Is There a Right To Comment Anonymously?

For the record, this post isn't written in response to anything that's happened on this site. Barring anything unforeseen, I don't expect to in any way hamper anonymous commenting on this site. And while I know theoretically it's possible to track down someone's identity via their IP address, I neither know nor care to know how to go about that.

But I do wonder whether or not people have any reasonable expectation of maintaining their anonymity when they comment on someone else's blog. I fully acknowledge and respect the right of people to start their own blog anonymously. There are many people who, for a variety of reasons, either couldn't or wouldn't write if their identities were publicly known. I read many of these bloggers myself, and I know the blogosphere is better for it. But that's at their own place. What about at other blogs? Is the blog-host who threatens to expose an abusive, trollish, or otherwise hostile anonymous commenter completely out of line?

On the one hand, it is obvious that not guaranteeing anonymity would deter certain people from commenting -- most notably the aforementioned people who blog anonymously. While I actually know of some anonymous bloggers who leave comments under their real name (but who don't link their name to their anonymous blog), many would be uncomfortable even with that. And furthermore, this strategy still blocks participation by their anonymous personas. A comment by "PG" is more meaningful than one by "Pam Gomez" (name deliberately chosen so that it has no chance of being anything close to PG's actual name, which I don't know), because even though they're the same person, I can link PG to her broader array of work, while I have no idea who Pam Gomez is.

On the other hand, anonymity has its fair share of problems. For one, if my blog is my house, I kind of have a right to know who is visiting -- particularly if they are slinging muck my way. People undoubtedly behave worse when they don't feel accountable to their real-world reputation. And, stepping across another line, if someone is being stalked or harassed online, anonymity can be very dangerous. Some blogs which depend on their commenters for credible, inside information (like Brian Leiter's) often don't allow anonymous comments at all because they aren't as trustworthy.

I think the norms of the blogosphere have developed so that, unless specifically told otherwise, an anonymous commenter can expect that her anonymity will be preserved unless specifically told otherwise. I do, however, think it is within a blogger's rights to warn an offensive commenter that, if she returns, her anonymity is forfeit. My house, my rules, so long as I give fair notice.

Prospect In, Prospect Out

There is some movement amongst the blogosphere hordes coming up. Tomorrow, the stable of American Prospect blogs will add a new member as Ezra Klein departs from his old gigs and finds a new home on their website. Klein's excellent set of weekend bloggers is not following him there, but is regrouping with some new members to form Cogitamus, which should be excellent (and has already been added to the blogroll). So congrats to Klein on his promotion, and I look forward to following him and his former co-bloggers to their new homes.

Meanwhile, Garance Franke-Ruta is departing the American Prospect for a new position at the Washington Post as their national web politics editor/producer. She is shuttering her old site, and I don't know if she'll be providing any public commentary in the new role. So while I'm certainly glad that my favorite newspaper is availing itself of her considerable talents, I'll certainly miss her own distinctive voice. But nonetheless, another round of congratulations to her.

Know Thyself

Over at Concurring Opinions, Frank Pasquele blogs on a presentation by a Silicon Valley entrepreneur on privacy in cyberspace. He made a bunch of interesting points, but I thought his most interesting demand was this:

You should know more about yourself than anyone else knows about you.

Consumers should have the right to find out what data is being collected about them. As a consumer, you should be able to go to DoubleClick, AdBrite, Advertising.com, Google, Yahoo, Aggregate Knowledge, etc. and a list of all the websites that track you. You should be able to go to Choicepoint, Experian, Acxiom, Rapleaf, etc. and see all the data they collect on you. . . . And you should be able to access this data for free at anytime.

I had never thought of this. But now that it's been said, it strikes me as completely intuitive. Nobody should have more information on me than I do. Why shouldn't this be a rule?

Let's Do The Time Warp Again

It's Pretend to be a Time Traveler day! Only you can't actually tell people you're a time traveler -- that'd make you crazy. Instead, try these helpful suggestions:

- If you go the "prisoner who's escaped the future" try shaving your head and putting a barcode on the back of your neck. Then stagger around and stare at the sky, as if you've never seen it before.

- Walk up to random people and say "WHAT YEAR IS THIS?" and when they tell you, get quiet and then say "Then there's still time!" and run off.

- Stand in front of a statue (any statue, really), fall to your knees, and yell "NOOOOOOOOO"

- Stare at newspaper headlines and look astonished.

- Take some trinket with you (it can be anything really), hand it to some stranger, along with a phone number and say "In thirty years dial this number. You'll know what to do after that." Then slip away.

Funny, if slightly mean-spirited. Via my ex-roommate's girlfriend's father (Luuuuke....).

Martha Nussbaum Interview

She talks to The Guardian, and solidifies her well-established reputation as a total baller (that's a good thing).

Freedom to Not Believe

Trying to derail a certain segment of the population who doesn't want to vote for a candidate of his religion, Mitt Romney decides to slander those who hold no religion instead.

"What he is trying to say is 'I am a person of faith. Forget the fact what my faith is, that I am a Mormon. You might be Christian. You might be Jewish. I'm a person of faith. I believe in God,' " Martin said.

Romney said religion is essential to freedom, without pointing to any specific faith.

"Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone," the GOP contender said.

I hate this. I hate that Romney feels comfortable telling a significant portion of the population -- including many of my friends -- is incapable of grasping or maintaining freedom. I hate that he'll probably get wonderful coverage of his speech anyway. I hate that Romney was compelled to give this speech because certain people don't think his religious creed is suitable to lead America, and I hate that he decided to pander to that group rather than repudiate them. I hate that, insofar as it plays into things at all, excluding atheists from the American creed will probably give him a bump in the polls. I hate how it forces my religiosity into a state of conflict with my irreligious peers.

It's sickening to me.

I have friends who are Jewish, and I have friends who are Christian. I have friends who are Hindu and Muslim and Buddhist and Animist and atheist, and friends who are still deciding. All of them understand the blessing of liberty. All of them know the meaning of respect, and dignity, and morality, and freedom. They are righteous individuals to a person, regardless of creed. And I speak as someone who does believe that we all carry a spark of the divine in them -- you do not insult my peers, my colleagues, my friends, and do it under the banner of religious freedom. That slanders the name of religion and poisons my faith.

Boxing Blogging: Mayweather/Hatton Preview

The first boxing card I've ever bought on PPV (Chanukah present from my parents) will be this Saturday -- headlined by the highly anticipated bout between pound-for-pound number one Floyd Mayweather, Jr. and Ricky "Hitman" Hatton.

I may be the only person who is actively rooting for Mayweather to win. I don't like his arrogant, bad-boy act anymore than the next guy (though it is without a doubt an act). But, as a wise man said, it's not ego if you can back it up, and Mayweather really is that good. He wins his bouts because he is simply better than anybody else in the sport. It's why he can beat an elite fighter like Oscar De La Hoya 24 pounds and four weight divisions heavier than when he turned pro. It's not because he's a naturally big guy. It's because he has amazing skills. Put simply, I respect anyone who is that good. It's the same reason I like Roger Federer.

Ricky Hatton is an excellent fighter, but he does not strike me as being at that level. Part of it is bad luck: the opportunities he's had to impress have all turned out to have asterisks attached (through no fault of Hatton's). His last fight against Jose Luis Castillo, which was supposed to erase all doubts about whether Hatton was for real, turned out to demonstrate merely that Castillo was totally shot as a fighter. Yes, Hatton's body shot KO was sweet. But I saw that fight, and it's not like Castillo was competitive prior to that. Even Hatton's biggest victory, against Kostya Tszyu, came with the same problem: Tszyu retired after that bout, and folks wondered if Hatton could have beaten him in his prime. Meanwhile, Hatton has shown far more vulnerability than Mayweather has. While I think the weight issue is overblown (Hatton has been a lifelong junior welterweight, while Mayweather turned pro as a junior lightweight), it is true that Hatton struggled mightily in his only fight at 147 lbs., against Luis Collazo (a fight he arguably lost). Mayweather, by contrast, hasn't even been threatened in a fight since 2002 against a prime Jose Luis Castillo. I have to admit, I'm kind of enjoying Mayweather's current run, where he sits at the top of boxing and just fights elite boxers -- titles be damned. Indeed, I kind of hope after this fight that Mayweather moves back down in weight -- if he could make it back 135 lbs., there are all sorts of fantastic match-ups available (and Floyd actually has power in that weight class). Mayweather versus Juan Diaz? Mayweather versus Manny Pacquiao!?! I'd love it. And even if stays in the welterweight division, him facing Miguel Cotto would be every bit as amazing.

And the final reason I'm rooting for Mayweather is that Hatton's style bugs me. In recent bouts, he's gone back to "hook and hold", which is unbelievably dull. It could be effective against Floyd -- the wrestling will wear him down, and the grabbing will prevent him from moving -- but it would be a cheap way to a victory. I hope the referee doesn't let him do it. If Floyd wins, he'll do it by being pretty, while if Hatton wins, he'll make it look ugly. The aesthete in me prefers the former, greatly.

