March 2012 Acquisitions

Books:
Patrick Allitt (ed.), Major Problems in American Religious History, 2013.
Art Baltazar et al, Tiny Titans: The Treehouse and Beyond, 2011.
Ed Brubaker et al, Catwoman: Nine Lives of a Feline Fatale, 2004.
Raymond Chandler, The Lady in the Lake, 1988.
Daniel Clowes, The Death-Ray, 2011.
Gardner Fox et al, Batgirl: The Greatest Stories Ever Told, 2010.
Kathleen Franz and Susan Smulyan (eds.), Major Problems in American Popular Culture, 2012
Bob Hall, Batman: I, Joker, 1998.
Mat Johnson et al, Incognegro: A Graphic Mystery, 2008.
Karen Ordahl Kupperman, Major Problems in American Colonial History, 2013.
Jeph Loeb et al, Batman: Hush, 2009.
Manning Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, 2011.
Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum, I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution, 2011.
Grant Morrison et al, Batman: Time and the Batman, 2011.
Leslie Parr et al (eds.), Sears, Roebuck & Co.: The Best of 1905-1910 Collectibles, 2011.
Michael Schaller et al, American Horizons: U.S. History in a Global Context, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, 2012.
Dr. Seuss, The Lorax, 1971.
Valarie Solanas, S.C.U.M. Manifesto, 2005.
Billy Wrecks, Big Heroes, 2011.

DVDs:
American Experience: The Gold Rush, 2006.
American Experience: The Great San Francisco Earthquake, 2005.
Baby Boy, 2001.
Bolt, 2008.
Carmen Jones, 1954.
The Muppets, 2011.

The Nat Makaha Criterion Hillbillies

The Los Angeles Times publishes obits for television producer Bob Henry, screenwriter Tonino Guerra, skateboard innovator Larry Stevenson, critic Hilton Kramer, poet Adrienne Rich, and musician Earl Scruggs.

"Timeless, Deeply Rooted in Its Context and Yet Universal"

Robin Pogrebin in The New York Times reports that Wang Shu has won the 2012 Pritzker Prize for architecture.

Empires, Courage, and Fracture

Columbia University awards the 2012 Bancroft Prize to historians Anne F. Hyde, Tomiko Brown-Nagin, and Daniel T. Rodgers.

"Hokey Religions and Ancient Weapons Are No Match for a Good Blaster at Your Side, Kid"

"Even if you never get to be a Jedi Knight, you can emerge victorious by being lucky, clever, and true to your gut. Here are some lessons from everyone’s favorite scruffy looking nerfherder, along with real-life examples to prove their worth. No precognition, levitation, or mind control are required. You might even get to fall in love with a princess."

Matthew Herper at Forbes offers "Five Career Lessons From Han Solo."

"The Justices Most Hostile to the Law Don’t Understand, or Choose Not to Understand, How Insurance Works"

"Let’s start with the already famous exchange in which Justice Antonin Scalia compared the purchase of health insurance to the purchase of broccoli, with the implication that if the government can compel you to do the former, it can also compel you to do the latter. That comparison horrified health care experts all across America because health insurance is nothing like broccoli.

"Why? When people choose not to buy broccoli, they don’t make broccoli unavailable to those who want it. But when people don’t buy health insurance until they get sick—which is what happens in the absence of a mandate—the resulting worsening of the risk pool makes insurance more expensive, and often unaffordable, for those who remain. As a result, unregulated health insurance basically doesn’t work, and never has."

In The New York Times, Paul Krugman shudders when thinking of conservative Supreme Court justices objecting to Obamacare.

"Whatever Happened to Ron Paul?"

"Even Mr. Paul cannot entirely explain why the passion he generated, especially among young people and those his campaign identified as motivated supporters, did not translate into more votes.

"'I don’t have a full answer for that,' says Mr. Paul, who says he believes ballot irregularities have chipped into his numbers in some places. He adds, 'I think there’s some problem with always making sure this energy is translated into getting to the polls.'"

Richard A. Oppel, Jr., wonders in The New York Times.

"Can You Paint a Monster Grin in a Blog? Is There an App for That?"

"The Dodgers have spent two years going through an emotional wringer, deflated by a never-ending series of mind-numbing, selfish ownership moves. The city, the fans, the community, lost faith. Attendance crumbled. Players and coaches did their best, but there was an unhealthy pallor over the franchise.
"Magic will energize the entire organization. He’ll return a belief that ownership is out to win and cares about the fans."

