52 Books, Week 18: Class Matters

Class matters is based on the series of articles that was published in the new york times last year. Like the articles, the book takes a very broad cut on how issues of class affect the lives of americans (healthcare, immigration, job security, marriage, religion, education etc.).

Trying to tease out class, while ignoring other factors that affect the lives of individuals in America is tough, but the author addresses the challenge up front. The issue of class is, "vast, amorphous, politically charged, largely unacknowledged. In a country where the overwhelming majority of people identify themselves as middle class, there seemed to be no consensus as to what class meant, let alone whether it mattered".

Thankfully, the editor spends the rest of the book putting together a collection of articles, that proves class does matter. A lot. The collection works as a primer to these thorny issues, but if you're looking for a little more meat I suggest you start with the well done web presentation and see if it piques your interest to probe further.

Here's a quote that stood out to me: "A paradox lies at the heart of [the] new American meritocracy. Merit has replaced the old system of inherited privilege, in which parents to the manner born handed down the manor to their children. But merit, it turns out, is at least partly classed-based. Parents with money, education, and connections cultivate in their children the habits that the meritocracy rewards. When their children then succeed, their success is seen as earned..."

Another, "Being born in the elite in the US gives you a constellation of privileges that very few people in the world have ever experienced. Being born poor in the US gives you disadvantages unlike anything in Western Europe, Japan, and Canada". This statement is fascinating to me for a number of reasons, but primarily because it starts to unearth issues about our market-based system, and how the country has decided to reward (and for that matter punish) its participants. I should go back to school.

New City

As I am currently extremely dissatisifed with my current place of residence, I was wistfully daydreaming about places I would like to live and I came up with this short list of characteristics (which I'm sure most of you take for granted, as you live in infinitely better places than me)...

1. A place where I could go see a good play every now and then [I would probably use this characteristic more in theory than in practice].
2. Ditto, for a concert (ya life).
3. A 24 hour coffee shop.
   
4. A young professionals count greater than 10
5. A reliable place where I could get a drink after work.

Thats it. Is that too much to ask? Seriously, damn. By the way, if you haven't been to Portland, Ore - you should check it out. Primarily because the greatest bookstore in the world is there (as well as the best latte i've ever had in my life).

..goes to play Pastor Troy - This Tha City

Akeelah and the Bee

So I was watching Akeelah and the Bee last weekend, and I was thinking about how hot the movie was. First of all, there is only one other movie I know of where a smart young black person is central to the plot (the other is finding forrester). However, I would love to be proven wrong about this.

The movie is powerful for a number of reasons, and almost singlehandedly made me re-envision the way I had thought about the concept of potential. Its a feel good movie, and I damn sure needed to feel good when I saw it. Thanks akeelah.

52 Books, Week 17: Never Let Me Go

Let me start with this. Never Let Me Go is a weird book. The tone is very subdued in a very melancholy way, and I wish you had read the book so I could discuss it frankly.

Alas, because there is a fairly significant plot twist that I am loathe to give away, this write-up is very difficult.. By the way, if the eerie looking white chick on the cover doesn't give you pause than you're not human.... You can tell that the book has a cerain gravity too it, even though the prose (and basic plot for that matter) is fairly superficial. This book is not for everyone, but if you like weird books that raise more questions than it answers (on some meaning of life shit), check for it.

To The Graduating Class of 2006

University of Pennsylvania Graduation Speech courtesy of Jodie Foster.

(She really starts to feel it when she repeats it the second time. I should have thought of this.)

Just wondering...

Have you ever tried googling the word "failure?"

Unless you're a conservative (and maybe even then), it's worth about 7.5 seconds of your life.

Truth As Truth? (He's Probably Right)

"I would say the best moment of all was when I caught a 7.5-lb perch in my lake."

- George W. Bush, answering a German newspaper reporter who asked him to name the best moment of his five years as President


Completely tangentially, I thought of this:



(By the way, at its core, sovereignty isn't given (by an external goverment), it's recognized.)

Speaking of Passing

If you read my previous post, this is passing in a wholly different sense. The look on your boy's face is...

...

Priceless.


They got the wrong "Guy." Ba-dunk-chink.

You can read the setup here. You can watch the video in whole here. Or you can be walked through the whole episode by good ole YouTube. Classic.




P.S. Given The Generalist's not-so-ringing endorsement of Is Bill Cosby Right?, maybe Michael Eric Dyson can use this new interview with the Cos and give it another try. Keep it to an article MED...

Who Knew?

Some things mentioned in Michael Wilbon's article today, "Still Seeing Things In Black or White," were brought to my attention for what I think is the first time:

"Personally, while I don't dislike Bonds, I'm suspicious of him and suspicious of his home run total. I believe absolutely that he used steroids and have no inclination to celebrate any home run marks he surpasses, and feel the same way about Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Sammy Sosa and everybody else who has given us reason to be suspicious.

And where does race enter the picture?

Bonds probably didn't play on a level playing field.

