Month: February 2018

My wife and I saw “Hamilton” in Chicago in September.  I thought the show got off to a slow start and the audience was far too easy to please (it is an icon of the resistance, after all).  It just kept getting better and better, however.  By the time it was over, I had concluded that the hype was more than justified, and that the show was well worth its high price.

If you haven’t seen it, here are some additional observations:

1.  Initially, you are very aware of the all minority cast, but that wears off, and you barely notice it at the end.  I’m guessing that’s the way Miranda wanted it.
2.  The show is factually accurate, but some of the timelines are misleading in an effort to improve the plot.  That probably bothers me more than most.
3.  “Jefferson” didn’t at all resemble the actual historical figure.  It occurred to me shortly afterwards that the actor was playing him as a different Jefferson–George, from the ’70s sitcom.   I’m confident I wasn’t wrong about that.  It was very funny, in retrospect.

If you have a chance to see it, by all means, go.

Thomas Friedman had a column in yesterday’s NYT in which he asserted that Trump’s behavior towards Russia has only two possible explanations:  either Trump is hopelessly naive about Putin, or his economic interests have exposed him to blackmail by the Russian government.  For a centrist who ostentatiously positioned himself above party during the Obama years, this is strong stuff.  Is he right?

The fact is, we don’t know.  We may never know.  Mueller has more information than anyone, and he isn’t sharing much of it with us, yet.  However, I think Friedman has disregarded a more obvious motive for Trump’s actions:  he can’t act against Russian interference because to do so would be an implicit admission that the Russians helped him, which in turn would taint his election victory.

In short, protecting his ego is far more important than protecting the national interest.  That will be a recurring theme in this administration.

When Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote “Hamilton,” Obama was in the White House, and immigration was less visible as an issue than it is today.  As a result, Miranda’s decision to employ an all minority cast was less a political statement than an attempt to provide some context and contemporary relevance to Hamilton’s life.  It mostly succeeds.  You can’t realistically argue that the Founding Fathers who were planters were parvenus, except in the eyes of the people who mattered in London, but you certainly can say that Hamilton himself fit the bill.  It is, in fact, hard to avoid the conclusion that Hamilton joined the Patriot cause largely because it gave him his best, and possibly only, chance of being a major figure in American society.

In 2018, things are very different.  “Hamilton” has become an icon of the resistance as the result of a changed and charged climate on immigration and racial issues.  I imagine that Miranda both embraces that and regrets it.

Pay no attention to the man with the twitchy Twitter fingers, say some pundits and members of the Trump Administration;  Trump is actually governing as a fairly conventional Republican.  His tax cut ideas were driven by the GOP majority in Congress.  The worst of the travel ban was eliminated by the judiciary.  He hasn’t violated court orders, destroyed NATO, engaged in trade wars, or left NAFTA.  His attacks on the press are just an effort to curry favor with his base and blow off steam; they haven’t led to any First Amendment violations.  In short, his worst authoritarian impulses are being constrained by the system and his own laziness, and will continue to be so.

Not so fast, say other commentators.  Trump is dividing the country, damaging its credibility overseas, and trashing institutions that have traditionally enjoyed bipartisan support:  the FBI; the judiciary; even the NFL.  That’s bad enough as it is, but wait until we have a genuine crisis, and he demands unconstitutional actions against his opponents.  Who will come to our rescue then?  Can we count on Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell to stand up and be counted, or will they simply clear their throats and try to change the subject?

Count me in the latter camp.  Trump and his base have little respect for constitutional norms.  If a crisis comes, and the GOP still has complete control of Congress, things are going to get really ugly here.

 

The renowned gymnast Aly Raisman had the following quote in the most recent edition of Sports Illustrated (yes, the swimsuit issue):  “Women do not have to be modest to be respected.”  That sounds like a manifesto.  What did she mean, and is she right?

If her intent was to argue that women are entitled to the same rights of self-expression and sexual freedom as men, I’m on board.  If she was just trying to say she’s proud of how she looks, that’s understandable, too.  But if it was a broadside against modesty in general, I don’t agree.

We didn’t create ourselves.  We’re all mortal.  We live on the intellectual and physical capital that were created by our predecessors.  The best we can do is add to it a little, and leave the place better off than when we entered.  Right now, I’m not sure we’re even doing that.

Those are all good reasons for everyone to be modest.

1.  It is my understanding that the trend in Third World countries (most notably India) that subsidize food is to move away from in-kind benefits to cash payments.  This is because experience shows the in-kind approach damages markets and leads to widespread corruption and waste.
2.  The Harvest Box approach is completely inconsistent with that trend.
3.  The GOP professes to be the party of maximum consumer choice, free markets, and the primacy of the private sector.  The Harvest Box idea flies in the face of all three of these ideas.
4.  The people behind this concept, therefore, are either complete hypocrites, or they have an agenda which overrides notions of efficiency and ideological consistency.
5.  The correct choice is B.  Grinding the faces of the poor (the real goal of the Harvest Box) makes the Reactionary faction of the GOP happy.  The nanny state is perfectly OK as long as it only operates on people you dislike.

