Here is a good effort from Breitbart to document there being reports of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11, backing up the gist of what Trump said.
Anyone who has access to Lexis-Nexis should search it to find reports that are not going to be on the internet -- small local newspapers, for instance. I don't have access at the moment, but most public libraries and research libraries do. If you're a student, you definitely have access. I might do it when I have the time, but others should start in the meantime.
You want to search all newspapers, not just the major ones. Restrict the date to 9/11/2001 through... I don't know, the end of the month, or year? Then search for terms like "World Trade Center" and "Muslims" and "Jersey". If that open-ended search gives too many results to skim, narrow it down by adding "celebrating" or "cheering" or "dancing" or etc.
With all the examples that are turning up from people scouring the internet, there are bound to be many more from established newspapers that can only be searched with Lexis-Nexis.
All the Trump haters are trying to bury these reports or spin them so that it wasn't really a big deal -- so it was only dozens or maybe hundreds, but not "thousands and thousands" like Trump said. Across all the various sites where celebrations took place, maybe it was thousands.
But even if not, the real number to pay attention to is the probability that a Muslim in Jersey City (or wherever) celebrated the 9/11 destruction, when they had the opportunity to. We must compare the number of actual Muslim celebrators on 9/11 to the total number who could have done so. This tells us how likely they were to cheer on a massive terrorist attack on their host nation.
The numerator of the fraction is however many celebrators there were. Let's say it was in the hundreds across the entire city, given reports of "tailgate" style parties.
For the denominator, let's take Paterson, NJ, home to the second-largest Muslim population in America, and one of the sites named in the reports of 9/11 celebrators. Wikipedia says its Muslim population is 25,000 to 30,000 -- I'll put it at 20,000 back in 2001, since we're talking before the massive immigration of the 2000s.
Now, not all of them were free to celebrate by dancing and holding a tailgate party -- some were in school, some were too old and frail, and some were toddlers. According to the 2000 Census for New Jersey, people aged 20 to 69 made up 30% of the population, and I'll assume it was similar for the Muslims. This leaves 6,000 Muslims aged 20 to 69.
But remember that the two towers were struck from 8:45 to 9:00 on a Tuesday morning, meaning most of the celebrating would be during work hours. I also doubt that eyewitnesses would have seen very much after it got somewhat dark, so again the celebrations would have taken place during the work day -- and possibly more at night that eyewitnesses could not detect just walking or driving around.
The BLS says the labor force participation rate for 2000 was 67%, and it was probably lower for Muslims in New Jersey. Perhaps 50% to 60%. That leaves 40% to 50% left to celebrate, or between 2,400 and 3000 people.
If there were even 30 Muslims in Paterson celebrating on 9/11, that would be at least 1% of all who could have done so. If the various parties added up to the low hundreds, say 300, that would be a mindblowing rate of 10%. It must have been somewhere in that range.
You may think that a chance of 1 in 100 or 1 in 10 isn't that high -- but we shouldn't take this probability in isolation. We should compare to other Americans, whether founding-stock whites, immigrants, other non-Christian groups (Hindus), etc. As far as I've heard, none of these other groups held outdoor celebrations in the wake of the two towers coming down.
The entire US population in 2000 was 282 million -- so perhaps there were a handful around the country who escaped notice, for a rate of maybe 1 in 10 million or 1 in 100 million? In other words, Muslims in Paterson were "only" about a million times more likely than the rest of us to openly celebrate the destruction of the World Trade Center.
This is all back-of-the-envelope stuff here, so maybe they'll turn out to be "only" 10,000 times more likely than the rest of us.
And 1 in 10 or 1 in 100 is not a "low" rate, for the kind of act we're talking about. Not that they inwardly felt neither grief nor excitement -- but outwardly cheering on the largest terrorist attack on America. Imagine a mosque in Paterson with 100 regular members -- then somewhere between 1 and 10 of these seemingly innocent regular religious attenders from the neighborhood would have revealed themselves to be traitors. That's the thanks we get for letting them into our country.
Even among those who did not celebrate openly, some fraction would have been sympathetic but lacked the nerve or felt enough shame not to dance in the streets during 9/11. It could be up to half or more of the Muslim population there who are bitterly hostile toward their host nation.
And even if they don't go on to blow up another airliner and skyscraper, those aren't the kind of people we want in our communities. They are incapable of integrating, and will corrode whatever sense of trust, norms, and togetherness we may have.
Not that there's a whole lot of trust and solidarity to destroy in New Jersey -- but opening the floodgates of immigration is only going to make it worse (see Robert Putnam's study on diversity weakening trust in communities). And certainly the rest of the country, where there are strong communities, does not need a single Muslim immigrant. And those who are already there may be hostile to their host community, and some may need to be kept an eye on.
All journalists are innumerate, so I don't expect them to understand the need to focus on a probability rather than a count, let alone how to work with fractions and make use of publicly available data. They get paid too much money to use their brain.
But what's really disgusting is how they're trying to whitewash the whole thing from history. Do your part and go search Lexis-Nexis to add to the growing list of reports of Muslims in America (especially New Jersey) celebrating on 9/11.
December 2, 2015
December 1, 2015
Movie theater experience less powerful with new seating style
When I caught Spectre this weekend, it was the first time I'd been to one of those movie theaters with Starbucks seating -- large comfy recliners in a variety of arrangements, some adjacent all the way down the row, some in a pair (like a loveseat with an optional armrest divider), and some singletons. Kind of like this:
Not a fan of the new seating style (but you already knew that).
The overly comfy recliners made my body feel like I'm at a friend's house watching a late-night movie on TV or VHS, kind of getting prepared to doze off. After a brief experiment with the recliner part up, I kept it down for the rest of the movie.
Overstuffed furniture also keeps you from ever getting that "edge of your seat" feeling. How are you supposed to resonate with the on-screen tension when you're sunken into a cushion-cloud? Worse when the chairs are highback and give you a nice comfy headrest to fall asleep against.
Aside from the construction of the seats, allowing some of the arrangement to be singleton seats and isolated loveseats weakened the feeling of all the audience being part of the same group (unless you were in the traditional row section). It didn't cancel it out, but being that spread-out does take away from the "all in the same boat" experience.
