Krystal, the Wonderful, links to an article at Salon by Cole Kazdin about the latest Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue.#

The article is so rich with notable quotables:

The A&F catalog regularly evokes plenty of outrage and numerous boycotts from Christian, conservative and parent groups all over the country. "Everyone has their own hang-up," he says. "We think it's beautiful and gorgeous and we're not offending [anyone]." And he adds that most of the ideas come from the models themselves. "They have a great time and we don't do anything that they don't want to." The "kids," as he refers to them -- almost parentally -- pair up, form friendships, and sometimes have tears in their eyes at the end of the shoot.

But maybe that's because they can't find their clothes. In the catalog, the first sweater doesn't show up until Page 122 and by then, you're too tired from masturbating to shop. But I'm missing the point. The catalog isn't about the clothes. Huh?

[...]

The A&F drones remind me of the group in high school of which I was never a part. While I was rehearsing "The Crucible," they were at lacrosse practice. They threw wild, crazy parties while their neglectful, wealthy parents were out of town skiing. Maybe with the Abercrombie Ski Patrol. Years later, I developed an enormous prejudice and decided these kids were lame and often lazy and their successes were usually owed to their parents' connections and legacies. For some reason that made me think of George Bush.

Krystal comments:

I really liked the article. I feel kind of gross though. I don't buy the clothes to feel like the girl in the middle of the circle jerk. And I hope I'm not unconciously associated with those girls when I wear the clothes. I think it's a terrible way to market their line. It may be ok for the frat jerks and sorority sluts who are into that kind of thing (Not that I'm saying all frats and sororities are like that. I'm kind of biased, so sue me.), but it just seems so sleazy to me. Sleazy never used to be something I associated with A&F.

I'm almost embarassed to own anything Abercrombie. No, I am definately embarrassed to own anything Abercrombie.

Christopher Lydon linked me to Bill Moyer's speech at TruthOut about Media Reform.#

Free and responsible government by popular consent just can't exist without an informed public. That's a cliché, I know, but I agree with the presidential candidate who once said that truisms are true and clichés mean what they say (an observation that no doubt helped to lose him the election.) It's a reality: democracy can't exist without an informed public. Here's an example: Only 13% of eligible young people cast ballots in the last presidential election. A recent National Youth Survey revealed that only half of the fifteen hundred young people polled believe that voting is important, and only 46% think they can make a difference in solving community problems. We're talking here about one quarter of the electorate. The Carnegie Corporation conducted a youth challenge quiz of l5-24 year-olds and asked them, "Why don't more young people vote or get involved?" Of the nearly two thousand respondents, the main answer was that they did not have enough information about issues and candidates. Let me rewind and say it again: democracy can't exist without an informed public. So I say without qualification that it's not simply the cause of journalism that's at stake today, but the cause of American liberty itself. As Tom Paine put it, "The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth." He was talking about the cause of a revolutionary America in 1776. But that revolution ran in good part on the energies of a rambunctious, though tiny press. Freedom and freedom of communications were birth-twins in the future United States. They grew up together, and neither has fared very well in the other's absence. Boom times for the one have been boom times for the other.

[...]

As Alexis de Tocqueville noted, these many blooming journals kept even rural Americans amazingly well informed. They also made it possible for Americans to exercise one of their most democratic habits — that of forming associations to carry out civic enterprises. And they operated against the dreaded tyranny of the majority by letting lonely thinkers know that they had allies elsewhere. Here's how de Tocqueville put it in his own words:

It often happens in democratic countries that many men who have the desire or directed toward that light, and those wandering spirits who had long sought each other the need to associate cannot do it, because all being very small and lost in the crowd, they do not see each other and do not know where to find each other. Up comes a newspaper that exposes to their view the sentiment or the idea that had been presented to each of them simultaneously but separately. All are immediately in the shadows finally meet each other and unite.

Strange Women Lying in Ponds links to Bill Safire on Gay Marriage.#

The conservative in me wonders: if equal rights can be assured by civil union, why are some gays pushing so hard for the word "marriage"?

The answer is that the ancient word conveys a powerful message. Civil union connotes toleration of homosexuality, with its attendant recognition of an individual's civil rights; but marriage connotes society's full approval of homosexuality, with previous moral judgment reversed.

