This American Life ran a very good expose a few weeks ago on an “arms trafficking” case that Chris Christie, the now-Republican gubernatorial candidate in New Jersey, prosecuted in 2003. Long story short—and really you should listen to the entire long story—Hemant Lakhani was convicted of arms trafficking after being entrapped by federal prosecutors who not only solicited him for illegal weapons but also arranged for these weapons to be sold to him by a fake Russian supplier. It’s all quite stunning and, at least to me, represents a pretty substantial miscarriage of justice.
The most interesting aspect of the case to me though, was not the willingness of the government to fabricate almost out of whole cloth a would-be “terrorist,” but the insight this example gave into the incredibly perverse incentives which motivate federal prosecutors like Christie to file cases like this. Prosecutors like Christie are often looking for a job promotion (in his case to the governor’s office in New Jersey) and cases such as this one give them a golden opportunity to grandstand. It didn’t matter to Christie that Hemant Lakhani hardly posed a threat to the public; what was important to Christie was that the successful prosecution of a sexy ‘arms-trafficking’ would do wonders for his own political profile.
At the end of the day, it’s awfully hard to prevent abuses of power like this from happening in offices that are controlled by ambitious people who view the job of US attorney as a stepping stone to higher office. That said there’s no question that the Bush Administration certainly made things a bit worse by going out of their way to politicize US attorney offices; as a matter of face, Christie himself was approached by Karl Rove about a possible run for governor while he was still a US attorney. This is the sort of behavior we really ought to go out of our way to prevent and I would hope the Obama Administration is looking at some institutional reforms to prevent abuses like this from happening during this administration.
Tomorrow I’ll be heading back to dear ol’ Yale, so I suspect posting will be a bit light over the weekend as I unpack my boxes and (perhaps) find time to celebrate my birthday.
Phelps Gate-- photo by Adam Soloman
I’m going to make every effort to keep up a somewhat regular posting schedule during the upcoming term but, as you can probably guess, classes tend to take a pretty substantial toll on side projects like this. That said, I’ll try to keep paying attention to the gubernatorial race in Minnesota and hopefully I’ll have time to write a bit about some of the goings on in New Haven. Yale tends to attract a few notable speakers every year from which I might manage to write something worth your time.
Anyway, thanks for reading.
DT
Conor Friedersdorf over at The American Scene and, in an expanded post, at The Daily Dish extols the promise of Yelp(!). As a dedicated Yelper—newly promoted to elite status as of last week—this warms the cockles of my heart: I love Yelp and if you’re a reasonably savvy foodie, there’s no better place to turn for restaurant recommendations. However, that ‘if’ in the previous sentence is a reasonably important factor in the appeal of Yelp.
Remember, not everyone is foodie and Yelp, by and large, is a review site written by like-minded people who look for similar qualities in the places they frequent. If someone is not a foodie, and they follow the recommendations on Yelp, I’m not entirely convinced they’re going to end up liking the choice they were steered towards. Personal anecdote: This summer I lived with a group of Yalies and occasionally we would use Yelp to sort out which place we would go to dinner. Without fail there was always a group of holdouts who complained about the places that Yelp recommended; at the same time, I usually loved the restaurants Yelp served up. What was going on? Yelp’s skewed pool of critics was sending us to restaurants that appealed to my sensibilities, but didn’t exactly resonate with the culinary preferences of my dinner companions.
At the end of the day, I subscribe to the Ezra Klein school of thought when it comes to chain restaurants. This line of reasoning argues that people don’t go to places like The Cheesecake Factory because they’re tricked into thinking they like these restaurants; they go there because they actually enjoy them. While I would not be so smitten with the prospect of dinner at Red Lobster, there are people who legitimately like eating there—this is fine.
The takeaway (no pun intended) from all this is that “good food” means something different to different people. Unfortunately, I think dining critics (from Yelpers to Sam Sifton at the New York Times) assume that there is some sort of objective truth about the restaurant world that enables them to write reviews that will please all people. This can’t be done. There is a huge spectrum of subjective opinions on food that prevents a definitive account of a restaurant from being written.
I don’t believe that Yelp can influence people’s preferences for large-portions of high-fat, high-salt food. And, if Yelp can’t change the preferences of people who like eating at chain-restaurants, these same people are unlikely to get much value out of reading restaurant reviews written by people like me. This is why I’m skeptical of Yelp’s ability to transform the dining habits of a large swath of Americans.
I just saw District 9 and I’m afraid I’m unfortunately going to have to squirrel on this one and give it a thumb down. My greatest gripe with the movie was that while it played itself up on a faux-documentary it suffered from a staggering lack of realism. I know, I know, it’s a film about aliens. It’s not supposed to be particularly realistic. That said, I think movies shot as mockumentaries necessarily have to be held to a stricter standard of believability than regular movies. After all, the fake interviews, news reports and documentary camera work all work to prevent a viewer from suspending disbelief, something that’s critical to enjoying a movie that pushes the bounds of believability beyond everyday life.
