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Victory Beer

[ 29 ] May 13, 2012 | Erik Loomis

From the 1942 International Woodworkers of America District 9 Yearbook:

“Because the government has rationed the crown caps used on beer bottles and soft drinks, the Seattle Brewing and Malting Company is urging the use of Rainier Jumbo Bottles. These bottles which hold approximately the same amount of beer as three stubby bottles are being featured in the current advertising program of the brewery.”

Well played, Rainier. How can we take advantage of the war to get people to drink more beer?

Hard to Argue

[ 131 ] May 13, 2012 | Erik Loomis

William Deresiewicz:

I always found the notion of a business school amusing. What kinds of courses do they offer? Robbing Widows and Orphans? Grinding the Faces of the Poor? Having It Both Ways? Feeding at the Public Trough? There was a documentary several years ago called “The Corporation” that accepted the premise that corporations are persons and then asked what kind of people they are. The answer was, precisely, psychopaths: indifferent to others, incapable of guilt, exclusively devoted to their own interests.

There are ethical corporations, yes, and ethical businesspeople, but ethics in capitalism is purely optional, purely extrinsic. To expect morality in the market is to commit a category error. Capitalist values are antithetical to Christian ones. (How the loudest Christians in our public life can also be the most bellicose proponents of an unbridled free market is a matter for their own consciences.) Capitalist values are also antithetical to democratic ones. Like Christian ethics, the principles of republican government require us to consider the interests of others. Capitalism, which entails the single-minded pursuit of profit, would have us believe that it’s every man for himself.

Bill Murray as FDR

[ 28 ] May 13, 2012 | Erik Loomis

I’m still having trouble seeing Bill Murray as Franklin Roosevelt, but he does have the look down.

Also, I’m really glad Murray refuses to do Ghostbusters 3.

Duck Dunn, RIP

[ 21 ] May 13, 2012 | Erik Loomis

The great bassist from Booker T and the MGs has passed.

The Wages of Austerity

[ 98 ] May 12, 2012 | Erik Loomis

Example 1: Whooping cough in children.

Travel in Mexico

[ 13 ] May 12, 2012 | Erik Loomis

Via Yann, if you are an American, you are safer traveling in Mexico than in Texas.

Obviously, if you are Mexican and live in Juarez or Matamoros, you aren’t very safe. But the same can be said for the residents of Houston, Baltimore, and New Orleans as well.

Nonetheless, noted international experts in the Texas Department of Public Safety have recommended that Americans avoid Mexico. I guess the Texas Rangers should just invade or something.

I Guess Romney Supports Gay Rights After All!!

[ 53 ] May 11, 2012 | Erik Loomis

Presented without comment:

The problem with Tim Burton is not that he repeatedly casts Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. That’s silly. Was it a problem that Akira Kurosawa repeatedly cast Toshiro Mifune? That Ingmar Bergman hired Liv Ullmann and Max von Sydow over and over? That Scorsese had an amazing 25 year run with Robert DeNiro? Of course not.

The problem with Tim Burton is that he has nothing left to say.

….An additional note. One useful thing in that linked piece is to suggest Burton might benefit from doing something entirely different. I do agree with that, though I’m extremely skeptical of his ability to pull it off. One thing I love about David Lynch’s The Straight Story is that not only is it a very fine film, but Lynch also clearly proved that he work in very different types of film with great skill. His weirdness is not a crutch, as opposed to Burton.

The Oregon Attorney General Race and the War on Drugs

[ 9 ] May 11, 2012 | Erik Loomis

Jill Harris has a nice summary of the Oregon Attorney General race, one of the most interesting and potentially important downticket races this year. Because the Republicans stupidly decided not to run someone here, it’s being decided in the upcoming Democratic primary on May 15 (and under Oregon mail voting laws, people are already sending in their ballots).

Although there are 2 Democrats running, they are different as night and day. This has turned into a single-issue race: medical marijuana and drug decriminalization. Former Interim U.S. Attorney Dwight Holton is running on his record as a drug buster, using all the typical anti-drug hysteria one would expect. The other candidate, Ellen Rosenblum, is a former judge who didn’t intend on running on medical marijuana, but when the ground began to shift, stated her progressive position on it, even visiting medical marijuana clinics on campaign stops.

A Holton victory certainly will not only put the clamps down on Oregon’s medical marijuana laws but will be a pretty big defeat for those who support these laws. If a pro-medical pot candidate can’t win in Oregon, can one win anywhere? The upshot of a Rosenblum victory is a bit less clear to me. With Obama’s increasingly aggressive crackdown on marijuana growers and the continued hostility of law enforcement, I don’t know that it moves Oregon off of the standoff it already has with the feds. But it would be a rare case of a state’s top law enforcement officer being elected on an explicitly pro-medical marijuana platform and that’s meaningful.

