The Endorsements Continue...

Following this post, more publications endorse Barack Obama for President, including The Denver Post, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and in its first-ever support for a Democratic nominee, the Chicago Tribune.

L.A.'s Story

"Into this world popped Los Angeles. At the dawn of the decade that would kill venerable national weeklies like the The Saturday Evening Post, Look, and Collier’s, UCLA journalism graduate student Geoffrey Miller had the novel idea of a city monthly whose writers could help define the city. 'It was a new idea,' he recalls. The closest equivalent was something 'published by the Philadelphia chamber of commerce [that] usually featured some guy in a suit on the cover.'"

Marc Haefele in LA CityBeat details the history of Los Angeles, the first monthly regional service magazine.

America's Unfinished Revolution

"Of the thousands of men and women who have served in the Senate or as governors since the ratification of the Constitution, only nine have been African-American. Three of the nine hold office today: Senator Obama and Governors David Paterson of New York and Deval Patrick of Massachusetts. Well over a century ago, during the turbulent era of Reconstruction, they were preceded by another three: Hiram Revels and Blanche Bruce, both senators from Mississippi, and P.B.S. Pinchback, briefly the governor of Louisiana. The gulf between this trio and Obama, Paterson and Patrick is a striking reminder of the almost insurmountable barriers that have kept African-Americans from the highest offices in the land."

Eric Foner reviews Philip Dray's Capitol Men: The Epic Story of Reconstruction Through the Lives of the First Black Congressmen in The Nation.

Final Notes

The Los Angeles Times runs obits for Neal Hefti, composer of the Batman TV theme, "Godfather of Rock Steady" Alton Ellis, and Four Tops lead singer Levi Stubbs.

"Piano's Lackluster String Quartet"

"It's hard to know which of these factors got out of kilter, but the Broad Museum, while it has its moments, falls far short of greatness."

In Slate, architecture critic Witold Rybczynski reviews the new addition to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

"The Mainstreaming of the Far Right"

"Precisely because Obama is not a baby boomer, he carries none of that generation's scars. Most Americans (including most boomers) are weary of living in the past and reprising the 1960s every four years.
"Yet culture war politics is relatively mild compared with the far right appeals that are emerging this year. It is as if McCain's loyalists overshot the '60s and went back to the '50s or even the '30s."

E.J. Dionne, Jr. in The New Republic charges John McCain's campaign with stoking the anger of his supporters.

God and Mammon

"Expecting a terra incognita, I found myself instead in the land of déjà vu. The lexicon of The Wall Street Journal and the business sections of Time and Newsweek turned out to bear a striking resemblance to Genesis, the Epistle to the Romans, and Saint Augustine's City of God. Behind descriptions of market reforms, monetary policy, and the convolutions of the Dow, I gradually made out the pieces of a grand narrative about the inner meaning of human history, why things had gone wrong, and how to put them right. Theologians call these myths of origin, legends of the fall, and doctrines of sin and redemption. But here they were again, and in only thin disguise: chronicles about the creation of wealth, the seductive temptations of statism, captivity to faceless economic cycles, and, ultimately, salvation through the advent of free markets, with a small dose of ascetic belt tightening along the way, especially for the East Asian economies."

In a 1999 Atlantic Monthy article, Harvey Cox explores the theology of The Market.

Thirteen Days

The Los Angeles Times runs an obit for Richard Stephen Heyser, the U-2 pilot whose photos started the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The Garden of Good and Evil

"Freedmen had a fighting chance as long as they could count on the support of the federal government. But Washington’s commitment to racial justice, always tenuous, quickly faded. In the process, revolution gave way to restoration. By the early 1870s African-Americans had been driven out of Savannah’s political life. In the surrounding countryside blacks had been reduced to a largely landless peasantry, eking out meager livings on tiny parcels of rented land. And all along the Georgia coast local officials began to impose systematic segregation, the legalized humiliation that would culminate in Jim Crow."

In The New York Times, Kevin Boyle reviews Jacqueline Jones's Saving Savannah: The City and the Civil War.

Bust a Move

"The myth is ancient, but the narrative is important to the revolution Bernini soon made in the traditional genre of the portrait bust. 'Apollo and Daphne' records a vivacious being who is transformed into a static tree--a living object that's incapable of voluntary movement. That's also a pretty good description of Bernini's goal for a person's portrait carved in stone.
"How did he do it?"

Christopher Knight in the Los Angeles Times reviews "Bernini and the Birth of Baroque Portrait Sculpture" at the Getty Center.

The Wrath of Kahn

"In the midst of this mess, former American Airlines C.E.O. Bob Crandall gave a speech to a group of airline executives in New York City in June that sounded a little like heresy: Crandall essentially called for reregulating the sector. 'We have failed to confront the reality that unfettered competition just doesn’t work very well in certain industries,' he said."

Matthew Malone in Portfolio wonders if airlines need reregulation.

What Are Words For, When No One Listens Anymore?

"My core argument is that lyrics don't really matter--they're an optional extra, much like a sunroof or a patio. But when music and lyrics work together they're better than the sum of parts. But that's not all there is to it."

The Acrylic Afternoons blog takes notes as Jarvis Cocker lectures on the role of lyrics in songs at the Brighton Festival.

