In Rome, the tactic was “Bread and Circuses.” Food was distributed and big spectacles were staged with Christians and lions or gladiators, all to distract and preoccupy the masses.
Our current overlords seem to have forgotten the bread part of the equation, but the Romans would be absolutely green with envy if they could see how adept our politicians and their fellow-travelers have become at mounting “Circuses.”
What race was Santa? (Ignore the fact that Santa is imaginary.) Get out there and fight the (equally imaginary) War on Christmas! OMG–the President ACTUALLY SHOOK HANDS with Raul Castro–cue up the Impeachment Brigade! And there’s Sarah Palin (a walking, semi-literate Circus all by herself), warning good, “real” Americans about the growing Atheist Threat.
And on and on.
Our pitifully inadequate media (I won’t dignify most of them by calling them journalists) dutifully spend their time reporting this drivel, and ignoring subjects that should matter to citizens in a rational universe. State and local corruption flourishes as coverage evaporates; nationally, bought-and-paid-for Congressmen and Senators pass legislation benefitting their donors and patrons at the expense of other Americans.
But we don’t care, because–look over there at the shiny object!–Obama is a Muslim! The Gays are coming for your children! Somewhere, some slutty woman is using birth control, and White Jesus wouldn’t like that!
My husband and I just spent a couple of days in Asheville, N.C. We’ve previously visited the city, and are periodically drawn back by its thriving arts community.
Because we are old city hall types, when we travel, we tend to look for indicators of social and civic health that might not interest other visitors: are there empty store-fronts in the central core? How’s public transportation? Are there people “out and about”? Is there a good mix of housing and retail activity in the downtown (Jane Jacobs’ “eyes on the street”), or is the urban core dominated by banks and law offices?
Asheville is a fascinating place for a number of reasons. According to my friend Google, it’s about a third the size of Indianapolis. It has the worst mess of Interstate highways I’ve ever seen slicing into neighborhoods and districts, but its small downtown was vibrant. What struck us was the nature of the shops, cafes and restaurants populating the urban center: virtually all of them were local. Unlike the many interchangeable places we visit, authentic mom-and-pop enterprises haven’t been crowded out by the predictable Gaps, Pottery Barns and Starbucks.
Mr. Google wasn’t as helpful when I tried to figure out why these local entrepreneurs were thriving in Asheville, despite their waning numbers in so many other locations. But I did find this nugget on a municipal website that might explain why support for the arts seems to have taken a central place in Asheville’s economic development strategy:
Statewide, the nonprofit arts and culture industry generates $1.2 billion in direct economic activity in North Carolina, supporting more than 43,600 full-time equivalent jobs and generating $119 million in revenue for local governments and the State of North Carolina.
“We all understand and appreciate the intrinsic values of the arts. This study shows that arts organizations are also businesses. They employ people locally, purchase goods and services from within the community, are members of the chamber of commerce and local convention and visitor bureau’s and are key participants in marketing their cities and regions,” said Wayne Martin, executive director of the N.C. Arts Council.
“Because arts organizations are strongly rooted in their community the jobs they provide are, on the whole, local and cannot be shipped overseas,” Martin added.
It would be interesting to know which came first, the arts community or the strategy; it would also be interesting to know whether Asheville offers financing for small, local businesses; the preference of bankers for chains and large enterprises with significant assets and proven track records is often cited as a reason start-ups have such a hard time starting up.
With or without financing incentives, however, it was clear to us that Asheville’s decision to focus on the arts was a savvy one. The city hosts a variety of art festivals that draw lots of tourists, it is using art as a tool for redeveloping a dilapidated riverfront district, and a number of the galleries, cafes and shops in the downtown area were clearly geared toward “artsy” folks. That was true even of the local restaurants we tried–they were excellent, and as innovative as those in much larger, “foodie” cities.
Other observations, in no particular order: young people were everywhere–and overwhelmingly white. (Despite Asheville’s considerable merits, diversity appears to be lacking.) Most shops emphasized that goods were local, or if not, were “fair trade.” Being Green also seemed important. I saw more bookstores (independent!) in a few square blocks than I’ve seen in a long time (hope they last in this electronic age…). I’ve been stopped on the street by religious proselytizers in a number of cities, but in Asheville, the guy was a self-professed Buddhist monk, and that was a new experience.
All in all, a quirky, interesting place–not just another “mall-ified” stop on the highway.
Before the passage of the law, Uruguay’s president made an important point; admitting that legalization was an experiment, he stressed the importance of finding an alternative to the deadly and unsuccessful war on drugs. “We are asking the world to help us with this experience, which will allow the adoption of a social and political experiment to face a serious problem–drug trafficking,” he said. “The effects of drug trafficking are worse than those of the drugs themselves.”
Yes. That is an “inconvenient truth” that everyone from Milton Friedman to the lowliest academic researcher has documented. Drug abuse (which, interestingly, is nowhere defined in the law, which simply prohibits the use of scheduled substances) is a public health problem, and criminalizing it doesn’t help anyone. It does, however, incentivize the drug trade, erode civil liberties, disproportionately affect the black community and make hypocrites of us all.
If pot were legal, regulated and taxed, we could control children’s access (it is harder in most communities for teens to get alcohol than pot) and generate income.
