Alas, a Blog | Feminist, anti-racist, pro-fat, plus whatever else we feel like talking about.

Sign the petition to stop Leslie Hernandez’s deportation

Posted on January 8, 2012 by Ampersand

A bit of signal-boosting: If you’re willing, this certainly seems worth taking a couple of moments to sign. Might help, certainly won’t hurt. From DREAMactivist.org:

To Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security, John Morton and Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano:

We, the undersigned, write to request that you take action to stop the deportation of DREAM eligible youth Leslie Hernandez-Hernandez and that she be released from St. Clair County Jail immediately.

Leslie has been detained in St. Clair County Jail, in Michigan, since October 24th. She has had to spend Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, away from her three young children. Leslie was told that, when she was only 13 years old, she missed a court date and was given an “in absentia” removal. Leslie was not aware of this until ICE picked her up and detained her, separating her from her family and children.

Leslie, now 25, was brought to the U.S. when she was only 11 years old. She is the single mother of three U.S. citizen children, ages 10, 5, and 3. Two of her children suffer from severe medical conditions. Leslie’s 10 year old is disabled after being hit by an SUV two years ago and requires ongoing medical treatment including therapy, and her 5 year old daughter suffers from a respiratory condition. If deported, this family will be separated and the children won’t receive proper medical care.

Leslie is DREAM Act eligible and, according to the memo issued by John Morton, is not a priority for deportation and should be granted favorable exercise of prosecutorial discretion. Per President Obama’s statements, Leslie shouldn’t be detained and in the process of getting deported. Leslie should be released immediately so she can be reunited with her children.

We, the undersigned, urge you to take action to stop the deportation of Leslie Hernandez-Hernandez and that she be released from St. Clair County Jail immediately.

Go here to sign the petition.

Posted in crossposted on TADA, Immigration, Migrant Rights, etc | 4 Comments

From “The Hero with a Thousand Faces,” by Joseph Campbell

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Richard Jeffrey Newman

So I have been reading The Hero with a Thousand Faces to prep for my myth and folklore class, and I really like this quote, not so much because I agree with everything it says or implies–that is something I would need to think more about–but because the complexity of what it says appeals to me:

And likewise, mythology does not hold as its greatest hero the merely virtuous man. Virtue is but the pedagogical prelude to the culminating insight, which goes beyond all pairs of opposites. Virtue quells the self-centered ego and makes the transpersonal centeredness possible; but when that has been achieved, what then of the pain or pleasure, vice or virtue, either of our own ego or of any other?

I also found myself thinking when I read this passage, and I continue to think this as I make my way through the book, that Robert Bly and most of those who relied on Campbell in fashioning the ideology of the mythopoetic men’s movement back in the 1980s and 90s really narrowed and impoverished Campbell’s vision when they hung it on the political agenda of recovering and repairing (or whatever) traditional masculinity and manhood. They clearly did not take to heart what Campbell says is the “prime function of mythology and rite:”

to supply the symbols that carry the human spirit forward, in counteraction to those other constant human fantasies that tend to tie it back.

I mean this not as a defense of Campbell, or even, really, an endorsement of what he has to say; but as someone who spent an awful lot of time reading and critiquing Bly and others, I am struck by how wrongly they seem to have read him–at least as far as I can tell from my limited exposure to what Campbell is saying in this book.

Cross posted on It’s All Connected.

Posted in Whatever | 10 Comments

Copyright, Comics, and Compulsory Licensing

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Ampersand

[In 2008, I wrote a few posts on the blog “The Art Of The Possible.” I just noticed that “The Art Of The Possible” no longer exists, but I found a copy of one of my posts on the wayback machine, and decided to post it here on “Alas” for the first time. The comments people left in 2008 can be read at the Wayback Machine’s copy of the post. –Amp]

Reading a post on “Positive Liberty” from back in August, I came across this comment from D. A. Ridgely:

And okay, so we’ll always have people writing bad poetry whether it is copyrighted or not. For the most part, copyright of bad poetry at least could be said to do no harm. The world does not suffer by my refusing to share my high school written poetry with it.

But the world does suffer if real works of good art go uncreated because self-interested artists decide there’s just no point in doing art, better to go get that MBA.

On another blog, Jim Glass wrote:

Say that without copyright you came up with a great, clever cartoon and put it on your web site. What would prevent the scouts from Disney or Fox from just taking it as their own, putting $1 million behind it, making $100 million, and saying screw you. Would you go on to make another cartoon then?

Defenders of our intellectual property system frequently bring this question up: Without intellectual property (in the form of copyrights and trademarks), what incentive will artists have to produce art?

I’m a cartoonist (you can see my cartoons here and here, if you’re curious), and the only art form I know a lot about is cartooning. Most cartoonists are big fans of intellectual property, and get hysterical if someone says copyright is threatened. But copyright and trademark, as they exist in the US, have been a mixed blessing for some of the best American cartoonists.

The problem is, once we have a system of law which says “only entity A can publish stories about such-and-such characters,” then it’s possible for the right of a creator to sell stories about her characters to be taken away. This has, in fact, been the rule for most of comics history. Superman’s creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, didn’t own Superman – and, decades later, found themselves penniless and legally forbidden from selling comics featuring their most valuable creation.

Jack Kirby is the most commercially important creator in the history of American comic books. Kirby created or co-created Iron Man, The Hulk, The Fantastic Four, The Silver Surfer, Captain America, Thor, and The X-Men, among others. Collectively, Kirby’s creations are intellectual property worth billions, providing huge profits (and thousands of jobs) not only in comics but also on TV, in movies, and in toys.

But during Kirby’s commercial peak, in the early days of Marvel Comics, Kirby was often unhappy with his pay and with his rights as a creator. Furthermore, Marvel had a “gentleman’s agreement” with DC not to poach artists from each other, and no other comic book company had a stable of valuable superhero properties to hire Kirby to draw. As a result, Kirby’s pay wasn’t in line with the worth of his work.

