Night Light

on the radio

I'll be on the Young Turks at 7:30 EST/4:30 PST today.  You can see it here: 

www.theyoungturks.com

We'll talk budget, health care, and maybe one or two other things.

Def Party Time! Let's Make a GOP Hip-Hop Video

Warning: The following material requires an entry-level familiarity with pop culture terminology and references of the 1980s and 1990s.

Michael Steele already said that Obama's stimulus plan is full of "bling bling." But did he really just say that he's going to bring the GOP to "hip hop settings" - and that it will be "off the hook"?

Oh, no, he didn't!

Oh, yes, he did!

I mean, "off the hook"? "Off the hook"? That expression is twenty-five years old! Michael Steele may think he's the new, youthful face of Republicanism, but he's over fifty and it's showing. His hipness, such as it is, is like Robert de Niro in Awakenings. It just woke up and realized how long it's been in a coma.

I guess Ronald Reagan isn't the only thing Republicans miss from the eighties. Apparently they also miss "Ice Ice Baby" and other def and fresh innovations of the time. Michael Steele really has changed the party. Until now, Republicans thought "urban contemporary" was the furniture style the decorator used for the rumpus room.

"Bling bling" was bad enough. Not only is the reference slightly offensive, but people have long since switched to the use of the single word "bling." And as for "off the hook," who said that last: Kid or Play? Please, Michael Steele's hipness -- put down the ouija board, say goodbye to Robin Williams, and go back to sleep.

Fat (or should I say "phat") chance that will happen. We all know that Michael Steele has the job of running a party with no solutions to offer, and the best idea he's had so far is to appropriate this lingo.

Bust a move.

But maybe we're being too hasty. Maybe he can make this retro-80's thing work for him -- with, you know, a little help from his friends. First he'll need to take some "rap lessons." (I hear Joaquin Phoenix is available.) Then he could put a little act of his own together: "The Fresh Prince of the Beltway, with Fatcat Cash and the Wheels of Steele."

They could get Rush Limbaugh to be a Human Beat Box, a wall of fleshy sound. Then they could make a video, MTV-style, with spray painting and graffiti that says "Adults Keep Out" or "No Taxes for the Rich!" In fact, as an act of across-the-aisle generosity, I'll write the lyrics. Ready? Okay, then! I'm going to call up Michael Steele and read him his new hit. I've appropriated a musical backing that won't make men in their fifties uncomfortable - "Parents Just Don't Understand" by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. Check it:

Democrats Just Don't Understand

You know the grownups are in charge now and they're always the same
But Republicans are down -- sure, we made our mistakes
But we're telling our homies all throughout the land
The problem is that Democrats just don't understand

Like I remember one term the president was trippin'
We were all deregulatin' so the markets were flippin'
There was Bush, and Cheney, and Don, and Condoleezza
Givin' away tax billions like we're sending out for pizza

And fightin' some war we didn't need to be fightin'
So those liberals gotta act all rude an' uptight
Torture some guys and every body holla'
What about me? I had to wear all that starch in my collar

Step off, Harry Reid!
Step off, Ms. Pelosi!
We're legit and we're scarier than Bela Lugosi!

Pay attention, here's the thick of the plot
We lost by so much it still can amaze us
And now sucka Democrats are tryin' to faze us
But we got some ill s**t left so we're not too bitter
In fact I'm down with my B-boy here, Senator Vitter

(cut to Sen. Vitter and Mitch McConnell working the turntables)

We know that people out there need so much help
When it comes to your problems, this party is def
We're 2 tough 2 fail so we're gonna survive
"Just block all progress," that's how we'll stay alive
(Ah! ah! ah! ah! stayin' alive)

I ran for this job, told the Party don't panic
I'll just use some street talk on the Blacks and Hispanics
Sure they're the ones that have been beat down the worst of 'em
But once they hear me they'll forget we're a curse to them -

They'll understand we just made a mistake
And Democrats are boring! while we're funky and fake
So to all of you ethnics across the land
Take it from me, Democrats just don't understand

So, Mr. Steele - what do you think?

Mr. Steele? Mr. Steele?

There's nobody there. I guess he hung up on me. His phone is dead.

Or maybe it's just off the hook ...

Earth's Diamond Ring

The Japanese lunar probe "Kaguya," also called SELENE, took this footage of the sun being eclipsed by the Earth, as seen from orbit above the moon, while at the same time both the sun and Earth are apparently rising above the horizon.  So you'll see blackness for a while.  Then you'll see a ring forming from the top down as they rise (or the horizon recedes - it's all relative, as the saying goes.) Then, an explosion of light as the Earth moves out of the way.

