Sarah Palin as VP

My thoughts on McCain's selection this morning of Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska since November of 2006 (that's 19 months on the job, people):

It's about as good as McCain can do, but in reality we have to ask ourselves: Who is Sarah Palin? And the answer is that she's a small-town mayor (5500 people in 2000) who's been governor of a tiny state for less than two years. She's conservative on at least one issue (abortion) that puts her at odds with every independent or left-leaning woman in America. How stupid does McCain think women in this country are?

It's the height of hypocrisy for McCain to slam Obama for his supposed lack of experience and then go ahead and pick someone with even LESS experience than Obama. After all, Obama has been talking and living with Americans and running a multi-million dollar mini-bureacracy for two years now. Palin has been...well, no one knows.

The idea of having a VP is to make the line of succession clear. McCain is 72. He's at the point in his life where it wouldn't be a huge surprise to anyone if his health suddenly failed and the VP took over. And do we really want this no-name small-town ultra-conservative woman running the most powerful country in the world? Are you kidding me? This woman describes herself as a hockey mom! I love moms of both the soccer and hockey variety, but I do not want one of them running the country unless they have loads of relevant experience.

In the end I think that the VP choices matter a lot less than people think. Mondale ran with Ferraro on the ticket in 1984, and no Democrat has ever done worse amongst women than he did. The underlying messages of the campaigns don't change at all. In fact, the choice of someone with no Washington experience whatsoever highlights Obama's point that the GOP is an ideologically bankrupt group. All their old ideas are failures, and to inject "new ideas" into the race they give us a 19 month governor? What types of new ideas, relevant for the USA, does she have?

The choice might look good on the surface, but that's about the only place it looks good. McCain is trying to run an old-fashioned GOP campaign but he's too scared to put an old-fashioned GOP name on the ticket because he knows he'll lose. So he chooses a young woman, and he expects people to suddenly think "hey, she looks young and kind of cool...let's vote for her and ignore everything that McCain has done for the past 30 years." It's baloney, if you ask me, just another Rove-style gimmick that Americans are sick and tired of.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the issue. Will it matter? Probably a little, but not much more than that. The dynamics of this race don't change. And anyway, put Biden and Palin in the same room, turn on the cameras, and we'll see who's the dynamic choice.

Somewhere over the rainbow

Maybe some of you know this song already. It's a really awesome cover of the classic songs "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "What a Wonderful World" by a guy named Israel Kamakawiwo Ole. I heard it for the first time when Jason Castro played it on last season's American Idol. Check it out, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A2Jt4WOxN8, and let me know what you think.

Defining Yourself as a New Yorker

There are lots of people who try to define New York, and what it means to be a New Yorker. There’s that really annoying quote that a city authority displayed on the subways a while back saying that native New Yorkers give the city its “stability,” the commuters give it “restlessness,” and the recent emigrants give the city its “passion.” And the article in today’s New York Times talks about the assimilation of newcomers. No matter where they’re from, New York is always eager to transform recent arrivals into “New Yorkers.” The only question is how long it takes.

Why so eager to transform them? And transform them into what?

There are a lot of compelling narratives that help define New York. There’s the story of the immigrants during the late 19th and early 20th centuries; of the Harlem heydays in the 1920s and 30s; of the decline and redemption in the 70s, 80s, and 90s; and of a post-9/11 resurgence in this century. Which one of these defines New York City? I don’t think anyone can tell you for sure, but surely it’s some combination of them all.

My real question is, why is New York so eager to define itself? I’ve lived outside of Philadelphia for most of my life, and it’s never seemed so eager to talk about anything other than the Declaration of Independence and the Eagles. I’m sure that interesting stuff happened between those two events, but you don’t find Philadelphians obsessing over them.

Of course, New York City has probably had more interesting things happen to it over the past one hundred years. And for at least that long, New Yorkers have been trying to persuade everyone else how great a story New York really is. Times Square, the tourism office will tell you, is the center of the universe! Central Park is the loveliest of city parks! And look at our buildings – aren’t they so tall?!?!

Yes, they’re tall, Central Park is definitely beautiful, and Times Square is really bright and crowded. But why the self obsession? Perhaps it’s because, even more so than Washington, DC, New York portrays itself as America’s First City. In order to be that kind of city, it has to have a compelling story. And in order for its residents to feel like they are a part of that larger story, they try to fashion their own compelling stories.

But there are two sides to the story. If New York is bigger and flashier than it used to be, it’s also more materialistic and plain loud. If there is more diversity, then there is also less access to good education. I’ve written before how I think that New Yorkers aren’t more tolerant of others – we simply don’t care about one another.

Maybe the fact that New York is so big, and has such a wonderful story, compels people to write their own stories. But the fact that they are written does not necessarily make them true. It’s easy for friends of mine to write in their blogs about how classy and sophisticated they are, and how they just couldn’t possibly live anywhere but “the city.” But is sipping overpriced cocktails at swank (i.e. "sleazy") Manhattan bars the definition of urban sophisticate?

