Dumb and Dumbest

"Idiocracy challenges a central article of faith in American life, the notion that we are destined for moral, material, and intellectual progress. And what if things really are getting worse? What if, more to the point, we really are getting dumber?"

Reihan Salam in Slate reviews the latest soon-to-be-a-DVD-cult-hit from Mike Judge.

And Patt Morrison in the Los Angeles Times adds her take.

And Mark Olsen and John Horn in the Los Angeles Times connect Idiocracy to a trend of dumb-yet-smart movie comedies.

Return of the Prep

"And what about the Republicans? After years of being routed by uncouth Texans and nutty evangelicals, the old Protestant establishment is roaring back. The George Bush who summers in Crawford is a discredited lame duck. The George Bush who summers in Kennebunkport has been vindicated on matters of foreign policy and fiscal responsibility. Why, perhaps this calls for a regatta!"

In The New Republic, Michael Crowley wonders if Ned Lamont's rise in Connecticut marks a cultural shift.

Active or Passive?

"Among the more striking findings, researchers said, were responses to questions concerning how people viewed God's connection—or anger—with the world.
"Distinct patterns emerged,leading researchers at the Texas-based university to identify what they called 'America's Four Gods.'"

The Los Angeles Times reports on a recent study conducted by the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion that breaks down Americans view of God as authoritarian, benevolent, critical, or distant.

Weak on Terror

"In related news, the Bush administration has decided to stake the 2006 elections on Bush's record of fighting terrorism. It sounds like a joke, but it isn't. He let our worst enemies escape; he is on the verge of creating a terrorist haven in Iraq where none existed before; and this is the issue he picks to highlight. Why not run on his record of evacuating New Orleans? Maybe Bill Clinton can run on his record of chastity!
"Of course, Bush doesn't really want to be judged on his record of fighting terrorism as much as his image."

In The New Republic, Jonathan Chait explains how the Bush administration prefers fiction to fact.

What's the 911?

In remembrance of September 11, 2001, here is the March 2005 Popular Mechanics cover story debunking various conspiracy theories; the ariticle has recently been expanded into a book.

Closing Time

"Historically, the employees of Southern California aerospace—the region’s largest private-sector employer from World War II through the end of the Cold War—weren’t just white; they were Southern. According to D.J. Waldie, who chronicled his hometown of Lakewood in his magnificent history-meditation Holy Land, by 1945 600,000 Southerners had moved here to work in the aircraft factories—many of them Steinbeck’s Okies, by way of the San Joaquin Valley. (World War II–era columnist Ernie Pyle called them 'the Aviation Okies.') The biggest of the factories was Douglas Aviation in Long Beach, which employed 50,000 workers during the war and then 100,000 at the height of the Cold War, ranking it alongside Ford’s behemoth River Rouge plant outside Detroit as the largest factory in the nation’s history."

In the LA Weekly, Harold Meyerson charts the end of LA's white working class.

And the Los Angeles Times describes what is happening to the massive aerospace hangers left behind.

Muscle Beach Story

The Los Angeles Times reports the death at age 89 of Moe Most, director of Santa Monica's Muscle Beach from 1947 to 1958.

Back to School

"As for the way Laudable spends its money, I can assure you that your professors aren’t overpaid. But I am. I take home more money at Laudable than anyone else (save some of the clinical physicians over at our hospital and several coaches). My pay is about five times greater than an average faculty member’s. That’s because I’m thought of as the chief executive of the university and chief executives get paid a lot in America."

In The New York Times, former university president William M. Chace gives an honest welcome speech.

Prophetic America

"[Lenny] Bruce began doing conventional stand-up but soon broke out and started speaking his mind. He made fun of Catholics, Jews, everyone. Talked about sex. A New York critic called him 'a truthteller, a kind of prophet, the kind that goes right back to Ezekiel.'"

In the Los Angeles Times, Rich Cohen reviews Stephen E. Kercher's Revel With a Cause: Liberal Satire in Postwar America.


"At its best, Marcus' work, which takes as much inspiration from Elvis as it does from Alexis de Tocqueville and 20th century literary critic F.O. Matthiessen, has always been ecstatic, channeling the drive and irreverence of rock'n'roll into a mission to illuminate the furthest—and often the most obscure—reaches of American culture, from hillbilly singers to B-movie directors to the likes of Puritan leader John Winthrop, President Lincoln and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr."

And Mark Rozzo reviews Greil Marcus's The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy and the American Voice.

After the Great Compression

"The young may be understandably incredulous, but the Great Compression, as economists call it, was the single most important social fact in our country in the decades after World War II. From 1947 through 1973, American productivity rose by a whopping 104 percent, and median family income rose by the very same 104 percent. More Americans bought homes and new cars and sent their kids to college than ever before. In ways more difficult to quantify, the mass prosperity fostered a generosity of spirit: The civil rights revolution and the Marshall Plan both emanated from an America in which most people were imbued with a sense of economic security.
"That America is as dead as the dodo. Ours is the age of the Great Upward Redistribution."

Just in time for Labor Day, Harold Meyerson in The American Prospect outlines the realities for American workers.

"The Dick Clark of the Chicanos"

The Los Angeles Times runs an obit for Dick "Huggy Boy" Hugg, who helped introduce R&B music to Los Angeles radio during the 1950s