Impressive, isn't it? Doesn't really need a lot of "writing" to go with the visual.

Aerosmith? No Way! Help the GOP Pick a Better Theme Song

So the House Republicans are bragging about their opposition to the stimulus bill ... with a video that uses Aerosmith's "Back in the Saddle"? And they're bragging about ... doing nothing? America deserves a better opposition party than that, and the opposition party deserves a more appropriate theme song.

The role of the opposition is to present different ideas, propose alternatives, challenge the party in power to think differently. You know - all that civic stuff. Instead we get a song selection that's as poorly thought out as the party's platform. I mean, have they even listened to "Back in the Saddle"? One of its more printable lines is "four bits gets you time in the racks." That's right. Eric Cantor, the man who took Tom DeLay's old job, has just chosen for his battle cry a tune about prostitution in the Wild West.

Is this a theme song or a cry for help?

We, like the American people, are charitable and generous by nature. We therefore assume that any overtones of irony are unintentional. So, in the bipartisan spirit of the times, let's help the online community come up with a better song choice for the Republicans in Congress. (And, no ... it wouldn't be very bipartisan to suggest "Fool On the Hill.")

If the GOP wants to stay within the Aerosmith oeuvre, may we suggest "Love In An Elevator?" That's the one whose chorus summarizes our last eight years of governance: "Livin' it up while we're going dooown ..."

Or how about "Tell Her No"? Here's the chorus to that sixties nugget:

No no no no no no no no
no no no no no no no no no
no no no no no no

The word "no" is repeated 23 times. Seems appropriate, doesn't it? What's more, the group that performed it is "The Zombies," which brings to mind that persistent (though disproved) "zombie lie" that the stimulus bill will "dictate how health care is provided" (a topic we'll return to in a more serious moment).

Meanwhile, the GOP and its media enablers insist that its far-right views represent "the center," despite polls that have consistently disproved that. So there's always "Stuck in the Middle With You," I guess. (The group's name was "Stealer's Wheel," but we don't have to draw any conclusions from that.)

Then there's that Joan Jett song, the one that says "I don't give a damn about my bad reputation." Maybe you've heard it:

The world's in trouble
Theres no communication
An everyone can say
What they want to say
It never gets better anyway
So why should I care ...

Personally, I'd go with the Joan Jett. It has just the right combination of self-mythification, cynicism, and what used to be called enlightened self-interest. (And its crunching guitars will please those Republicans who want you to know that underneath that pinstripe-clad exterior they were born to rock you.)

But here's what I worry about: What if the Republican Party figures our that it might actually stage a comeback by becoming the party of populism? Yesterday we saw Republican Senator Lindsey Graham state the near-obvious - that nationalizing banks should "not be off the table" - while Democrat Chuck Schumer said he'd be against it. Sen. Graham was doing what someone in the opposition party should do: say things that it's difficult for the party in power in express. And Sen. Schumer was running the risk of being outmaneuvered to the left on the subject of a very unpopular bailout.

Eric Cantor's Aerosmith gambit is nearly as clueless a move as all those "parody songs" the would-be party leaders were playing a few weeks ago. But if the day ever comes when the Republicans stop playing "Back in the Saddle" and start playing "Working Class Hero," the Democrats may find themselves facing the music.

(UPDATE:  We've gotten some great suggestions in the Comments section of the Huffington Post, where this is cross-posted.)
________________________________________

(You can help the GOP by voting in this online poll. Norm Coleman's attorneys are standing by to tabulate the results.)

3 Quarks essay: John Lennon Monsters in the Uncanny Valley

(full essay posted at 3QD)

Writers at this site have discussed the "Uncanny Valley" before.  Put simply, it's that point along the curve from "clearly artificial" to "almost lifelike" at which most people get ... well, creeped out.

While the term is new (a Japanese roboticist coined it in 1970), the idea may be as old as myth:  Ugly things - things that look very different from us - are repulsive.  But so are things that look almost like us - or things that could be us, but aren't. 

Isn't that why vampires fascinate us?  "I thought she or he was safe, trustworthy, one of us ... until I saw no reflection in the mirror ..."

No reflection in the mirror = no confirmation of humanity, either theirs or ours.  If they don't cast a reflection than they don't reflect us.

So a monster that's human-like is scary for different reasons than an obviously grotesque one.  In the dark that face seemed almost human.  But when I turned on the light ...

Anybody want to insert a Joan Rivers joke here?  Go right ahead.  Plastic surgery falls into the Uncanny Valley sometimes.  We allowed ourselves to adjust as  famous people gradually began reconstructing themselves more and more.