The people most eager, after all, to write themselves into New York’s history are the one’s who weren’t born here. They’re the ones who, according to that writer (a NYC emigrant himself), give the city its “passion.” At least that’s what they’d like you to think. But really, what does a recent college graduate who moved here in 2008 have to do with the Fitzgeraldian NYC of the 1920s? Why not try to come up with your own definition of who you are, and what sorts of things appeal to you?

My point is that New Yorkers seem to be more willing than those living elsewhere to tell you how important they are, and how perfectly their lives fit in whatever New York narrative they are compelled by at the moment. There are lots of interesting people here, for sure. But to me, the most interesting people are those who don’t forcefully insert themselves in a historical narrative that they had nothing to do with.

The Morality of Power

I remember having an intense debate senior year in high school during English class with a friend of mine, whom I’ll refer to as C, concerning the idea that “might makes right.” I don’t remember in what context the debate took place. We read E.M. Forster’s Passage to India that year, so it’s possible we were debating the merits of imperialism.

C asserted that if a country is powerful enough to dictate its will upon a weaker country, then it is morally acceptable to do so. C also tried to sign up for the Navy on September 12, 2001, and I’m sure had well-worn copies of Nietzsche in his bedroom. Me being who I am, and my high school classmates being who they were, tried to refute C’s position by informing him that morality is separate from strength and power. He didn’t agree with us, and I guess the matter was dropped.

I was reminded of this mini debate while watching the miniseries Generation Kill on HBO the other day. The show centers on a Marine unit participating in the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The series is fictional, but it was written by a Rolling Stone journalist who was embedded with this Marine unit back in 2003. One Marine, named Trombley, is particularly anxious to find and fight the Iraqis. Once, after exposing himself to enemy fire, he explains that he “gets more nervous watching a game show on the couch at home” than he does in Iraq, under fire. He says that “deep down,” he wants to know what it’s like to be shot.

The other Marines are incredulous. They’re all eager to fight, but Trombley displays something different. One Marine, talking with a comrade, concludes by saying that “he’s a psycho. But at least he’s our psycho.”

At least he’s our psycho. Might makes right. Aren’t those two statements related? We’d rather have Trombley on our side than on the enemy’s, and we definitely don’t want to be on the wrong side of the Strong vs. Weak equation. The world is a violent place, so even though we liberals might talk about a morality divorced from power, isn’t it still coldly comforting to have the psychos making sure we’re strong?

The Other Side

Another weekend, another family reunion. Once again I nabbed a train down to the parents’ house on Friday after work and headed out the next morning to Bedford County, PA for a family reunion. This time we’d be hanging out with my mom’s side.

Whereas most of my dad’s side of the family is from the suburbs around New York and Philadelphia, my mom’s side is firmly rooted in rural, central Pennsylvania. I don’t have a very firm grasp on the ancestry, but from what I gather the Nunamaker family has been located in the same general vicinity for at least the greater part of the twentieth century.

I’ve been going to these annual gatherings for as long as I remember. The things that stick out when I think of them are really good, really unhealthy food, and lots of it; corny games; and lots of country accents. In the most recent incarnation, all of those things held true.

The food was once again spectacular. There was a zucchini dish that was out of this world. And the fried chicken, brownies, scalloped potatoes, sausage, and other assorted bits and pieces of country flavor weren’t so bad either.

And yes, once again there were corny games. There was one where you throw a hand-sized sandbag into a hole in a wooden platform. It was sort of like horseshoes. In another game you threw two golf balls tied by a string onto a series of poles set up about 25 feet away from you. I’m happy to report my dominance in both of these events. In reality, my main competitors were a 7 year old girl and her 11 year old brother.

One family who had brought a lot of games to the picnic explained that they had so many because they “always took them to church camp.” That’s the sort of vibe that you get when you go to family reunions in Bible Country, Pennsylvania. There’s church camp, there’s grace, there’s the money collected to send Bibles to Africa.

In general there aren’t too many political discussions at these events. I think it’s because everyone agrees on the important political issues. They’re all very conservative, very religious, pro-gun, pro-life, pro-military, card-carrying Red Staters. I remember once during a hunting trip (I go hunting with this side of the family), one family member of mine said that if the government ever tried to take away his guns they’d have to “pry it out of my cold dead hands.” Another expressed incredulity when someone joked that he’d hold hands with another man for $1 million: “now that just ain’t right!”

This is crazy stuff for a decidedly Blue State liberal to be hearing from members of his own family. When I come to these types of gatherings I’m always reminding myself that these are the types of voters that drive me up the wall. They’re against progress, I say! They’re delusional and backwards! Why won’t they think outside of what their pastor tells them?!

And yet, here they are, and I’m playing this weirdly fun sandbag throwing game with their children. It doesn’t make sense. On the one hand, they’re my family. They’ve always been absolutely supportive and friendly to me. I very rarely hear them speak hatefully towards other people. They’re honest, good people. But on the other hand they spend their entire lives in these tiny towns and go to church camp where, presumably, they’re told that evolution isn’t the truth and that America always has God on its side. They’re the mythical evangelical voters.