Kirby didn’t stop working — how could he? He had a family to support. Plus, by all accounts, Kirby loved creating comics. But what Kirby did, according to Mark Evanier’s biography of Kirby, is stop creating new characters for Marvel. Instead, when Kirby thought of a new idea, he’d write it down on a scrap of paper and put the paper aside. Many of those papers got lost.

Eventually, Kirby was hired by DC comics, and he went on to create some powerful work. But DC rarely gave Kirby the support he needed (they even went so far as to have another artist redraw Kirby’s Superman faces, since Kirby’s faces didn’t look like DC’s then-existing house style). Even though his work remained artistically good, Kirby never again hit the same peak commercially, and his pay was still lousy. As soon as Kirby found work outside of comics — creating character sheets for Saturday morning animations — Kirby quit comics.

If the purpose of intellectual property law is to encourage the best artists to create as much of their best work as possible, then IP law failed Jack Kirby. Kirby’s interests weren’t protected. The value of his work made it essential to Marvel Comics to legally divorce Kirby from his creations (they even refused to return his original artwork for years). The fact that any character he made up, he would have been giving up the right to control, encouraged Kirby to withhold characters during his most fertile creative period — ideas that might have been worth millions.

Well, you may say, that’s Kirby’s fault for selling the copyright to his work, rather than holding on to ownership. But suppose Kirby had refused to work with Marvel Comics. Who would that have helped? The world would most likely not have had the X-Men, The Hulk, The Fantastic Four, and many other Kirby creations. Again, IP law would have failed to encourage Kirby to create as much as he could create.

Probably if Jack Kirby were here, he would disagree with me. But I think Kirby would have been better off if it hadn’t been legally possible for Marvel Comics to own the exclusive right to publish the characters Jack Kirby created.

Suppose that instead of our current system, we had a system of compulsory licensing for fictional characters. What this means is that anyone could write or draw any fictional character they like — but if they aren’t the original creator, then they are legally obliged to pay the creator a royalty for use of their work.

So to return to Jack Kirby’s case. Yes, certainly, Kirby would have been pissed off because people were using his characters in ways he didn’t like — but that was frequently the case anyway. (For example, Kirby hated what Stan Lee did with the Silver Surfer character). The difference is, Kirby would have had no motive to withhold characters during his most commercially valuable period, because he wouldn’t have been giving those characters away forever by drawing them.

It’s also likely that Kirby would have been more successful at enticing another publisher to hire him, if Kirby could have offered not just his own services, but his own services on his hit creation The Fantastic Four. That, in turn, might have forced Marvel comics to pay Kirby what Kirby was worth, in order to keep Kirby from moving to another company.

The down side of this is, Kirby might have found himself in the position of competing against another creator’s version of The Fantastic Four. But would this be such a terrible outcome?

1) Kirby might have been better off being able to create The Fantastic Four, and competing with another version of the same characters, than he was in reality — in which, for his entire post-Marvel career, it would have been illegal for Kirby to create a Fantastic Four comic.

2) Kirby would have welcomed being paid for all the times that lesser creators used his creations in their work. This would have provided Kirby with an incentive to keep on creating new characters, rather than our current system, which motivated Kirby to withhold new characters.

3) Comic book consumers would be better off if publishers had to compete to produce the best Fantastic Four comic. This, in turn, would have raised Kirby’s value to his employers.

When I bring this topic up in conversation, I am inevitably asked how I’d feel if someone other than me started making up their own comics about Mirka, the protagonist of my comic book “Hereville.” Wouldn’t that make me furious?

I don’t think it would. I think that my version of Mirka — my particular vision — is what makes “Hereville” worth reading (if it is worth reading). If our laws were set up for it, I’d be happy to compete with other creators, to see who’d produce a Mirka that readers want to read. In the end, I think that the best work sometimes has a competitive advantage, and will tend to be remembered most by readers.

And if someone else ends up having a hit best-seller based on my characters — well, at least I’d get royalties. But I might get more than that, because sales of character-based fiction are not a zero-sum game.

For instance, when popular movies are made of comic book characters, sales of that comic book go up. Suppose Joan draws a best-selling ExampleLass comic. That could easily cause the sales of David’s competing ExampleLass comic to go up, because interest in the character is increasing. If David is the creator of ExampleLass, then he’d benefit twice — once in increased sales of his own comic, and then again when Joan pays David royalties.

I’m sure that compulsory licensing would have problems. But so does any imaginable system. The real question is, might compulsory licensing be better than our current system? For many of the best creators, such as Jack Kirby, I think the answer might be “yes.”

Posted in crossposted on TADA, Free speech, censorship, copyright law, etc. | 63 Comments

The Brown Note

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Jeff Fecke

As you may remember from four years ago, this is how we do it.

Iowa Caucuses, January 3, 2012

Republican Party

✔Mitt Romney            25%
Rick Santorum            25%
Ron Paul                 21%
Newt Gingrich            13%
Rick Perry               10%
Michele Bachmann          6%
Jon Huntsman              1%
No Preference/Other       0%
Herman Cain               0%
Buddy Roemer              0%

Democratic Party

✔Barack Obama            98%
Uncommitted/Other          2%

So Who’s Up, Who’s Down, and Who’s Out?

Who’s Up

Rick Santorum

Santorum finished just eight votes behind Mitt Romney (and that only after Karl Rove discovered an [ahem] tabulation error that favored Romney), so he’s only partly number two.* Granted, Santorum’s essential tie for first was based not so much on his own skill as Hobson’s choice — he was the only candidate who hadn’t been tried and found wanting by the Republican electorate.

This makes things very interesting for Santorum. After all, while his absurdly conservative positions on gay rights, abortion, and birth control — yes, birth control — put him way, way, way outside the mainstream of America, they don’t put him beyond the right wing of the GOP, and I can absolutely envision Santorum getting the religious right to coalesce around him between now and South Carolina as the last non-Mitt standing. On the other hand, because he hasn’t had to endure any significant barrage from Romney’s buddies on Wall Street, he could find himself napalmed into oblivion.

