A Hell of a Scam
Languages evolve, no matter how badly purists want to preserve them. Words change meaning all the time, and there are even certain occasions in which a word can assume a secondary meaning that is opposite to its conventional definition. Here's a case in point, culled from the Sports Illustrated "Fan Nation" blog:
Charles Barkley may be watching his waistline as the new spokesman for Weight Watchers, but apparently he's not watching his words too closely. The outspoken TNT announcer apparently didn't realize his microphone was live during the Atlanta Hawks-Miami Heat matchup on Thursday night and began rambling about his new endorsement deal. "I've been doing Weight Watchers for three months. I have to lose two pounds a week. I'm at 38 pounds now. They come and weigh me every two weeks. I ain't never missed a weigh-in. Never going to," he told fellow announcers Reggie Miller and Kevin Harlan. After Harlan asked him if it was working, the former Suns' big man said he was "feeling much better." "But I ain't giving away no money. I'm not giving away no free money," he added. "I thought this was the greatest scam going-getting paid for watching sports, this Weight Watchers thing is a bigger scam." (emphasis mine)
For those of you unfamiliar with him, Charles Barkley has long had a reputation for making controversial comments. The article here is trying to say that Barkley goofed by referring to Weight Watchers, a company which he represents as a paid sponsor, is a "scam". Simple enough, right?
Look again at the context. Barkley clearly has a positive impression of Weight Watchers, through which the famously round basketballer has lost 38 pounds. His last sentence, which I have bolded for emphasis, is telling: Barkley compares his spokesman gig with Weight Watchers positively to his other job as a television commentator for the NBA. The clear implication is that both gigs are very good deals. In traditional parlance, this would mean the opposite of a "scam", a word used to describe very bad deals- but here Barkley is using "scam" to mean a very good deal- as if to say that he is the one doing the scamming.
"Scam" isn't commonly used in this manner, but the writer should have paid closer attention to the context before accusing Barkley of misspeaking. Perhaps this mini-controversy will bring the alternative meaning of "scam" into wider usage, and Barkley will be thought of as an unlikely linguistic pioneer. Stranger things have happened!
Kim Jong Il Has Died
Kim Jong Il has died, and the year of upheaval continues up to the very end.
But of all of the deposed dictators we've seen this year, Kim Jong Il inspired more than his fair share of macabre humor. During his time in power there were salacious stories of "pleasure squads" and of three-day binges, his legendary consumption of fine Scotch, his unusual appearance, and of course his unforgettable portrayal in Team America. Kim was typically regarded as more buffoonish than evil; more Goldfinger than Stalin.
Yet to his millions of subjects, living under his totalitarian vision on North Korean soil, the subject of Kim was no laughing matter. Nor to the millions in South Korea whose families were displaced by partition and war, or to the many Japanese kidnapped over the years during one of Kim's capricious whims. I can imagine that Kim's death will trigger a deep emotional response throughout both Koreas and through the Korean diaspora, not to mention fear and trepidation in Japan and other countries living under Pyongyang's nuclear shadow.
So it'll be interesting to see how the media proceeds in dealing with the question of whether it is ok to joke about Kim. My sense from following the story on Twitter is that it is.
More thoughts in the coming days.
Christopher Hitchens
The news of Christopher Hitchens' death hit me harder than I thought it would. Not because it was unexpected; Hitchens fought a very public battle with esophageal cancer, and in recent weeks I noticed a slight lull in his usual prolific output of essays. But it was still difficult to believe that he had passed. Somehow, I always felt that he was immortal- a force of nature that couldn't be stopped. Even stricken with cancer, Hitchens wrote more cogently and brilliantly than most of the healthy could.
Many of the comments I've read on Twitter and elsewhere begin with a qualified "I didn't always agree with him, but.." Well, of course you didn't always agree with him. That was the beauty of Hitchens. In the years I followed his work, he never wrote a single craven, cynical word. Everything he wrote was with a clarity and passion that few writers have, and no opinion would lay undefended by reason and persuasion. Contrary to his popular image, Hitchens was not a contrarian for its own sake. A brilliantly idiosyncratic thinker, Hitchens' ideas were often at odds with whatever conventional wisdom had to say about a subject, yet few writers seemed to care less what that conventional wisdom was. He was nothing if not true to his own beliefs and ideals, and he wrote with a voice so inimitable that within two sentences, without needing to glance at the byline, it was clear exactly whose words were on the page. As a writer myself, I can think of no higher praise.