Imagine if someone with a heavily reconstructed face - Michael Jackson, let's say - were sent back in time 100 years. It wouldn't be a joke.  People would run away in horror.

"Monster:  From the root of the Latin monere, to warn - as of something terrible or portentous."  That's what the Encyclopedia Britannica says.

"Monster ... not one with the blowing clover or the falling rain."  That's what Ralph Waldo Emerson says.

So let's call Uncanny Valley monstrosity a warning:  That thing you thought might be human ... isn't.

And what does John Lennon have to do with all of this?  Surprisingly, nobody's built any animatronic  Beatles yet.  I have seen Beatles cover bands in about five different countries, including Japan, Portugal, and India.  Moptops, collarless suits, bobbing heads ... the whole deal.  But, while the late Mr. Lennon has escaped robotic reproduction (which could leave him looking like the overly humanized "actroid" on the right), he lives on in at least two back roads of the Uncanny Valley.

Continue reading "John Lennon Monsters in the Uncanny Valley"

Wait ... Didn't Michael Steele Just Say My Parents Never Had Jobs?

My mother and father were teachers. My father worked his way up and eventually ran a community college. My mother was paid by the county and my father was paid by the state. So, according to the head of the Republican Party, they never had "jobs."

Here's what Michael Steele told George Stephanopoulos yesterday:

STEELE: You've got to look at what's going to create sustainable jobs. What this administration is talking about is making work. It is creating work. What this administration is talking about is making work. It is creating work.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But that's a job.

STEELE: No, it's not a job. A job is something that -- that a business owner creates.

Somebody's going to have to break it to my parents that they they've never had a job - not even back in the 1940's. While they went to college my father worked nights in a shipyard as a welder while my mother picked up cigarette butts in the parking lot of a defense plant.

I guess those weren't jobs either, because both of them were funded by government contracts. Then my Dad joined the service. That was government "work," too. I wonder if Michael Steele wants to break it to these two people that they didn't really have sixty years of productive service to society. (And, well into their eighties, they're not done yet.)

While he's at it, he could also talk to my childhood friend Billy. Bill and I had a rock and roll band together when we were teenagers. His Dad used to like to have a few beers and then sit around with us, hammering away at the guitar and singing "I'm going to Chicago, but I won't take you ..." Mr. M was a good guy. He worked thirty years for the Thruway, dealing with accident scenes. Sometimes he'd tell us the grisly details.

Well, Mr. M never had a job either, as it turns out. The Thruway Authority's a government agency. That means we'll have to tell Bill the bad news about his late father. Last time I saw him he told me he works for the county now, inspecting sewers and that sort of thing. It's a decent job, he said ... oh, wait. That's right: It's not a job.

Who knew? Before Michael Steele and the Republicans, that is ...

This isn't about playing "gotcha" with some obstructionists. Well, okay, maybe it is a little ... But mostly it's about the economic ignorance, real or feigned, underlying most GOP objections to this stimulus package. Steele seem like an intelligent man. I honestly don't know if he and the other Republicans really believe what they're saying, or if they've just made a tactical decision to oppose the stimulus and then hope it fails. It's starting to look like it's the latter.

Either way, the rest of the Steele interview illustrates a level of confusion that makes his problem with the word "jobs" seem minor. He talks, for example, about "correcting those rules in the markets that have hindered and frustrated the banking process, that have lent itself to drying up the credit markets as we see them."

No, Mr. Steele. There has been a lack of rules in the market - one that led to too much credit being extended in irresponsible ways. Then the money was all gone. And then we got in trouble.

And it gets worse. Steele asks: "How does -- how does -- I mean, I'm all for Pell Grants, but how does a Pell Grant, increasing funding for Pell Grant get me a job when I just lost mine?"

Here's how, Mr. Steele: A Pell Grant provides funding for someone to get a college education. More students can go to college, which provides more jobs to teachers. And the businesses that serve the college community make more money, so they can hire more people. Then, after the student gets a degree, they can get a job and earn a better income. That means they spend more. So businesses make more more money then, too, and then they can hire more people.

Like the guy with the cellphone says: Can you hear me now?

We're going to be hearing a lot more of this kind of obstructionist talk in the next few days and weeks, so here's what's worth passing on to politically noncommitted friends and relatives: Government-funded jobs are real jobs. They're jobs for cops, firefighters, construction workers ... all sorts of folks. And Steele's not the only one playing games.