"Eyes of a Killer"

"As a student at Newberry College, he took charge of the College Republicans National Committee, recognizing the GOP's need to bring more youth into the party. Under his leadership, the organization became a national force. As his success grew, so did his ambition, and it wasn't long before national Republican leaders took notice. Before leaving school to work for the late South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, Atwater orchestrated the campaign of Karl Rove, his protégé, in a bid to take over the College Republicans. Rove eventually won the election after the head of the Republican National Committee, George H.W. Bush, interceded on his behalf. The battle for the 2000 presidential election echoes loudly."

Antonino D'Ambrosio in The Nation reviews Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story.

"No Se Olvide!"

"'When I was little and my mother told me what happened [that night], I couldn't believe it,' the student said. 'How could it be possible that so many people died and the people did nothing and the media less?'
"'But as I grew up, I realized that a lot of things happen but people don't act--it's like they're asleep. 1968 was an awakening.'"

In the Los Angeles Times, Tracy Wilkinson and Deborah Bonello report on commemorations of Mexico City's 1968 student massacre.

"Citizens Are Now Free to Practise Any Form Of Protestantism They Want"

"Be you Anglican, Baptist, Anabaptist, Puritan, or even Pietist, then worry not in regard to having weighty Stones of sharp points cast upon your Person, or your Land salted and your Mule burnt to the ground as is done to the hooked-nose JEW, and allay your fears of being beat'n about the Head and Boddie, covered in Quick-lime, Tarr, and Ground-Glass, and driven into the Sea, as is the much deserv'd Lot of the wicked PAPIST."

From The Onion, 1783.

Now Playing at the Googleplex

"In honor of our 10th birthday, we've brought back our oldest available index. Take a look back at Google in January 2001."

Government's in Gridlock!

"'The founding fathers didn't really expect there to be political parties,' said Columbia University provost Alan Brinkley, 'and they thought that governance would proceed through consensus. But it didn't take long for political parties to emerge.'
"A professor of history, Brinkley says gridlock characterizes the way Congress acts more often than not in its history."

Martha Teichner on CBS's Sunday Morning program reports on the problem of extreme partisanship.

Virginian Luxuries

"In the end, Jefferson fulfilled the 'treaty' he had agreed to in Paris and freed Sally Hemings’s surviving children. He allowed their daughter Harriet and son Beverley (ages 21 and 24) to leave Monticello in 1822. Very light-skinned, they chose to live out their lives as white people. Jefferson’s will freed Madison and Eston Hemings as well as three of their relatives. The will did not mention Sally Hemings, but Jefferson’s daughter allowed her to move to Char­lottesville, where she lived with her sons as a free person until dying in 1835. For the other slaves at Monticello, Jefferson’s death in 1826 was a catastrophe. To settle his enormous debts, his estate, including well over 100 slaves, was auctioned, destroying the families he had long tried to keep intact."

Eric Foner in The New York Times reviews Annette Gordon-Reed's The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family.

"The Most Shakespearean Film Noir of All Time"

"In more ways than one, the film belongs to Welles. His performance as the obese, game-legged, ex-alcoholic Quinlan, generally shot from below to accentuate his distended proportions, is as much a tour de force as his direction. As some critics have noted, the sweaty, oppressive physicality of the character comes to personify the film's decadent style."

In the Los Angeles Times, Dennis Lim considers Touch of Evil on the movie's fiftieth anniversary.

"A Handy Resource for Your Perusal"

It's the Sarah Palin Debate Flow Chart!

"How Will America Change as a Result of the Economic Downturn?"

The New Republic asks Alan Brinkley this question.

"Robbing the Human Race"

"The basic message here is one of astonishment: Why would anyone ban books when literature is such a positive and ennobling force? Yet while I agree with that, I also believe that some books truly are dangerous, and to ignore that is simply disingenuous.
"Lest this make me seem an apologist for the book banners, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, I'm against restricting anything other than material that graphically portrays certain illegal acts.
"Yet it's foolish, self-defeating even, to pretend that books are innocuous, that we don't need to concern ourselves with what they say. If that's the case, then it doesn't really matter if we ban them, because we have already stripped them of their power."

David L. Ulin in the Los Angeles Times considers Banned Books Week.

"Does Biden suspect?"

"I have long considered Biden to be hopelessly out of his depth. He is the perfect exemplar of someone who has never quite overcome his Mid-Atlantic Weltanschauung. But I must grudgingly concede that he may be more clever than I thought.
"He called last night to wish me well for the debate. Just before he hung up the phone, he mentioned being halfway through Amartya Sen’s collected works and wondering if he had fully absorbed the practical implications. 'You know what I mean,' he said.
"I ended the phone call hastily and pondered his words for a minute. Had he, or one of his aides, seen me toting my copy of 'Collective Choice and Social Welfare'? It has already been a few weeks since I put down my Sen and picked up Friedrich Hayek. Still--was Biden trying to rattle me before the debate? Merde!"

Read more at Sarah Palin's Secret Blog.

"The War with Dynamite"

"There were six blasts in all. About 100 people had been at work, and now they were all trapped in flames, smoke and debris. Escape was a battle. Twenty-one people died.
"What caused the explosion? Was it a gas leak? An anarchist bomb? An attack by union members who opposed the adamantly closed-shop policies of the paper's owner, Harrison Gray Otis? Or was it an insurance scam, a scheme to benefit from the $100,000 policy the paper had recently taken on the structure?"