At the Los Angeles Times, Steve Dilbeck reacts to the news that a group featuring Magic Johnson will buy the Los Angeles Dodgers.

"Every Time I Assume that It's All Over, It's Back"

"Here, said Gitlin, is why: 'The tectonic plates that broke loose in the '60s were extremely deep and were holding a lot of social and cultural tension that had been locked in place. And once those plates started moving, they remade the landscape. But the tensions are still in play.'"

Robin Abcarian in the Los Angeles Times discusses how the 1960s influence today's politics.

"What's the Point of Free Speech if You Have Nothing to Say?"

"As you might suspect, there’s a lot of irony in Ballard. If his late (and very funny) books sound peculiar to American ears, it’s probably because of his very English tendency to play almost everything he says, however outrageous, at moderate to low volume. Unlike the noisier, New Yorkerish avant-garde types who like to shock and awe their readers, Ballard doesn’t shout or swear or get in your face. Even his most disturbing obscenities—the porn film sequence in 'Cocaine Nights,' say, or the endlessly salacious car-sex scenarios in his unforgettable 1973 novel 'Crash'—are as mannered and concise and unimpassioned as a GPS device’s soothing, digitally modulated voice describing how to reach the next gas station. (Excuse me—maybe that should read 'petrol station.')"

Scott Bradfield in The New York Times reviews Kingdom Come, J. G. Ballard's last novel.

"Withdrawing in Disgust Is Not the Same as Apathy"

"The world Linklater presents in Slacker is a fleeting snapshot of a time and place that no longer exists—the fliers stapled to the telephone poles have long since disintegrated and disappeared. The independent video stores have mostly gone out of business, replaced first by Blockbuster, then by Redbox, now by at-home streaming. The J.F.K. conspiracy theorists that used to wander the streets looking for a sympathetic ear for their rants can now, on the Internet, find an audience from the alleged comfort of their own homes. There seem to be fewer and fewer pedestrians on the streets, fewer random interactions with strangers as concrete cities are made into virtual ghost towns by cloud computing. With all these devices, we live in a endless summer of social relations. Loneliness has effectively been banished. But is it possible to appreciate it without the contrast of the other seasons? Watching Slacker, there’s the creeping sense that without incidental human encounters, life loses some of its meaning. Places like Austin in 1991 don’t seem to exist anymore—today, the revitalized city centers all look the same, filled with people in American Apparel clothing, working side by side on matching aluminum Macbooks. With the demotion of the physical realm, some essential nutrient required for genuine weirdness to thrive is lost."

Aaron Lake Smith at n+1 looks back two decades to Richard Linklater's Slacker.

And William Deresiewicz in The New York Times wonders about the future of youth culture.

"Greeting Each Other Like Normal Human Beings Impossible For Local Friends"

"'I'm honestly getting a little tired of having them around,' said friend Carl Ruben, who told reporters of a recent gathering in which the two friends appeared on the verge of shaking hands like regular people only to reenact the stare-down between Rocky Balboa and Ivan Drago from Rocky IV. 'I almost wish they'd do their little routines by themselves ahead of time and get it out of their systems. Then maybe we could be actual grown-ups when we're all together.'"

From The Onion.

"A Form of Social Insurance"

"Put aside, for a moment, the fine distinctions of the interstate commerce clause and other constitutional matters the court must ponder. In principle, is the basic obligation that comes with health care reform—to pay for a mutual protection scheme that some individuals might not find advantageous or desirable—really so novel?
"Hardly. It’s an obligation most of us meet on a regular basis, every time we get a paycheck."

Upon the Affordable Care Act's second anniversary, Jonathan Cohn at The New Republic explains why Obamacare is constitutional.

"I Saw My Father March with Martin Luther King"

"I did not see it with my own eyes."

First was Mitt Romney Flip-Flops and Multiple Choice Mitt, but now, behold Etch A Sketch Mitt Romney.

"All Of Area Man's Hard Work Finally Pays Off For Employer"

"'I'm sure there were times when Sam wondered if it was all really worth it, especially considering he had to pay for a lot of his medication and doctor's visits out of his own pocket,' said Pardahee, who in 2009 forced all his account managers to become contract employees so he would no longer have to provide them with health care benefits. 'But he never complained once, and now that Sam has helped Pinnacle earn record profits by not taking a single day off for more than five years, I can finally relax and take another long vacation to Turks and Caicos. After all, Sam earned it for me.'
"The CEO added that nothing is more satisfying than a job well done by someone else."

From The Onion.

Isn't That Special?