But given that oblivion was where he was two weeks ago, that isn’t the end of the world. At worst, Santorum has bought himself a ticket all the way to Florida; at best, he could win the nomination. Given that I can’t read his name in any context without thinking of a puerile double entendre, that could prove disastrous for me.

Barack Obama

Obama secured 98% of statewide delegates yesterday, underscoring, underlining, bolding, and italicizing the fact that he is the overwhelming preference of Democrats going into this election. I’m not going to argue Obama’s perfect, because he isn’t — but then, who is? But while you can attack Obama for his stance on education or the tactics used in prosecuting the war on terror or extending the Bush tax cuts for a year — and should — you also have to admit that his accomplishments in his first three years are significant and important.

Obama has earned a shot at a second term. And given the realities of our political system, he will be the standard-bearer for the left. If you want to move the country leftward, undercutting Obama won’t accomplish it; electing more and better liberal Senators and Representatives (and school boards, and state legislatures) will. Iowa Democrats get that, and I have a strong feeling that Democrats across the country do, too.

Newt Gingrich

This seems counterintuitive. Didn’t Newt finish a distant fourth? Well yes. Yes he did. That said, Newt beat Rick Perry, and that was his main competition here.

The old saw is that there are three tickets out of Iowa. Thanks to the weirdness of Ron Paul’s candidacy, there are really four this year. Gingrich got the fourth one, but it could be better than that; if Santorum withers under Romney’s attack, Newt is well-positioned to rise again. Polling is old in South Carolina, but Newt was doing well there when last checked. If Santorum stumbles, Gingrich will be well-positioned to coalesce support as the only guy who can stop Mitt. And that may be enough this year.

Moreover, Gingrich will play an important role regardless of his positioning, because Newt has an ego, and Mitt has bruised it. And as his speech last night showed, Gingrich is ready, willing, and able to rain down hellfire upon the well-coiffed head of Mitt Romney in revenge. And — oddly — Mitt really hasn’t been on the receiving end of attacks yet. The right has squabbled among itself. If Newt trains his guns outward, it could help him, help Santorum, and either damage or destroy Mitt. Pass the popcorn. This could be good.

Who’s Down

Mitt Romney

Yes, Romney “won” the caucuses yesterday. But his eight vote margin isn’t fooling anyone. He actually dropped in support from 2008, both in real terms and percentage-wise. He had the lowest percentage of any winning candidate in Iowa history. He did nothing to alter the conventional wisdom that the vast majority of the GOP really, really, really doesn’t like him. And his victory speech was simply awful, a reminder that Mitt really isn’t a particularly good or charismatic campaigner.

And frankly, New Hampshire won’t help this. He’s going to win it handily. But we’ve known that since 2009. Everyone expects Mitt to blow out his competition in New Hampshire. And that means he won’t get a boost by blowing out his opponents, unless he does so with epic, 60-point margins. “Winning” Iowa and winning New Hampshire would ordinarily be viewed as a knockout blow, but Mitt’s going to have to win South Carolina, too, if he wants to end this quickly.

Don’t get me wrong: the race is still Mitt’s to lose. He has far more money than Santorum, and he can grind out a win if he has to. But he has some serious, glaring weaknesses, and even if he wins, that doesn’t mean they’re going away.

Ron Paul

Paul finished third with 21 percent. That would have been impressive back in December. But after the Paul boomlet, it looks like he’s sinking back down to where he always is — somewhere in the teens, drawing enough to remain in the conversation, but not enough to threaten anything.

Paul’s failure to beat Romney is ulitimately an indictment of the Paulbot Army, who couldn’t deliver when it counted. It also suggests that the far left’s non-endorsement endorsement of Paul was exactly as useful as expected.

This doesn’t mean Paul is dead. He has the money and organization to compete all the way to June, and if he wants to bolt for a third-party run, November. But it does mean Paul is dead as a factor in the GOP nomination fight. He can rack up all the third-place finishes he wants, but it’s ultimately meaningless.

Jon Huntsman

Huntsman didn’t contest Iowa, so he can use Giuliani logic and claim his 1 percent finish doesn’t count. But it doesn’t help, either. Yes, he’s doing better in New Hampshire, and he could wound Romney there. But there’s no sign that he’s going to do anything nationally. My guess is he finishes in single-digits in the Granite State, and he’s done after that.

Cenk Uygur

Okay, Cenk isn’t running. But he did take to the Huffington Post to argue that liberals should caucus for uncommitted to protest the fascist Obama. Uncommitted drew 2 percent of delegates. Draw your own conclusions.

Who’s Out

Rick Perry
Actualy Out

Perry had one of the more epic collapses of any political figure in American history. He was winning big in September. By January, he was a national joke. His bizarre, rambling concession speech, centered on a letter from a supporter talking about how awesome Perry is, was the perfect coda to the sad spectacle of the Rick Perry campaign.

Essentially, Perry’s political career is over. It’s hard to see how he wins anything after this. And I think we’re all okay with that.

Michele Bachmann

Bachmann says she’s going on after this, but it’s hard to see how. Her dismal sixth-place finish in her native state, a state she’d bet everything on, is simply not survivable. It’s hard to imagine her equaling her 6 percent tally anywhere else, and that puts her squarely in also-ran status. She has no path to the nomination. She is done.

The only question is when she pulls the ripcord. It’s going to have to be soon if she intends to run for reelection. And if she wants to be Sarah Palin Lite, she can only hurt her brand by getting mauled from sea to shining sea. That said, Michele doesn’t view reality like you or I do. She may really think she can still pull this out. It would be sad, if she wasn’t Michele Bachmann.

UPDATE: Actually Out

Bachmann evidently could read the writing on the wall; she’s giving up. It’s the right decision, which is why I’m so shocked she made it. This is, incidentally, good news for Rick Santorum.

