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If you haven't heard yet, be sure to check the "best moment" of the Bush administration right here.
In many ways, however, this encapsulates an important truth for the White House Press Corps: instead of trying to stump Bush (by asking him what the greatest mistake of his presidency was, for instance), reporters should try to get him to boast about things. Both methods can be quite revealing.
Oh, the somewhat odd USDA:
Career appointees at the Department of Agriculture were stunned last week to receive e-mailed instructions that include Bush administration "talking points" -- saying things such as "President Bush has a clear strategy for victory in Iraq" -- in every speech they give for the department.
...later...
Now, you might still be scratching your heads, trying to figure out how this is going to work when people expect a talk about agriculture issues. Not to worry. The attachments -- which can be viewed at http://www.washingtonpost.com/fedpage -- show how easy it is to work a little Iraq happy talk into just about anything.
There's a sample introduction: "Several topics I'd like to talk about today -- Farm Bill, trade with Japan, WTO, avian flu . . . but before I do, let me touch on a subject people always ask about . . . progress in Iraq." See? Smooth as silk.
Hilarious. I'm not terribly unhappy I no longer work there, considering. The career people at the USDA are all hard-working professionals, helping rural communities, keeping our forests healthy or testing herds for diseases. The political appointees, on the other hand, don't seem to understand what the mission of the USDA actually is. Instead, they seem to view the purpose of the USDA as the ability to get Republicans elected to office. Odd, eh?
Whoa! Wonder what this is about? A little Kyle 'Dusty' Foggo love, perhaps?
(just checked talkingpointsmemo and they're speculating the exact same way)
So while in the midst of hanging out, ahem, studying securities law with Fincher yesterday, we wandered by the Kennedy Center to see if their restaurant/cafe on the roof was open. The vistas were singularly amazing (I'll post a picture later) but there were a fair number of pre-teen tourists about.
Entering the elevator to go to the top, a man passed us and I immediately thought, "That's Matt Cooper". I mentioned it to Fincher, who replied that she didn't know who Matt Cooper was. While explaining, we reached the top floor and emerged to discover that the cafe was closed and that the restaurant seemed to be having some sort of fete for Court TV. Dismayed that we couldn't eat, Fincher and I walked outside, took in the view, then returned.
As I passed the table where the CourtTV promotional women were working, I stopped, hesitated, and then asked if I could ask them an odd question. "Do you want a gift bag?" the lady responded, in a manner designed to convey she didn't wish to give me one.
"No, no, I just wanted to know if Matt Cooper was just here a minute ago."
"Yes, that was him!" Impressed with my knowledge of random reporters I turned to leave, and then a few steps later on an impulse wheeled to come about, saying, "Oh, hey, can I get a gift bag?" Some witty banter later, the lady said yes.
Fincher snagged one from the woman and we went back downstairs, armed with a goody bag which included some choice items. In addition to not knowing about Cooper, she also hadn't heard of CourtTV, causing her to say the memorable line, "Why would I have heard of CourtTV? I mean, I'm in law school!"
When she opened the bag, however, it became clear my bantering skills had paid off: I managed to score a nicely broken-in CourtTV hat, a copy of a magazine, a bottle of vodka (!) and best of all, a pen that doubles as a voice-recorder! All for merely guessing Cooper's name.
Cate is online! Hooray!
She joins the company of Jill, Jenna and Sigourney.
Tuesday afternoon was my first time at your fine establishment. What a phenomenal space! What a great courtyard! What stunningly inept, slow, and amateur bar service!
At almost any given point, there were no less than five people behind your bar during the course of our afternoon there. Yet somehow, every attempt to get a drink took no less than 20 minutes at minimum to obtain, during an ostensible “Happy Hour.”
At first it was funny—various members of our party would stroll off toward the porch to get a drink…and take a long while to come back. And then a longer while… And still longer. And they each came out looking more haggard. But it was still funny: “I’m going in! Wish me luck! Ha ha!”
However, as the sunlight of a beautiful spring day (half the reason we were there, to enjoy the company of friends in a stunning courtyard) began to be wasted, as conversations become halting and members of our group began to drift away in frustration, the humor disappeared.
(At first we though it was class-related—we’re 20-somethings, and there was a row of late middle-aged bejowled men in stunningly conservative blue suits lining the bar inside—but a conversation with one revealed that they weren’t having much luck either, and suffered even more from the Pac-Man-like maze hunt that was finding your bathroom.)
But every bar has an off night. Every restaurant runs into a jam at the credit card reader occasionally. I understand, and would never hold that against the restaurant or my server. If you’re rushed and hustling, I’m not going to assume it’s your fault. I can and do wait patiently.
