to after it. Note how that one shift changes the tone, emphasis, and even meaning of the sentence completely? It's been changed from a negative to a positive statement, and thus heightens the contrast with the preceding sentence; in the original wording, that contrast was absent.
Just some food for thought from a writing professional on why every word matters.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Whose Price Is It, Anyway?: Drew Carey the Subversive
So much has happened in the world since I last posted to this blog many, many, many moons ago. So what has moved me to actually comment on something?
Drew Carey's ascension to the host spot on The Price Is Right, that's what.
We all have our guilty pleasures. The longest-running game show on American TV is one of my biggies. Whenever I have a weekday off and am at home, I will stop whatever I'm doing at 11 a.m. Eastern Time and plant myself in front of the set to soak up wave after wave of consumerist celebration in one of those places that time forgot: on The Price is Right, it's always the 1970s, after adjusting for inflation. Audience members -- now younger on average than when the show debuted in 1971 -- still shriek, squeal, and jump for joy when announcer Rich Fields (a voice double for the legendary Johnny Olsen) tells them to "COME ON DOWN!" (I swear there is a school somewhere that teaches people these skills.) The show still features a raft of games, some cute, some historical, some strange, designed to test how well consumers know the cost of the things they buy and want. And I still swoon along with the contestants who hear the magic phrase: "You're going to play Plinko for up to FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS!" The whole experience is as corny as the Midwest in summer, and I love every overdone minute of it.
But since comedian Drew Carey became lord of "the happiest place on earth", I've noticed that The Price is Right has gone pomo. Where Bob Barker was earnest in his embrace of Price's hokiness and hucksterism, Carey quietly subverts the very traditions he upholds as host of the show.
Take that phrase "the happiest place on earth," originally used to describe Disneyland. Carey occasionally begins episodes with it. Do Disneyland and The Price is Right have anything in common? If we are to take Carey at these words, they do: they're both fantasylands to which we flock to forget our cares. Barker treated this as an open secret; Carey acknowledges it bluntly.
Then there are those mini-plugs Fields gives to describe the smaller items used in many pricing games. (These, too, apparently have a price: where Olsen always mentioned the product name in his blurbs, most of Fields' are generic, making those that mention the product stand out. No doubt those are in exchange for "promotional consideration.") Every once in a while, Carey will repeat one in a deadpan fashion or make a dry comment about the pitch. (I wish I could remember the borderline suggestive remark he made about one for chocolate syrup.) On today's episode, for instance, after a round of blurbs, Carey remarked about them, "Those are either great product descriptions or bad fortune-cookie fortunes."
They're just a second or two in length, and they're delivered in the same low-key manner that Carey displayed as host of Whose Line Is It Anyway? But the message they deliver is much louder: We, the audience, should laugh at as well as with this parade of materialistic mirth; like the contestants, we're being sold a bill of goods here, but unlike them, we won't have to pay taxes on the haul. Coming from a fan of free markets like Carey, this commentary seems just a little wrong somehow. Or maybe not. In either case, it's made Price interesting in a way it hadn't been with Barker as host.
Drew Carey's ascension to the host spot on The Price Is Right, that's what.
We all have our guilty pleasures. The longest-running game show on American TV is one of my biggies. Whenever I have a weekday off and am at home, I will stop whatever I'm doing at 11 a.m. Eastern Time and plant myself in front of the set to soak up wave after wave of consumerist celebration in one of those places that time forgot: on The Price is Right, it's always the 1970s, after adjusting for inflation. Audience members -- now younger on average than when the show debuted in 1971 -- still shriek, squeal, and jump for joy when announcer Rich Fields (a voice double for the legendary Johnny Olsen) tells them to "COME ON DOWN!" (I swear there is a school somewhere that teaches people these skills.) The show still features a raft of games, some cute, some historical, some strange, designed to test how well consumers know the cost of the things they buy and want. And I still swoon along with the contestants who hear the magic phrase: "You're going to play Plinko for up to FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS!" The whole experience is as corny as the Midwest in summer, and I love every overdone minute of it.
But since comedian Drew Carey became lord of "the happiest place on earth", I've noticed that The Price is Right has gone pomo. Where Bob Barker was earnest in his embrace of Price's hokiness and hucksterism, Carey quietly subverts the very traditions he upholds as host of the show.
