Creating Narratives

From today's Fiver, The Guardian's daily tea-time email football newsletter, comes this stinging indictment of sports journalism:

Ah yes, here we go, another conspiracy of the inadequate. Sports hacks are a lot like those boilers who huffily insist that all models are airheads. Here's how it works: we put it about that all footballers are so stupid it's as if B-movie alien zombies have gobbled their brains, then we oink and wheeze like diseased swine the very second their utterances stray from the clichés we want them to spew. And hey presto, footballers mostly stick to the script, enabling us to churn out putrid guff and then smugly sit back and congratulate ourselves for being so much better than the folks we write about - they may be fitter, richer, better looking, more talented, more widely travelled and altogether nicer than us but, hey, they're so dumb. Ha ha ha, the no-good fools!

Not only does this self-criticism ring true, it also says something about one of the ongoing laments I have about journalism, sporting and otherwise: The unrelenting hold journalists take on the narratives they essentially establish.

We see it in sportswriting, but this tendency is every bit as entrenched, perhaps moreso, among the hard news folks and the political commentariat. Obama wins a dozen primaries and caucuses in a row, then Hillary wins Pennsylvania, still leaving her hopelessly behind, but the talking heads have asserted that a good showing in the Keystone State gets her back in the game, and so there you have it. Those same folks insist that Jeremiah Wright is a major story, so they make his rantings a story and voila, it is a story. This same approach is how in some circles Tuesday's primaries are presented as a split decision even though Obama overwhelmingly won one state, narrowly lost another, and emerged with a greater delegate lead. Or how shallow interpretations of "the working class" and "elitism" becaome so warped and misused. Journalists create these memes and then have an interest in perpetuating them.

Horace Man, Oh, Man

In case there was any doubt, this New York magazine feature reminds us that high school students can be assholes. Add to that simple fact of nature (hey, I could be a shithead in high school and odds are so could you) a bastion of privilege such as Horace Mann High School and their rich, protective douchebag parents and you have yourself quite the tinderbox.

[Hat Tip to Sportsguy.]

Hillary's Choice

I'd like to think that my asessments of yesterday's North Carolina and Indiana primaries were pretty reasonable. Obama took North Carolina comfortably, and Indiana was tighter than expected. And so we are left with the ubiquitous question of this election season: What's next?

In particular, what now for Hillary Clinton? Yes, she won Indiana, but that seems pretty clear to me to represent a Pyrrhic victory. Her margin was razor-thin, and her delegate take relative to Obama's negligible. Yes, she is likely to win West Virginia, and Kentucky after that, but then she is likely to lose Oregon and the remaining western states. And if Obama contests in Appalachia and if Democrats in those states get the sense that Clinton is a lost cause, the margins might not be as great as some suspect.

Reality is likely to set in if she is willing to face that reality. Superdelegates are beginning to shift toward Obama with some Hillary supporters beginning to back away from their support for her. Clinton cannot win, but she can harm the party in her zeal not to lose, and presumably enough people will need to pull her aside to reinforce these points if this race is going to be wrapped up by June. The colossal Clinton ego -- hers and his -- will need placating. She will likely need to get first shot at the Veepstakes, even if only to say no, and she will get a prominent place on the lectern in Denver. But it is time to think of November.

Clinton can, if she chooses, almost certainly play some sort of role in an Obama administration, whether as the Vice Presidential nominee or in the cabinet we do not yet know. Or she may choose to continue to grow as a lioness in the Senate, where if anything her record has been underrated. In other words, her career is far from over. At this point she can do incalculable damage not only to her party but also to herself in a Washington world where reputation is, if not everything, at least the one thing that might matter most. Most everyone in DC has lost in politics. There is no shame in that. But the District is not a place where desperation is looked upon especially favorably. It is time for Clinton to face the facts. It is time for her to drop out of the race.

Overrated Movies

This list of overrated movies is, like most exercises of its ilk, intended to provoke arguments. Of the ten films included here, all have rated as all-time greats by critics or awards or box office or reputation or some combination thereof, and there should be plenty to inspire debate or disagreement. Let me state that I wholeheartedly agree with the inclusion and placement of the number one (that is to say "worst") movie on this list, which I find to be categorically awful.

Nixon Rises

At The Boston Globe Alex beam has an article on the seeming ubiquitousness of Richard Nixon in today's popular and intellectual culture. Nixon was a phoenix in his lifetime, constantly rising from the ashes of ignominious defeat. As in life, so too in death, I guess. As a historian I am especially interested in reading Rick Perlstein's new book, Nixonland.

Stupid is as Stupid Does

This story about Saddam hussein's bizarre fears regarding catching STD's while in US custody had a much better headline when it arrived in my inbox from South Africa's Independent Online, which consolidates stories from a dozen or so South African newspapers: "Was Saddam Stupid."

Speaking of stupidity, leave it to a Yankees fan to give the Sox-Yanks rivalry an ugly twist.

(And since the C's-Cavs series starts tonight, I may as well get the proceedings off on the right foot: Tom, Don, the Cavs and their fans are poopieheads. C's in six, despite the reality that LeBron is likely to score 200 points in the series.)

Hoosiers and Tar Heels (And Guam)! Oh My!

At the incomparable Washington Post politics blog The Fix, Chris Cilizza has expert views on several developments to watch for in today's Indiana and North Carolina primaries.

My own prediction is that we will again be dealing with dueling narratives after today. Both races are likely to be close, with North Carolina looking like it will give Obama a 5-10% win and with Indiana increasingly looking like a dead heat. Clinton will almost certainly spin anything less than a 10-point loss in Carolina as a moral victory. If Obama wins both states, it may well close the door on Clinton even though the extension in his delegate lead will be marginal at best. But the perception is that he cannot close the door and that he cannot win big states. An Obama victory in North Carolina coupled with a win in Indiana, however slight, (and don't forget his seven-vote caucus victory in Guam!) will likely reinvigorate calls for Clinton to bow out of the race. A split likely results in status quo ante, and if Clinton pulls out an improbably double win the race will be tossed into its greatest state of chaos yet.

NBCC Recommends

The National Book Critics Circle (of which I am a member) has posted its quarterly Good Reads Lists of new and recommended books at the NBCC blog Critical Mass. Naturally such lists inspire a great deal of debate, as the comments section indicates. And the nature of these lists is that the point is to highlight books recently published, so that the list is compressed -- certain kinds of books take longer to get reviewed, especially independent or academic presses, and reviewers based in the academy often operate with longer timetables. Nonetheless, any time we focus on good books, whatever the limits of that focus, is fine as far as I am concerned.

Happy Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo probably reonates more with those of us who live in border states such as Texas than elsewhere. But even here the holiday seems to represent an excuse to drink than it does an homage to cultural heritage. Like many other holidays, Cinco de Mayo has largely become comodified, or, as The New York Times explained in an op-ed today, "For this north-of-the-border success, we have to thank the persuasive powers of beer. Cinco de Mayo is probably Corona’s biggest day." As Homer Simpson might say: "Beer. Is there anything it can't do?"

Defying Belief

Recent revelations that Nelson Mandela is still on the United States' terrorist watch list (a list he never belonged on in the first place) does not exactly inspire confidence in America's handling of its foreign policy, its approach to terrorism, or its grasp of African policy, does it?

[Crossposted at the Foreign Policy Association's South Africa Blog.]

Preacher Problems Abound

Let's not forget, amidst the hubbub surrounding Jeremiah Wright, that John McCain actively sought and embraced the endorsement of John Hagee and Jerry Falwell. It would be nice if we could get past the various candidates' so-called "preacher problems" and return a modicum of substance into the discussion. But that is not in the interest of the media, and it is not, apparently, in the interest of Hillary Clinton, and it is not in the interest of the attack machine that seems to so control American political life. And to think, it will only get worse between now and November. [Sigh.]

Amen, Brother Lee!

Spike Lee to Jeremiah Wright: Please Stop Talking.

Self Indulgence Alert!: Africa Blogs

I've been working away at the Foreign Policy Association's Africa and
South Africa blogs, with Zimbabwe, perhaps not surprisingly, getting lots of play. Go read away if you're so inclined.

Hypocrisy Watch: Crazy Religious Figure Edition

Is there a galling double-standard when it comes to the ravings of Jeremiah Wright and the usually even more insane, offensive and bothersome ravings of a vast swath of white religious figures on the right? Of course there is.

