"Essentially Was a Social Networking Site"

"For the first two years, Kaufman mostly sold clothes she'd made and pieces by other Westside artists, but once NaNa moved to a bigger location on Broadway (and Kaufman teamed up with two partners), the store started importing goods from England, such as the technicolor hair dye later branded in the U.S. as Manic Panic, Mary Quant hosiery and, most famously, punk footwear such as Docs and skull-buckle boots. i-D Magazine was their style bible, and Kaufman would photocopy its pages 'to let kids see what kids on the street wore in London.'
"A mother of two grown children who today owns the funky Santa Monica clothing and gift shop Brat (its name honors NaNa employee Bobbi Brat, who died of cancer at age 26), Kaufman recalls staying up all night making overseas calls to try to track down merchandise. 'It wasn't like you could get on the Internet and source something," she says. "Nothing was really easy, but it was very exciting when it arrived. . . . Street fashion really was a revolution.'"

In a 2009 Los Angeles Times article, Steffie Nelson takes a look back at NaNa shoes.

"Why Did This Thing Have to Be So Complicated in the First Place?"

"In saying this I don’t mean to excuse the officials and contractors who made such a mess of health reform’s first month. Nor, on the other side, am I suggesting that health reform should have waited until the political system was ready for single-payer. For now, the priority is to get this kludge working, and once that’s done, America will become a better place.

"In the longer run, however, we have to tackle that ideology. A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn’t have to be that way."

Paul Krugman in The New York Times discusses Steven Teles's idea of "kludgeocracy."

It Was Alright

"With the Velvet Underground in the late Sixties, Reed fused street-level urgency with elements of European avant-garde music, marrying beauty and noise, while bringing a whole new lyrical honesty to rock & roll poetry. As a restlessly inventive solo artist, from the Seventies into the 2010s, he was chameleonic, thorny and unpredictable, challenging his fans at every turn. Glam, punk and alternative rock are all unthinkable without his revelatory example. 'One chord is fine,' he once said, alluding to his bare-bones guitar style. 'Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz.'"

Jon Dolan at Rolling Stone reports the death of Lou Reed.

Michiko Kakutani writes an appreciation in The New York Times.

For a Strong, Just, and Free America

"The contours of Obamacare, the plans for Iraqi withdrawal, green jobs in the Recovery Act—CAP had a hand in developing all of these ideas. In so doing, it frequently borrowed heavily and adapted the work of others, including other liberal think tanks in Washington. But precisely because CAP was pulling together the politics and policy, it was in a position to promote those plans with officials and lawmakers—quite a few of whom, conveniently, were former CAP affiliates."

Jonathan Cohn in The New Republic celebrates ten years of the Center for American Progress.

Devious, Truculent, and Unreliable

"For its first 150 pages, Autobiography comes close to being a triumph. 'Naturally my birth almost kills my mother, for my head is too big,' he writes, and off we go–into the Irish diaspora in the inner-city Manchester of the 1960s, where packs of boys playfully stone rats to death, and 'no one we know is on the electoral roll'. In some of the writing, you can almost taste his environment: 'Nannie bricks together the traditional Christmas for all to gather and disagree … Rita now works at Seventh Avenue in Piccadilly and buys expensive Planters cashew nuts. Mary works at a Granada showroom, but is ready to leave it all behind.' And when pop music enters the story, he excels. Before the Smiths, Morrissey fleetingly wrote reviews for the long-lost music weekly Record Mirror under the name Sheridan Whiteside, and his talent for music writing is obvious. By the late 60s, he is marvelling at hit singles by the Love Affair, the Foundations and the Small Faces; in 1972, as with so many thousands, he marvels at David Bowie miming to Starman on an ITV pop show called Lift Off With Ayshea. 'It seemed to me that it was only in British pop music that almost anything could happen,' he writes, which is spot on."

John Harris in The Guardian reviews Morrissey's Autobiography.

"A Victim of Its Own Success"

"Now, a dozen or more chains—including Lucky Brand, Gant, Flannel and Alexis Bittar—populate the street. They're not the Gap or H&M, admittedly, but neither are they mom-and-pop operations.
"'It's gotten really fashionable, not always in a good way,' said Pierre Auroux, a Venice resident who was leaving an Abbot Kinney lunch spot on his bicycle one recent sunny afternoon. In years past, he added, "it was less Beverly Hills and more of a beach vibe. It wasn't as safe and nice, but that's what gave it character.'"

Martha Groves in the Los Angeles Times explores the transformation of Abbot Kinney Boulevard.

"Alumni Magazine Tiptoeing Around Campus Shooting"

"'The spirit of renewal is in the air at Yateson this fall, starting with the complete renovation of the second floor of the library,' read the editor’s letter of the magazine, which also featured pieces on the school’s upcoming fall theater production, the library’s newly installed 'military-grade' metal detectors, and the new cafeteria dining options."

From The Onion.

"5-Year-Old Reluctantly Lets Crying Mom Sleep In His Bed Again"

"'All right, come on, get in,' said the exhausted child, who reportedly proceeded to rub the 37-year-old’s back while assuring her that she was okay and everything was going to be fine."

From The Onion.

"Journalists Still Don’t Know How to React"

"Given all of this, Tracy feels the Onion wasn’t out of line. 'Satire has to be allowed to push these buttons and replicate that which it condemns—that’s literally its definition,' he writes. 'The Onion’s missteps tend to come not when it’s overly offensive but when its offensiveness doesn’t serve any redeeming social value. By cleverly casting the racist name of the Washington team in a new light, it did provide a great service to its readers, who hopefully include Daniel Snyder.'"

Prachi Gupta in Salon discusses a controversial article from The Onion.

"The Outrage Was Immediate"

"Only one of the principals of that evening in 1973 is still alive: William Ruckelshaus. Now in his 80s, he runs a foundation in Seattle and is still active in national life. He was then, and still is, a moderate Republican. I wrote to him and asked, 'If you knew, that ultimately, President Nixon would be forced to resign and that future generations of Republican legislators would spend so much time trying to even the score, would you have taken a long view and done what was necessary to protect the president and keep him in office?' I didn’t really expect an answer—but within two days an email came back: 'The answer is no.'"

Michael Goldfarb in Salon connects the Saturday Night Massacre to today.

Mercury Kings Play Songs of Gummi

The Los Angeles Times runs obits for film critic Stanley Kauffmann, astronaut Scott Carpenter, novelist Oscar Hijuelos, candy promoter Hans Riegel, actor Kumar Pallana, football coach Bum Phillips, cartoon-studio chief Lou Scheimer, and former House speaker Tom Foley.

"Upended the Entire Intellectual Tradition of Its Discoverers"

"Irish and Italian immigrants proudly pointed to Columbus' Roman Catholic religion to fight the prejudice they experienced in their adopted country, and in 1882, they founded the Knights of Columbus, now the world's largest Catholic service organization. But during the late 20th century, Native Americans bristled at the notion of Columbus' 'discovery,' feeling that their ancestral lands didn't need discovering.
"But the real reason Columbus' voyages should be remembered—and celebrated—is for their central role in prying loose European curiosity from the vise put in place by the medieval church."

Joyce Appleby in the Los Angeles Times considers a legacy of 1492.

And Yoni Appelbaum at The Atlantic discusses the history of Columbus Day.

"Probably the Best-Known Book about Death Published in the Twentieth Century"

"The book arrived at a time when the taboo on death was just starting to ease. For much of the early twentieth century, death was spoken of in hushed voices, when it was spoken of at all. Numerous scholars have since discussed the cloaking of death in the Western world, its transition from a ubiquitous and semi-public event to something shameful and hidden, best left to medical experts and technical specialists (like the new professional class of funeral directors). Rising industrialization and urbanization in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries helped push the graveyard out of town, and these shifts coincided with the rise of a new reserve, in which displays of strong emotion, such as grief, were unseemly.
"But during the 1950s, the landscape changed. In 1955, Geoffrey Gorer’s fascinating essay 'The Pornography of Death,' argued that proscriptions around death had replaced the Victorian taboo against sex. In 1959, psychologist Herman Feifel came out with The Meaning of Death, a collection of essays often credited with singlehandedly establishing death, dying, and bereavement as legitimate areas for study. Yet neither Feifel nor Gorer made their way to American dinner tables. It was Mitford who got ordinary people talking."

