MayerBlog: The Web Log of
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Summer 2008 in Review
Labor Day weekend marks the end of summer, especially now that I’ve begun teaching my Fall semester classes. So it seems an appropriate time to review the summer of 2008, including the important developments in politics and popular culture.
n Gas-Price Hysteria, Revisited As I predicted in my May 14 “Thoughts for Summer” essay, hysteria over high gasoline prices – and politicians’ predictable demagoguery on the issue – dominated political news throughout the summer. Prices were even higher than many experts predicted, averaging about $4/gallon (ranging from $3.50 to $4.50 or even higher in many parts of the country), most of the summer. Why were prices so high? The answer’s found in one of the basic laws of economics, supply and demand: worldwide demand for oil has skyrocketed, especially now that India and Red China are finally developing industrial economies, while worldwide production has essentially leveled off. In the United States, domestic oil production has decreased significantly, making the U.S. dependent on imports for roughly 60% of its oil. Moreover, no new oil refinery has been built in the U.S. since 1974. The solution to the problem of high oil and gas prices is simple: increase the supply. There’s still plenty of oil in the world, as well as in the U.S., and gasoline remains a safe, reliable, and efficient fuel for transportation – and will remain so for many years (indeed, decades) to come. But radical environmentalists, and the politicians who support them, continue to propagate two great myths about fossil fuels: that oil deposits are dwindling, and that man-made carbon dioxide produced by the burning of fossil fuels has caused disastrous “global warming.” The great global-warming, or “climate change,” hoax is briefly discussed below (in the section on Al Gore). As for oil deposits, the American Petroleum Institute has estimated that drilling in Alaska would cut imports by 5 percentage points. There are huge deposits of oil to be found offshore in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic, with an estimated 15 billion barrels of oil off the coast of Louisiana alone and up to 4.3 billion barrels of oil in the Bakken shale deposits in North Dakota – and total shale oil deposits in the Rocky Mountians possibly three times the size of Saudi Arabia’s reserves. Indeed, all these domestic sources of oil combined dwarf the approximately 500 million barrels that we import from Saudi Arabia each year. There’s no rational reason to be opposed to more oil drilling off the U.S. continental shelf, in Alaska, and in shale fields in the West – and yet federal laws prohibit oil companies from drilling outside a small area of the Gulf of Mexico. The federal ban on drilling in Alaska, in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), in particular, makes little sense; it’s supported by radical environmentalist groups like the Sierra Club who have an irrational opposition – almost like an article of religious faith – to human exploitation of natural resources and thus want nature to remain “pristine,” which is literally un-natural because man (and man’s manipulation of the environment) is also a part of nature, too. The huge deposits of oil that could be developed in ANWR with little if any adverse effect on the “natural” environment of the Arctic are graphically illustrated in “The Truth About ANWR Drilling,” which circulated widely on the Internet this summer.
n The Politics of Gas Prices With gasoline prices at or above $4/gallon during much of the summer, most Americans seem to have sufficient common sense to realize the obvious solution of increasing domestic oil production, and public-opinion polls show that an overwhelming majority of Americans indeed do support more oil drilling. This should give Republicans a sure-fire winning issue against the Democrats, who generally oppose drilling because they’re so enthralled with radical environmentalists’ anti-fossil fuels agenda. (Congressional Democrat leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have blocked any floor votes on bills to repeal the federal bans on drilling on the outer continental shelf and in ANWR, and Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama earlier this year practically admitted that he favored higher gasoline prices.) Yet the Republicans have botched this magnificent opportunity because many of them – including their presidential candidate – are afraid to take a strong stand against the radical environmentalists. John McCain says he favors more drilling, but that’s only on the outer continental shelf, where he’d allow the states to veto drilling 50 miles beyond their shorelines; he’s still opposed to drilling in ANWR. McCain’s failure to clearly distinguish himself from Obama on this critical issue is yet another sign of how lousy a presidential candidate he is for the GOP. Meanwhile, Barak Obama this summer announced his “plan” for dealing with rising gasoline prices: a $1,000 “emergency rebate” to consumers, to be paid for by taxing the so-called “windfall profits” of oil producers. As economist Don Boudreaux observed (in “Obamanomics,” August 2, on the Café Hayek website), “in other words, a critical part of Sen. Obama’s strategy for reining in high gasoline prices is to subsidize gasoline consumption and more heavily tax its production. This plan – which increases the demand for gasoline and reduces its supply – makes as much sense as trying to put out a fire by dowsing it with jet fuel.” The only thing I’d like to add to this excellent critique: Everybody who supports this moron’s presidential candidacy ought to be ashamed of themselves.