Resolving the Mess of the BCS

At the online newsletter of The New York Times' sports magazine Play Dan Shanoff proposes a pretty brilliant solution to the intransigence of those conferences that refuse to establish a playoff system for college football's highest level:

Personally, I would like to see [SEC Commissioner Mike] Slive take his ball and go home: "SEC-ede" from the B.C.S. and create his own playoff; as the nation's strongest conference (by far -- it boasts the past two national champs), he has the juice to do it.

Invite more playoff-friendly conferences, even individual teams, into the mix (and don't be afraid to go it alone). Create room for the non-B.C.S. schools to participate. Generate billions in revenue from TV networks and advertisers. And isolate the Big Ten and Pac-10, daring them to try to proclaim one of their member schools -- even an undefeated one -- as "national champ" while the rest of the country has turned its attention to a thrilling 8- or 16-team playoff. Any school that doesn't want to participate doesn't have to; I imagine that resistance will be short-lived.

Incremental measures won't work. Obstructionist colleagues need to be marginalized.

To save the B.C.S., they need to destroy it.

The idea that the BCS is worth saving, that a playoff system is somehow going to violate the academic integrity of college football, or anything else is patently absurd. The BCS is irredeemable and always has been. The fact that every other division of college football has a championship tournament and that every other NCAA sport has either a tournament or a meet to establish a champion on the field, court, pools, track, field, or ice should be enough to reveal the BCS for what it is: A naked grab for cash from a cabal of self-interested parties.

Swift Boating Obama

Evan Bayh has stated the obvious: The Republicans are likely to Swift Boat Obama over the absurd Reverend Wright fiasco. But before we point fingers, however deservedly, at the Grand Old Party, it is probably only fair to say that it is not as if the Clinton camp and its supporters have tread lightly on this issue. The Wright issue manifests itself equally as crude racism, politics as usual, kabuki theater, and media lightweightedness. The republicans operate effectively in this world, but let us not pretend that this is a partisan affliction.

Two Reviews

Two pieces in the newest Times Literary Supplement caught my eye. Mark Mazower, whose book Dark Continent is one of my favorites on modern European history, reviews Bernard Wasserstein's Barbarism And Civilization: A History of Europe in Our Time, and John Keay has an essay on three books on China's cities, especially Beijing.

The Wright Stuff

I am not responsible for anything my mentor says. You are not responsible for anything that your mentor says. If you are close to your mentors, as I am to mine, you would not be likely to abandon that person even if they said something absolutely batshit crazy. Doing so would probably reflect worse on you than simply saying nothing. This all assumes, of course, that your mentor does not persist in saying crazy things that can actually harm you.

It also assumes that you are not dealing with the triple factors of Hillary and Bill Clinton and their imperturbable sense of entitlement, the well-oiled conservative attack machine, and a media culture as intellectually shallow as one can possibly imagine. In that case, you're Barack Obama, who somehow is being held to account for things that he clearly does not believe, has never advocated, and that someone else said.

So what does Obama do in this latest round of the ongoing cavalcade of idiocy surrounding the increasingly tedious Jeremiah Wright who, if he was taken out of context earlier has happily allowed his narcissism to shine while he provides the fullest context imaginable about ideas ranging from the justifiable (if angry) to the utterly inane to the dangerously misguided. You make it clear, crystal clear, that you denounce everything the mentor has said. There really was no need to make such denunciations of course, because the person who made those statements WAS NOT YOU, but that's the culture in which we live. And then we move on to focus on your views, not Wright's, because you are running for President, and Wright is not.

Regrettably we do not live in this ideal world in which you are not held to account for things that other adults who are not you say. We instead live in a world in which pundits fatuously, vacuously, and gaseously prattle on about responsibilities that ought not to be considered your own to disavow things you demonstrably do not represent to prove points to people who are never going to support you in the first place but who love the idea of watching you prostrate yourself. It's a form of minstrelsy, but you do it because it's been demanded of you and fulfilling those demands is the only way to try to steer the conversation back to matters of substance and hope that there is a way to make opportunity out of this hopeless muddle that has been foisted upon you.

Increased Democratic Turnout = ???

Voters are registering in record numbers and participation has been at historic highs in the primaries in 2008. The question both parties must wrestle with is what, if anything, this means for November. Does the record turnout and the new registrants represent a turning tide in American electoral politics? Does it mean that people want to be part of what they perceive as a historic primary fight? Does it mean that Democrats in these latter primary states finally see their participation mattering? Does it represent crossover votes from Republicans, whether disenchanted with their own party or interested in shaping the opposition for the fall?

Obviously we do not know the answers to these questions. It seems evident that the historic, perhaps transformative, nature of the Democratic race plays the biggest role in all of this, but my guess is that once the party's candidate is chosen a lot of these newly registered folks will be in play for the general election. McCain is a formidable opponent and will be a popular one as well. What he does not enjoy in support from parts of the base he may well make up for among the so-called Reagan or Swing Democrats, not to mention among those for whom an Obama or Clinton candidacy is problematic.

What is also likely is the the Democrats have an opportunity. By mobilizing so many voters the party has the chance to bring about a sea change along the lines of 1994's midterm elections which shaped the American political landscape for a decade and more. I do wonder if wholesale realignment along the lines of 1932 will ever again be possible in what seems to be such a closely divided electorate and instead if tectonic shifts in the future will be less of the earthquake variety and more akin to temblors.

Dear Diary . . .

Tom has posted a new entry at the Diary Blog. Read it.

Self Indulg . . . Ah, You Know The Drill: ASMEA in DC

I am in my old stomping grounds of Washington, DC for the first meeting of a promising new organization, the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa. On Saturday I will be presenting a paper on a project on Darfur on which I have been working for quite some time.

Typical of a lot of my work, this project is not quite scholarly enough for academics and may well prove too scholarly for the general public. By no means am I an expert of Darfur or Sudan, but as someone who writes about Africa I have been asked to contribute to this inaugural conference and was asked some time ago to write a piece on this nightmare scenario. In May I will present a more advanced (I hope) version of this project at a Sudan Studies meeting in Tallahassee and when all is said and done maybe I'll have something worth saying in a couple of venues about the human rights catastrophe that we have helped to countenance through benign neglect and practiced malfeasance.

Illegal Art

A colleague directed me to "Illegal Art," which explores issues such as censorship and self-censorship, intellectual property, trademark and copyright law, and the like. There are some fascinating arguments there, some with which I agree, many with which I take issue, but almost all of which are provocative. Take a look.

Ego Run Amok: More Self Indulgence, Zimbabwe Commentary Edition

I finally received the file from my Cape Argus op-ed (pdf -- it's the middle article on the page) from last month on the Zimbabwe election. I was wrong on some stuff, right on some, I overplayed the role of Simba Makoni, underplayed that of Morgan Tsvangirai, and am as surprised as anyone that we still await the outcome, which I still imagine will come down to Robert Mugabe stealing the election.

Dork Receives Award: Self Indulgence Alert

Yup, that's me, from a picture that appeared in a local paper and is now rotating on the UTPB website.

The B's are Back

Like Sportsguy, I'm back on the Bruins bandwagon. My interest in them waned for many of the same reasons his did, though I never fully left them. Nonetheless, the return to what was once one of the great rivalries in sports, Bruins-Canadiens, coupled with the B's mattering again has me back in a big way. Unlike baseball or football or basketball (or rugby or track or maybe a few others), hockey is a sport about which I cannot now write with any particular authority, but it is in my blood. I am named after a former Bruin great (on and, perhaps even more legendarily off the ice) named Derek Sanderson. My first team jersey was not of the Sox or Pats or C's, but rather was a classic black Bruins spoked-B jersey that I got from my great aunt Joan, who lived in Boston.

I have a good feeling about the game that drops puck in 18 minutes. Go B's! Beat those dastards from Montreal.

Bias in the Academy

At Brainstorm, a blog at The Chronicle of Higher Education, Mark Bauerlein discusses perceptions of bias on the part of professors by confusing two distinct issues -- what goes on in the classroom and what professors do when, say, they write an op-ed piece. The comments are also worth perusing. At the end of the day, my argument here is what it always is: Most of us have far too much to do with our time in the classroom to be imposing a political agenda, what many students may think of as being ideological may be no such thing, and this is an irrelevant question in the vast majority of college classes that have almost nothing to do with contemporary politics. When it comes to the question of bias in the classroom there is lots of sound and fury, sturm and drang, and gnashing of teeth about what is ultimately a non-issue (and for some reason, the accusers never look in the halls of business schools, or anywhere outside of the liberal arts, which I find curious).