Buddy Roemer

Roemer finished dead last, even behind Herman Cain, who was not running anymore. He was doomed already, but this should underline that his is a vanity candidacy at this point. We can start completely ignoring him now.

Jimmy “The Rent is Too Damn High” McMillan

Received no votes in Iowa. I expect him to continue on undaunted.

Fred Karger

See: Jimmy McMillan

That Anti-Choice Douchebag

I didn’t hear anything about him last night, did you? No? Good. Let’s keep it that way.

*Yes. I am twelve.

Posted in Elections and politics | 7 Comments

Some Help with a Class I am Teaching in the Spring

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Richard Jeffrey Newman

I am in the midst of prepping a course on mythology and folklore (an honors section) that I will be teaching this coming semester. I have pretty much decided on the general themes I want to cover, though the way I frame them for the class will be more narrow and specific than the way I am listing them here:

The nature of myth itself
Myths of origination, which I am defining to include three primary categories: origins of the universe, of good and evil and of society/civilization (which, in some cases, also has to do with national origin)
Myths that deal with heroes

I’ve already picked out a pretty wide-ranging reading list from ancient/classical myths, but I want to supplement that list with contemporary movies or texts that would illustrate how myth functions in our culture now. It’s not so much that I want material that comments explicitly on myth–though that would be fine too. What I’m looking for are stories that mythologize or that retell myths or that make use myth that I can use as a way of getting students to think about how myth function in their own lives. (I’m not sure if that is as clear as it could be; much about the course is still fuzzy in my head.)

Some obvious ideas for movies that have occurred to me, mostly because they would already be familiar and accessible for my students, are Thor, the Transformers movies, and the X-Men movies–each of which plays with myth, or at least mythic elements, and what it means to mythologize in a variety of ways; but I would also love to hear other suggestions–movies, graphic novels, comic books, literary texts. Any ideas you might would be welcome, especially those that include female heroes that I might usefully compare–in terms of origins, character development, the “heroic arc”–with male heroes.

Thanks in advance.

Posted in Education, Whatever | 34 Comments

Open Thead And Link Farm: And That’s How You Make Iced Tea Edition

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Ampersand

This is the generic text that goes at the top of all the link farm posts, encouraging you to post about whatever, including self-linking. It is a lonely bit of text that, despite appearing in every single link farm post, never gets remarked upon. It sits at home clicking “refresh” over and over, and every once in a while it wipes the tears with the back of a forearm.

At the Atlantic, 45 entries from the National Geographic 2011 photo contest. A follow-post showed the fifteen winning entries (with only one overlap!).
Siobhan Reynolds, RIP. One of the nation’s most prominent pain management activists died in a plane crash.
No Seriously, What About the Other Sexists?
A 1978 “60 minutes” report on female fat activists. It’s very entertaining, but also sad to see how little has changed in the three decades since.
DEA head: A thousand dead children means we’re winning war on drugs – Drugs – Salon.com
New fencing doesn’t stop illegal crossings
The Dumbest Republican Quotes Of 2011 and, likewise, The Dumbest Democratic Quotes Of 2011.
Catholic Bishops versus Tolerance “…Religious freedom does not mean freedom to do whatever you want with the government’s money.“
“Called ExpressPark, the 6,000-meter array will be installed on [LA’s] downtown streets and lots, along with sensors buried in the pavement of every parking spot to detect the presence of cars and price accordingly, from as little as 50 cents an hour to $6. Street parking, like pork bellies, will be open to market forces. As blocks fill, prices will rise; when occupancy drops, so will rates.”
In effect, drug-sniffing dogs don’t detect drugs; they’re a pretense cops use to get around probable cause, possibly without knowing it themselves.
Massachusetts cops target family-owned motel for forfeiture. “…The Motel Caswell was seen as an easier candidate for forfeiture because it is not part of a large chain. It’s also family-owned and mortgage-free […] Civil forfeiture allows prosecutors to take properties without convicting anyone.”
Sunday marks a decade of No Child Left Behind. Did the law do any good? Short answer: No. But the kids most harmed were poor and non-white, so probably the government won’t worry about it much.
Progressives and the Ron Paul fallacies. Glenn Greenwald post here was much-reviled by many liberals, but — typically for me — I think Greenwald makes some solid points.
What Rick Perry (and the GOP) should learn from his trouble in Virginia. It’s funny how rules that could theoretically be followed, but in practice form a substantial barrier, are a horrible affront to democracy OR essential to democracy, depending on if the people hurt are wealthy, mostly white GOP members, or poor, mostly non-white American citizens.
“The Department of Justice announced late Friday afternoon that it was rejecting South Carolina’s new voter photo identification law because it discriminates against minority voters.”
“In El Mirage alone, where Arpaio’s office was providing contract police services, officials discovered at least 32 reported child molestations – with victims as young as 2 years old – where the sheriff’s office failed to follow through, even though suspects were known in all but six cases. Many of the victims, said a retired El Mirage police official who reviewed the files, were children of illegal immigrants.”
How 2008 Radicalized Me: How the US government saved the banks and let ordinary Americans sink.
P:R Approved: Cliff Chiang’s Justice League of Japan! The Wonder Woman artist imagines “a band of Japanese superheroes inspired by the heroes of the Justice League.” I love Project Rooftop.
“The smaller spread just didn’t have enough details.” Excuse me while I go hang my head in shame.
“Immigration offenses were the fastest growing federal arrest offenses between 2005 and 2009, increasing at an average rate of 23 percent a year…”

Posted in crossposted on TADA, Link farms | 42 Comments

Michelle Obama Must Be Fat

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Jeff Fecke

So with all the swirling excitement about Iowa, not to mention my having a day job, I missed this awesome story:

Can you imagine how the incident would play out if an African American congressman made a crude remark about First Lady Laura Bush’s body? It certainly would have taken more than an insincere apology to wash that sin away. That scenario never happened — hopefully because those congressmen were raised with a measure of common decency. I know that America’s first family – an image this country presents to the world — is traditionally granted a certain amount of respect across party lines.