I spent three weeks in China in 2012, and another week last year.  I’ve also read lots of books on the country.  I’m not stupid and arrogant enough to think that makes me a China expert, but there are some observations I’m qualified to make on the Chinese and their culture, so here goes:

1.  Are you aware of the repressive state while you are in the country?  If you try to read the NYT on the web, yes; otherwise, no.  You have to go through metal detectors to ride the metro, but that could happen in a liberal democratic state, too.  In most places, the security people are just ornaments.

2.  What are the Chinese people like?  They are loud and friendly.  They don’t put up with any crap from anyone.  They’re intensely proud of their history and culture.  They’re very pragmatic.  And they’re very resilient.  They’ve lived through disasters the likes of which we cannot even imagine, and they never even complain about it.  That’s the advantage of being part of a civilization that has been through just about everything, and sees time as being cyclical.

3.  How do the Chinese feel about Americans?  Trying to get taxi drivers to pick you up on the street can be a problem.  In more provincial areas, some people will openly stare at you.  By and large, however, they will make you feel reasonably comfortable.

Happy New Year!  Sort of.

The bombastic, divisive, right-wing leader was facing criminal charges.  He responded by lashing out at the establishment and complaining about a “deep state” that opposed him at every turn.  His fans and the right-wing media cheered him on, while the rest of the country was appalled.

Is it Trump or Netanyahu?  You decide.

Apparently the NRA was encouraging people to buy guns for their significant others for Valentine’s Day.

A Gun For Your Honey

Buy a gun for your honey.

It shows that you care.

It may sound kind of funny

But it’s not really rare.

 

Buy a gun for your kiddies

Take if off to school.

Show it off to their homies.

Be the Kings of Cool.

 

Only guns can stop bad guys.

Happens every day.

So ignore MSM lies

And what liberals say.

 

A day after the Shaun White victory in the halfpipe, we have another school shooting.  We’re numb to that.  It would be downright tedious if it weren’t so tragic.

Let’s face it:  there are enough people in this country who treat guns as religious icons to prevent any meaningful progress on this issue.  As far as they’re concerned, the lives of a few kids here and there are a price worth paying to protect their rights.  And so the story goes on, and on, and on. . .

It’s still Hot Stove League season, so here’s the diplomatic equivalent:  China agrees to cut off all oil supplies to North Korea, and to try to engineer a coup, in exchange for an end to US arms sales to Taiwan.

It’s not Giancarlo Stanton to the Yankees, but it has sizzle, no?

The Taiwanese are worried that Trump plans to use them as a bargaining chip in his dealings with China.  Since there is no moral dimension to “America First”  (morality is for suckers, after all), they have good reason.

So let us give praise to Mikaela.

You knew that she just wouldn’t fail-a.

No matter what race

Not for her, second place.

Count on her to deliver the mail-a.

I’m not a big X Games guy, but I have to admit that watching Shaun White win on the halfpipe last night was pretty exhilarating.  You could view it as an exhibition of American individualism at its finest.

It’s a mistake to think that the Chinese are automatons, because they’re anything but.  However, the emphasis on the collective over the individual that is baked into Chinese culture makes it impossible for me to imagine a Chinese version of White.

There is a lesson in geopolitics there:  play to your strengths, and ours is the joy of individual freedom.

Three comments on the Trump budget:

1.  Budgeting is hard, tedious work.  In light of that, does anyone really believe that Trump has actually read his own budget?  Does anyone think he even has a vague idea of what’s in it?
2.  Since Mulvaney is a CL, it is not surprising that the budget is CL-friendly.  Of course, it’s going nowhere in Congress, but at least the Kochs should be pleased with this evidence of Trump’s apparent good intentions.
3.  Trump will wear this budget, and its successors, in 2020.  It will be entertaining to watch the Democratic nominee attack the proposed cuts to anti-poverty programs at the debates, because Trump won’t even know what they are.

As I’ve noted previously, Trump had two options with infrastructure.  The first was a bipartisan plan with lots of new federal money that the CLs would hate; the second was a small CL-friendly plan focusing on privatization and state and local funds that the Democrats would hate.

The plan is Option B.  To sum it up from Trump’s perspective, you build a bridge, I provide a small sum of money for it, and you name it after me.

It’s hard to see why he would even bother to do this.  The plan isn’t going anywhere, the public isn’t impressed, and he’s not going to be able to run on it.