Bess Lovejoy in Lapham's Quarterly marks the fiftieth anniversary of Jessica Mitford's The American Way of Death.

"An Angry Place, a Stew of Superpatriotism Fueled by Anti-Communist Paranoia, Fierce Racism and Anti-Semitism"

"It was an amazing confederacy. People were lured to Dallas, they were marching to Dallas. There was just this rising sense of anger and distrust toward Kennedy, toward perceived socialism, religion. People feared him as a Catholic.
"I found that Dallas became really one of the most singular cities on planet Earth. For some reason out in the heartland in the middle of Texas, really powerful people coalesced around this notion that Kennedy was a traitor and in fact was guilty of treason. And these weren't just folks who were idly thinking these thoughts; they were acting on them and forming organizations and movements to essentially overthrow Kennedy."

Melissa Block on National Public Radio talks with Bill Minutaglio about Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis's new book, Dallas 1963: Patriots, Traitors, and the Assassination of JFK.

And inspired by Dallas 1963, Adam Gopnik at The New Yorker traces the Tea Party to the John Birch Society.

And James McAuley ruminates in The New York Times.

Massive Resistance

"Mihm said today’s fight has a parallel in the nullification movement of the 1830s when John C. Calhoun, who had resigned the vice presidency to run for the U.S. Senate in South Carolina, devised a strategy to oppose a tariff that he said hit the South unfairly. If the state legislature passed a law that refuted the federal one, the state could ignore it based on what he called a 'concurrent majority.'
"President Andrew Jackson eventually interceded and thwarted the nullification movement. Had it gone forward, Mihm said, it may have led to the breakup of the Union before the Civil War.
"Now, he said, those who want to stop Obamacare 'are trying to find another way to nullify that poses a much graver threat, but not to the law,' Mihm said, referring to a possible failure to raise the nation’s debt ceiling.
"'Our debt is something we all, every one of us, are on the hook for,' he said. 'And the idea that you can take that and make that a bargaining chip is very similar to the idea of the nullifiers.'"

Michael Tackett at Bloomberg compares today's Republican Party to Southern conservatives of the past.

The Constitutional Option

"As the wording of the amendment evolved during the Congressional debate, the principle of the debt’s inviolability became a general proposition, applicable not just to the Civil War debt but to all future accrued debts of the United States. The Republican Senate leader, Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio, declared that by placing the debt 'under the guardianship of the Constitution,' investors would be spared from being 'subject to the varying majorities which may arise in Congress.'"

Sean Wilentz in The New York Times advises President Obama on how to counter House Republicans.

At Reuters, Garrett Epps joins in.

"A Domestic Cuban Missile Crisis"

"The debt ceiling turns out to be unexploded ordnance lying around the American form of government. Only custom or moral compunction stops the opposition party from using it to nullify the president’s powers, or, for that matter, the president from using it to nullify Congress’s. (Obama could, theoretically, threaten to veto a debt ceiling hike unless Congress attaches it to the creation of single-payer health insurance.) To weaponize the debt ceiling, you must be willing to inflict harm on millions of innocent people. It is a shockingly powerful self-destruct button built into our very system of government, but only useful for the most ideologically hardened or borderline sociopathic. But it turns out to be the perfect tool for the contemporary GOP: a party large enough to control a chamber of Congress yet too small to win the presidency, and infused with a dangerous, millenarian combination of overheated Randian paranoia and fully justified fear of adverse demographic trends."

Jonathan Chait in New York explains the stakes of the current standoff.

"The Story of Mainstream Republicans Realizing They Can't Control Tea Party Republicans"

"Because they won’t compromise. You’ve got about 52 members of the Republican conference who are affiliated with the tea party in some official way. That’s a bit less than a quarter of all House Republicans. That’s enough in the House. They refuse to compromise because, to them, compromise is capitulation. If you go back to Hofstadter’s work when he’s talking about when the John Birch Society rode high, he talks about how conservatives would see people who disagree as political opponents, but reactionary conservatives saw them as evil. You can’t capitulate to evil."

At The Washington Post, Ezra Klein interviews Christopher Parker, author of Change They Can't Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America.

And Andrew Sullivan at The Dish considers a new report.

"Bad Things Happen Everywhere"

"So after scripting a story set there ('Escape' also includes flirtatious French teenagers, a possibly demonic child and a mad scientist straight out of the 'Lost' mythology, all in the service of indicting Disney's culture of forced cheer), he began figuring out ways to shoot it. He scouted locations by bringing his own children to Disneyland, then cast-no name actors—Roy Abrahmson, a man who just last month was serving as a limo driver at the Emmy Awards, plays the lead—before he began shooting in Anaheim and Orlando. Production often involved guerrilla tactics, such as scattering his iPhone-enabled crew throughout the park so the whole thing didn't look like a movie shoot. Moore was so scared that Disney would catch on that he edited the movie in South Korea."

Steven Zeitchik in the Los Angeles Times talks with John Sloss about Sloss's new movie Escape from Tomorrow, made surreptitiously at Disneyland and Disney World.

"David Bowie Asks Iman If They Should Just Do Lasagna Again"

"Sources confirmed the nine-time platinum recording artist—who claimed at one point in the 70s to have subsisted on a diet of red peppers, cocaine, and milk—then preheated the oven, started boiling a pot of water, and searched around inside the kitchen cabinets, at one point asking Iman if she had seen the 'good baking pan.' In addition, Bowie, who allegedly had an affair with Rolling Stones lead vocalist Mick Jagger at the pinnacle of the glam rock era, suggested that the 'fridge needed a quick wipe down' while grabbing a carrot, a cucumber, and a box of organic spinach to make a quick salad. Iman, one of the fashion world’s most legendary ethnic supermodels, noted philanthropist, and entrepreneur, reportedly ripped a page off of a notepad hanging on the refrigerator door and wrote 'Windex, aluminum foil, milk' below a lengthy list of items."

From The Onion.

The Hunt for the Ambassor Calvary Cook Book

The Los Angeles Times publishes obits for cookbook author Marcella Hazan, lawyer Leonard Kerpelman, writer Tom Clancy, photographer Bill Eppridge, Protestant pastor Chuck Smith, poet Jose Montoya, and Vietnamese general Vo Nguyen Giap.

"Losing a Large Slice of the Middle Class to the Ranks of the Democratic Party Could Justify Extreme Measures"

"Until now, social welfare programs in the United States have exhibited a 'big hole,' Professor Skocpol said, consisting of nonpoor working-age Americans and their children. Obamacare closes a big chunk of it.

"'The main beneficiaries tend to have lower wages, employed in smaller businesses that are not providing health insurance,' she said. 'They are not elderly. They are also not the poorest.'       

"And they might be grateful to Democrats for the benefit."

 

Eduardo Porter in The New York Times explains Republican intransigence toward the Affordable Care Act.

September 2013 Acquisitions

Books:
Jason Aaron and R. M. Guera, Scalped, Vol. 5: High Lonesome, 2009.
Jason Aaron and R. M. Guera, Scalped, Vol. 6: The Gnawing, 2010.
Jason Aaron and R. M. Guera, Scalped, Vol. 7: Rez Blues, 2011.
Jason Aaron and R. M. Guera, Scalped, Vol. 8: You Gotta Sin to Get Saved, 2011.
Jason Aaron and R. M. Guera, Scalped, Vol. 9: Knuckle Up, 2012.
Jason Aaron and R. M. Guera, Scalped, Vol. 10: Trail's End, 2012.
Neal Adams, Batman: Illustrated by Neal Adams, Vol. 3, 2013.
Jessica Alba, The Honest Life: Living Naturally and True to You, 2013.
Luis Alvarez, The Power of the Zoot: Youth Culture and Resistance during World War II, 2009.
Darwyn Cooke, Batman: Ego and Other Tails, 2007.
Peter Evans and Ava Gardner, Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations, 2013.
Jessie Haas and Sarah Davis, Saige, 2012.
Darlene Clark Hine, William C. Hine, and Stanley C Harrold, The African-American Odyssey, 2011.
J. M. Hirsch, Beating the Lunch Box Blues, 2013.
Franz Kafka, The Trial, 2009.
Damon Lindelof et al, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Vol. 1, 2013.
Walter Mosley, Little Green, 2013.
Sarah Weinman (ed.), Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives: Stories from the Trailblazers of Domestic Suspense, 2013.