Of course, I'd be remiss if I forgot the undercard to this match-up. Honestly, it's not the best one I've seen. Assuming his injury is totally healed, I think Jeff Lacy should tear through Peter Manfredo, who just isn't at the level Lacy is. Sure, Lacy got schooled by Joe Calzaghe (as did, lest we forget, Manfredo), but as the Welshman's fight against Miguel Kessler showed, that's because Calzaghe is a bona fide top five pound-for-pound fighter. There is no shame in losing to him like that. Manfredo is over-hyped due to The Contender. Lacy at least has the potential to be the real thing.

I don't know anything about Eduardo Escobedo. I do know his opponent, Daniel Ponce de Leon, and what I've seen is scary. Ponce de Leon is a blistering puncher, with unbelievable one-punch power. It's arguable that Rey Bautista should have gotten a bit more seasoning before going in with Ponce de Leon, but he was undefeated and not nobody. He got taken apart viciously inside of one round. Maybe Escobedo has the skills to stand up and take Ponce de Leon's shots. But I'd be surprised.

Finally, there is a rematch between Edner Cherry and Wes Ferguson. I saw fight number one, and while it was an entertaining scrap (won by Cherry), I didn't see anything in it that demanded a rematch, nor much reason to expect Ferguson could turn it around this time. Neither one has much power, but Cherry has more than Ferguson does, and Cherry likes to fight rough. The upshot is that he can get inside at will, and Ferguson doesn't possess the lead to keep him off. When Ferguson switched from trying to box to trading, he ended up worse as well. Still, Ferguson is a Mayweather protege, which makes him somewhat of a house fighter, and he clearly wants revenge, so we could see a fight.

One more thing. While I think Mayweather will win the fight, boxing is a fickle sport, and for some reason I think that the powers-that-be are tired of Mayweather ruling his perch. If it goes to a decision (as seems likely) and it's in any way close, I wouldn't be surprised if Hatton takes it "controversially". That would be a huge black eye for the sport.

Alright With Me

I'm a bit behind the ball on this one, but I wanted to point to Fred Thompson's response to grumblings from the religious right that he is insufficiently religious:

Thompson dismissed those comments, saying "I'm OK with the Lord, and the Lord is OK with me as far as I can tell."

I note this because I think it's a good answer, particularly given the political forces must be pushing Thompson in a much more aggressive direction. After all, Thompson was originally recruited into the race as the Christian conservative candidate -- a niche he hasn't done a good job filling. Yet, Thompson resisted the temptation to engage in the classic warrior-for-Christ type language that seems so common in the GOP, in favor of a much more relaxed, low-key answer. I appreciate that.

Of course, it's probably politically foolish. But I've noticed that about the Republican field -- any time they do something I like, it invariably is the sort of thing that will hurt them in the primary.

Chanukah Happenings

As any good Jew could tell you, today is the first night of Chanukah. Driving to pick up my Nana, the local rock station was playing a "Jewish rock marathon", which amused me. But it turns out we represent pretty well. Slash of Guns and Roses? Saul Hudson (only half Jewish, but still). Joey Ramone? Jeff Hyman. And of course, the lead singer for Disturbed is David Draimen, who was raised Orthodox Jewish.

I'm generally a difficult guy to shop for, as there is rarely anything I really want. This year though, I actually had some desires, and I kind of implicitly cashed on being such an easy mark the prior years to convince the parents to spring for an X-Box 360. Excellent.

Tomorrow, I'm going to visit the brother at UVA (and catch the 'Hoos playing Syracuse). So that should be treat as well.

Happy holidays, everyone!

Alabama Black Community Splits on Obama, Clinton

From the Huntsville Times, two prominent elements of Alabama's Black political community have split on whether to endorse Illinois Senator Barack Obama, or New York Senator Hillary Clinton. The Alabama Democratic Conference had already endorsed Clinton back in October, but the Alabama New South Coalition responded Saturday by giving Obama the nod.

By itself, this is fine. The Black community consists of mature voters, and they, along with everyone else, are free to decide that any candidate is the most qualified, would best protect their interests, and would overall be the best President. Obama does not have a lock on these votes, nor should he. He has to earn them.

Rather, I am distressed by the stated reasons some members of Alabama's Black community have for withholding their support from Obama:

Before the endorsement vote, Perry County Commissioner Albert Turner praised Obama's qualifications, but urged the group to support Clinton.

"The question you have to put forth to yourself is that whether or not in this racist country a black man named Obama — when we are shooting at Osama — can win the presidency of the United States?" Turner said.

I can't say I blame Mr. Turner. Certainly, Black Americans in Alabama have every right to be skeptical of their White compatriots.

But nonetheless, that hurts me. It hurts me that Black Americans think my peers and I would not even consider Senator Obama on his merits. Again, I can't blame Commissioner Turner: he's the one who has to deal with the fallout when White people vote on racist grounds, and I can't blame him for adopting whatever strategy he thinks is most likely to help his people and bring them forward. But I read passages like that, and all I want to do is prove him wrong. I really think that Obama is the type of candidate that can change things with regard to race in America, if only given the chance.

Just give us the chance....

If You Want It, You Can't Have It

Dwight D. Eisenhower related a story that happened to him when he was a kid. He was sitting with his best friend by the creek, and his friend asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. Ike replied that he wanted to be a baseball player -- a genuine professional like Honus Wagner. His friend responded that he wanted to be President of the United States. "Neither of us," Eisenhower reflected ruefully, "got our wish."

Hillary Clinton is literally using an essay Obama wrote in kindergarten, saying that he wanted to be president, against him in the primaries. I understand where she's coming from -- Obama has been jabbing at her for being too overt in her desire for the presidency. But this strike back smacks of absurdism.I know Hillary's great asset as a campaigner is that she lets no attack go unanswered. But she needs to at least train her fire more accurately -- the other anecdotes she has about Obama's early Presidential ambitions (say, the one's that date after college) are fair game. His elementary school education? Less so.

Meanwhile, I'm beginning to think my greatest qualification to become United States President is that I never wanted to be it as a kid. Not that I want it now. But if my country needs me, I guess I could be convinced to serve.

:-(

Via

Democracy Wins Vote By a Thread

Well I'll be. Venezuelan voters have rejected a proposal promoted by President Hugo Chavez that would have drastically increased his presidential powers, as well as moving the state towards full-blown socialism. This, in case anybody had a doubt, would have been a bad thing.

I'm surprised, primarily because I didn't think Chavez was interested in a fair vote. But I stand corrected -- his package of amendments lost 51-49%, and he has pledged to abide by the results.

Fog of Faux-Warriors

I just finished reading Franklin Foer's "Fog of War" piece, his final explanation of the entire Scott Beauchamp saga. After painstakingly documenting how the magazine checked and rechecked the story, Foer concluded that "we cannot be confident that the events in his pieces occurred in exactly the manner that he described them. Without that essential confidence, we cannot stand by these stories."

I don't think I ever blogged on this controversy before. I don't recall doing so, and a search through my archives for "Beauchamp" yielded nothing. I don't have a dog in this hunt. Hence, I feel like I was able to read Foer's article with a relatively open mind. It demonstrates the type of complete, thorough investigation conservative bloggers have been screaming for for months on end. Judging from their reaction, it is clear that a cohesive look into Beauchamp's articles is the last thing they wanted. (here's, e.g., Powerline, Malkin, Astute Blogger)

Let's be clear. TNR took a lot of heat on this story -- far more than was ever justified even if Beauchamp turned out to be a total liar. It would have been very easy for them to just throw him to the wolves entirely and watch the heat dissipate. Instead, they decided to actually try and figure out what happened -- no mean feat when the subject is first person accounts of events that occurred in a war-zone (a war which, it might bear repeating, is still on-going).

The results of their investigation make a few things clear. First, with the exception of keeping Elspeth Reeves as the primary fact-checker after she married Beauchamp (they were friends when he started writing for TNR, and married later), TNR did nothing wrong. They fact-checked the stories as best they could, they did the effort to corroborate them from outside sources. There are limits to what a magazine could reasonably have been expected to do, and The New Republic in no way cut corners on its journalistic responsibility.

Second, Beauchamp's stories are still quite plausible. Even the one clear error -- the jokes about the woman with burns on her face at the forward base in Iraq -- looks to have been a genuine error, not a deliberate lie. The story was traced and corroborated to have occurred, only in Kuwait prior to the war, not Iraq. This is not a meaningless error, as the story was used to illustrate the way that war corrupts the minds of soldiers, and if it occurred prior to entering combat, this makes no sense. But the fact that the story likely did happen makes it more likely this was an innocent error with times mixed up than a deliberate effort at fabrication. Beyond that, none of Beauchamp's accounts have been shown to be wrong. They have in no way been "debunked" or proven false. As Foer said, Beauchamp's accounts were corroborated independently by nearly an entire company of fellow soldiers. By contrast, the supposed recantations were done under considerable duress -- there is simply no way to take seriously the kind of coerced statements the army managed to drag out of Beauchamp's platoon mates. I dare say that after reading Foer's reports, he did not have to retract the stories at all. This isn't to say we know what Beauchamp said is true -- in such a situation, we have no way of knowing, and the people who acted as if we were going to find out clear-as-day were deluding themselves. Foer's standard, "essential confidence" that every event Beauchamp described "occurred in exactly the manner that he described them," is laudably high -- indeed, likely impossible for a first-person war story to meet. Certainly, conceding that Beauchamp's tale did not reach it is hardly the same thing as calling him a liar. Hence, anybody who claims that TNR has "admitted" that Beauchamp is a liar or a fabricator is the only known liar or fabricator in the discussion.

