From the category archives:

Politics

Demand Question Time

by Andrew Hazlett on February 3, 2010

in Politics

Public figures, bloggers, and journalists from the left and right unite behind an idea I think is long overdue…

An Open Letter to Our Fellow Americans

February 3, 2010

We live in a world that increasingly demands more dialogue than monologue. President Obama’s January 29th question-and-answer session with Republican leaders gave the public a remarkable window into the state of our union and governing process. It was riveting and educational. The exchanges were substantive, civil and candid. And in a rare break from our modern politics, sharp differences between elected leaders were on full public display without rancor or ridicule.

This was one of the best national political debates in many years. Citizens who watched the event were impressed, by many accounts. Journalists and commentators immediately responded by continuing the conversation of the ideas put forward by the president and his opponents — even the cable news cycle was disrupted for a day.

America could use more of this — an unfettered and public airing of political differences by our elected representatives. So we call on President Barack Obama and House Minority Leader John Boehner to hold these sessions regularly — and allow them to be broadcast and webcast live and without commercial interruption, sponsorship or intermediaries. We also urge the President and the Republican Senate caucus to follow suit. And we ask the President and the House and Senate caucuses of his own party to consider mounting similar direct question-and-answer sessions. We will ask future Presidents and Congresses to do the same.

It is time to make Question Time a regular feature of our democracy.

Please join us by signing the Demand Question Time petition.

via demandquestiontime.com

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Amazon.com reviews… no sense of decency?

by Andrew Hazlett on November 20, 2009

in Books,Politics

My friend John Miller is a political reporter and a conservative commentator of real integrity and independence [see, for example, how he's run up against anti-immigrant forces].  He’s also an avid reader and reviewer of books, especially (but not exclusively) those dealing with history and literature.  You can glimpse the breadth his interests by listening to his podcast interviews with authors at National Review.  The author of several nonfiction works, John has just published his first novel, a work of historical fiction set in the Civil War entitled The First Assassin.  I’m expecting my copy from Amazon any day now.

But, as John’s debut novel becomes available, there’s been a disturbing preemptive attack on this unassuming, non-political literary endeavor.  Apparently because John is a National Review contributor, a small mob of politically-motivated posters are trying to poison the Amazon customer-reviews just as the book has come on the market.  Of course, I can’t attest to the literary quality of John’s novel, because I haven’t read it yet.  But that lack of first-hand information hasn’t stopped sophomoric political censors from trying to overwhelm Amazon’s customer feedback to The First Assassin.

Now, the reviews–and the comments on the reviews and the voting on the comments–are becoming yet another platform for infantile political theatrics.  Yet another example of how Amazon’s review system is broken and laughable.  I believe there’s such a thing as distributed intelligence, but mobs are not wise.

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Rocco Landesman Gives Good Quotes and Provokes Anxiety Among Friends of the National Endowment for the Arts

by Andrew Hazlett on November 2, 2009

in Politics

Lee Rosenbaum interviews and assesses the loquacious new NEA Chairman:

Veteran Broadway theater producer Rocco Landesman, off to a rocky start in his new gig as chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), demonstrated at a meeting of arts funders in Brooklyn two weeks ago that he had no plans to change his act. In the first major speech since assuming his post in mid-August (a keynote address at the annual conference of Grantmakers in the Arts), the chairman acknowledged the “reconstructive” work of his predecessors, Dana Gioia and Bill Ivey, in rebuilding the agency’s “credibility—good grant by good grant.”

He then said: “It’s time now to move the ball down the field.”

In a freewheeling conversation we had on the day of his Brooklyn visit, Mr. Landesman was true to form—brashly candid. But his provocative words in both the speech and our discussion suggest that he doesn’t see what’s looming between him and the goal—political opponents, waiting to tackle him.

Posted via email from Hazlett’s Occasional

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Obama Goes Hollywood for the Arts and Humanities Committee

by Andrew Hazlett on November 2, 2009

in Politics,Washington

Heavy on Hollywood and the arts… but no humanities fans?

President Obama is tapping some big names from Hollywood to serve on the President’s Committee on Arts and the Humanities.