Take that phrase "the happiest place on earth," originally used to describe Disneyland. Carey occasionally begins episodes with it. Do Disneyland and The Price is Right have anything in common? If we are to take Carey at these words, they do: they're both fantasylands to which we flock to forget our cares. Barker treated this as an open secret; Carey acknowledges it bluntly.
Then there are those mini-plugs Fields gives to describe the smaller items used in many pricing games. (These, too, apparently have a price: where Olsen always mentioned the product name in his blurbs, most of Fields' are generic, making those that mention the product stand out. No doubt those are in exchange for "promotional consideration.") Every once in a while, Carey will repeat one in a deadpan fashion or make a dry comment about the pitch. (I wish I could remember the borderline suggestive remark he made about one for chocolate syrup.) On today's episode, for instance, after a round of blurbs, Carey remarked about them, "Those are either great product descriptions or bad fortune-cookie fortunes."
They're just a second or two in length, and they're delivered in the same low-key manner that Carey displayed as host of Whose Line Is It Anyway? But the message they deliver is much louder: We, the audience, should laugh at as well as with this parade of materialistic mirth; like the contestants, we're being sold a bill of goods here, but unlike them, we won't have to pay taxes on the haul. Coming from a fan of free markets like Carey, this commentary seems just a little wrong somehow. Or maybe not. In either case, it's made Price interesting in a way it hadn't been with Barker as host.
Monday, August 14, 2006
The Democrats' Dilemma
So the Democratic voters of the Nutmeg State have sent a message to Washington: We don't want no war no more. (From some of what I've read in the press, the message may also have been We don't want no self-serving guy who backs his party only when it's convenient no more, but that dilutes the clarity of the message.)
I'd love to be able to endorse this message. But I can't. That's because our President, may buzzards pick at his innards and those of his Vice President and Defense Secretary, has gotten us into a trap that we can only fight our way out of.
The problem is that, unlike Vietnam, if we simply take our guns and bombs and go home, we won't be free of the messy war or the threat of a future attack. For one thing, the enemy--which wasn't in Iraq to begin with--is still with us, stateless and constantly shifting--and thanks to our invasion of Iraq, he is there now too.
We have also enabled the mullahs in Iran to spread their influence further than it had gone before--and soon it may be at the point where we can no longer expect Israel to pull our fat out of the fire. (Indeed, the current stalemate in southern Lebanon suggests that we may already have reached that point.)
Unfortunately, this leaves us with several bad choices. The worst one is the one the Democratic voters of Connecticut endorsed: Just leave. If we do that, this time, they'll follow us.
The next one is worse politically, but possibly the only way out militarily: Send more troops over to the Middle East. And here's where the Democratic voters of Connecticut have mucked things up: It shouldn't be a Republican President doing the sending. The current one has shown his contempt for both reality and the Constitution often enough to poison the well for his successor. But as long as the Democratic base won't tolerate a Presidential candidate who is willing to prosecute this war, however reluctantly, the general electorate will rightly shy away from trusting whichever Democrat gets nominated to wrap this botched job up properly.
I'd love to be able to endorse this message. But I can't. That's because our President, may buzzards pick at his innards and those of his Vice President and Defense Secretary, has gotten us into a trap that we can only fight our way out of.
The problem is that, unlike Vietnam, if we simply take our guns and bombs and go home, we won't be free of the messy war or the threat of a future attack. For one thing, the enemy--which wasn't in Iraq to begin with--is still with us, stateless and constantly shifting--and thanks to our invasion of Iraq, he is there now too.
We have also enabled the mullahs in Iran to spread their influence further than it had gone before--and soon it may be at the point where we can no longer expect Israel to pull our fat out of the fire. (Indeed, the current stalemate in southern Lebanon suggests that we may already have reached that point.)
Unfortunately, this leaves us with several bad choices. The worst one is the one the Democratic voters of Connecticut endorsed: Just leave. If we do that, this time, they'll follow us.
The next one is worse politically, but possibly the only way out militarily: Send more troops over to the Middle East. And here's where the Democratic voters of Connecticut have mucked things up: It shouldn't be a Republican President doing the sending. The current one has shown his contempt for both reality and the Constitution often enough to poison the well for his successor. But as long as the Democratic base won't tolerate a Presidential candidate who is willing to prosecute this war, however reluctantly, the general electorate will rightly shy away from trusting whichever Democrat gets nominated to wrap this botched job up properly.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Is it just me?