n McBama versus O’Cain The contest between the two major-party presidential candidates also dominated national political news in the U.S., although most of the American people – to their credit – failed to share the media’s enthusiasm for the contest. The two major parties – which I call the “Demopublican” and “Replicrat” parties because there are no longer any essential differences between them – have nominated, in Barack Obama and John McCain, two mediocrities, neither of which is fit to be President of the United States. No wonder most public opinion polls find them in a neck-and-neck race, with neither of them garnering more than 50% support: the American people are savvy enough to understand that whichever of these losers win the election, it’s the nation that will really lose. Obama is a political fraud – one who campaigns as a “uniter” but whose politics are those of a typically divisive class-warfare Democrat; someone who promises “change” but whose programs would continue and expand the failed regulatory/welfare state policies of the past. (See “Spring Briefs,” Mar. 14, 2008.) Predictably, he’s spent the summer trying to disguise his far-left political policies by appearing to move to the political center, “flip-flopping” on issues like his opposition to domestic oil drilling or his pledge to quickly withdraw U.S. troops from the Mideast, and even trying to appease evangelical Christians by participating in Pastor Rick Warren’s so-called “civil forum” at Warren’s megachurch in California. Although the predominantly left-biased news media remain enamored with Obama, there are signs that even they are less charmed by him (as Robert Bidinotto observed in a perceptive essay on his blog on July 25). The notion that a blowhard like Joe Biden would bring “credibility” to the Democratic ticket, as many commentators claim, underscores how weak a candidate Obama really is. An Obama administration – with the higher taxes and more burdensome government regulations that it would bring – would be disastrous, especially for the nation’s economy. The supposed “change” that Obama’s election would bring would be nothing more than a return to the failed policies of the past – the policies of the late 1970s, the years of Jimmy Carter’s presidency, with a real energy crisis (not just high gas prices, but long gas lines and actual shortages), “stagflation” (that horrid combination of high inflation and recession), weakness abroad (remember the Iranian hostage crisis?), and general “malaise.” The only thing good about an Obama presidency would be that it might help the Republicans, in opposition, to recover some of their limited-government principles and perhaps pave the way for a Republican administration and Congress devoted to those principles, as the disastrous Jimmy Carter years helped elect Ronald Reagan. McCain, however, is little better. Except for a handful of issues (abortion, likely judicial appointments, health care, and taxation), McCain’s supposed “maverick” policy positions are essentially indistinguishable from those of Obama and the Democrats. Although I can understand why many voters, justifiably fearful of Obama’s election, might vote for McCain as the lesser of two evils, I note the truth in the aphorism that the lesser of two evils is still evil. And although a McCain presidency in the short-run might be less disastrous for the United States (especially the economy) than an Obama presidency, in the long-run it could be potentially even more disastrous. As I maintained in “R.I.P., GOP: The McCain Mutiny” (Mar. 4), having an “authoritarian maverick” like McCain as president would all but destroy the Republican Party’s historical commitments to limited government and individual freedom. In a sense, Democrat political operatives are correct when they say a McCain presidency would amount to a third term for George W. Bush, for destruction of GOP limited-government principles that began under Bush (thanks to his “compassionate conservatism” and the growing importance of “neo-conservatives” in the party) would continue at an even greater pace with McCain as president and party leader. As my friend David Boaz, executive vice-president of the libertarian Cato Institute, noted in an excellent op-ed earlier this year, both McCain and Obama are collectivists. Their fundamental political philosophy is essentially the same and essentially anti-American, for it values the (supposed) collective good of the nation over the freedom of each individual to pursue his or her own happiness, the true American dream and the leading principle on which America was founded. As Boaz observes, “Mssrs. Obama and McCain are telling us Americans that our normal lives are not good enough, that pursuing our own happiness is `self-indulgence,’ that building a business is ‘chasing after our money culture,’ that working to provide a better life for our families is a `narrow concern.’” (“Our Collectivist Candidates,” May 28). Neither McCain nor Obama have sufficient regard for individual freedom, for free-market capitalism, and for limited constitutional government to qualify them for the highest office under the U.S. Constitution. The choice given the American electorate by the two major parties, the “Demopublicans” and the “Replicrats” – the choice between “McBama” and “O’Cain,” as I like to characterize it – thus is really no choice at all.
