Personally, being somewhat jealous and envious of Richard’s song-writing and guitar-playing, it is somewhat satisfying that he has not yet achieved household-name status. It serves him right for being so good.

-David Byrne

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Perhaps the New York Times will run it…

If your image of a philanthropist is a stout, gray geezer, then meet Talia Leman, an eighth grader in Iowa who loves soccer and swimming, and whose favorite subject is science. I’m supporting her for president in 2044.

It seems Nicholas D. Kristof is taking a break from chatting up southeast Asian prostitutes to start endorsing children for POTUS, on the basis of their philanthropy:

If the emblematic 1960s youth was an anti-Vietnam protester, and the 1980s emblem was a geek assembling computers in the garage, then today’s is a kid uploading videos to YouTube to raise money for anti-malarial bed nets in Africa.

Yes, that’s exactly what comes to mind when I think of the children of today. Of course, being a sensible type, Kristof hedges his bets:

Frankly, these kinds of initiatives have a mixed record in terms of helping the poor in a cost-effective way. But they have a superb record in enlightening and educating the organizers.

Or, in the immortal words of Hansel:

I wasn’t like every other kid, you know, you dreams about being an astronaut. I was always more interested in what bark was made out of on a tree. Richard Gere’s a real hero of mine. Sting. Sting would be another person who’s a hero. The music he’s created over the years, I don’t really listen to it, but the fact that he’s making it, I respect that.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the New York Times‘ editorial page is like S.P.E.C.T.R.E. (yes, this would make Bill Kristol Blofeld), only instead of world domination, they’re trying to destroy the English language.

(Hat tip: Donadio)

I saw a flier for that ubiquitous show this week. I keep hoping some bored post-modernist will write a play entitled “How I Was Molested By My Uncle.” And then it will be about a girl who gets her learner’s permit.

Well, I suppose this was bound to happen at some point:

[O]n November 11, Simon & Schuster imprint Fireside Books will publish The Pitchfork 500: Our Guide to the Greatest Songs from Punk to the Present. This handy paperback chronologically explores Pitchfork’s 500 favorite songs from 1977-2006, constructing an alternate history of the past three decades of popular music– one that extends beyond the typical Baby Boomer-approved canon of the Clash, Prince, Public Enemy, Nirvana, Radiohead, and Outkast.

It’s good to see those rebels over at Pitchforkmedia.com fighting against the tide. Because the above is clearly in no way like this or this.

Oh well. At least Pitchfork’s opus will be distinguished by the, um, inimitable prose style of its writers. For more on said style, see this top ten list from the great David Cross.

The notion of Obama as the physician who could lance the wound of anti-Americanism in the world began to gain traction during the election cycle, and now with his victory it is really in motion.

Let me be blunt: I think this idea wrong-headed, and possibly even dangerous, in the way that all things that raise hopes to unrealistic levels can be dangerous.

I got my first taste of real anti-Americanism when I moved to Rome, shortly after graduating college. It was a strange time both for myself and my country; the U.S. had recently invaded Iraq, and I — in the parlance of our times — didn’t know my ass from a hole in the ground.

It was useful for me to experience anti-Americanism in its unadulterated form. Up to that point, I had only witnessed what I assumed was the real thing, but was in fact the pissant variety, from certain of my left-leaning undergraduate peers. It wasn’t, of course, because you can never truly hate something that makes you what you are — the fact that they didn’t realize how American they really were being merely a product of their inability to step outside of themselves.

The real thing, of which I found myself on the receiving end from an admirable cross-section of western Europe, is both more visceral and more all-encompassing. It may begin with a discussion about policy, but quickly spirals out to include culture (we have none), crime and racism (we’re chock full of it), aesthetics (man, are we obese), cuisine (because of that godawful food we eat), and so on.

The typical opening is what I came to think of as the “Pinochet,” in which I’m called upon to explain all manner of iniquities perpetrated by my government over the past 200-some odd years (so-called because Pinochet always figures prominently — which I find weird: just off the top of my head I can think of like a dozen worse things we’ve done than support Augusto Pinochet). And, by “called upon to explain,” I mean called upon to apologize profusely for. Such incidents were inevitably cathartic experiences for my interlocutors, rather than conversations in any traditional sense of the word.

Granted, when I first arrived, in the late summer of 2003, anti-American sentiment had reached a fever pitch. The war was on everybody’s mind. And I should be clear about this: the first George W. Bush administration employed doubtless the worst public diplomacy in U.S. history. If a Martian had to glean an understanding of Earth’s geopolitics from the public statements of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, he would never imagine that they were speaking of putative allies, or that America and western Europe had millennia of shared history and culture behind them.

But the range and intensity of anti-Americanism in the world did not spring fully formed, like Athena from the head of Zeus, upon Bush taking office. Recall that it was under the sainted Clinton that the term “hyperpower” was coined for America by then-French Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine.