That, too, made it feel more like a teenage sleepover, more informal, where there's a couple people over here, a couple people over there, some others back over there. Not like a more formal and close-together seating arrangement for what's supposed to be a more group-bonding experience than a sleepover -- the pews in a church, the bleachers in a sports stadium.
Attending church services or a football game is not an ordinary experience, and does not take place in an ordinary setting. It's only fitting that the seating be outside of the ordinary as well. Going to the movies is supposed to be that way too -- taking place outside of the home, with seating suited to "audience attending a performance" rather than "group of folks just hanging around," where they're more focused on each other than on the movie.
In short, making the movie theater feel like home makes the experience feel less special, less powerful, and less memorable. It's not unlike the drive-in craze of the cocooning Midcentury. Cocooners just feel too awkward being out in public, so they make the owners of public places re-shape them to feel more like home.
The high points for watching movies as part of a superorganic audience were low points for cocooning behavior -- the 1920s and the 1980s. In the former time, it was the heyday of the "picture palace," while in the latter it was the "multiplex," both attempts at creating a larger-than-life spectacle of the place where we went to the movies.
Central to both types of theaters, or even the relatively more mundane one-screen theaters of the Midcentury, was the seating. Arranged in rows, enough upholstery on the seat and the back to make it comfortable without feeling comfy, backs high enough to support the shoulders but not a sleepy neck and head, shallow seats that everyone can feel on the edge of, and no damn cupholders on the arms.
Cupholders on a chair's arm does make it feel out of the ordinary, but not in the right way. It makes it seem like the purpose of going to the movie theater is to fill up on junk food, rather than to watch a performance. Going to the movies is supposed to stimulate your fight-or-flight system, not rest-and-digest.
While the overall architecture of the picture palaces may be superior, I actually prefer the spatial layout of the multiplex, which feels like a Gothic castle (or so I imagine) -- first a grand entrance where folks mill around, then a trek down one of several dark tunnel-like hallways, settling into one of many large private chambers for a shared spectacle with the lights off, and then when the movie's over retracing your path during the cognitive and emotional decompression. We need that winding-down experience after a good cathartic movie, not just walking straight out the exit door and emerging instantly back into the ordinary world.
How many other experiences, whether everyday or special, lead you through that kind of layout? If Netflix and Redbox kill off the multiplexes, we are going to lose the only place we have to navigate a dimly lit labyrinth in an enjoyable way.
Not a fan of the new seating style (but you already knew that).
The overly comfy recliners made my body feel like I'm at a friend's house watching a late-night movie on TV or VHS, kind of getting prepared to doze off. After a brief experiment with the recliner part up, I kept it down for the rest of the movie.
Overstuffed furniture also keeps you from ever getting that "edge of your seat" feeling. How are you supposed to resonate with the on-screen tension when you're sunken into a cushion-cloud? Worse when the chairs are highback and give you a nice comfy headrest to fall asleep against.
Aside from the construction of the seats, allowing some of the arrangement to be singleton seats and isolated loveseats weakened the feeling of all the audience being part of the same group (unless you were in the traditional row section). It didn't cancel it out, but being that spread-out does take away from the "all in the same boat" experience.
That, too, made it feel more like a teenage sleepover, more informal, where there's a couple people over here, a couple people over there, some others back over there. Not like a more formal and close-together seating arrangement for what's supposed to be a more group-bonding experience than a sleepover -- the pews in a church, the bleachers in a sports stadium.
Attending church services or a football game is not an ordinary experience, and does not take place in an ordinary setting. It's only fitting that the seating be outside of the ordinary as well. Going to the movies is supposed to be that way too -- taking place outside of the home, with seating suited to "audience attending a performance" rather than "group of folks just hanging around," where they're more focused on each other than on the movie.
In short, making the movie theater feel like home makes the experience feel less special, less powerful, and less memorable. It's not unlike the drive-in craze of the cocooning Midcentury. Cocooners just feel too awkward being out in public, so they make the owners of public places re-shape them to feel more like home.
The high points for watching movies as part of a superorganic audience were low points for cocooning behavior -- the 1920s and the 1980s. In the former time, it was the heyday of the "picture palace," while in the latter it was the "multiplex," both attempts at creating a larger-than-life spectacle of the place where we went to the movies.
Central to both types of theaters, or even the relatively more mundane one-screen theaters of the Midcentury, was the seating. Arranged in rows, enough upholstery on the seat and the back to make it comfortable without feeling comfy, backs high enough to support the shoulders but not a sleepy neck and head, shallow seats that everyone can feel on the edge of, and no damn cupholders on the arms.
Cupholders on a chair's arm does make it feel out of the ordinary, but not in the right way. It makes it seem like the purpose of going to the movie theater is to fill up on junk food, rather than to watch a performance. Going to the movies is supposed to stimulate your fight-or-flight system, not rest-and-digest.
While the overall architecture of the picture palaces may be superior, I actually prefer the spatial layout of the multiplex, which feels like a Gothic castle (or so I imagine) -- first a grand entrance where folks mill around, then a trek down one of several dark tunnel-like hallways, settling into one of many large private chambers for a shared spectacle with the lights off, and then when the movie's over retracing your path during the cognitive and emotional decompression. We need that winding-down experience after a good cathartic movie, not just walking straight out the exit door and emerging instantly back into the ordinary world.
How many other experiences, whether everyday or special, lead you through that kind of layout? If Netflix and Redbox kill off the multiplexes, we are going to lose the only place we have to navigate a dimly lit labyrinth in an enjoyable way.
November 30, 2015
Spectre: A two-and-a-half-hour music video cycle (not bad)
I allowed myself to get dragged to the movies with family over Thanksgiving weekend, since I'd heard that the new James Bond movie, Spectre, wasn't as bad as the last couple. I'd only seen the Pierce Brosnan ones before, and pieces of the Connery and Moore movies on TV over the years. Not going in with high expectations, I still didn't mind the experience.
The acting was OK, the storytelling implausible and forced in many places, and the cinematography too bleak (not unlike Interstellar, which the D.P. also shot). But the score is viscerally engaging, placed into the foreground of the experience, and lasts for over two-thirds of the movie (100 minutes of music during the 148-minute running time).
It's hard to nitpick the plot, characters, and cinematography in what amounts to a cinematic take on the overwrought music video form circa 1990. The dialog, acting, etc., is just that one-third of the really long video where the director tries to make it larger than life, with honest-to-God actors in addition to the music playing.
