content analysis

slow news – April 30, 2008:

Breaking the Wiretap (interview by Brooke Gladstone)

In 2005, Times reporters Eric Lichtblau and James Risen won the Pulitzer for breaking the story of the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program.  Brooke Gladstone, one of the fearless hosts of the great radio show On the Media, interviews him, giving us much of the backstory on how the Bushies tried to suppress the story and how the Times editorial team went along all too willing.  A great behind-the-scenes story for anyone interested in journalistic practices and a disturbing tale for those concerned by political elites’ capacity to influence the press.  Audio recording and transcript available.

In the movie and book, Fight Club, the main objective of the anti-hero, Tyler Durden, is to bomb the biggest finance buildings in an apparent bid to destroy the debt record – putting an end to a crucial aspect of the divide between the rich and, well, everybody else. Naturally, this is absurd notion because such records are backed up on computer systems globally. While I will not link to it, several people have proposed actions of collective computer hacking that could potentially wipe the debt record.

Given all the news in recent weeks about the looming recession and the millions of Americans struggling with debt and foreclosures (are we all aware of how bad things are right now?), I got to thinking about wiping out the debt records. If a national referendum were held on legislation to relieve all Americans of their debts, an incredible majority of people (mortgage-holders, credit card holders) would likely favor it, while a very powerful minority of business leaders and stockholders would oppose the idea with the vehemence of French Revolutionaries*. Of course, most banks would fail as would many businesses depending on those banks (apparently, many retailers are surviving only by taking on debt). In fact, the whole idea has economic disaster written all over it. Things might get much, much worse before they got better. But in the economy that resulted, banks would offer far less credit and people might be more reluctant to take on debt. Who knows? It’s too radical to reasonably picture.

On the other hand, as a democracy, we should ideally be responding to wishes of the majority and acting in the interests of the people, rather than the business community (I know I’m rehashing Domhoff, Mills, Chomsky, and others here). It’s undeniable at this point that our society needs a substantial financial re-organization to survive. What’s it going to be? Short of radically increasing wages, forgiving debts might be the only way to create a sustainable financial future for the majority of Americans. While I’m in no way advocating Tyler Durden scenarios, we really need a Manhattan Project for our collective financial future.

*According to Bill Domhoff, “In terms of types of financial wealth, the top one percent of households have 44.1% of all privately held stock, 58.0% of financial securities, and 57.3% of business equity. The top 10% have 85% to 90% of stock, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and over 75% of non-home real estate.”

After yesterday’s entry on enormous homes and bad neighborhoods, I couldn’t resist posting this poem (tip of the hat to NPR’s Writer’s Almanac):

Slum Lords

by John Updike

The superrich make lousy neighbors—
they buy a house and tear it down
and build another, twice as big, and leave.
They’re never there; they own so many
other houses, each demands a visit.
Entire neighborhoods called fashionable,
bustling with servants and masters, such as
Louisburg Square in Boston or Bel Air in L.A.,
are districts now like Wall Street after dark
or Tombstone once the silver boom went bust.
The essence of superrich is absence.
They like to demonstrate they can afford
to be elsewhere. Don’t let them in.
Their riches form a kind of poverty.

Regular readers of ca will notice that the places and spaces we live in is an issue of great interest to me.  So, naturally, I couldn’t resist making “The sociology of the mega-home” by Daniel McGinn (the third of a four part excerpt from his new book, House Lust) the slow news article today (tip of the hat to Contexts Crawler).

The article essentially focuses how Americans are currently obsessed with unnecessarily large homes (with obscenely large utilities bills) and how those rich bastards might feel lonely and isolated from each other.  Naturally, the actual studies of room usage show that much of the space goes unused and that the majority of waking house are spent in the kitchen.

Though I am wholly unconcerned about the loneliness of people living in 9,000 square foot nouveau riche palaces, I am very concerned about waste of space, materials (does anybody think these shoddily-built monstrosities will last the way older homes have?), and the destruction of neighborhoods that McMansions cause.  One of my favorite books, Suburban Nation (by Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk), made me into an absolute evangelical for the New Urbanist movement (see also the PBS Newshour special for a balanced consideration of the movement).  While it is clear that development cannot be stopped, it is essential that we pressure for it to happen in ways that are environmentally-sound and foster strong communities where people from all different classes and racial and ethnic backgrounds interact.

It’s hard to argue with the merits of mixed-use (business and residential) zoning, pedestrian-friendly streets, short commutes, architectural consistency (whatever that style might be), and places where their children can play with friends and have some independence without being forced to turn her/his parent into a full-time chauffeur.  That type of neighborhood — both of the past and a could-be better future — is impossible as long as McMansions, the SUVs of residential life, keep being built.

Due to conditions very closely resembling the plot of a recent episode of South Park (a “Grapes of Wrath” parody in which South Park’s Internet connection dries up and Randy moves his family out west to find some), I have lacked Internet in the past few days.  This was a situation that nearly drove me crazy and led me to re-evaluate my overly-close relationship with the Internet.

Content coming back today.

slow news (April 23, 2008 )

Beyond TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand by David Barstow

A very important story about the Bush Pentagon’s practice of placing “military analysts” at TV networks to spin the story in their favor. Even worse, most these analysts had connections to military contractors who would profit from the administration’s policies. A very thorough (read: long), investigative piece that uncovers yet another example of the Republican political machine manipulating the media as well as a disturbing instance of elite collusion.