DVDs:
Barbie: A Fairy Secret, 2011.

"Give In to Them or They Would Starve the Government to Death"

"The riders were about troops and voting, but at issue was the very structure of American government. President Hayes and Minority leader Garfield recognized that if an extremist faction in Congress could force its will on the country by holding government finances hostage, it would erase the power of the president and destroy the basic structure of the American government’s separation of powers. Even moderate Democrats, who didn’t particularly like the idea of troops enforcing black rights, agreed that the threat was truly revolutionary and menaced the Constitution. If the extremists’ tactics worked, this would be only the first of their demands, and the country would fall, as one Democrat said, under 'the absolute despotism of an irresponsible and unrestrained partisan majority' in Congress."

Heather Cox Richardson in Salon looks back to when Southern Congressmen threatened to shut down the federal government in 1879.

"A Canary in the Coal Mine of Deinstitutionalization"

"California was the first state to witness not only an increase in homelessness associated with deinstitutionalization but also an increase in incarceration and episodes of violence. In 1972 Marc Abramson, another young psychiatrist working for San Mateo County, published a landmark paper entitled 'The Criminalization of Mentally Disordered Behavior.' Abramson claimed that because the new LPS statute made it difficult to get patients admitted to a psychiatric hospital, police 'regard arrest and booking into jail as a more reliable way of securing involuntary detention of mentally disordered persons.' Abramson quoted a California prison psychiatrist who claimed to be 'literally drowning in patients. . . . Many more men are being sent to prison who have serious mental problems.' Abramson’s paper was the first clear description of the increase of mentally ill persons in jails and prisons, an increase that would grow markedly in subsequent years."

Salon publishes an excerpt of E. Fuller Torrey's American Psychosis: How the Federal Government Destroyed the Mental Illness Treatment System.

You're Tearing Me Apart, Lisa!

"Nothing about the film makes sense. Motivations change on a whim. Subplots are ignored. There's even a character who makes his first appearance two-thirds of the way through the movie, yet acts as if he's been there the whole time. 'The Room's' awfulness is so jarring it's as if the filmmakers were trying to create something that would make audiences go from suspending their disbelief to questioning their hold on reality, because no one could make a movie this terrible without realizing it, could they?"

In the Los Angeles Times, Jim Ruland reviews Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell's The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made.

They’ve Been Known to Pick a Song or Two

"How do we make sense of the fact that 'Mustang Sally' and 'When a Man Loves a Woman' and Aretha Franklin’s breakthrough hit 'I Never Loved a Man' and any number of other funk, soul and R&B classics were recorded with a band of backwoods Alabama white boys? Well, it’s complicated–let’s start there. Of course white privilege was involved, because even though Rick Hall grew up dirt-poor, he still belonged to the class of people who were able to buy property and start businesses in 1950s Alabama, and he hired white musicians–at least at first; his post-Swampers bands were integrated–because it was the natural thing to do. All that said, Hall’s also a guy with a tremendous ear and immense soulfulness who knew what he wanted–and what he wanted was a sound that fused Delta blues, hillbilly and urban African-American music. And something geographical or historical or spiritual about that obscure river-bend in northern Alabama made that possible."

Andrew O' Hehir in Salon reviews Muscle Shoals.

"Today, Elite and Highly Educated Women Have Become a Class Apart"

"It’s not about blaming women. I have to confess that one of the things I was slightly responding to is a tendency to be constantly complaining about things not being perfect for the top five percent of women, so there was a little spasm of irritation there, but it was actually much deeper than that. I do think women were oppressed [for] most of human history, and it’s absolutely wonderful that I was born late enough to be allowed to use my brain; I suppose in a way, it’s underlining the human dilemma that, in any society, it turns out almost everything has a downside. We can’t get perfection, and we can’t get perfect equality, and this is something we have to face up to. If professional women are going to be successful, then they do have to call on the labor of other people—other men or other women—and the reality is, we as human beings would rather have women looking after our babies than men. This is part of the price. It’s a slightly Faustian bargain. This is not absolving men—they’re part of it as well."

Nora Caplan-Bricker in The New Republic interviews Alison Wolf, author of The XX Factor: How the Rise of Working Women Has Created a Far Less Equal World.

"A Different America from the One That Most Political Commentators Describe When Talking about How the Country Is Transforming"

"These eighty members represent just eighteen per cent of the House and just a third of the two hundred and thirty-three House Republicans. They were elected with fourteen and a half million of the hundred and eighteen million votes cast in House elections last November, or twelve per cent of the total. In all, they represent fifty-eight million constituents. That may sound like a lot, but it’s just eighteen per cent of the population."

Ryan Lizza at The New Yorker looks at the home districts of the Republican Party's "suicide caucus."

"It Wasn't Joe Cocker"

"Beach Boys biographer Jon Stebbins tells the tale of the song in his Web site's FAQ. It seems that Preston and Wilson were at a party late one night fumbling with songs, and Wilson helped him complete it. If you check out Wilson's solo work, you can hear where Wilson's mind took over 'Beautiful.' Wilson never pressed the issue, and let Preston have the cut and the royalties."

Craig Hlavaty in a 2012 Houston Press article explores the "Secret History of 'You Are So Beautiful'."

"Both God and Expensive Political Consultants Are Seeing This as a Season for Preferential Treatment of the Poor"

"And while here in New York, de Blasio's affection for it will surely be used to paint a picture of him as a class warrior, it's a philosophy meant to be constructive rather than destructive. Pope Francis has talked about how he has tried to listen, above all else, to what the world needs right now, and concentrate on "reading the signs of the times" in his spiritual discernment."

Noreen Malone at The New Republic discusses liberation theology in relation to Bill de Blasio and Pope Francis.

"The Apex of the Comedy-of-Humiliation"

"Constant access to Mark and Jeremy’s inner monologues—their fears, their rationalizations, their judgments of themselves and others—creates wickedly satirical contrasts with what they actually observe and say. It’s a perfect skewering of the million tiny lies we all tell ourselves and others daily to reconcile how we perceive ourselves with how we perceive the world. And it’s an amazing device for televised comedy, as even ordinary dialogue is turned into a series of self-effacing jokes."

In Slate, Chris Wade looks at Peep Show, ten years after the show's premier.

"Created a Few Big Winners and Turned Most of Us into Losers"

"Thirty years ago, as laissez-faire fanaticism took hold of America, misguided policy-makers decided that do-it-yourself retirement plans, otherwise known as 401(k)s, would magically secure our financial future in the face of gyrating markets, economic crises, unpredictable life events, stagnant wages and rampant job insecurity. It was an extraordinary shift in thinking about public policy: Instead of having predictable streams of income from traditional pensions, ordinary people with little financial expertise would suddenly transform themselves into financial gurus, putting money aside and managing complicated investments in tax-deferred accounts.
"There were red flags along the way. 401(k)s were originally supposed to supplement pensions, but clever corporate cost-cutters decided that voluntary individual accounts would replace them. Big difference! Meanwhile, throughout the 1990s, the national savings rate fell. Real wages dropped. As Helaine Olen details in her book Pound Foolish, Americans started borrowing against retirement plans to pay the mortgage or send the kids to college. The media was basically out to lunch, and politicians went on claiming the nonsense that individual retirement accounts would encourage savings and turn us all into professional money managers. The stock market would bring us double-digit returns. Whoopie!"

Lynn Stuart Parramore in Salon discusses the "Dumbest Retirement Policy in the World."

"The Beatles Were Thugs Who Were Put Across as Nice Blokes, and the Rolling Stones Were Gentlemen Who Were Made into Thugs"

"While carefully allowing for mutual respect and admiration between the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, he reveals that the competition between the perennial 'toppermost of the poppermost' and their scruffier, sleazier runners-up motivated the Stones to match the success of pop’s lads from Liverpool, who were then driven to keep ahead of those equally calculating London blues-rockers, during much of the ‘60s. McMillian examines the creation of the marketing images for both groups, and he demonstrates how they were both, despite denials by members, complicit in their Fab Four models and thug five poses."

John L. Murphy at PopMatters reviews John McMillian's Beatles vs. Stones.