The pace of profound cultural change is too important to be left to activist judges. As moral-political issues go, this big one deserves examination in communities with minds that can deal with internal contradictions — which is the libcon way.

This is an issue orthogonal to when slavery was abolished or women were given the right to vote. There was always a fundamental contradiction in the law, but there was not enough public outrage for some time before the laws were amended. It will require people not processes to make this change. Are the people ready and willing?

Richard links to Alessandra Stalney in the New York Times on Television and Political Drama.#

Mr. Bush's decision to go to Iraq was a perfect television story, with its heartwarming images of the president, visibly moved, bringing holiday comfort to American soldiers in a war zone. But, a little like Mr. Bush's dramatic landing on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln last spring, the visual catharsis could prove short-lived. Television saturation intensifies but also shortens the impact of even major news events. Once the euphoric surprise wore off, commentators were left with plenty of airtime to probe the symbolism of a president's needing so much security to set foot in a country that he had promised to liberate.

Richard links a great article in the New York Times from Frank Rich about Jackson and the country's "Favourite Pastime." (And it's not baseball.)#

Ms. Spears, her ex-beau Justin Timberlake and her rival Christina Aguilera were all first spotted as pubescent sex symbols when converging as mouseketeers on the Disney Channel's "All New Mickey Mouse Club" in 1993, the year of the last Jackson sex scandal. The media assembly line moved her along from chaste child star to Lolitaesque jailbait in record speed; her trajectory is nothing if not an Internet-time version of Mr. Jackson's progress since his early days as a child star. By 16, Ms. Spears was wearing a Catholic school uniform in the video for her hit ". . . Baby One More Time." Her image, a fusion of sex and dewy ersatz innocence out of the Jackson family playbook, was bought not only by kids who might not know better but by the parents who shelled out for her merchandise.

It's hard to imagine many Americans complaining about Calvin Klein ads anymore. Perhaps pedophilic chic is growing because in a porn-saturated nation, it's the one taboo left (and barely at that). Perhaps it's because of our culture's ever-increasing panic about growing old, as manifested in our favorite new spectator sport, plastic surgery, for which Mr. Jackson is the unfortunate poster boy.

Matt Stoller writes about why Matthew Yglesias doesn't get Deanism or politics.#

It seems to me that Matt is missing something very fundamental about politics, and that is, it's NOT the policy, stupid. Few care solely about policy proposals. Or else Matt would have to be confused about why small government conservatives and free traders revere Bush, and liberal youth loved McCain. Dean is revolutionary for his methods. The idea of policy being primary in political choice these days is actually new, a liberal blind spot, and a proxy for trust in elected officials. Obviously, officials are going to implement policy they can't foresee and promise policy that will turn out to be bad given changed circumstance. This is why the important decision calculus should be methods, how you make decisions, and not what decisions you'll promise to make.

Will Baude links to David Boaz's op-ed in the Washington Post.#

Conservatives used to believe that the U.S. Constitution set up a government of strictly limited powers.

It was supposed to protect us from foreign threats and deliver the mail, leaving other matters to the states or to the private sector -- individuals, families, churches, charities and businesses.

That's what lots of voters assumed they would get with Bush. In his first presidential debate with Al Gore, Bush contrasted his own vision of tax reduction with that of his opponent, who would "increase the size of government dramatically." Gore, Bush declared, would "empower Washington," but "my passion and my vision is to empower Americans to be able to make decisions for themselves in their own lives."

Bush was tapping into popular sentiment.

Adam wonders if "Dave Winer vs. Everyone [has] to be so much like AM talk radio?"#

I'm mentally throwing my hands up. I simply don't get Dave Winer. On the one hand, he praises weblogs for their self-checking nature: if someone gets a fact wrong, it is "fact-checked" and then the incorrect weblogger points to the correction and moves on. On the other hand, when Kasia corrected him about the security of Linux, he made a minor capitulation of his incorrectness, but then fired back at Linux. Why is that necessary?

Further, Dave always grills old-media for getting facts wrong. He says he wants to start a friendly conversation aimed at getting facts right and setting up a process for putting revisions in place when information is bungled. But then, when the process works on him, he just fires back. Why is this necessary?