n The Best Presidential Candidate – Barr None If there’s ever a time to vote for a third-party candidate, it’s this year. Only the Libertarian Party has a thorough and consistent commitment to limited constitutional government and the protection of individual freedom. And the Libertarian Party this year has an excellent presidential candidate: Bob Barr. As I noted in a may 28 update to my “Thoughts for the Summer” essay, Barr was elected the LP’s presidential candidate at its National Convention in Denver on May 25, with Wayne Allyn Root (the third-place candidate) as Barr’s V.P. running mate. As I noted earlier, “It was a victory of pragmatism over purity of principles: Libertarians hope that Barr, an experienced politician with national name recognition, might finally capture more than 1% of the national vote – the high point of the LP, with Ed Clark’s candidacy in 1980.” Some LP “purists” are concerned because Barr, a former Republican Congressman from Georgia, formerly supported the federal “war” on drugs, the federal Defense of Marriage Act, and had voted for the PATRIOT Act. But Barr, who left the Republican Party in 2004, has demonstrated over the past four years a genuine commitment to libertarian principles – as LP activist Lance Lamberton observes in the current issue of Liberty magazine (“Defense of an Unlikely Choice,” Sept. 2008). A passionate defender of privacy rights and now a leading critic of the PATRIOT Act, Barr also has seen the light on the drug issue, becoming a passionate advocate of medical marijuana, using “his clout, contacts, and influence to further that cause on Capitol Hill,” Lamberton reports. Barr’s experience with the real world of Washington politics and his pragmatic, incremental approach to libertarian reforms make him a credible candidate – one who’s likely to double or triple the usual less-than-one-percent of the national vote that flaky “pure” LP candidates have polled in the past seven presidential elections. “Barr has attributes that no other LP candidate has ever provided in significant measure: credibility, experience, and that certain intangible quality which I would describe as being `presidential,’” Lamberton concludes. He not only has the potential to capture the Ron Paul voters, but also others from the “millions of Americans . . . disenchanted with politics as usual, and with both major parties’ shallow calls for change without substance. Barr represents a breath of fresh air which can attract untold numbers to the libertarian fold.” Here in Ohio there’s further good news for those of us who support the Barr-Root ticket: the courts have ruled that Ohio’s secretary of state must disregard the state’s unconstitutional restrictions on ballot inclusion – one of the most onerous in the nation – and include the Libertarian Party’s candidates on Ohio ballots in November. As I noted at the start of the summer, “it will be great to have someone I’m happy to vote for in November.” Now, thanks to this court ruling, it’s actually possible.
n Al Gore: Con Man and Lunatic My dictionary defines lunatic as “an insane, demented, crazy person,” “a person whose actions and manner are marked by extreme eccentricity or recklessness.” No term seems more apt for former VP Al Gore, who in mid-July urged the United States to set as a goal the complete elimination of all carbon-emitting forms of energy production within ten years. Without taking such a drastic step, he warned, “our dangerous overreliance on carbon-based fuels” will “destroy the planet.” “The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk,” along with “the future of human civilization.” Gore’s radical – and totally unrealistic – proposal was immediately hailed by radical environmentalists and fellow global-warming scaremongers as “bold.” Gore is right about one thing: the survival of the USA – and of modern civilization – “as we know it” is indeed at risk, but the danger comes from his proposed “solution” to an imagined problem, the great global-warming scam. Even a partial attempt to implement Gore’s pipe-dream (such as the energy legislation likely to pass a Democrat-controlled Congress next year) will mean a return to the real “energy crisis” of the 1970s, when misguided federal laws (then it was price controls, now it’s “alternative energy” mandates) brought about artificial shortages and power outages throughout the nation’s electricity grid. The “brown-outs” in California a few years ago, and the great Northeastern grid breakdown of a couple years ago, will become regular occurrences, if the nation foolishly tries to switch from coal, oil, and natural gas to such unreliable sources of energy as solar, wind, and geothermal power – all because of the “Green Bullshit” that Gore and the other merchants of fear are preaching. (For more on this, see the “Green Bullshit” discussion in my May 14 “Thoughts for Summer” entry.) Gore is either a lunatic, quite literally, or one of the greatest con men the world has seen since the medieval Roman Catholic popes, whose sales of “indulgences” constituted a scam remarkably similar to the great con game that Gore and his minions are running. Just as the medieval Church declared normal human activities to be “sins” and then sought to cash in on people’s guilt over their sins by selling them “indulgences,” to spare them (or their loved ones) the supposed torments of Hell, so too do Gore and many of his fellow radical environmentalists seek to make people feel guilty about producing carbon dioxide and then to cash in on that guilt by selling modern indulgences – in the form of so-called “carbon offsets” – to the gullible. And, like the medieval Church, con men like Gore are making out like bandits from the scam. Gore serves as chairman of Generation Investment Management (GIM), a London-based company with offices in Washington, D.C., which was established to take financial advantage of new technological “solutions” related to combating “global warming.” When Gore defends his extraordinarily large personal energy usage (in both his lavish Nashville, Tennessee mansion and his private jet travel around the world), he tells critics he maintains a “carbon neutral” lifestyle by buying carbon offsets. What he doesn’t admit, however, is that he does so by buying stocks in GIM – a transaction designed to boost his own investments and return a profit to himself. Gore’s naïve admirers generally fail to notice how he’s making a lot of money – literally, millions of dollars – from his promotion of the alleged “global warming,” or “climate change,” threat. Yeah, he’s crazy – crazy like a fox.