In the Los Angeles Times, Howard Blum tells the story of the 1910 bombing of the Times building.

And Richard Rayner reviews Blum's American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century.

September 2008 Acquisitions

Books:
Vera Caspary, Bedelia, 2005.
Vera Caspary, Laura, 2005.
Ric Menck, The Byrds' The Notorious Byrd Brothers, 2007.
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Watchmen, 1995.
Walter Moseley, Blonde Faith, 2008.
Barack Obama (foreward), Change We Can Believe In: Barack Obama's Plan to Renew America's Promise, 2008.
Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, 2004.

DVDs:
Airplane!, 1980.
Brigitte Bardot: 5-Film Collection, 2007.
Election, 1999.
Kegstand Productions, Volume 1: Shorts & Music Videos, 2008.
Modesty Blaise, 1966.

An Inconvenient Issue

"On June 9, three days after the emissions cap-and-trade bill died in the Senate, Obama led McCain by eight points, according to Gallup. By June 24, the race was in a dead heat, a shift owed in no small part to Republicans battering Democrats on energy. Seeing the writing on the wall, Obama reversed his opposition to drilling in August, and congressional Democrats quickly followed suit.
"But the damage has largely been done. In following greens, Democrats allowed McCain and Republicans to cast them as the party out of touch with the pocketbook concerns of middle-class Americans and captive to special interests that prioritize remote wilderness over economic prosperity."

In the Los Angeles Times, Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger discuss how this summer's high oil prices helped the Republicans and hurt the Democrats.

Getting Their Scapegoat

'It's telling that, amid all the recent recriminations, even lenders have not fingered CRA. That's because CRA didn't bring about the reckless lending at the heart of the crisis. Just as sub-prime lending was exploding, CRA was losing force and relevance. And the worst offenders, the independent mortgage companies, were never subject to CRA--or any federal regulator. Law didn't make them lend. The profit motive did."

Back in April 2008, Robert Gordon in The American Prospect explained how off-base conservatives are in trying to blame sub-prime mortgage failures on federal regulation.

And David Goldstein and Kevin G. Hall of McClatchy Newspapers show how "the private sector, not the government or government-backed companies, was behind the soaring subprime lending at the core of the crisis."

"Interview Sarah Palin"

"Can't get an interview with Sarah Palin? We've got you covered."

"The 'Greenest' Building in America"

The San Francisco Chronicle reports on this weekend's reopening of the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park.

In Recession and War

"From John Kennedy to Al Gore, most debates have been more important for style than substance, and for likeability than intelligence. And that is why this debate seems to me to be something close to a wash. McCain on the whole looked confident and avuncular. Obama seemed intelligent and articulate. McCain sometimes appeared too aggressive and angry, and Obama sometimes was too cool and professorial."

Alan Brinkley in The New Republic assesses the first presidential debate.

And he also reviews the second debate.

Cool Hand Paul

Aljean Harmetz in The New York Times reports the death of actor Paul Newman.

Root for the Home Team

"The premise and promise of the debates is that they serve as a tonic for an otherwise underinformed democratic citizenry, providing a key source of data for reasoning voters about the candidates' views on pressing issues. Unfortunately, over the years the debates have proved to be formulaic, lacking in spontaneity, and full of familiar pablum. But that doesn't mean they're a waste of time."

David Greenberg in Slate gives a different view as to the value of presidential debates.

Vaccinophobia

"The last nail in the coffin came in 2007 during an 'autism omnibus proceeding' in the United States. (This is a federal hearing for several thousand parents who claim their children developed autism because of vaccines. Those parents are seeking compensation from the federal government.) Wakefield's former research assistant testified that his discovery about the MMR vaccine was, in reality, the result of contaminated lab equipment and that Wakefield knew this about but ignored it. In other words, as Offit writes, 'Wakefield had crossed the line from ill-conceived, poorly performed science to fraud.'"

In Salon, Rahul Parikh reviews Dr. Paul A. Offit's Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure.

As does Theodore Dalrymple in City Journal.

And in a January 2009 article, Donald G. McNeil, Jr., in The New York Times checks in with Offit.

The Beat Goes On

"'When you're working in the studios, you're playing every genre of music,' Hal Blaine, his friend and another prolific session drummer, said in an interview Saturday. 'You might be playing classical music in the morning and hard rock in the afternoon and straight jazz at night. . . . That's where they separate the men from the boys. If you're going to be a studio musician, it's the top of the ladder. You can't go any higher than that in the music business.'"

Claire Noland in the Los Angeles Times writes an obit for session drummer extraordinare Earl Palmer.

"EPA Shuts Down Local Ghost-Entrapment Business"

"The EPA has reportedly angered some local officials who claim the agency rushed to shut down the facility. According to Capt. Kevin Houlihan of NYPD's 5th Precinct, paranormal disturbances in Manhattan have increased exponentially since the decision was made to seize the operation. Houlihan cited several instances of blood running down walls, canines and felines cohabitating peacefully, and, perhaps most alarming, the potential for 'mass hysteria.'"

From The Onion.

The Endorsements Begin. . .