District 9 (spoiler alert) had many moments that made me raise my eyebrows, to wit:
- How can the aliens (prawns) communicate with humans and vice versa? I understand that some sort of advanced futuristic technology could be used to construct a translator that could convert alien gibberish to British English but at no point in the movie did the characters ever appear to be using such a device. Instead the humans and the impoverished prawns seemed to be able to understand one another as naturally as if they were all speaking a common tongue. Me thinks not.
- A massive Nigerian crime ring somehow manages to operate in a restricted alien concentration camp, really? Keep in mind that the ever-nefarious defense contractors (more on this in a bit) seem to reign with impunity in District 9 and could conceivable break up this consortium of criminals with little effort. So why do these folks let Nigerian mobsters cut into their line of work by trafficking in illicit weapons?
- After the humans remove over a million aliens from their mothership, they seal the doors of this vessel and don’t bother exploring the ship at all. Seriously? I dunno, something makes me think that if we had access to a huge alien flying fortress, we would ransack it looking for loot. Just a thought.
- Everyone evil in this movie seems really concerned about presenting a good ‘human rights’ image to the rest of the world when it comes to the treatment of the aliens. Hence the extraordinary effort in the beginning of the film to individually serve every single prawn with an eviction notice before removing them to a new, more isolated, concentration camp. Yet somehow these same evildoers can get away with randomly killing prawns inside the camp and otherwise wreaking terror on these extraterrestrials. Logical dilemma much?
- It is gradually revealed throughout the movie that the prawns have access to pretty fantastic weapons technology. This aside, the prawns seem remarkably willing to allow themselves to be subjugated by their human-overlords without putting up much of a fight. I fail to see why the prawns never used their (much) superior weaponry to fight back against the humans. I mean, they stole from people and rioted in the streets, why not a little armed revolt too?
- Exposure to alien fuel causes you to turn into an alien. I suppose this means if we dumped gasoline on all the prawns they would turn into upstanding members of the human race. Or not. A regular movie would be allowed to get away without explaining this but a mockumentaries can’t. Explanation please.
Finally, I had massive problems with District 9’s use of the highly overused and cliché “evil defense contractors as villains” plot device. I am a liberal but every time I see a movie that portrays a huge multinational conglomerate* (be it pharmaceutical, financial or defense) as the bad guy I cringe. Yeah, I get it—capitalism is teh evil—but this same tired storyline is starting to get a little old.
All told, District 9 is not awful. I grant that it’s a decent summer alien flick with some alright action sequences, but social commentary, nor ground breaking screenplay this is not.
* And yes, it’s always a multinational (in this case multi-national united) company. Somehow this nefarious word makes an evildoing corporation even more sinister—as if an American owned company (cough Blackwater) couldn’t be evil enough.
There’s a correct piece over at TAP that argues a dearth of reading (especially of non-fiction) at the high school level is creating poor writers in American universities:
The movement away from teaching grammar and rhetoric and toward “whole language” has deprived a lot of students of this kind of practical education. Grammar and syntax need to be part of the K-12 curriculum; for most people who aren’t obsessive professional writers, university is way too late to instill these lessons. But there’s something else at play: a lack of serious reading in American high schools. Engaged, experienced readers are simply much better writers. But according to a report by Renaissance Learning, the average American high school senior reads only four books each academic year, including the books he or she is assigned at school. That is a remarkably unambitious number for a full-time student. Beginning in about fifth grade, American kids start reading the Harry Potter series — and then they remain the most-read books through high school, even though they are written for an elementary and middle school audience.
What the kids should be reading
First of all, I’m dismayed that the average American high school senior only reads four books each year. However, given that I have some (recent) firsthand experience with public education in America, I’m not exactly surprised that this is the case. It’s my recollection that during my junior honors English class (I spent my senior year at the University of Minnesota, so I can’t speak to the experience of seniors specifically), we mostly read a series of short stories and poems from a single book—entitled ‘The American Anthology’ or something similarly dull—that almost exclusively focused on the exploitation of Native Americans and African Americans. By and large, these stories were not authentic period pieces but rather were modern versions of historical events seen through an overly preachy and moralistic prism.
I don’t mean to sound like a conservative, extolling the glory of the Western Canon or eviscerating ‘politically correct’ literature, but I must say, this was a terrible way to learn. Students, I think, would learn far more if they were assigned a few authentic novels and had the opportunity to read them in their entirety. I know works like Tom Sawyer use language that’s no longer appropriate for polite company (or rather anyone at all) and I know they’re big, scary tomes; however, I think there’s really something to say for reading an entire novel cover to cover—the characters can be richer, the plot more complicated, the themes more nuanced than ‘racism is bad!.’