In Uruguay, the government will actually sell marijuana rather than taxing it. Andrew Sullivan reports that
Under the new law, Uruguayans registered with the government will be allowed to buy up to 40 grams (1.4 ounces) of marijuana from government-licensed pharmacies. Private companies roped in to help produce enough weed to meet local demand will have to sell their crop to the government for distribution. The government will rake in some extra cash in the process. The black market for marijuana is worth some $40 million. The government won’t earn as much; it plans to sell the drug for about $1 a gram, roughly 30 percent less than the black market price. But it can count on a lot of customers: Uruguay has a relatively high percentage of pot smokers for the region – third only to Argentina and Chile.
If Uruguay’s experiment works, there will be increasing pressure to end a “War” that has been one of the costliest failures of public policy in the history of the country. And that’s really saying something, because we have a habit of legislating stupid and costly failures.
After a brief discussion of the attack on Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate, the post considered the implications of the GOP’s refusal to bend even when voters are likely to punish them for that intransigence:
The most striking fact when it comes to women and birth control is this one: 99 percent of sexually active women use it.
Pundits have often pointed out that historically, neither party tends to dominate the political system for very long. The reason for this is that, like how corporations exist to make money, political parties exist to win elections, and if the party keeps taking positions that alienate huge fractions of the electorate, then they’ll change those positions.
But the GOP isn’t doing this. After the 2012 defeat, driven in large part by being absolutely crushed in practically every minority demographic, Republicans halfheartedly tried to choke down an immigration reform bill to at least stop the bleeding. President Obama signaled his support, and the Senate passed a half-decent measure. But now reform looks dead because House Republicans refuse to let the Senate bill come up for a vote. For the GOP, it’s almost the worst of all worlds: a bill supported by all the prominent Democrats goes down due to extremist Republican intransigence. Now Democrats get to blame the GOP for breaking their promise, and quite possibly increase their share of the minority vote. It would have been better to not do anything.
Something similar looks to be happening for women’s issues. Ken Cuccinelli just went down in the Virginia governor’s race largely due to his antediluvian views on women’s rights. The party as a whole would be best served by this debate just going away. But extremists have strongly-held beliefs, and don’t particularly care about clear-eyed electoral cost-benefit calculations.
Here in Indiana, the culture-warrior contingent of the state GOP remains adamant about the need to pass HJR6, despite pretty convincing evidence that their position is costing them support–especially among the younger voters they will increasingly need.
Politics is the art of compromise. Religion, of course, is a matter of faith. To describe today’s Republican party as “Faith Based” is accurate–but it is not a compliment. It’s another way to suggest that the party’s current course is suicidal.
I was pretty exasperated by my undergraduate class this semester: their lack of interest in government, politics and policy was matched only by their inability to write a grammatical sentence. (This is most definitely not typical. Generally, SPEA students are pretty engaged with policy—they are, after all, enrolled in a school of public affairs.)
Although there were exceptions, this semester, my undergraduates were intellectually inert–unaware of current events, unfamiliar with news media (online or off), and generally passive about most of the issues of the day. (The exception, interestingly, was same-sex marriage, for which most of them expressed strong support.)
As the semester went on, I became increasingly frustrated, and as a result I did something I’d never previously done: I added an entirely optional “extra credit” question to the take-home examination.
During the semester, I have noticed—and expressed concern about—the lack of interest in current events, politics and policy displayed by a significant percentage of this class. Answering only for yourself, what would it take to make you take an interest in public affairs? What would make you a regular reader of media accounts of current events and policy debates? What would it take to engage you in political discussions and activities? (If you are engaged—why?)
Most of the students chose to answer the question (they needed the extra points!), and I was struck by the consistency of their responses. They claimed that they don’t follow the news because they don’t trust the news media.
Over and over, students characterized the current media environment as polarizing and unreliable. They were skeptical of the accuracy of reporting, going so far as to suggest that politically partisan sources don’t simply engage in spin, but actually “make stuff up.”
And they painted with a broad brush—they didn’t distinguish between the more obviously partisan reporting from Fox News and MSNBC and more trustworthy sources like the New York Times or (locally) the IBJ.
One student wrote, “Perhaps, if I knew of a credible source that I could rely on to just report facts, I’d be willing to spend the time to know more.”
Although I would argue that disengagement is the worst possible response to this phenomenon–if, indeed, distrust was what was motivating their indifference– these students aren’t entirely wrong.
Those of us who have followed the efforts of traditional newspapers to survive in an electronic era have bemoaned the loss of much local news coverage, the layoffs of investigative reporters and the replacement of hard news with “soft” human interest and “how-to” features. Fewer and fewer news sources are offering what we used to call “the news of verification.” The explosion of all-news cable channels and the twenty-four-hour “news hole” have encouraged a rush to be first, and damn the accuracy.
A great irony of our current media environment is that while we are awash in information, the credibility of that information has steadily diminished. Students look at the news media—traditional press, bloggers, television news, the constant messages via twitter and Facebook—and they see an undifferentiated mass of propaganda, “infotainment” and sensationalism.
A common advertising come-on for newspapers these days is “news you can use.”
Apparently, what we really need is “news you can trust.”