n Fannie and Freddie FUBAR The other supposed “crisis” that dominated political economics this summer was the so-called “housing crisis,” which has resulted in substantial increases in mortgage foreclosures, the failure of several banks that over-extended their credit (especially those that were over-extended on subprime mortgages, and a general decline in home values. As I noted in my “Thoughts for Summer” essay, the real crisis in the U.S. today is the crisis in personal responsibility: people evading responsibility, and politicians being more than happy to increase the power of government over Americans’ lives in order to help them evade their responsibilities. Everyone who signs a contract ought to be held responsible for their contractual commitments: anyone who buys a house by entering into a mortgage contract that he cannot afford, ultimately has only himself to blame. Perhaps nothing better illustrates this crisis in personal responsibility than Congress’s response to the supposed mortgage crisis: a bailout of irresponsible homeowners and of the two quasi-public mortgage “giants,” Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose imminent failures precipitated Congress’s hasty passage of legislation, so the members (most of whom are up for reelection) can claim they “did something” about the “crisis.” As with the energy mess and virtually any other “crisis” one might identify in America today, the root cause of the mess has been bad public policy, that is, misguided legislation passed by Congress in the past. With regard to housing, the root of the problem is the creation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac themselves, these veritable Frankenstein monsters, created by Congress in 1938 and 1970, respectively, ostensibly for the purpose of making it easier for middle- or working-class persons to buy their own homes. These strange creatures of the law (they’re quasi-private companies, owned by stockholders, yet also quasi-public, backed up by U.S. Treasury guarantees, a monopoly privilege that private mortgage companies do not have) now hold nearly half (over 40%) of the U.S. home mortgage market. One result has been the rise in so-called “subprime mortgages” – mortgages given to risky borrowers, that is, those with poor credit or low incomes – persons who really have no business buying homes they cannot afford – persons who probably would not be able to get a mortgage in a free market because they couldn’t find a lender foolish enough to take the risk. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were created to fill this supposed “void” in the market – that is, to provide risky, irrational loans to persons who do not deserve them. What the creation of these Frankenstein monsters did was to distort the market for mortgages, resulting in not only a glut of mortgages but also a general inflation in home values. What Congress has done with the housing market is literally a “SNAFU” (that marvelous World War II-era military acronym for “Situation Normal – All Fucked Up” – an excellent summary of federal legislation, in most areas. Or better yet (to use another WWII-era apt acronymn), “FUBAR” – “Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.” As William Shughart, economist and Independent Institute research fellow, noted in a recent op-ed, the housing rescue bill passed by Congress in July reinforced the belief that Fannie and Freddie are "too big to fail" by allowing the Treasury Department to extend unlimited lines of credit to Fannie and Freddie and, if necessary, to buy their stock. This legislation puts taxpayers at greater risk than before, he notes: "In a worst-case scenario, the two companies would be taken over by the federal government," writes Shughart. "Taxpayers would then be fully responsible for their combined $5.2 trillion in debt, instantly increasing the national debt by 50 percent." (“Fannie and Freddie Fleece the Taxpayers,” Aug. 18). The lesson is clear: whenever Congress interferes with economic markets, it introduces distortions that prevent free markets from operating as they should, efficiently and fairly. The solution is not to add further distortions, as Congress recently did with the legislation it passed this summer, shoring up Fannie and Freddie: that’s a temporary expedient that, at best, will prolong the problem and likely will exacerbate it. The real solution is to eliminate the distortions created by government – in other words, to dismantle these Frankenstein monsters by providing for their privatization, so they’ll compete fairly with other mortgage companies in a free market. The only politician I know of who has courageously called for the privatization of Fannie and Freddie is, not surprisingly, the Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate, Bob Barr.
n Supreme Vindication (Well, Sort of) As I noted in a June 27 update to my “Thoughts for Summer” essay, the Supreme Court concluded its 2007 term by issuing its long-awaited decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, with the five-justice majority (in an opinion written by Justice Scalia) declaring the D.C. law banning private possession of handguns to be unconstitutional and affirming that the Second Amendment indeed protects an individual right to have firearms. The Court finally got one right. Yet the battle for vindication of individuals’ Second Amendment rights is far from over; the Heller decision represents victory in one skirmish, but unfortunately, there are more skirmishes to follow. As George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin noted in a July 28 essay in Legal Times, “Locked Liberties,”“Heller is not the end of the battle over Second Amendment rights, or even the beginning of the end. [To paraphrase Winston Churchill,] It is the end of the beginning.” One skirmish, emphasized in Professor Somin’s article, involves actual implementation of the Heller decision. The D.C. government, blatantly showing its contempt for the Supreme Court and for the Constitution (and for the rights of its citizens guaranteed by the Constitution), has enacted new regulations designed to make it “virtually impossible for D.C. residents to exercise their newly recognized rights,” as Somin notes. Those regulations include a burdensome 12-step registration process for new guns (which could make the process take eight weeks or longer), requirements that guns stored in the home be kept unloaded and either disassembled or locked up (which make it almost impossible for D.C. residents to use guns for self-defense in their own homes), and requirements that handguns be kept in the owner’s home or office (which eliminate the possibility of using them in self-defense elsewhere). The D.C. Council has tried to exploit the “loopholes” created by Justice Scalia’s decision in Heller – exceptions allowing reasonable regulation of guns, or “presumptively lawful regulatory measures,” that potentially could swallow the Heller rule. Dick Heller, the man who successfully challenged the D.C. handgun ban, and two other plaintiffs have brought a second suit challenging the new regulations as “highly unusual and unreasonable” – a lawsuit that again might have to be litigated all the way up to the Supreme Court. Another skirmish, or battle yet to be fought – which also may require another favorable Supreme Court decision – is to make the Second Amendment apply to state governments. The Court has yet to “incorporate” the Second Amendment right in the Fourteenth Amendment, although there’s plenty of reason for it to do so: virtually all other important individual rights protected by the federal Bill of Rights have been applied by the Court to the states, through the process of “selective incorporation”; and there’s ample evidence suggesting that the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment intended the individual’s right to keep and bear arms to be among the fundamental rights the Amendment was designed to protect against the states. (Indeed, it was the enactment of so-called “Black Codes” by Southern states after the Civil War – laws designed to deny black persons the same rights enjoyed by white citizens, including the right to bear arms – that prompted the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amendment itself. With the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the post-bellum South, state laws – including some of the earliest prohibitions on the carrying of concealed weapons – were designed to disarm black persons, to prevent them from protecting themselves; with the passage of the 1866 Act and the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress sought to give federal protection to black persons from these racist laws. That’s an important part of the early history of “gun-control” legislation that gun-control advocates today are ashamed to admit.) But these battles will have to await future Court decisions – a point that perhaps underscores the significance of the appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court that the next President of the United States is likely to make.