Among the 25 members announced Monday by the White House were actors Edward Norton, Forest Whitaker, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kerry Washington and Alfre Woodard; CAA partner and managing director Bryan Lourd; independent film producer Liz Manne; and publicist Andy Spahn.

They join a committee that will include Vogue editor Anna Wintour, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Teresa Heinz, a philanthropist and wife of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.

via thewrap.com

The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities varies in importance from administration to administration. In the Reagan years, the PCAH was founded as a potential private-public alternative to the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. Some presidents just appoint a few big donors and forget about it.

It may surprise some that the Bush administration ended up with a very active and effective PCAH. The committee members were major supporters (financially and morally) of the work of the federal cultural agencies (i.e., the NEH, NEA, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services). They also fostered unprecedented cooperation among the cultural agencies to promote domestic programs and international cultural exchange.

Today, President Obama named to the PCAH an impressive group of smart-seeming actors and other bold-faced names. Several of the actors, Kerry Washington in particular, are not averse to regular trips to Washington. Of actors who show an interest in politics, these are among the most informed and intelligent.

For purposes of the federal cultural agencies, however, I see two potential problems:

I wonder how much time and energy can these people spare for something as low-profile as the PCAH? I cannot imagine the likes of Anna Wintour showing up for more than one meeting amid the moldering plaster of Room 527 of the Old Post Office.

The biggest problem I see here is that, of twenty-five appointments, there are next to none from the worlds of museums, libraries, or the humanities.

By my reading of the full list of PCAH appointees there are only two with tenuous connections outside the arts: Victoria Strauss Kennedy, an “educational consultant for Loyola Marymount University” and Jill Cooper Udall, who “works with the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian.”

For all the struggles faced by the artists and arts organizations in a Great Recession, they bask in wealth and glamor compared to the libraries, museums, archives, non-fiction filmmakers, and other components of the “H” in “PCAH.”  Will they get any attention at all from this Hollywood crowd?

I hope so.

Posted via web from Hazlett’s Occasional

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Trillions in play, Fox News nickel-and-dimes the humanities

by Andrew Hazlett on October 24, 2009

in Politics,Washington,Ways and Means

Are the Humanities a Waste of Money

Are the Humanities a Waste of Money?

Fox News and the National Taxpayers Union are wrong to search for wasteful government spending by kicking around in the “decimal dust” of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Over the last year or so, politicians of both parties have commanded taxpayers and future generations to provide billions and trillions of dollars to prop-up dying industries, fund a pork-tainted stimulus, and rescue reckless debtors and financial institutions from the consequences of their own actions.  We are experiencing a massive, probably permanent expansion of the size and power of the federal government, all under the guise of addressing the financial crisis.

In response, we’ve seen the inchoate anxiety of the Tea Party movement, a sneering progressive retort about “teabaggers,” and juvenile battles between the executive branch and populist media entities.  Of course, Capitol Hill hasn’t been any better.

There’s been precious little grown-up debate about what we are doing to ourselves and future generations.  Instead, from all sides, we’re getting mutual demonization, cartoon duels, and mindless appeals to emotion (principally fear and loathing).  I don’t see much of a sense of proportion or history anywhere.

Take this latest kerfuffle, for instance: Why, in this era of unprecedented thirteen-figure government spending, is a representative of the National Taxpayers Union taking time to swat six-figure gnats?  Why is now the time for limited government proponents to attack the National Endowment for the Humanities?

As if the life of a college professor weren’t easy enough, millions of taxpayer dollars are going to fund monthlong vacations for sightseeing scholars in Europe and South America, part of the $144 million [sic] budget provided for the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Government watchdogs say those trips are a waste of taxpayer money, and they’re not alone on an eye-popping list of NEH funding for projects…

“Everybody should be angry … that federal taxpayer dollars are being used on projects at a time when we have such bigger priorities, like getting the national debt under control,” said Pete Sepp of the National Taxpayers Union.

“They’re being done with tax money we don’t have. We are mortgaging our future with projects people may never even see.”