Virtually none of the conservative bloggers I read on this story expressed the remotest interest in Foer's actual investigation. Far from it -- they mocked it incessantly. They accused him of simply trying to save his own skin (from who?), or of double-speak. Undoubtedly, this is because the investigation shows that TNR had more than enough evidence to run these pieces, and when faced with critique, they underwent a rigorous retrace of every pertinent detail to find the truth. Their conservative interlocutors, by contrast, showed no rigor and no interest in truth -- content to take selectively leaked military reports as dogma and amateur blogger investigations as articles of faith. It was embarrassing to read then, and it is even more embarrassing now, in the face of a true effort like Foer's.

From the start, I suspected that the conservative outrage over Beauchamp's articles stemmed from two primary sources, neither of which was particularly conducive to finding out the truth. The first was a desire to pin a liberal skull to their wall, and the second was a child-like belief that American soldiers could do no wrong -- the same mentality that led them to dismiss Abu Gharib, the same mentality that leads them to deny even today the overwhelming evidence of American complicity (if not outright participation) in torture. Their writings throughout these past few months have done nothing to dissuade me of that notion and a lot to strengthen it. It is immature, it is juvenile, and it is far more of a black mark on their integrity than anything The New Republic will come away with.

Women Are Not Like Cows. Sex Is Not Like Milk

Bridget Crawford on the well-worn (and worn-out) expression. Offensive for many reasons, the one Prof. Crawford focuses on is how it treats women like a commodity. My girlfriend would rightfully slap me if I called her a cow, and do not conceive our relationship, or any relationship I might have, progressing to the point where I would "buy" her (and if I ever did start thinking along those lines, I'd hope she'd break up with me immediately).

But beyond that, "why buy the cow when the milk is free" acts as if sex is the only thing a woman has to offer a man. While I certainly think sexuality is an important part of a relationship, at least for me there are many other wonderful things that come from being in a relationship. Companionship. Emotional support. Fidelity. I could go on. It's unbelievably objectifying to act as if that one attribute is the only thing of value a woman has that a man might want. And, I might add, it displays a pretty degrading view of men, to think we're that shallow. It's amazing how my gender loves to revel in how backward we can be (anyone who's seen a beer commercial knows what I'm talking about).

Women are not cows. Nor are they talking sex toys. They're real people.

No Place

I'm always torn about negotiating with Hamas. On the one hand, it wouldn't be a negotiation if they weren't on the other side. You got to deal with the people in front of you. If the Palestinians were represented by a group that was friendly and positive towards the Israelis and the Jews, then we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.

On the other hand, it's difficult to negotiate with someone who doesn't think your state's existence is legitimate in the first place:

To mark sixty years since the United Nations plan for the partition of Palestine, Palestinian militant Islamic movement Hamas called Thursday for the UN to rescind the decision which led to the establishment of the State Israel, Army Radio reported.

"It is not shameful to correct a mistake. Palestine is Arab-Islamic land from the river to the sea, including Jerusalem, and Jews have no place there," the radio quoted a Hamas statement as saying.

Interesting phrasing. Jews have no place there. I'll keep that in mind.

In the same article, right-wing Israeli cabinet member Avignor Lieberman renewed his call for a land-swap to create a two-state solution. Lieberman still advocates a "transfer" of Israeli-Arab citizens (whether all, or just the one's near the border whose towns could easily be included in a land-swap, is unclear), which is pretty loathsome in its own right. But at least he concedes that there has to be a Palestinian state in the area -- that they do have a "place" between the Jordan and the Mediterranean.

The Future of DADT

Yale Law Professor Jack Balkin blogs on the future of Don't Ask Don't Tell. If 2008 ends with a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President, as seems very probable, then he thinks it's gone. Barring that, things get a bit more fluid. But one interesting side-story is the potential for a court challenge.

Don't Ask Don't Tell has been upheld thus far in every lower court which has heard it. But these decisions all came in the early-mid 90s, when views on gays hadn't progressed as far as they have today. This wouldn't matter, except that there apparently a case pending now before the 1st Circuit (based out of Boston), a reasonably liberal appellate court which could shake the boat. By itself, this wouldn't do much, but the circuit split would greatly enhance the likelihood of Supreme Court review. In that case, all eyes would be on Justice Kennedy (huge surprise, I know), who has written two straight opinions strongly in favor gay rights (Romer v. Evans and the path-breaking Lawrence v. Texas). Nonetheless, the court is generally far more deferential in cases involving the military, so it really is a toss-up.

Though the conciliatory side of me wants this decision to be decided by democratic branches, a big part of my heart wants the courts to be the ones to strike down DADT. It really is a gross insult to gay and lesbian Americans, and wildly inconsistent with equality under the law. I want a paper record of America's Justices explaining that very fact, so in future generations people will have something to point to akin to Brown. Lawrence did that to some extent -- but, social controversy aside, court decisions seem to have different moral weight on our descendants than mere legislation.

Armed Man Hijacks Local Clinton HQ

There was a hostage situation in New Hampshire as an armed man, possibly with a bomb, took over a Hillary Clinton campaign HQ in Rochester, New Hampshire today. Fortunately, it appears the man has finally released the hostages, and now is just engaged in a personal standoff with the police. No word on the man's motivation -- the Washington Post merely says that he has an "unspecified grievance" against the New York Senator.

Let's hope the whole thing can be resolved peacefully.

Musical Bleg

One of the most annoying things in the world to me is knowing a song by tune but not title, and not being able to find it. Normally, I'll just punch the lyrics in a search engine, but that doesn't work for instrumentals.

So I'm enlisting the collective help of the blogosphere in my quest. Does anyone know what the song playing through most of this YouTube video is? (The song I'm talking about starts at 0:48):



It's a pretty well-known song, I've heard it before in many other contexts, but I have no idea how to figure out the title.

Thanks in advance!

UPDATE: We're closer, but not there yet. A commenter identified the song as Lux Aeterna, by Clint Mansell. The problem is that version is strings-only rather slow and mellow -- I'm looking for the one with the cranking guitar strings. I thought that with the title I'd be able to find it no trouble -- but it's still eluding me!

UPDATE II: Found it! Contrary to popular belief, it is actually not Lux Aetnera, although that did get me on the right track. But that version, alas, doesn't have the guitars power chords. This one is a remix, done only for The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers trailer, called "Requiem for a Tower." But if you look for that, you'll only find a chopped up version by the Corner Stone Cues. Here's the real thing.

Thanks!

The Gay General

There's a minor controversy from the latest CNN/YouTube debate, stemming from a question posed by retired Brig. General Keith Kerr. Kerr, who came out as gay after leaving the US Armed Forces, pointedly asked the Republican candidates about the military's policy of excluding openly gay members, specifically why they thought "American men and women in uniform are not professional enough to serve with gays and lesbians." Unsurprisingly, though many were uncomfortable, none responded by repudiating Don't Ask Don't Tell.

But that's not the controversy. Immediately after the debate, it came out that Kerr had links to Hillary Clinton's campaign, where he is an adviser for her on LGBT issues. Kerr is also a member of the Log Cabin Republicans, but it appears that in recent years (undoubtedly due in no small part to this issue) he has been voting Democratic.

I agree that CNN should have done a better job checking Kerr's credentials. It is relevant that he is affiliated with a Democratic campaign, and folks watching the debate have a right to know it. I do not, however, believe that this means Kerr's question should have been excluded. I have no problem with Democrats and Republicans having to answer pointed questions from the other side of the aisle. That strikes me as a feature, not a bug. The goal of these debates isn't to make the candidates comfortable. It's to get them to engage with real Americans which (though I know the partisans have trouble believing it) include folks from both sides. I'd be very interested in hearing the Democrats respond to a pointed query from an anti-gay American, or someone who feels that religion is being chased out of the public square.

So, failures of disclosure notwithstanding, the question and questioner should have stayed. Even conservative blogger James Joyner concedes it was a poignant and appropriate question, source notwithstanding. What bothers me is that it would have been so easy to include Kerr's Democratic conversion into the question and make it better, not worse. Here was his original question:

My name's Keith Kerr, from Santa Rosa, California. I'm a retired brigadier general with 43 years of service. I'm a graduate of the Special Forces Officer Course, the Commanding General Staff Course and the Army War College. And I'm an openly gay man. I want to know why you think that American men and women in uniform are not professional enough to serve with gays and lesbians.

What if it were asked this way?

My name's Keith Kerr, from Santa Rosa, California. I'm a retired brigadier general with 43 years of service. I'm a graduate of the Special Forces Officer Course, the Commanding General Staff Course and the Army War College. Though I have long been Republican, in recent elections I have been compelled to support Democrats for one simple reason. I'm an openly gay man, and I want to know why you think that American men and women in uniform are not professional enough to serve with gays and lesbians.

Just as powerful, and up-front.

Before we leave this topic, I just want to cast a spot-light on Rep. Duncan Hunter's answer to this question:

Rep. Duncan Hunter of California said: "General, thanks for your service, but I believe in what Colin Powell said when he said that having openly homosexual people serving in the ranks would be bad for unit cohesion.

