David Bowie (1947 - 2016)

David Bowie has died of cancer at age 69.

The New York Times notes that his musical career was active until the very end:

The multitalented artist, whose last album, “Blackstar,” was released on Friday — on his birthday — was to be honored with a concert at Carnegie Hall on March 31 featuring the Roots, Cyndi Lauper and the Mountain Goats. He also has a musical, “Lazarus,” running Off Broadway.

More from the NYT obit:

"Mr. Bowie was his generation’s standard-bearer for rock as theater: something constructed and inflated yet sincere in its artifice, saying more than naturalism could. With a voice that dipped down to baritone and leapt into falsetto, he was complexly androgynous, an explorer of human impulses that could not be quantified."

He also pushed the limits of “Fashion” and “Fame,” writing songs with those titles and also thinking deeply about the possibilities and strictures of pop renown. . . .

In the late 1960s, Lindsay Kemp, a dancer, actor and mime, became a lasting influence on Mr. Bowie, focusing his interest in movement and artifice. Mr. Bowie’s music turned toward folk-rock and psychedelia. The release of “Space Oddity,” shortly before the Apollo 11 mission, gained him a British pop audience and, when it was rereleased in 1973 in the United States, an American one.

By then, with the albums “Hunky Dory,” “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars” and “Aladdin Sane,” Mr. Bowie had become a pioneer of glam rock and a major star in Britain, playing up an androgynous image. But he also had difficulties separating his onstage personas from real life and succumbed to drug problems, particularly cocaine use. In 1973, he abruptly announced his retirement — though it was the retirement of Ziggy Stardust, not of Mr. Bowie.

He moved to the United States in 1974 and made “Diamond Dogs,” which included the hit “Rebel Rebel.” In 1975, he turned toward funk with the album “Young Americans,” recorded primarily in Philadelphia with collaborators, including a young Luther Vandross; John Lennon joined Mr. Bowie in writing and singing the hit “Fame.” Mr. Bowie’s 1976 album “Station to Station” yielded more hits, but drug problems were making Mr. Bowie increasingly unstable; in interviews, he made pro-fascist pronouncements that he would soon disown.

For a far-reaching change of environment, and to get away from drugs, Mr. Bowie moved in 1976 to Switzerland and then to West Berlin, part of a divided city with a sound that fascinated him: the Krautrock of Kraftwerk, Can, Neu! and other groups. Mr. Bowie shared a Berlin apartment with Iggy Pop, and he helped produce and write songs for two Iggy Pop albums, “The Idiot” and “Lust for Life.”

He also made what is usually called his Berlin trilogy — “Low,” “ ‘Heroes’ ” and “Lodger” — working with Mr. Eno and Mr. Bowie’s collaborator over decades, the producer Tony Visconti. They used electronics and experimental methods, like having musicians play unfamiliar instruments, yet songs like “ ‘Heroes’ ” conveyed romance against the bleakest odds.

As the 1980s began, Mr. Bowie turned to live theater, performing in multiple cities (including a Broadway run) in the demanding title role of “The Elephant Man.” Yet he would also reach his peak as a mainstream pop musician in that decade — particularly with his 1983 album “Let’s Dance,” which he produced with Nile Rodgers of Chic; the Texas blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan also performed on the album. But by 1989, Mr. Bowie was determined to change again; he recorded, without top billing, as a member of the rock band Tin Machine.

His experiments continued in the 1990s. In 1995, he reconnected with Mr. Eno on an album, “1. Outside,” — influenced by science fiction and film noir — that was intended to be the start of a trilogy. Mr. Bowie toured with Nine Inch Nails in an innovative concert that had his band and Nine Inch Nails merging partway through."

This is from a 2002 article based on an interview with Bowie and others:

"You can still put on 'Ziggy Stardust' and it [sounds] like it could have come out last month," commented [Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails], for a Bowie "Biography" to run on A&E later this year. "It set the foundations for a lot of trends that are happening now."

