"In seeking to protect our children from bullying and aggression, we risk depriving them of a most remarkable form of social exchange."

"In teasing, we learn to use our voices, bodies and faces, and to read those of others — the raw materials of emotional intelligence and the moral imagination. We learn the wisdom of laughing at ourselves, and not taking the self too seriously. We learn boundaries between danger and safety, right and wrong, friend and foe, male and female, what is serious and what is not. We transform the many conflicts of social living into entertaining dramas. No kidding."

Amen.

RjDj -- "That is something very similar to the effect of drugs."

An iPhone app, explained and demonstrated well here:



I love this app and enjoy making, say, going shopping aurally weird and arty and challenging. It's cool to be connected to your environment and disoriented at the same time. A bit like being crazy, but you can turn it off. I was walking around a bookstore with "Echolon" playing, and it picked up snippets of conversation and echoed and transformed them in a highly amusing way.

ADDED: I realized that running this app into your own ears is like imposing a "Harrison Bergeron" program on yourself. Are some children smarter than others? Let them listen to the teacher through "Echolon."

At the Doomstruck Café...

... gah... why did I ever leave the house? Cheer me up, man. It's like a Bergman movie out here.

Winter willow.

Temperature: 13°.

Life with fluorescent bulbs.

You know what it will be like -- don't you? -- this life with fluorescent bulbs that Obama and his cadre of environmentalists are about to foist on us all. It will be like this:



I'm not arguing that with you...

Obama on "Meet the Press."

I'll link to the transcript when it becomes available. And here are a few idle observations:

1. He keeps talking about changing light bulbs! This reminds me of the old tire-gauge solution to high gas prices. What will he do about the economy? First, replace a lot of government light bulbs.

2. His biggest rhetorical tic: breaking up answers into "the short term" and "the long term." Anything he wants to do now is "the short term," and it doesn't much need to make economic sense other than to "jump start" the economy. To the extent that there are other things that we should be doing, he puts them in the "long term" category. Having the 2 headings helps make disparate things look coherent.

3. Obama's idea of the auto bailout is a little opaque, but it's clear that he wants to get the companies to make small cars. But how will he do that? How can they become economically viable on small cars, especially with the low gas prices of today? Brokaw suggests imposing a tax on gas to make the price $4 again. Obama won't go there, of course, but I don't understand where he will go.

AND: One more thing about the light bulbs. (First, watch the movie clip in the next post.) In yesterday's address -- the weekly radio address of the President elect -- he said:

Today, I am announcing a few key parts of my plan. First, we will launch a massive effort to make public buildings more energy-efficient. Our government now pays the highest energy bill in the world. We need to change that. We need to upgrade our federal buildings by replacing old heating systems and installing efficient light bulbs. That won't just save you, the American taxpayer, billions of dollars each year. It will put people back to work.

See? Light bulbs first. They're supremely important! They will save us all! Light bulbs!

MORE: Here's the transcript. Striking my ear the wrong way:

You know, tomorrow, you had mentioned earlier, is when we commemorate Pearl Harbor, and so I'm going to be making announcement tomorrow about the head of our Veterans Administration, General Eric Shinseki, who was a commander and has fought in Vietnam, Bosnia, is, is somebody who has achieved the highest level of military service.

Tomorrow? That sent me checking the calendar. (Brokaw, earlier, had said "today.") [CLARIFICATION: At the beginning of the transcript -- watching live, I'd missed the first few minutes -- Brokaw said the interview was recorded "yesterday." Later, he said: "Sixty-seven years ago this day, one of your predecessors, Franklin Roosevelt, faced Pearl Harbor." I guess he meant that 67 years ago to the day, FDR "faced" the events that would occur the following day.]

Also, this bugged me:

MR. BROKAW: ... Let me ask you as we conclude this program this morning about whether you and Michelle have had any discussions about the impact that you're going to have on this country in other ways besides international and domestic policies. You're going to have a huge impact, culturally, in terms of the tone of the country.

PRES.-ELECT OBAMA: Right.

MR. BROKAW: Who are the kinds of artists that you would like to bring to the White House?

PRES.-ELECT OBAMA: Oh, well, you know, we have thought about this because part of what we want to do is to open up the White House and, and remind people this is, this is the people's house. There is an incredible bully pulpit to be used when it comes to, for example, education. Yes, we're going to have an education policy. Yes, we're going to be putting more money into school construction. But, ultimately, we want to talk about parents reading to their kids. We want to invite kids from local schools into the White House. When it comes to science, elevating science once again, and having lectures in the White House where people are talking about traveling to the stars or breaking down atoms, inspiring our youth to get a sense of what discovery is all about.

The question was arts.

Finally, he gets to the arts, which by now, I'm convinced he cares little about:

Thinking about the diversity of our culture and, and inviting jazz musicians and classical musicians and poetry readings in the White House so that, once again, we appreciate this incredible tapestry that's America.