The movie is not treated as one single long video, either, but more of a cycle of videos that are only loosely related by narrative. Breaking the movie down into a series of shorter, more easily digestible videos made the running time fly by, whereas mediocre action movies feel bogged down after 90 minutes.
In a welcome change, the locations, set design, and costumes were not used to turn the movie into one long metrosexual ad campaign from GQ, but more to set the mood for one of those music videos that shoots in exotic locations just 'cuz.
The only down-note was the dispensable music video over the opening credits. It was flamboyantly homosexual, decadent, and full of falsetto, making a horrible contrast with the opening action scene where Bond stalks an assassin while tribal percussive music plays.
And as it happens, this one must be the gayest Bond production of all time. Open gays include the singer of the theme song, Sam Smith; the screenwriter John Logan; and actors Ben Whishaw (Q) and Andrew Scott (C). Blind Gossip ran an item about the actress playing the lead Bond girl, Lea Seydoux, being a lesbian (other than having a wasp waist, she had no sex appeal). Daniel Craig has gay rumors surrounding him, has zero chemistry with any woman in the movie, and is sporting the closest thing to a gay-whoosh hair-do that the producers will allow James Bond to wear. Director Sam Mendes seems like a huge closet case (also directed homoerotic American Beauty starring not-so-closeted Kevin Spacey). Actor Christoph Waltz (the main villain) shows a decent level of gayface on Google Images, as does Ralph Fiennes, who may have pioneered the gay-whoosh trend back in Schindler's List.
I mention all this to show that despite the Young Republican level of gay influences, Spectre wound up basically watchable and entertaining, albeit as a series of music videos rather than a proper movie.
Sometime I might torture myself by watching Skyfall, which was made by largely the same team with about the same level of gayness going into it, only with Javier Bardem being the closeted gay actor playing the villain (the character himself being a bit less closeted). I haven't heard great things about the score, so I'm assuming that it won't follow the music video cycle approach that Spectre did. That would leave only the toxic levels of homoeroticism typical of 21st-century blockbusters -- no thanks.
I've been wanting the music video medium to make a comeback, so we can enjoy a little visual storytelling while being engaged by music we haven't heard before, with the narrative elements being an after-thought. Now that Hollywood screenwriters can't seem to write good dialog, characters, and plot, they might as well take a back seat to the composers and cinematographers. Once the ability comes back, then shift the focus back toward storytelling.
And really, what other than a James Bond movie lends itself so naturally to being a series of music videos shot on exotic locations, featuring models, and mostly dispensing with narrative? If they took this way forward (and removed the gay elements), I'd be a regular viewer for sure.
The acting was OK, the storytelling implausible and forced in many places, and the cinematography too bleak (not unlike Interstellar, which the D.P. also shot). But the score is viscerally engaging, placed into the foreground of the experience, and lasts for over two-thirds of the movie (100 minutes of music during the 148-minute running time).
It's hard to nitpick the plot, characters, and cinematography in what amounts to a cinematic take on the overwrought music video form circa 1990. The dialog, acting, etc., is just that one-third of the really long video where the director tries to make it larger than life, with honest-to-God actors in addition to the music playing.
The movie is not treated as one single long video, either, but more of a cycle of videos that are only loosely related by narrative. Breaking the movie down into a series of shorter, more easily digestible videos made the running time fly by, whereas mediocre action movies feel bogged down after 90 minutes.
In a welcome change, the locations, set design, and costumes were not used to turn the movie into one long metrosexual ad campaign from GQ, but more to set the mood for one of those music videos that shoots in exotic locations just 'cuz.
The only down-note was the dispensable music video over the opening credits. It was flamboyantly homosexual, decadent, and full of falsetto, making a horrible contrast with the opening action scene where Bond stalks an assassin while tribal percussive music plays.
And as it happens, this one must be the gayest Bond production of all time. Open gays include the singer of the theme song, Sam Smith; the screenwriter John Logan; and actors Ben Whishaw (Q) and Andrew Scott (C). Blind Gossip ran an item about the actress playing the lead Bond girl, Lea Seydoux, being a lesbian (other than having a wasp waist, she had no sex appeal). Daniel Craig has gay rumors surrounding him, has zero chemistry with any woman in the movie, and is sporting the closest thing to a gay-whoosh hair-do that the producers will allow James Bond to wear. Director Sam Mendes seems like a huge closet case (also directed homoerotic American Beauty starring not-so-closeted Kevin Spacey). Actor Christoph Waltz (the main villain) shows a decent level of gayface on Google Images, as does Ralph Fiennes, who may have pioneered the gay-whoosh trend back in Schindler's List.
I mention all this to show that despite the Young Republican level of gay influences, Spectre wound up basically watchable and entertaining, albeit as a series of music videos rather than a proper movie.
Sometime I might torture myself by watching Skyfall, which was made by largely the same team with about the same level of gayness going into it, only with Javier Bardem being the closeted gay actor playing the villain (the character himself being a bit less closeted). I haven't heard great things about the score, so I'm assuming that it won't follow the music video cycle approach that Spectre did. That would leave only the toxic levels of homoeroticism typical of 21st-century blockbusters -- no thanks.
I've been wanting the music video medium to make a comeback, so we can enjoy a little visual storytelling while being engaged by music we haven't heard before, with the narrative elements being an after-thought. Now that Hollywood screenwriters can't seem to write good dialog, characters, and plot, they might as well take a back seat to the composers and cinematographers. Once the ability comes back, then shift the focus back toward storytelling.
And really, what other than a James Bond movie lends itself so naturally to being a series of music videos shot on exotic locations, featuring models, and mostly dispensing with narrative? If they took this way forward (and removed the gay elements), I'd be a regular viewer for sure.
November 26, 2015
Transplant-ism breaking down large family reunions on Thanksgiving
It's striking how many Facebook posts and pictures I've seen, for years now, about 20-somethings having Thanksgiving dinner by themselves / with their partner / with their friends.
I searched Google Images for recent Thanksgiving pictures, and even when you do see a family, it's usually of a single nuclear family, not an extended family. And even the handful of extended family pictures tend not to include both a vertical and horizontal dimension -- including as many generations as possible, and as many siblings and cousins within a generation. Maybe there's a grandparent, one of their children, and their grandchildren through them -- but not all their children and all grandchildren. Or maybe there's a large group of middle-aged siblings and their children, but no grandparents.