Following "Ziggy Stardust," Bowie began shifting personae "like an actor rather than a singer," as Glover puts it. Without such moves, a later chameleon like Madonna would have been unimaginable. Small wonder it was she who inducted Bowie into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. . . .

In 1978, Bowie was asked by a British journalist to assess his greatest contribution to rock. "I'm responsible for starting a whole new school of pretension," he famously quipped.

But looking back now at his first theatrical elaboration of the music, he reacts with both bemusement and pride. "It's 30 years ago," he says. "But it feels like 60. Everything, and everyone, has changed. I was recently looking at an old cover of New Musical Express from 1973. It's me and Mick [Jagger], and he's just found glam a little late. He's wearing this jumpsuit with epaulets, and he's dripping in makeup and mascara. And I'm on the other half of the page with this net costume with hands stuck everywhere. You look at it and think, 'What was that all about?'

"But it really did look great, and it was so exciting. My God, that period will never be repeated. It was a hell of a fk off to what came before."

To be specific, to hippie-dom.

"God, I hated the hippie period," Bowie says with a laugh. "They talked about being so creative, but there was so little creativity to it. Glam really did plant seeds for a new identity. I think a lot of kids needed that that sense of reinvention. Kids learned that however crazy you may think it is, there is a place for what you want to do and who you want to be.

"And I needed that myself," Bowie continues. "Even though I was very shy, I found I could get onstage if I had a new identity. And then I learned to discard that identity to become a real self maybe not real to the point of Bruce Springsteen," he adds sarcastically. "But at least an approximation of reality on stage." . . .

Today, he says, "I'm frighteningly happy. I don't see ever wanting to change things in my personal life. Iman and I are very happy, and we have the most fabulous baby."

Yet, as a consequence, he says, he's lost what younger men have namely, "a sense of becoming. At a certain age, you realize you are no longer becoming. You are being. I like knowing what's up. But I do miss the excitement of not knowing quite what's around the next corner."

However content he is in his day-to-day existence, and while he may have "fewer and fewer questions about life," Bowie says this has focused him on "the questions that are unresolvable."

Namely, the existential ones. "I'm approaching those questions in the new songs," he says. "At first, I thought, 'Well, if I write about this, I won't have anything left to write about.' But then I realized that what life is about is quite a subject to take on. "And at the moment," he says, "I feel like I've only scratched the surface."

Bowie with Arcade Fire, performing the band's song "Wake Up":

Pierre Boulez (1925 - 2016)

Boulez, the composer and conductor, died yesterday at age 90. From the New York Times obituary:

"Mr. Boulez belonged to an extraordinary generation of European composers who emerged in the postwar years while still in their 20s. They wanted to change music radically, and they did. Mr. Boulez was at the forefront of their crusade.

As a young composer — and throughout his life as an insistently private man — he matched intelligence with great force of mind: He knew what had to be done, according to his reading of history, and he did it, in defiance of all the norms of French musical culture at the time. His “Marteau Sans Maître” (“Hammer Without a Master”) was one of this pioneering group’s first major achievements, and it remains a landmark of modern music.

But his influence was equally great on the podium. In time he began giving ever more attention to conducting, where his keen ear and rhythmic incisiveness could produce a startling clarity. (There are countless stories of him detecting faulty intonation, say, from the third oboe in a complex piece.)

He reached his peak as a conductor in the 1960s, when he began to appear with some of the world’s great orchestras, including the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestra. By the early ’70s he had succeeded Leonard Bernstein as music director of the New York Philharmonic, an appointment that startled the music world and led to a fitful tenure.

His conducting style was unique. He never used the baton, preferring to manipulate the orchestra by means of his two hands simultaneously, the left indicating phrasing or, in much contemporary music, counterrhythm.

His characteristic sound — unemotional on the surface but with undercurrents of intemperateness, at once brilliant in color and rhythmically disciplined — depended on his famously acute ear and suited his core repertoire: Stravinsky (several of whose works he introduced to Europe), Debussy, Webern, Bartok and Messiaen. . . .