Or does anyone else out there find it a bit disturbing that we have black men walking around on the streets wearing clothing that has "State Property" emblazoned all over it?
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
One-and-a-Half Cheers for Mayor Street
I'm sure that some of you who know me will accuse me of having taken leave of my senses, but I'm going to say this anyway:
John Street isn't as bad a mayor as I think he is.
Over the course of his two terms, he has identified some of the major issues that need addressing in this city, and on some of them, has come up with some programs that may produce results in the long run.
Chief among these is the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative. Here he managed to put some very good minds to work looking at the issue of reclaiming deteriorated, largely abandoned communities, and these minds have produced solid thinking and good, workable strategies for their reclamation. Little by little, these bombed-out neighborhoods are coming back from the near-dead, and if a decade hence, we no longer look on large swaths of North Philadelphia as places to pass through as quickly as possible (unless we live there), Mayor Street will deserve the credit for having gotten the process started.
And while it was in force, Operation Safe Streets worked as designed: it chased crime away from some of the city's worst crime zones.
Unfortunately, Operation Safe Streets is also a reason why Street gets no more than a cheer and a half. This program was more a show of force than it was an effective long-term strategy to reduce crime, and it worked only at huge cost in police overtime. It might have been cheaper to simply hire additional full-time cops to identify, track and fight crime. Moreover, now that violent crime especially has taken a turn for the worse in the neighborhoods again, he cannot apply a "Safe Streets II" Band-Aid to the problem, nor can he implement the sorts of strategies that worked so well under Police Commissioner John Timoney in the previous administration.
Combine that with the fact that he has almost never run across a tax cut he could stomach at a time when cutting taxes would do so much for the city's long-term economic health and his public endorsement early in his administration of the cozy pay-to-play ethos that has long pervaded City Hall, and it should become clear that while Street may not be as bad as I think he is, he's still far from a good mayor, let alone a great one.
John Street isn't as bad a mayor as I think he is.
Over the course of his two terms, he has identified some of the major issues that need addressing in this city, and on some of them, has come up with some programs that may produce results in the long run.
Chief among these is the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative. Here he managed to put some very good minds to work looking at the issue of reclaiming deteriorated, largely abandoned communities, and these minds have produced solid thinking and good, workable strategies for their reclamation. Little by little, these bombed-out neighborhoods are coming back from the near-dead, and if a decade hence, we no longer look on large swaths of North Philadelphia as places to pass through as quickly as possible (unless we live there), Mayor Street will deserve the credit for having gotten the process started.
And while it was in force, Operation Safe Streets worked as designed: it chased crime away from some of the city's worst crime zones.
Unfortunately, Operation Safe Streets is also a reason why Street gets no more than a cheer and a half. This program was more a show of force than it was an effective long-term strategy to reduce crime, and it worked only at huge cost in police overtime. It might have been cheaper to simply hire additional full-time cops to identify, track and fight crime. Moreover, now that violent crime especially has taken a turn for the worse in the neighborhoods again, he cannot apply a "Safe Streets II" Band-Aid to the problem, nor can he implement the sorts of strategies that worked so well under Police Commissioner John Timoney in the previous administration.
Combine that with the fact that he has almost never run across a tax cut he could stomach at a time when cutting taxes would do so much for the city's long-term economic health and his public endorsement early in his administration of the cozy pay-to-play ethos that has long pervaded City Hall, and it should become clear that while Street may not be as bad as I think he is, he's still far from a good mayor, let alone a great one.
Monday, January 16, 2006
Plus ça change, plus c'est la meme chose...
Remember "Urban Renewal"?
No, not the Tower of Power album from about 1972--the grand 1950s and '60s project, backed by the best planning thought of the time and buckets o'Federal bucks, that would--as in Vietnam--save our cities by destroying them.
Only it wasn't pitched that way. It was pitched as removing "blighted" neighborhoods so that new development could take place more easily on the acres of land thus cleared.
Well, the funny thing was, many of the people who lived in these "blighted" neighborhoods considered them anything but. These people were almost always poor or working class, and usually members of minority groups. Some of them raised a stink about what was happening, but nobody listened--or at least nobody listened in time to throw the engine of Progress into reverse. So they were removed, their houses condemned and bought for a song, and replaced by...in some cases, nothing. In others, light industry. And in those few "successes," among them Philadelphia's Society Hill, rich people. At least in Philadelphia, they took the neutron rather than atomic bomb approach: They left the buildings standing, most of them.