n Enquiring Minds Do Know Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards was again in the news, earlier this month, when he finally conceded that he had an extramarital affair and that his mistress was pregnant (although Edwards continues to deny that he’s the baby’s father). The National Enquirer first reported that Edwards had an affair in October 2007 – at a time when Edwards was still actively campaigning for the Democrats’ presidential nomination – and Edwards called the story “false,” “completely untrue, ridiculous.” In December the Enquirer reported that Edwards’ mistress, Rielle Hunter (a videographer for the Edwards campaign), was pregnant; the child was born in February of this year, with no father’s name given on the birth certificate. (Edwards reportedly has met with Ms. Hunter – according to a July National Enquirer article, he stayed overnight in her Los Angeles hotel room – and his political action committee has made payments to Hunter’s company.) What makes the story of Edwards’ adultery newsworthy – not just a private matter for Edwards and his family – is Edwards’ exploitation of his private life (and of public sympathy for his wife, Elizabeth, who is suffering from cancer) to advance his political career. When asked in late March about how voters would react to his continuing campaign despite publicizing his wife’s health problems, Edwards said, “We believe that the way to conduct your life, private and personal, is openly and honestly, and that’s the reason we disclosed the facts. We felt people needed to know.” When, earlier this month, Edwards finally admitted to the affair – and also that in the course of his campaign he had become “increasingly egocentric and narcissistic” (surprise! surprise!) – he implied that he had been “99% honest” when he was lying and calling the Enquirer story “completely untrue.” As one commentator noted, “Americans can put up with infidelity, but hypocrisy is a career-ender.” The importance of this story, however, has little to do with Edwards himself, a sleazy trial-lawyer Demagogue whose political career, thankfully, now seems to be over – relegating him to the obscurity he so richly deserves. Rather, the story’s importance has everything to do with the so-called “Mainstream Media” (MSM) and its leftist political bias, which is so obvious in this case that it’s beyond dispute. The MSM refused to report the story – giving Edwards political cover by denigrating the Enquirer stories as mere “tabloid journalism” – but it turns out that the tabloid, in this case, apparently got the story right. By the time the MSM finally picked up on the story, of course, Edwards’ campaign – and his political career – was over, so its belated reporting of the story wouldn’t hurt a Democrat’s chances of getting votes. Does anyone seriously believe the MSM would have ignored a similar story involving a prominent conservative or Republican politician? “Enquiring minds” who want to know the truth about Democrat politicians simply can’t rely on the left-wing MSM (something to keep in mind this fall as the MSM continues to “ooh” and “aah” over Barack Obama).
n Georgia on Our Minds The weekend of August 8-10, as the MSM belatedly discovered the John Edwards sex scandal story and NBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics dominated the headlines, a far more important – indeed, an ominously important – news story came out of eastern Europe. Russian troops invaded their neighboring country – the independent, sovereign nation of Georgia, a nation that has become increasingly friendly to the United States and the West, under the leadership of its pro-Western president, Mikhail Saakashvili – under the pretext of coming to the assistance of Russian-backed rebels in the Georgian province of South Ossetia. What makes the story truly ominous is what it shows about Russia and its dictator, former KGB thug Vladimir Putin, who although now just Russia’s “prime minister” continues to run the show, behind his figurehead president, Dimitry Medvedev. (Putin flew from the opening of the Olympics in Beijing directly to the North Ossetian capital of Vladikavkaz to lead the war, as de facto commander in chief – a role that constitutionally belongs to President Medvedev.) As Leon Aron, director of Russian studies at the American Enterprise Institute, recently noted in a perceptive USA Today op-ed, Russia under Putin’s rule today has all the hallmarks of authoritarianism that it had under the czars and the Soviet Communists: among them, an intensely personal system of power, in which the “national leader” rather than democratic institutions rule; state propaganda themes of loss and imperial nostalgia (Putin declared the demise of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century); the idea of a besieged “fortress Russia” surrounded by cunning, ruthless and plotting enemies on every side; and the labeling of political opposition as “fifth column” traitors. “If Russia indeed has reverted to the traditional role of warlike authoritarianism and if, as seems to be the case, it pays no or a very small price internationally for this war,” Mr. Aron notes, “then the next victim is not at all hard to name. It is the pro-Western, struggling democracy of Ukraine.” (“What Russia’s war reveals,” Aug. 13). It’s no exaggeration to say that Russia’s invasion of Georgia has revived the specter of the Cold War. The resurgence of Russian nationalism and imperialism is the greatest threat today to world peace – an even greater threat than that currently posed by Islamic radicalism.