Fredericksburg

Perhaps to assuage the fact that I'm a year older, Mrs. Dcat is treating me to a couple of nights down in beautiful Fredericksburg, Texas, where she hopes to find some nice jams and pies and, by extension, I thus hope she finds some nice jams and pies. This old dog has learned new tricks since his betrothal.

Popetastic

"Thank you your Holiness. Awesome speech." - George W. Bush to Pope Benedict XVI.

That's your president, Republicans.

I am going to start a fight with the next conservative who natters on to me about religion: "Thank you your Holiness. Awesome speech."

"Awesome"!?!?

To Go or Not To Go: The Olympic Dilemma

There are no easy solutions to the dilemma of what to do about the Olympics in Beijing. The solution, of course, would be not to award the Olympics to totalitarian states in the first place, but that toothpaste has long since been squeezed and is not going back in the tube. And ending the Olympics hardly seems like a likely or even viable possibility. None of the options that remain are ideal.

Those who argue that the Olympics is no place for politics have no conception that the Olympics have always been politicized if not political. Nearly every Olympics since at least 1936 has been fraught with politics, whether overt or covert. Wishing something does not make it so, and this includes the dream of an Olympics free of the dirty realities of politics. And the irony, of course, is that those who most would screech about not attending the Olympics are those who would also screech about meeting face to face or otherwise engaging with dictators or dictatorships.

I am torn. We don't want to reward China's noxious human rights record, and there is no doubting that any country that attends the Beijing games will be rewarding China in publicity, in tourism, and in legitimacy. One can argue that the Olympics are not the place to make this stand, and I respect that, but no one can seriously pretend that China does not benefit in myriad ways from hosting these games. The country will put its best face forward, and most observers will not know the difference because they will be steered clear of the hutongs, local dissent will have long since been crushed and most anything that does not re-enforce the image China wants to portray will be whitewashed and censored, and once the games actually commence, international protest will resemble an echo chamber. On the home front, any debate about China will mostly be about scoring points and using the issue as a political cudgel rather than constructing an ideal policy.

Perhaps it is the athlete in me that realizes too that while they are a tiny constituency, the athletes for whom Beijing represents the culmination of a dream deserve consideration. For better or for worse, the Olympics are the apex of global athletic competition for the majority (or at least a huge plurality) of athletes in the majority of sports. I hate the idea of taking away one of these opportunities from them that comes only every four years. Compared to the geopolitical questions involved this may be small beer, silly even, but once a jock, always a jock.

One hope I have is that the media will not sanitize the context in which the games will be played and thus will make the best of the situation. the problem with this is that the majority of media members sent to Beijing will be sportswriters whose mandate is not politics, and whose views most of us do not, in the majority of cases, care about. Jay Mariotti, as just one example among many, is a dullard when it comes to his bailiwick of sports. Do you really want his take on global politics? Nonetheless, if NBC and the news networks keep their eye on what China is and what it is not, which is to say, if they are willing to peel away the veneer that China will skillfully present, perhaps daylight really will prove to be the best disinfectant.

Elitism and Bitterness

I honestly do not have the intellectual energy or patience to spend a load of time on the idiotic accusations against Barack Obama for saying something that, not to put too fine a point on it, is pretty much fucking true. My "working class" (we were, to put it less euphemistically, "poor") background is clear and is a defining aspect of my character: my parents, who had me when they were still kids, divorced when I was young, and my brother and I lived with a Mom who worked in factories or cleaning floors or waiting tables to keep two kids fed and to keep the lights on in a house where the well sometimes ran dry so we had no water. We spent a large hunk of time at our grandparents' farm, which my dad ran. It was a small, family dairy farm, and it went belly up in the mid-1980s when running a small farm was an almost sure ticket to bankruptcy. In other words, try that elitist liberal Democrat nonsense with someone else, because it isn't working on me. And if you think there is not a great deal of bitterness among the working class, left and right, liberal and conservative, Democrat, Republican, and undecided, you are living in a dream world.

Now, I would argue that Obama made an infelicitous linkage between that bitterness and the issues of guns and religion. Not because the ties are not there -- they are, in some ways -- but because the situation is more one of correlation than the causality that Obama implied. I find most amusing the question of Obama being an "elitist," which is one of those assertions so stupid on its face that it would warrant mockery were some people not levying the accusation seriously. First off, anyone at that level of politics is an elite. John McCain has been a Senator for a generation. It does not get much more elite than that. Hillary? Please. If her discomfort around real people were any more palpable she'd spray some sort of warning ink on them like an anti-proletariat octopus. But secondly, how convenient -- how cute! -- to make the black guy in the race, who has served as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago and worked as a civil rights lawyer, the elitist! To make the most demonstrably religious person in the race first a Muslim and then a dangerous uber-black Christian because of someone else's preachings, and now to imply that he is anti-religious! To make an issue of the fact that he doesn't bowl well! Without belaboring the point, I am going to have a hard time buying that race does not play a role in all of this.

So where does this issue go from here? My guess, and perhaps my hope, is that while it will be a lingering subtext that some will use to Swift Boat Obama, most people, bitter or not, won't let it have a major impact on their decision unless they were already leaning against Obama. There is a long race to go. The Democratic convention is three months from now -- what, in terms of specifics, do you remember about the various day-to-day aspects of the campaign that surely seemed like life or death matters from back in January? The general election is nearly seven months away. How much of the dynamic of the races from seven months ago is still relevant? Nonetheless, for now Hillary and down the road the McCain people will try to keep this "elitism" accusation alive, despite its absurdity, for as long as possible. This is the political environment in which we live and in which they operate. Obama's so-called gaffe is today's annoyance. But there is worse to come as the stakes get higher. This is far from as ugly as this race will get. Mark my words on that.

Pottie Mouth

Via Tootle, who beat me to the punch, one of my good friends, David Pottie, got a lot of play in this story (which has for some reason been truncated). here is the quote, again from the Big Tent stalwart:

"Foreign observers of Nepali politics played down the risks of a Maoist participation in the new government. “The stereotypical and unrealistic fear is if Maoists win the election, this will be the one and only election,” said David Pottie, associate director of the democracy program at the Atlanta-based Carter Center. “That is very unlikely.”

The Maoists are likely to be a minority in the new government, Mr. Pottie said, and the political elite in this country, including those among the Maoists, continue to be dominated by upper-caste men. He hoped that would be broadened by the new caste, gender and ethnic quotas imposed on these elections. “It does not appear likely that there will be a return to the People’s War or a dismantling of democratic elements,” Mr. Pottie said.

Even the Indians, who should be the most worried about revolutionary Communists in power on the other side of a long and porous border, say elections are the only way to give the country a real shot at peace by bringing the Maoists under the parliamentary tent. “It does not solve Nepal’s problems at all; it is a door opener,” Shiv Mukherjee, the Indian ambassador to Nepal said in an interview.

“Mainstreaming the Maoists is one of the major achievements of these political party leaders,” he added. “There was a realization that eliminating the Maoists was not the way to go.”"

David is a Canadian with an African Studies PhD in Political Science. But he has branched out based on his work at the Carter Center. He was my best friend in South Africa when we both were based at Rhodes University and he is easily one of the smartest guys I have ever known.

Nearly Intolerable Self-Indulgence Alert

Yeay for Me !!

Drug Policy, The Wire, and Kurt Schmoke

Former Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke has advice for the next president on reforming America's failed drug policies. There is useful background here, here, and here, including some roman a clef references in The Wire based on Schmoke's ideas. For example, some of Schmoke's ideas, which helped cost him his job (Bunny Colvin's Hamsterdam was not a Schmoke idea, but in some ways he was its inspiration) but may have been worth considering, inspired David Simon & company.

Oxford's Pubs

This week's New York Times travel section featured the pubs of Oxford and included a slide show. Several of my favorites are featured. Indeed, I've spent time in every one of the pubs featured here, usually in the company of the dissolute ne'er do wells of the Armitage Shanks which may, in fact, tell you something about my time in Oxford. Shockingly, the Holywell Manor Bar is not included in this feature. Must be an oversight.

Striking a Blow

Tee hee.

Freedom's Main Line: Self Indulgence Alert, "It's About Time" Edition

If you click here or here you can see the long awaited first signs of life of this:

There has been a title change (the original project was called "A Brave and Wonderful Thing" but we decided to go with a switch) and since the book won't actually be out for a few months yet, I hope there will be a little more detail, and truth be told, some wiggle room on the price. Nonetheless, here is proof that I am not a complete wastrel. The folks at Kentucky have been absolutely great to work with, and while there is still much work yet to do with regard to editing and indexing, I am confident that we will meet deadlines and that you will be able to buy copies for friends, family, and yourselves well before Christmas.