But everyone agrees that "urban renewal"--or, as some black activists put it, "Negro removal"--was a mistake in hindsight.
Or do they? For we are fighting the same battles again.
Consider this tale out of Camden summarized in the commentary section of today's Philadelphia Inquirer.
The setting is Cramer Hill, a largely Hispanic neighborhood in Camden's north end. If you read the article, it seems like the only "blight" in the neighborhood is that the residents can't keep their properties up to upper-middle-class standards.
Or, I guess, pay upper-middle-class taxes on them. Which is reason enough for the City of Camden to back a developer's proposal to replace the neighborhood with new housing, shops and a golf course.
Legal Aid attorneys are helping the residents fight to save their neighborhood. But this also seems like one of those eminent domain abuse cases that have produced the odd spectacle of right-wing and libertarian activists riding to the defense of the little folk. I imagine it's only a matter of time before one of the conservative legal foundations weighs in on the side of the residents as their argument goes to court, as it is sure to do.
We can only hope this happens. "Urban renewal" was a mistake then, and it's a mistake now. And the Supreme Court decision that made it much easier needs to be revisited, and soon.
No, not the Tower of Power album from about 1972--the grand 1950s and '60s project, backed by the best planning thought of the time and buckets o'Federal bucks, that would--as in Vietnam--save our cities by destroying them.
Only it wasn't pitched that way. It was pitched as removing "blighted" neighborhoods so that new development could take place more easily on the acres of land thus cleared.
Well, the funny thing was, many of the people who lived in these "blighted" neighborhoods considered them anything but. These people were almost always poor or working class, and usually members of minority groups. Some of them raised a stink about what was happening, but nobody listened--or at least nobody listened in time to throw the engine of Progress into reverse. So they were removed, their houses condemned and bought for a song, and replaced by...in some cases, nothing. In others, light industry. And in those few "successes," among them Philadelphia's Society Hill, rich people. At least in Philadelphia, they took the neutron rather than atomic bomb approach: They left the buildings standing, most of them.
But everyone agrees that "urban renewal"--or, as some black activists put it, "Negro removal"--was a mistake in hindsight.
Or do they? For we are fighting the same battles again.
Consider this tale out of Camden summarized in the commentary section of today's Philadelphia Inquirer.
The setting is Cramer Hill, a largely Hispanic neighborhood in Camden's north end. If you read the article, it seems like the only "blight" in the neighborhood is that the residents can't keep their properties up to upper-middle-class standards.
Or, I guess, pay upper-middle-class taxes on them. Which is reason enough for the City of Camden to back a developer's proposal to replace the neighborhood with new housing, shops and a golf course.
Legal Aid attorneys are helping the residents fight to save their neighborhood. But this also seems like one of those eminent domain abuse cases that have produced the odd spectacle of right-wing and libertarian activists riding to the defense of the little folk. I imagine it's only a matter of time before one of the conservative legal foundations weighs in on the side of the residents as their argument goes to court, as it is sure to do.
We can only hope this happens. "Urban renewal" was a mistake then, and it's a mistake now. And the Supreme Court decision that made it much easier needs to be revisited, and soon.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Back in Delaware, again...
this time, working for one of the other big credit card banks located in downtown Wilmington. The usual concerns about security aside, the difference in workplace atmosphere between this bank and the one where I worked at the beginning of this year is like night and day.
There's also some change in the appearance of Wilmington in the intervening months. The Christina riverfront now sports rows of townhouses on its south bank, with a high-rise apartment tower nearing completion right next to them. Construction cranes loom over the heart of downtown as ads in the train station tout the first speculative office building to be built in the city since the 1970s.
A co-worker described all this activity as an attempt to emulate Philadelphia . And right now, downtown Philadelphia is a place worth emulating. New residents continue to flock to the city center, and new apartments, condos and townhouses continue to rise to meet them. Even the most negative Philadelphians cannot help but comment on the city's new energy and liveliness. Dowdy old Philadelphia has suddenly become hip and happening, and it feels good.
It is this last quality that Wilmington is still unable to emulate, and it looks highly unlikely that it ever will. Delaware may be a great place to work and a pleasant place to live, but its first city still has a ways to go before it matches its bigger sister up the road.