The Seattle Times, which endorsed George W. Bush in 2000, is first out of the gate with an endorsement of Barack Obama for President of the United States.

Next, Stockton, California's The Record endorses a Democrat for President for the first time since 1936.

Next up are the editors of The New Yorker.

Esquire endorses as well (for the first time in seventy-five years).

Risky Business

"Since the 1970s, the share of employers providing defined-benefit pension plans that guarantee workers a set income upon retirement has shriveled. Instead, most workers now rely on defined-contribution plans--primarily 401(k) accounts--in which employers commit only to providing funds that workers can invest, and the amount of money available upon retirement depends entirely on the workers' skill (and luck) in navigating the financial markets. Defined-contribution plans undeniably provide workers with more control over their retirement investments, but they also expose employees to far more risk, as those hoping to retire soon were painfully reminded when their 401(k) plans plummeted this week. A similar transfer of risk is evident in health care, because fewer employers offer insurance to their workers, and even those that do shift more of the cost onto employees."

In National Journal, Ronald Brownstein explains how the presidential candidates offer starkly differing proposals in promoting economic security.

Minority Rule

"The heart of Proposition 1 was a complicated shift of taxes and revenues between the state and local governments, including an increase in state support for schools. Because the Legislature also was seeking to impose a sales tax, the measure, in an effort to reassure voters that money wouldn't be wasted, included a 5% spending cap that could only be overridden by a two-thirds vote. The ballot argument barely mentioned the spending limit and said nothing about the two-thirds vote. Talk about unintended consequences."

Peter Schrag in the Los Angeles Times criticizes the requirement for supermajorities in the California Legislature.

Supersonic

"'L.A. was more free then,' Arabian says. 'There wasn’t too much trouble with gangs or the police. The parties were just parties, and everyone was a part of it—the electro kids, the mods, the punks, the new wave kids. You had every race and every crew, and there were two to three inches of sweat on the floors, with a mist in the air. It was nasty, and it was all about dancing.'"

Chris Martins in the LA Weekly checks in with 1980s Los Angeles hip-hop pioneer Arabian Prince.

I Know I'm Losing You

Randy Lewis in the Los Angeles Times reports the death of Norman Whitfield, Motown's greatest writer-producer.

Black Monday

"Responding to the collapse of several major investment banks this week, John McCain reassured us, 'I think still--the fundamentals of our economy are strong.' That move comes from an old playbook: On Oct. 25, 1929, Herbert Hoover declared, 'The fundamental business of the country, that is the production and distribution of commodities, is on a sound and prosperous basis.'"

Eric Rauchway in The American Prospect explains how today's Republican policies are like those that led to the Great Depression.

Ralph Was Right, Again

Christopher Hayes at The Nation's Capitolism notes that eight years ago Ralph Nader foresaw the current financial collapse.

What Would Your Name Be If Sarah Palin Were Your Mother?

Find out now at the Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator.

Sort It Out

In an ongoing series, Bill Bishop in Slate says that the 2008 election will resemble 2000 and 2004.

Four Little Girls

Modern American Poetry has a webpage about the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing, which killed four girls forty-five years ago today.

"Every Citizen Should Get an Electric Guitar When She Turns 16"

"Its cast impresses now, but at the time the film was made nearly everyone was an amateur.
"Lane was only 15, and Laura Dern, who plays a bandmate, was 12. Ray Winstone, excellent as Lane's musical rival and love interest, had barely acted in films and had never sung. Steve Cook, Paul Jones, Paul Simonon and Fee Waybill, who play key band members, had barely if ever acted."

Ann Powers in the Los Angeles Times revisits the 1982 cult movie Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains.

Pink and Green

Adam Bernstein and Judy Lin in The Washington Post report the deaths of Pink Floyd keybordist Rick Wright and Green Party vice-presidential candidate Peter Camejo.

The Lies of John McCain

"But, since he wrapped up his party's nomination, John McCain has offered more of the same false attacks and smears. To date, independent, nonpartisan fact checkers have published more than 50 fact checks debunking John McCain's lies and distortions."

One can keep a running count, courtesy of the Democratic Party's McCainpedia.

One More for My Baby

"UCLA professor of public policy Mark Kleiman, an ex-advocate of age restrictions, told PBS that he came around to the no-limits position when he saw a billboard that said, 'If you're not 21, it's not Miller Time--yet.' Age limits make drinking a badge of adulthood and build in the minds of teens a romantic sense of the transgressive danger of alcohol. That's what so often leads to the abuse of alcohol as a ritual of release from the authority of parents. And that's what has the college presidents worried. They see it."

Will Wilkinson in Forbes argues in favor of abolishing the drinking age.

"This Comedy Is All Part of My Get-Rich-Slow Scheme"

"The loose, unrefined sets are full of typically surreal, Hedbergian observations about hot-air ballooning, Dr. Scholl’s foot-care products and fajita-scented cologne. The comedian occasionally trips over his words, and mocks himself when an untested joke bombs."

In The New York Times, Dave Itzkoff profiles the afterlife of late comedian Mitch Hedberg.

Swingin' on the Flippity-Flop

"I’ve been through this litany before, where I say, 'ok, what specific area have I quote changed?' Nobody can name it. … I am the same person and I have the same principles."