A Little Perspective

We have all heard it a million times before: the Yankees and Red Sox are at a competitive advantage because of their payrolls. This has become such a truism that no one bothers to look at the facts.

Let's put things in some perspective. This year the Sox are fourth in payroll (the Mets and Tigers vaulted ahead of them this offseason). But as has been the case all along, placing the Red Sox in the same category as the Yankees is fallacious at best. As a look at the 2008 payrolls will reveal, the Yankees will spend $ 209,081,577 to the Red Sox' $ 133,390,035. That is a gap of some $75,691,542, which if devoted to player salaries would be the eighteenth highest payroll in MLB. Furthermore, the gap between the Red Sox and Yankees is less than that between the Red Sox and the Kansas City Royals, which is to say that the Red Sox are closer in payroll to the team with the 24th highest salary than they are to the Yankees.

Quick Hits

A lot of different stories and arguments have caught my eye these days that I've wanted to write about. but rather than do that, I'll just give you a full onslaught to keep you occupied for a while.

Taylor Branch, whose three-volume biography of King/history of "The King Years" will be a go-to work for many years despite its flaws published a lengthy reflection on MLK and his legacy in the New York Times earlier this week. His article is taken from a speech he gave at the National Cathedral on Monday.

Another week, another work of nonfiction revealed as fraudulent? That seems to be the trend. The latest culprit appears to be Ben Mezrich's bestseller from a few years ago, Bringing Down the House, which provides the source material for the movie 21, which is probably playing in a multiplex near you. Every time this sort of story emerges I feel as if I make the same lamentation, but writing nonfiction is hard, and is all the more so because its biggest requirement is a fealty to the evidence. I don't think the reaction from we lesser-known writers every time one of these stories breaks is merely a mix of resentment and schadenfreude even if we may be entitled to a little bit of resentment and schadenfreude.

If that news is not depressing enough, The Boston Globe also has another seemingly recurring story, this one about the plight of bookstores. It ends on a somewhat optimistic note, however, so maybe the sky is not falling after all.

Do you know when the first intercollegiate baseball game was played? It was 1859. The participants? Williams and Amherst. Despite what you might read or hear, it is my understanding that the result of that contest is actually lost to history. That first game was played in Pittsfield, which baseball historians have also argued to be the home of the first known baseball game in the 18th century. With representatives from the College Baseball Hall of Fame (based not far from my home in the Petroplex in Lubbock) in attendance, the two teams will meet again in Pittsfield next week. Go Ephs! (And, oh yes, Amherst Sucks! Lousy, dastardly Defectors.)

Over at Real Clear politics Steve Chapman argues that when it comes to Iraq, "patience is not a policy." he makes a pretty compelling case. nonetheless, it is also true that in an ironic sense, the administration has fucked this war up so badly that they probably are correct that we now have to stay, without any sense of the fact that this really ought not to redound to their benefit.

At The Washington Post David Broder steps away from politics for a minute and thinks that he has discovered a singularly grim period in the world of sports. He's wrong, of course. Sports have always reflected society's tumult, and sometimes has fueled it. If there are problems with sports that is simply because there are problems with society. Take a deep breath and go watch a few games. Do so for a week and somewhere on a field, court, track, pit, pitch, course, or what have you, something wonderful will happen that will remind you of what sports are about.

Finally, and self indulgently, I've been busy at both the Africa Blog and the South Africa Blog, and I hope you'll check both of them out now and regularly.

Told You So

Yesterday I argued that the idea that Bill Buckner's Opening Day appearance at Fenway marked a moment of redemption, at least from fans, was absurd because Sox fans never believed that Buckner needed to be redeemed. In today's "Red Sox Notebook" in The Boston Globe my opinion is confirmed:

Lou Gorman, the Red Sox general manager who traded for Bill Buckner, released him, re-signed him for the final season of his 22-year career, and released him again, said that after Tuesday's emotional pregame ceremony, Buckner told him he finally felt "closure."

But on radio airwaves and websites yesterday, this question repeatedly was raised: Closure from what?

Numerous Sox fans noted that on Opening Day 1987, Buckner's first appearance after his Game 6 error in the 1986 World Series, he was given a standing ovation, and that scene repeated itself in 1990, when Buckner was brought back for a last hurrah.

"I kind of suspected the fans were going to give him a hand," manager Joe Morgan said at the time about the team's opener in 1990. "But I didn't think it would be forever. It was as long as any I've ever heard."

Buckner marveled that final season at how many ovations he received, one of the loudest coming after he hit an inside-the-park home run, the final home run of his career. "It surprised me the way it's turned around," Buckner said at the time.

"I challenge anyone in the media or anywhere else to produce a tape of Bill Buckner being booed at Fenway after October 1986," a poster with the handle "xjack" wrote on the Sons of Sam Horn chatboard. "In fact, I bet the ovations at the home openers in '87 and '90 were louder than yesterday's."

It was also noted that Buckner has profited from the error, making joint appearances at card shows with Mookie Wilson, the Mets batter whose ground ball Buckner missed. Various websites offer baseballs, photos, and posters autographed by both men, baseballs on one site going for more than $200.

Buckner, who wiped away tears before delivering the ceremonial first pitch, pointedly referred to the media in his postgame comments.

"I really had to forgive, not the fans of Boston, per se, but in my heart, I had to forgive the media for what they put me and my family through," he said. "I've done that, and I'm over that and I'm just happy."

Buckner's alleged pariah status was nothing more than a concoction of writers at The Globe and The Herald, the chattering classes on talk radio and television, and a national media that simplifies most every narrative they get their hands on. They created the story and thus had an investment in its perpetuation.

Buckner's error was only one facet of the 1986 story -- people seem to forget that there was a Game 7 in 1986, for example. And that Buckner should not have been on the field during extra innings of the fateful Game 6, which represents just one of manager John McNamara's blunders that night. And that had the relief corps (Calvin Schiraldi and Bob Stanley, as well as catcher Rich Gedman) done their job the Sox never would have been in that position. Red Sox fans long ago reconciled their history with Buckner even if we never fully got over Game 6 until 2004. Now, twenty-two years later, perhaps the media will finally do the same.

Opening Day at the Fens

Yesterday was the Fenway opener, and as such was as close to a secular holiday as Red Sox Nation has. The Sox won, 5-0 over the visiting and, preseason hype notwithstanding, struggling Tigers. Daisuke Matsuzaka pitched masterfully, further fueling my suspicion that he will make a big leap in his second season with the Sox, much as Josh Beckett did last year after a somewhat desultory 2006 season.

The Red Sox have learned how to put on an event. From the 1999 All-Star game in which they honored Ted Williams to the 2004 World Series championship celebrations to yesterday the Sox have shown the capacity to merge sentiment and history and emotion and class and bombast in equal measures. Yesterday, in addition to honoring Boston sports heroes, they also had Bill Buckner throw the first pitch. And the narrative was that yesterday marked a moment of redemption, a reconciliation between Buckner and Sox fans. the only problem with this narrative is that it is untrue. The overwhelming mass of Sox fans long ago forgave Buckner, if we ever blamed him to begin with. Sox fans welcomed him with open arms before a game in 1990. The reality is that the media drove the Buckner story. And non-Sox fans carried it forward, usually to torture Red Sox fans prior to October 27, 2004. Thus the media granted absolution yesterday when only the media recognized the sin for the last decade to begin with.

It is far too early for assessments or analysis of how things have gone so far. As a general rule nothing can be won in April, though it is possible for much to be lost in the first month of the season. I'm just glad baseball is back. No sport so relies on the rhythm of its season, on the daily iteration of games, on the long proving ground of the season. I love so many sports, and I love them with passion and depth. But baseball is my first love and I am always glad to have it back.

Go Sox!

Grading US Performance in the Struggle Against Global Extremism

At The National Interest Lee H. Hamilton, Bruce Hoffman, Brian Michael Jenkins, Paul R. Pillar, Xavier Raufer, Walter Reich and Fernando Reinares give out grades for American performance in combating global extremism. We do not do well, but it is hard to quibble with the grades either specifically or in toto.

Iraq Status Report

There is a new collaborative news source for the war in Iraq, the Iraq Status Report. According to their launch announcement,

"this new site is a collaborative effort by Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Institute for the Study of War, and The Long War Journal providing the only 'one-stop-shop' on the Internet for news, commentary and analysis related to the U.S. Mission in Iraq."