As does Tyler McMahon in Salon.

And Newsweek publishes an excerpt.

"More Than Any Man Except Abraham Lincoln, John Bingham Was Responsible for Establishing What the Civil War Meant for America’s Future"

"It is Bingham who is responsible for the words: 'No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.'
"This sentence would be the legal basis for the Supreme Court’s subsequent decisions desegregating the public schools, securing equality for women, and creating the right to sexual privacy. Bingham also said that his text would also extend all of the protections of the Bill of Rights to the actions of state governments, which is largely, though not completely, the law today."

Gerard N. Magliocca in The New York Times discusses the "Father of the 14th Amendment."

"Inequality Is Far Wider Now than It Was Then, and Threatens Social Cohesion and Trust"

"But economic class isn’t the only dividing line in America. Many working-class voters are heartland Republicans, while many of America’s superrich are coastal Democrats. The real division is between those who believe the game is rigged against them and those who believe they have a decent shot.
"Losers of rigged games can become very angry, as history has revealed repeatedly. In America, the populist wings of both parties have become more vocal in recent years—the difference being that the populist right blames government more than it does big corporations while the populist left blames big corporations more than government."

Robert Reich in The New York Times says that inequality inflames political polarization.

"Social Movements that Explicitly Defend the Interests of the Rich and the Almost-Rich Have Been a Recurring Feature of American Politics"

"With meticulous research, Martin shows how the modern Tea Party grew from decades of efforts by American oligarchs to de-tax themselves. They relied on cranks, rogues, and a few scholars to polish the most effective ideological marketing pitches. Their goal was selling the notion that if the rich bear less of the burden of government, all of us will somehow end up better off. These pitches have worked best when some newly proposed government initiative—like President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act—arrives to pose the threat of major policy change. They have depended on diverting attention from obvious questions, such as just how does a smaller tax bill for the Koch brothers benefit us?"

David Cay Johnston in The American Prospect reviews Isaac William Martin's Rich People’s Movements: Grassroots Campaigns to Untax the One Percent.

"'GTA V' A Sophisticated Gaming Experience, Says Man Who Spent 3 Hours Running Over Homeless People With Fire Truck"

"At press time, Mitchell was remarking on the game’s 'stunningly inventive storycraft' while repeatedly kicking a Los Santos resident until blood pooled around their lifeless body."

From The Onion.

"The Charles Bronson of the 12-String Guitar"

"Linda Ronstadt, who performed cover versions of such Zevon classics as 'Poor Poor Pitiful Me' and 'Carmelita,' said Zevon believed that his musical success came from a unique combination of a 'very poetic sensitivity with this real dark, film noir, Raymond Chandler quality.' She recalled Zevon as an enigmatic character who carried a copy of the military magazine Jane’s Defence Weekly.  'Was he a KGB agent?' she joked and further speculated that she recorded his songs because she 'wanted to be as cool as Warren.'"

Harold Heft in The Jewish Daily Forward remembers Warren Zevon.

Goodbye, Larry

"It’s a bit strange to say that the world’s top economic policymaking job may not even have been the most important thing at stake in the fight over Larry Summer’s candidacy for Fed chair, but it’s likely that this was the case. In reality, the Summers fight was the first fully-engaged Obama-era battle over the future of the Democratic Party—not just over its economic philosophy, but its whole economic constituency."

Noam Scheiber in The New Republic writes an obituary for Larry Summers's quest to head up the Federal Reserve.

"Russian Shot in Quarrel over Kant's Philosophy"

"The victim was hospitalized with injuries that were not life-threatening. Neither person was identified.

"It was not clear which of Kant's ideas may have triggered the violence."

 

Not from The Onion.

"An LSD Bummer Before the Term Was Coined"

"Fuller's script, originally titled 'Lunatic,' was written in the late '40s and offered to Fritz Lang. The premise, based on a famous late 19th century journalistic stunt, had a reporter feign madness to expose a murder committed in an insane asylum. By the time the scenario reached the screen, however, it had become topical—the events of late 1962 and early 1963, including the Cuban missile crisis and the escalating struggle for civil rights, had percolated in writer-director-producer Fuller's imagination."

J. Hoberman in the Los Angeles Times revisits Sam Fuller's Shock Corridor.

Spot Pop Melts in the Air

The New York Times publishes obits for car salesman Cal Worthington, soundman Ray Dolby, journalist Lansing Lamont, academic Marshall Berman, and Hitler bodyguard Rochus Misch.

And the San Francisco Chronicle reports the death of the Professor of Pop, Andrew Goodwin.

"De Blasio’s Victory Is an Omen"

"The likeliest explanation for this is that while younger Republican candidates may have a greater cultural connection to young voters, the ideological gulf is vast. Even if they are only a decade older than Millennials, politicians like Cruz, Rubio, and Walker hail from a different political generation both because they came of age at a time of relative prosperity and because they were shaped by Reagan, whom Millennials don’t remember. In fact, the militantly anti-government vision espoused by ultra-Reaganites like Cruz, Rubio, and Walker isn’t even that popular among Millennial Republicans. As a July Pew survey notes, Republicans under 30 are more hostile to the Tea Party than any other Republican age group. By double digits, they’re also more likely than other Republicans to support increasing the minimum wage.
"Republicans may modestly increase their standing among young voters by becoming more tolerant on cultural issues and less hawkish on foreign policy, but it’s unlikely they will become truly competitive unless they follow the counsel of conservative commentators Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam and 'adapt to a new reality—namely, that today, Americans are increasingly worried about their economic security.'"

Peter Beinart at The Daily Beast predicts that most young voters will remain left wing as they age.

David Frum reacts to Beinart's article.

The End of Patriarchy?

Slate excerpts an epilogue of the paperback edition of Hanna Rosin's The End of Men.

But Bryce Covert in The Nation disagrees with Rosin.

"I Believe We Should Act"

"However, over the last few days we’ve seen some encouraging signs in part because of the credible threat of U.S. military action as well as constructive talks that I had with President Putin. The Russian government has indicated a willingness to join with the international community in pushing Assad to give up his chemical weapons. The Assad regime has now admitted that it has these weapons and even said they’d join the chemical weapons convention, which prohibits their use.

"It’s too early to tell whether this offer will succeed, and any agreement must verify that the Assad regime keeps its commitments. But this initiative has the potential to remove the threat of chemical weapons without the use of force, particularly because Russia is one of Assad’s strongest allies.

"I have therefore asked the leaders of Congress to postpone a vote to authorize the use of force while we pursue this diplomatic path."

The New York Times provides a transcript of President Obama's speech about Syria.

"There's Always a Better Song to Sing"

"We were talking about English songwriters: it's picking up on the mundane, the everyday things and putting them, into a different setting, the very, very ordinary feelings, emotions or details that, once in song, you hear them in a different way. Without something too poncey or pretentious I was thinking about pop artists as well, where they took the everyday objects and made them into art. I don't think it's that dissimilar."

The Guardian publishes excerpts of Daniel Rachel's Isle of Noises: Conversations with Great British Songwriters.

Be Evil

"Tech world conspicuous consumption isn’t quite the same as Wall Street conspicuous consumption. A Silicon Valley executive isn’t likely to spend his cash on bottle service and a Porsche; a trip up Kilimanjaro and a Tesla is far more the norm. Slate’s Farhad Manjoo, who lives in San Francisco and is hardly a kneejerk critic of wealth, told me he plays a little game with himself where he counts the number of Teslas he sees in any given day. It used to be one a day, now it’s up to five or ten. That kind of lifestyle is certainly expensive (Teslas start at $62,000 or so, without any of the add-ons), but there’s also an element of virtuousness to it—which to some can be more grating than the unapologetic materialism of a stereotypical banker: I spend a lot of money, but it’s to save the earth, not to burnish my own image. And then there's Google Glass: an unsettling-to-the-rest-of-us status symbol that only a tech-head could love."

Noreen Malone in The New Republic asks, "[a]re tech entrepreneurs replacing Wall Streeters as the rich bad guys in the popular imagination?"

"Wouldn’t It Be Great if We Could Get All the Russian Billionaires to Move Here?"