There's also some change in the appearance of Wilmington in the intervening months. The Christina riverfront now sports rows of townhouses on its south bank, with a high-rise apartment tower nearing completion right next to them. Construction cranes loom over the heart of downtown as ads in the train station tout the first speculative office building to be built in the city since the 1970s.
A co-worker described all this activity as an attempt to emulate Philadelphia . And right now, downtown Philadelphia is a place worth emulating. New residents continue to flock to the city center, and new apartments, condos and townhouses continue to rise to meet them. Even the most negative Philadelphians cannot help but comment on the city's new energy and liveliness. Dowdy old Philadelphia has suddenly become hip and happening, and it feels good.
It is this last quality that Wilmington is still unable to emulate, and it looks highly unlikely that it ever will. Delaware may be a great place to work and a pleasant place to live, but its first city still has a ways to go before it matches its bigger sister up the road.
They're Not Asking The Right People
This past Sunday (Dec. 25), Philadelphia Inquirer editor Amanda Bennett penned a column in the paper's "Currents" section that purported to offer a little good news about the Greater Philadelphia region's leading daily newspaper.
The Inquirer, Bennett told us in her essay, recently surveyed its readers and found that they like what they see in the paper more than they did three years ago. Moreover, 80 percent said they would recommend the paper to a newcomer as a way to keep up with what's going on in Philly and environs. On top of that, another survey conducted by Inquirer parent Knight-Ridder shows that most readers consider the Inky more informative and well-written and trust the journalists who produce it.
That's all very nice. What Bennett forgot to mention in her article is that with each passing year, there are fewer of these readers to survey. The Inquirer's circulation continues on its five-year downward trend, a trend shared by many other large dailies. These former readers, it appears, no longer find the paper speaks to them.
If the newspaper industry were serious about halting its long, slow demise, the publishers and eeditors should be surveying their former readers to find out what has led them to stop reading. Why do increasing numbers of people find daily newspapers no longer relevant to their lives? Where do they turn for news and information now? What, if anything, should--can--journalists do to regain these ex-readers' attention and affection?
I wish I had an answer myself. But I think it has something to do with telling compelling stories in a concise manner--the effort that should be at the heart of journalism anyway.
The Inquirer, Bennett told us in her essay, recently surveyed its readers and found that they like what they see in the paper more than they did three years ago. Moreover, 80 percent said they would recommend the paper to a newcomer as a way to keep up with what's going on in Philly and environs. On top of that, another survey conducted by Inquirer parent Knight-Ridder shows that most readers consider the Inky more informative and well-written and trust the journalists who produce it.
That's all very nice. What Bennett forgot to mention in her article is that with each passing year, there are fewer of these readers to survey. The Inquirer's circulation continues on its five-year downward trend, a trend shared by many other large dailies. These former readers, it appears, no longer find the paper speaks to them.
If the newspaper industry were serious about halting its long, slow demise, the publishers and eeditors should be surveying their former readers to find out what has led them to stop reading. Why do increasing numbers of people find daily newspapers no longer relevant to their lives? Where do they turn for news and information now? What, if anything, should--can--journalists do to regain these ex-readers' attention and affection?
I wish I had an answer myself. But I think it has something to do with telling compelling stories in a concise manner--the effort that should be at the heart of journalism anyway.
Monday, November 28, 2005
The Iraq Mess II: We Broke It, We Must Fix It
One of the not-so-surprising revelations emerging from the current rush to the exits on Iraq is that the Bush Administration's overly rosy post-Saddam scenario has left us swamped in a country that, promising developments on the democratic front notwithstanding, has no unity, protecting a regime that cannot defend itself against an insurgency that will not go away until it regains power. We do not have the manpower to crush the insurgency, nor is the Iraqi army anywhere near ready to even take it down a notch.
This makes an American exit a highly tempting solution to a difficult problem. Unfortunately, pace Rep. Murtha, it's the wrong solution for the near term.
Our departure from Iraq right now will result in a victorious Sunni insurgency and a nation split in three. It will give the Iranian mullahs a chance to expand and solidify their own brand of reactionary militant Islamism--hardly a prospect we relish. And it will produce the very thing the Administration said would be the result of our not intervening in the first place: a country that can serve as a base for militant Islamists ready to attack the West.
If anything, for the next few months, we need more troops, not fewer. These troops would have as their main job getting the Iraqi army into fighting shape so that it can restore and maintain internal order after we depart. Only when the Iraqi security forces are up to the task of taking on the insurgents can we say it's safe for us to go.