ISR is pretty much an advocacy site for the Iraq War, and i could do without some of the more ardent cheerleading -- I would think a little humility would be in order after five years of a war that we were condscendingly told would take "six days, maybe six weeks" and not six months from an administration whose president not only opposed but derided the idea of nationbuilding prior to his ascendance to the presidency. it s my belief that those who supported the war from the beginning have lost all claim to aggressively dismissive arguments. That said, for those of us who have continued to be ambivalent amidst the maelstrom of the righteousness on both sides, Iraq Sstatus Report will be another useful source of information.

2008 Pulitzer Prizes

The 2008 Pulitzer Prizes have been announced. The history award went to Daniel Walker Howe's What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848, the latest entry in the Oxford History of the United States series. It is pretty clear that every time one of those books comes out it will be a strong contender for the Pulitzer, one of those awards any historian would love to have but about which most all of us are at least a little ambivalent.

The biography/autobiography prize went to Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father by John Matteson (W.W. Norton) and the general nonfiction prize, which as often as not serves as another history award, went to Saul Friedlander's The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 (Harper Collins).

On Gettin' Hitched

Since I am apparently in a nostalgic mood for grad school days in Athens, I may as well point out that another of my professors, Katherine Jellison, recently had her long-awaited book on American weddings published by Kansas. For a nifty synopsis of the argument, see this article in Ohio University's magazine of research, Perspectives.

(On a separate note, is it the new trend among alumni publications to produce more than one alumni publication, decoupling features on research and campus life from alumni news-qua-alumni news? Williams did so a couple of years back and now Ohio appears to have done the same.)

A Pending Military History Reading List

Among the modern Americanist grad students at Ohio University, Alonzo Hamby's reading lists were legendary. He taught the three-course sequence covering the United States since 1898 with a heavy dose of political history. The lists (each segment of the sequence had its own) were many pages long, with a system that gave double and single asterisks to the best or most important works. By the time you were done with the three classes you had the most extensive, daunting comps reading list imaginable. There is a reason why Hamby's comprehensive examination is legendary, and this list of hundreds of books pretty clearly gives an indication as to why.

It looks like Tom has taken the lead among our OU cohort in establishing a Hamby-esque reading list in which he will lay out the most important works related to the field of military history. He has taken on one of those endeavors that we all say we would like to do one day but that is so daunting that most of us never end up doing it. I wish him luck and will wait for the final product, then will cut and paste and simply steal all of his work. I do not do military history, but a good bibliography is a joy to behold.

(Tom gave the heads-up on this project over at Big Tent.)

Quick Hits: Around the Blogosphere

While I catch up from another weekend away, here are a few links and other things that caught my eye:

Andrew Sullivan continues to keep his eye on the shame that has become America's acquiescence to torture. He also directs our attention to Dan Savage's powerful piece on his mother's passing.

At Cyber Hacienda Jaime both reminds us of why Cheers was brilliant and in so doing providesa rousing defense of drinking beer in the form of The Buffalo Theory.

At Fire Joe Morgan, Junior takes on both the vastly overrated Rick Reilly and idiotic cliches about bloggers.

Finally, Guenette goes back to New Hampshire and has a mini-photo essay with several involving people we both know. It looks like he had a fuitful trip providing readings and lectures. This gives me the opportunity once again to plug his book of poetry, Sudden Anthem

April 4, 1968

Forty years ago today Martin Luther King was shot and killed at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. Memphis Magazine has an oft-powerful timeline of King's last day-and-a-half.

(Hat tip to Jason Zengerle at The Plank.)

Coincidence . . . or Fate Sending a Message?

This ESPN story probably requires little commentary:

A 13-year-old girl touring Fenway Park on a school trip was attacked by a resident red-tailed hawk that drew blood from her scalp Thursday.

She wasn't seriously hurt, but some observers saw an omen for a certain New York Yankees slugger in the attack at the home of the Boston Red Sox. The girl's name is Alexa Rodriguez.

OK, maybe a tiny bit of commentary: Yankees Suck!

A Heritage of Hate

Just about anytime I see anyone celebrating the Confederacy I prepare myself for a rant. But if there is a ranking of talking-to-a-wall debates in American society, it seems that getting into an argument with those who would commemorate traitorous racists (or is it racist traitors?) ranks in the top five (number one has to be abortion, doesn't it?). In any case, Matthew Yglesias says much of what I might in deriding Confederate Heritage Month, so I'll let him take it away:

It seems that April is Confederate Heritage month. Why one would want to celebrate a heritage of violent rebellion against a democratically elected government in order to perpetuate a system of chattel slavery is a bit hard for me to say.

When I was growing up in New York City, for example, I don't remember any mass campaigns to celebrate the 1863 draft riots as the city's finest hour. The states of the Old Confederacy are hardly unique in that elements of their historical heritage involve discreditable treatment of African-Americans. But they do seem unusual in their insistence on celebrating these historical episodes and in insisting that portraying them in a positive light is integral to a proper understanding of their local identity. Even odder, as best I can tell these days (it was different in the past) most of the folks who like to wave the Confederate flag are perfectly genuine when they get offended that others see them as waving a banner of violent white supremacist ideology. But if that's not the ideology you mean to associate with, then why not drop the flag and adopt some less provocative emblem of Southern folkways?

I'll tell you one answer to that question: because it's all a house of cards, and because race is a factor in the overwhelming majority of these people's zeitgeists. Anyone who reads the secession statements of each of the states that declared war against the United States, and anyone who reads about the secession commissioners, knows exactly what the Confederacy was about. The South need not perpetually be burdened with the most shameful elements of its history except for when the region's most ardent apologists choose exactly those elements to celebrate. The question is not one of States' Rights, but rather of the States' Rights to do what?

Zim at the Africa Blog -- Self Indulgence Alert!

Perhaps this will help explain my relative silence here at dcat. I've been pretty occupied with the situation in Zimbabwe, in which rumors prevail over facts. My hopes are high if muted for change there, but my cynicism remains the prevailing force. Please go read if you have any interest whatsoever.

What's Good for the Goose

So -- can I get this straight? When John Kerry ran in 2004 and placed Vietnam as a central theme in his record, Republicans went after him for doing so, arguing essentially that that biography was either not relevant or somehow was an attempt to avoid discussing the issues. So now here we have John McCain, whose entire premise is that he is on a biography tour. Where is that same criticism? Os is it a matter of Republicans only embracing biography when their side's biographical records are under discussion?

Aye, I'm Back

Your faithful correspondent has returned from an enjoyable, productive, enentful, and exhausting trip to Scotland. I am in the process of trying to catch up (when my head hit the pillow last night I had been awake for more than 43 hours straight thanks to chaotic travel circumstances in Heathrow). Give me some time and I'll be back to my intermittently useful observations of the world surrounding us. When I do write I'll be focusing most of my time on the crisis in Zimbabwe at the Africa blog.

A Wee Sojourn

I am leaving this morning for a trip to Edinburgh, Scotland, where I'll be participating in the British Association of American Studies meeting. Blogging will be light to nonexistent until Tuesday. Have a great weekend and keep an eye on Saturday's election in Zimbabwe.

Spam For You, Spam For Me

Although this is a cumbersome and inefficient way to deal with a techie problem, if any of you have received emails from me that seemed really peculiar the reason is most likely because some sort of worm invaded my computer and has been sending emails to everyone in my address book. I have received more than a hundred emails showing that many of the deliveries failed, but I also know that many are getting through. I have no idea how to stop this or what the ramifications might be, so bear with me if you are one of the lucky ones whose spam firewall is not up to snuff. The irony is that the hijacker is a Chinese company (or says that it is) called "HonestestSeller." Honest(est)ly.

Obama and the Black Man's Burden

Derrick Z. Jackson of The Boston Globe addresses the dramatically overblown Obama-Wright-race issue in a generally perceptive column. From the conclusion:

Once again, America's white leaders play footsie with white intolerance while Obama was pressured to bring the nation the head of Jeremiah Wright. Once again, a black person holds the nation's bag of racial burdens. Whatever discussions Obama started across America with his speech, the fact that Huckabee and McCain offer more comfort to Obama than Clinton is evidence that at the top, the conversation is tongue-tied.

This situation will only hurt Obama among the camp of white voters looking for an excuse not to vote for Obama and for those who never would have voted for him in the first place. The former group might hurt him. The latter presumably will not.