"The reason for that, even though people point to the Israelis and point to the Brits and point to other people as having homosexuals serve, is that most Americans, most kids who leave that breakfast table and go out and serve in the military and make that corporate decision with their family, most of them are conservatives,'' Hunter said.

"They have conservative values, and they have Judeo-Christian values. To force those people to work in a small tight unit with somebody who is openly homosexual goes against what they believe to be their principles, and it is their principles, is I think a disservice to them. I agree with Colin Powell that it would be bad for unit cohesion.''

I may be wildly off base here, but I think Israelis would know something about Judeo-Christian values -- at least, if the "Judeo" part has any meaning whatsoever. If ever there was proof that the term has absolutely no Jewish component at all, Hunter just provided it.

McCain On Muslim Cabinet Members

Reacting to the mini-scandal Mitt Romney caused when he said he would not allow a qualified Muslim to serve in his cabinet, John McCain hit back:

"I’m proud of the Muslims who are currently serving in the United States armed forces," McCain said, "and my sense is that if they can serve in that manner, they can serve in any position of responsibility in America." McCain's comments were provided to us by his advisers.

McCain added: "I just think, appoint the most qualified individuals to positions of responsibility."

McCain's comments today built on his criticism of Romney yesterday: "I think his comment is indicative of how he might govern and I think it's absolutely wrong."

One interesting side note: Saying you won't appoint Muslims to your cabinet certainly isn't something that will hurt you in a GOP primary, so unsurprisingly, none of the other GOP candidates has had any criticism for Romney over this. Only McCain has been willing to go down this path.

Good for McCain (and by extension, shame on other GOP candidates for not taking the same position). Also, aside from it being the right answer substantively, good job framing it as well. This was rhetorically very strong, and unwavering.

McCain oscillates between the "good" McCain, who is not a moderate but is independent and somewhat sensible, and the "bad" McCain, who will sell out his deepest positions for another two points in the polls. I wouldn't support the good McCain; we differ on too many key issues. But I do have some respect for him. This is the good McCain -- a side that has been virtually absent this campaign and whose reputation has taken a drubbing over the past few months. It's hard to feel bad for meta-McCain -- he brought it all down on himself. But I do feel bad for good McCain.

Oh, and quickly on Romney's original comments. I'm inclined to be charitable and think that what he said was a gaffe (though this account by a top Nevada Republican makes me skeptical). I am not, however, inclined to believe that he didn't say it. That I firmly believe is just him lying, and it's truly unfortunate. Finally, major negative points to Captain Ed for totally skirting past the content of Romney's original answer to skewer the questioner.

Chavez Gets Drilled By The New Mexican

New Mexico's second largest paper takes Marty Chavez to the mat. But what's most impressive is that the subject is Chavez's opponent, Tom Udall, refusing to pork barrel the Los Alamos National Lab unless it starts looking at alternative energy solutions.

Udall doesn't want folks out of work any more than Chávez does — or Sen. Domenici, who used his leadership on the Budget, then Energy, committees to keep the gravy train chugging onto Pajarito Mesa.

The recent announcement that LANL would cut 500 to 750 jobs, it seems, would place Udall front and center as the villain — until you consider how many Democrats might agree with him, and disagree with pork-barrel spending of an especially warlike kind. Los Alamos likely will remain trigger-maker to the nation for increasingly sophisticated and massively destructive weapons. Yet America has far more nuclear bombs than it would take to destroy enemies of today and tomorrow. What we don't have is the new energy system we and the rest of the world will need as fossil-fuel consumption soars and supplies of the stuff, inevitably, run short.

Can't our national-lab scientists see that — and do something about it? And if they can't, shouldn't Congress invest in operations that can?

Those are the nationally responsible questions Udall and some of his colleagues are asking; Kennedyesque queries in the form of challenges to mobilize our brightest scientific minds. It's time to transform the systems that make America run.

Udall knows it. And he wants New Mexicans gainfully employed in that pursuit.

Mayor Chávez and most Republicans have yet to recognize the grim challenge of "peak oil" and the global warming it promotes. Against such backward thinking, Tom Udall is a profile in courage.

You expect to hear that out of a blogger -- a blogger who does not live in New Mexico. Most Americans, unsurprisingly, are pork-for-me-but-not-for-thee, and I didn't expect New Mexico's papers to be any exception (and Los Alamos is far easier to defend than most pork projects!). So kudos to Udall for making the ballsy call, and kudos to the New Mexican for giving him credit in such unreserved language.

But Does It Work For Law School Apps?

Orly Lobel links to this funny rejection of a rejection letter:

Herbert A. Millington
Chair - Search Committee
412A Clarkson Hall
Whitson University
College Hill, MA 34109

Dear Professor Millington,

Thank you for your letter of March 16. After careful consideration, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me an assistant professor position in your department.

This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually large number of rejection letters. With such a varied and promising field of candidates it is impossible for me to accept all refusals.

Despite Whitson's outstanding qualifications and previous experience in rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet my needs at this time. Therefore, I will assume the position of assistant professor in your department this August. I look forward to seeing you then.

Best of luck in rejecting future applicants.

Sincerely,

Chris L. Jensen

I suspect this will be useful to have in my back pocket in the coming months.

Minow on Difference and Categories

From the start of Martha Minow's fantastic book, Making All The Difference: Inclusion, Exclusion, and American Law (Ithaca: Cornell UP 1991):

When we analyze, we simplify. We break complicated perceptions into discrete items or traits. We identify the items and call them chair, table, cat, and bed. We sort them into categories that already exist: furniture and animal. It sounds familiar. It also sounds harmless. I do not think it is.

I believe we make a mistake when we assume that the categories we use for analysis just exist and simply sort our experiences, perceptions, and problems through them. When we identify one thing as like others, we are not merely classifying the world; we are investing particular classifications with consequences and positioning ourselves in relation to those meanings. When we identify one thing as unlike the others, we are dividing the world; we use our language to exclude, to distinguish—to discriminate. This last word may be the one that most recognizably raises the issues about which I worry. Sometimes, classifications express and implement prejudice, racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism, intolerance for difference. Of course, there are ‘real differences’ in the world; each person differs in countless ways from each other person. But when we simplify and sort, we focus on some traits rather than others, and we assign consequences to the presence and absence of traits we make significant. We ask, ‘What’s the new baby?”—and we expect as an answer, boy or girl. That answer, for most of history, has spelled consequences for the roles and opportunities available to that individual. And when we respond to person’s traits rather than their conduct, we may treat a given trait as a justification for excluding someone we think is ‘different.’ We feel no need for further justification: we attribute the consequences to the [*4] differences we see. We neglect the other traits that may be shared. And we neglect how each of us, too, may be 'different.'(3-4).

This doesn't mean we can avoid categorizing things. As Angela Harris notes at the start of her own article, Race and Essentialism in Feminist Legal Theory [42 Stan. L. Rev. 581 (1990)], the world would collapse into incoherence if we did. It merely means that categorizing things is problematic. It has moral implications that we need to be aware of, and potentially pernicious effects that we need to be prepared to counteract. That can only happen if we're cognizant of the problem.

Geography Challenge

This was a pleasantly addicting game. Obviously, knowing the countries helps a lot (except that time it identified a place as being in Norway, and it turned out it was some island they owned in the south Atlantic Ocean). But unless it's a small country, there's still plenty of room for skill (and luck). And it is an awesome feeling squeezing out a passing score because you actually do know exactly where Ushuaia is.

Fortunately, I was able to squeak out a victory on my fourth try, so it won't suck down any more time I hope.

The Real Reason To Say No To Giuliani

Steve Benen has the scoop on the latest Giuliani scandal to hit -- this one having to do with him using official resources to conduct (and cover up) his affair with Judith Regan Nathan (too many scandals, too little time....).

Eh. I mean, maybe I'm just jaded. But while I certainly find this very distasteful, it annoys me that we have to use this has the route to derail his campaign. Giuliani is a nut. He has authoritarian instincts, a foreign policy that seems to consisted of blowing up any country that winks at us the wrong way, and really just doesn't seem to have the skill set needed to be an effective President. I'd be far happier if that became the reason his campaign lost steam.

Too idealist, I guess.

Law School Brochure Blogging

[This post deleted by the author. It was the product of high stress, it wasn't being taken as humorous, and not being particularly wedded to it, I've decided to take it down]

No Muslims Allowed

I really hope this statement will be held against Romney all campaign season long, but I kind of doubt it. There are just too many conservatives that are quietly (or not so quietly) nodding their heads along with the idea that we should categorically refuse to appoint Muslims to high level positions. Remember what Glenn Beck said about Keith Ellison?

But seriously. Between the implicit sanction of quotas, and the denial that there is such thing as a qualified Muslim (even if we restrict it to conservatives -- Zalmay Khalilzad, anyone?), this is just absurd. If Israel can have a Muslim cabinet minister, I think we can manage to pull it off too.

East and West: Never The Two Shall Meet

This is a great post by Phoebe Maltz, problematizing the idea that Israel is "of the West."

"Racism as Subjectification": Draft Posted

You may have noticed a brief skip in my blogging these past few weeks. While there have been many reasons for this -- finals, applications, holidays -- the excuse I'm currently settling on is that I've been finishing up my latest article. And I am pleased to announce that I have just posted a completed draft of "Racism as Subjectification" online to the SSRN (you can download the PDF from there).