I attribute this to the transplant phenomenon, which has grown during the status-striving climate of the past 30-40 years. It's not related to the cocooning trend, since Midcentury pictures of Thanksgiving all show extended families, vertically and horizontally around the family tree.
The Greatest Generation didn't move far away from their hometown, while the Me Generation (Silents and Boomers) left for greener pastures in the career world. Gen X-ers and Millennials are leaving for a different reason -- greener pastures for lifestyle striving (Portland, Brooklyn) -- but still to pursue individual status at the expense of duties to one's community (there's only one -- the one where you were raised).
This not only separates generations but also family members within the same generation -- one careerist sibling may head north, another south, another east, and another west. One lifestyle or persona striver from Iowa may head off to Portland, and another to Brooklyn.
And it's not always easy to simply re-trace the transplant paths. If the Greatest Gen member lives in a small town or rural area, which was way more common in the pre-striver era, it will be hard for the urban and suburban Boomer children to all make it back, let alone the grandchildren who are even more urban-dwelling. The nearest airport may be awhile away. That puts the onus on the Greatest Gen member to head for the suburbs of their Me Gen children, which in their old age they may figure isn't worth it (although mine did, up through their 60s).
When there was only one generation of transplants, it wasn't so difficult to get everybody together. But now that the second generation, too, are transplanting, there's another degree of scattering. My hunch also says that the careerist transplants didn't move as far away from their hometowns as the lifestyle strivers do. Both of these mean that the problem has accelerated over time, and has probably only become noticeable during the past 10-20 years, as the Gen X-ers and later the Millennials began to transplant away from their transplant parents.
My memories of Thanksgiving in the '80s still included most of the extended family, aside from an uncle and his wife who moved Out West awhile ago (my cousins through them were absent, too). For those of my mother's siblings who stayed in the general region, it was common to see all the aunts and uncles, as well as the cousins, and of course the grandparents on that side. But those get-togethers involved one-way travel times of at most three hours by car for all involved, and usually under two hours. You could travel there and back in the same day, so nobody needed to put you up.
Contrast with today, where transplants spend seven or eight hours door-to-door, one-way, and will have to be put up for one or more nights.
There's another way in which the lifestyle strivers seem to be making things worse. Since they're foodies, meals are a fashion contest, and fashion corrodes tradition. So why would a foodie want to trek all the way back to family, just to have the same old things for Thanksgiving? They would rather spend Thanksgiving alone and pick up a pre-made dinner from Whole Foods, as long as they put sriracha in the stuffing. That's something you could post to Facebook for status points -- not whatever your non-foodie parents would have prepared.
And of course lifestyle strivers would want to show off whatever trendy plates, glasses, and silverware they've bought in the past month. You can't do that if you're eating at a family member's house, where you can't bring your own trendoid items and would have to post Facebook pictures that showed your host's IKEA place settings from the '90s.
* * * * *
I'll be thankful for being able to share Thanksgiving with four generations for the first time in a long while, and for having had this kind of Thanksgiving during my formative years. Here are some reminders of how extensive the family relations were not so long ago, one from real life and another from Hannah and Her Sisters.
I searched Google Images for recent Thanksgiving pictures, and even when you do see a family, it's usually of a single nuclear family, not an extended family. And even the handful of extended family pictures tend not to include both a vertical and horizontal dimension -- including as many generations as possible, and as many siblings and cousins within a generation. Maybe there's a grandparent, one of their children, and their grandchildren through them -- but not all their children and all grandchildren. Or maybe there's a large group of middle-aged siblings and their children, but no grandparents.
I attribute this to the transplant phenomenon, which has grown during the status-striving climate of the past 30-40 years. It's not related to the cocooning trend, since Midcentury pictures of Thanksgiving all show extended families, vertically and horizontally around the family tree.
The Greatest Generation didn't move far away from their hometown, while the Me Generation (Silents and Boomers) left for greener pastures in the career world. Gen X-ers and Millennials are leaving for a different reason -- greener pastures for lifestyle striving (Portland, Brooklyn) -- but still to pursue individual status at the expense of duties to one's community (there's only one -- the one where you were raised).
This not only separates generations but also family members within the same generation -- one careerist sibling may head north, another south, another east, and another west. One lifestyle or persona striver from Iowa may head off to Portland, and another to Brooklyn.
And it's not always easy to simply re-trace the transplant paths. If the Greatest Gen member lives in a small town or rural area, which was way more common in the pre-striver era, it will be hard for the urban and suburban Boomer children to all make it back, let alone the grandchildren who are even more urban-dwelling. The nearest airport may be awhile away. That puts the onus on the Greatest Gen member to head for the suburbs of their Me Gen children, which in their old age they may figure isn't worth it (although mine did, up through their 60s).
When there was only one generation of transplants, it wasn't so difficult to get everybody together. But now that the second generation, too, are transplanting, there's another degree of scattering. My hunch also says that the careerist transplants didn't move as far away from their hometowns as the lifestyle strivers do. Both of these mean that the problem has accelerated over time, and has probably only become noticeable during the past 10-20 years, as the Gen X-ers and later the Millennials began to transplant away from their transplant parents.
My memories of Thanksgiving in the '80s still included most of the extended family, aside from an uncle and his wife who moved Out West awhile ago (my cousins through them were absent, too). For those of my mother's siblings who stayed in the general region, it was common to see all the aunts and uncles, as well as the cousins, and of course the grandparents on that side. But those get-togethers involved one-way travel times of at most three hours by car for all involved, and usually under two hours. You could travel there and back in the same day, so nobody needed to put you up.
Contrast with today, where transplants spend seven or eight hours door-to-door, one-way, and will have to be put up for one or more nights.
There's another way in which the lifestyle strivers seem to be making things worse. Since they're foodies, meals are a fashion contest, and fashion corrodes tradition. So why would a foodie want to trek all the way back to family, just to have the same old things for Thanksgiving? They would rather spend Thanksgiving alone and pick up a pre-made dinner from Whole Foods, as long as they put sriracha in the stuffing. That's something you could post to Facebook for status points -- not whatever your non-foodie parents would have prepared.
And of course lifestyle strivers would want to show off whatever trendy plates, glasses, and silverware they've bought in the past month. You can't do that if you're eating at a family member's house, where you can't bring your own trendoid items and would have to post Facebook pictures that showed your host's IKEA place settings from the '90s.