n The Red Chinese Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, the capital city of the so-called “People’s Republic of China” (which is merely a euphemism for the tyrannical Communist regime that controls the mainland of China), predictably, were politicized. That, sadly, is the nature of the modern Olympics. Merely choosing a host city is a political act, especially when the country hosting the games is as repressive a regime as the Red Chinese, attempting to exploit the games for propaganda purposes, to increase patriotism at home and respect abroad. The same was true of Hitler’s Nazi regime’s motives in hosting the 1936 Berlin games, or the Russian Communist regime’s motives, in the waning years of the Soviet Union, in hosting the 1980 Moscow games. Notwithstanding its generally good coverage of athletic events, NBC dropped the ball when it came to objectively reporting Red China’s tyrannical government – choosing to ignore most stories of individual-rights abuses, focusing only on the “positive” propaganda put forward by their Red Chinese hosts. While the NBC commentators were “oohing” and “aahing” over the Beijing opening ceremonies, with their thousands of Chinese performers in a dazzling display of perfect synchronization, I was disgusted by the spectacle of human beings turned into robots: it seemed the greatest paean to regimentation, just for the sake of regimentation, since the German Nazi rallies in Nuremberg. Notwithstanding the inevitable politicization of the modern Olympics games, however, the games themselves – as they usually do – largely succeeded in transcending politics. President Bush wisely resisted calls for him to boycott the opening of the Beijing games, as a protest against the Red Chinese government’s oppressive policies (especially with regard to Tibet): boycotts (like Jimmy Carter’s ill-advised U.S. boycott of the 1980 Moscow games as a protest against the Soviet Russians’ invasion of Afghanistan, or the Soviets’ revenge against the U.S. in their boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles games) are rather heavy-handed acts of political symbolism that mostly hurt only the athletes. Just as Jesse Owens’ tremendous victory was the big story in the 1936 Berlin Olympics – an act of individual athletic achievement that put the lie to the Nazis’ racist pretensions – the big story in this year’s Beijing Olympics has been Michael Phelps’ successful quest to break Mark Spitz’s record of seven gold medals in men’s swimming from the 1972 Munich games. In terms of athletic achievement, without doubt Phelps’ accomplishment – a perfect 8-for-8, with eight gold medals in the eight events in which he swam – has been the highlight of these Olympics. At the ripe old age of 23, Michael Phelps is not only unquestionably the greatest swimmer in the world today and the greatest athlete at the Beijing games, but also likely the greatest Olympian of all times and arguably one of the, if not the, greatest athlete of all times. In the international medals count competition, as many sports reporters had predicted, China led in the gold-medal count (with 51 golds, compared to the USA’s 36), but the USA led in total medals overall (110 compared to China’s 100). The USA also won the competition (at least in my book) for the title of “Best Dressed” athletes, with their snappy Ralph Lauren-designed outfits, in the Beijing games’ opening ceremonies. Several of the American Olympian winners illustrated the USA’s identity as a nation of immigrants, including 18-year-old Nastia Liukin, the Russian-born American gymnast, whose five medals (one gold, three silver, one bronze) rival the four medals (two gold, two silver), won by her father, Valeri, for the Soviet Union in the Seoul Games 20 year ago; and 21-year-old Henry Cejudo, gold medalist in wrestling, who’s the son of undocumented Mexican immigrants. And kudos to Anna Tunnicliffe, friend of a friend of mine (the closest I come to personally knowing an Olympic athlete), who won the gold medal in women’s Laser Radial sailing. Anna, who was a three-time collegiate national champion at Old Dominion University in Virginia, led in overall points going into the final race, but she had to come from behind – at one point, as far back as ninth out of the ten boats in the final, until she took advantage of a change in wind direction – to clinch the gold. Anna’s experience confirms that it’s always good to know which way the wind is blowing.