"Did you see the banner behind Rick Santorum’s defeat rally on Tuesday? One word: Freedom. But just a few days earlier, Santorum applauded a preacher in Louisiana who said people who didn’t want to live in a Christian nation should leave the country. Freedom, in Santorum’s world, apparently only applies only to those of one religion."

Timothy Egan in The New York Times argues that Republicans are in favor of a "church lady" state.

"Life Is a Game and Money Is How We Keep Score"

"What jumps out from MacGillis’ article is the dynamic that Hanley traces, though I’m much more explicitly critical of it than Hanley is. The hedge fundis think that capitalism is great because it gives rise to meritocratic success stories like them. Beyond this—and Hanley leaves this part out, perhaps because it’s so distasteful—they think that they are great because they themselves embody such success stories. And what might seem to us like imperceptible tax increases seem to them like direct insults. Their net worth proves, as it were, their net worth. And the President, in aiming at their bottom line, is threatening the personal quest that defines their lives."

Andrew Sabl at Washington Monthly considers recent writing about hedge fund managers.

"Home to the Largest and Fastest Growing Poor Population in the Country"

"The conceit that poverty is a problem suffered by other—often less deserving—people was an essential part of suburban self-identity that was reflected in its politics. Better-heeled suburban schools, sports teams and private recreation contributed to an ethos that emphasized family residential security, individual meritocracy and private life. Its inhabitants conveniently forgot that their cherished neighborhoods were in fact dependent on the programs of the New Deal state, not to mention the federal residential security maps that privileged white Americans."

Lisa McGirr at The New York Times wonders about the impact of rising poverty in American suburbs.

Unconstitutional

The New York Times runs reviews of Dale Carpenter's Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas: How a Bedroom Arrest Decriminalized Gay Americans and J. Harvie Wilkinson III's Cosmic Constitutional Theory: Why Americans Are Losing Their Inalienable Right to Self-Governance.

"A Future Where the Wealthiest Students Might Just End Up with a Leg Up on Everyone Else"

"Since 2008, the Golden State has shrunk funding for its sprawling, 112-school community college system by 13 percent. Its cuts to higher-ed have not been the most severe in the nation, but they have been painful. Santa Monica alone has lost $9.9 million support. And like its institutional peers, the school has been forced to cut classes in response. It now offers 15 percent fewer courses than four years ago--not nearly enough to meet the demand from students, many of whom simply cannot get enough credits to finish their degrees on schedule, or transfer to a four-year school. A Santa Monica spokesman told me that some courses have waiting lists twice the size of the actual class. Out of frustration, students have started transferring to expensive, for-profit schools, taking out high-priced loans in order to get their degree in a reasonable amount of time.
"Santa Monica has come up with a smart, yet frustrating, solution. This week, the school announced that it would begin offering more expensive versions of its most popular courses during the summer in order to accommodate students who can't take them during the school year. The classes will be offered at cost, since the college is providing them without any subsidy from the state. The price works out to $180 a credit--not a huge sum, but still five-times what students pay now."

Jordan Weissmann at The Atlantic reports on the new privatization program at Santa Monica College.

And Mike Konczal in Dissent criticizes the overall drift toward college privatization.

Dependency Thesis

"In those cultures, young children were expected to contribute substantially to the community, says Dr. Ochs. Children in Samoa serve food to their elders, waiting patiently in front of them before they eat, as shown in one video snippet. Another video clip shows a girl around 5 years of age in Peru's Amazon region climbing a tall tree to harvest papaya, and helping haul logs thicker than her leg to stoke a fire.
"By contrast, the U.S. videos showed Los Angeles parents focusing more on the children, using simplified talk with them, doing most of the housework and intervening quickly when the kids had trouble completing a task."

Shirley S. Wang in The Wall Street Journal discusses a UCLA study of middle-class families.

"Driven from the Happy Land of Canaan"

"The story of General Orders No. 11 and its lingering impact fills in a missing and revealing 'Jewish' chapter in the biography of Ulysses S. Grant. The order and its aftermath also shed new light on one of the most tumultuous eras in American history, the era of the Civil War and Reconstruction. During these years—America’s 'Second Founding' as one historian terms it—the definition of what America is and who 'We the People' should include convulsed the country. Most of the debate naturally centered on the status of black people, but there was likewise substantial debate concerning the Jews. Though they formed less than 1 percent of the population at that time, Jews were by far the most significant non-Christian immigrant group in the nation and their numbers had been increasing rapidly—from about 15,000 in 1840 to some 150,000 on the eve of the Civil War. General Orders No. 11 implied that these Jews formed a separate 'class' of Americans, distinct from their neighbors, and subject, especially when suspicions of smuggling fell upon them, to collective forms of punishment, including expulsion. The National Reform Association, which was particularly active during the 1870s, went further, seeking to 'declare the nation's allegiance to Jesus Christ.' A 'religious' amendment, proposed repeatedly during the Grant years, on the theory that the Civil War was punishment for 'the absence of any adequate recognition of God' in the nation’s founding documents, looked to write Christianity directly into the Constitution itself.

