RIP Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger has died. He was 94.

I have only a very fragmentary sense of how the revival of American folk music in the 1950s and 1960s played a role in the politics of the time, but apparently it did (Has there ever been a good right-wing protest song?). I do remember singing “We Shall Overcome” and “Turn Turn Turn” as a little kid in music class in the Ann Arbor public schools in the late 1960s, which I suppose proves just how invidious these forms of propaganda can be.

Also, this is a pretty good story, and none the worse for being confabulated:

Along with many elders of the protest-song movement, Mr. Seeger felt betrayed when Bob Dylan appeared at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival with a loud electric blues band. Reports emerged that Mr. Seeger had tried to cut the power cable with an ax, but witnesses including the producer George Wein and the festival’s production manager, Joe Boyd (later a leading folk-rock record producer), said he did not go that far. (An ax was available, however. A group of prisoners had used it while singing a logging song.)

What is Stephen Glass Doing Today?

Getting rejected by the state of California in his application to practice law (PDF), largely because he has never really come clean about his actions with The New Republic, even well over a decade later.

Via Roger Ailes, who points out that Marty Peretz thinks Glass is a good dude.

Honestly, I kind of feel sorry for the guy. Glass, not Peretz. No one should feel sorry for Peretz.

We Are All White House Advisers

Ron Fournier  has discovered that everyone now agrees with him:

For months, the White House and its allies mocked critics of Barack Obama’s leadership, arguing that no president has “Green Lantern” superhero powers. Now these same people are predicting that Obama can salvage his agenda by waving a magical “pen and phone.”

The contradiction illustrates how far partisans will go to defend a flailing presidency, grasping at slogans and insult…

A contradiction! Who are those people who used to understand how American government works but now think that Obama could get his legislative agenda through a Republican House if he only had the leadership to lead, with leadership? Here’s an exhaustive list of the “same people” who have allegedly changed their minds:

White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer

I don’t recall Pfeiffer ever making fun of Green Laternists, but I’m certainly sure he alone cannot constitute all of “the same people.” But at least he said something really dumb, right?

“He is going to look in every way he can with his pen and his phone to try to move the ball forward,” Pfeiffer said. “We’re putting an extra emphasis on it in 2014.”

So a White House adviser says that Obama will try to do stuff, with no claim at all about whether it will work. But to Fournier, that’s more than enough evidence that everyone agrees with him that Obama could have changed the game by doubling down on the Overton Window, but he didn’t. even. TRY!

But Good Enough For Fox News!

Howard Kurtz, those with long memories will know, had sweet sinecures with both CNN and the Daily Beast (bureau chief!) for reasons that are not easily explicable but were surely bad. He was fired from both in part because of his disgraceful smear of Jason Collins, and in part because he was spending inordinate amounts of time at the platform afforded by his other two jobs to plug an obscure, terrible, and now defunct website. It could safely be inferred that his love for the “Daily Download” was motivated by another conflict of interest, which he denied. You will be highly unsurprised to learn that Occam’s Razor had this right:

Kurtz and Ashburn’s relationship centered on The Daily Download, a puzzling tech website owned by Ashburn (and funded by The Knight Foundation) that culminated, in May 2013, with a video of Kurtz and Ashburn smearing NBA player Jason Collins for coming out as gay. Kurtz was later fired from The Daily Beast and abruptly departed CNN after denying any substantial involvement with the Daily Download.

Yet in a grant proposal submitted by Maryland Public Television to the Knight Foundation on December 10, 2010, Kurtz is listed, along with Ashburn, as a salaried “co-host” of the Daily Download’s 60-second “digital reviews,” which aired on public television, and a “daily blogger” at the Download’s website. One year after that submission, Knight awarded Maryland Public Television $230,000, the majority of which went to Ashburn’s own media company, which helped pay for Kurtz’s extracurricular position.

[...]

The initial proposal’s budget allocated $100,000 each for two Daily Download “hosts,” who in an accompanying “budget narrative” are specifically identified as Kurtz and Ashburn. The same section indicates the pair planned to donate an unspecified portion of their salaries back to Maryland Public Television. (Earlier in the proposal, Kurtz’s donation is described as an in-kind contribution worth $50,000; Ashburn’s donation is not detailed.)