And Babe Ruth, who only had to play against white players, didn't play on one either.
Baseball enforced a policy that cheated men of color for 60 years, and allowed cheating to create this new suspicion over the last, oh, 15 years.

Still, it's impossible to examine any of this without looking at race. There's even irony here involving Ruth. As Leigh Montville writes in his new book "The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth," his first nickname was contracted from "Nigger Lips" to "Nigger" to "Nig," and that's simply what Ruth was called every day for years."

Me: Babe Ruth's nickname was "Nig"? Word?

"Lieb reported that Ty Cobb refused to share a cabin with Ruth at a Georgia hunting lodge because he thought Ruth was black."

"So did Negro leaguers talk about Ruth's race? Did they think he was, well, one of them, another light-skinned Negro passing for white, which is something 99 percent of white folks know absolutely nothing about?"

Me: Word? Gangsta.

52 Books, Week 16: Against All Enemies

Yeah, I’m back on my political science grind. Poli Sci, is one of my first loves—along with philosophy, video games, and gambling—and for some reason I haven’t read much of it lately. After the flurry of books that came out after the invasion of Iraq (Bushworld, Imperial Hubris, etc. etc.), I felt overloaded. I don’t know what I was doing a year ago, but even though everybody in DC was reading this one, I passed.

Richard Clarke, the rare breed of political animal, was a white house official in four consecutive presidencies (Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush) and was able to describe the efforts of America to combat terrorism from the end of the cold war to present day. He offers up a blow-by-blow account of White House attitudes towards combating terrorism, and the actions of political principlals and their priorities.

The description of Saudi Arabian politics are very interesting, and if you wondering why your gas is gonna be $4 dollars in two weeks, you might want to check this one out. Also, If you ever wondered why we gave money to Sadaam Hussein to fight Iran, and supported Afghanistan when they were fighting the Soviets this book may be the medicine you need..

Clarke painstakingly recounts how we got into the fucking foolish farce that is currently known as Mess-o-potamia. I wish I could find the Family Guy clip where Stewie is fighting his evil brother and says, “we’re gonna fight them on the playground, so we don’t have to fight them on the swings.” Classic.

All the major players are here: Clinton, Gore, Dick Armitage, Colin, George Tenet, Condi, Bush, Wolfowitz, Rumsfield, Cheney, etc. The description of former Missouri senator and attorney general John Ashcroft, was hilarious… “you don’t think he’s really that slow do you? Well, he did lose an election to a dead man”

When I was plowing through this book and Clarke was describing how 70% of Americans believed that Iraq had something to do with September 11th, I was reminded of a Bill Maher quote, where he was describing Batman’s rogue gallery. He was talking about how the Joker isn’t the Riddler. Just because they are both villains doesn’t mean that you go after the Riddler when the Joker commits a crime. Osama bin Laden, isn’t Sadaam Hussein, and Clarke recounts the drum beat to war and how the neo-cons in Bush’s administration (primarily Rummy, Cheney, and Wolfy) pushed the Prez to war. Unfortunately, it’s a story that I don’t think is gonna have a happy ending.

52 Books, Week 15: Go Tell It On The Mountain

Since I’m flying [when i wrote this] from DC to Minneapolis to California, I figured I would take the opportunity to catch up on some of these book reflections. By the way I’ve been in the hour for like 6 hours, and I can no longer feel my ass. Writing this also allows me to effectively ignore the woman sitting next to me, who wants to talk. No thanks.

Back to the matter at hand. This book really made me want to read more Baldwin. I’m pretty sure I read this story when I was in middle school, because a lot of the characters and situations seemed very familiar to me… I think this is supposed to be a semi-autobiographical novel about Baldwin’s experience, and it really seems like he poured his soul into this book. So much so, that you can forgive the minor flaws, and the fact that the prone drones on in some places.

Today I was having coffee with a colleague of mine who runs a non-profit, and we started talking about who my favorite authors were, and I was like man that’s a great question.

John Steinbeck came to mind (although after Cannery Row, his stock dropped significantly)

Gabriel Garcia Marquez (I don’t think I need to read anything other than One Hundred Years of Solitude, he pretty much solidified his position on the list, with one smash hit—kinda like Biggie and Ready To Die)

The third person I said was James Baldwin. His writing is really inviting, but his characters are flawed in beautifully subtle ways. They almost reek of vulnerability, which surprisingly makes them endearing. Baldwin has a way of shading even the most shady character (in this case a hypocrite who beats his kids and his wife) so you believe that even he has the chance to be redeemed. Stories about redemption always go down easy… Holler at it.

- By the way Week14 was Blink by one of my co-con's personal God's (Gladwell). This was the 2005 "it" book, although I found it less satisfying than the Tipping Point.
Read the Amazon.com reviews, I don’t think its possible for anyone to say anything new about this one.

Ode to Cornell

"you ain't a hater, can't tell... you should wish me well, go to hell, go to yale"

- Andre 3000