So said John McCain last week. Therefore, Think Progress lists at least one McCain flip-flop.

*

*Claire Noland and Joel Rubin in the Los Angeles Times report the death of writer David Foster Wallace.

And That's Good Enough for Me

"'We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty and sincerity and dignity,' the vice-presidential candidate said, quoting an anonymous 'writer,' which is to say, Pegler, who must have penned that mellifluous line when not writing his more controversial stuff. As the New York Times pointed out in its obituary of him in 1969, Pegler once lamented that a would-be assassin 'hit the wrong man' when gunning for Franklin Roosevelt.
"There's no evidence that Mrs. Palin shares the trademark Pegler bloodlust--except maybe when it comes to moose and wolves. Nevertheless, the red-state myth that Mrs. Palin reiterated for her adoring audience owes far more to the venomous spirit of Pegler than it does to Norman Rockwell."

Thomas Frank in The Wall Street Journal sees through the Republican ticket's small-town-values sham.

Framing the Guilty

"Mr. Sobell also concurred in what has become a consensus among historians: that Ethel Rosenberg, who was executed with her husband, was aware of Julius’s espionage, but did not actively participate."

Sam Roberts in The New York Times reports that Morton Sobell, an associate of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, has admitted to spying for the Soviet Union.

"Cheney Waits Until Last Minute Again to Buy Sept. 11 Gifts"

"'And for [grandson] Samuel I bought about a million toys and games and 9/11 nutcrackers. I probably went a little bit overboard, but it's his first 9/11, and I want it to be as special as my first 9/11.'"

From The Onion.

As-Salamu Alaykum

"'He will be remembered as a person who brought the Nation of Islam carefully and consistently into mainline Islam,' said Yvonne Haddad, a professor of the history of Islam and Christian-Muslim relations at Georgetown University. 'Eventually, he'd start talking about American Muslims--how we can be Muslim and American at the same time.'"

In the Chicago Tribune, Margaret Ramirez and Manya A. Brachear report the death of W. Deen Mohammed, the son and heir of Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammad.

Country Last

"Yes, McCain made a decision that revealed many appalling things about him. In the end, his final concern is not national security. No one who cares about national security would pick as vice-president someone who knows nothing about it as his replacement. No one who cares about this country's safety would gamble the security of the world on a total unknown because she polled well with the Christianist base. No person who truly believed that the surge was integral to this country's national security would pick as his veep candidate a woman who, so far as we can tell anything, opposed it at the time.
"McCain has demonstrated in the last two months that he does not have the character to be president of the United States."

On The Atlantic's The Daily Dish, Andrew Sullivan gives up on John McCain for good.

And Sullivan further explains in The Sunday Times.

As do Richard Cohen and David Ignatius in The Washington Post, and David Brooks in The New York Times.

Nice Work

"Decades later, Lodge is now writing about an aging academic who must come to terms with deafness (Deaf Sentence, already published in Britain and soon out in the United States). But the interesting question about his best-known novel is whether the places are still the same, and academics would still like to exchange them. What has happened to David Lodge's educational landscape after 33 years?"

In considering the 1975 novel Changing Places, Elaine Showalter in The Chronicle Review answers the above question.

Good Grief

"Schulz insisted that as a dog, Snoopy couldn't talk. Melendez experimented with making sounds that suggested a voice and speeding them up on tape--assuming a professional actor would do a final recording. But time ran short, and Melendez ended up serving as Snoopy's voice in 63 subsequent half-hour specials, five one-hour specials, the Saturday morning TV show and four feature films."

Charles Solomon in the Los Angeles Times writes an obit for Bill Melendez, co-producer of the Peanuts television specials.

"Barack Obama Will Cut Taxes for Over 95% of American Families"

"What's your Obama Tax cut? Let's find out!"

He Has Brought Change to Antimetabole, but Antimetabole Hasn't Changed Him

"Despite the potential pitfalls of being a rhetorical flip-flopper, speechwriters keep unleashing the device. Maybe that's because it seems to enact the 'change' message that both parties are trying to claim as their own. There's nothing that suggests out with the old and in with the new like a phrase that does just that."

Juliet Lapidos in Slate explains the popularity of antimetabole in political speeches.

'Fess Up

"It was a risky, even provocative book—he’d always known it would be—but the gamble appeared to have paid off. 'The Confessions' got excellent reviews, appeared on the best-seller list, was sold to 20th Century Fox and won a Pulitzer Prize. Best of all, Styron said, was the response from many African-Americans. Later in life (Styron died in 2006) he recalled traveling to a historically black college to receive an honorary degree shortly after 'The Confessions' was published: 'I felt gratitude at their acceptance of me,' he wrote, 'and, somehow more important, at my acceptance of them, as if my literary labors and my plunge into history had helped dissolve many of my preconceptions about race that had been my birthright as a Southerner.'
"And then history intervened."

Jess Row in The New York Times looks back at the controversy forty years ago over William Styron's The Confessions of Nat Turner.

Oldest Living Confederate Widow Dies

Valerie J. Nelson in the Los Angeles Times writes an obit for Maudie Hopkins.

The M Files

Sam Kashner in Vanity Fair introduces an archive of Marilyn Monroe's personal papers, just recently made public.

But the Our Marilyn Blog calls the story a hoax.

