Accismus

The Morning News’ always entertaining John Warner and Kevin Guilfoile discuss Obama’s bitter comment:

Bitterness is not why people in rural areas “cling to their guns.” Bitterness is why people in rural areas, just like everywhere else, cling to beer.

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Patriotism is a hot topic lately, and if you are one of those people who don’t understand why anybody wouldn’t love America, Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution spells out eight of his reasons, before going on to say:

On the brighter side, America has a decent economic track record, the Solow model does matter (try living and earning in countries with poor Solow indicators), America remains the world’s leading innovator, and most Americans — at least those not in prison or on drugs — can expect a bright future. It’s not as if I’m pushing the future economic prospects of Suriname.

I think that for a lot of those patriots who fail to comprehend anti-American sentiment, the point quoted above is so important as to render nearly meaningless the eight points above it, and they think that anybody who doesn’t love America must not be sufficiently aware of its economic opportunities.

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Which makes sense, since our brains apparently equate profit with praise:

“If the hierarchy is fixed forever, then it’s good to be the top monkey.”

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Speaking of economic opportunities (and the lack thereof), Harry Brighouse at Crooked Timber discusses the deficit model of poverty:

The stresses that accompany poverty (for those who do not choose it, which is everyone except nuns, monks, and the odd saint) are often very demanding and sometimes overwhelming – they make it harder for people to make good long-term decisions and stick to them, sometimes because there just are no good long term options. So yes, if you like, I do think that poverty creates deficits. But then, I don’t see why we should complain about, or try to get rid of, it, unless it is because it creates deficits.

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As to America’s Problem with Prisoners, we learned this week that one out of every 100 American adults is now in jail (there’s one huge chunk of the population who won’t be voting in the primaries):

“In no country is criminal justice administered with more mildness than in the United States,” Alexis de Tocqueville, who toured American penitentiaries in 1831, wrote in “Democracy in America.”

No more.

Also, note in the above article that San Marino has the lowest prison population – just one (I assume) guy. I would absolutely love to interview San Marino’s sole prisoner and see how (again, I assume) he feels about holding this distinction.

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On Talking Points Memo Café, Daniel Levy has five things to say about Israel’s strike on the Syrian facility (and why we’re discussing it now), including this:

So here is a delicious and rare moment of Israeli-Syrian agreement: : we both want to talk, the nature of the Syria-Israel issue is that we both need US facilitation, the Bush Administration is not interested and so, we will have to wait.

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Meanwhile, some woman let her nine-year-old take the subway home alone, hoping that everybody would talk about it, and everybody has obliged. I get her point that people hover over their children too much, but here’s the thing: she didn’t turn him lose in 99.99% of America. She turned him lose in the NYC subway. Which is the strangest, most congested, unhygienic, freak-filled hell portal in the entire U.S.A. I don’t even like to mosey in the subway. Honestly, I don’t know why people still insist on viewing Manhattan as a normal, residential area. I realize that it was one once upon a time, but nowadays, Manhattan is Disney World for CEOs and aspiring artists. It’s a weird, artificial, overcrowded, unreal place, and there’s no reason to try and navigate it daily, unless you have business here, or you’re trying to make it in some field where you need to be a stone’s throw from everybody else in that field. It’s sure as heck not a place to send your nine-year-old out stumbling around getting in everybody’s way. I don’t care if people’s nine-year-olds are supervised or not, as long as they’re in Yonkers where they belong.

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Moving on to my favorite arena of outrage (women getting the shit-end), Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick discusses the recent Senate action regarding the Supreme Court’s Lilly Ledbetter verdict:

So, 42 members of the U.S. Senate blocked a bill that would allow victims of gender discrimination to learn of and prove discrimination in those rare cases in which their employers don’t cheerfully discuss it with them at the office Christmas party. And the reasons for blocking it include the fact that women are not smart enough to file timely lawsuits, not smart enough to avoid being manipulated by vile plaintiffs’ lawyers, not smart enough to know when they are being stiffed, and-per John McCain-not well-trained enough in the first place to merit equal pay.

So how dumb are we? Well, if we don’t vote some people who actually respect women into Congress soon, we just may be as dumb as those senators think.

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Speaking of women continuing to stick their fingers in their ears and hum, the wide world of advertising continues on its merry, woman-bashing way. The latest: one of Tom Ford’s ads has been banned in Italy. Here’s the ad in question (I don’t really have much of an opinion about this ad in particular, but I do hate Tom Ford in general):

It’s hilarious to me that Italy – Italy – would ban anything for being offensive to women. That aside, upon first seeing this photo, I anticipated that men and women to the left and right would rush to gasp at how ridiculous it is that a photo devoid of explicit T&A could possibly offend anyone. Generally when porn-in-advertising debates arise, most commentators refuse to address symbolic, implied, or even overt misogyny in advertising, preferring instead to focus on how people are prudish about sex, as if plain old sex was the point, rather than violent and/or degrading sexual content aimed entirely at portraying women as submissive to all manner of victimization. And I was anticipating reading an argument along those lines when I clicked on a link to this blog post, but rather, I was treated to a barrage of Italian ads that make the Tom Ford one look positively romantic. Specifically, check out this Dolce & Gabbana ad:

Now, from time to time, I’ve decided to compile a list of all products and companies I refuse to buy from because their advertisements are misogynist. I’ve always had to go back on this resolution, because inevitably my list grew so long so fast that I was left unable to buy much anything but Dove products (and for all I know, the people who own Dove likely own other lines that run down women as well). This post just illustrates how difficult it is not to support the objectification of women with your hard-earned pennies: over here in the States, high fashion shits on women in tastefully hypocritical, closeted ways, but apparently in Italy, they have no such scruples and Dolce & Gabbana can go ahead and run a full-out airbrushed gang rape. It’s not like I buy designer labels, but I don’t always remember to NOT buy them with sufficient conviction. I should have to look at this ad every day for the rest of my life to remind myself to never, ever, even for a second even think about paying a freaking penny to the fashion industry. I mean, I actually really like Dolce & Gabbana’s dresses: had I gotten rich suddenly and had an event to attend, I could possibly have bought one without ever knowing they had glorified gang rape to sell fashion. It just goes to show you how hard it is not to pay people for actively insulting you, for celebrating actual violence against you as SEXXY. You must exercise constant, international vigilance.

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Finally, Foreign Policy released its list of the top 100 public intellectuals this week, and bloggers on all the sites I habitually read have reacted in outrage at the anti-intellectualism of most of these intellectuals. They regret the omission of dozens of more apt choices I’ve never heard of. I can’t follow the debate over this. I do know who a lot of people on FP’s list are, but I don’t know enough about them (or the people they’ve edged out) to be outraged at their inclusion. And that, really, perfectly sums up my intellectual acumen: I am smart and informed enough to read people who know what’s up, but not smart or informed enough to know what’s up myself.