My feelings about the specifics of what students should be reading aside though, the fact is that Goldstein is right: American students really do need to be reading more.
I’ve been doing some light Lexis-Nexusing over the past few days trying to learn more about Sen. John Marty (DFL-Roseville), one of the many Democrats vying for the DFL’s nomination in next year’s gubernatorial race. I’m particularly interested in Marty because I know that he was the DFL nominee for governor in ’94 and went down in a disastrous defeat—a two to one loss—against incumbent Republican Governor Arnie Carlson. Given that such massive margins of victory are uncommon in Minnesota politics, I’m curious as to what exactly went wrong for Marty in ’94 and what (if any) implications this might have for the coming election.
I haven’t found a good long-form summation of the ‘94 race yet but what I have learned about Sen. Marty so far is that he’s an unabashed liberal in the Paul Wellstone mold (e.g. voted against a resolution condemning flag burning immediately before the ’94 election, capped his own campaign donations at $100, authored sweeping ethics reforms, etc.). Interestingly enough though, unlike Senator Wellstone, Marty never managed to attain a level of ‘seriousness’ in the eyes of the electorate—it’s my sense that at the end of the day, Marty went down to defeat because he was seen as too goofy (even for a state that elected Jesse Ventura and Al Franken). Whereas, Paul Wellstone somehow managed to transform his quirky side into an image of honesty and genuineness, Marty seems to have always been viewed by voters as an eccentric, sort-of awkward, goofball.
Anyone have any insight into whether or not this is a fair characterization of the unfortunate fate that fell upon John Marty? Also, is there any indication that his temperament has changed over the past fourteen years? I suspect the answer to this question will determine whether or not Marty is able to break out of the DFL pack over the next year.
Over the past few weeks I had heard rumors that Rep. Paul Thissen had been making frequent appearances in rural Minnesota and had been impressing outstate DFLers with his keen grasp of policy, his articulate performances on the stump and his dedicated work ethic. After meeting Rep. Thissen twice in the past ten days, color me impressed as well.
In his appearance before Douglas County DFLers during a meet and greet ten days ago, Thissen deftly fielded questions from DFL activists on a wide range of issues including energy policy, economic fairness and environmental regulation. While Thissen never used dense wonky language, he provided details in almost all his answers (a refreshing change from the habit of some candidates [read: Entenza] to use rehashed bromides); in particular, I was impressed by Thissen’s answer to a question on economic recovery in which he made references to specific state programs and policy proposals that could spur economic development in rural Minnesota.
Thissen also gave a mature answer on a question concerning the need to boost state revenue in order to prevent crippling cuts to state services. Although Thissen suggested he would be more inclined as governor to raise the sales tax instead of income taxes—an increase in the state’s sales tax would be much more regressive than an increase in incomes taxes—I still appreciate that he was specific about which mechanism he would use to raise additional revenue. Unfortunately, like Sen. Bakk, Thissen was a little fuzzy on how he would go about selling this proposal to Minnesota’s voters: this is a question that every DFL candidate for governor needs to do a better job of addressing.
The only policy position on which Thissen and I diverged was his support for moving more decisions and responsibility to the ‘local level.’ In theory I can see how one can make a strong case for more local decision making; after all, local decision makers are supposed to have more knowledge about the needs and concerns of their community. In practice, however, I think myself (and many other outstate DFLers) fear that local government, which is too often controlled by local conservatives more interested in protecting parochial interests than the public good, tends to make less than optimal policy choices. I know you can make the case that this sort of political patronage occurs at all levels of government but owing to incredible lack of oversight at the local level (small hometown newspapers don’t exactly revel in muckraking), I think this sort of minor corruption is actually more likely to happen at the lower levels of government than otherwise. All this said, Thissen seemed to take our pushback on this issue in stride and I hope he incorporates our feedback as his thinking on the devolution of power to local government continues to evolve.
Policy aside, when it comes to politics the Thissen campaign is doing everything right in rural Minnesota. More often than not, DFL delegates in the 7th CD get overlooked and ignored by statewide campaigns that prefer to concentrate on the delegate-rich metro instead of outstate Minnesota. Judging by what I’ve heard from other DFL activists, the Thissen campaign sees things differently and is working rural Minnesota hard. What the Thissen campaign (and others!) should know is that this strategy is working—almost every member of my county unit has good things to say about Paul—and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if come caucus-time Thissen is one of the few Minneapolis Democrats able to win a large contingent of support in the 7th.