Opening Day!

The Sox-A's season kickoff in Japan starts in just a minute or two. Perhaps you'll find this Jason Stark column on this brave new world we have entered in which the Sox are favorites and frontrunners and in which the pre-2004 mindset is a distant (unpleasant) memory. Opening Day should be a national holiday.

Play Ball!

[Hat Tip to the Thunderstick.]

The Not Out of Africa Debate Revisited

The Chronicle Review revisits the debate surrounding the work of Mary Lefkowitz whose challenges to Afrocentrism in the early 1990s became a cause celebre in academic circles. Lefkowitz contributes her own thoughts as well. These pieces are as much about academic controversies as about the case in particular, though readers interested in finding out about the debate will be given more than enough of a foundation.

The Red Sox Take Japan

As the Sox prepare to open their season against the A's in Japan Dan Shaughnessy has a lot of scattershot observations about the scene in Tokyo on the eve of the game. I'll be up and in front of the tv at 5:00 tomorrow morning to see Daisuke Matsuzaka kick off what I expect will be a sterling sophomore season.

Mocking Falwell

As a tenure-gift to himself, a friend recently published in a British horror-zine this horror-satire that is in no small part a mockery of Jerry Falwell's self-importance in building this monument. (By the way, an I just get it straight: It is not ok for Obama to be loyal to someone he has known for a long time but whose words he condemns, but it is ok for McCain to have once condemned Jerry Falwell, who makes Jeremiah Wright look like Pollyanna, but now to hold Falwell close to his bosom? How, exactly, does that work? I suppose it has something to do with those looking for an excuse to oppose the blacks also hating the gays, but the logic is just too Byzantine for me.)

The Oxford American on Sports

The Oxford American (which you should be reading) has devoted its latest issue to sports. Great writing + Sports = Yummy Goodness.

An Easter Gift You Should Buy Yourself

I hope you are all having a happy Easter. Why not buy yourself a holiday gift? I'd recommend my friend Matt Guenette's book of poetry, Sudden Anthem. The man is about to have a baby. The least you can do is buy a copy of his book to make sure the kid gets diapers and clothes!

Sox Take a Stand

While many of us partake of the secular holiday known in America as "March Madness" (look it up Brits, South Africans, and others) I thought I'd simply praise the Red Sox for taking a stand on behalf of their coaches and support staff (be sure to click on the video link at the top of the story from Bob Ryan's PTI-style show on NESN). Basically the players refused to play yesterday's exhibition game or to go to Japan without MLB following through on its promise to pay coaches and other personnel a $40,000 stipend for making the trip. The Sox since 2004 (when they voted record shares for non-players) are a far cry from the often unlikable Sox of the 1980s who notoriously shafted the little guys in their 1986 playoff shares and who were reknowned for being a "25 guys, 25 cabs" group.

(My Final Four are UCLA, Georgetown, Texas, and Carolina. Texas and Georgetown in the finals. Texas to win it all. Just a gut instinct. Now you can bet heavily against it happening. Enjoy the games.)

Obama, Wright, and Race

I have been mute on the Barack Obama-Jeremiah Wright imbroglio because, frankly, I was sick of it before the whole thing turned into the latest excuse for mock outrage. First, Obama's speech yesterday encapsulated everything I like and admire about the man. It was sophisticated and smart and powerful and inspiring and it will do little to dissuade those who are either looking for reasons not to support him or who, such as Republicans looking to win a general election in the fall, were never so interested in an Obama presidency in the first place.

Let's just say that I find the demand that Obama do more to separate himself from Wright and his church comical coming from at least two groups of people. First, if you are a Catholic, I do not want to hear it unless you have disavowed the entire Catholic Church after years of priests raping children, protecting those who did it, and covering up the crimes to begin with. Second, the Republican Party has largely suckled at the teat of the religious right for two decades now. And that religious right has spewed so much hatred it is hard to fathom where Wright's crimes alleged and real and that happen to have a foundation in some reality -- America's racial history is so loathsomely terrible it is hard to take seriously those who assert that Wright's assertions amount to racism -- rate, but they rate pretty low.

In any case, there is plenty of coverage of the Wright fiasco and Obama's response. The Washington Post had worthwhile pieces here,
here, and here. The New Republic asked several people to weigh in on the politically salient question of whether the speech was effective here and here. The New York Times' praiseful editorial is worth perusing, and naturally Andrew Sullivan has peppered The Daily Dish with Obama and Wright. And finally, I think one of the more thoughtful (and historically based) reflections, which came before Obama's speech, is Ralph Luker's Jeremiah, which the Atlanta Journal-Constitution republished in slightly modified form. The topic of the religious tradition in the black community plays right into Ralph's wheelhouse.

The Cold War and the Terrorist Threat: Self-Indulgence Alert

So it appears that the government is beginning to look to the Cold War to provide a model for how to combat terrorism. That seems like a sound idea. You know when it also seemed like a sound idea? In January 2006 when I proposed just such an idea in an op-ed distributed by History News Service.

Talking Wire

Over at The Atlantic online Mark Bowden, Jeffrey Goldberg, and Ross Douthat discuss The Wire in four segments.

Conservatism and the 1970s

The Chronicle Review has an article by historians Bruce Schulman and Julian Zelizer on the 1970s roots of modern conservatism. Here is a taste of the first three paragraphs:

Today is a puzzling time for American politics. In many ways, conservatism dominates the political landscape. Unilateralism and militarism seem to rule U.S. foreign policy, while in domestic affairs, Washington resists robust federal controls on energy consumption or greenhouse-gas emissions. The nation battles over creationism in the public schools and financing stem-cell research, and every few years, Republicans and Democrats scramble to cut taxes. The conservative President Ronald Reagan has become the iconic figure for the current generation of voters that the liberal eminence Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the 1950s and 1960s.

Yet conservatives' vulnerabilities sometimes appear as prominent as their strengths, and not just because of particular problems facing President Bush. The reality of "conservative" America is that the federal government remains a large presence in American life. When disasters strike, we turn to government. When we retire, we turn to government. When we face external threats, we turn to government. Republicans failed to curb the growth of federal spending between 2001 and 2007, when they controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. In fact the Republican leadership developed new forms of government, ranging from the No Child Left Behind Act in education to a sweeping domestic-surveillance program. Notwithstanding the hawkish rhetoric flowing out of Washington, Americans are not flocking to volunteer for the war effort in Iraq. Public opinion of the president's military programs remains at historically low levels. With all the talk about the power of the religious right, popular culture is replete with the brash sexuality that conservatives have repeatedly decried. Such racy material is just as popular in the so-called red states as it is in the coastal cities of New York and Los Angeles.

We can understand the current situation only by unraveling the origins of the conservative movement — and the incomplete revolution that took place in the 1970s. The 70s unlock the mysteries of today because the decade constituted a decisive turning point in American history and set the foundations for current debates. The policies, social movements, leaders, and institutional changes that emerged from that decade continue to define the American political scene.

Tootle is working on a book on the 1970s, and he is a conservative and a Republican, so I'd be curious to know what he thinks about their argument. I certainly agree with them that the 1970s represent a more vital decade than most historians and political and cultural critics have heretofore acknowledged (and Schulman has persistently made this case for some time now) and that it is a decade that warrants as much attention as the sexier 1960s even if its narrative isn't as seductive or easy to capture.

On Bill James

Last week Gordon Edes of the Boston Globe had a great feature on the incomparable Bill James, father of sabermetrics and Red Sox advisor. Just thought you ought to know.

Can They Do It?

Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe addresses the question that is on the lips of the entirety of Red Sox Nation: Can they repeat. His answer, which is hardly revelatory: It isn't an easy task to accomplish. The American League is once again stacked. The Red Sox are relying on player development, rather than free agency or trades, in their quest to win back-to-back World Series championships. This is smart from a long-range perspective but requires the development of the young guys to be steady rather than episodic. Still, the Sox seem built to contend for a long time, and that is all any fans can ask from their team.

The Never-Ending PED Controversy

There is so much hypocrisy, inconsistency, and overwrought fulmination over the supposed scourge of performance enhancing drugs in baseball that the critical mass of opinion has buried the ability of most observers to sit back and take a reasoned, rational look at the issue without the moralization snd mock outrage that characterizes the state of the debate. Malcolm Gladwell's recent postings on this issue at his blog are thus welcome. He has four salient posts, here, here, here, and here.