"But his whole campaign is that there are two different cities here. And I’ve never liked that kind of division. The way to help those who are less fortunate is, number one, to attract more very fortunate people. They are the ones that pay the bills. The people that would get very badly hurt here if you drive out the very wealthy are the people he professes to try to help. Tearing people apart with this 'two cities' thing doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s a destructive strategy for those you want to help the most. He’s a very populist, very left-wing guy, but this city is not two groups, and if to some extent it is, it’s one group paying for services for the other. "

Chris Smith in New York gives Michael Bloomberg an exit interview.

Blake Zeff in Salon explains why Bloomberg is so upset.

Escape to Minstrel Island

"Tom was lanky and unathletic, with protruding teeth that embarrassed him. He stuttered, too, and felt a kinship with Porky Pig. But that same friend ascribes some of ­Pynchon’s 'social behavior issues' to his 'very dysfunctional family'—without elaborating. Pynchon himself almost never talked about his parents, especially in his earlier years. But one afternoon in the mid-sixties, he and his then-girlfriend, Mary Ann Tharaldsen, were driving through Big Sur when she complained of nausea. She wanted to stop at a bar and have a shot to settle her stomach. According to Tharaldsen, he exploded, telling her he would not tolerate midday drinking. When she asked why, he told her he’d seen his mother, after drinking,  accidentally puncture his father’s eye with a clothespin. It was the only time, says Tharaldsen, who lived with him, that he ever mentioned his family. 'He was disconnected from them,' she says. 'There seems to have been something not good there.'"

Boris Kachka in New York traces the life and career of Thomas Pynchon.

"Economic Liberalism in America Is Not Dead Yet"

"True, de Blasio has some unique selling points in this campaign. He is by definition an 'outer-borough ethnic,' which blunts the easy anti-'elitist' attacks on liberals found regularly in the pages of billionaire Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post and billionaire Mortimer Zuckerman’s Daily News. Having a wife who is African-American and a former lesbian activist and a son with a gravity-challenging Afro puts a massive kibosh on the kind of identity-politics demands that have too often doomed Democratic candidates with broad electoral appeal. De Blasio is, according to the most recent polls, winning with blacks and women, despite the presence of both in the race (I don’t know about lesbians). Moreover, he has succeeded in uniting these constituencies through an inclusive class-based appeal, one that is bolstered by the fact of his being the only serious contender in the race whose kids attend our public schools. Together with his hardline opposition to Bloomberg’s illegal stop-and-frisk obsession, de Blasio has credibly positioned himself as the voice of those who, in Bloomberg’s New York, had been silently shunted off to the sidelines."

In The Nation, Eric Alterman discusses the rise of Bill de Blasio.

"A System of Higher Education that Is So Broken for So Many"

"That’s bad news for the Bay Area and California, bad news for the nation, and especially bad news for the working class. With nine out of the top ten skilled job openings in the next decade in California alone expected to require a post-secondary credential of some sort, the failure of the community colleges in a region otherwise characterized by booming growth will levy a major blow not only to the economy, but also to the very notion of upward mobility in this country."

In the Washington Monthly, Haley Sweetland Edwards claims that the San Francisco Bay Areas has "America's Worst Community Colleges."

"Why Don't We Want to Address the Racial Inequity that Is So Clearly Still with Us?"

"He does a great service by detailing how affirmative action was downgraded into the less active and much less controversial notion of diversity, a word that has expanded its meaning over the years to include just about everybody at the expense of diluting the original aim of helping blacks overcome historical obstacles to opportunity. In the landmark Bakke case in 1978, Justice Lewis Powell decided the racial redress of affirmative action was overreach and said achieving 'diversity' was a more acceptable goal in terms of using race as a factor in college admissions.
"Enlarging diversity to include marginalized groups such as women and gays is fine in principle, but Kennedy's concern is that the real crisis of black marginalization has gotten lost in the transition. Diversity may make us feel good, but when it comes to achieving racial justice, it simply can't do the job."

In the Los Angeles Times, Erin Aubry Kaplan reviews Randall Kennedy's For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law.

"It Wasn’t Always about the Hot Dogs"

"It’s all hard to imagine now. Not the bit about financial crisis and wage cuts—that’s going on all around us. Not the bit about the state serving the interests of the wealthy—look at who got bailed out, and who didn’t, after our latter-day version of the Panic of 1893. No, what’s unimaginable now is that Congress would unanimously offer even an empty gesture of support for workers’ dignity. For the fact is that many of today’s politicians can’t even bring themselves to fake respect for ordinary working Americans."

Paul Krugman in The New York Times discusses conservative disregard for labor.

Omni Rum Punch Man

The Los Angeles Times runs obits for writer Albert Murray, concert promoter Sid Bernstein, writer Elmore Leonard, actress Julie Harris, poet Seamus Heaney, record-store owner and actor Murray Gershenz, Kerouac muse Bea Kozera, and broadcaster David Frost.

"So, What’s It Going To Be?"

"By Bashar al-Assad"

"I’ve looked at your options, and I’m going to be honest here, I feel for you. Not exactly an embarrassment of riches you’ve got to choose from, strategy-wise. I mean, my God, there are just so many variables to consider, so many possible paths to choose, each fraught with incredible peril, and each leading back to the very real, very likely possibility that no matter what you do it’s going to backfire in a big, big way. It’s a good old-fashioned mess, is what this is! And now, you have to make some sort of decision that you can live with."

From The Onion.

"The Jeffersonian-Hamiltonian Paradox"

"Ms Mazzucato says that the most successful entrepreneurial state can be found in the most unlikely place: the United States. Americans have traditionally been divided between Jeffersonians (who think that he governs best who governs least) and Hamiltonians (who favour active government). The secret of the country’s success lies, she thinks, in talking like Jeffersonians but acting like Hamiltonians. Whatever their rhetoric, governments have always invested heavily in promoting the spread of existing technologies such as the railways (by giving the rail barons free land) and in seeking potentially lucrative scientific breakthroughs (by financing almost 60% of basic research)."

"Schumpeter" in The Economist reviews Mariana Mazzucato's The Entrepreneurial State.

August 2013 Acquisitions

Books:
Jason Aaron and R. M. Guera, Scalped, Vol. 1: Indian Country, 2007.
Jason Aaron and R. M. Guera, Scalped, Vol. 3: Dead Mothers, 2008.
Jason Aaron and R. M. Guera, Scalped, Vol. 4: The Gravel in Your Guts, 2009.
Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso, 100 Bullets, Vol. 9: Strychnine Lives, 2006.
Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso, 100 Bullets, Vol. 10: Decayed, 2006.
Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso, 100 Bullets, Vol. 13: Wilt, 2009.
Art Baltazar and Franco, Tiny Titans, Vol. 1: Welcome to the Treehouse, 2009.
Phillip Gelatt et al, Indiana Jones Adventures, Vol. 1, 2008.
Joshua Hale Fialkov et al, I, Vampire, Vol. 2: Rise of the Vampires, 2013.
Sholly Fisch et al, The All-New Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Vol. 1, 2011.
Derek Fridolfs et al, Batman: Arkham Unhinged, Vol. 1, 2013.
Klay Hall, Planes, 2013.
Geoff Johns et al, Superman vs. Zod, 2013.
Martin McIntosh, Supersonic Swingers: Around the World with the Art of Shag, 2012.

DVDs:
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, 2008.

"Equal Rights and Jobs NOW"

"The UAW leader and his fellow unionists also knew the civil-rights movement’s most eloquent leader was on their side. Martin Luther King Jr. frequently spoke to labor audiences and consistently advocated their demands, while pressuring them to make equal opportunity a reality inside as well as outside their ranks. He wanted the U.S. to emulate havens of social democracy like Sweden, whose powerful workers’ movement had helped secure health care for all and an 'equitable division of wealth.'"

Michael Kazin in The New Republic discusses the role of unions in the 1963 March on Washington.

And Harold Meyerson in The American Prospect tells the "story of the radicals behind—and in front of—the demonstration that changed America."

"It’s Hard to Overstate Just How Damaging to the Country’s Future Further Reductions Would Be"

"Many people still cling to the idea that government is, without exception, a drag upon the private economy. Conservatives 'know that when it comes to economic progress,' Arthur Brooks, the president of the American Enterprise Institute, wrote last year in National Review, 'the best government philosophy is one that starts every day with the question, "What can we do today to get out of Americans’ way?"' They imagine the United States as a land of plucky inventor-entrepreneurs ('We built it!' they cry) who work out of garages and depend solely on their wits. The problem is that this vision of American inventiveness is pure myth."