* * * * *
I'll be thankful for being able to share Thanksgiving with four generations for the first time in a long while, and for having had this kind of Thanksgiving during my formative years. Here are some reminders of how extensive the family relations were not so long ago, one from real life and another from Hannah and Her Sisters.
November 25, 2015
Minimum wage history: New Deal required closing immigration to strengthen civic cohesion
An earlier post looked at the history of income tax rates, which rose only after the country became more ethnically homogeneous. The foreign-born part of the population began to steadily decline after a peak around 1910, whereas income tax rates didn't start climbing until ten years later during the '20s, when immigration was closed down. Only with an increasingly similar population would voters support taking on higher income taxes -- they wouldn't be going to some faction or another of a fragmented society.
Something similar happened with the minimum wage, another hot topic nowadays with rising income inequality. Only here the delay was even longer: despite some regional attempts in New England in the 1910s, it wasn't until the early '30s that a national policy was enacted, and even then it was declared unconstitutional a few years later by the Supreme Court. Not until around 1940 did a minimum wage law survive at the national level.
It's also worth noting that just because there's been a minimum wage law since the New Deal era, doesn't mean its value has stayed the same over time. In fact, its value rose during the Great Compression -- ending around 1980 -- and has fallen during the current era of hyper-competitiveness and status-striving. The graph below shows the inflation-adjusted value in the light shade:
Thus, pushing for a higher minimum wage in today's climate of soaring immigration and competitiveness would be putting the cart before the horse. The lesson from history is that we first need to kick out the foreigners who don't belong here, close down immigration, and allow the population to grow more homogeneous, trusting, and civically engaged (see the Robert Putnam study on diversity corroding trust). Only once Americans have reversed the "Bowling Alone" mindset and lifestyle will they be more willing to raise the minimum wage.
By the way, this should temper the enthusiasm that some populists on the Trump train have for Ted Cruz being appointed to the Supreme Court under a Trump presidency. He would almost certainly rule like the Lochner Era Justices (roughly 1900-1940), who shot down the first national minimum wage law. Restoring populism is going to require a hell of a lot of support among the Supreme Court, just like it did the last time around, and Cruz is not the man for that job.
Something similar happened with the minimum wage, another hot topic nowadays with rising income inequality. Only here the delay was even longer: despite some regional attempts in New England in the 1910s, it wasn't until the early '30s that a national policy was enacted, and even then it was declared unconstitutional a few years later by the Supreme Court. Not until around 1940 did a minimum wage law survive at the national level.
It's also worth noting that just because there's been a minimum wage law since the New Deal era, doesn't mean its value has stayed the same over time. In fact, its value rose during the Great Compression -- ending around 1980 -- and has fallen during the current era of hyper-competitiveness and status-striving. The graph below shows the inflation-adjusted value in the light shade:
Thus, pushing for a higher minimum wage in today's climate of soaring immigration and competitiveness would be putting the cart before the horse. The lesson from history is that we first need to kick out the foreigners who don't belong here, close down immigration, and allow the population to grow more homogeneous, trusting, and civically engaged (see the Robert Putnam study on diversity corroding trust). Only once Americans have reversed the "Bowling Alone" mindset and lifestyle will they be more willing to raise the minimum wage.
By the way, this should temper the enthusiasm that some populists on the Trump train have for Ted Cruz being appointed to the Supreme Court under a Trump presidency. He would almost certainly rule like the Lochner Era Justices (roughly 1900-1940), who shot down the first national minimum wage law. Restoring populism is going to require a hell of a lot of support among the Supreme Court, just like it did the last time around, and Cruz is not the man for that job.
November 23, 2015
A Gen X-er as First Lady
While watching the 20/20 interview with Donald Trump's family, I thought how nice it would be for the country to enjoy a break from First Ladies who were attention-seeking do-gooder Boomers (Clinton, Bush, and Obama). Melania Trump seems like a reserved homebody, who may take part in various neutral causes such as disease prevention, but will not promote herself as a crusader (an approach to being First Lady that she would probably view with a healthy dose of skepticism).
Her unpretentious personality contrasts pleasantly with her model's looks. Born in 1970, she's from the same cohort of early Gen X-ers as those who were stars back when the supermodel was a pop culture phenomenon (circa 1990: Paulina Porizkova, Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford, Kate Moss, etc.). Unlike the carefree exhibitionistic Boomers, they were more aware of the camera and ambivalent about letting their guard down, while still doing so. It lent a mystery and allure to their personas.
I can't think of a better person than a media-shy homebody to turn the tide against the striver pretension of "First Lady as Secretary-at-Large". From the interview, she seems to feel her main duties are supporting her husband and nurturing her son, not pointless career advancement (she does design jewelry on the side). America can't wait to be rid of a First Lady who comes off as bossy, nagging, self-important, and plain ol' ugly. We need one who is domestic, warm, and maternal.
Her unpretentious personality contrasts pleasantly with her model's looks. Born in 1970, she's from the same cohort of early Gen X-ers as those who were stars back when the supermodel was a pop culture phenomenon (circa 1990: Paulina Porizkova, Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford, Kate Moss, etc.). Unlike the carefree exhibitionistic Boomers, they were more aware of the camera and ambivalent about letting their guard down, while still doing so. It lent a mystery and allure to their personas.
I can't think of a better person than a media-shy homebody to turn the tide against the striver pretension of "First Lady as Secretary-at-Large". From the interview, she seems to feel her main duties are supporting her husband and nurturing her son, not pointless career advancement (she does design jewelry on the side). America can't wait to be rid of a First Lady who comes off as bossy, nagging, self-important, and plain ol' ugly. We need one who is domestic, warm, and maternal.
Plaid carpeting appreciation
Homes have never looked more bleak and dull than today, with blank, smooth, drab surfaces where there should be patterns, textures, and colors. Endless, undifferentiated drywall in neutral paint is the main offender, but people have some conception of what an alternative would look like -- colored paint, patterned wallpaper, wood paneling.
Floors suffer more because the alternatives to smooth beige carpet are further back in memory, and some younger homeowners may not have experienced them at all. Hardwood flooring, the cousin of wood paneling on the walls, is still popular, but many people insist on carpeting to save on costs, to soften the feel under foot, to prevent cavernous echoes, or whatever else.
