Matt Schiavenza From the Dragon to the Apple- A Sinophile in New York

Johannes Unbound

For traveling reasons, I've been remiss in mentioning the addition to a new blog on the blogroll, entitled Bleach Eating Freaks

Johannes, a frequent commenter (as frequent as they come) on this blog, is a regular contributor to what looks like a veeeeery interesting page.  Those of us lucky enough to be on Johannes' e-mail list are treated to his hilarious dispatches from Bergen, Norway. 

So go check it out...Jo posts under the pen name of "morethandork".  Alternatively, look for the bearded Norwegian guy (as opposed to yours truly, the unbearded Norwegian guy)

Typepad Troubles

So it looks like Typepad is up and running again in China, after about a week of being stuck behind the firewall.  The evil Chinese cybernanny must have had a weak moment!  Anyway, this now means that in my more narcissistic moments, I can read my own blog in China without using a proxy server.

Friends Updates

Phil has returned from his five-month journey that took him to Africa, Europe, and the Middle East with a stop in the US of A mixed in between.  Scroll through his archives to understand what a real travel journal is all about.

Max, meanwhile, is now blogging from Oaxaca, Mexico, where he's spending part of the summer on a Spanish language immersion course.

Through Phil, Max, Sean in Japan, and yours truly, there's quite a wealth of travel writing covering Africa, The Middle East, Europe, Latin America, and East Asia.  I should also point out various US reports from Jascha over at his eponymous group blog, Jascha Pohl Sucks.

Not too shabby for a group of fellas that lived within a two block radius of each other in San Diego, California just two years ago!

Behold the New SuperBlog

For all the other blog dorks out there: I've spent the last hour perusing through Josh Marshall's new group extravaganza, TPM Cafe.  In a word: impressed.  Marshall has brought together twelve contributors that debate politics and policy on the site's main blog, The Coffee House.  Professor Elizabeth Warren and her students debate economics and issues regarding the shrinking middle class in Warren Reports.  Six foreign policy experts weigh US engagement with the world at America Abroad.  Matthew Yglesias' blog has moved here.  At the permanent guest-blog slot, former Senator and Vice Presidential nominee John Edwards discusses solutions to American poverty.  Furthermore, readers can now comment on all posts and start blogs of their own, a feature popularized at Daily Kos.

Some of the contributors at The Coffee House are Mark Schmitt of The Decembrist, Ed Kilgore of New Donkey, Marshall Wittman of Bull Moose, and Steve Clemons of The Washington Note.  All four are keeping their personal blogs active, as is Marshall himself at Talking Points Memo.  Also involved are media critic/Columbia professor Todd Gitlin and best-selling author Annie Lamott.

I'm quite skeptical of group blogs but I'm quite pleased so far with the results.  Through one site, one can read opinions on politics, economics, and foreign policy written by some of the most astute thinkers active today.  The fact that most of these thinkers hold ideological positions similar to mine pleases me immensely.

If TPM Cafe works- and I think it will- we may witness another indication that bloggers- and not newspaper columnists and TV talking heads- are becoming the new valued pundit class.

A Voice of Reason on the Right

I'm a frequent critic of the echo-chamber bloviations emanating from right-wing blogs, so today I feel compelled to promote one conservative with the cojones to take a contrary stand on the Newsweek/Koran flushing incident.

In a larger discussion of the press' role in shaping American distrust of the military, John Cole writes that:

The media is not, as an institution, anti-military. The media is,
however, suspicious of the military establishment, and for good
reasons. The Pentagon routinely lies to them. See Tillman, Pat.  Or the Pentagon Papers.
Or any hundreds of other similar events. At any rate, even if the press
is suspicious of the military establishment, Rick is somehow confusing
criticism of the Pentagon with criticism of the actual soldiers as
well as the goals of the United States.

Bravo.  Why don't more people on the right realize this?  Cole then says:

And while we are at it, can we conservatives please stop this laughable
cult of victimology? We have the Presidency (for the second time in a
row and the fifth time in the last seven elections). We control the
Senate by a ten seat margin. We control the House by a larger margin.
We have dismissed or dismantled virtually every institutional check in
order to limit opposition debate and increase institutional control,
regardless how short-sighted that might be. We are ramming through just
about every judge we wanted, and are about to reload the Supreme Court
with Antonin Scalia at the helm.