In The New Republic, John B. Judis calls for an end to cuts in federal spending on science research.

"This Is a Book about America's Demons"

"Americans fear mobs: They are the dark force lurking inside 'Enemy Below' conspiracy theories, one of several categories of 'primal myths' Walker explores. Over time, blacks, immigrant laborers and Jewish radicals have all been the protagonists in imagined 'Enemy Below' conspiracy theories. A mythical group of black intellectuals called 'The Organization' was said to be behind the 1965 Watts riots, Walker writes."

Hector Tobar in the Los Angeles Times reviews Jesse Walker's The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory.

"Rebellion Was Giving Way to the Conciliatory"

"Today, as Americans commemorate the war, it is worth remembering that merely calling it the Civil War disguises the fact that in this case, the victors did not write the history, for the victors had called it rebellion."

Chandra Manning and Adam Rothman in The New York Times discuss Civil War nomenclature.

"There May Be an Anthology in This"

"What I found was that there was a whole generation of women writers, mostly working in the period between World War II and the dawn of women’s liberation in the early 1970s. They were critically acclaimed, many won Edgar awards or were made grand masters by the Mystery Writers of America. They sold very well and were published in hardcover, whereas a lot of their male counterparts, who are now considered part of the crime fiction canon or are in Library of America, they were only published in paperback. So, what happened? I wanted to know more about them."

Laura Miller in Salon talks with Sarah Weinman, editor of Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives: Stories From the Trailblazers of Domestic Suspense.

"David McCullough Wondering How Much Scratch He Could Shake Out Of Frederick Douglass"

"Noting that the most difficult part of beginning a new book project is settling on the right horse to ride all the way to the goddamned bank, McCullough said that since he’s decided to explore Douglass’ life, all that he has left to do is 'construct an engrossing narrative, throw in a couple of demonstrative anecdotes from his childhood, then sit back and watch the dough roll in.'"

From The Onion.

Safe at Home

"A single-story, modest, cozy motel with 10 units and four bungalows on Twentynine Palms Highway, it boasts a memorial that bears his name, and you can purchase a Gram Parsons T-shirt in the motel's lobby. Room 8 still exists, but the only piece of furniture dating back to Parsons' death is a round mirror at the foot of the bed. A painted portrait commemorates Parsons and on a nightstand there's a guest book in which visitors can write messages. Joshua Tree Inn owner Margo Paolucci says she gets guests from around the world looking to stay in Room 8.
"'When we have a walk-in, we never give them this room,' she says. 'It's only somebody that requests it because they know something about Gram or they'd love to learn about Gram.'"

Robert Fulton in the LA Weekly looks at Joshua Tree forty years after the death of Gram Parsons.

"This Book Will Remind You Why We Must Never Forget What Our Country Did to Vietnam"

"For Turse, a journalist and the author of a previous book on the military industrial complex’s impact on daily life, the first glimmer of understanding came in 2001 when, as a graduate student researching post-traumatic stress disorder among Vietnam veterans, he happened upon the records of the Vietnam War Crimes Working Group. This was 'a secret Pentagon task force that had,' he writes, 'been assembled after the My Lai massacre to ensure that the army would never again be caught off-guard by a major war crimes scandal.' The papers 'documented a nightmare war that is essentially missing from our understanding of the Vietnam conflict.'"

Tom Gallagher in the Los Angeles Review of Books reviews Nick Turse's Kill Anything that Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam.

The Deviant Stewardess Is Flying the Bossa Nova

The Los Angeles Times runs obits for football player Art Donovan, musician George Duke, musician and writer Mick Farren, actress Karen Black, singer Eydie Gorme, Ronald Reagan advisor William P. Clark, musician Tompall Glaser, and journalist Jack Germond.

"One of the Darkest Studio Movies Ever Made"

"But never again would he deliver such an uncompromising critique of modern life. Twenty-first-century technology and testosterone replacement therapy might make the premise of 'Seconds' look reasonable rather than speculative. But though its suburban anomie is the stuff of midcentury culture, it remains a relevant dissection of consumerism and conformity, and a blistering portrayal of freedom: just another word for 'sign on the dotted line.'"

Sheri Linden in the Los Angeles Times revisits John Frankenheimer's Seconds.

"I’ve Been Waiting for a Book Like This for a Long Time"

"But it also bears a political argument we need to absorb. Explained Connor in Chicago, 'The John Birch Society built the most effective, best-funded right-wing populist organization in the United States of America. Now, not all my friends on the left want to hear this. It’s so easy to say, "These people were crackpots."' But Robert Welch 'was a brilliant man. That doesn’t mean he was correct about anything. But he was a brilliant man. And he loved to sell.' And what comes through strikingly in the book is that, even as Welch and his organization were excoriated, the stories they told, frequently through carefully disguised front groups with pleasant-sounding names—say, the one from the 1960s about how sexual education was teaching children how to be sexually promiscuous; or the one in the early 1990s promoting the impeachment of Bill Clinton—were sold quite effectively to the broader political culture. They achieved things."

Rick Perlstein at The Nation discusses Claire Connor and her new book, Wrapped in the Flag: A Personal History of America's Radical Right.

"A Valiant Effort to Peer into the Essence of Surfing Culture"

"It raises an intriguing idea: Surfers cannot escape their middle-class culture, despite their rebellious inclinations to challenge conformity—just like Jack Kerouac's beatniks in 'On the Road.'
"'The only reason the Beats could chase their kicks, or surfers the endless summer, was because society was affluent enough to support them,' the authors write. 'Like the ancient Hawaiians, middle-class Americans in the 1950s enjoyed material abundance that made leisure a common privilege.'"

Kenneth R. Weiss in the Los Angeles Times reviews Peter Westwick and Peter Neushul's The World in the Curl: An Unconventional History of Surfing.

After Private Cocaine Heart

The Los Angeles Times publishes obits for boxer Emile Griffith, sex researcher Virginia Johnson, songwriter J. J. Cale, actress Eileen Brennan, and sociologist Robert N. Bellah.

"Not Action, but Suspense"

"As a business model, 'Jaws' may well have upended the movie industry. Creatively, though, it’s increasingly strange to blame 'Jaws' for spawning the modern blockbuster, given how little Steven Spielberg’s esoteric, character-driven story has in common with today’s action extravaganzas. Compared with movies like 'Pacific Rim,' 'World War Z' and 'White House Down,' 'Jaws' is an art-house film."

Heather Havrilesky in The New York Times calls on us to "Stop Blaming 'Jaws'!"

Drums along the Hudson

"Bob Mould, Hüsker Dü: Maxwell’s is sort of my CBGB. For R.E.M., the Feelies, the Replacements, Hüsker Dü, all the bands of that era—that was our room. Bear in mind, I never played CBGB. In early ’85, I called up and tried to get a gig there. They were like, 'Never heard of you.' Really? You didn’t hear Zen Arcade or New Day Rising? Maybe you should go read The Village Voice or something."

Upon the closing of Maxwell's, New York magazine presents an oral history of the Hoboken nightclub.

July 2013 Acquisitions

Books:
Fred Armisen et al, Portlandia: A Guide for Visitors, 2012.
Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso, 100 Bullets, Vol. 6: Six Feet under the Gun, 2004.
Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso, 100 Bullets, Vol. 7: Samurai, 2004.
Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso, 100 Bullets, Vol. 8: The Hard Way, 2005.
Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso, 100 Bullets, Vol. 12: Dirty, 2008.
Art Baltazar and Franco, Superman Family Adventures, Vol. 1, 2013.
Ed Brubaker et al, Fatale, Vol. 1: Death Chases Me, 2012.
Ed Brubaker et al, Fatale, Vol. 2: The Devil's Business, 2013.
Ed Brubaker et al, Fatale, Vol. 3: West of Hell, 2013.
Wim de Wit and Christopher James Alexander (eds.), Overdrive: L.A. Constructs the Future, 1940-1990, 2013.
John Einarson, Forever Changes: Arthur Lee and the Book of Love, 2010.
Albert B. Feldstein (ed.), The Rip Off MAD, 1976.
Joshua Hale Fialkov et al, I, Vampire, Vol. 1: Tainted Love, 2012.
David Finch et al, Batman: The Dark Knight, Vol. 1--Knight Terrors, 2013.
Edmund Hamilton et al, DC Universe: Secret Origins, 2013.
Barbara Kesel et al, Elseworld's Finest: Supergirl & Batgirl, 1997.
Kelley Puckett et al, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, 1992.
Peter J. Tomasi et al, Batman and Robin, Vol. 1: Born to Kill, 2013.