So that, once again, we appreciate this incredible tapestry that's America? Once again? Is there any reason to think that the arts events in that George Bush had at the White House were lacking in cultural or ethnic diversity? And Obama doesn't name even one artist, perhaps for fear of leaving someone out. Speaking of diversity: he merely ticks off the high-class categories: jazz, classical, poetry. Some incredible tapestry! Then he comes out with this:

I--you know, that, I think, is, is going to be incredibly important, particularly because we're going through hard times. And, historically, what has always brought us through hard times is that national character, that sense of optimism, that willingness to look forward, that, that sense that better days are ahead. I think that our art and our culture, our science, you know, that's the essence of what makes America special, and, and we want to project that as much as possible in the White House.

Nothing like specificity.

Pay attention!

You have the capacity to remember much more than you might imagine, but you have to pay attention.



(Via Science Central.)

Frozen out.

Congressman Jefferson.

"I look like your wicked sexy English teacher and you look like you're writing a sequel to 'Our Town' for your final project."

Fashion -- I won't say "catfight" -- dialogue.

Pearl Harbor Day.

Randy Barnett visits the memorial.

Clay Shirky says "Dear Mr. Obama" was the most "affecting" video of the campaign.

Per Shirky:

I am an anti-Iraq-war Democrat, and it nevertheless brought tears to my eyes (and I don't cry easy -- will.i.am's Yes We Can left me fairly cold.)...

This is a video made by people who knew exactly what they were doing. Stuff like the American flag draped just in frame looks hokey to the godless/ sodomite/ baby-killing wing of the Democratic party (my people), but is part of a "plain speaking and right thinking" package that clearly hit just right with the target audience. It was seen 13 million times in 3 months, which topped Obama Girl in absolute views, and I've got a Crush...on Obama was up a year and a half.

This is why this video is really really important: the simple message and Blair Witch production values (good enough to be effective, bad enough to seem unplanned) made this video like Democratic kryptonite. The video was largely circulated via homophilous forwarding along conservative channels.

By the way, it was "homophilously" forwarded to me many times, and, though I posted many videos, from different sides, I chose not to post that one. Shirky notes that few of his students (in NYU media studies) had seen that video, and, basically, it wasn't meant for them. It was the perfect viral video:

For the base, a muscular but polite attack on the very issue that brought Obama into the spotlight. For the undecided, the emotional charge is much likelier to sway them than argumentation. And for the Dems -- nothing. The video might as well not have existed for all it was seen in Democratic circles. Since the video's sole speaker can't be criticized without making the criticizer look churlish at best, almost no Dems forwarded it, linked to it, talked about it.

That is, it couldn't be used in a negative way by McCain's opponents, so it didn't backfire, as many videos do: "Dear Mr. Obama was music to Republican ears while being inert in Democratic hands." Bottom line: "expect it to be a template for 2010."

IN THE COMMENTS: Freeman Hunt said...

I had never seen this video before. I must be odd. While I agree with the guy, I don't find the video affecting. Or maybe I'm not odd and Shirky is wrong.

Interesting. Me too: I agreed with the man in the video, but he didn't play my heartstrings. He was stating the obvious as far as I was concerned, and the revelation of the prosthetic leg did not change anything for me. Whether he had lost a limb or not, I know plenty of others have. There is no new information or argument, just an emotional appeal that works if you've somehow failed to know the most basic things about the war.

So then, perhaps the interesting question is: Why did Shirky cry? The video was, in his view, "inert" for people like him. I think he means only that war opponents felt like suppressing it because they perceived it as having the power to generate support for the war. But he may be quite wrong about that, since he is imagining the effect on people who don't think the way he does. And it may be that war opponents tend to be people who react very strongly to the sight of physical injuries -- to the point where emotion gets the better of reason. In that case, the video is not inert, and it could be used for the anti-war cause, the way any war injury and death is used.

Barbara Walters interviews Rush Limbaugh.

Hot Air has the video -- and highlights the line "I love Sarah Palin" (adding "How does Huck expect to compete with her among the base when Rush, Hannity, Ingraham, et al. are head over heels for her?"):



Here's what Rush himself said about the interview on his Friday radio show. First, there's this observation about the difference between TV and radio:

[O]ne of the reasons, ladies and gentlemen, I am not enthusiastic about television is that it drives me nuts getting feedback every time I'm on television. When I had my own show, I would go home, I'd check the e-mail, whatever, and nobody was ever satisfied. Everybody always had a complaint. I never get complaints about this radio show. I never have people say, "What you shoulda said was… and why did you let 'em ask that? You shoulda thrown it right back in their face." I said, "What's the point? What's the point?" Nobody is ever satisfied with television because all that matters is how you look and nothing else matters. Nobody remembers what anybody ever says on television. I give you Obama. It's how you look; it's how you come off.

Well, Rush's style has evolved on the radio, and it's not so good on TV. I watch the radio show on the webcam sometimes, and I can see what the problem is. He puts his body into producing that voice. He doesn't worry about how it looks. It's all about producing the sound. And it doesn't look relaxed and natural. You can see the effort. It's tiring to watch it, but for listening, it fits the material perfectly. I think he's wrong in saying that TV is only about how you look, but his demeanor is so radio that when he's on TV, we're distracted by the unsuitable visuals. People on TV have honed their style. Walters is brilliant at what she does, and Rush ought to admit that great TV technique really is something, just as his radio voice is.