I’ve been meaning to write about this Weekly Standard piece entitled “The Cocktail Renaissance” for quite a while. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything clever to say about it other than it is most excellent and is highly deserving of your attention.
Oh, and there’s this quote:
An Old-Fashioned is a sugar cube wetted down with two to three large dashes of Angostura bitters and crushed until no trace of the crystals remains. Add some water–not much, the amount depends on the quality of your brown–two ounces of excellent rye whiskey (or bourbon, of course), and three cubes of ice. Stir and let it sit for a moment while you slice a nice stripe of lemon peel–all peel, none of the white pith–to squeeze over. (You’ll see the slick of citrus oil as you raise the glass for your first sip.) It’s perfection incarnate. Yet if you order one in that random bar, the likelihood is that you’ll be brought something involving simple syrup, club soda, maraschino cherries, orange slices, too much ice, and good god knows what else.
Right. Although, I might add as the contrarian that maraschino cherry juice (but never an actually maraschino cherry) is a good addition to a well-made Old-Fashioned. While your mileage may vary, I’ve found that using just a smidgen—no more than a thimble full—in place of some of an Old-Fashioned’s sugar does remarkable things. The cherry adds a bit of a floral nose to the drink and offers some complexity to what would otherwise be the flavor of raw sugar. Finally, I second the criticism of the average Old-Fashioned produced in a random bar: I’ve had Old-Fashioneds in the past spoiled by clueless bartenders who’ve used brandy instead of bourbon, and tonic water(!) instead of club soda. Frightening, I know.
Okay, now go on and enjoy—it’s a brilliant piece.
CityPages has good things to say about the St. Germain Sparkler at Meritage in St. Paul. They’re right—the sparkler is delicious! Unfortunately, like many cocktails at fancyschmancy restaurants it is also terrifically over-priced: this sparkler does not have anywhere close to $10.50 worth of booze in it.
Fortunately though, I can recommend that something which is a definite bargain at Meritage—the ‘recession Sunday’ dinner. Priced at a mere $24, this steal of a meal is one of the best ways to spend your dining dollars in the Twin Cities. Granted this prix-fixe can be sort of hit or miss, but sometimes it can be quite good—last week’s moules frites were sublime—and, for the price, this three course dinner can’t be touched. Add in half-priced wine (some bottles run as little as $12), and you have the makings for one hell of a cheap (but still reasonably classy) date night.
Go.
Dave Mindeman argues that DFLers would be better off if they concentrated on beating Rep. Paulsen in MN-03 rather than waging a quixotic battle to topple Michele Bachmann in MN-06. As has become traditional, I agree with Mindeman; as is also highly traditional though, I’d like to expand on his argument and make a counterintuitive point: it may actually be in the interests of Democrats to keep Michele Bachmann in office.
Sure, Michele Bachmann is crazy, borderline evil, and a genuine disgrace on Minnesota’s image in the rest of the country—seriously, you don’t know how many times I get asked at school how we could ever elect such a horrible woman to congress, as if the entire state was responsible for odious behavior. That said, Michele Bachmann does some great things for Minnesota Democrats. For instance, she’s a cash cow; Democrats across Minnesota (and to a lesser extent Democrats across the country) can raise gobs of money by running campaign solicitations that contain some of her more scandalous quotes. Michele Bachmann also does wonders for Democratic strategists who delight in portraying the Republican Party as lunatic, fringe-movement that is entirely divorced from the political mainstream. Finally, Michele Bachmann ensures that MN-06 which, as the reddest district in the state of Minnesota, should be a reliably Republican bastion is instead a marginal district that the NRCC has to shell out thousands of dollars every cycle defending.
Now imagine a world without Michele Bachmann. Granted, I (any many, many others) would feel a great deal of personal satisfaction seeing such a loathsome human being turned out of office, but would things really be that much better for Democrats at the end of the day? Remember, any Democrat ever elected in the 6th would have to become a conservative Blue Dog out of necessity and would likely still face a tough crowd when they came home to explain their votes to their constituents. Further, it’s likely that Team Blue would only hold the seat for a cycle or two before it was recaptured by crimson; after all, in such a conservative district it would only take the smallest of waves to drown an enfeebled Democratic incumbent.
So, Mindeman is right—Democrats should concentrate their time and money on supporting a challenger to Rep. Paulsen rather than waging an uphill battle to beat Bachmann. Not only can one make the case that defeating Bachmann is next to impossible but it’s also very unlikely that Democrats could hold the seat for any length of time even if they could pry it from Michele Bachmann’s vicious little hands. Add in the fact that Michele Bachmann (a la Jean Schmidt in OH-02) is a strategic boon to Democrats and it’s difficult to see why Democrats should agonize over dumping Bachmann.