n Summer Reading My pleasure reading this summer consisted of books from my favorite genre: historical murder mystery novels. Ancient Rome was the theme, as I began the summer reading Steven Saylor’s new Gordianus mystery, The Triumphs of Caesar, and then continued reading books from several series all set in ancient Rome, roughly in chronological order: Ruth Downie’s Medicus series, set in Roman Britain at the beginning of the reign of the emperor Hadrian; Rosemary Rowe’s Libertus series, also set in Roman Britain, during the reign of the mad emperor Commodus; Murder’s Immortal Mask, the new book in Paul Doherty’s Claudia series, set in Rome at the beginning of Constantine’s reign; Ben Pastor’s Aelius Spartianus series, set during the reign of the emperor Diocletian, in the early fourth century C.E.; and finally, five volumes in the “John the Eunuch” series by husband-and-wife team, Mary Reed and Eric Mayer, whose protagonist is Lord Chamberlain at the court of Justinian, emperor of the Eastern Roman (or Byzantine) Empire, set in and around Constantinople, in the sixth century C.E. I also read Albert Bell’s newly-published book, The Blood of Caesar, the second in a promising series featuring Pliny the Younger. I especially enjoyed – and highly recommend – the Rosemary Rowe books, whose protagonist is Libertus, a Celtic freedman and pavement-maker, or mosaicist, who also investigates murders at the behest of his patron, Marcus Aurelius Septimus, the governor’s representative. Although set in Britain, mostly in or around the Roman settlement at Glevum (the modern-day town of Gloucester), Rowe’s novels depict Roman culture with remarkable historical accuracy. Published in the U.K., the books are not available in U.S. bookstores but can be ordered through Amazon.com. For more information on these books and other historical mystery novels that I recommend, see my newly-revised Guide to Historical Mysteries.
n Summer Movies in Review The new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, was the big mega-hit at the box office this summer. Its opening in mid-July was the biggest in Hollywood history, with $155 million (compared to the debut of last year’s Spider-Man 3, which had held the record with $151 million); Knight claimed other titles – biggest single-day haul ($66.4 million), biggest midnight screening ($18.5 million), biggest debut in IMAX ($6.4 million), fastest film to gross $200 million (in only 5 days) and $300 million (in only 10 days) – remaining at the top for over a month and eventually, with over $471 million, supplanting Star Wars as the second-highest-grossing film of all time. (Titanic, with $601 million, still holds the record, rivaled only by Gone With the Wind, if its total box-office take were to be adjusted for inflation.) I saw The Dark Knight during its opening weekend and was disappointed: the movie was indeed “too dark” (as many critics said, with regard to young children) – not just for children, but for adults, too. I agree with Robert Bidinotto, who in his review of the film on his blog (“The Dark Knight,” posted July 22) aptly characterized the film as “overstuffed . . . just too much,” with too many character subplots. One of those subplots – the critical one that provided the dramatic culmination of the film – concerned Aaron Ekhart’s character, a crusading District Attorney. As another perceptive reviewer, Lawrence H. White, observed in the “Division of Labour” blog, the movie portrays Bruce Wayne, aka Batman, as someone who “feels bad” – really bad – about being a private law-enforcer, despite the fact that the police force has been corrupted by organized crime. He even throws a fund-raiser to further the D.A.’s political career. “Bruce should read Anthony de Jasay’s article, “On the Monopoly of Rule Enforcement,” in the Spring 2008 issue of The Journal of Private Enterprise,” White suggests. “Then maybe he’d feel better about his own caped crusading.” (“Bruce Wayne, meet Anthony de Jasay,” July 28). Like Larry White, I find it hard to regard as heroic a supposed super-hero who feels guilty about being a super-hero, and who willingly provides political cover for a crusading politician. The Dark Knight indeed had all the hallmarks of a rousing summer film – including lots of action (graphically violent action) and an amazing performance as the Joker by the late Heath Ledger (whom many reviewers consider a shoo-in for a posthumous Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor). But for me, ultimately, it failed to live up to all its hype. Other summer hits that I saw but which disappointed me: Get Smart (movie remakes of classic TV shows almost always pale in comparison to the classic TV shows, and this was no exception); and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Empire (like the other films in this franchise, a waste of Brendan Fraser’s talent, with overblown special effects – although I did like the Yeti). Movies that I failed to see – and have no regrets about not seeing: WALL-E (no amount of cuteness can compensate for the film’s heavy-handed “green” propaganda); The Happening (as I noted at the start of the summer, another absurdly mystical M. Night Shyamalan film that I have no intention of wasting my time seeing); The Incredible Hulk (although I like Edward Norton, I see no need to make an expensive remake so soon after the last Hulk film); The Love Guru (I’ve grown tired of Mike Myers); X-Files: I Want To Believe (I don’t); Brideshead Revisited and Journey to the Center of the Earth (two more unnecessary remakes of classics); Swing Vote and Tropic Thunder (I’m tired of Hollywood’s take on politics and its attempts to parody itself); and Momma Mia! (although I like the music of ABBA, I don’t like it when performed by Meryl Streep). Finally, the good news – summer movies that I enjoyed (and which either met my expectations or pleasantly surprised me by being even better than I expected): Iron Man (another great Marvel comic brought to life on the big screen, with a great performance by Robert Downey Jr.); The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (another fine film adaptation of a C.S. Lewis Narnia book, although not quite as enjoyable as the first); Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (a fitting addition to the saga – and perhaps a fitting kick-off to a new series of Indie Jones Jr. films starring Shia LaBeouf); Wanted (great performances by Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy plus an especially thrilling chase scene compensate for the flawed premise [bullets that defie the laws of physics]); You Don’t Mess with Zohan (Adam Sandler was wildly entertaining – and disturbingly erotic!); Sex and the City (that rare big-screen version of a popular TV show that was as entertaining as the show itself); and Pineapple Express (another entertaining Judd Apatow comedy that paired Freaks and Geeks co-stars Seth Rogan and James Franco again).