Only Wisconsin Republican congressman Jim Sensenbrenner apparently isn’t bound by such traditions. While I suspect he might be the first to defend the honor and dignity of previous First Ladies, he was recently overheard at Washington’s Reagan National Airport loudly criticizing Michelle Obama’s healthy eating initiative: “She lectures us on eating right while she has a large posterior herself.”

His insults quickly disappeared from the headlines after he pledged to send the first lady an apology.

Well, at least he….

Even then, though, he couldn’t resist — through a spokesperson — taking another shot at Michelle Obama’s efforts to get Americans to add more fruits and veggies to their diets and to get moving.

The aide’s note said: “Mr. Sensenbrenner was referring to the First Lady’s healthy food initiative. He doesn’t think the government should be telling Americans what to eat. While he may not agree with all of her initiatives, he plans to contact the First Lady’s office to apologize for his comments.”

Well, isn’t that douchey.

There are many attacks on the Obamas that I find wrongheaded. Take this facile attack on Michelle Obama’s vacation in the exotic foreign nation of Hawai’i, please. But at least I can understand their genesis. It does cost a lot of money for a first family to travel, because, unfortunately, there are wackos that would like to kill them. The alternatives are worse, of course, and the complaints tend to be very partisan, but at least they have some basis in reality.

But the attacks on Michelle Obama’s looks? I don’t get them. At all. If Michelle Obama was fat, Sensenbrenner’s attack would be vicious and wrong. But Michelle Obama is not fat, not by any rational measure. It would be like attacking me for having too much hair — it’s not just wrong, but it’s simply not true.

Can one criticize the First Lady’s focus on ending childhood obesity? Yes, one can — heck, one should. Spending too much time on obesity feeds into the myth that fat qua fat is somehow wrong. I’d much rather the emphasis was on eating healthier and exercising without regard to weight.

But even if you find Obama’s emphasis on obesity to be wrong, it’s hardly Orwellian. She’s gone on the Disney Channel to encourage kids to eat better and exercise more. There hasn’t been a policy component to it. Compared to Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign — which dovetailed with the beginning of the War On Drugs — it’s been pretty low-key. Hardly the kind of thing that merits a full-throated attack on Obama’s policy, much less her personal level of fitness.

And that, frankly, is what’s so shocking about the treatment of Michelle Obama. You can criticize her on many things, but she certainly appears to be fit for an almost-48-year-old, and by conventional standards of beauty, she at least rates as attractive. And yet, just as the right attacks her husband for being stupid, they attack Michelle for being ugly and fat.

I don’t think one has to dig too far to find the racism implicit in these attacks. Michelle Obama cannot be attractive because she’s black; black women can’t be attractive. Never mind that she is and they are. If we start admitting that Michelle Obama is pretty and that she and her husband are smart, we might have to start asking why we’ve built up all these racist assumptions about what “attractive” is, and who can be “smart.”

As Mary C. Curtis puts it:

Not only is this disrespect crude, it also proves yet again that you can’t go wrong disrespecting a black woman in the United States of America, even if she lives in the White House – and in some constituencies, especially if she lives in the White House. Sensenbrenner’s nasty rant made me sick and sad because it brings to the surface the ugly history of how black women are viewed in America, stereotyped and dehumanized, our bodies everyone’s business except our own.

What in the world is Sensenbrenner doing staring at the First Lady — not as a person but as a specimen, each part an item on an anatomical checklist? He doesn’t approve of what he’s seeing but he can’t keep his eyes off of her. It’s creepy but unfortunately familiar, the way he devalues black beauty while being mesmerized by it.

Exactly. It’s depressing, and wrong. But it’s all too familiar. The Obamas must be ugly and stupid, because if they aren’t — if they’re actually attractive and smart — it calls into question the comfortable lie that far too many successful white people have told themselves. And we can’t have that.

Posted in Elections and politics, Fat, fat and more fat, Race, racism and related issues | 10 Comments

Did No-Fault Divorce Create A “Divorce Culture”?

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Ampersand

[A crosspost from Family Scholars Blog.]

Douglas Allen, in an interview Karen linked to, said:

In the 1960s debate [over no-fault divorce], no one thought the divorce rate would change, but it changed enormously and led to a divorce culture.

A lot of social conservatives, like Allen, believe that the evidence strongly supports the view that no-fault divorce caused a permanent change in the culture — a “divorce culture,” in people get divorced at the drop of a hat.

In fact, the best evidence indicates that any changes to the divorce rate caused by no-fault divorce laws were temporary.

Douglas Allen — yes, the same Douglas Allen — and Maggie Gallagher wrote a useful review of the empirical research on no-fault divorce laws and divorce. Allen and Gallagher, both of whom are conservative on marriage issues, cite two papers in particular as the “high water mark” of divorce research, saying that “Friedberg’s study stood as the high-water mark of the no-fault divorce literature until the arrival of Wolfers (2006).”

Much of the debate over no-fault divorce and divorce rates seemed to be over with the publication of Friedberg’s (1998) seminal work in the American Economics Review. This paper created a panel data set of every divorce in the United States from 1968 to 1988. It used sophisticated econometric techniques to control for state endogeneity and changes in behavior over time. She tested for different legal classifications, and performed a series of robustness tests. In the end she found that no-fault divorce laws led to a 6% higher divorce rate and that they accounted for about 17% of the increase in divorces over the time period studied. She also found that the change was permanent, and exogenous. Differences between states and changes over time, however, accounted for most of the divorce trends. She concluded: “The results above make it clear that unobserved covariates and unobservable divorce propensities — which may include for instance, social attitudes, religious beliefs, and family size — are the main determinants of divorce.”

Friedberg’s study is excellent, but it had one unavoidable limitation: Because it was conducted so soon after many states instituted no-fault divorce laws, it was not able to distinguish between permanent changes and temporary changes. When Wolfers replicated Friedberg’s study in 2006, extending it with up to date data (pdf link), he found that the increase in the divorce rate Friedberg had observed disappeared after about ten years.