Right Then

"But facts, as Reagan once said, are stubborn things, and conservatives would do well to consult some of the fine work now being done by progressive historians on the conservative era that is in its final days. If liberals once dismissed the rising right as a bunch of insecure crackpots animated by "status anxiety" and other psychological ills, the right's undeniable successes have forced them to take a more sober and, occasionally, a more respectful view."

In The American Prospect, E.J. Dionne, Jr., reviews William F. Buckley, Jr.'s Flying High: Remembering Barry Goldwater; Rick Perlstein's Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America; Sean Wilentz's The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974–2008; and Bruce J. Schulman and Julian E. Zelizer's Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s.

"A Thousand Percent”

"Perhaps Senator McCain knew everything that has, with dizzying suddenness, emerged about his vice presidential pick, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska—that she was a director of a political committee in support of Ted Stevens, the Alaska senator now under indictment; an initial supporter of the so-called bridge to nowhere; an appointer of a man who had been officially reprimanded for sexual harassment as the public safety commissioner in Alaska; a mother of an unwed and pregnant 17-year-old; and other things being ferreted out by the minute. But it is an insult to Senator McCain’s intelligence to think even half of these or other matters were known to him before he chose her."

When pondering Sarah Palin, Garry Wills in The New York Times remembers Thomas Eagleton in 1972.

The Unfinished Party

Alan Brinkley follows the Republican convention for The New Republic.

The Voice of God

Raquel Maria Dillon of the Associated Press reports the death of voiceover king Don LaFontaine.

August 2008 Acquisitions

Books:
The Beatles, The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook, 2000.
The Beatles, Yellow Submarine, 2004.
Barbara-Ann Campbell-Lange, Lautner, 2005.
William H. Chafe, The Unfinished Journey: America Since World War II, 2006.
Susan Goldman Rubin, Andy Warhol's Colors, 2007.
Susan Goldman Rubin, Counting with Wayne Thiebaud, 2007.
Susan Goldman Rubin, Matisse Dance for Joy, 2008.
Rita Gonzalez, Howard N. Fox, and Chon A. Noriega, Phantom Sightings: Art after the Chicano Movement, 2008.
Robert Griffith and Paula Baker, Major Problems in American History Since 1945, 2007.
Julie Merbergand and Suzanne Bober, In the Garden with Van Gogh, 2002.
Julie Merbergand and Suzanne Bober, Painting with Picasso, 2006.
Julie Merbergand and Suzanne Bober, Sunday with Seurat, 2005.
Frank Miller and Klaus Janson, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, 1986, 1997.
Alan Moore and David Lloyd, V for Vendetta, 1989, 1995.

DVDs:
Gimme Shelter, 1970.
Nixon, 1995.

L.A. Stories

Writers and editors of the Los Angeles Times pick the twenty-five best Los Angeles movies of the past twenty-five years.

The Economic Consequences of Elections

"It is well known that income inequality in the United States has been on the rise for about 30 years now—an unsettling development that has finally touched the public consciousness. But Professor Bartels unearths a stunning statistical regularity: Over the entire 60-year period, income inequality trended substantially upward under Republican presidents but slightly downward under Democrats, thus accounting for the widening income gaps over all. And the bad news for America’s poor is that Republicans have won five of the seven elections going back to 1980."

Alan S. Blinder in The New York Times looks to Larry M. Bartels's new book, Unequal Democracy, to see which political party has had a more successful economic record.

But Louis Uchitelle, also in The New York Times, cautions against an overemphasis on Gross Domestic Product.

During and After

In the Los Angeles Times, Agustin Gurza and Christopher Knight discuss "Los Angelenos/Chicano Painters of L.A.: Selections From the Cheech Marin Collection" and "Phantom Sightings: Art After the Chicano Movement," two exhibits at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

"An Astonishingly Arrogant V.P. Selection"

Peter Scoblic in The New Republic reacts to John McCain naming Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.

"That American Promise"

Thomas Curwen in the Los Angeles Times writes a biography of Barack Obama, as the Illinois senator accepts the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States.

In The New Republic, John B. Judis and David Kusnet analyze Obama's acceptance speech.

Bending Toward Justice

"In 1908, when Democrats first gathered in Denver, African-American activists asked the party to make a place for them--inside the convention, in the platform and in the campaign to come. At the very least, they asked, Democrats should take a stand against lynching.
"William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic nominee for president , vetoed even that modest outreach -- fearing that to do so would weaken the party's hold on what was then referred to as 'the solid south.'
"One hundred years passed. A civil rights movement rose. A new generation of political leaders--most, though not all of them, Democrats--stepped gingerly toward the future.
"And on Wednesday afternoon, at around 4:50 p.m., the Democratic party nominated an African-American man for president."

John Nicholas reports in The Nation as the former party of white supremacy nominates Barack Obama for President.

The Mysterious Disappearance of L-Boogie

"There are extroverted divas—Beyonce, Jennifer Lopez, Rihanna—who've mastered the art of peddling persona, pimping everything from clothing lines to perfume to American Express. The music seems almost incidental, just another unit to move. Then, too, there are the pragmatic ones—Mary J. Blige, Jill Scott, and, to a lesser extent, Erykah Badu—who find a way to live within the world of fame, being in it, but not of it. But then there are the sensitive souls—D'Angelo, Maxwell, Lauryn—emotional tenderonis who seem to internalize their art, folks for whom fame is a beast. Lauryn, after receiving a big, wet kiss of affirmation, slammed the door on fame. Went into hiding. Not that we shouldn't have expected it."