n “An Island Famous in These Regions” In mid-July I attended an intellectual property law conference sponsored by the Michigan Institute for Continuing Legal Education (ICLE), at Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Michigan. The annual ICLE conference is one of the nation’s best, featuring top-notch speakers giving updates on copyright, patent, and trademark law (including Marybeth Peters, the long-time Register of Copyrights, who of course gave an update on the Copyright Office, emphasizing its new procedures for electronic registration). What makes this conference particularly enjoyable to attend is not just the excellence of the program, however; it’s also the splendid setting, at my favorite vacation spot in the world. Mackinac Island, situated in the Straits of Mackinac, between Lakes Huron and Michigan (and Michigan’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas), is a special place rich in history. Indeed, it was my first visit to Mackinac and the area’s two 18th-century wooden palisade forts (one on the Island, one on the mainland), during a family vacation in 1964, that first sparked my interest in early American history. As I usually do when visiting Mackinac Island, I stopped first in Mackinaw City (at the tip of the Lower Peninsula, at the south end of the great Mackinac Bridge), to visit Fort Michilimackinac. Michilimackinac (meaning “Great Turtle”) is the American Indian name for the region and the name given by the French to the fort they built by the lake in the early 18th century – a fort that in modern times has been slowly restored to its appearance near the end of the French and Indian War, circa 1763, when the British took it over. It was also the site of a famous massacre that occurred in June 1763 as part of Pontiac’s Rebellion, a native uprising throughout the Great Lakes frontier region. Painstaking archaelogical digs have taken place every summer at Fort Michilimackinac for over the past forty years – since my first visit to the fort in 1964. It was during the Revolutionary War that the British commandant at Michilimackinac, deeming the mainland location too insecure, decided to move his garrison to a high bluff on Mackinac Island, a strategic location controlling the Straits. The British continued to occupy Fort Mackinac for many years after the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783; although the British government recognized the Mackinac region as part of the western territory of the now-independent United States of America, the British refused to withdraw from Mackinac and other western forts until after Jay’s Treaty was signed in the mid-1790s, during the second term of Washington’s presidency. The fort remained in American hands until, during the War of 1812, a surprise British invasion force from the northern side of the Island – the one direction from which the fort was vulnerable – compelled the American commander to surrender the fort to the British. An attempt by Americans to retake the fort – in the battle of Mackinac Island, one of the first land battles of the War of 1812 – failed, and the fort remained in British hands until, after another peace treaty in 1815, it reverted back to the United States. Federal troops continued to occupy the fort throughout most of the 19th century – including the 20-year period from 1875 to 1895 when Mackinac Island was the second U.S. national park – until the state of Michigan took over operations, through the newly-created Mackinac Island State Park Commission. The Mackinac Island State Park Commission continues to maintain both Forts Michilimackinac and Mackinac, as well as several other historic sites both on Mackinac Island and in the northern tip of the Lower Peninsula. Taxpayer dollars pay for only part of the Commission’s operations; the rest are funded by individual contributions through Mackinac Associates, an organization of which I’ve been pleased to be a member since the mid-1980s. Today, Fort Mackinac is restored to its late-19th-century appearance, with guides in Victorian-era Federal uniforms performing rifle and cannon firings and recreating a military court-martial. In 1670 the French Jesuit missionary Father Claude Dablon, after listening to American Indian stories and legends, described Mackinac as “an island famous in these regions.” The island’s fame increased throughout the 19th century, especially in the decades after the Civil War, when it became a popular destination for tourists. Railroads brought wealthy families from throughout the Midwest to Mackinac Island, where they spent the summer, many of them in mansion-sized “cottages” they built on the bluffs east and west of Fort Mackinac. Today, the 19th-century charm of the island is preserved by its ban on autos; visitors must either walk, bike, or take horses around the Island to enjoy its attractions, both natural and man-made. No other place in the world smells quite the same as Mackinac Island, with the air carrying its unique blend of horseshit and fudge – the latter from the many fudge shops whose fame has become synonymous with Mackinac’s in the modern era. It was the railroad industry that financed the building of Grand Hotel in 1887. The Hotel transformed the island, encouraging the building of other resort hotels. Today, Grand Hotel is still the place to stay on the Island: its many amenities (including splendid multi-course dinners and breakfast in the Dining Room, included in the room rates on the modified American Plan) justify the exorbitant rates. When I stay at the Grand, I always enjoy an after-dinner walk along the West Bluff cottages, perhaps followed by a drink in the Cupola Bar at the top of the hotel. My favorite activity, however, is simply to sit and read in a rocking chair on the Grand Hotel’s famous porch – called the world’s longest by Ripley’s Believe-It-or-Not – along with cool lake breezes and a magnificent view of the Straits. What a pleasant summer getaway!
| Link to this Entry | Posted Thursday, August 28, 2008 | Copyright © David N. Mayer |
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