A defining moment came when he heard a broadcast of Stravinsky’s “Song of the Nightingale” conducted by Ernest Ansermet; it was a work to which he often returned throughout his conducting career. Rejecting the wishes of his father, who wanted him to study engineering, he went to Paris in 1942 and enrolled at the Conservatoire.

In 1944-45, he took a harmony class taught by Olivier Messiaen, whose impact on him was decisive. Messiaen’s teaching went far beyond traditional harmony to embrace new music that was outlawed both by the stagnant Conservatoire of that period and by the German occupying forces: the music of Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bartok and Webern.

Messiaen also introduced his students to medieval music and the music of Asia and Africa. Mr. Boulez felt his course was set; but he also knew he needed to go further into the 12-tone method that Schoenberg had introduced a generation before. . . .

In 1960, he conducted the orchestra in the first performance of his “Pli Selon Pli,” an hourlong setting of poems by Stéphane Mallarmé for soprano, with an orchestra rich in percussion.

That lustrous score allowed the conductor certain flexibilities in assembling its fragments. A musical work should be a labyrinth, with no fixed route, Mr. Boulez often said. It might also never have a fixed ending. From then on, he began starting more works than he ever brought to completion, while at the same time submitting older pieces to rounds of revision.

As a conductor, he showed much less hesitation. Where his first concerts had been devoted entirely to 20th-century works, he began, in the early 1960s, to explore earlier repertoires — Haydn, Bach, Schubert, Mozart, Beethoven — with the Concertgebouw and the Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra. He made his debut with an American orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, in March 1965. The program, a typical one for him, comprised Rameau, his own music (“Figures-Doubles-Prismes”), Debussy and Stravinsky (“The Song of the Nightingale”). . . .

His appointment to the New York Philharmonic in 1971 presented great challenges. As music director, he had to enlarge his repertoire rapidly. Until then, he had conducted very little Romantic music other than Berlioz’s; now Schubert, Brahms, Dvorak and Borodin joined his programs, not always convincingly. Though he refused to compromise on Tchaikovsky, he was becoming much more like a regular conductor.

Part of his individuality was lost in the colossal task of maintaining important positions on both sides of the Atlantic, his post with the BBC Symphony demanding much of his time as well. . . .

Both his programming and his handling of an older repertoire met with some resistance from audiences, critics and, it was said, even some of his musicians. Harold C. Schonberg of The New York Times called Mr. Boulez “a brainy orchestral technician” whose “scientific approach” lacked heart. Reviewing a 1972 concert that included Edgard Varèse’s 1927 composition “Arcana,” Donal Henahan of The Times reported that “perhaps a quarter of the downstairs audience” at Philharmonic Hall “fled as if from the Black Death” before the piece was performed." . . .

“He never ceased to think about subjects in relation to one another; he made painting, poetry, architecture, cinema and music communicate with each other, always in the service of a more humane society,” the office of President François Hollande said in a statement."

Boulez as a composer:




Boulez as a conductor:

"I am a manufacturer of economic inequality."

Paul Graham writes:

Since the 1970s, economic inequality in the US has increased dramatically. And in particular, the rich have gotten a lot richer. Some worry this is a sign the country is broken.

I'm interested in the topic because I am a manufacturer of economic inequality. I was one of the founders of a company called Y Combinator that helps people start startups. Almost by definition, if a startup succeeds its founders become rich. And while getting rich is not the only goal of most startup founders, few would do it if one couldn't.

I've become an expert on how to increase economic inequality, and I've spent the past decade working hard to do it. Not just by helping the 2400 founders YC has funded. I've also written essays encouraging people to increase economic inequality and giving them detailed instructions showing how.

So when I hear people saying that economic inequality is bad and should be eliminated, I feel rather like a wild animal overhearing a conversation between hunters. But the thing that strikes me most about the conversations I overhear is how confused they are. They don't even seem clear whether they want to kill me or not.