But the final straw was when I placed my last order—a Stella Artois, a specialty Martini, and the request to close out my tab—and got to watch the disaster that was the Post Moderne Brasserie bartending staff in action. It took almost 10 minutes for the Stella to arrive—10 minutes to open a bottle in a fridge I could see from where I stood!—and worse yet, the Martini did not arrive with it. Nor did my server then go to mix the Martini. No, she went on to serve other people (who, to be fair, were all equally as desperate to get out of this horrifying restaurant Purgatory) before finally, a good 20 minutes later, returning with my drink.
Who does this? Who splits up a drink order? It makes no sense. Serve each person roughly in the order they arrive if possible, fill their whole order, and get them away from the bar happy, so you can devote your attention to the next customer. Don’t trap him there while you badly multitask and teach him to resent you!
Not to mention I still had to wait over 10 minutes more for my credit card. (In retrospect, my first mistake was not loading up on small bills before I went out. My second mistake was actually offering up my credit card too early (or at all), thus making myself a hostage. Otherwise I could have—the first time in my life I’ve ever even considered it—dined and dashed, or at least bartered for a discount from the criminal $18.57—for a single beer and a single adequate drink—on account of pain and suffering.)
Here’s a tip any manager could suggest. Next time, have one server handle restaurant orders, one handle the inside bar, and one the porch and courtyard. If necessary, have a fourth to pick up any slack (maybe a fifth if the restaurant volume is high). And make sure the drinks in any one order arrive somewhat simultaneously. Give your staff that tip, and I’ll actually leave one behind…in cash, rather than the note I scrawled on my credit card receipt (another first in my life): “I WANT THE LAST 1/2 HOUR OF MY LIFE BACK.”
(Or, to put it in another perspective, it just occurred to me that my drive from Baltimore to D.C. during rush hour to get to your bar took less time than it did for your bar to then serve me and settle up.)
By the way, we ended up at Zaytinya—equally as stylish, with equally nice drinks, better food (olive oil ice cream!), and prompt, efficient service.
But don’t worry, we’ll be back. Your courtyard was too stunning and the May afternoon too memory-making to resist. So please say “Hi” to us next time you see us, Poste Moderne Brasserie. We’ll be the well-dressed 20-somethings in your courtyard chatting happily away as we sip from 40s in paper sacks and thermoses full of gin & tonics and homemade mojitos. No need to take our order; we’ll come for the atmosphere and the wicker, but we’ll be serving ourselves from now on.
Just for novelty's sake, could people please stop doing reviews about book reviews when they haven't read the book in question?
This harkens back to my post about authenticity: instead of simply criticizing the premise of the argument the authors make in the book, Scott Shields points to someone else (who, unlike Shields, has actually read the material in question!) to justify his position.
Otherwise, people would simply say "Shields hasn't read the book so cannot offer an opinion". Yet by grabbing the fig leaf from TNR, Shields words attempt to become authentic. The only problem? Well, TNR piece (aside: does anyone else know how to properly punctuate TNR? I mean, is there another acronym utilizing "the" in the name? I can never decide whether to slap a the before TNR or just to leave it blank, hoping people know TNR stands for The New Republic) is actually quite bad.
Why? Let's roll the tape:
But the key to Saunders' success isn't his message; it's his audience. For people whose image of the South is defined by Deliverance and "Hee Haw," Saunders isn't revealing secrets so much as reaffirming stereotypes--stereotypes that in reality bear little resemblance to the modern South, stereotypes that might easily offend many voters, white and black. And he's pushing a populist agenda that, while certainly full of good liberal ideas, is hardly the message that's going to capture the South's burgeoning middle class. In other words, Saunders may win many politicians' ears by playing the Southern minstrel, but those who follow his advice won't win many votes.
As a southerner, reading the book (yeah, I'm actually reading it!) I've found it to be quite informative and hardly stereotypical. The book fights back against stereotypes of race, class and culture to show that most people in rural America aren't the wife-beating, trash throwing idiots northerners believe them to be.
Worse, though, than the mis-characterization of the book, is the idea that the strain of populism Saunders subscribes to is bad politics. Need facts to back that up? Well, Risen's got you covered:
Failing to grasp the subtle but important class and demographic distinctions of the modern South, Saunders casts the entire region in the role of Bubba, the good-hearted, God-fearing country boy. "Bubba stands for a blue-collar outlook that transcends gender, color, economic, and geographic bounds," Saunders and Jarding write. There is something to this, in a David Brooks-ian, pop sociology way. I grew up in upper-middle-class Nashville, and I can attest to the number of lawyers' sons who sported Duck boots, drove mud-caked Jimmys, and dipped Skoal. But my guess is that, when it came to the polls, they and their parents voted as most people do: protecting their economic and social interests. They wouldn't vote for a populist, regardless of which NASCAR team he backed.