Unlike my last paper, this one is still a work in progress. In fact, I may add a whole new section on the Parents United case, depending on the feedback I get. But that makes me all the more eager to hear your thoughts on the paper. So get cracking! I can't think of a single better way to kick off the holiday season.

Here's an abstract:

Nobody likes to feel used. But everyone likes to feel useful. This paradox has long been overlooked by people examining the parameters of racism in the United States. The classic model of racism focuses on the manner in which Black Americans have been objectified - and for good reason: from chattel slavery to Jim Crow, African-Americans have faced a long and sordid history of being regarded as little more than objects - useful tools for White power-brokers, but not independent subjects with their own desires, perspective, and rights.

However, in the post-Civil Rights era, this dynamic has shifted. While racial objectification has by no means disappeared, today the prevailing sentiment in American society is one that, outwardly at least, respects the independence and inherent dignity of its Black members. However, even as they are granted the full rights of citizenship, the idea that Black people are objectively valuable, are necessary to the full and complete functioning of society, has faded away. While Whites admit that they have inherent dignity and human rights, they nevertheless deny that Blacks have any objective use - and if their presence is lacking in elite institutions (colleges, corporations, and legislatures), it is not seen as a cause for concern. This is the problem of subjectification - when people who are conceded to possess subject status are nevertheless treated as if they have no objective worth. In this paper, I articulate the concept of subjectification and show how it provides a new and fruitful perspective on the problems of race and racism in American society.

Credits and Debits

Latoya Peterson at Racialicious has a great post up on the term "Bougie" (as in "bourgeois"), often used as a derogatory term for middle-class Black folk who are seen as "inauthentic" or insufficiently connected to their Black roots. One of my classmates this term used the phrase "bougie Blacks" all the time (very much in quotations, however) -- but I didn't realize it was so widespread until now. Anyway, Peterson's post is really more of a series of stories than a cohesive unit, but they're all good. This excerpt in particular, however, struck me as particular poignant:

Once upon a time (read: four years ago) when I was waiting tables at a spot in Dupont I happened to serve an older African-American man who worked for the DC school system. I asked him for his order, told him the specials, and was perplexed by his ever widening smile.

“You speak so well,” he beamed, and I inwardly cringed. “What school did you go to?”

I explained that I went to school in Montgomery County, but he continued to smile.

“You,” he proudly pronounced, ” are a credit to the race!”

I smiled weakly, hoping that the other tables around him did not hear.

OMG Please tell me he didn’t just say that around white people!

My mind whipped around for a few frantic moments trying to purge some of the memories this man had involuntarily called forth.

Stop it. Stop it! I don’t want to be a credit to the race. I don’t want to be part of the Talented Tenth! I don’t want to be different! I don’t want to stand out! Because if I stand out, and I am the credit to the race, what does that make my cousins? What does that make my friends? Are they blight? Why do we have to be marked as better or worse? What do you want from me?

My mind swirled, but the rational part of me realized that I was on the clock. I smiled and moved on. He left me a 40% tip.

"Smiled and moved on." So it so often goes.

Dreading Southern Maryland

A private school in Waldorf, Maryland (Charles County -- southeast of D.C.) has suspended a three-year old boy for wearing dreadlocks. The family is suing, alleging racial discrimination. Hairstyles are a surprisingly robust area of anti-discrimination studies, but I'm not really interested in the legal aspects of the case right now. While I think that the law should presumptively cover expressive elements of one's racial identity (a presumption that can be overruled, obviously), my understanding is that the current precedent isn't there yet. Unfortunate, but so it goes.

Rather, what I want to focus on is the school's dress regulation which the boy was cited as violating. It prohibits boys from wearing "extreme faddish hairstyles, including the use of rubber bands or the 'twisting' of hair." This is rather puzzling -- not because it's an unreasonable rule, but because I do not know how dreadlocks can accurately be labeled either "extreme" or "faddish." Dreadlocks have a long and distinguished history as a hairstyle -- it being particularly amenable to the type of kinky hair Black men and women tend to possess. They are neither new, nor strange, nor exotic, nor fleeting. They might, however, seem that way to a White schoolmaster, unaccustomed to how Black people's hair actually behaves (let alone the history of Black hairstyling). Like most other hair regimes, I've seen dreadlocks look very stylish and professional, and I've seen them look ugly and sloppy. But there is nothing intrinsic to them that makes it a worthwhile goal to ban them.

And that's what annoys me about cases like this. Without fail, the school responds to the controversy merely by blithely asserting how it has a "right" to establish a dress code. Certainly, it does, but that says nothing about whether this particular code (or application thereof) is intelligent. This is a dumb requirement. It is silly to ban three-year old kids from wearing dreadlocks, anymore than banning them from wearing pony tails. It's ridiculous to assert that dreads are "extreme" or "faddish". It's mean-spirited to kick a three-year old out of class for having the wrong hair. Charles County's Black population has exploded in recent years, and not all the local residents are pleased about it. When a school digs in and tries to defend a foolish rule that overwhelmingly affects its Black students, I start to wonder whether there isn't some latent hostility as well.

Daddy Always Told Me: Never Become a Trial Judge

District Court judging is boring and frustrating. Appellate courts are where the action is. The Deseret Morning News has an interesting article on Paul Cassell, a 42 year old Bush appointee who just retired from his lifetime position as a federal judge for the District of Utah.

Cassell said he found himself questioning some laws at each turn. "I felt like it was proper judicial role to ask questions, even if we weren't necessarily charged with fixing the problem," he said. But he wanted to do more — he wanted to make a change. Being a federal judge, he couldn't do that.

"One of the frustrations about being a trial court judge is that you never set broad principles of law; of course, that's reserved for the appellate courts. ... When I was there for 5 1/2 years, I began to think that maybe I would have more effect in moving the law in a way that I think is desirable by doing appellate litigation."

Becoming a legal advocate is a better fit, he said. "I felt like for the rest of my life, I wasn't sure I could stay in one place doing one kind of thing. There were some issues I wanted to pursue, particularly working on crime victims' rights, which is an area that I felt very passionately about."

Another interesting part of the article is how Cassell's experience on the bench has motivated him specifically to speak out on certain parts of the legal system he considers broken -- areas not normally associated with a Bush appointee. For example, Cassell has blasted out of control mandatory minimum sentencing, and has written vigorously against the crack/powder cocaine sentencing disparity. I don't know if Cassell was involved in these issues prior to his appointment, but it appears that being on the bench side of these cases has definitely influenced his thoughts on the matter.

All via Orin Kerr, who notes that Cassell is one of five hot-shot young(ish) judges who have left the bench at a relatively early point in their careers.

PS: My dad really did, in fact, advise me never to become a Federal District Court judge. If that doesn't give you insight into what type of family I have, nothing will.

J. Harvie Whilikers!

The Harvard Law Review has a series of articles on the recently decided Parents United school desegregation decision (links to my extensive analysis of the opinions can be found here). One of the articles is by 4th Circuit Judge and Bush Supreme Court short-lister J. Harvie Wilkinson.

I wasn't expecting to agree with Wilkinson, an arch-conservative. But it was worse than I expected, and after a few pages, I found myself thinking "Man, I've lost so much respect for you from this." But that got me thinking about why, when I first picked up the article, I had respect for Wilkinson in the first place.

In a sense, it's an easy question -- Wilkinson is a very prominent judge, and while he is quite right-wing, he hasn't really developed a reputation as wildly extreme. But then again, my only real run-in with Wilkinson is the truly appalling opinion he wrote sanctioning (verging on outright applauding) discrimination against Wiccans in Virginia. I am not exaggerating when I say it is the worst Church/State opinion issued in my lifetime that I've ever read. I have no idea how he got rehabilitated in my head after that catastrophe.

But anyway. I'm not going to go and refute Wilkinson's article, point-by-point. I just don't have the energy. Suffice to say, while the article is really slipshod overall, Wilkinson also manages to specifically hit virtually every button on my "most frustrating elements of racial discourse" list. He describes the plurality opinions as "courageous" (over and over again, actually). He makes huge assertions, critical to his argument, and doesn't back them up with even a perfunctory citation. He doesn't engage with the relevant literature. He straw-mans, hardcore, and dodges his opponents' best arguments entirely. He compares the liberal position to that of Jim Crow southerners (while denying he's doing it in the same breath). I could go on.

It was a spectacularly annoying spectacle, and it made me want to put something through a wall. And while in retrospect, he already lost whatever respect I might have had after the Wicca case, hopefully this article will remind me not to let him sneak back into the good side of my subconscious. Ugh.

Beyond the Norris Ad

My last post on Mike Huckabee, praising him for his hilarious Chuck Norris campaign ad, was a bit of a backhanded compliment. For this statement on illegal immigration, however, I give him genuine props:

"We penalize law-breakers. We don't penalize their children for something they can't help.

"If a child is gasping for air, asthmatic, and he's on the hospital steps, what do the other candidates suggest we do, let him sit there and gasp until he doesn't have any air left and he dies? If a child comes to our school -- and our law, by the way, in most of our states, mine certainly says you've got to educate a child if he's of child age -- what do you, break your own law and say, `No, you can't come in the schoolhouse door'?

