From the Land of Obvious

Comes this report, which tells us that people are just as willing to follow authority now as they were in 1963, or 1943, or 1923. Stunning.

(Of course, what is actually surprising to me is that the researcher--Jerry Burger--got this study by his university's IRB board. So, can I re-do the Stanford Prison Experiment? Can I can I can I?)

Ruminations

'Tis the time of year when everyone, seemingly, is compelled to ponder the Year(s) Past and speculate on What Is To Be. Hence the title of this post, as I feel most of these ruminations are precisely so bovine, and their ruminating results in exactly the same product.

What I am thinking about, however, is the oddity of New Year's Eve, which I believe should be re-styled as The Great Disappointment, or, A Tremendous Letdown. Somehow--and perhaps there are tens or even hundreds of people out there who have had the opposite experience--it never is what it is supposed to be. I've had better times at grad student parties, and that's saying something. What's odd is that I now believe I have reached the bottom rung of expectations for New Year's Eve, and yet every year I find myself casting about for something suitably celebratory. It always seems that everyone has something to do on New Year's Eve, and that therefore obligates one to also do something (anything!) so as to be able to at least tell people about it when they so inconsiderately ask. This creates bars and parties full of people who probably would rather be at home in ratty pajamas eating whatever is leftover from Christmas, but who nonetheless feel obliged to be festive. After all, they hired a sitter, put on heels, and they're going to have a good time, goddammit. It's NEW YEAR'S. Then everyone watches the ball drop, and the entire thing deflates like an Afghani warlord who has run out of Viagra.

For me, I think there's a superstition lurking here: that New Year's is a harbinger of the year to come, and that how one spends that one evening will somehow be recreated Groundhog-Day-like for the rest of the year. And who wants to take a chance, however slim (or however likely the actual possibility) that one will spend the entire year grazing leftovers in old pajamas?

Possibly

The Best. Thing. Ever.

I found every person reading these , their childhood/adolescent journals, completely charming and captivating. Please note: I wish all of my journals to be burned unread, especially the one with the teddy bear on the front, written entirely in hot pink ink. Thank you.

The Radicalization of the American Public

One of the things about being fanatically committed to an ideology is that it allows you to conveniently dismiss Lessons From History. Consider those slimy curs (can a cur be slimy? moving on) who pounced on the auto bailout as a heaven-sent opportunity to finally demolish organized labor in this country. Their barely disguised glee made me want to dig up my pitchfork and torch and go a-marchin'.

Here's the thing, though: Republicans have forgotten (if they ever knew) why the New Deal was enacted in the first place. Was FDR a socialist, or anything close to it? Not at all. He was a member of a privileged, old-money family. If anything, he might have had a sense of noblesse oblige--but he was not a radical reformer. The reason he--and, let's note, business interests as well--put forward the New Deal was as a sop to the working and middle class. They instituted the New Deal because they feared a socialist revolution, not because they were proponents of socialism. That is why the New Deal is so minimal, compared to the welfare states of social democratic countries in Europe. The United States always had weaker unions and less class-consciousness than Europeans. The New Deal was just enough to keep the wheels on and the train moving.

Republicans in the Senate and House certainly have no intention of forgoing their health care or working for $25 an hour, as they believe auto workers should. (And actually, if Senators were paid by the hour we would certainly save a lot of money.) Their ideology is much more of the "Fine for thee, but not for me" variety, which is also known in Educated Land as hypocrisy. You want health care worth tens of thousands of dollars a year? You want to be paid $169,300 a year while working 3 days a week and taking two hour lunches? Well, son, you should have been a United States Senator.

The rest of you, get back to work. And quitcher bitchin. Children in China would be happy to make that automobile for $5 an hour.

What I Learned Today

Being governor of a state apparently does not require any of the following: intelligence, literacy, morality, common decency.

That is all.