DVDs:
American Splendor, 2003.
Best of Warner Bros. 50 Cartoon Collection: Looney Tunes, 2013.
56 Up, 2012.
A Serious Man, 2009.

"The Greater Likelihood Is that He May Have Died before His Prime"

"But 'Dock of the Bay' wasn't an ending, or shouldn't have been. Rather, it was a beginning. According to the song's co-author, Steve Cropper, Redding was obsessed with the Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (which had come out weeks before Redding wrote the song), and was looking to 'change his style.' And 'Dock of the Bay' is a remarkable turning point in Redding's catalogue: By 1967 he had mastered the barn-burning dance number and the candlelit love ballad, but 'Dock of the Bay' is another thing entirely, a song about homesickness that Redding turns into something elemental, existential. It's been covered by artists ranging from Bob Dylan to Sammy Hagar--understandable considering it's one of the best songs ever written--but no rendition approaches the power and depth of Redding's original. It is personal, bold, warm and warming, completely magnificent. And written and performed by a man who was only 26 years old."

Jack Hamilton at The Atlantic praises Otis Redding.

This Year's Model

"You don't have to ask where you've heard this before, because you hear it all the time. Every new technology is hyped as a world-changer and life-changer—just last year, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan was urging that every schoolchild have a laptop, because in the near future, textbooks would be a thing of the past. As I observed at the time, this was education as seen through the eyes of Apple Inc., not through the eyes of genuine educators."

Michael Hiltzik in the Los Angeles Times reacts to San Jose State University's suspension of Massive Open Online Courses.

"The Notorious Colored Capitalist"

"No one will ever erect a statue honoring Jeremiah Hamilton. He was no saint. He was more aggressive and more ruthless toward his competitors than most businessmen. But it’s understandable: for a black man to succeed he had to be at least as cavalier about such niceties as keeping within the law as his white contemporaries. Wall Street has never been a place for the faint of heart, but, in the antebellum era, with remarkably few rules of any sort yet established, New York businessmen played hardball and, at least initially sensing an easy mark, they lined up to play with Hamilton."

Shane White in The New York Times discusses "Gotham’s Only Black Millionaire" of the mid-nineteenth century.

"Today’s Full-Time Professional Administrators Tend to View Management as an End in and of Itself"

"While some administrative posts continue to be held by senior professors on a part-time basis, their ranks are gradually dwindling as their jobs are taken over by fulltime managers. College administrations frequently tout the fiscal advantages of using part-time, 'adjunct' faculty to teach courses. They fail, however, to apply the same logic to their own ranks. Over the past thirty years, the percentage of faculty members who are hired on a part-time basis has increased so dramatically that today almost half of the nation’s professors work only part-time. And yet the percentage of administrators who are part-time employees has fallen during the same time period."

In a 2011 Washington Monthly article, Benjamin Ginsberg describes how to cut college costs.

Information Wants to Be Bundled

"Like a state covered by a range of microclimates, the culture world is a baffling and contradictory place these days. The last decade or so has been a rough time for much of the creative class--with a bad economy, the disruptions of digital technology, piracy from every direction--and for cultural institutions in particular. The record industry has been fraying since Napster; independent film studios have shuttered as noisy sequels swallow the movie world. Radio has gone from bad to worse in the age of Clear Channel. Bookstores are being destroyed by Amazon. Reporters and critics and photographers continue to lose their jobs. And much of what’s selling big is worse than it’s ever been.
"The long-tail, 'culture wants to be free' crowd told us the decentralized 21st century would make culture rich, complex, eclectic. The breaking up of the mainstream into a series of niches, however, has not produced a great flowering. Of course, as cold winters can surprise everyone during an era of global warming, there are exceptions: In some fields actual quality has become one of those viable niches."

Scott Timberg in Salon wonders if cable television will become a model for cultural production.

"Puritanism Does Not Equal Liberalism"

"Let me give another example of left-wing Puritanism in action, one less glaring than the Portland referendum but which will be recognizable to many of you. Last month, at a birthday party for a three-year-old, I was hit with the realization that most of the parents around me were in the grip of moral panic, the kind of fear of contamination dramatized so well in The Crucible. One mother was trying to keep her daughter from eating a cupcake, because of all the sugar in cupcakes. Another was trying to limit her son to one juice box, because of all the sugar in juice. A father was panicking because there was no place, in this outdoor barn-like space at some nature center or farm or wildlife preserve, where his daughter could wash her hands before eating. And while I did not hear any parent fretting about the organic status of the veggie dip, I became certain there were such whispers all around me."

Mark Oppenheimer in The New Republic criticizes people who "have allowed lifestyle decisions about what they wear, eat, and drive to entirely replace a more ambitious program for bettering society."

"Or Have We Built upon a Foundation of Sand?"

"Pacific Standard Time Presents gives us a chance to see how L.A. was made modern, but it also chronicles the rise and the fall of the car in Los Angeles culture. Maybe, by seeing this narrative so persuasively presented in museums, alongside the artifacts of other cultures, we can finally admit that our affair with the automobile is history."

Alissa Walker in the LA Weekly reviews the Getty Center's "Overdrive: L.A. Constructs the Future 1940-1990."

The Pursuit of Target Betrayal

The Los Angeles Times publishes obituaries for writer Philip Slater, historian Raymond Rodriguez, businessman Douglas Dayton, historian Edmund S. Morgan, broadcaster James L. Loper, and Twister co-inventor Chuck Foley.

The Revolution Will Still Not Be Televised

"Take today’s Emmy nominations, which, though there were, as always, a few surprises and snubs, generally rewarded the prestige dramas—House of Cards, American Horror Story, Game of Thrones, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Homeland—that most people regard as the best stuff on TV. Compare that to any year’s Oscar nominations, which encompass multiple filmmaking styles and span the studio and indie world and still rarely scratch the surface of what critics and serious moviegoers consider the best of the year. Or just consider the wild range of movies on view in a critics’ poll of the best 2013 movies so far, from Before Midnight to Upstream Color to Spring Breakers (and that’s just the top three—and we’re still months away from Oscar season)."

David Haglund in Slate argues that movies are superior to television.

Rise of the "Apodments"

"'Politically, it’s a coalition of the greedy and the well-meaning that led to the banning of private-sector affordable housing in our cities,' he says. The well-meaning folks were appalled by the living conditions of poor and working-class families. The greedy folks were appalled by the prospect of living next to them. Together, this awkward alliance helped advocate laws that established minimum living conditions not simply for safety, but also to define how much space an individual should reasonably be expected to live in."

Emily Badger at The Atlantic calls for the return of boarding houses.

"Struggling to Resolve the Conflict between Its Pragmatic Establishment Wing and Its Ideological-Suicidal Wing"

"McInturff put his finger on the problem: House Republicans are invested in their own re-election and not in the long-term viability of their party. Those who put the lowest priority on presidential politics are those most worried about a primary challenge from the right, and it is this cohort that forms the backbone of the Tea Party faction in the House—the cohort most wedded to nativism, intolerance and hostility to the poor. These are the members nudging the Republican Party over the cliff."

Thomas B. Edsall at The New York Times diagnoses problems for the Republican Party.

Unbanned in Boston

"Crucially, Justice William Brennan wrote an opinion clarifying that a work could be obscene only if it were 'utterly without redeeming social value'; by virtue of its historical importance and literary merit, he stated, John Cleland’s novel was demonstrably not in this category. In dissenting opinions, Justice Tom Clark weighed in with an opinion on Fanny herself—'nothing but a harlot'—and Justice Byron White disagreed with Brennan’s assertion that literary value precluded obscenity, suggesting that a primary appeal to 'prurient interest' made a work obscene even if it could also claim some artistic worth. White worried that obscene material would proliferate 'if it has any literary style, if it contains any historical references or language characteristic of a bygone day, or even if it is printed or bound in an interesting way.'
"White was right to worry, as it turned out."