Unfortunately, it may be too late for us to get those additional troops over there, so badly has the Bush Administration bungled the aftermath of its misguided second response to 9/11.
This makes an American exit a highly tempting solution to a difficult problem. Unfortunately, pace Rep. Murtha, it's the wrong solution for the near term.
Our departure from Iraq right now will result in a victorious Sunni insurgency and a nation split in three. It will give the Iranian mullahs a chance to expand and solidify their own brand of reactionary militant Islamism--hardly a prospect we relish. And it will produce the very thing the Administration said would be the result of our not intervening in the first place: a country that can serve as a base for militant Islamists ready to attack the West.
If anything, for the next few months, we need more troops, not fewer. These troops would have as their main job getting the Iraqi army into fighting shape so that it can restore and maintain internal order after we depart. Only when the Iraqi security forces are up to the task of taking on the insurgents can we say it's safe for us to go.
Unfortunately, it may be too late for us to get those additional troops over there, so badly has the Bush Administration bungled the aftermath of its misguided second response to 9/11.
The Iraq Mess I: Live by the Spin, Die by the Spin
So the hounds of the press are now chewing over the rotting carcass of the Bush Administration's war policy in Iraq, now that a Democrat with impeccable pro-military credentials has made it safe to do so. What's more, they are doing so with impunity, after a Bush effort to tar Rep. John Murtha (D-Johnstown, Pa.) with the lefty brush misfired badly.
What the reporters need to be dissecting is just how much the Bush Administration relied on public relations spin to get us into this mess, and the ways that reality invariably points out the limits of spin.
Let me start by giving the administration the benefit of the doubt and letting it off the hook for lying its way into war with Iraq. Let me also put the invasion in the most charitable light by suggesting that an influential cadre within the White House--maybe even including the President himself, but most certainly excluding former Secretary of State Colin Powell--believed that a global conflict between the West and radical Islam was inevitable, and that the best course for the West to follow would be to take the fight to the enemy.
It did not follow that Iraq was the right enemy. Saddam Hussein's ostensibly secularist Baathist ideology made it a poor candidate for the role the Bush cabal cast it in, that of sponsor of worldwide Islamist terror. (Ally Saudi Arabia is a far better candidate, unfortunately for our political and business leaders.) And--as we all now know--there was little evidence that the Hussein regime was in any position to be much of a threat to anyone other than its own citizens and perhaps its neighbors.
But--or so we were told after the public didn't warn to the original story line, which was "Why wait until the threat is iminent? Let's take him out now"--the Bush administration hawks and their amen corner on Fox News kept repeating that Hussein represented a threat to world peace that would eventually rank with Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Not only that, the Bush PR team told us that (1) Hussein would fall quickly, (2) the grateful Iraqis would throw rose petals at our feet, and (3) we'd have a model democracy up and running in no time, with only a small number of American troops required for the task.
Now, more than a year and a half after the President declared that we had achieved our mission in Iraq, we are slowly waking up to the fact that of those three predictions, only (1) came true. Neither the rationale nor the aftermath have worked out as the Bush Administration spun them. And after Murtha called it as he saw it, the Bush war party has discovered that there are some things you just can't spin your way out of.
I'm fond of saying, when public perception of some event shifts radically for no good reason other than a message being drilled into the collective consciousness, "It's all PR." Maybe the Bush Administration's current politico-military predicament will teach it the lesson that no, it's not always all PR. Sometimes you need to be honest about the difficulties and complexities of a situation. More likely, though, the present occupants of the White House will continue spinning, all the way into their political graves.
What the reporters need to be dissecting is just how much the Bush Administration relied on public relations spin to get us into this mess, and the ways that reality invariably points out the limits of spin.
Let me start by giving the administration the benefit of the doubt and letting it off the hook for lying its way into war with Iraq. Let me also put the invasion in the most charitable light by suggesting that an influential cadre within the White House--maybe even including the President himself, but most certainly excluding former Secretary of State Colin Powell--believed that a global conflict between the West and radical Islam was inevitable, and that the best course for the West to follow would be to take the fight to the enemy.
It did not follow that Iraq was the right enemy. Saddam Hussein's ostensibly secularist Baathist ideology made it a poor candidate for the role the Bush cabal cast it in, that of sponsor of worldwide Islamist terror. (Ally Saudi Arabia is a far better candidate, unfortunately for our political and business leaders.) And--as we all now know--there was little evidence that the Hussein regime was in any position to be much of a threat to anyone other than its own citizens and perhaps its neighbors.