The problems of anti-Americanism are structural in nature. They result from the fact that we are the world’s largest power, that we continue to project our military force and our popular culture to the farthest corners of the earth.

Certainly, a more diplomatic administration would be an improvement. “Speak softly and carry a big stick” goes a long way, further at least than the past eight years. But as long as Obama holds the maximalist view of our interests that has prevailed since the end of the Cold War — and statements like this suggest nothing to the contrary — and as long as we remain atop the global pecking order, things are unlikely to change much past this initial honeymoon period. The sooner we grasp this fact, the easier it will be for all involved.

BTW, the title to this post is from the wonderful Barcelona, which makes a similar point but does so with much greater wit. Go see it if you haven’t already.

Let it never be said that our newspapers have become frivolous.

It occurs to me that no reference to Nicholas Cage can be made without mentioning this utterly insane montage of him beating up women in The Wicker Man. Judging by Youtube, there is practically a cottage industry devoted to cataloguing these scenes:

As pleased as I am about Obama’s election, I am forced to confront what it means for the next four years of Roger Cohen columns. Roger Cohen writing under an Obama presidency is like Nicholas Cage hitting the liquor store in Leaving Las Vegas.

Less than 48 hours since the election and already he drops a doozy on us:

A Kenyan father passing briefly through these shores; a chance encounter with a young Kansan woman; a biracial boy handed off here and there but fortunate at least in the accident of Hawaiian birth.

Apparently, “chance encounter” is the going euphemism for knocking up a 17-year old and then bigamously marrying her, before abandoning her and your unborn child. David Lean this ain’t.

The L is just a veritable cornucopia of unfortunate advertisements. Just today I witnessed one for adult education — certainly a noble pursuit, and hardly one worthy of mockery. Yet, I couldn’t help wincing at the redundant tagline:

A thoughtful place for thinking people.

Because unthinking people would feel so out of place there.

Our new executive inherits a heavy burden. I wish him more than luck in carrying it.

There are times when the good folks at the American Conservative act as useful reminders to heed the wisdom contained in Washington’s farewell address:

The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations, has been the victim.

And then there are times when I start to think maybe they’re just doing the opposite of whatever the neoconservatives are doing.

(In fairness, Giraldi’s colleague of sorts takes him to task for the title of his post.)

Roger Cohen is to the English language what Thomas Kinkade is to art or Kenny G is to jazz. Here’s the proof:

So it is important to step back, from the last machinations of this endless campaign, and think again about what America is.

It is renewal, the place where impossible stories get written.

And

He is the providential mestizo whose name — O-Ba-Ma — has the three-syllable universality of some child’s lullaby.

And

Earlier this year, at the end of a road of reddish earth in western Kenya, I found Obama’s half-sister Auma. “He can be trusted,” she said, “to be in dialogue with the world.”

And so on, ad infinitum.

This kind of pabulum, too saccharine to agree with, too vague to refute, is what gives hope a bad name. These sorts of gassy paeans to the meaning of America are enough to make me a communist.

I’d rather be forced to eat my way through the menu at Bob Evans with David Brooks as my dining companion then have to edit this stuff. I’d sooner sit through couples counseling with Maureen Dowd. I think the only reason that Bono is being brought in is to make Roger Cohen seem hard-headed.

Scenes from the most frightening movie of all time:

Lately, I keep seeing ads for this all over town, premiering this weekend. It was nagging my brain for a week before I realized it must be an adaptation of a series I half read over a decade ago. No doubt the show will be wretched, but the thing is there’s almost no way it could possibly be worse than its source material.

Seriously. Picture a cross between Dungeons & Dragons-style fantasy and (gulp) Objectivist philosophy. It’s actually worse than it sounds. No doubt some randy Randians will be lured in by the potential for introducing medieval weaponry into their bizarre personal relations, but I advise the rest of you to steer clear.

Best song ever? Quite possibly. And this video ain’t bad, either.

Perhaps it’s because I’m a bad person, but I took rare delight in this article about Bono, narcissist and overrated singer:

His humanitarian campaigning has earnt him the nickname St Bono. Off duty, however, the U2 singer seems to have been tempted into a spot of hell-raising.

Pictures show the 48-year-old with his arm round two bikini-clad girls as they carouse at a beach bar in St Tropez. He also joined his angel-faced companions for more drinking and dancing aboard a private yacht.

Sure, you may tell me that the Daily Mail is just a rag, and you’d be right; it’s like something out of an Evelyn Waugh novel. However, unlike some pitiful publications, it is not actually contracting Bono to write columns.

Also in the always-entertaining Daily Mail is this oddity, about unscrupulous teachers playing Humbert Humbert with their underage charges. Now, I don’t mean to make light of this, because it’s truly a crime, and in more civilized eras, such men would have been dealt with in proper fashion.