A clear finding from this analysis is that the divorce rate exhibits interesting dynamics in response to a change in legal regime. […] The data broadly indicate that divorce law reform led to an immediate spike in the divorce rate that dissipates over time. After a decade, no effect can be discerned. […] It should be clear that unilateral divorce laws explain very little of the rise in the aggregate divorce rate.

Allen and Gallagher classify Wolfers as evidence that no-fault divorce laws led to a change in divorce rates, and technically they are correct. However, for most people, the difference between a temporary change in divorce rates and a lasting change in divorce rates is essential.

If “after a decade, no effect can be discerned,” then it is not legitimate to claim that the divorce law reforms of the 60s and 70s created a permanent “divorce culture,” and were a disastrous change. Rather, it seems as if the change to the laws had virtually no long-term effect on the divorce rate; the law changed in response to the culture changing, but it did not itself create cultural change.

Posted in crossposted on TADA, Families structures, divorce, etc | 95 Comments

Oh, There’s Nothin’ Half-Way About the Iowa Way to Rank You When We Rank You Which We May Not Do At All

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Jeff Fecke

So it’s Iowa Caucus Eve! Is everyone ready? Are the children all nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of Santorum dance in their heads? Have folks refused to leave a peppermint stick for ol’ St. Ron, as simply giving someone a peppermint stick would be redistributive? Are people hoping for an animatronic Romney under the Iowa Tree, or will the Gingrinch steal the caucuses? It’s the last power rankings before Iowa. Hooray!

1. Fmr. Mass. Gov. Willard Mitt Romney (LR: 2)

Romney has edged into the top slot thanks to default, those two sweetest words in the English language. He has done this not so much by growing his support — he hasn’t — but because every other person running against him has collapsed. He appears locked in for a top-three finish in Iowa with a good chance at the top slot; if he wins Iowa and New Hampshire, he will be in great shape.

That doesn’t mean that it’s clear sailing for Mittens, however. With Rick Santorum, of all people, now in a statistical dead heat for first in Iowa, and Ron Paul in command of a crazed army of Paulbots, there’s a chance Romney could slip to third. If that happens, he could suddenly find himself on the other end of a flurry of “why can’t Mitt close the deal” stories, which could either catapult another challenger into the lead, or convince one of the undeclared White Knights (Jeb? Sarah? Bobby?) to enter the race.

The good news for Romney is that Santorum is currently the most likely candidate to beat him in Iowa, and Santorum is also the least likely candidate to break out nationally; still, Mitt really needs to win, or at least finish second to Paul, to quiet the doubters. Even then, it appears likely that Romney will underperform his 2008 showing in Iowa; he may get the nomination, but there’s no question that he’s loathed by rank-and-file Republicans. It’s going to be awfully hard for him to hold onto his right flank if he does get the nomination.

But at the moment, he is the odds-on favorite to win. The right is fragmented, and Santorum likely lacks the resources to parlay a win into a national campaign the way, say, Perry or Gingrich could. Things are shaping up well for Mitt. But given the way this race has gone so far, that means Mitt’s collapse could be right around the corner.

2. Fmr. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn. (LR: 6)

Santorum spurts up to number two, and nobody’s more surprised than me. When last we played this game, I had declared Santorum done, and why wouldn’t I have? Newt Gingrich was riding the wave of support, and it was December. Surely there wasn’t enough time for Newt to collapse, and give room for the only plausible candidate left who hadn’t gotten a shot at the spotlight.

Well, Newt collapsed, thanks to an epic barrage of attack ads by Romney’s rich buddies. And then Paul briefly surged, but it turned out he was not only a racist (which is not a deal-breaker for the GOP), but was actually open about it (which is) — plus he didn’t want to nuke Tehran. Bachmann had been tried and found wanting, Perry was dumber than a brick, and Santorum…well, he was the only one left who hadn’t collapsed.

And so it’s the frothy mixture’s turn. Color me skeptical. Santorum is nobody’s first choice; he’s a place-holder. A convenient protest vote against Mittens.

That doesn’t mean, of course, that he won’t make a splash tomorrow. He could conceivably win the Iowa caucuses, and if he does, who knows? It could actually turn Santorum into the anti-Mitt, and certainly, he has the anti-gay, anti-woman bona fides to run with it. If not, it could at least prove that there’s an anti-Mitt group out there, and give renewed hope to candidates with actual national organizations and money to continue on even if Mitt wins in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

3. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas (LR: 3)

Paul had his own mini-surge, and briefly led in Iowa. This had the salient effect of causing the media to actually cover Ron Paul. Hilarity ensued. It turns out that the media was doing Paul a huge favor by not covering him; covering him required noting that he’d published ten years’ worth of racist, sexist, and anti-gay newsletters that played to the Patriot movement in the time leading up to the Oklahoma City bombing.

Paul’s explanation — that he’d published the newsletters but had never read them — didn’t really work out so well. Instead of killing the matter, it changed the question from whether Paul was racist or not to whether Paul was racist or incompetent. (Answer: both.)

Did this kill him? Not exactly. Certainly, there were plenty of socially awkward 20-year-old white men who would back him no matter what. And more than a few (universally white, universally male) “progressive” pundits who’d tout Paul as an answer to the evil Barack Obama (pay no attention to Paul’s views on women’s rights, civil rights, medicare, social security, education, welfare, or anything else). But Paul’s words — whether his or ghost-written — prevented him from growing his support beyond his committed supporters.

This doesn’t mean that Paul’s Ronulan army won’t help him finish in the top three. I think he will; heck, he could still win the thing. But it does mean that he’s back to being what he always is — the angry guy muttering in the corner. He’ll finish third lots of places. He won’t get the nomination. Period. The only interesting thing to see is whether he ultimately breaks ranks and runs as a Libertarian. As an Obama supporter, I hope he does.