With the natural texture and grain of hardwood off the table, that leaves colors and patterns to provide visual satisfaction. But who ever heard of colored, patterned carpet?
Millennial homeowners, who were children during the 1990s, may have grown up deprived of examples from the heyday of plaid carpeting. But it may not be too late to get them to replace the bleak beige look they have grown accustomed to, since they're at least used to the trendiness of plaid in clothing. If it looks pleasing on a shirt, why not on a carpet? I really don't care if they do it to be trendy, as long as living spaces stop looking so depressingly lifeless.
Here are just a few examples of how much cheer and charm some plaid carpeting can provide (plus one from the '70s where the only surface that isn't plaid is the carpet -- wouldn't want to over-do it).
Floors suffer more because the alternatives to smooth beige carpet are further back in memory, and some younger homeowners may not have experienced them at all. Hardwood flooring, the cousin of wood paneling on the walls, is still popular, but many people insist on carpeting to save on costs, to soften the feel under foot, to prevent cavernous echoes, or whatever else.
With the natural texture and grain of hardwood off the table, that leaves colors and patterns to provide visual satisfaction. But who ever heard of colored, patterned carpet?
Millennial homeowners, who were children during the 1990s, may have grown up deprived of examples from the heyday of plaid carpeting. But it may not be too late to get them to replace the bleak beige look they have grown accustomed to, since they're at least used to the trendiness of plaid in clothing. If it looks pleasing on a shirt, why not on a carpet? I really don't care if they do it to be trendy, as long as living spaces stop looking so depressingly lifeless.
Here are just a few examples of how much cheer and charm some plaid carpeting can provide (plus one from the '70s where the only surface that isn't plaid is the carpet -- wouldn't want to over-do it).
November 19, 2015
Terrorists now attack leisure targets: Will it wake up young Westerners more than 9/11?
There has been a change in the ideology and practice of radical Islamic terrorists. Al-Qaeda and affiliated groups put a strictly economic and political spin on their jihad, seeking revenge for the economic and political policies of the United States in the Middle East. In return, they attacked targets that stood as symbols of economic and political power -- the World Trade Center (big business), the Pentagon (military / government), the Charlie Hebdo magazine (media / fourth estate), and the subway systems that get employees where they need to go to work for these institutions of power, wealth, and influence.
Their leaders are primarily Baby Boomers; whether or not that has the same larger meaning over there that it does here, the point is they belong to the same generation.
The generation after them -- the ones who would be Generation X over here -- have shifted to put a more cultural and lifestyle spin on their jihad. Millennials are following their lead. They are ISIS and affiliated groups. They are much more puritanical, attacking icons, graven images from ancient civilizations, churches, and other cultural sites throughout the Middle East. In Paris, they attacked a concert hall, a sports stadium, and restaurants, cafes, and bars.
They were also planning to attack a shopping mall in Paris. They have already brought down one airliner, and have been planning to attack other airports. For the most part, people fly in order to vacation or pursue leisure, rather than for business and workplace reasons (unlike a daily commute on the subway).
In their propaganda, ISIS did refer to France's political and military role in bombing Syria, but they also heaped scorn on Paris for being the "capital of prostitution and obscenity" (other translations say "capital of abominations and perversion"), clearly more in line with their general focus on attacking leisure, lifestyle, and culture that they find religiously objectionable.
Their new threat against New York City does not point to the United Nations building, Wall Street, or any other political-economic power center. Rather they show Times Square, a hub of tourism, shopping, dining, theater-going -- and in the not-too-distant past, drug deals, prostitution, and pornography (although today there are topless women who you can take your picture with for a small donation). It's a lifestyle and leisure target.
Both Al-Qaeda and ISIS are fine with killing civilians, but the basis on which they are judged guilty is different: for Al-Qaeda, it's being complicit in the power structure, whereas for ISIS it's taking part in decadent culture and lifestyles. There is a strong dispute between the two groups about targeting, say, pedestrians in a cultural center of a city, with ISIS finding it perfectly legitimate, as they have begun to make abundantly clear.
I think this shift in the propaganda and practice of Islamic terrorists is going to profoundly change how Westerners, particularly those under 50, are going to react. Recall the generational difference in status contests, with the Silents and Boomers focusing on career, wealth, power, and influence, and the X-ers and Millennials focusing on lifestyles and personas.
When the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked on 9/11, people who are a part of the career-and-power contests would have felt a greater shock. To this day, it seems like Silents and Boomers are angrier about 9/11 than Gen X and Millennials are (not to say that the younger generations were not disturbed, just less so than the elders). Perhaps the same is true of the Madrid and London subway bombings (disrupting business-as-usual for commuters), and the Charlie Hebdo killings (attacking the fourth estate), but I'm not in Europe and couldn't say.
With the attacks on a concert hall, sports stadium, and nightlife spots -- on Friday night, no less, when everyone is going out to have fun -- the more lifestyle-focused X-ers and Millennials are going to feel like it's now their domain that is being attacked. No more shopping, no more traveling, no more dining on the outdoor patio, without feeling targeted. This is a level of free-floating anxiety that these generations did not feel when the targets were office buildings and military bases, which younger generations do not hold very near and dear to their hearts. Now that terrorists are targeting foodie spots and indie rock venues, it's a whole 'nother ball game.
Non-hipsters will not feel any safer in their lifestyles either, once ISIS begins to attack churches in the West like they have already been doing in the Middle East. Going to church on Sunday is a regular practice that falls under lifestyle, not something that connects one to the greater power structure.
Furthermore, the demographics of the new victims make them far more easy to relate to for X-ers and Millennials, especially white ones, than the victims of 9/11. The earlier victims were demographically diverse in age, class, and race. The new victims, at least judging from the pictures available, are much younger, whiter, and middle-class. They are probably also more liberal than the victims who worked in the WTC or the Pentagon. Their clothing and hairstyles are more hip. For that matter, there are loads more pictures of them from their social media accounts, which did not exist back in 2001.
All these differences mean that the lifestyle strivers, who are expressing solidarity with France in order to grab quasi-French cultural identity, are going to be less inhibited than earlier about Doing Something about the Islamic terrorist problem. Yet this will extend beyond those who are changing their Facebook profile picture, to anyone who values lifestyle and culture concerns over career and political concerns. If Islam, whether radical or mainstream, destroys Parisian culture, it would be akin to us dropping a nuke on Mecca.