However, a revised budget submitted by Ashburn on November 16, 2011—a year later, and one week after Knight accepted the proposal—indicates that one “host/executive editor” would receive $160,000, and that the other “host” would receive $135,000—a significant increase in each case. (How or whether Kurtz’s “donation” still factored into his compensation is left unspecified.)

There is little doubt that the “hosts” are Kurtz and Ashburn. Throughout these internal documents and in the Knight Foundation’s March 2012 press release, they are the only individuals ever designated as hosts of the Daily Download.

Nice work if you can etc.

At least he’s found a home at Fox News, where he can do some real reporting, like scrolling through Facebook photo galleries for cleavage.

Across 110th Street

Today’s edition of First World Problems:

Anyone who wonders why law school applications are plunging and there’s widespread malaise in many big law firms might consider the case of Gregory M. Owens.

The silver-haired, distinguished-looking Mr. Owens would seem the embodiment of a successful Wall Street lawyer. A graduate of Denison University and Vanderbilt Law School, Mr. Owens moved to New York City and was named a partner at the then old-line law firm of Dewey, Ballantine, Bushby, Palmer & Wood, and after a merger, at Dewey & LeBoeuf.

Today, Mr. Owens, 55, is a partner at an even more eminent global law firm, White & Case. A partnership there or any of the major firms collectively known as “Big Law” was long regarded as the brass ring of the profession, a virtual guarantee of lifelong prosperity and job security.

But on New Year’s Eve, Mr. Owens filed for personal bankruptcy.

According to his petition, he had $400 in his checking account and $400 in savings. He lives in a rental apartment at 151st Street and Broadway. He owns clothing he estimated was worth $900 and his only jewelry is a Concord watch, which he described as “broken.” . . .

Mr. Owens has been well paid by most standards, but not compared with top partners at major firms, who make in the millions. . . When Mr. Owens first became a partner at Dewey, Ballantine, he made about $250,000, in line with other new partners. At Dewey & LeBoeuf, his income peaked at over $500,000 during the flush years before the financial crisis. In 2012, he made $351,000, and last year, while at White & Case, he made $356,500. He listed his current monthly income as $31,500, or $375,000 a year. And he has just over $1 million in retirement accounts that are protected from creditors in bankruptcy.

How far does $375,000 a year go in New York City? Strip out estimated income taxes ($7,500 a month), domestic support ($10,517), insurance ($2,311), a mandatory contribution to his retirement plan ($5,900), and routine expenses for rent ($2,460 a month) transportation ($550) and food ($650) and Mr. Owens estimated that he was running a small monthly deficit of $52, according to his bankruptcy petition. He has gone back to court to get some relief from his divorce settlement, so far without any success.

As the story explains, Owens isn’t really a partner at all any more, but rather a “service partner,” which in the Orwellian argot of big law firms means he’s been “de-equitized,” i.e., he’s salaried employee of the firm, just like the associates and paralegals and secretaries and the guy selling coke in the mail room.

Now if I had a dollar for every story I’ve read in recent years about how mid-six figures doesn’t go very far in Manhattan (or, apparently, Harlem) any more, I wouldn’t have to be making the big bucks by blogging for LGM. Still, this tale of woe is nice example of how economic distress, above the level of brute starvation, is always positional: Owens’ annual salary, stupendous as it might seem in the eyes of the madding crowd, is just two weeks worth of pay for Morton Pierce, his protector at both Dewey and White & Case, and the man who at present is probably standing between Owens and flat-out unemployment. (“White shoe” — meaning old-money WASP — firms like White & Case do not like to see themselves featured in this sort of reportage).

A few other points:

*Citing this kind of thing for why law school applications are down is equivalent of dissuading dreams of athletic greatness by citing the case of a marginal NBA player who got cut and is now having to get by on a $300,000 salary playing for Bologna in the Italian league. Despite his recent status degradation, Owens is still very near the top of the law graduate pyramid.