Xian in the comments:

That's kind of silly. In a large way, Dave is very good at communicating over the Internet. Like everyone, he has flaws, and his success at publicizing his views has also - in some eyes - magnified those flaws.

Ross Mayfield on lobbying and Emergent Democracy.#

Today the US has an unconstructive balance between Institutional and Individualized Pluralism. Weakened parties reduce longer-term best interest decisions. Lobbying only is effective in highly organized groups on select issues that resonate for deep dedication and financial backing. And where lobbying groups do not achieve critical mass, decision makers rely short term polling of sentiment. The majority of the U.S. doesn't participate in the party system nor special interest groups. This lack of participation results in a disenfranchised public and ineffective government of both long and short-term issues.

If simple tools could decrease the cost of organization as well as enable a transactional norm between organizations, a new form of pluralism could arise. Emergent Pluralism depicts a society whose members who have institutional loyalties to easily form issue groups that have direct interaction their elected representatives and the media.

Blaster writes about whether you should be fighting for yourself, or against your enemy.#

When politicians act on hatred of success, they do themselves and their constituents a major disservice. Especially when they act solely on that motivation. The Republicans in Congress were actually able to overcome that under President Clinton. They continued to move on welfare reform, even though in the end it became a political feather in President Clinton's cap. They did it because it was the right thing to do. The Democrats in Congress, and the candidates for Presidential nomination, haven't figured that out. The Democrat opposition to the recent Medicare bill was a case in point. Despite the fact that they wanted it for their constituents, they were willing to attempt a filibuster simply to deny President Bush a victory. Not for a win of their own, just a chance to thwart the President. All of the Democrat candidates should be hoping for US progress in Iraq and continuing growth in the economy, even if it diminishes their own political chances. They should be saying that they, too, send their best wishes to the troops in Iraq, and applaud the President's visit, or at least not criticize it.

Jim Moore writes about rising stars and how they should behave or rather, what their options are.#

When fame strikes, Stevie [Wonder at Harvard Law School in 1984] said, each of us have just three choices. We can reject fame, in which case eventually the world turns away and the power of celebrity-hood goes away. We can accept fame and use it's special energy for our own selfish ends. Stevie Wonder noted that doing this usually drives the person insane. (Hmmm, so that's what happens..)

Or we can accept fame but consciously turn it's energy around and give generously to others. We can become redirectors of energy. In the blog world, I suppose this includes redirecting of "flow." And it also means using our leadership opportunities to build the community, not to build just ourselves and our allies.

Alex Halavais describes what the future is like for Communications undergraduates.#

The number one post-graduation employment in our major, retail. That's something we don't advertise much. It's not entirely our fault. Communication has traditionally been a catch-all for business and computer science drop-outs, as well as the sustaining academic wing of the football team on some campuses. On the other hand, I am perhaps the worst defender of our undergraduate program. I would never want my own kid to go through our program, and if you look at where our faculty send their own children, you'll find I'm not alone. We don't do professional preparation—because we're a "research" institution—but we also have students who have never had to write a full paper in their undergraduate careers.

I really like the look of Baraita. It's very simple.#

Betsy Devine responds to Richard and I on whether search engines make 'us' more intelligent.#

Search engines can also make us smarter by introducing us to websites we wouldn't otherwise find.

[...]

So, when I say search engines can make people smarter, I don't mean that they can answer every question or turn the internet into a perfect place. I just mean that they can help us solve problems, some of them important, that would be very much harder to solve without them.

I agree with this. Search Engines are certainly useful and functional, but you have to be careful not to say they are panacea or a replacement for what is already out there. Certainly somethings they are a replacement for - but they are most supplementary.

One interesting thing to me, however, is that when they perform the same functions as old-World tools they often bring different values to the table. For example, generally what you will find on the Internet is free to access - at least the searching is - contrast this with the expensive subscription search databases for newspapers and journal articles. Different values, similar results.

Richard responds:

Other questions you can answer with search engine data: what's the phone number of the local chapter of the white pride association? (I found the answer in 3 minutes using a search engine. I had to "settle" for an email address, though.) Which abortion doctors should I kill? (Took longer than expected, but I did find an essay defending the practice, which would probably be "good enough".) Where can I find child pornography? (Not gonna bother.)