This may make it easier than you'd think to get moderate young people to agree that Islam is not compatible with preserving the culture we treasure. The romance of Paris is not based on halal meat shops, burqas, and mosques -- but on wine, unveiled women, and Notre Dame cathedral. Once they agree, it's no great leap to conclude that Islam ought to be kept back where it belongs -- without needing to hate it, or to drop bombs on its adherents, but still needing to exist over there while we Christians and agnostics exist over here.
Such an approach also obviates the need to talk about whether Islam is inherently violent or peaceful. The terrorists of today are only a violent expression of the overall puritanical view of Muslims toward us, and their behaviors and practices in our societies. Even if they peacefully transformed Paris into New Baghdad, or London into New Karachi, it would be a profound loss to the lifestyles and culture that we cherish.
This strikes me as a much easier conversation to start and maintain, as opposed to talking about political, economic, and military matters like we did when the earlier terrorists attacked the institutions of the power structure. Not only is lifestyle-and-culture more what they orient their lives around, it's just more tangible than economics and politics. You can almost hear the nervous chatter among the shoppers at H&M:
"Having to wear a bullet-proof vest every time we go to Starbucks? I don't think so -- muzzies out!"
Their leaders are primarily Baby Boomers; whether or not that has the same larger meaning over there that it does here, the point is they belong to the same generation.
The generation after them -- the ones who would be Generation X over here -- have shifted to put a more cultural and lifestyle spin on their jihad. Millennials are following their lead. They are ISIS and affiliated groups. They are much more puritanical, attacking icons, graven images from ancient civilizations, churches, and other cultural sites throughout the Middle East. In Paris, they attacked a concert hall, a sports stadium, and restaurants, cafes, and bars.
They were also planning to attack a shopping mall in Paris. They have already brought down one airliner, and have been planning to attack other airports. For the most part, people fly in order to vacation or pursue leisure, rather than for business and workplace reasons (unlike a daily commute on the subway).
In their propaganda, ISIS did refer to France's political and military role in bombing Syria, but they also heaped scorn on Paris for being the "capital of prostitution and obscenity" (other translations say "capital of abominations and perversion"), clearly more in line with their general focus on attacking leisure, lifestyle, and culture that they find religiously objectionable.
Their new threat against New York City does not point to the United Nations building, Wall Street, or any other political-economic power center. Rather they show Times Square, a hub of tourism, shopping, dining, theater-going -- and in the not-too-distant past, drug deals, prostitution, and pornography (although today there are topless women who you can take your picture with for a small donation). It's a lifestyle and leisure target.
Both Al-Qaeda and ISIS are fine with killing civilians, but the basis on which they are judged guilty is different: for Al-Qaeda, it's being complicit in the power structure, whereas for ISIS it's taking part in decadent culture and lifestyles. There is a strong dispute between the two groups about targeting, say, pedestrians in a cultural center of a city, with ISIS finding it perfectly legitimate, as they have begun to make abundantly clear.
I think this shift in the propaganda and practice of Islamic terrorists is going to profoundly change how Westerners, particularly those under 50, are going to react. Recall the generational difference in status contests, with the Silents and Boomers focusing on career, wealth, power, and influence, and the X-ers and Millennials focusing on lifestyles and personas.
When the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked on 9/11, people who are a part of the career-and-power contests would have felt a greater shock. To this day, it seems like Silents and Boomers are angrier about 9/11 than Gen X and Millennials are (not to say that the younger generations were not disturbed, just less so than the elders). Perhaps the same is true of the Madrid and London subway bombings (disrupting business-as-usual for commuters), and the Charlie Hebdo killings (attacking the fourth estate), but I'm not in Europe and couldn't say.
With the attacks on a concert hall, sports stadium, and nightlife spots -- on Friday night, no less, when everyone is going out to have fun -- the more lifestyle-focused X-ers and Millennials are going to feel like it's now their domain that is being attacked. No more shopping, no more traveling, no more dining on the outdoor patio, without feeling targeted. This is a level of free-floating anxiety that these generations did not feel when the targets were office buildings and military bases, which younger generations do not hold very near and dear to their hearts. Now that terrorists are targeting foodie spots and indie rock venues, it's a whole 'nother ball game.
Non-hipsters will not feel any safer in their lifestyles either, once ISIS begins to attack churches in the West like they have already been doing in the Middle East. Going to church on Sunday is a regular practice that falls under lifestyle, not something that connects one to the greater power structure.
Furthermore, the demographics of the new victims make them far more easy to relate to for X-ers and Millennials, especially white ones, than the victims of 9/11. The earlier victims were demographically diverse in age, class, and race. The new victims, at least judging from the pictures available, are much younger, whiter, and middle-class. They are probably also more liberal than the victims who worked in the WTC or the Pentagon. Their clothing and hairstyles are more hip. For that matter, there are loads more pictures of them from their social media accounts, which did not exist back in 2001.
All these differences mean that the lifestyle strivers, who are expressing solidarity with France in order to grab quasi-French cultural identity, are going to be less inhibited than earlier about Doing Something about the Islamic terrorist problem. Yet this will extend beyond those who are changing their Facebook profile picture, to anyone who values lifestyle and culture concerns over career and political concerns. If Islam, whether radical or mainstream, destroys Parisian culture, it would be akin to us dropping a nuke on Mecca.
This may make it easier than you'd think to get moderate young people to agree that Islam is not compatible with preserving the culture we treasure. The romance of Paris is not based on halal meat shops, burqas, and mosques -- but on wine, unveiled women, and Notre Dame cathedral. Once they agree, it's no great leap to conclude that Islam ought to be kept back where it belongs -- without needing to hate it, or to drop bombs on its adherents, but still needing to exist over there while we Christians and agnostics exist over here.
Such an approach also obviates the need to talk about whether Islam is inherently violent or peaceful. The terrorists of today are only a violent expression of the overall puritanical view of Muslims toward us, and their behaviors and practices in our societies. Even if they peacefully transformed Paris into New Baghdad, or London into New Karachi, it would be a profound loss to the lifestyles and culture that we cherish.