Harris doesn’t provide any polling data. Internal polls have each candidate ahead, with Rosenblum’s poll giving her a sizable lead and Holton’s a small one. Neither poll seems all that telling to me. Given that this is a Democratic primary in Oregon and not a general election, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see Rosenblum win. And this gets back to the stupidity of Republicans for not running someone. I don’t know whether Rosenblum could win a statewide race against a credible Republican on this platform. It’s possible, but I don’t see how it wasn’t worth a shot at least for Republicans. Of course, given the Oregon Republican Party’s complete lack of credibility (please continue to nominate right-wing extremists and indifferent athletes in a state dominated by Portland and Eugene!), they might not have anyone credible to run.

Pareene on Goldberg

[ 124 ] May 11, 2012 | Erik Loomis

No one has ever said it’s hard to completely destroy Jonah Goldberg. But it doesn’t mean that doing so isn’t fun. Alex Pareene must have enjoyed writing this. In part:

From a 2010 column on the supposed “Ground Zero Mosque”:

Here’s a thought: The 70% of Americans who oppose what amounts to an Islamic Niketown two blocks from ground zero are the real victims of a climate of hate, and anti-Muslim backlash is mostly a myth.

Calling that “a thought” is pretty generous. The “Islamic Niketown” line is never explained, presumably because Goldberg found it to be a self-evidently funny joke. (I beg someone to tell me what it means. Failing that, I beg someone to find me the editor who allowed it to remain in the column.) Other self-evidently funny things to Goldberg include Asians and Pacific Islanders with HIV/AIDS and poor conditions in public housing and a lack of affordable housing … for people with AIDS.

As he’s aged, and begun wearing his fancy “best-selling author” smoking jacket around the house, Goldberg has supplemented his “Battlestar Galactica” references with references to philosophers and scholars — Burke, Hume, etc. — in order to appear serious. The effect is similar to that of a chimp wearing a top hat and monocle. His need to be taken seriously is forever doomed by his addiction to lazy generalities. That tension was apparent in the reception that greeted his first book, and his reaction to that reception.

….In comments, Mark F notes Goldberg’s response. My favorite line: “I think what confuses some people is that while I don’t take myself all that seriously, I do take ideas seriously.” Ha ha ha.

Your Republican Party!

[ 84 ] May 10, 2012 | Erik Loomis

The modern Republican Party: creating myths about what the Founders thought out of thin air yet actually opposing what the Founders invented while screaming tyranny.

The latest example of the second part of this equation comes from the House passing a bill eliminating the census surveys that have been part of the census process ever since 1790 when noted tyrant and suppressor of civil liberties Thomas Jefferson created it to learn more about how the nation’s people lived.

Some choice quotes:

“It would seem that these questions hardly fit the scope of what was intended or required by the Constitution,” said Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.), author of the amendment. “This survey is inappropriate for taxpayer dollars,” Webster added. “It’s the definition of a breach of personal privacy. It’s the picture of what’s wrong in Washington, D.C. It’s unconstitutional.”

Yes, because the government that created the census surveys didn’t know much about the Constitution since it only consisted of several delegates to the Constitutional Convention.

Also, the real Daniel Webster is no doubt rolling over in his grave (or more likely giving a 15 hour speech about it in the afterlife) about what an idiot his namesake is.

And of course, Steve King, man of genius:

“I think it’s important to have the information, but it’s important that people have freedom and liberty and we do not have an intrusive federal government that would impose a fine on people if they didn’t let the information come out about whether they had a flush toilet,” said Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa).

I guess this all makes sense though, because there’s no question the Republicans are opposed to the Enlightenment.

Shorter Josh Treviño: “Smear the Queer”

[ 76 ] May 10, 2012 | Erik Loomis

I know it’s shocking that conservatives would support both bullying and homophobia. In case you had forgotten this, allow me to present you with Josh Treviño’s response to this story of Romney being a homophobic bully in high school. Among his tweets on it include:

What this ludicrous story on Young Mitt represents is the intersection of the political hit piece with the anti-bullying hysteria.

And

I actually feel better about Mitt, knowing he’ll forcibly cut hippies’ hair:

Now, one can debate the relevance of a story about a presidential candidate in high school, although bullying tendencies at age 15 don’t always go away. But as Ezra Klein pointed out in another tweet, “the reactions are telling us some disturbing things about others.” Indeed they are. They remind us that conservatives love bullying and they love homophobia. And that includes supposedly serious and respectable conservative Josh Treviño.