Teresa Wiltz in The Root considers the tenth anniversary of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.

The Forgotten Man

"Although he pushed through a watered-down civil-rights bill as Senate Majority Leader in 1957, the civil- rights movement did not consider Johnson—a Southerner, and the protégé of Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, an unreconstructed racist—its friend. But after he became President, Johnson risked everything, including his own office and the Democratic Party’s electoral future, to pass the landmark bills for civil rights in 1964 and voting rights in 1965. He achieved greater things in domestic legislation than any President other than F.D.R. He achieved far more than the man he succeeded, John F. Kennedy."

George Packer at The New Yorker says that the Democrats should hail Lyndon Johnson at their convention, which coincides with the one-hundredth anniversary of the former President's birth.

"Mankind Is Noodlekind"

"The funeral included speeches by prime ministers and chanting by the monks, but there were also goodie bags. Each attendee received a five pack of Chikin Ramen, a container of Cup Noodles, and a book of Ando's famous sayings. I happened to be struggling over whether to begin a career as a writer. Then I read the first saying in the book: 'I invented instant ramen when I was 48 and Cup Noodles at 61. In life, there is no such thing as too late.'"

Andy Raskin on NPR notes the fiftieth anniversary of instant ramen.

Biden, His Time

Adam Nagourney and Jeff Zeleny in The New York Times report on Barack Obama's selection of Joe Biden to be the Democratic Party's nominee for Vice President.

Against "the Despoilers"

"'The truth of the matter is that Roosevelt today would be on the left,' said Mr. Brinkley, who is writing a biography of the former president titled 'The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt’s and the Crusade for America.'
"Roosevelt believed passionately in regulating industry and curbing the excesses of the great corporations. He favored the imposition of an inheritance tax and fought his party’s increasing tendency to cater to the very wealthy. And, of course, he was a ferocious protector of the environment."

In The New York Times, Bob Herbert argues that John McCain is no "Teddy Roosevelt Republican."

"There's No Westerner Like an Easterner"

Joey Bunch in The Denver Post reports the death of western-wear pioneer Jack A. Weil.

You Are Now About to Witness the Strength of Street Knowledge

Geoff Boucher, interviewing Ice Cube, and Robert Hilburn in the Los Angeles Times consider the twentieth anniversary of N.W.A.'s Straight Outta Compton.

'I Quit; I'm a Comedian'

Lynette Rice in Entertainment Weekly remembers Bernie Mac, who died on August 9.

"More Bass"

Bruce Weber in The New York Times writes an obit for record man Jerry Wexler.

Up from Liberaltarianism

"Note that almost all of the policy proposals that excite the American public are exactly the sort of old-fashioned, 'paleoliberal' spending programs or systems of government regulation that are supposed to be obsolete in this era of privatization, deregulation and free-market globalization, according to neoliberals and libertarians. Bill Clinton to the contrary, the public clearly does not think that 'the era of big government is over.' Nor does the public show any interest in the laundry lists of teeny-weeny tax credits for this and that that neoliberals love to propose, to appear compassionate without spending real money. The public wants the middle-class welfare state to be rounded out by a few major additions--chiefly, healthcare and childcare--and the public also wants the government to grow the economy by investing in public works and favoring companies that locate their production facilities inside the U.S. There, in a sentence, is a program for a neo-Rooseveltian party that could effect an epochal realignment in American politics."

Michael Lind in Salon offers a way forward for an emerging Democratic majority.

We Are All Georgians?

"So where did the Georgians get the silly idea that the U.S. would bail them out?
"Maybe from John McCain, Republican heir apparent, whose top foreign policy advisor, Randy Scheunemann, also just happens to be a highly paid lobbyist for the Georgian government. Whoops--correction! Scheunemann used to be a highly paid lobbyist for Georgia. The McCain campaign says Scheunemann hasn't taken a dime from the Georgians since May 15. (Which is lucky for the Georgians, who are going to need all the spare cash they can get to rebuild all the stuff the Russians just bombed.)

Rosa Brooks in the Los Angeles Times explains how John McCain and George W. Bush aided Georgia's blunders.

"The Borders We Have"

"Because our nation was founded on the principle of self-determination, we are understandably uncomfortable depriving others of that right. But American independence was based on a doctrine of individual rights, whereas the vast majority of self-determination movements today are based on ethnic group rights. Peoples as different as the Kurds and the Tibetans have made repeated appeals for self-governance in the last decade, but the urgency of their calls relies less on any liberal principle than on the sheer fact of their ethnic preponderance in a region and the violence they have endured."

In the Los Angeles Times, Thomas Meaney and Harris Mylonas argue against supporting independence movements.

Can't Do a Little Cause He Can't Do Enough

"A few minutes later, Sid decided to clear his conscience by revealing a 50-year-old family secret--'We've been living with this lie for decades,' he said--and his younger brother was apoplectic. 'Now?! This moment, right now, you decide you need to tell all of this?'
"Sid, the man who dreamed up deliriously strange Saturday-morning characters such as Weenie the Genie, Horatio J. HooDoo and Cha-Ka the ape-boy, looked bewildered by his brother's fury. 'Well, Marty, I don't see the harm. It's history now.'"