Do I resent them or appreciate them? Do their political/social/religious views make more sense to me because I know them, or less? Are their small-town American views the best America has to offer, or a handicap as we move into the 21st century? I don’t know.

I’m not sure where I’m going with all this. It goes to show you the power of family, I suppose, for better and for worse.

Omnivore's Dilemma

I read Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma last week, and thought I’d write down some of the things that were particularly striking to me:

--At least a quarter of the food we eat is based on corn

--Most of the corn that’s grown in this country isn’t really edible in its “natural” form. It has to be heavily processed and broken down before we’ll eat it

--About half of the average corn farmer’s income comes in the form of government subsidies. This is because so much corn is grown that the price has fallen to a point where it’s impossible for farmers to make a profit. However, instead of restricting the amount of acreage dedicated to corn and thereby increasing its price, the government encourages farmers to devote more and more acreage to corn. The low cost of corn benefits the big food processing companies, who take the cheap corn and turn it into a million different things that we consumers buy.

The farmer is the one who loses in this deal. He loses money on the only product that food processing plants will buy. As a result, the government pays the farmer to produce a crop whose price is so low that without the payment, the farmer would go broke.

And who ends up footing the bill that pays farmers to sell corn cheaply to the food processors? The taxpayers. So even though we get cheap food on the shelves, we pay for it by financing the farmers’ subsidies. The only entity in this equation that benefits is the food processing plant.

--One popular argument that Pollan seeks to undermine is the one that goes something like “well, cheap food is in the best interests of everyone!” His counter is that while the up front cost of processed foods is definitely pretty low, there are tons of hidden costs that we’re paying for even if we don’t realize it.

It costs a TON of energy to produce food these days. For every one calorie of beef that we eat, for example, it takes 8 calories of energy (i.e. oil, water, natural gas). That’s just not a sustainable equation in the long run!

And, of course, the processed food that we’re eating is pretty unhealthy. A lot of those ingredients with weird names on the food labels are refined petroleum. We’re eating refined petroleum! The nation’s obesity epidemic began in the 70s, which is just about the time that the government really started funding big agribusiness and subsidizing farmers.

Food is the only major item that most Americans buy simply based on price. We refuse to pay $3.99 for a dozen eggs when we can get it for 99 cents. There are two reasons, Pollan says, that this is not such a good idea. First: we’ll pay $50,000 for a BMW when we can get a Focus for $17,000. The justification for the expensive car is that it’s a better product, and therefore we’re willing to pay more. But we don’t use that type of logic when buying food. We blindly assume that the 99 cent eggs are the exact same as the $3.99 eggs and therefore why would we want to pay four times as much? That would make sense if the eggs were of the same quality. But in study after study, time after time, Pollan demonstrates that processed food is of a decidedly lower grade than natural food. Shouldn’t that make us think twice about instinctively reaching for the cheaper eggs?

And secondly, the costs of the “cheaper” food are hidden, back end costs. Those costs include the energy requirements necessary to sustain our current food chain; the large costs to the environment; the costs to our own health, not to mention the questionable ethics of mass-produced and slaughtered animals. All of these things aren’t easily quantifiable, so they’re easier to ignore. But don’t they have real value nonetheless?

--Pollan describes certain types of farms that erase all of the back end costs. These types of farms are a combination of old fashioned and cutting edge farming techniques. They’re really cool to read about. The food is more expensive, $3.99 for a dozen eggs instead of $.99, but at least we pay everything up front. The animals are treated ethically, the environment isn’t harmed, and we’re eating better food. And there are lots of them around!

Anyway, the point is, read the book. If it doesn’t totally change your mind about our current processed food chain, it’ll at least make you think differently about what you put in your stomach.

The LSAT is HARD

I took a diagnostic LSAT test last night at Kaplan's East Village center, and was disappointed to find out that the LSAT is a totally different animal than the GRE.

The GRE is basically just the SAT moved up a couple notches. The designers aren't really trying to trick you. They just put out certain levels of straightforward questions and see if you can answer them. Very vocab-heavy, the math stuff is high schoolish (but still impossible for me), and the reading comp. isn't TOO bad.

But the LSAT diagnostic test basically kicked my ass. It didn't help that the test didn't start till 6 30 on a Monday. Even so, the test was HARD. Probably one of the hardest tests I've taken. The questions weren't straightforward, and neither were the answer choices. Everything about the thing was made to trick you. I walked out of the place at 10 totally exhausted.

As my dad, himself a lawyer, eloquently put it: "I remember thinking the LSAT was dumb when I took it. I was certain (and still am) that they had some of the answers wrong themselves. I detested by standardized testing people. A bunch of arrogant idiots sitting up in Princeton, thinking they're smarter than everybody else."

I agree with him. At times last night I just wanted to rip up the practice test and throw it away and walk out. The questions and answers were just so obviously silly and irrelevent and needlessly pointy-headed, if you know what I mean. It made me mad, but it was also sort of intimidating. Maybe that's why I was mad - because it was so hard. Though then again, maybe I should wait to see my score before I continue my rant.