"No, you don't do that. What you do is you elect a president who will fix the problem where it needs to be fixed: At the border. But if your government at the federal government is so incompetent that it fails to secure the border, you don't then grind your heel into the face of a 6-year-old child over it. That's not what this country does. We're a better country than that."

I'm really starting to feel hopeful that the anti-immigration wave has crested (without, amazingly enough, doing any lasting damage). Hopefully, Huckabee's stance is a sign that even within the GOP, there will be a push back against the extremist Tancredo wing on this issue.

But even still, make no mistake. Huckabee's got the right position on this issue, but it's not an easy one to take in the Republican primary -- particularly when he's finally starting to show some life in the polls. I give him serious kudos for taking it.

I Love Maryland, Part 37

This time, it's E.J. Dionne who explains why.

Imagine a place where the leading politician pokes fun at those who "regard all taxes as a pestilence, a plague or a disease."

Imagine the same politician saying: "Not one of us wants to pay more in taxes. But you know what we want even less? What we want even less is to leave our country to our kids in a worsened condition."

And imagine a place where other politicians are grown-ups and decide that closing budget deficits requires a mix of tax increases and spending cuts.

The place in question is clearly not Washington. Facing a $1.7 billion budget deficit, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley -- who offered the above observations in an interview -- led the legislature this week to approve $1.4 billion in taxes and $550 million in spending cuts. It's been a long time since we've seen that kind of balance from the federal government.

Maryland doesn't do everything perfectly, and its legal system, particularly, has disappointed me recently. But by and large, things work here. The schools are good. The economy hums. There isn't a massive amount of racial tension (probably the best racial climate in an ex-slave state). There are many truly talented public servants -- I'm far more likely to agonize over several excellent choices than I am to waffle between the lesser of however many evils. There is social cohesion, with the state's significant wealthy contingent recognizing its duty to the less fortunate.

The state works. And it's really something to be a part of that.

Rep. Davis Claims Racial Profiling

Illinois Representative Danny Davis (D) is claiming he was racially profiled by the Chicago Police after being pulled over early one morning while driving three Black colleagues (guests on his radio show) home.

Two white police officers pulled over the Democratic congressman early Monday morning, according to spokeswoman Tumia Romero.

"He thinks he was pulled over because of his race," Romero said Thursday. "He was not speeding, had a valid driver's license, wasn't swerving, but was pulled over anyway."

She said Davis had been working on his radio show until around midnight Sunday. He was driving home three of his guests -- all African-Americans -- when Chicago police officers pulled his vehicle over around 1 a.m. Monday.

The only reason the congressman can see for being stopped was that there were "four black men in the car," Romero said.

Certainly, this is not the first time the Chicago PD has stood accused of racial profiling. While I obviously don't wish this on anyone, part of me is gleeful that the police appeared to profile the wrong Black guy -- if it were anyone else this side of Barack Obama, they'd get away with it like they always do. Of course, they might anyway, but a U.S. Congressman might have a bit more heft than your average Black man would in this sort of situation.

Alternatively, of course, Davis might have been pulled over entirely legitimately. But while one might argue that he could claim racial profiling to cover his transgression, I find that very doubtful -- it's hardly worth the scrutiny over a minor traffic violation.

UPDATE: While I love comments as much as the next blogger, I'm getting real close to shutting them down on this post. Many of the comments are fine, and a few I find distasteful, but still well within acceptable bounds. A few, however, clearly have crossed the line into out-and-out racism. Please don't make generalized stereotypes about Black people -- what "they" always do or what type of cars "they" all drive. It's just ignorant. And remember that we're talking about a US Congressman here. Absent specific evidence about his behavior or attitude (like there was for ex-Rep. Cynthia McKinney), I think he's entitled to a presumption of respect.

Happy Turkey Day in Advance

While I'm not in support of genocide, I am in support of gouging myself on as much turkey as humanly possible (plus football).

I got back to Maryland last night, and I'm leaving for Rhode Island in a few hours. Since I'm not bringing my computer, this is probably it unless I raid the hotel business center.

See you all late Friday!

Tripping Out

I'm leaving for Maryland tomorrow afternoon -- then turning around and immediately going to Rhode Island for Thanksgiving. So until after that, I'm probably going to be effectively out of touch.

My graduate and law school stress level, incidentally, is climbing rapidly, and it is not making me happy.

Intelligence is for Suckers

Driving to the DMV, Michelle Cottle passed a church with the following sign:

Experts built the Titanic.

Amateurs Built the Ark.

She uses it to lament the "anti-expertise" mentality in American culture.

From what I've read (and I've seen that sign before), this is hardly a new occurrence: America has always apparently had a strong anti-elitist streak that manifested itself against the intelligentsia. It hit home for me observing the 2000 presidential election (the first in which I was really politically aware), in which Gore's intellectualism versus Bush's frat boy persona was scored as a point in W's favor. And from there on out, I realized every step forward I took in my education would be a step back in my political potential. I had hoped that eight years of experiencing a half-wit for a President would awaken an American desire for intelligence, but so far I'm not seeing it.

So in the mean time, I echo Cottle's wish that all the pro-amateur persons out there remember their commitment to the cause the next time they need surgery.

The Senate Cleric

CNN on the Senate's "pro forma" sessions, designed to prevent President Bush from issuing recess appointments:

The sessions are expected to last less than 30 seconds -- the cleric will announce who the presiding officer is, and then that senator will gavel the session closed.

I'm pretty sure they mean "clerk". But given the hold Christian conservatives still have over American politics, only pretty sure.

UPDATE: They fixed it. Oh well.

HuckChuck

I'm not a huge Mike Huckabee fan (to me, he's Sam Brownback without the concern for human rights), but this is a fantastic ad (in every way Garance says it is):



Is it just me, or do Democrats need to start defining Huckabee in the minds of the general electorate? I mean, the guy is the Dennis Kucinich of the Republican field (Ron Paul, obviously, is Mike Gravel), and if it comes down to it, voters should know that when faced with a choice, the GOP decided on going as far to the right as was possible -- farther, in fact, that was assumed to be possible at the start of the primary season.

The terrain is good for Democrats in 2008, and Huckabee is no centrist. But he's a savvy campaigner, and I'd rather not let him come into the election as a blank slate against someone as politically loaded as Hillary Clinton (or even as socially loaded as Barack Obama). There's no need for attack ads -- just start dropping Huckabee's name in the conversation, in the context of him being the far-right winger that he is.

On Holland

Why isn't this in my quote books?

Holland is an extremely neat and well-ordered mud-puddle, situated at the confluence of the English, French, and German languages.

-- W.E.B. Du Bois

How Do You Get a Libertarian To Accept Trade Favoritism?

Show her a country whose entire population will likely permanently collapse into grinding poverty if its favorable trade status is ended! Megan McArdle takes a look at Cambodia:

Most developing countries start with textiles, just as England did 200 years ago. But Cambodia's garment trade is incredibly dependent on special treatment from America, where it sells almost all its wares. Since the expiration of the Multi-Fiber Agreement in 2004, which imposed quotas on textiles in the developing world, countries like China and Vietnam have been subject to special, stopgap measures to dampen down the flood of textiles they can pour into Western markets. In exchange for enacting higher labor standards (and also for being really small and poor), Cambodia has been exempted from this treatment.

In theory, this is a bad thing; trade should go where the market dictates. In practice, it's hard to criticize something which is pulling a lot of very poor people into decent-paying jobs. And Cambodia's 14 million population can hardly be said to be doing serious damage to China, or even Vietnam.

I think Megan is right -- Cambodia needs a few more years still to get on its feet, build up its infrastructure, and diversify its economy (like Vietnam is beginning to do). Pull the rug out from underneath it now, and it will get completely swamped by the greater economic heft of its neighbors, and might never recover.

I Am a Slayer of Worlds

I just found out I beat a Rhodes Scholar in debate!

Allow me to explain. My first ever round of varsity LD in high school (sophomore year), I faced a young woman from a nearby school -- let's call her Jane. Jane was a sophomore as well, but far more experienced than I was, and extremely talented by any measure. It was a mismatch. I got stomped, and she went on to win the tournament.

But for some reason she remembered me fondly, and we became friends. The next year, at NCFL nationals, we were hanging out at lunch, going over each other's cases and swapping ideas, potential rebuttals and responses, etc.. And then, wouldn't you know it, we are paired against each other for round four. What are the odds?

So we trooped into the classroom, giggling like maniacs. I explained to the judges that we had just spent all of lunch reviewing each other's cases, so this might be a rather odd round. And it was -- but the extra preparation also made it into an awesome display. All our arguments were tight and on the money. And with an additional year's experience, I avenged my previous defeat and took Jane down on a 2-1 decision. That was on my way to my best LD performance of my career -- a quarterfinals appearance at the national tournament (where I proceeded to get spanked by the eventual champion).

Anyway, Jane IMed me today to inform me that she won the Rhodes Scholarship. A few days ago she won the Marshall Scholarship, so I knew she was already running in that circle (though -- knowing Jane -- I have to say she is the one person who I would have been more surprised to find out she didn't win the scholarships than that she did. The woman is just operating on another level from us mortals). Congratulations are in order to her, of course, but due respect to me as well -- Junior year of high school, I bested her in argumentative combat.