Many writers are solitary, unsociable creatures- so much so that those two qualities are often described as professional requirements. Yet in reading the many fine remembrances of Hitchens this morning, I was struck by how many spoke of his generosity. For a man whose famous friends ranged far and wide, Hitchens found time to counsel and advise young journalists, interns, and students just beginning their own intellectual journeys. He was clearly a man who relished conversation and comradeship, a man for whom late night sessions around a bottle was a part of his education rather than a distraction from it.
To read the man was to feel, for just a moment, that you too were among the guests at one of his parties or functions. His essays were erudite and engaging and most importantly humorous; unlike with many writers, his many references and allusions felt unforced and appropriate. Even when I disagreed with him, which I did often on the subject of the Iraq War, I regarded Hitchens' arguments as challenging and thought-provoking and never boring. I respected his opinion because I trusted, deep down, that his was genuine. In an war whose greatest defenders displayed a terrifying aversion to honesty and reason, Hitchens' arguments were refreshing. He was no thoughtless neo-conservative, gleeful at the prospect of a violent struggle. He was simply a man whose hatred of totalitarianism blinded him to the tragic reality that violent chaos was sometimes worse. I suppose, in a sad way, the fact that the war officially ended the morning of his death will remain an memorable trivial footnote to his life.
But Hitchens was so much more than a political commentator. He wrote about an astonishing range of subjects with the same wit and clarity. In a given week you'd encounter an essay on current events in Slate, a literary review for The Atlantic, and a long polemical essay in Vanity Fair- none of which held the slightest relation to one another except that their author found them worth mentioning. In a world where we're told to specialize, to focus, to dig deep- Hitchens was a true Renaissance man. In the midst of the regular writing assignments cited above, Hitchens found time to write books about atheism, George Orwell, Henry Kissinger, and Mother Theresa. His memoir, a wonderful jumble of memory and commentary, revealed that the man could have written twice as many if given the time. That was the extent of the breadth and depth of his knowledge and passion.
Mourning the death of a person you've never met is a strange phenomenon. But as I watch old videos of George Carlin, or read little snippets of Kurt Vonnegut, I feel an acute wish that they could be here today, if only to tell us what they were thinking. I suspect I will feel the same way about Christopher Hitchens.
And in that way, he will remain immortal.
Should Independent Bookstores Die?
Farhad Manjoo makes the case in Slate. To me, independent bookstores should transition to a niche model where they provide an exceedingly detailed, well-curated collection organized into specific topics. Going to a bookstore isn't just about browsing in a relaxing setting, as Manjoo suggests. It's also about stumbling upon new and unfamiliar books and writers, meeting others interested in similar books, and talking to well-informed managers and clerks. People will continue to buy their famous, mass-market books on Amazon but I think a re-casting of independent bookstores as niche-driven would probably work far better than maintaining their current form.
The Twenty Steps of Writing a Grad School Paper
1. Receive paper topic from professor, file in backpack
2. Remark that the assignment seems "fair" and mentally mull over a few possible things to write about.
3. Forget completely about the assignment for a week
4. Realize that you better get started, so pack your bags and head to the library to do "research"
5. Walk around the library looking for the perfect study spot but realize that all the good ones are taken
6. Settle in to start work but end up in a 45-minute conversation with one of your classmates, griping about how onerous the assignment has suddenly become.
7. Find a few sources and jot down some notes, telling yourself that this constitutes an "outline". Then go home and do something else.
8. Realize a day or two later that the paper is due imminently and you haven't started writing. Panic, briefly. Then march off to the library and tell yourself that you're going to buckle down and just do it.
9. Get a seat but realize you don't have any water. You can't work without water. It's physically impossible!
10. Start writing but decide that a little peek at Facebook wouldn't be harmful. Spend the next 20 minutes methodically going through each of the 67 photos your hot classmate posted about her vacation to Barbados.
11. Think hateful, homicidal thoughts about your professor.
12. Think hateful, homicidal thoughts about the people near you who are giggling. Who can giggle in a time like this?
13. Get into an argument with your friend on Google Talk about football.
14. Read a few articles in The New York Times, because you're a grad student and it's your responsibility to stay informed. Right?
15. Fart around online and stare at old Maxim photos of Mila Kunis. Fantasize that Mila Kunis was your classmate and you could take her out to coffee anytime you wanted. Wonder if Mila Kunis could help you with your paper.
16. Organize and color code your Google Calendar.
17. Think that going to the gym, which you haven't done in weeks, would help you concentrate. Go to the gym for an hour.
18. Return to your paper and start to panic. Indulge in intense feelings of self-loathing about your propensity to procrastinate. Vow that next time you're going to do things differently.