4. Texas Gov. Rick Perry (LR: 4)

Trying to figure out what’s going to happen in the GOP race is a mug’s game. Other than Romney finishing in the top four tomorrow, I wouldn’t bet on any result. That said, I have a sneaking suspicion that Rick Perry is going to overperform tomorrow. And if that happens, I think there’s a chance that he becomes the comeback kid, the best hope for conservatives to challenge Romney. Well, either him or Gingrich. (More on that in a moment.)

The main reason for this is simple: money. Perry’s got money to stay in the race at least through Florida, and possibly beyond. If he can get past Gingrich and Santorum, he’s best-positioned to challenge Romney. Sure, he’s dumb as a box of hammers, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a shot.

5. Fomer House Speaker Newt Gingrich (LR: 1)

Newt never wanted to run for president. He wanted to sell some books, maybe get on talk shows. And then one day, he ended up the front-runner by Hobson’s choice, and for one brief moment, his ego swelled to Brobdingnagian heights, he thought he had a chance to win.

Had he done anything like, you know, organize a campaign, he might have. He might have been ready for the obvious attacks by Romney and company. Might have been ready for the withering negative ads, might have been prepared for his past statements to be examined, might have been ready to explain the commercial with him and Pelosi.

But Newt had decided to hang out in Greece and Hawai’i instead of working for the presidency. And so when the attacks came, Newt was unprepared. And that knocked him out of the upper tier of candidates.

That doesn’t mean that Newt is dead — nobody’s dead in this group. He’s still polling well in South Carolina, at least for the moment. If he can pull a top-four finish tomorrow, and a top-three finish (ideally with Paul) in New Hampshire, he can lay claim to the anti-Romney mantle — simply because he does have the resources to compete with that Santorum lacks.

I think in the end, it comes down to Newt and Perry. The candidate who does better between here and South Carolina is best positioned to challenge Romney from Florida on. And make no mistake: even if Romney can sweep the first three, unless he beats 30 percent in Iowa and South Carolina, he’s vulnerable. Newt could rise again.

6. Sarah-Jeb B. Christie-Jindal (LR: NR)

In Patrick Dennis’ marvelous and lamentably out-of-print novel First Lady: My Thirty Days Upstairs in the White House, the protagonist relates the bitter nominating fight at the Bull Finch Party’s convention in 1908. After thirty ballots, the husband of the wildly unreliable narrator somehow makes it onto the second spot on the ticket, an eventuality that leads one delegate to despairingly cry out, “for God’s sake, anybody.” Alas, the delegate asks for volunteers in vain; Butterfield ends up on the ticket, and eventually becomes president, at least until the stolen ballots surface.

Anyhow, the Republican Party is noticing that Romney is likely to win, and is currently at the for God’s sake anybody! stage of grief. And that means there is space open for a white knight to come gallivanting into the race to save the party from defeat, or Mitt, or what have you.

Jeb Bush? Sarah Palin? Bobby Jindal? Even a back-stabbing Chris Christie? Sure, none of them are likely to jump into the race at this point. But let’s face it: all of them are more likely to win the GOP nomination than Jon Huntsman or Michele Bachmann.

And so we put them on the big board this week. Incidentally, the B stands for brokered, the other possibility that is remote but possible — a scenario in which Santorum wins some states, Gingrich others, Perry still others, and then they team up as a Voltron of right-wing disaster. Possible? Folks, Michele Bachmann was considered a viable presidential candidate this cycle. Nothing is impossible.

7. Fmr. Ambassador Jon Huntsman (LR: 9)

Huntsman has crept up only because the media continues to give him far more coverage than a third-tier candidate deserves. You can argue whether Huntsman is moderate (he is, but only in relation to this field) or whether he deserves to win (he does, but only in relation to this field) or whether he’s a decent guy (he is, but…), but none of that appears to be making much difference.

The only way Huntsman will affect the race is by overperforming in New Hampshire and hurting Romney. There’s no indication he will. My guess is that after New Hampshire, Huntsman is a footnote. Maybe he can beg Obama for another ambassadorship in 2013.

8. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. (LR: 8)

It’s been a fun six months for Minnesota DFLers. August brought us the flameout of Gov. Timmy, which was immensely gratifying, given that he’d been running for president since being re-elected governor in 2006. Then came the abrupt resignation of GOP state chair Tony Sutton, who left the party $1.9 million in debt. This was followed by the resignation of Amy Koch and the defenestration of Mike Brodkorb over an extramarital affair. And now, just a few days into the new year, Our Michele appears ready to follow Timmy into oblivion. How sweet it is.

Bachmann is, of course, going down with characteristic blindness to reality, saying she doubts polls and believes in what she’s seeing “on the ground,” but it doesn’t matter. Michele is done. The only question is whether she bothers to come back to run in the sixth, or whether she decides to go off into the world and make money. She would be an awesome Fox commentator, if only she were blond.

9. Fmr. La. Gov. Buddy Roemer (LR: 9)

Buddy Roemer is starting to annoy me. Not sure there’s anything I can put my finger on — just a general sense of neediness emanating from his campaign. I think maybe it was when he begged PPP to put him in their polling. It’s just sad. Jimmy McMillan is polling in negative numbers. Fred Karger may not exist. But do either of them bemoan their fates? No! They’re 23rd-tier candidates and they like it. They like it fine.

Roemer, I fear, is becoming Mike Gravel. He won’t go away, no matter what happens. Which is annoying, because that means I’m going to be tired of his antics for months.

10. Jimmy “The Rent is Too Damn High” McMillan (LR: 12)

Jimmy McMillan knows the rent is too damn high. But that’s not all. As the only black candidate left in the race, he can garner the support of all the black republicans out there. Like Herman Cain! And Michael Steele! And J.C. Watts! And…well, I’m sure there must be others. Combined with his huge base of support among those who like vanity candidates, that could propel him into the top ten! And you know what that means, right? Right? Well, if you do, let me know.

11. Fred Karger (LR: 12)

Karger continues to be at the bottom of the big group of fail. And what more can you say about him? No, really, what more can you say about him, ’cause I got nothin’.