Huey P. Newton on Women and Gays

The founder of the Black Panther Party wrote this essay "the women's liberation and gay liberation movements" on August 15, 1970. I was, I admit, shocked when I first read it. It is way ahead of its time, and stands in stark contrast to the classic view of Black militant groups as irredeemably misogynist and homophobic:

During the past few years strong movements have developed among women and among homosexuals seeking their liberation. There has been some uncertainty about how to relate to these movements.

What ever your personal opinions and insecurities about homosexuality and the various liberation movements among homosexuals and women (and I speak of homosexuals and women as oppressed groups), we should try to unite with them in a revolutionary fashion. I say "whatever your insecurities are" because as well very well know, sometimes our first instinct is to want to hit a homosexual in the mouth, and want a woman to be quiet. We want to hit a homosexual in the mouth because we are afraid we might be homosexual; and we want to hit the woman or shut her up because we are afraid that she might castrate us, or take the nuts that we might not have to start with.

We must gain security in ourselves and therefore have respect and feelings for all oppressed people. We must not use the racist attitude that the White racists use against our people because they are Black and poor. Many times the poorest White person is the most racist because he is afraid that he might lose something, or discover something that he does not have. So you're some kind of threat to him. This kind of psychology is in operation when we view oppressed people and we are angry with them because of their particular kind of behavior, or their particular kind of deviation from the established norm.

Remember, we have not established a revolutionary value system; we are only in the process of establishing it. I do not remember our [*158] ever constituting any value that said a revolutionary must say offensive things towards homosexuals, or that a revolutionary should make sure that women do not speak out about their own particular kind of oppression. As a matter of fact, it is just the opposite: we say that we recognize the women's right to be free. We have not said much about the homosexual at all, but we must relate to the homosexual movement because it is a real thing. And I know through reading, and through my life experience and observations, that homosexuals are not given freedom and liberty by anyone in society. They might be the most oppressed people in the society.

And what made them homosexuals? Perhaps it's a phenomenon that I don't understand entirely. Some people say that it is the decadence of capitalism. I don't know if that is the case; I rather doubt it. But whatever the case is, we know that homosexuality is a fact that exists, and we must understand it in its purest form: that is, a person should have the freedom to use his body in whatever way he wants.

That is not endorsing things in homosexuality that we wouldn't view as revolutionary. But there is nothing to say that a homosexual cannot also be a revolutionary. And maybe now I'm injecting some of my own prejudice by saying that "even a homosexual can be a revolutionary." Quite the contrary, maybe a homosexual could be the most revolutionary.

When we have revolutionary conferences, rallies, and demonstrations, there should be full participation of the gay liberation movement and the women's liberation movement. Some groups might be more revolutionary than others. We should not use the actions of a few to say that they are all reactionary or counterrevolutionary because they are not.

We should deal with the factions just as we deal with any other group or party that claims to be revolutionary. We should try to judge, somehow, whether they are operating in a sincere revolutionary fashion and from a really oppressed situation. (And we will grant that if they are women they are probably oppressed.) If they do things that are unrevolutionary or counterrevolutionary, then criticize that action. If we feel that the group in spirit means to be revolutionary in practice, but they make mistakes in interpretation of the revolutionary philosophy, or they do not understand the dialectics of the social forces in operation, we [*159] should criticize that and not criticize them because they are women trying to be free. And the same is true for homosexuals. We should never say a whole movement is dishonest when in fact they are trying to be honest. They are just making honest mistakes. Friends are allowed to make mistakes. The enemy is not allowed to make mistakes because his whole existence is a mistake, and we suffer from it. But the women's liberation front and gay liberation front are our friends, they are potential allies, and we need as many allies as possible.

We should be willing to discuss the insecurities that many people have about homosexuality. When I say "insecurities," I mean the fear that they are some kind of threat to our manhood. I can understand this fear. Because of the long conditioning process that builds insecurity in the American male, homosexuality might produce certain hang-ups in us. I have hang-ups myself about male homosexuality. But on the other hand, I have no hang-up about female homosexuality. And that is a phenomenon in itself. I think it is probably because male homosexuality is a threat to me and female homosexuality is not.

We should be careful about using those terms that might turn our friends off. The terms "faggot" and "punk" should be deleted from our vocabulary, and especially we should not attach names normally designed for homosexuals to men who are enemies of the people, such as Nixon or Mitchell. Homosexuals are not enemies of the people.

We should try to form a working coalition with the gay liberation and women's liberation groups. We must always handle social forces in the most appropriate manner.

Huey P. Newton, "The Women's Liberation and Gay Liberation Movements: August 15, 1970", in The Huey P. Newton Reader, David Hilliard & Donald Weise, eds. (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2002), pp. 157-59.

It's hardly perfect -- the references to revolution feel anachronistic, and it does not quite seem as if Newton is on board with the idea that there are homosexuals of all races. But it's hugely progressive for 1970, and Newton's insistence that we grapple with our prejudices (and he didn't exempt himself from it) is worth noting even today.

Newton was a sharp guy, for those of you who don't know. He had a Ph.D from UC-Santa Cruz -- not an honorary one either. He was serious, and worth reading seriously.

Students of Color at Private Universities

In response to comments to this post, I decided to take a quick gander through the internets to find the percentage of students of color at a variety of private colleges and universities, elite and not.* I split off Asian-Americans specifically, as they are not an under-represented group,** and do not include international students except insofar as they are included in other ethnicities. I was curious to find out whether, in fact, these elite schools had lower enrollments of minority students than their more mainstream peers. I selected private school specifically because their enrollment base was less likely to be geographically based -- while many people attend the local public university because it's close by, I roughly believed that private schools were more likely to have a national admissions pool. That is to say, people who are applying to private schools are more likely to apply to academically comparable schools around the country. That obviously is a wild over-generalization, but it helps stabilize the pool somewhat.

This is entirely non-scientific. The colleges were chosen by the randomized sample of "I thought of them." I did make vague efforts at geographical diversity, however, as well as include both large and small schools. Hence, each category should have 5 small colleges, and 6 larger ones.

"Elite" [Non-Asian/Asian]

Amherst: 28% (15%/13%)

Brown: 30% (16%/14%)

Carleton: 22% (12%/10%)

Chicago: 25% (12%/13%)

Duke: 32% (18%/14%)

Harvard: 30% (16%/14%)

Pomona: 33% (19%/14%)

Stanford: 47% (23%/24%)

Swarthmore: 36% (17%/19%)

Williams: 30% (19%/11%)

Yale: 30% (17%/13%)

"Non-Elite" (Non-Asian/Asian)

Allegheny: 6% (3%/3%)

Beloit: 9% (7%/2%)

Bennington: 6% (4%/2%)

Boston University: 22% (8%/13%)

Drexel: 26% (13%/13%)

Goucher: 11% (8%/3%)

Seton Hall: 28% (22%/6%)

St. Olaf: 8% (3%/5%)

Tulsa: 17% (15%/2%)

Villanova: 17% (10%/7%)

Wake Forest: 14% (9%/5%)

As I said, this is entirely non-scientific. However, it does point that elite schools tend to have a higher enrollment of students of color -- particularly in small schools. Non-elite liberal arts colleges are almost painfully White -- only Goucher managed to eke its way into double-digits in its minority enrollment. Meanwhile, Carleton, the least diverse "elite" school, still had a higher percentage of non-White students than all but three "non-elite" schools. The most diverse non-elite school, Seton Hall, would have tied for 9th with Amherst College on the elite list.

A few words about the data. First of all, it's entirely non-scientific. I plugged in colleges as they sprang to mind. My only qualification is that they were not public universities, and not explicitly religious academies (a religious affiliation, as in St. Olaf's, was okay). Second, it's incomplete. Many students don't report their ethnicity. So, for example, the total percentages for Amherst's students of color only reaches 28% -- but Caucasians are only listed as comprising 45% of the population. Third, the variety of locations for international students confounds that data somewhat -- I don't know whether they are incorporated into ethnic groups, and if not, I don't know how the international student population breaks down in terms of White/non-White.

* This is a totally arbitrary designation by me, but when I say "elite" I mean the absolute cream of the crop. The schools I designate as "non-elite" are still fine institutions in their own right.

** This is itself misleading, as while East and South Asians tend to do quite well in the college admissions game, Southeast and Island Asian students are, in fact, quite underrepresented. It is somewhat of a anomaly to group, say, Koreans, Indians, Hmong, and Filipinos in the same group. But there is no way to disconnect them, so I make the compromises I must.

Oh Christ, No

Lou Dobbs is floating a Presidential bid. Via The Plank, which notes, reassuringly, that this is almost definitely just a ratings plug for Dobbs.

The Tragedy of Mitt Romney

Reacting to Andrew Sullivan's lament that Mitt Romney's campaign may be doomed by Christian Right opposition to the idea of voting for a Mormon (particularly when -- finally -- a far more palatable Christianist candidate is finally showing some viability in Mike Huckabee), Matt Yglesias responds:

There is some shame here, but I don't pity Romney. He could have tried to run as a political heir to George Romney on the basis of his record in Massachusetts, as a moderate technocrat. But he decided to try to remake himself as the Christian Right candidate, so it's really pretty fitting for him to be laid low by a real-deal preacher man like Huckabee or even a more plausible actor like Hollywood Fred.