Geoff Boucher in the Los Angeles Times interviews television producers Sid and Marty Krofft.

Cause I Can See Right Through You

"Neither killer showed any remorse after being captured and indicted for murder. Kidnapping had been involved; they had sent a ransom note to their victim's family. But money wasn't their true motive. Perfection was. Leopold and Loeb dreamed of committing the perfect crime, and they found philosophical backing for their desire in Nietzsche's notion of the Übermensch. Leopold wrote to Loeb: 'A superman . . . is, on account of certain superior qualities inherent in him, exempted from the ordinary laws which govern men. He is not liable for anything he may do.'"

Joseph Epstein in The Wall Street Journal reviews Simon Baatz's For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder that Shocked Chicago.

Soul Man

Dean Goodman of Reuters reports the death of Isaac Hayes.

Coming Up for Air

The Orwell Prize starts publishing George Orwell's daily diary from sixty years ago.

"The Criterion Contraption"

Matthew Dessem is determined to watch every DVD released by the Criterion Collection and to review them on his site.

Boob Jubilee

"I think we need to talk about the people who are ruling us now--how they think, what they have done with the state, and why it is that a new scandal seems to erupt every goddamned week."

Rick Perlstein interviews Thomas Frank in Salon about Frank's new book, The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule.

Michael Lind reviews The Wrecking Crew in The New York Times.

As does Jefferson Decker in The Nation.

"It's Like These Guys Take Pride in Being Ignorant"

Barack Obama, speaking in Ohio, sums up the current Republican Party.

Dawn of the Doc

"In 1960, journalist Robert Drew came up with the idea of following Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy with a movie camera during his run against Minnesota Sen. Hubert Humphrey in the Wisconsin Democratic primary. But it wasn't the story so much as the way Drew got it that made the project memorable. Drew and crew were equipped with newfangled movie cameras that gave them unprecedented mobility. The result, Primary, was the first of its kind: a freewheeling, fly-on-the-wall documentary with no interviews, no music, no correspondent, and little exposition."

Elbert Ventura in Slate presents a video slide show about the pioneering documentaries of Robert Drew.

The "Race Card" Card

"The McCain campaign's apparently race-neutral approach, and its subsequent accusation that the Obama campaign is playing the race card, is a well-thought-out strategy--it is pure Nixon. In his recent chronicle of conservative political history in The New Yorker, George Packer describes Pat Buchanan's plan for exploiting political divisions, particularly ones of a racial nature. Buchanan's assessment was that they could 'cut the Democratic Party and country in half; my view is that we would have far the larger half.'
"In a dispute about race, the McCain campaign knows it will end up with the larger half. For the most part, most white people's experience with race isn't one of racial discrimination. They can only relate to racial discrimination in the abstract. What white people can relate to is the fear of being unjustly accused of racism. This is the larger half. This is why allegations of racism often provoke more outrage than actual racism, because most of the country can relate to one (the accusation of racism) easier than the other (actual racism). For this reason, in a political conflict over race, the McCain campaign has the advantage, because saying the race card has been played is actually the ultimate race card."

Adam Serwer in The American Prospect explains the pitfalls Barack Obama faces in the politics of race.

Having Read the Book

Michael T. Kaufman in The New York Times reports the death of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Institutionalized

"Avoiding exposition, interviews and even a clearly discernible point of view, Wiseman's films belong to the documentary vanguard of the 1960s; he has been grouped with the Maysles brothers, D.A. Pennebaker and Richard Leacock as pioneering practitioners of so-called cinéma vérité. Wiseman, for his part, dismisses the tag as a 'pompous French term.' He prefers 'reality fiction,' a label that acknowledges the inherent contradictions of the process."

Dennis Lim in the Los Angeles Times assesses Frederick Wiseman as the filmmaker releases his documentaries on DVD.

Torture Logic

"The Bush administration is not, of course, the first or only regime to violate civil liberties. John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt all authorized or tolerated terrible violations of civil and human rights, all of them in response to great national and global crises. In some respects, the Bush administration is simply following a familiar path by responding to real dangers with illegal and deplorable methods. But Jane Mayer’s extraordinary and invaluable book suggests that it would be difficult to find any precedent in American history for the scale, brutality and illegality of the torture and degradation inflicted on detainees over the last six years; and that it would be even harder to imagine a set of policies more likely to increase the dangers facing the United States and the world."

In The New York Times, Alan Brinkley reviews Jane Mayer's The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals.

"The Least Heralded Migration in American History"

"They came to Russia full of enthusiasm, bringing with them baseball and jazz, and eager to acclimatize. Russians found it difficult to believe the Americans' tales of woe when they saw their clothes, luxurious by Russian standards. And the migrants were themselves quite unprepared for the poverty and lawlessness which characterized life under Stalin, and in many if not most cases decided to leave. They soon learned, however, that when they surrendered their American passports upon stepping on Soviet soil (passports which were then used by Soviet agents in America), they had become, automatically, Soviet citizens."

Richard Pipes reviews Tim Tzouliadis's The Forsaken in The New York Sun.