My guess? My guess? Risen's own eyes attest to the fact that many upper-class southerners hold on to their roots. Yet he guesses that most people would vote against a populist.
By that logic, the Dubai ports deal would have gone through. And if the administration had just "sold" their social security plan better, it would've passed to.
No, populism is alive and well, and unlike the naysayers in the media who instantly nixed Gore's "people versus the powerful" campaign meme, most people in America want to root for the underdog. Just look at the increasing cost of oil: when the Post sent reporters out to get a feel for how people were reacting, almost everyone didn't blame the GOP, or Congress, or even support the Democrats. They uniformly blamed the oil companies for their profit gouging. That's not protecting their "economic and social interest". That's populism.
Even Risen's analysis of what is wrong with the Saunders/Jarding idea seems to reinforce their point:
Not that Jarding and Saunders have much to say about the dynamics of race in the South--perhaps because any concerted effort to appeal to working-class and rural whites runs the risk of putting off Southern black voters. While NASCAR and country music have both begun to make inroads into the black community, it will still be a long time before a politician-sponsored stock-car race brings out racially mixed crowds.
Both authors have conceded that NASCAR isn't diverse at the moment, although it aims to be. But both are also unapologetic about targeting voters beyond the base. They claim that, for too long, the Democrats have "written off" southern states and rural voters in particular. Risen, then, seems to make their point for them, implying that since black voters don't visit NASCAR, it's not worth the time and energy.
That's fine, coming from TNR. But to see such a statement echoed on MyDD is odd, because MyDD has always been a huge proponent of contesting every race, in every party of the country. That means rural races, which shows Mudcat is right: we cannot simply cede large blocks of the electorate to the GOP.
Risen concludes:
A real Democratic Southern strategy would take into account that, today, the South exists only as a faint echo of its former self; there are so many different "Souths" as to vitiate the term itself. True, a plan for making headway in rural communities is a good idea, as are efforts to play down cultural issues and the elitist stigma attached to Democrats. But that's as true in northern Michigan as it is in southern Alabama. Maybe the best Southern strategy is one that refuses to fetishize the South in the first place. That might not please Saunders, but I bet most other Southerners would appreciate it.
As a southerner, I think he's dead wrong: most members of the South appreciate the odd fetishization. There aren't (at least to my knowledge) "self-hating southerners" beyond those of us who recognize racism where it breeds and seek to abolish it. And, to be honest, I cringed many times during the campaign when Dean (and later Kerry) would display an odd New England touch. Yet Dean (and not Kerry) definitely understood that we needed to win the South back into the fold, while Kerry wrote off the entire region.
It's time to fight back, and the book itself is a good blueprint for how to do so. Having made it 3/4 of the way through the book, I can highly recommend it.
After studying with Fincher a bit, I realized that there are tons of jobs whose very existence will be threatened in the next several decades. What do these jobs have in common?
Many of them tend to be inter-relationship positions, keeping two groups of people who need to deal with one another separate. (Any sort of broker-based job would fall into this category, which I'll call the Tom Smykowski syndrome.) Another large group are positions that exist to take publicly available information and convey it to people in an easy way. Finally, there are jobs which are simply able to be mechanized. Let's examine some, and if you guys know of any more, feel free to add some in the comments. I'm putting my estimate for how long they'll still be around following their title.
The first group:
- Real Estate Agents (15 years)
- Telephone Operators (5 years)
- Travel Agents (15 years)
- Car Dealers (20 years)
- Stock Broker (20 years)
The second group:
- Lawyers (50 years)
- Local News Anchors (25 years)
- Tour Guides (25 years)
- Investment Advisor (50 years)
The final group:
- Metro Drivers (50 years)
- Bus Drivers (50 years)
- Gas Station Attendants/Employees (25 years)
- Television Producers (50 years)
- Bank Employees (25 years)
- Grocery Store Checkout Employees (25 years)
This is not to say, of course, that the demise of these positions is a good thing, per say. Merely that the economics make such positions untenable in the long run. Who would pay someone to resell their house when they could deal directly with a buyer for less money? Likewise, as more public information becomes accessibly, formerly closed information will make certain jobs less important. Why hire a lawyer if you could get sound legal advice from the web? (Assuming you'd trust it!)
Any other positions come to mind?