If I'm not mistaken, Yglesias actually voted for Romney when he was running for Governor of Massachusetts, so he's got a legitimate complaint here.

Work, Work

It's my girlfriend's birthday today! Everybody wish Jill a happy birthday!

However, while I love and adore her, Jill is much bigger than I am, and thus will probably unleash significant physical pain upon me if I spend the day blogging. So, I'm likely off for the day.

Showing our Thousand Flowers

United States Public Affairs Officer Frederick C. Jochem, Burma, 1947:

A Burmese friend was astonished the other day when I told him that a Negro had just been appointed to a professorship in my university back home. We were discussing the "Negro problem" in America, and it turned out that a number of facts and viewpoints that I take for granted are surprising news in Burma. [Quoted in Mary Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights (Princeton: Princeton UP, 2000), 47]

Dudziak's book focuses on how America's hideous treatment of Black Americans during the Cold War became a major strategic liability in our diplomatic outreach programs (much of which touted the American model as one of liberty, democracy, and equality). Consequently, she argues, much of the institutional push by the U.S. government in favor of civil rights can be traced by a desire to diffuse this brewing threat to America's moral supremacy. And the US expended significant effort and resources showcasing Black contributions to American society, most notably in the state-sponsored goodwill tours around the globe by African-American jazz musicians (a practice explored in Penny M. Von Eschen's fantastically named Satchmo Blows Up The World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2004)).

Keep the perception of Mr. Jochem's Burmese friend in mind while reading this Slate article on how foreigners suggest America can improve its global image:

Several readers emphasize that many foreigners, even those with high levels of education, have no concept of American life. They don't know that most Americans are religious people. They don't know that most of us aren't wildly rich. They're skeptical of reports that many black people live here—or dismiss them as not "real Americans."
[...]
And so the most prominent suggestion on how to improve America's face in the world—a suggestion made by well over half of those who wrote me—is to send the world more American faces and to bring more of the world's faces into America.

In other words, these readers say, there should be a vast expansion in the Peace Corps, in Fulbright fellowships, and, above all, in student-exchange programs.

An American exchange student in Jordan writes of the foreigners he's met: "Once they see Americans—blacks, Jews, Asians, and 'real' Americans, as they call blonde-haired Caucasians—and hear their diverse opinions on issues from the War in Iraq to pop music, then people realize how much diversity there is in our country."

With this same idea in mind, an American in Sudan adds that we should put particular emphasis on sending ethnically diverse Americans abroad.

Sixty years and still fighting the same battles. America's relative exclusion of a great many people from our public persona is not just a subject for liberal tears. It actively harms our image around the world. As it was in the Cold War, remedying racial exclusion is a matter of the gravest national interest. And indeed, Kevin Drum says the need to change America's "face" to the world may be one the best reasons to vote for Barack Obama. This coheres to my general view of casting an "affirmative action vote" for Obama. Obama is qualified and smart and politically agreeable -- but these are qualities he shares with several of his foes in the Democratic primary. What Obama has all to himself is that, in Drum's words, he is "the only one who would improve our standing just by being who he is." That's a qualification he has, that nobody else shares, and it deserves to enter into our political calculus when we enter the ballot box.

Once again, the interests of Whites and Blacks in America have converged, offering a chance for true synergy. We need to make the dream of the American creed a reality for all races. We need a strong, bright, qualified President. And we need to restore America's image around the world, and educate folks (with words and deeds) that there is more to America than just a bunch of wealthy White talking heads on TV and in the movies. Those goals are in accord with each other. This is an opportunity we'd be fools not to take advantage of.

Mis-Match Mish-Mash

Earlier today, I linked to Professor Katherine Barnes' article debunking the claim that affirmative action causes minorities to be "mis-matched" at law schools above their level, and thus under-perform compared to how well they would do at a school more "appropriate" for their talents. Digging into the statistical data more deeply (Barnes has a Ph.D in statistics from the University of Arizona), she found that a more likely explanation for performance gaps by Black students is an environment hostile to students of color at our nation's colleges and universities.

Discussing this article, PG wonders how much, if at all, affirmative action contributes to this environment.

[I]f students and professors believe that African American and Latino students are less capable than white and Asian students, because the former were admitted under an affirmative action program and the latter on a "merit-based" system, this itself may be a significant source of discriminatory attitudes that impede minority students' learning. Even more disturbingly, if affirmative action programs cause minority students to believe themselves less capable than their classmates, the stereotype can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

There's probably something to this, but not all the much, primarily because the "stigma" attached to minority students as under-qualified doesn't really seem traceable to affirmative action. As PG herself notes, when affirmative action is eliminated, conservatives simply convince themselves it is still occurring in disguise -- even when the Black population of a university drops precipitously. More generally, as Richard Delgado has noted, negative perceptions and stereotypes of students of color in America have, by and large, dropped over the 30 year period in which affirmative action was most active. Admittedly, it's certainly possible that these trends were at cross-purposes, and that the overall rising racial progressivism of the past few decades masked the harmful effects of affirmative action. But for that thesis to hold, you'd have to argue that the greater positive (or at least, not negative) perceptions of African-Americans was largely disconnected from their increased visibility in elite institutions and universities, which strikes me as implausible. It's tougher to be racist when a quarter of your college is Black -- when you can see for yourself that they can, in fact, do the work and speak proper English and are not hyper-sexed bestial maniacs. And by contrast, racist stereotypes of Black inferiority are clearly reinforced when they are largely absent from the institutions that you yourself take part in (institutions which are, of course, perfectly "meritorious").

Also on the mis-match thesis, I'd echo Professor Delgado's argument that it seems to have a rather confused idea of how people view the opportunity to attend "elite" schools. The mis-match argument

presupposes that exposure to first-rate education is not good for you but bad. Going to a school with a favorable student-faculty ratio and studying under nationally acclaimed professors is good for whites, but not for blacks. This is truly paradoxical, and I am surprised bright people assert it. Rich people of all eras have been sending their sons and daughters not to the worst, but the best schools they could get them into, sometimes bending the rules to do so. There is little reason to believe that what is true for whites is not true for blacks, Mexicans, and other minorities. [Richard Delgado, Ten Arguments Against Affirmative Action -- How Valid?, 50 Ala. L. Rev. 135, 142 (1998)]

I'm currently applying to law schools. Some of them are, without a doubt, "reaches." Harvard, Stanford, and Yale (which I'm convinced doesn't actually admit anyone, but is just engaging in a high-yield racket of applications fees) all have entering class profiles which are stretches for my numbers (for all three, my LSAT score is above their 75th percentile, but my GPA is well below their 25th percentile). By contrast, I seem to be a better "match" for NYU, Columbia, or Chicago, where I am right in the numerical wheelhouse. Nonetheless, I do not want to be rejected from any of these schools (to repeat, if any admissions officers from the aforementioned schools reading this blog -- I very much wish to be admitted!). I want the opportunity to test my ideas against the very finest minds in the land. I thirst to be taught by the most talented professors in the land, and work with the best and brightest students around. How is this not a good thing?

Back when I was applying to undergraduate schools, I was told by an admissions officer at Cornell that they could admit an entering class comprised entirely of students they rejected, and it would not look any different from a "normal" Cornell class. Past accomplishments, performance, potential -- totally the same. The reason, she told me, was that 90% of Cornell applicants have the tools to be successful at Cornell -- they are "qualified" to be there. They would not be mis-matched. Once you can past that first hurdle of capability (and the vast majority of students -- of any color -- who are applying to schools like Cornell, Yale, Harvard, or Stanford are extraordinarily capable and thus "qualified" in this sense), the question ceases to be about effectiveness, and turns into what each individual student is bringing to the table vis-a-vis his or her peers. That subjective, that's contingent on the vagaries of the applicant pool, and that's very difficult to map on to the concept of "merit". In a sense, it's unfair. But it certainly doesn't lead to mis-matches, unless something goes badly, badly wrong.

Rain Rain Go Away

I want to stress that there is nothing funny about the crippling drought that is currently affecting the state of Georgia. It's truly hurting a lot of people, and that's no laughing matter.

The timeline of Sonny Perdue's rain-prayer, however, is quite funny:

1. Georgia is in severe drought
2. Governor Perdue decides to pray for rain on Tuesday
3. Forecast called for rain Tuesday
4. Prayer service goes ahead as planned
5. Skies completely clear up immediately following prayer service
6. No rain

Maybe God doesn't like ostentatious displays of religiosity? Or maybe he just doesn't like Sonny Perdue?

PS: I was going to tag this post "climate", but then had to correct myself and write "weather", as the former would have been technically inaccurate. Score one for my Conservation Biology course!

David's J.L. & Cool Stuff (Vol. 3)

It's been awhile, but thanks to Concurring Opinion's "law review table of contents" project, finding neat articles is easier than ever!

Dan Ortiz, Nice Legal Studies (draft paper).

Katherine Y. Barnes, Is Affirmative Action Responsible for the Achievement Gap Between Black and White Law Students?, 101 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1759 (2007)

And of course....

David Schraub, When Separation Doesn't Work: The Religion Clause as an Anti-Subordination Principle, 5 Dartmouth L. Rev. 145 (2007) [note the pagination is wrong in the PDF].

***

Volume Two

Volume One