"Against this backdrop, Ulysses S. Grant’s surprising embrace of Jews during his presidency takes on new significance. Through his appointments and policies, Grant rejected calls for a 'Christian nation,' and embraced Jews as insiders in America, part of 'We the People.'"

Slate runs an excerpt from Jonathan D. Sarna new book, When General Grant Expelled the Jews.

And Jenna Weissman Joselit reviews Sarna's book in The New Republic.

"One of the Great Masters of Adventure"

"The serial, needless to say, was a hit, though no one yet knew that ERB would soon become a phenomenon. His editor at All-Story quickly asked him to write a historical novel, which the obliging author produced in a few weeks, only to have the chivalric romance rejected. Eventually, it would be revised and rejected again. Putting 'The Outlaw of Torn' aside, Burroughs took up his own new idea, its action set largely in Africa (where he had never been). Drawing on the classical legends of the heroic Romulus and Remus, who were suckled by a wolf, and adding a touch of Mowgli from Kipling’s 'The Jungle Books,' Burroughs created one of the most famous fictional characters of modern times. In the November, 1912 issue of All-Story—only a few months after the conclusion of John Carter’s adventures on Mars—there appeared, published in its entirety, 'Tarzan of the Apes.'
"Readers went crazy."

Michael Dirda in Salon writes an appreciation of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

The Antecedents

"What followed was a slow-motion stripping of tradition, land, political power and health from the native Hawaiians over the next 70 or so years, which Siler details intricately: the shaming of traditional dress and dance, the gobbling up of property belonging to land-rich but cash-poor locals by American and British sugar planters, the 'Bayonet Constitution,' forced on King Kalakaua by, among others, a missionary grandson, which turned the monarch into a figurehead, gave voting rights to property-­owning whites and took them away from many native Hawaiians. And of course, there was the toll of foreign-borne smallpox and measles, which reduced the native Hawaiian population by a horrific 75 percent between Cook’s arrival and 1853."

Malia Boyd in The New York Times reviews Julia Flynn Siler's Lost Kingdom: Hawaii’s Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and America’s First Imperial Adventure.

There's So Much that We Share

The Los Angeles Times runs obits for illustrator Ralph McQuarrie, songwriter Robert B. Sherman, model Eleanor Callahan, photographer Stan Stearns, social scientist James Q. Wilson, blogger Andrew Breitbart, and clothier Robert E. Gray.

"A Bizarre Model to Follow for Fostering Stability in Today’s World"

"While it is true that colonial policy was often formulated in London, it is equally true that Britain could become the greatest power on earth only by delegating power—either to Britons who served as imperial representatives or to local forces intent on doing the empire’s bidding. But Kwasi Kwarteng, in this fine book, argues that the empire granted far too much authority to the wrong people. 'Accidents and decisions made on a personal, almost whimsical, level have had a massive impact on international politics,' Kwarteng writes."

Isaac Chotiner in The New York Times reviews Kwasi Kwarteng's Ghosts of Empire: Britain’s Legacies in the Modern World.

"The Most Eloquent Manifesto in the History of the American Left"

"But by invoking the spirit of John Dewey, Albert Camus, C. Wright Mills, Michael Harrington and Pope John XXIII, by at once championing and chiding organized labor as a victim of its own success (the S.D.S. began as the student arm of the League for Industrial Democracy), by elevating the university to the apex of activism and by validating liberalism and the two-party system, Tom Hayden and his colleagues forged a manifesto that still reverberates."

Sam Roberts in The New York Times marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Port Huron Statement.

"An Appeal to Americans to Live Up to Their Better Instincts"

"Harrington had initially been drawn to the concept of the culture of poverty because he thought it would serve as a prod to federal action on housing, medical care, education and jobs. What he did not anticipate was that the theory could cut in other ways, antithetical to his values and policy preferences. Conservatives took the attitudes and behaviors Harrington saw as symptoms of poverty and portrayed them as its direct causes."

Maurice Isserman in The New York Times marks the fiftieth anniversary of Michael Harrington's The Other America.