You can read more examples of “shocking” NEH grants at the Fox News website, but I suggest viewing this video report from correspondent William La Jeunesse:

Reading and viewing these comments leaves me sad and deflated.  I’m sure my liberal friends turned away with disgust at the first mention of “Fox News,” so I’ll address this post to people who are more likely to be skeptical about NEH grants.

From 2002 to 2009, I worked at the National Endowment for the Humanities as an appointee of President George W. Bush. I’ve seen how the grant process unfolds and I’ve read countless applications in detail. I’ve seen outstanding projects and hair-curlingly awful stuff. I don’t believe I was brainwashed by the career bureacrats at the NEH, nor do I have a connection with the agency now. I am well acquainted with all the flaws and dangers of government funding for scholarship, the arts, and culture.

After watching William La Jeunesse’s report, and looking at the supposedly horrible grants he cites, I see something very different.

Exploring the bloody history of China’s cultural revolution and the horrors of Soviet collectivization; studying the philosophy of Aristotle, sending scholars to unlock the mysteries of ancient archives abroad, helping schoolteachers enrich their knowledge… Are these really frivolous concerns? [click to continue…]

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In the Mail… Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margin to the Mainstream

by Andrew Hazlett on June 9, 2009

in Books,History,Politics

Blood and Politics

Blood and Politics

I’m not exactly looking forward to reading Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream.  In addition to a length of nearly 650 pages, the subject matter doesn’t make for casual summer reading.

But there is something fascinating about extremist movements, especially those that lapse into violence.  The subject has some urgency too.  Before September 11th, the most lethal terrorists on American soil had emerged from the ranks of various white nationalist groups.

They’ve been less openly interested in violence since 9/11, but volatile issues like immigration reform (not to mention the historic election of the first black President of the United States) have stirred the white racialist pot.

Like a dormant virus, this form of extremism can emerge in unexpected outbreaks, e.g., lurking around the campaign of their one-time ally Ron Paul, or forming tentative associations with radical Islamic groups (on the basis of their shared anti-Semitism).

Blood and Politics looks like an important and interesting read.  Hopefully, events will not make the book even more timely.  I’ll post here as I get a chance to read into it.

——–

And speak of the devil…

MSNBC: Shooting Suspect is White Supremacist

MSNBC is reporting that name of susupect is James Von Brunn, a white supremacist, born 1920. There is no official confirmation of this yet.

More detail and confirmation via the Washington Post.

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Eliminating Vintage Children’s Books

by Andrew Hazlett on June 1, 2009

in Books,Politics

In about nine months, unless amended, a federal safety law (CPSIA) will prohibit sale of childrens’ books printed before 1985–unless thrift shops, secondhand dealers, and other sellers subject the books to prohibitively expensive testing for lead and other substances.  Legal expert Walter Olson:

…ours will be a poorer world if we begin to lose (or “sequester” from children) the millions of books published before our own era. They serve as a path into history, literature, and imagination for kids everywhere. They link the generations by enabling parents to pass on the stories and discoveries in which they delighted as children. Their illustrations open up worlds far removed from what kids are likely to see on the video or TV screen. Could we really be on the verge of losing all of this?

Read more here.  And some reactions from the vintage books trade here.

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A Secular Right?

by Andrew Hazlett on April 14, 2009

in Big Ideas,Politics,Religion,video

Two very smart people open a dialogue: must right-of-center politics be grounded in religious faith? Ross Douthat, a thoughtful Catholic social conservative, is replacing Bill Kristol as a columnist at the New York Times. Heather MacDonald (though she is profoundly wrong about immigration) is one of the smartest reporters/writers in America. This diavlog highlights a topic long overdue for wider discussion…

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“Culture11″ and the fate of center-right cultural commentary

by Andrew Hazlett on March 25, 2009

in Magazines,Media,Politics,Voices

The short-lived web magazine Culture11 was an interesting failure. It was new media savvy, but apparently it was burdened by high overhead expenses and a somewhat contradictory mission. Charles Homans examines the personalities and ideas involved in this piece from The Washington Monthly.

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