*This story also reflects the extent to which private legal practice is, even at the most stratospheric levels, now more than ever a glorified sales job. Pierce makes rain, so he and a tiny handful of peers gets paid millions. The most skilled technician, by contrast, is exponentially less valuable to a firm, especially since the value a technically skilled lawyer adds can disappear overnight in the wake of a change in the economic or regulatory environment.

*Owens’ current salary is higher than that of 99.8% of non-instutitionalized adult Americans (or 99.65% of such people who are working or currently seeking work).

Update: Anyone interested in the gritty financial details can read Owens’ petition here.

Canada: Proud Exporter of Insane Children’s Programming

If you’re the parent of a toddler/pre-schooler, you’re probably at least somewhat familiar with offerings from channels like Sprout and Disney Jr. . But I think Nick Jr. takes the Emeril Lagasse approach to the kiddie entertainment by partnering with Canadian production companies and insaneing things up a notch.

I’ve talked a bit about “Dino Dan,” but I have a feeling I just left you wanting more, so here’s the more.

“Dino Dan” is a show about a supernaturally-annoying 10-year-old Canadian boy who may or may not be quite mentally ill, and can’t get two goddamn words out of his mouth without mentioning some dumb dinosaur. Now, in the real world (America), Dino Dan would be treated like the world’s most irritating possibly insane nerd, but in La La Land (Canada) everyone can’t wait (and they don’t need to, ‘cuz they’re coming roughly every 5 seconds) for Dan’s next info-nugget… and looks at him raptly as he poops them out. To be fair, that’s what the kids do. The adults look at him like “OH, DAN” with a soupcon of “my soul weeps for this damaged child.” Mostly I reckon they’re smiling because they’re thankful none of the dinos have instructed him to kill anybody. THAT WE KNOW OF.

But the producers of “Dino Dan” aren’t content to stop here. No, they have to insane it up one more notch by casting The Kids in the Hall as teachers and this guy–THIS GUY–as Dan’s uncle.

This poor guy can’t take one more fact about dinosaurs. Not one more.

“Paw Patrol” is about a town called “Adventure Bay,” its endearingly incompetent mayor and its endearingly dumb residents, who elected to put a child and a group of puppies in charge of all their emergency services. It is also about the endearingly dumb child who is always needing the Paw Patrol’s services. Ditto for the endearingly dumb marine biologist, Captain Turbot.

The pups are kept pretty busy by the town’s daily “emergencies:” A winter storm threatens a farmer’s crops. A wind turbine blade breaks. The dumb child steers his homemade go-cart into a “busy” street. The mayor loses her “purse chicken,” Chicoletta. Fun fact: In any given show, you will hear the name “Chicoletta” 50 bajillion times. And I’m only exaggerating a little.

Days go by, emergencies are handled and never is it acknowledged that a small child and a group of talking puppies are the town’s only non-idiot residents. It’s…pretty great.

Presumably Chase, “Chase is on the case!” the police dog will never be called out to a domestic violence situation. And if he does–Since this is Adventure Bay (in Canada)–you can assume he’s just breaking up a fight between siblings who both wanted to take out the recycling bin.

Full disclosure: I actually think both shows are really, really cute. “Paw Patrol” has really grown on me, which is great because my son is obsessed with the Halloween episode. I’ve probably seen it 20 times.

If I ever have another child, she will surely be named “Chicoletta.”

So Many Kristallnachts

You might prefer to think that the crank letter Erik noted earlier was nutpicking, only the conservative blogosphere finds his ideas fascinating and would like to subscribe to his newsletter. Marginal increases in tax rates, some attempts to enforce federal regulations, an isolated minor incident of vandalism — just like systematic paramilitary violence and concentration camps, I’m sure you’ll agree. (Cf. also “being criticized for demanding more taxpayer money after you’ve nearly blown up the world economy to reward your workers for doing such a bang-up job is just like being tortured to death by a mob.”)

It should also be noted that the original letter writer is a man of many talents, having written a novel that combines bad wealth porn with bad softcore porn-porn. Subscribers to third-tier winger publications should expect their copies in the mail imminently.

…More from Krugman.