But--or so we were told after the public didn't warn to the original story line, which was "Why wait until the threat is iminent? Let's take him out now"--the Bush administration hawks and their amen corner on Fox News kept repeating that Hussein represented a threat to world peace that would eventually rank with Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Not only that, the Bush PR team told us that (1) Hussein would fall quickly, (2) the grateful Iraqis would throw rose petals at our feet, and (3) we'd have a model democracy up and running in no time, with only a small number of American troops required for the task.
Now, more than a year and a half after the President declared that we had achieved our mission in Iraq, we are slowly waking up to the fact that of those three predictions, only (1) came true. Neither the rationale nor the aftermath have worked out as the Bush Administration spun them. And after Murtha called it as he saw it, the Bush war party has discovered that there are some things you just can't spin your way out of.
I'm fond of saying, when public perception of some event shifts radically for no good reason other than a message being drilled into the collective consciousness, "It's all PR." Maybe the Bush Administration's current politico-military predicament will teach it the lesson that no, it's not always all PR. Sometimes you need to be honest about the difficulties and complexities of a situation. More likely, though, the present occupants of the White House will continue spinning, all the way into their political graves.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Sensitivity Run Amok, or Who's the Racist Here?
The following, in its entirety, is a letter to the editor that appeared in yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer:
"In my opinion, the new NBA dress code is a flagrant example of institutional racism."
--Janet Jepson, Wayne
Spare me, Ms. Jepson.
If we have come to the point where merely expecting professionals to dress appropriately is racist, then the word has no meaning.
Suits, jackets and "business casual" wear may not be "authentic" products of the 'hood, but they are no more oppressive than any other uniform--including the baggy pants, oversize sweatshirts, baseball caps and bling-bling that are the hip-hop standard. If anything, it's racist to suggest that someone wearing street wear will be accepted as an equal in the corridors of power. If you don't believe this, let me try wearing a T-shirt, jeans and flip-flops to a meeting at the White House. Or--if you're white--you try it and see what response you get.
What NBA Commissioner David Stern has done with the new dress code is send a powerful message: We're grownups. It's time we looked like them. You may not like this, but clothes do make the man. People attach meaning to a person's style of dress. The meaning most people--including a sizable number of blacks--attach to hip-hop fashion is: All they're interested in is running the streets and gettin' over. To borrow from 50 Cent, these folks ain't gonna get rich, but they just might die tryin'.
Is this really what we want our kids to grow up to become?
No, Ms. Jepsen, you've got it backwards. What's racist is perpetuating a double standard that says we will never beat Whitey at his own game, and therefore there's no point in us looking like we want to.
Saturday, April 23, 2005
The Worst Mayor in America, For a While
Pope? What Pope?
The buzz of the week in Philly was the honor Time bestowed upon Mayor John Street. In a sidebar to its cover story about the nation's five best mayors, it put Street on its shorter list of the three worst mayors in America.
This prompted much cluck-clucking in the local media, a wounded-pride response from Street, and a defense of his record from one of his better known non-fans, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Tom Ferrick.
Street's response and Ferrick's defense made roughly the same point, so I'll use Street's response to sum up: "Had it not been for the probe, I may have been among the candidates for the best mayor."
That is probably overstating the case a bit. But it's not too far off the mark.
Street's current situation is not that much different from where one of Time's best mayors, Richard M. Daley of Chicago, finds himself. Both Street and Daley have bit the bullet and taken dramatic steps to reform their cities' underperforming schools. Both have undertaken major initiatives to reclaim rundown and abandoned neighborhoods and redevelop them for a new urban era. Both are surrounded by investigations into corruption that have snared close associates but left them personally untouched.
So what accounts for the difference? Maybe attitude has something to do with it.
If, in 20 years or so, we see a North Central Philadelphia filled with decent working residents, new jobs and small businesses, the credit will belong to John Street, whose Neighborhood Transformation Initiative is laying the groundwork for that possibility. But it's quite likely that people around here will still be talking about the Center City renaissance and municipal ego boost that came with his predecessor, Ed Rendell.