I mean, this is the hard part of the power rankings, folks. Anyone can riff on Newt (Oh, look! He’s got a giant ego and comes up with wacky ideas and stuff! And he’s got a glass jaw!) That’s not hard. But delivering the kind of hard-hitting analysis of guys who have absolutely no chance of being recognized were they to stand in under their own photo? That takes hard work, and maximum effort, folks. And coming up with a paragraph of filler that does nothing but pretend to complain? That’s why they pay me the big bucks.

Falling out: Herman Cain (4), Gary Johnson (10)

Democrats

1. President Barack Obama (LR: 1)

Obama will be the Democratic nominee. There is no question about that. The question is whether he can win re-election in November, and signs are increasingly positive there. Yes, Mitt Romney is in some ways the most dangerous Republican in the race, but Mitt’s major advantage — the fact that most people think he’s moderate — has been damaged by his campaign of the last five years. Add to that the fact that Mitt is an incredibly awkward campaigner, and then multiply by the fact that the economy appears to be fitfully awakening from its slumber, and you have the makings of a win for Obama — potentially a big win.

It’s early. And much can happen over the next ten months. But if trend lines hold, Obama should be able to win re-election. And then he can usher in his fascist socialist Muslim caliphate that kills Muslim children with reckless abandon while paying for compulsory gay marriages, just as his critics fear.

2. Uncommitted (LR: NR)

Cenk Uygur has been urging his fans to go vote uncommitted in Iowa, because Obama is like George W. Bush only twice as evil. That’s fine, and I wouldn’t be surprised if “uncommitted” won 5 percent of the delegates tomorrow. Those of you familiar with the mechanics of the nominating process realize that all of those uncommitted delegates will end up being Obama delegates once the convention rolls around.

But hey, by all means, Cenk, you stir the pot. I’m sure it won’t be a huge failure or anything.

3. That Anti-Choice Douchebag (LR: 2)

You know what? I’m not going to mention that anti-choice douchebag’s name. He just wants publicity, and I’m not required to give it to him. He should have been drummed out of society after he drug Teri Schiavo’s body around the country; hell, he should have been drummed out when he was grifting back in the eighties. I’m ignoring the bastard. To hell with him.

Third Parties

1. Mayor Michael Bloomberg (Americans Elect)

Bloomberg hasn’t officially launched a candidacy, and if this goes like 2008, he may not at all. But there are some clear signs that he’s mulling it. And I think that would be awesome. What America truly wants is a plutocrat who’s out of touch with average Americans, has liberal social views, and was last seen beating up Occupy Wall Street protesters while bragging about the NYPD being his private army. He’s perfectly designed to be a dealbreaker for everyone in America except the Beltway Boys. Run, Mike, run!

2. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas (Libertarian)

Paul hasn’t ruled out a third-party run, and one assumes it would be with the party he made his last third-party run with. Paul would be interesting, no doubt; Glenn Greenwald, David Sirota, and a lot of other white guy progressives would undoubtedly declare that we just had to vote for Paul, because, I mean sure, racism sexism homophobia racism goofball economic policy states’ rights racism sexism sexism sexism screw the poor screw poor countries get out of the UN and let sick people die — but on the other hand, isolationism and weed! Of course, David Sirota and Glenn Greenwald influence far fewer voters than they think they do, and Paul’s history of being Paul has nuked any chance for him to influence more than fringe libertarians.

But Paul could siphon pure pro-life votes from Romney (he said, you may remember, that being anti-choice was the most important issue to him). He’d certainly be a wild card. I don’t think he’d pull more than 5 to 10 percent, and I think that would be mostly Republican, so I hope he runs. But I doubt it; I think he’ll go back home and run for Congress again.

3. Fmr. Republican N.M. Gov. Gary Johnson (Libertarian)

Johnson entered the GOP race because he thought Ron Paul was going to sit it out. And then Paul ran. So he left for the Libertarian Party. If Paul goes to the Libertarians, he’s gonna be hellapissed.

Johnson, for whatever reason, simply can’t generate the zany cult of personality that is the Paulbot Army. Probably that speaks well of Johnson — if I had the Paulbots defending me, I’d be pretty embarrassed. But it does mean that a Johnson run will impact the race much less than a Paul run. Glenn Greenwald thinks a lot of himself, but he doesn’t have the readership to drag Johnson past the one percent mark. I think if Paul chooses not to mount a third-party run, Johnson will get the LP nomination. I also think, as per usual, the LP nomination won’t be worth very much.

4. Donald Trump (Americans Elect)

Does anyone else think that the crash and burn of the Trumpbate makes it more likely that The Donald will run for president, simply because he can? I kind of do. Maybe it’s just because I would really, really like Donald Trump to run for president, for the lulz, and for the fact that he’d pull GOP support from any potential candidate. Enough to win? Oh, you’re hilarious with that. Enough to hurt? Yes, probably.

Of course, the other great reason for Trump to run is that he’d get stomped, which, unfortunately, is probably why he won’t. But hey, a guy can dream, right?

Posted in Elections and politics | 2 Comments

The Fifteen Most Popular “Alas” Posts of 2011

Posted on December 30, 2011 by Ampersand

Because why not?

Consider this an open thread. I’d love to hear about people’s plans for the new year.

My thanks to everyone, blogger or commenter, who has participated in “Alas” in 2011. For all the flaws, frustrations, and occasional lost temper or passing troll, I think “Alas” has one of the better comment sections I’ve seen on any blog. (But then, the comments section here has been to a large degree shaped by my preferences, so it figures I’d think that, doesn’t it?)

I wish each and every one of us a happy 2012!

Impressively, Maia’s recent post “On Change And Accountability” nearly made the list, and doubtless would have if it didn’t have the statistical poor fortune to be posted in late December.

Congrats to Jeff for being so well-read! And to the rest of us, too.

Posted in crossposted on TADA, Whatever | 8 Comments