Now, people like Billy's father and my parents weren't big political donors. They didn't have that kind of money. But they had good jobs - government jobs. Yes, some of the jobs in this stimulus package will "go away" when contracts end, just like my parents' first jobs did in the forties. But they worked their way through college on those jobs. So will some of the people who get jobs under the stimulus plan.

And all of the people who get jobs because of this bill will spend money,which will stimulate the economy. (Hence the word "stimulus," which obstructionists either don't comprehend or choose to ignore.) That means that the economy will grow and there will be more private-sector jobs available by the time the government-funded jobs come to an end. That's how it worked under FDR. (And, yes, it did work under FDR. Read the history, Mr. Steele, not the talking points.)

The final stimulus bill may be imperfect. But if it gets the economy moving again, everybody will benefit. Pretty soon enough Republicans in Congress are going to realize that. They will put their country's interest above their party's and vote for this bill, and then it will pass. There will be a side benefit when that happens: My parents, and millions of others like them, won't have to go through retirement with a blank sheet of paper for a resumé.

9/11 and The Spy Factory

Last night I watched an advance copy of "The Spy Factory," a NOVA special on the NSA airing tonight.  It's based on the book of the same name by James Bamford, who is one of the principal interviewees on the show.  While I have my issues with the program, it's watchable and informative.  It spends the first hour establishing the NSA knew enough about the activities of two 9/11 terrorists to find them very suspicious, yet didn't let the FBI know.

So far, so good - but this isn't new information.  What's more, a series of talking heads are allowed to score some personal points  before the program finally lets Banford draw the right conclusions at the end:  that the NSA had all the legal tools at its disposal under FISA to do its job in this case, yet for some reason didn't.  It's also made pretty clear that Gen. Hayden lied to (or misled) Congress in a clip of some testimony.  Yet earlier talking heads who claim that the law prevented them from pursuing these guys go unrefuted. 

What's particularly annoying is Hayden's sworn testimony that if Bin Laden himself were to walk across the bridge into the US at Niagara Falls the NSA would be forced to stop tracking him halfway across.  That's flatly untrue, even if they had so bungled the job that they didn't suspect in advance he was coming here.  Why?  Under FISA law they could continue tracking him for 72 hours while waiting for a warrant from the judge.

9/11 appears to be the product of at least two systemic breakdowns:  First, agencies didn't cooperate with one another.  Second, the Executive Branch failed to mobilize in the face of very good intelligence we did have - intelligence that said Bin Laden was planning a major attack, and that Federal buildings in New York were being cased at the same time we were observing activity consistent with hijacking preparation.

The NOVA website says this is the show's theme:  "The program argues that the NSA's extreme secrecy may have allowed 9/11 to happen and may still pose its own kind of threat to our national security. "  Those are points worth making, and the program flows easily.  It could have been even more timely, as politicians fight today to define the Bush legacy as an "anti-terror success."

There is an entire cottage industry dedicated to claiming that Bush-era illegalities are the reason   we haven't been attacked here in the US since 9/11(although terror attacks are up sharply worldwide).    But there's no evidence that lawbreaking was ever necessary, as the show eventually demonstrates.  The best explanation for the lack of another homeland attack comes from Michael Scheurer, who points out that the first attack met its goal of dividing and demoralizing us while leading us into costly and fruitless military ventures.  Another attack would only bring us together again, with a common sense of purpose.  Why would Al Qaeda want that?

And while we're on the subject of terrorism, there's an interesting new mathematical model that suggests we're more likely to catch terrorists at the airport if we don't profile.  But then, profiling's part of the theater.  And if you really want to know how ineffective those airport checks are, read this article.  A reporter was able to get through security carrying large jugs of liquid (by labeling them "saline").  And he did it after showing the TSA staff his Hezbollah flag and "Bin Laden - Hero of Islam" t-shirt.  

We're not even very good profilers.  What use is the technical wizardry of the NSA when the human side of security and intelligence remains so weak?

a new health policy post ...

... is up on The Huffington Post.  In it I interview UC Berkeley professor Jacob Hacker on his health reform proposal (which I like).  The full Q and A is at my health policy blog, The Sentinel Effect.  Excerpt from the HuffPo item:

"Professor Hacker's proposal, Health Care for America, is based on two simple principles: First, that both the employer-based private system and publicly-funded Medicare are essentially working for their members. Second, that every uninsured American (or legal resident) should be able to buy into a Medicare-like public program at affordable rates, with need-based subsidies. In theory, the Hacker plan increases coverage while lowering costs in several ways: by bringing more people into a system whose costs are rising more slowly; by helping the government increase the scope and effectiveness of its design changes; by encouraging private plans to keep costs low: and by increasing the public system's leverage and reach."

And there you have it ...