Sportsguy on An Athlete Dying Young

For a reminder of what Sportsguy is like when he is truly on, I would strongly recommend that you take a look at this article on the death of a high school athlete in Los Angeles. This is heartbreaking, essential reading.

Vegas Bound

The Southwest Social Science Association, under which the Southwest Historical Association is a constituent organization, is holding its annual meeting this week in Vegas. Mrs. dcat (who will be experiencing Vegas for the first time) and I are both presenting papers (and I'm chairing two panels), as is this guy. Posting may, I suspect, be light, though I'll recount any noteworthy shenanigans.

Supporting Torture, Diminishing the United States

So, apparently the President feels that we cannot win wars in which our strongest claim is that we are better than our enemies without doing things that cast into doubt whether we are actually better than our enemies. That is the message I draw, anyway, from President Bush's decision to veto a law that would have limited the CIA's ability to torture prisoners.

I really do not know what more there is to say. There was a time when the very idea of Americans engaging in such noxious practices inspired outrage. But too many have acquiesced. Does torture make us safer? Does it give us actionable intelligence? We have seen scant cases where either would be the case. in the meantime what we do is diminish ourselves while exposing our own troops to even worse treatment. I would just strongly encourage you all to read every one of the articles in the latest Washington Monthly, which is devoted to advocating stopping these policies. As long as this administration, which has done so much harm and so little good, is in power such cries will represent little more than lamentations. But a better day will come.

The Wire, RIP

I have not had much to say about The Wire's finale, at least in part because I needed some time to digest it (and to mourn just a little bit) and in part because my friends and I, especially the Thunderstick, have been writing back and forth about it a lot. Alow what follows to be episodic and suggestive. I'd be happy to continue the discussion in the comments if any of my readers are fans of the show.

My first impression is to step back from the final episode, in which we always place far too much freight any time a show comes to an end, to look at the series in its entirety. Whenever I have said that The Wire is the greatest show in human history, almost inarguably the greatest drama at the least, I imagine many of you simply assumed that was dcat hyperbole. It was not. The Wire operated on such a higher, richer, deeper plane than any other show that has ever been on television. When you put together the best writing, the best acting, and the best directing over five taut, interconnected seasons, you have the recipe for greatness.

The Wire is not for everyone. You have to watch from the outset and you have to give each season three or four episodes before the picture begins to become clear. But if you do that the payoff is greater than any television experience you will ever have. Buy, beg, borrow, rent, or steal season one.

I would also argue that from the midway point of season three through the finale of season four The Wire was at its best. I really loved this season, and was more willing to go along with two plotlines -- the exploration of the media and especially the Baltimore Sun and the role that the homeless killings played. I know that many felt that the Sun plot in particular did not work. I disagree, but I can see the argument. And I would agree inasmuch as that plotline did not feel as seamless as some of the others have in the past. And I think the reason for this is that David Simon and his cadre of writers were able to take critical distance from everything else in the show, whether the terraces and corners or the police or the docks or the politicians. But because of Simon's experiences with newspapers, and his profound disappointment with The Sun, he could never quite step back from that element of the show. But my argument to this, and it incorporates the homeless killings as well, was that in the end Simon's desire was to create a seamless show that depicted a holistic Baltimore, or as close to it as he could in the time he was allotted. And part of this holistic world had to include the role of the media, both as that media effects the outside world, but also its dysfunctional inner-workings.

So, what about that last episode? First off, I'd recommend that you go read the incomparable Alan Sepinwall's article on the final episode. Sepinwall is my favorite television critic and has been a huge fan of the show. And while you're at it, read Alessandra Stanley's summation in The New York Times. The Thunderstick and I disagree on my conclusion to some extent, but I believed before Sunday that the conclusion would ultimately conclude by reaffirming the mantra of the corners: The Game is the Game. Thunderstick does not think this was the final message, but I do. Not just the game on the corners, but the game in the offices of politicians and the corridors of the police administration and the cubicled rooms of the Sun and the alleys and bridges of the homeless -- the game is the game, and the game goes on. Thunderstick argues that he saw the possibility of change given the right people doing the right things, but for me it is clear that the odds are so long, the system so twisted, that to make the changes would require a systemic overhaul that the five seasons of the show plainly reveal to be impossible. The game is the game, and the game goes on.

As for specifics, you can find that sort of stuff with any Google search. You grow so deeply involved with the characters on a show like The Wire that love them or hate them (or, as is appropriate for the show, feel a whole range of emotions about each person), the investment is real. I was absolutely heartbroken -- I still am -- about what happened to Dukie, just as I was achingly happy for the small victory we see Bubbles earn in the final montage that managed to capture perfectly the fate of most of the show's characters, and by extension of the fate of Baltimore (and presumably inner-city America in general, though the show is arguably the most place-specific in television history).

There is talk of a movie or miniseries or even another season sometime down the road. I'd be thrilled if the principles signed on and if David Simon had the same mastery over the totality of the show. But for now I am taking some time to mourn and to remember before, sometime not so long from now, putting the first disc of season One in my dvd player and becoming involved in the heartbreaking, exasperating, devastating world of Bodymore, Murderland. The Game is the Game.

Holy Scheisse!

That was my immediate response after reading this post at The Spine:

I thought that a Ph.D. in the sciences having been bestowed on scholars from distinguished American universities would permit these men and women to call themselves doctor. Not so, at least in Germany.

Now seven scientists at the Max Planck Society's Institutes for Chemical Ecology (Jena) and for Gravitational Physics (Potsdam) with American Ph.D.s from Stanford, Caltech, University of Texas (Austin) and Cornell are facing charges under German federal law that might land them in jail for one year and sock them with a large fine. You see, under German law, the only Ph.D. that can certify a person as "doctor" is one that comes from an academic institution in the European Union. If your degree comes from a Maltese university (if there is one) you are a doctor with all the pretense and privileges that come with it. But if your doctorate comes from Caltech you are stuck.

This is, if I may say it, batshit crazy. Effectively the German government has decided that it can simply yank scholarly credentials from people who have earned their PhD. I do not even understand the rationale for this law. And I certainly do not understand imposing it against American scientists.

Amen, Bob Ryan

Brett Favre was a great player and very good both for the Green Bay Packers and for the NFL. But can we stop hyperventilating about him being one of the top five quarterbacks of all time? Bob Ryan writes some of the things I have been arguing for the last week or so. A sample:

Beyond that, I cannot rank Brett Favre much higher than 8 all-time, and that's just among the guys whose NFL careers began after 1970. I would definitely place John Elway, Joe Montana, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Dan Marino, Troy Aikman, and Steve Young ahead of him. Oh, and was he really better than either Dan Fouts or Warren Moon? Then you enter into another generation from the '50s, '60s, and '70s that includes Otto Graham, Johnny Unitas, Norm Van Brocklin, Y.A. Tittle, Bobby Layne, Roger Staubach, Fran Tarkenton, Terry Bradshaw, Sonny Jurgensen, and, of course, Starr. Favre was better than some of these guys, but not all. And if you really want to get historical, consider Sid Luckman, Sammy Baugh, and Frankie Albert. Let's just say Brett Favre should be honored to be in their company.

That seems about right to me. Favre was a great player. And it is no insult to be one of the greatest of all time. But anything beyond that is hyperbole derived of presentism.

The Africa Blog: An Announcement (Self Indulgence Alert!)

In order to rationalize and expand upon the Foreign Policy Association's coverage of Africa, the FPA has started a new blog with roots extending from the South Africa Blog. The Africa Blog will cover both continentwide issues as well as regional and country concerns. I will be the senior editor/blogger at the Africa blog while continuing my work here at the South Africa Blog.

This change will allow the South Africa Blog blog to emphasize South African issues more specifically while still giving both the FPA and me a voice on larger African affairs. The biggest change will likely come in the fact that within the next few days I will shift coverage of Zimbabwe to the Africa blog. I hope that you will read and engage with both blogs.

Is McCain a Lightweight?

A pretty reasonable case can be made that John McCain is something of a lightweight on domestic policies. But, we're told, that does not matter because he is strong on foreign policy. And Republicans want to convince us that we'll finally get the leadership that we need in Iraq. But not so fast says Steve Chapman at Real Clear Politics.

McCain is getting the kid glove treatment from the media because, well, he won the GOP nomination while the Democrats seem to be in some sort of cage match. But there is a long time yet to go, and McCain will get his chance to face scrutiny. Don't be surprised to discover that beneath the gravitas there is not too much policy substance. And that may be ok -- McCain is a good and honorable man and would almost certainly be better than what preceded him as president (yeah, I know, 'soft bigotry of low expectations"). But in a campaign that will be based on judgment and experience I think we have a right to ask about the judgments he made and what he has done with that experience.