However, I couldn’t help but notice the rather dramatic photos embedded in the article (just scroll down), which turn out not to be the actual students and teachers but models portraying them. Which begs the question: how awkward must those photo shoots have been?

And another: would any other paper think this was even remotely a good idea?

Apropos Dan’s fine series of posts:

…I shall be talking about God a great deal, and this is a word which offends unholy people just as badly as words like ‘damn’ and so on offend holy ones.

-Lancelot du Lac

The Once and Future King, T.H. White

Last week, the European Parliament awarded its human rights prize, aptly named for Andrei Sakharov, to Chinese dissident, Hu Jia. Hu has made something of a career out of making himself unpopular with the CCP, from calling attention to the plight of the endangered Tibetan antelope to demanding greater care for AIDS patients (and thereby exposing the extent the disease has spread in the PRC).

Hu is presently serving a three-and-half-year prison term for the crime of “inciting subversion of state power,” which if nothing else is an admirably straightforward charge — no Orwellian double-speak there! The catalyst for his arrest was the issuing of a manifesto by peasant leaders over land rights for those who property had been confiscated for development (let’s just say the concept of “eminent domain” is rather broadly employed over there).

Needless to say, the Chinese authorities were not pleased with the European Union’s announcement, declaring

If the European parliament should award this prize to Hu Jia, that would inevitably hurt the Chinese people once again and bring serious damage to China-EU relations.

Party officials are prone to these kinds of vague threats when it comes to foreigners noticing China’s treatment of dissidents, and for that matter its rather liberal use of the term “dissident.” Quite often, these threats don’t amount to much. Nonetheless, the EU is to be commended for recognizing Hu’s courage.

Dealing with human rights is always a dicey business for state actors (that the EU is not really a state actor, along with the amorphousness of its decision-making process, makes things a little easier). It seems to me that disentangling the issue of human rights from politics is well-nigh impossible between sovereign states. This of course means that any definition of human rights is essentially tied to who is doing the defining.

In other words, without any supra-political standard to appeal to, yes, you get the U.S. honoring Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, but you also get Paris making an honorary citizen of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Part of the problem is that, as we learned during the Cold War, human rights as an issue can be a potent tool in a geostrategic conflict. Perhaps for some, as this shameful Weekly Standard cover would imply, it is merely a tool (how else to explain the cavalier downshifting of context for that otherwise potent image?).

Nor is it as simple as insisting that honoring Hu Jia is an apolitical gesture — for the CCP leaders surely see it as a political one. I spent about a year and a half in China, and it was not uncommon for any discussion of the government’s mistreatment of citizens to be met with charges of real (or perceived) injustices in the American system. Many educated Chinese have been conditioned by the Party line to “nationalize” the subject of human rights.

Nonetheless, I do not believe that we should forswear making such gestures — or even that pursuing a more modest foreign policy requires us to do so. If anything, it is our incorrigible interventionism that constrains our capacity to make statements on human rights, as last year’s furor over the passage of the Armenian Genocide Resolution showed.

The same administration that readily wields morality as a club with which to beat geopolitical adversaries (inviting the Dalai Lama to the White House, insisting that it was Russia that initiated the Russo-Georgian dust-up, etc.) found itself unable to back a simple acknowledgment that genocide was perpetrated in Armenia a century ago, due to its being overstretched in the Near East.

My own preference would be for a foreign policy that did not so use human rights in its regular dealings with other nations — but also did not shy away from recognizing the reality of abuses in the world and the courage of those who face them.

In the end, though, these arguments are mostly self-referential. It is Hu Jia who sits alone in a prison cell, facing down one of the world’s strongest state powers.

It seems Tom Waits is one litigious artist. He has filed (and won) no less than four lawsuits against such corporations as Frito-Lay, Levi’s, and Audi for copyright infringement. The Frito case is particularly great because they actually approached Tom Waits about using one of his songs (who would ever think a Tom Waits song would help sell something?), and upon being rejected, hired a soundalike to sing a similar song (who even sounds like Tom Waits, anyway?).

I suppose any karmic benefits one accrues from being a Tom Waits fan are negated by such duplicity.

Also of interest: during the late ’70s, his live backing band was called the Nocturnal Emissions. Awesome.

Donadio’s fine post on the madness of Mr. Krauthammer put me in mind of the wonderful poem by Constantine Cavafy, “Waiting for the Barbarians”:

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are due here today.

Why isn’t anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?

Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating.

Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting at the city’s main gate
on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
replete with titles, with imposing names.

Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.

Why don’t our distinguished orators come forward as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and they’re bored by rhetoric and public speaking.

Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?
(How serious people’s faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home so lost in thought?

Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.

And now, what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.