Rendell did no more to dismantle the pay-to-play culture that has dominated municipal government for years than anyone before or after him. But through some highly visible actions, he communicated a things-are-gonna-change-around-here message. The image of the newly elected mayor on his hands and knees, scrubbing a City Hall bathroom, and his willingness to take a short strike to win some significant concessions from the municipal unions, spoke volumes.
So, unfortunately, did Street's comment early in his first term that he did intend to give preference to his supporters when it came to awarding city contracts. Did he do anything different from, say, what Frank Rizzo would have done in his situation? Quite likely not. But he was open about it, and that made all the difference.
The message Street sent early on was: I'm in favor of business as usual. His attempt to halt the gradual wage tax cuts Rendell initiated--which led to a major political defeat midway through his first term--reinforced that message.
Those two actions spoke much louder than 5,000 cops working overtime or new housing in North Central Philadelphia did to the people who pay attention to municipal affairs. And thus does Mayor Street find himself on Time's trash heap rather than its honor roll.
The buzz of the week in Philly was the honor Time bestowed upon Mayor John Street. In a sidebar to its cover story about the nation's five best mayors, it put Street on its shorter list of the three worst mayors in America.
This prompted much cluck-clucking in the local media, a wounded-pride response from Street, and a defense of his record from one of his better known non-fans, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Tom Ferrick.
Street's response and Ferrick's defense made roughly the same point, so I'll use Street's response to sum up: "Had it not been for the probe, I may have been among the candidates for the best mayor."
That is probably overstating the case a bit. But it's not too far off the mark.
Street's current situation is not that much different from where one of Time's best mayors, Richard M. Daley of Chicago, finds himself. Both Street and Daley have bit the bullet and taken dramatic steps to reform their cities' underperforming schools. Both have undertaken major initiatives to reclaim rundown and abandoned neighborhoods and redevelop them for a new urban era. Both are surrounded by investigations into corruption that have snared close associates but left them personally untouched.
So what accounts for the difference? Maybe attitude has something to do with it.
If, in 20 years or so, we see a North Central Philadelphia filled with decent working residents, new jobs and small businesses, the credit will belong to John Street, whose Neighborhood Transformation Initiative is laying the groundwork for that possibility. But it's quite likely that people around here will still be talking about the Center City renaissance and municipal ego boost that came with his predecessor, Ed Rendell.
Rendell did no more to dismantle the pay-to-play culture that has dominated municipal government for years than anyone before or after him. But through some highly visible actions, he communicated a things-are-gonna-change-around-here message. The image of the newly elected mayor on his hands and knees, scrubbing a City Hall bathroom, and his willingness to take a short strike to win some significant concessions from the municipal unions, spoke volumes.
So, unfortunately, did Street's comment early in his first term that he did intend to give preference to his supporters when it came to awarding city contracts. Did he do anything different from, say, what Frank Rizzo would have done in his situation? Quite likely not. But he was open about it, and that made all the difference.
The message Street sent early on was: I'm in favor of business as usual. His attempt to halt the gradual wage tax cuts Rendell initiated--which led to a major political defeat midway through his first term--reinforced that message.
Those two actions spoke much louder than 5,000 cops working overtime or new housing in North Central Philadelphia did to the people who pay attention to municipal affairs. And thus does Mayor Street find himself on Time's trash heap rather than its honor roll.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Open Letter to SEPTA Management
To whoever is in charge of ordering the next Regional Rail car fleet:
In case you aren't aware of this, coffee is a diuretic. That means that soon after you drink it, you will feel the urge to go.
Traveling from Center City to the furthest reaches of the Regional Rail network can take an hour or even more. That's a long time to wait if you have a small bladder.
Many stations have no restrooms, and the crew will not hold the train at those that do so passengers can take a bathroom break.
You should be able to tell where I'm headed with this. I hope you take these facts into consideration when you put out the interior specs for your new commuter cars.
Or do you plan to just hand out plastic sample cups or doses of Detrol to the passengers?
In case you aren't aware of this, coffee is a diuretic. That means that soon after you drink it, you will feel the urge to go.
Traveling from Center City to the furthest reaches of the Regional Rail network can take an hour or even more. That's a long time to wait if you have a small bladder.
Many stations have no restrooms, and the crew will not hold the train at those that do so passengers can take a bathroom break.
You should be able to tell where I'm headed with this. I hope you take these facts into consideration when you put out the interior specs for your new commuter cars.
Or do you plan to just hand out plastic sample cups or doses of Detrol to the passengers?
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