Next, he complains at length about the way they edited his answer about how much money he makes in a recession. They chose to air the funny line -- "I just choose not to participate" -- and to skip the economics lecture -- which is that all he gets is a percentage of what the show brings in. He claims they took it out because it didn't fit their script. They want to portray him as someone who's cold to the suffering of others. (Barbara stresses that he grew up rich.) He's right but only part right. They were also making him more interesting.

Rush goes on to emphasize that he -- and none of the other "10 Most Fascinating People" -- got Barbara laughing: "We were yucking it up and having a good time." I noticed that he had a strategy of laughing. He responded to almost every question by laughing. He also uses laughing a lot on his radio show. There's a difference between saying funny things that make us laugh and using your own laughing as a form of communication. Be aware: Rush loves to laugh in the face of liberals, to give the impression that whatever they say is plainly foolish. If Barbara laughed along with that, I suspect that she was following her own strategy, letting him feel like the 2 of them were just having a good time, so he'd spill something she could use. Rush said "There was nothing really confrontational about it." Ah, yes. How do you think Barbara does what she does? She helps you get comfortable. He saw that too, because he goes on to say: "The whole thing was a challenge."

Hmmm. Contradiction. It wasn't confrontational, but it was a challenge? That, my friends, is a typical Rush change of direction. He doesn't admit he's wrong when he sees he's wrong. He just starts saying something else. As a law professor, I'm very familiar with that technique. I know you can do it. You realize you're saying something that is wrong or off for some reason. You can either: 1. Shift to getting it right and pretend there was never a problem, or 2. Stop and deliberately point out the problem -- look, that's wrong and here's why -- and then go on to get it right -- to openly show your work as you get to the right way of putting it. I understand why commentators and politicians protect themselves by using #1, but I think #2 is the ethical approach.

Joe Biden plans to do nothing as Vice President.

And he's preening as if he's being upstanding and virtuous. Is it even something he's doing as opposed to having done to him?

"Garfield Minus Garfield Plus Garfield."

"Urg, the commenters on that page manage to miss the point so gloriously I'm tempted to read it as some kind of PoMo metacommentary. Now my head hurts."

***

Every time I go to add the "philosophy" tag, Blogger tries to auto-complete the word to "Phil Gramm." Can I have my Garfield without Garfield, and my philosophy without Phil Gramm?

Fascist cars?

Why aren't we more hostile to cars? Are we deluded about what they are doing to us? Jon Garvie is reviewing a couple books. Here's a challenging excerpt:

Nineteenth-century English conservatives detested the car, believing that it would destroy the looks and manners of the countryside. Italian Futurists exalted “the beauty of speed” in the 1920s, hoping that it would usher in a new violent age, shorn of “emasculating tendencies” like democracy. Mussolini and Hitler followed through such ideas, the latter bequeathing the autobahns and the Volkswagen to subsequent road enthusiasts. [Brian] Ladd's explicitly anti-car study ["Autophobia"] questions why machines associated with individual freedom have appealed so greatly to fascists of all stripes (Russian and Chinese central planners were both great admirers of Henry Ford).

Opponents of cars have laboured the same points for more than a century: damage to the environment, social atomization and, of course, a high risk of accident and death. In opposition, the pro-car lobby requires abstract arguments which refuse to address the same set of “facts” and foreground ideology instead. From Hitler to Margaret Thatcher, car advocates have seen them as literal engines of change; vehicles by which to remake society, whether on the basis of individualism or collectivism.

Martha "Sunny" von Bulow has died -- after 28 years in a coma.

Her husband Claus von Bulow was accused of trying to kill her. Their story was depicted in the movie (and book) "Reversal of Fortune." A clip:



That's Jeremy Irons as von Bulow. The lawyer -- Alan Dershowitz -- is played by Ron Silver. (Unconscious, on the bathroom floor, playing Sunny, is Glenn Close.)

Von Bulow was convicted, and Dershowitiz won the appeal that got him a new trial. He was then acquitted. Where is he now?

Claus von Bulow is living in London, "mostly taking care of his grandchildren," said Alan Dershowitz, the defense lawyer who won his acquittal at the second trial.

"It's a sad ending to a sad tragedy that some people tried to turn into a crime," Dershowitz said. "I hope this finally will put to an end to this terrible tragedy."...

Claus von Bulow's main accusers were his wife's children by a previous marriage, Princess Annie Laurie von Auersperg Kniessl and Prince Alexander von Auersperg. They renewed the charges against their stepfather in a civil lawsuit a month after his acquittal.

Two years later, Claus von Bulow agreed to give up any claims to his wife's estimated $25 million-to-$40 million fortune and to the $120,000-a-year income of a trust she set up for him. He also agreed to divorce her, leave the country and never profit from their story.