[...]

I'm just saying that, just like everything else, search engines introduce costs to society as well as benefits.

Adam Gessaman announces the New York Times RSS Link Archive.#

Randy on the Art of Conversation.#

Debates across Weblogs suffer from much the same communication breakdowns that occur in regular conversation. But the breakdowns are amplified because response is never immediate. This leads to a broken conversation where one individual fails to remember what he said in each iteration of the conversation. The conversation leads nowhere.

I remember debating with my first university roommate and his girlfriend. The debates didn't get anywhere because we'd fail to set axioms. Axioms are important. Without axioms, you can always question the assumptions underlying any proof. Unless you can agree that some assumptions are true (axioms), then you can always argue any topic into the ground. For instance, yesterday, I listened in on a debate of whether 1 + 1 = 2.

Ryan Overbey writes about the conflicted, confused world of religious study and his opinions on if there should be public funding for his efforts.#

So now we have an absolute mess. We have theologians who don't go into ministry- they study the subject as history, as philosophy. It makes perfect sense to give an atheist money to study theology, right? It's not like the atheist who studies Augustine will end up joining the priesthood. But what about giving money to an evangelical to study theology, when there is a clear intent to start a ministry? A tougher nut to crack. Then there are those of us in Religious Studies- should we get public money? Sure, we teach about religion. We don't teach religion. But what of the legions of Tibetan Buddhist scholars who, in order to gain access to texts and methods of reading those texts, actually join Tibetan Buddhist orders? Would you give public money for Robert Thurman to teach Buddhism at your university?

And round and round we go. My final position on this is all about pragmatics. The 1963 decision gave Religious Studies a chance to exist, to grow, and to prosper. We are a young discipline. In order to continue growing and prospering, in order to maintain our presence in public institutions, it is in our interest to maintain the appearance of strict separation from theology. I actually think it is possible to have a thriving, secular, social-scientific study of religion. On the other hand, I also think that theological questions are unavoidable. You cannot honestly study a religious tradition without seriously evaluating its claims.

I think this is so fascinating. It's very easy to become conflicted about religion. (Wow, congratulations to Mr. Obvious.) On one hand, I think it is very strange that the State would not encourage the study of the oldest and most influential human tradition. But on the other, there is the whole dilemma of the separation of Church and State and whether you are encourage/supporting foundation of religious institutions.

I'm very glad Ryan gets me to think about these things. And rather timely too, because I've just started reading Purgatio which has a lot to do with Dante's philosophies of the Spiritual and the Physical powers of the world should interact.

Stirling Newberry at Draft Clark on media.#

The problem with the establishment media is that they have to sell to people on both sides of the partisan divide. As George Lakoff makes clear, this creates a frame - all one side has to do is make the truth unacceptable, and it becomes unprintable. Let us face facts, it is the Republican party which is at the root of the incivility and corruption, it is the reactionary media that they pay for that supports and excuses it, and this basic instability is driving the anger on the left.

Without a pulling back from the brink, there is not merely gridlock, but violence, in the future - the kind of violence that the Republicans have already threatened to use, and seem to have no compunction about using when necessary. Since violence is both bad for government and bad for business - a means of defanging, as opposed to appeasing, the pattern of reactionary lies and hostility must be found.

Dave Winer thinks Democrats should considering actually standing for something.#

And remind me please, why Iraq, of all countries? Why not China or Burma or East Timor? Or South Africa, Liberia, Ghana or Namibia? The Ukraine or Georgia? What about Argentina? Venezuela? Mexico? Pakistan and India. Is Iraq the only country that needed our help? Couldn't our billions have done more good elsewhere? Did so many Americans have to die? Is it a coincidence that we have an Oil Company President? I'm sorry. This shit is keeping me up at night. Forget about stupid, they must think we're total complete morons to fall for this bullshit. One more thing, how are we going to get out? I can only think of one way, elect a Democrat who makes an explicit pledge to do exactly that. The Democrats are pretty gutless. Al Sharpton puts it well. By fighting for the center the Democrats have lost Congress, the Senate, the White House and the Supreme Court. Maybe it would be a good time to actually stand for something? Just a thought.