April 29: Special "Going to Hell in A Handbasket" Edition

In my life I've moved around a lot. In times of stress, what my therapist once called "the geographic option" is always an option for me. It's not just that I'm flexible, or that I enjoy seeing new places and feel comfortable in them quickly. I also never really take root in a spot; I'm ever ready to be on the go again. The thought of being more-or-less permanently tied down to a place because of obligations there is rather distasteful to me, so I don't put myself in that situation. As long as I can bring my pets, books, and clothing with me to a new place, I'll be home. I have a lot of books and clothing, so my life is not quite as portable as it might otherwise be; but still, all that stuff can be moved, and has been, any number of times.

I think this notion that home is wherever you are is foreign to many, perhaps most, people, who cannot feel truly secure away from familiar surroundings, family, and friends. There is certainly something to be said for a support system, and I'm not denying that. But I have never found that familiarity provided any kind of real protection against life's trials; in certain circumstances, it can compound them by shutting off possible avenues of development. Not having a geographic option at all is not exactly desirable when the nation and world are in as uncertain a state as they are.

My move to Korea is now one month away, and I'm eager to see what I make of my new surroundings. The Estonia-based blog Itching for Eestimaa mentions one aspect of the experience that I'm definitely looking forward to:

One of the perks of living in Estonia is that you are far removed from the endless barrage of propaganda that is American political discourse. On the downside, the longer you stay in Estonia and, especially, the stronger your command of the local language becomes, newer, potent forms of propaganda manifest themselves in your daily life.

http://palun.blogspot.com/2010/04/talle-see-sobib.html

Being "far removed from the endless barrage of propaganda" does indeed sound appealing, and I imagine it will take quite a while before I have a sufficient command of the Korean language to feel much exposed to whatever sorts of discourse their media engage in.

I won't miss the American political situation, that's for sure. I like this comment that James Howard Kunstler made in his weekly column:

President Obama's speech at Cooper Union last week was a remarkable performance. It managed to appear forceful and serious without containing any really serious or forceful proposals to discipline a banking system that is running a hostage-and-ransom racket on civilization. If this is finally what the Obama Experience is all about than his detractors have been right all along: he is a tool....It's sad to think of this graceful, still rather young man going down in history as the chump-of-the-century, a reincarnation of Herbert Hoover on steroids, with sugar on top.  

http://kunstler.com/blog/2010/04/a-still-moment.html

Justin Erik Halldor Smith makes an excellent point with respect to the Arizona immigration law debate, a point that is often forgotten, and that I used to frequently repeat to my U.S. History classes in the hope that it would sink in. The United States is historically bilingual in English and Spanish; huge chunks of the Southwest, and the Gulf Coast too, were Spanish-speaking well before they were ever English-speaking. (Hat tip to 3QuarksDaily.)

http://www.jehsmith.com/1/2010/04/a-note-on-the-arizona-immigration-bill.html

On the other side of the U.S./Mexico border....things are not going so well. Juan Villoro at n+1 analyzes what has become "a country of blood and lead":

The drug trade tends to act twice: in the world of events, and again in the news, where it very rarely encounters an opposing discourse. Television amplifies the horror by disseminating, in close-ups and slow motion, crimes with marks of authorship. It’s possible to distinguish the “signatures” of the different cartels: some decapitate their victims, others cut out their tongues, others leave the dead in the trunks of cars, others wrap them in blankets. In some cases, criminals record their executions and send videos to the media or post them on YouTube—after a not insignificant postproduction process. The mainstream news media become the narco’s late-night TV, the zone in which the offense committed in reality becomes an infomercial for terror.

http://nplusonemag.com/the-red-carpet

Meanwhile, across the globe, the modern mega-city of Dubai provides its own sort of disgusting-but-transfixing spectacle, equally tied to money flows. (Another hat tip to 3QuarksDaily.)