I've always been fascinated with the conservative self-perception of persecution.  More people identify as conservatives than liberal, and that hasn't changed in over thirty years.  People often assume that the United States has become a more conservative nation since the days of The Great Society and the Civil Rights Act.  Nonsense.  What has happened, actually, is that conservative Democrats have simply fled the party and joined the Republicans.  Southern identification with the Democratic Party was a holdover from Reconstruction and was bound to end sometime.  And it did, first with Reagan in 1980 and then with the Congressional sweep of 1994.

Conservatives don't bother me per se, and in fact I think a strong conservative party benefits America.  Today's conservatives, though, hardly represent the core beliefs of their ideology, and that's why somebody like John Cole is a major breath of fresh air.

Arianna’s Beast of a Blog

When I began reading blogs, in early 2003,  the medium was mostly limited to obscure journalists, obscure academics, and well, just obscure people in general.  Better credentialed journalists, longer-tenured academics, and semi-famous people soon got into the act- every few months the blogosphere buzzed with news that Really Interesting People had launched their own blog and that We Should All Pay Attention.

So we did, and the results were less than thrilling.  Left2Right brings together several noted academics, but their output reminds me of my days falling asleep in college lectures.  Becker and Posner may be the smartest economist and judge, respectively, in the country, but I can't be bothered reading through their long-winded rambles on randomly chosen subjects each week.

Three days ago, Arianna Huffington lauched the mother of all celebrity group blogs, modestly titled The Huffington Post.  The Greek Goddess of Political Transformations has enlisted a motley crue from all walks of life as contributors.  CBS News Dinosaur Walter Cronkite.  HBO Boxing man Jim Lampley.  Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons.  Waif-like actress Gwyneth Paltrow.  Mayor Moonbeam Jerry Brown. A US Representative.  A US Senator.  Larry David.  And much, much more.

I couldn't resist checking in on what James Lileks calls the "48 Car Celebrity Freeway Pile-Up".  What I found was, well, a big mess.  There was no ryhme or reason to it- just a bunch of famous people saying whatever the hell they feel like.  I tried reading 20 or 30 posts and just gave up after that.  I can't imagine I was the only one whose eyes glazed over.

Now, I like Arianna Huffington, but I think her blog will end up being a well-intentioned failure.  Blogging, like it or not, is an art form: and it takes more than just an opinion and a laptop to make it work.    Having an impressive resume does not a good blogger make.  Certainly, some of Huffington's contributors will get the hang of it and I'll tune in to read what they have to say.  I think a lot of them, though, will tire of the medium rather quickly and go gently into that good night.

That's fine with me.  What I like about blogging is its meritocratic nature- people who are good at it will be read, people who aren't will not.  Lileks again:

That’s the big problem with blogs,
of course: who cares what X thinks? It all depends on the quality of
the thought, the uniqueness of the product, the value added. In the
blogworld, a celebrity name adds no value whatsoever.

Max’s Livejournal

My friend Max kept us entertained in college with his often fiery, always clever rhetoric- now his words are available to the general public in his livejournal here, titled MAXIS OF EVIL.

I'm also adding him to the "Friends" category on the left sidebar of NBNL.

Progressives and the Military

Please direct your attention to the fantastic new Democracy Arsenal blog, in particular Lorelei Kelly's excellent piece explaining how progressive politics and the military can be reconciled. Writes Kelly:

In short, it needs to rescue our democracy by claiming the wide terrain
that has opened up in the middle of the political spectrum. This is the
fundamental reason why the military and progressives need each other.
The market fundamentalism of the conservative movement--along with its
anti-government rhetoric-- has damaged cultural notions of sacrifice,
common good and public service, the military's very reason for being.

'tis indeed an excellent point that precious few of our pundits in the "liberal media" make.  Read on.

New Foreign Policy Blog! Hooray!

I'm not someone who ascribes to the view that blogs are changing the actual content of political debate in our country, but political blogs are indeed quite useful in determining political trends. Lately, here's an encouraging one:  smart liberal bloggers are actively seeking to improve the progressive and liberal policy toward the War on Terror.  First came Liberals Against Terrorism, and now Democracy Arsenal has arrived.  Those interested in international affairs ought to bookmark both sites.

There must be a third way between sycophantic Bush triumphalism andreactionary Bush hatred in our national foreign policy debate.  Democracy Arsenal contributor Suzanna Knossel looks for such a solution in this excellent post.

Read the whole thing, as they say.