This is the first in what I hope will be a daily feature. I have named it slow news in a nod to the “slow food movement.” According to Slow Food International, the movement aims to “to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world.” Likewise, in an age of high speed, low thought journalism, I hope to highlight articles (perhaps radio segments, too) that reflect a broader consideration of an issue, an event, or trend. Any topic is up for grabs. Readers are invited to submit their own suggested articles in the comments section.

slow news (April 22, 2008)

Time magazine is hardly known as a vanguard publication in the fight for progressive publication. However, since the early 1990s, Time has consistently covered environmental issues with less of the doubt about global climate change that has plagued the rest of the mainstream media. With climate change already a very serious threat (bigger than Iran, I dare say), few publications have gone beyond saying that climate change is something we need to discuss. While several people have suggested policies that help address the problem, I’ve yet to see a clear blueprint that maps out how we can solve the problem (not even from Al Gore who suggests tighter regulations and investing in technology and that’s about it). Now, Bryan Walsh of Time offers one in “How to Win the War on Global Warming.” This is up there with George McGovern’s plan to get out of Iraq on my Top 5 Best Socio-Political Blueprints of the Past Five Years list.

In the inaugural edition of america for europeans, we celebrate tomorrow’s political showdown in the Keystone State (and the possible end of this nightmarishly annoying Democratic primary process) by focusing on a political issue.

One unusual trait of contemporary Americans is a reluctance to discuss their political beliefs. In Europe and Latin America, discussion of political issues and open support for political parties is common and even celebrated. I have never met an old, drunken Englishman in a pub with any reluctance to tell why he’s Labour. Or an Italian not eager to have an hours long debate about politics. Or a Mexican who wouldn’t put her family’s experience in terms of political economy.

For Americans (particular white ones, I suppose), talking about politics is rude. People who do discuss politics in public are seen as crass (think Michael Moore or Ann Coulter). When I volunteered for the Kerry 04 campaign, I would call people and just ask them if we had their support or not. Many, if not most people told me that they didn’t like to talk about politics. “It’s personal,” they’d tell me. Some went as far as to say that it was rude of me to ask. Dave Chappelle makes a similar point in For What It’s Worth, noting that white people are all too eager to describe personal sexual exploits, but shy away from political discussion. The other day, I was chatting with a relative stranger, when he cautiously said, “Well, I don’t know what your politics are, but I kind of like Barack Obama …” He paused, waiting for me to confirm that I, too, heart B-rock. So assured, he went on to positively gush about Obama.

Beyond the relatively simple question of who someone’s voting for in a given election (which could come down to a matter of personality), discussing actual political issues is virtually forbidden unless one is certain that s/he is in like-minded company. Nation readers chat about politics together, avoiding such a conversation with the National Review subscriber down the hall. An essential part of the mythology of American holidays (particularly Christmas and Thanksgiving) is the classic dinner table fight between the snot-nosed, liberal college kid and the right-wing uncle or father.

I suspect it boils down to the capitalist, individualist culture. Unlike our founding fathers or Europeans, who see democracies as providing an excellent open forum for debating what our societies should be like, Americans view politics through a consumer lens, seeing Kerry and Bush like the choice between Tide or Ivory Snow (as Arundhati Roy once said).

content analysis is still a work in progress and one unexpected reality of blogging is that it’s sometimes hard to think of some thing worthwhile to say.  In order to provide the loyal reader(s) of ca with something to read on a daily basis, I have decided to implement the following changes:

• the sunday reads closes up shop: I think we can all agree that this planned series that only happened once was a well-intentioned failure.  Truth be told, it takes away from my beloved Sunday if I have to post a whole collection of the articles that I’m reading.  In place of the sunday reads, I will post a carefully chosen article every day in a section called slow news.  For a full explanation, see the coming debut.
• america for europeans: This may well be a harebrained idea, but I came up with this watching last week’s great Frontline special on healthcare around the world.  The basic idea is to briefly discuss things that are, for better or for worse, uniquely American and slowly document what it is to live in  America in the early 21st century.  I’m pretty sure that’s kind of the idea of This American Life, but I’m stealing it.
• marx’s diary: In the February issue of Dave Eggers’ The Believer, Sam Stark had a disorganized, but interesting article about a 96 page violet notebook written by the young Karl Marx.  Marx’s notebook included poems, the first act of a Hamlet-like play, a novel about constipation, and, apparently, a lot of nonsense.  In the marx’s diary section, I will highlight some aspect of sociologists’ lives other than our work.  It could be something creative by a sociologist or something silly.  This column could be really fun or really short-lived.  Keep an eye on it.

Also, this week: look out for a tirade on the life and supposed death of newspapers in response to Eric Alterman’s fantastically dumb article in The New Yorker a few weeks back.  For more on Alterman, see here (on him becoming the “Aging-Lefty Lindsay Lohan”), here (on him just being wrong a lot), and here (on him being self-aggrandizing and picking stupid fights).

I was sent a link to this fascinating site by a friend.  It visually depicts how news stories in various outlets are geographically distributed.  To the right is the map for The New York Times.  Apparently, it was created as part of a dissertation in media economics by Nicolas Kayser-Bril.

Unsurprisingly, every periodical is most interested in their own country.  Also predictable is the fact that the U.S. is a celebrity the world around.  Because of the window of the study, Iraq also tends to be big (depending on how upscale the newspaper is).  What is most fascinating to me though is the size of China.  It’s clear that China is a big deal.  But I wonder what kind of coverage is responsible for that bulge?  Environmental, political, financial, Olympics?  Or is it just the whole package?