This strikes me as a much easier conversation to start and maintain, as opposed to talking about political, economic, and military matters like we did when the earlier terrorists attacked the institutions of the power structure. Not only is lifestyle-and-culture more what they orient their lives around, it's just more tangible than economics and politics. You can almost hear the nervous chatter among the shoppers at H&M:
"Having to wear a bullet-proof vest every time we go to Starbucks? I don't think so -- muzzies out!"
November 18, 2015
Female bloodsport porn now starring a steroided tranny
If you'd only vaguely heard of Ronda Rousey before last weekend, you've certainly been seeing blanket coverage of her loss to Holly Holm.
I won't link to nerd porn here, but do an image search for both their names and "Nov 15", and look at how obviously roided up Holm is in the fight. She is too big and too shredded for a 34 year-old white girl. Especially in the upper body, neck, skull, and hairline. Rousey and the previous women she's fought look instead like tomboys who hang out at the gym (notably softer looking than male fighters), not women using steroids and male hormones to transition to men.
So, what amounts to a man just beat the snot out of a girl, and is getting worldwide acclaim for it.
MMA junkies say that Rousey is obnoxious and gets way more press than she deserves. So in a sense she had a humbling coming sooner or later. But that just turns the fight into one of those wurlstah videos where some ghetto ape puts his fist through the face of a mouthy aggressive ho. And here it's given a freakish tranny twist to appeal even more powerfully to the fetishists watching two women in skimpy clothing grapple with each other.
Recall an earlier post about guys who get off on girl-on-girl porn being what I call "latent transgender" -- they aren't openly presenting as female, but they fantasize sexually about being a woman, namely one or more of the women in the porn they watch or who they visualize in their mind.
The same phenomenon is obviously at work in guys who are on the edge of their seats for a women's MMA fight. Guys watching a fight are projecting themselves into one or the other of the fighters, and resonating emotionally with what the fighters are going through. If both fighters are women, they are resonating with being a female fighter. And given the viewer's clearly sexual interest in the women, they are in fact indulging in a latent transgender fantasy while watching the fight.
Unlike run-of-the-mill girl-on-girl porn, however, women's MMA is violently antagonistic, so the viewer is being stimulated further by the thought of getting bloody revenge against a woman, who represents the many that have rejected him. They would feel too dirty watching an outright man beat up a woman, though, so they seek plausible deniability about just wanting to watch a woman beat up a woman -- that certainly wouldn't belie their revenge fantasies against the vapid bitches who ignore them.
With the entry of juiced-up Holly Holm, we are seeing a shift toward a more overt man vs. woman bloodsport. We just might get to that point, given how degenerate our society is getting, and how bloodsports flourish during a period of societal instability (like gladiator spectacles during the decline of the Roman Empire). At least the Roman decadents had the decency not to involve women.
The whole thing is so odd when you consider how little attention guys show in just about all female sports. Basketball, soccer, softball, field hockey, golf, volleyball -- zero interest. It's strange that the fetishists avoid watching women's soccer or volleyball, where the girls aren't too bad looking and where their uniforms show off their lower bodies. But there's no way to construe what you're watching there as a sexual interaction, which requires close physical contact between two individuals (or maybe three, but not an entire team, let alone two teams, and golf is solitary).
Combat sports are the only ones that meet the most basic cognitive template of a sexual interaction. (That's true for man vs. man, too -- wrestlers are far more likely to be teased for homo behavior than are football or basketball players.) Therefore, they're the only women's sports that latent transgender viewers will tune into. The fact that they also indulge the violent revenge fantasies of rejected fetishists only adds to their emotional appeal.
I won't link to nerd porn here, but do an image search for both their names and "Nov 15", and look at how obviously roided up Holm is in the fight. She is too big and too shredded for a 34 year-old white girl. Especially in the upper body, neck, skull, and hairline. Rousey and the previous women she's fought look instead like tomboys who hang out at the gym (notably softer looking than male fighters), not women using steroids and male hormones to transition to men.
So, what amounts to a man just beat the snot out of a girl, and is getting worldwide acclaim for it.
MMA junkies say that Rousey is obnoxious and gets way more press than she deserves. So in a sense she had a humbling coming sooner or later. But that just turns the fight into one of those wurlstah videos where some ghetto ape puts his fist through the face of a mouthy aggressive ho. And here it's given a freakish tranny twist to appeal even more powerfully to the fetishists watching two women in skimpy clothing grapple with each other.
Recall an earlier post about guys who get off on girl-on-girl porn being what I call "latent transgender" -- they aren't openly presenting as female, but they fantasize sexually about being a woman, namely one or more of the women in the porn they watch or who they visualize in their mind.
The same phenomenon is obviously at work in guys who are on the edge of their seats for a women's MMA fight. Guys watching a fight are projecting themselves into one or the other of the fighters, and resonating emotionally with what the fighters are going through. If both fighters are women, they are resonating with being a female fighter. And given the viewer's clearly sexual interest in the women, they are in fact indulging in a latent transgender fantasy while watching the fight.
Unlike run-of-the-mill girl-on-girl porn, however, women's MMA is violently antagonistic, so the viewer is being stimulated further by the thought of getting bloody revenge against a woman, who represents the many that have rejected him. They would feel too dirty watching an outright man beat up a woman, though, so they seek plausible deniability about just wanting to watch a woman beat up a woman -- that certainly wouldn't belie their revenge fantasies against the vapid bitches who ignore them.
With the entry of juiced-up Holly Holm, we are seeing a shift toward a more overt man vs. woman bloodsport. We just might get to that point, given how degenerate our society is getting, and how bloodsports flourish during a period of societal instability (like gladiator spectacles during the decline of the Roman Empire). At least the Roman decadents had the decency not to involve women.
The whole thing is so odd when you consider how little attention guys show in just about all female sports. Basketball, soccer, softball, field hockey, golf, volleyball -- zero interest. It's strange that the fetishists avoid watching women's soccer or volleyball, where the girls aren't too bad looking and where their uniforms show off their lower bodies. But there's no way to construe what you're watching there as a sexual interaction, which requires close physical contact between two individuals (or maybe three, but not an entire team, let alone two teams, and golf is solitary).
Combat sports are the only ones that meet the most basic cognitive template of a sexual interaction. (That's true for man vs. man, too -- wrestlers are far more likely to be teased for homo behavior than are football or basketball players.) Therefore, they're the only women's sports that latent transgender viewers will tune into. The fact that they also indulge the violent revenge fantasies of rejected fetishists only adds to their emotional appeal.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)