19. Start writing, feverishly. Realize that you actually don't mind the assignment and that it wasn't as hard as you thought. Think, darkly, that had you given yourself enough time it wouldn't have been too bad at all
20. Turn your paper in, warts and all. Then go drink beer and congratulate yourself for having worked so hard.
Google+ Won’t Replace Facebook. And That’s OK
Two weeks ago, Slate's influential tech columnist Farhad Manjoo wrote that Google+ is dead, or will be soon. Tellingly, the subtitle of his post was that Google+ "had a chance to compete with Facebook" but can't, anymore.
To me, this comparison misses the point. Google+ and Facebook serve different functions within the social networking sphere and cater to different types of users. Facebook is the ideal platform for people to communicate personal updates with their family and friends, if for no other reason than everyone's family and friends are already using Facebook. For these people there's no reason to leave Facebook for Google+- as in real life, people want to be at a party where all their friends are.
Google+, on the other hand, has evolved into a site for people who like sharing content over the web. Scanning my G+ page right now, just about everything on there is a link, video, cartoon, followed by comments. For me, as an inveterate sharer, I find that G+ has a far higher percentage of material that I find interesting. Yet Facebook remains the go-to place for gossip, news, and scuttlebutt about people I actually know.
Over time, I expect these differences will sharpen. People won't leave Facebook for G+, but the "sharers" will gradually view Google's network as a better platform for exchanging links, content, and ideas. For the people who don't feel the need to share at all, they'll simply keep using Facebook as before. Analyzing the two services as if they were identical I think fails to recognize how they each cater to a separate group of people.
Occupy Wall Street Revisited
I'm getting sick of Occupy Wall Street. I loved it when it started, because it represented a genuine populist movement with social democratic values. Now, OWS seems to have evolved into a semi-permanent encampment of angry, confused kids who don't know what to do other than to agitate. Also, the complaints that Mayor Bloomberg's move against them somehow violates their "First Amendment Rights" strikes me as pathetic and sad. Essentially, the OWS people feel they have the right to occupy a park indefinitely without threat of eviction. Never mind that other members of the so-called 99% might wish to use the park themselves. This, folks, is how people turn into conservatives.
I'm not a conservative and don't intend ever to become one, and that's what frustrates me most about Occupy Wall Street. At its inception the movement represented a populist claim against income inequality, lax government regulation of the finance industry, and other legitimate issues. Now, what does OWS stand for? Rather than honing its message through a platform, the movement has instead taken on all types of grievances, ranging from random social issues to the general hatred of the police. By trying to stand for everything, OWS now stands for nothing.
Within a year of its birth, the Tea Party was a major force on the American political scene, sponsoring candidates for office and establishing a caucus in both the House and the Senate. Occupy Wall Street had that potential, but now it's being squandered under the false banner of "inclusiveness". The result? A legitimate, promising political movement will again be shunted to the sidelines, while the idiotic Tea Party marches on.
Italy is Not Going to Die
David Gilmour, apparently in between solos on "Comfortably Numb"*, writes that Italy's fractured history makes it little surprise that it's falling apart now.
I'm not sure whether this article offends me more as an Italian-American or as a graduate student in international affairs. Yes, Italy was once comprised of many different states. So was Germany. Yes, Italy was once the home of many different languages. So was- and is- present-day Indonesia. Italy has a strong north-south divide. Guess what? So does the United States. And, to a lesser extent, China.
This isn't to say Italy doesn't have problems, of course. But nobody was suggesting that the country "was barely real to begin with" prior to this most recent economic crisis.
As someone who has lived in Italy, speaks Italian, and met very many Italian people, I can assure Gilmour that the Italian sense of national identity has far stronger expressions than simply soccer. The entire nation takes pride in the country's cultural heritage, which includes some of the world's most magnificent art and literature as well as scientific accomplishments. Not only Romans take pride in Michelangelo, or Florentines the David, or Venetians the canals and St. Mark's Square. I once made the mistake of suggesting to an Italian that pizza came from Chicago. It didn't go over well.
Italians from the north are certainly critical of their southern siblings, with "the North works for the South" being a popular refrain. Yet I've heard far worse from Americans regarding our own Southerners, who unlike their Italian counterparts once actually did try to form a union and secede from the country. It isn't at all unusual for a New Yorker to vilify the Mississippi "personhood" initiative but still hold William Faulkner and ante-bellum architecture in high regard. Similarly, Italians from the north often speak fondly of the rugged beauty of the mezzogiorno even in the same breath as denouncing the Mafia.