Dubai may have the world’s tallest building and the world’s largest shopping mall, but it also has the world’s tiniest soul. It’s a plastic city built in steel and glass. It has imported all the worst aspects of western culture (excessive consumption, environmental defilement) without importing any of its benefits (democracy, art). This is a city designed for instant gratification a hedonistic paradise for gluttons to indulge in fast food, fast living and fast women.

The author of that passage, George Fulton, is a journalist based in Pakistan, and he uses the negative example of Dubai to encourage the Pakistani nation in a way that I find kind of thrilling:

So for all you naysayers that bemoan Pakistan and its numerous problems please temper your pessimism. Take time to celebrate our cultural, religious, linguistic plurality and richness. Stop the cynicism coursing through your corroded veins. For all its inadequacies, at least we have a democracy. For all its irresponsibility, at least we have a robust media. For all the police corruption, at least we are not a police state. For all our littering, at least we have paper wallahs [journalists]. Remind yourself that at least we have a heart. At least we have a soul. At least we are not Dubai.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/7950/at-least-we-are-not-dubai/

Yesterday, when the AP reported in all seriousness that "Rosy earnings show that corporate America is back," Don Harrold of DayTradeShow.com launched into a memorably funny rant:



At Above the Law, the equally outrageable Elie Mystal discusses a piece by University of Illinois law professor Christine Hurt about the "bubble" in law school tuition and student loans:

But do you know what the real bitch of it is? If it turns out you made a terrible investment by going to law school, it’s impossible for you to get out from under your mistakes. You can’t discharge law school debt through bankruptcy absent a showing of undue hardship. As Hurt points out, you are arguably in a worse position if you are saddled with law school debt than if you took out a sub-prime mortgage that you couldn’t afford....You can’t re-sell your law degree at a huge loss....You can’t rent out your law degree. You can’t even hire the mafia to burn down your law degree and reap an insurance payout. The cost of your law degree just sits on top of you. Law schools are releasing an army of mid-twenties professionals who start off six figures in the hole and will spend their prime earning years just trying to get back to a net worth of $0.

http://abovethelaw.com/2010/04/the-next-bubble-law-school-tuition/

http://www.theconglomerate.org/2010/04/death-of-big-law-forum-bubbles-student-loans-and-subprime-debt.html

On top of it all, we've still got some interminable wars going on. The Los Angeles Times's excellent theater critic Charles McNulty says that Rajiv Joseph's play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo is "the most original theatrical response to the Iraq war to date":

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/04/theater-review-bengal-tiger-at-the-baghdad-zoo-at-the-mark-taper-forum.html

Among notables born on this date are jazzmen Duke Ellington and Ray Barretto, harmonica player Toots Thielemans, novelists Rafael Sabatini and Charles Nodier, science fiction novelist Jack Williamson, children's writer Jill Payton Walsh, journalist Egon Erwin Kisch, publisher William Randolph Hearst, poet Constantine Cavafy, mathematician Henri Poincare, composers Harold Shapero and Peter Sculthorpe, conductors Thomas Beecham, Malcolm Sargent, and Zubin Mehta, film directors Fred Zinnemann and Phillip Noyce, tennis player Andre Agassi, "grizzly man" Timothy Treadwell, and actors Celeste Holm, Jean Rochefort, Richard Carlson, Jerry Seinfeld, Michelle Pfeiffer, Eve Plumb, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Uma Thurman. I don't think there's any question that Eve Plumb's Jan Brady is the favorite Brady Bunch sibling of all right-thinking people. I would go so far as to say that I'm not sure there would be a Brady cult today if it weren't for Jan. Her recognizable humanity amidst a family of plastic kids and plastic parents was striking; her frustrations were yours, mine, and everyone's. Although the basics are present in the conception of the character, it's Eve Plumb who made it all real. Not surprisingly, take-offs on Jan, smartly performed by Jennifer Elise Cox, made for some of the best material in the excellent parody films The Brady Bunch Movie and A Very Brady Sequel.