George Fredrickson and Stanley Trapido Obituaries

Recently I wrote about the passing of George Fredrickson, emphasizing the role he played in my own intellectual development. Here is his New York Times obituary.

Another leading South African historian, Stanley Trapido, who left South Africa after the Sharpevile Massacre in 1960 and became a lecturer at Oxford, also died recently. You can find his obituary in The Guardian here.

Hamba kahle, gentlemen.

(Crossposted at the South Africa Blog.)

Higher Education and The Wire

At The Chronicle of Higher Education's blog, Brainstorm, Mark Bousquet makes a pretty nifty comparison between the world depicted in The Wire (the greatest show in the history of television, which will, sadly, air its final episode on Sunday night) with the administrative culture of higher education.

Hat Tip to my colleague, JLag.

The Memoir Trap

It's frustrating enough being a writer with pretensions toward big-time aspirations without having to read about the recent spate of memoirs shown to be fraudulent, including, most recently, Margaret Seltzer's Love and Consequences, which gives grim but apparently false detail about growing up as a foster child and gang member in South-Central Los Angeles.

So, what's going on here? It seems like the first problem is with the publishing industry itself. There is something awry about a culture so awash in memoir, that so privileges first-person accounts over verifiable non-fiction. In their quest for the next James Frey (oops) publishers have come to privilege memoir over almost every other genre. What seems quite clear is that many of these books have relied almost wholly on their first-person vantage point for their appeal, as it seems evident that many of them would not have passed muster as fiction, and yet once we discover that they also do not work as nonfiction, what do we have? (And yes, I realize that Bleeding Red shared at least some of the attributes of memoir, but even a cursory reading indicates that it was something a bit different.)

Writing good nonfiction is hard work. The craft is every bit as difficult as writing fiction with the added burden of owing fealty to evidence. Perhaps my favorite historian, C. Vann Woodward, wrote in his preface to the first edition of The Strange Career of Jim Crow, "The twilight zone that lies between living memory and written history is one of the favorite breeding places of mythology." Would that more publishers would keep this wisdom in mind the next time they think they have struck it rich with the next groundbreaking memoir.

Celtic Pride

Jackie MacMullen of The Boston Globe has a great article on last night's huge Celtic win over the Pistons. With each passing week there seem to be fewer and fewer reasons to doubt this Celtics team, but from a national perspective one need only flip over to ESPN to find those doubters, whether in the form of the perpetually shouting Stephen A. Smith, who apparently thinks that volume equals veracity, or the Jay Mariottis of this world. The east is not as strong as the west in the NBA, that is obvious, but I am willing to assert that the top of the East is as good or better than the top of the west. In two weeks the C's will take a trip through Texas that will reveal more about what sort of team they really can be, but it seems to me that they have proven that they are the best team in the league right now, a claim that means little in the long run, but that has to mean something.

Super-Self-Indulgence Alert: On Zimbabwe at the South Africa Blog

Things have been busy at the South Africa Blog where the biggest issue has been Simba Makoni's quest to unseat Robert Mugabe. What once appeared to be a quixotic lark suddenly seems like, well, a quixotic lark that might just have a chance were it not for the fact that Mugabe will assuredly find a way either to crush Makoni or simply to steal the election if it is not going his way. At the risk of being accused of egoism run amok, the South Africa Blog has probably had as consistent coverage of the events in Zimbabwe as any source in the United States. I hope you will check it out, as this story is vitally important for the health of Zimbabwe, even if we likely know how this story ends.

Post-Nouveau Super Tuesday Assessments

Well, yesterday's primaries threw yet another wrench in what is turning out to be a remarkable election. Hillary emerges as the big winner if you, like me, agree that McCain's victories were a foregone conclusion.

Nonetheless, Hillary still faces some harsh realities when it comes to the arithmetic of the primaries. The reality is that Obama's lead is not likely to fade easily if at all, and Hillary will almost certainly have to rely on this year's kingmakers (queenmakers?) the mysterious and powerful superdelegates.

Meanwhile the analysis comes fast and furious. At Slate Jeff Greenfield compares the Democratic candidates to Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. At The New Republic Eric Rauchway tells Democrats to look to the 1912 election (while TNR's Plank has its usual blast-fax coverage). And of course there is going to be no paucity of Democrats Divided talk (dramatically overstated, I think) and parsing the race v. gender fracture (which I weighed in on last month.

What we actually know is this: The Democratic race will continue, Obama is in the lead, and all of these discussions will move forward as well. Yes, John McCain can now campaign against the Democrats, but all of the attention will still be on Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. And any advantage McCain might get in terms of the ability to knock down his opponents will long since be neutralized by the time the summer rolls around. besides, turnout in the primaries has consistently favored the Democrats. If whoever emerges as the frontrunner can rally that turnout, the interest in the primaries may well redound to the benefit of the Democratic nominee. In a sense, then, all yesterday did was allow for a maintenance of the status quo ante.

On to Pennsylvania.

Super Tuesday, Redux

For all intents and purposes today's voting in Texas and Ohio (and Rhode Island and Vermont) represents Super Tuesday redux. Barack Obama could put this contest away, or Hillary Clinton could mount a comeback that will all but guarantee a brokered convention. Even if that happens, however, I think it is far too simplistic to break the Democratic race down into the meme of a party divided. It does not strike me that the Democratic Party's fissures are anything remotely comparable to those that divide Republicans. The Democrats just happen to be lucky enough to have two strong candidates that appeal to elements of the party. But one can easily envision a scenario whereby Dems rally behind whichever of these historic candidates emerges as the winner even if a large swath of conservatives find themselves having to hold their nose and pull the proverbial lever for McCain (or else choose a third-party social conservative if one emerges).

For my money, the best political coverage can be found at The Washington Post. Nonetheless, I'd also check out The Plank, Andrew Sullivan, The New York Times -- you know, the usual suspects.

My gut instinct is to say that Obama will pull out Texas (and likely Vermont), Hillary will claim Ohio (and possibly Rhode Island), but just barely, and the debate about whether Clinton should withdraw, which is already a ubiquitous subtext, will accelerate. It will be this issue, not the putative differences between Clinton and Obama, that runs the risk of getting ugly. If Clinton withdraws gracefully, one can imagine her in a number of scenarios, none of which plausibly includes her sitting at Vice president. I could certainly see Clinton becoming a lion of the senate. But is it too farfetched to imagine Obama nominating her for a vacancy on the Supreme Court? What about Secretary of State? Of course if Hillary fights to the bitter end, she will almost certainly guarantee that she will play no role in a potential Obama administration.

I now have to cross the street from campus to head to Nimitz Junior High to cast my vote. This is a vote that I never imagined would be anything but a symbolic gesture, falling as it does in the primary fight.

Knocking Down Down Goldberg

Some of you may enjoy this takedown of Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism by Michael Tomasky in The New Republic and this one from Austin Bramwell in The American Conservative. I did. I'm hoping for my opportunity to write about this truly bad book and awful use of history (yes, I've read enough to be able to assert as much categorically), but I am not certain what the odds are that it will happen.

The NBA Race for MVP

Over at The Boston Globe the always-reliable and often-great Peter May makes the case for why Kevin Garnett ought to be the NBA MVP. A sample:

If you want to give the MVP to the guy with the best numbers on a pretty good team, then Garnett is not your guy. If you want to give it to the best player on the best team, to an individual who has transformed a franchise and brought the word "defense" into the daily discourse without the need for a laugh track, then he still has to warrant serious consideration.

MVP debates in most sports often come down to the same definitional dilemma: What do we mean by "Most Valuable." Some people simply argue that the MVP ought to go to the best player. Others try to parse what "valuable" means, especially in terms of a guy's value to his team. I have always believed that it would be appropriate to have an MVP and a Player of the Year award, even if in many years the award might well go to the same guy.

As for this year's debate, there is no doubting that LeBron is a singular talent. And Kobe is having another year of gaudy numbers on a very good team in the tougher conference. But it seems to me that Kevin Garnett has been the difference-maker in taking the Celtics from the dregs of the East to the best record in the NBA, and he has made the Celtics a great defensive team while still racking up offensive numbers. I'd rather have the C's win and other people take home the individual hardware. Nonetheless, I'd give LeBron Player of the year if such an award existed. But Garnett gets my vote for MVP.