Ruth Graham in The Boston Globe looks back at the obscenity trial over Fanny Hill during the 1960s.

"High on Jesus"

"Eskridge begins his story in the Bay Area, the birthplace of both the counterculture and the Jesus Movement. Skillfully capturing the cultural and intergenerational tension among the Christians of this era, he introduces Baptist pastor John MacDonald and a young hippie couple, Ted and Elizabeth 'Liz' Wise. Liz attends MacDonald's church 'while coming down from the previous night's acid trip.' Eventually, her excitement about Jesus proves contagious to her philandering and oft-stoned husband. Soon, he was telling his fellow joint-smoking friends, 'Jesus is my Lord.' Then Wise went to MacDonald's church and told the congregation, 'He is back.' Wise did not explain what he meant by that statement, other than to share that the Lord had told him to tell it to everyone he met. The new convert made both the hippies and the straitlaced Baptists equally uncomfortable."

John G. Turner at Christianity Today reviews Larry Eskridge's God's Forever Family: The Jesus People Movement in America.

"A Blunt Reminder of the Limitations of Our Justice System"

"What the verdict says, to the astonishment of tens of millions of us, is that you can go looking for trouble in Florida, with a gun and a great deal of racial bias, and you can find that trouble, and you can act upon that trouble in a way that leaves a young man dead, and none of it guarantees that you will be convicted of a crime. But this curious result says as much about Florida's judicial and legislative sensibilities as it does about Zimmerman's conduct that night. This verdict would not have occurred in every state. It might not even have occurred in any other state. But it occurred here, a tragic confluence that leaves a young man's untimely death unrequited under state law. Don't like it? Lobby to change Florida's laws."

Andrew Cohen at The Atlantic reacts to the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial.

The New York Times prints President Obama's July 19 remarks about the trial.

"The Civil War Had Come to New York"

"It was the Union Army draft that touched off the four days of rioting on July 13, 1863. Or was it racism? Or immigration? Or politics? It is fitting that the largest riot in American history should have so many causes. Ever since it ended, Americans have struggled to explain why a draft rebellion, a race riot, a class war and an immigrant uprising all erupted in the middle of a civil war fought in the name of unity."

Jon Grinspan in The New York Times marks the 150th anniversary of the New York City Draft Riots.

Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe

"At its core, the story of Los Angeles is a story of immigration. How could it be otherwise? The 20th century saw the city grow from just 102,000 souls in 1900 (one-third the size of Bob Jones' hometown, Cleveland) to 3.7 million in 2000 (nearly 10 times bigger than Cleveland, and second only to New York). No other city in the country came close to such dramatic growth.
"But the waves of outsiders who moved here weren't always welcome."

Sarah Fenske unveils the LA Weekly's "Best L.A. Novel Ever."

"Searching for the Seventies"

"Founded by Gifford Hampshire, Documerica lasted about six years, hired roughly 70 photographers, and knocked out 115 assignments in all 50 states. Photographers were paid $150 a day plus film and expenses and were given the creative freedom to interpret environmental issues outlined to them from EPA employees.
"The results—22,000 images—ended up documenting environmental issues and brought another meaning to environment that focused on local neighborhoods, social issues, political changes, and the remarkable fashion trends typical of the 1970s."

David Rosenberg in Slate revisits the Environmental Protection Agency's Documerica Project.

"Institutions Must Advance"

"As for the pursuit of happiness, Americans are free to do just that—provided that they aren’t rotting in jail. But are they likely to find it? Most Americans work longer hours and have fewer paid vacations and benefits—including health care—than their counterparts in most advanced countries. Consider also that in the CIA World Factbook, the United States ranks 51st in life expectancy at birth. Working oneself into an early grave does not do much for one’s happiness quotient. This year the United States tied for 14th in “life satisfaction” on an annual quality-of-life study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That puts the United States behind Canada (eighth) and Australia (12th). A report co-authored last year by the economist Jeffrey Sachs ranked the United States 10th in the world for happiness—again behind Canada and Australia. The Sachs study found that the United States has made 'striking economic and technological progress over the past half century without gains in the self-reported happiness of the citizenry. Instead, uncertainties and anxieties are high, social and economic inequalities have widened considerably, social trust is in decline, and confidence in government is at an all-time low.'
"Ouch."

Paul Pirie in The Washington Post argues that "the American Revolution was a flop."

"None of Them Seriously Consider Much of the Latest Research"

"Ellis, Beeman, and Philbrick treat the arming of slaves as a footnote, if at all. In a sense they have no choice, since they focus on a few brief episodes in the 1770s, when the war was largely confined to the north. But the conflict drastically transformed when it shifted to the south, in 1778. The new books virtually ignore the region, instead concentrating on a handful of northern events that are forced to hold the entire meaning of the Revolution. A longer view that included the final war years, and by necessity the south, would have revealed a much more complicated conflict than anything like the Battle of Bunker Hill can shoulder."

In Slate, Eric Herschthal reviews three new books about the American Revolution.

"The Rewards Can Be Great"

"Not too long ago, California was in calamitous shape—if the unresolvable budget battles and furloughing of hundreds of thousands of workers weren’t depressing enough, there was also the decrepit condition of the school system. But over the last few years, California has experienced a remarkable turnaround. Unemployment is down, and the state’s bond rating is up. The budget, to everyone’s amazement, is in surplus. Equally surprising is the state’s political transformation.

"California Democrats, an historically ineffectual bunch, are finally learning how to wield their majority power. They’ve been so successful that Barack Obama and the other Democrats in Washington who seem bedeviled by an intransigent opposition party should study their moves well."

John B. Judis in The New Republic urges President Obama to follow California's lead.

"So Perfect Is the Illusion"

"The cyclorama re-created the Battle of Gettysburg in stunning realism, with impeccable attention to the smallest minutiae. Yet it offered not a single clue as to why the battle had been fought. No matter how hard they looked, or how long they stared, no visitor would find in the painting any trace of the cause of the war. There was carnage. There was valor. But there was no purpose."

Yoni Applebaum at The Atlantic depicts the history of the Gettysburg Cyclorama.

"A Disputed Memorial to the Slave Trade"

"Historians first uncovered the apparent truth about Goree in the 1990s. But almost 20 years later, the site’s emotional power is still strong – as is its prominent place in a history that it actually had very little to do with. But that might be about something much bigger than just the persistence of myth or the challenge in overturning a too-good-to-be-true story."

In The Washington Post, Max Fisher explores Goree Island in history and memory.

As does Adam Goodheart in a 2003 New York Times article.

"The Resemblance Is Characterological and Ideological"

"President Obama scaled back some of the Bush administration’s anti-terror policies—torture, warrantless wiretapping—but kept in place others. One could make the case that he did not change enough, but that is not a Greenwald sort of argument. He insists that Obama is worse than Bush. Obama’s health-care reform was not just a step along the way to Greenwald’s ideal, it was a monstrous sellout that probably did no good at all ('there is a reasonable debate to be had among reform advocates over whether this bill is a net benefit or a net harm.').

"This way of looking at the world naturally places one in conflict with most liberals, who are willing to distinguish between gradations of success or failure."

Jonathan Chait at New York compares Glenn Greenwald to Ralph Nader.

"The Hispanic Population Will Become the Plurality in California for the First Time since California Became a State"

"Fifteen years ago, non-Hispanic whites outnumbered Latinos in California by roughly 5 million, census figures show.
"But the Latino population has grown quickly through immigration and comparatively high birth rates. At the same time, the number of whites has fallen as birth rates in that population dropped and more of them left the state than came here."

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/07/01/5536254/latinos-poised-to-catch-up-with.html#storylink=cpy

Phillip Reese in The Sacramento Bee reports on the State of California marking the end of its non-Hispanic white plurality.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/07/01/5536254/latinos-poised-to-catch-up-with.html#storylink=cpy

"Progressive Charter School Doesn’t Have Students"

"'Thanks to our groundbreaking methods, we’ve established a structured yet free-thinking environment where the student is taken out of the equation entirely, and in fact is not allowed on school property. And the results, we think, speak for themselves.'"

From The Onion.