Whomever eventually assumes the reins of the Italian government will have a lot of work to do. But to suggest that Italy's current problems mean it isn't somehow as "real" as other countries is asinine and beneath FP's usual standards.
*Yes, I know it's not that David Gilmour.
Another Preachy Post about Smoking
The Atlantic Wire comments on the latest statistics regarding smokers:
A few days after a federal judge delayed disgusting new warning labels from being plastered on cigarette boxes (which, by the way, may not work that well), a CDC research report finds that in 2010, 69 percent of smokers want to quit, but 6 percent do. And, even though smokers have indicated they'd like to kick the habit, as The Wall Street Journal reported, it doesn't look like many were being that proactive
As long-time readers know, I was a heavy cigarette smoker for several years until quitting three years ago, so I can claim authority on this subject. First, way more than 69 percent of smokers want to quit. The number is closer to 99 percent, if smokers were being honest. I suppose there are a handful of smokers who truly, sincerely, enjoy it and don't want to quit. But I've never met one. And having lived in China, I've known a lot of smokers. It's difficult for a smoker to say publicly that he wants to quit, since doing so is a tacit acknowledgment of fear, weakness, and submission. Being proud individuals, smokers would rather give off the impression that they're fully in control. Even when everyone can see that they're not.
Also, the line that smokers wanting to quit weren't being "proactive" reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how nicotine addiction works. Most people believe that quitting smoking requires tremendous effort, when in fact it requires none at all. Most smokers try to quit through the sheer force of willpower, and correspondingly most smokers fail. That's because willpower doesn't have anything to do with it. I should know, as I tried unsuccessfully to quit through willpower many, many times.
For smokers reading this who would like help in quitting, I cannot recommend Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking highly enough. Smokers who do quit successfully do so through Carr's methods whether they know it or not. I do not exaggerate when I say that it was the best personal decision I have ever made.
And thus ends a rare preachy post. Stay tuned for additional programming...
The Virtue of Brains
James Fallows on Rick Perry's embarrassing brain fart:
Running for national office is different from any other live public-performance feat. The range of issues on which you have to say something -- and can get in trouble for saying the wrong thing -- is astonishingly large. You're going to be asked, in the course of a day, about Syria, and No Child Left Behind, and nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, and North Korean and Iranian nukes, and ethanol, and flat-tax plans plus capital-gains schemes, and Afghanistan counterinsurgency strategies, and the European Central Bank, and what have you. I spend my life learning about public issues, but half of the items a presidential candidate is asked about I could barely formulate an answer on. And for a real candidate, a foot placed even slightly amiss on any of these issues can cause lots of headaches.
This is why it's typically a good idea that the president possesses an extraordinary level of intelligence. While there are certainly very intelligent people who do not speak well (and a few silver-tongued mediocrities), there tends to be a correlation between knowing what you're talking about and saying it well. Bill Clinton is an example. Say what you will about the man's performance in office or in (ahem) his personal life, but he possesses the extraordinary gift of articulating coherent positions on a wide range of complex issues. President Obama, too, has that gift. President Bush, to say the least, did not.
The only two among the Republican field who possess that gift in any capacity are the two Mormons, Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman. The latter has no chance. The former is likely nominee, but in the current GOP climate he is succeeding in spite of his oratorical smoothness, not because of it. The raison d'etre of the Perry, Bachmann, and Cain campaigns is that they strike more conservatives as authentic than the wooden, blue blood Romney. And part of that authenticity, frankly, is a lack of brains.
That being said, Perry's gaffe was so bad that I don't see how he can survive it. Watching his performance, I was struck by its similarity to old Saturday Night Live satire and scenes from the film Bulworth. President Bush might not have been a good speaker, but he at least gave an impression that he was taking his candidacy seriously. With Perry you wonder whether someone slipped him a Quaalude before the debate and slapped him on the back.
How lucky is Romney, by the way? His opponents in this competition include a complete, unmitigated dunce (Perry), a serial pervert transparently orienting his campaign around a book tour (Cain), a man with about as much charisma as a beige shower curtain (Gingrich), a man who infamously waxed lyrically about bestiality (Santorum), a woman who is as crazy as a box of spiders (Bachmann), a cranky old coot raving about fiat money (Paul), and a seemingly decent man who disqualified himself simply by choosing to work for the Great Satan Obama (Huntsman).
Romney is doubtlessly intelligent enough to handle the job, but if he wins, he'll be beholden to a political party that views stupidity as a virtue. Perhaps when he debates Obama next year, he'll take a page from the Perry playbook and start flubbing his lines.