The most common mistake people make about economic inequality is to treat it as a single phenomenon. The most naive version of which is the one based on the pie fallacy: that the rich get rich by taking money from the poor.

Usually this is an assumption people start from rather than a conclusion they arrive at by examining the evidence. . . .

we grow up in a world where the pie fallacy is actually true. To kids, wealth is a fixed pie that's shared out, and if one person gets more it's at the expense of another. It takes a conscious effort to remind oneself that the real world doesn't work that way. . . .

Even people sophisticated enough to know about the pie fallacy are led toward it by the custom of describing economic inequality as a ratio of one quantile's income or wealth to another's. It's so easy to slip from talking about income shifting from one quantile to another, as a figure of speech, into believing that is literally what's happening....

Economic inequality is sufficiently far from identical with the various problems that have it as a symptom that we'll probably only hit whichever of the two we aim at. If we aim at economic inequality, we won't fix these problems. So I say let's aim at the problems.

For example, let's attack poverty, and if necessary damage wealth in the process. That's much more likely to work than attacking wealth in the hope that you will thereby fix poverty. And if there are people getting rich by tricking consumers or lobbying the government for anti-competitive regulations or tax loopholes, then let's stop them. Not because it's causing economic inequality, but because it's stealing.

Lindsey Graham drops out

Lindsey Graham has dropped out of the presidential race. Slate remarks:

Graham’s campaign . . . will be remembered most—if it’s remembered at all—for the time that Donald Trump doxxed Graham during a campaign rally by giving out his personal cell phone number. The South Carolina senator never made it onto the main debate stage and while he turned in a few entertaining performances in the undercard events, winning those JV games never translated into a noticeable bounce in the polls.

Graham was one of my favorite of the Republican candidates because of his emphasis on being open to compromising with Democrats.

I was also touched by a moment in this interview (starting at about 6:30 in the video below), when Frank Luntz asked Graham what he'd say to his parents if they were alive and sitting in the audience. After his parents died within a year of each other when he was in his early 20s, Graham adopted his orphaned sister, Darlene, who was only 13. Instead of mentioning anything about being a Senator or running for president, he immediately said: "that Darlene turned out really good."

How do kids stop believing in Santa Claus?

From a Slate article:

As Occidental College cognitive scientist Andrew Shtulman writes in a study soon to appear in the journal Cognitive Development, “Santa violates our expectations about spatiotemporal continuity by visiting all the world’s children in a single night; he violates expectations about containment by entering children’s houses through their narrow chimneys; and he violates expectations about support by flying through the air on a wooden sleigh.” Still, kids' belief in Santa is stronger than nearly any other fantasy character. . . .

Shtulman rounded up 47 children between the ages of 3 and 9. All the kids in the study said they believed in Santa, but it turned out that they didn't all think about Santa in the same way. An older child who was more capable of identifying the implausibility of Santa Claus would argue, for example, that Santa could know whether every child was naughty or nice because, as one reported, “He has cameras all around the world.” Or they might suggest that Santa's reindeer can't actually fly; they're held up by yarn. By contrast, younger children would simply answer that Santa's reindeer fly thanks to magic.

The children were attempting to reconcile the folklore surrounding Santa's superhuman abilities with their developing knowledge about the constraints of the physical reality in which they live. Some kids were already better at distinguishing the plausible from the impossible (for instance, when asked, they said that pickle-flavored ice cream is possible but unlikely, while applesauce can never be turned into an apple). These kids had also “begun to engage with the mythology surrounding Santa at a conceptual level, questioning the feasibility of Santa’s extraordinary activities while also positing provisional explanations for those activities in the absence of a known answer,” writes Shtulman.

Granted, Shtulman wasn't necessarily interested in the question of Santa per se. Nor could he directly assess the kids' skepticism, because provoking young kids to question the plausibility of Santa might draw the ire of their parents. Instead, he sees Santa-related lore as exactly the sort of false knowledge that's typically transmitted to kids from people they trust most: parents and teachers. “Studying children's beliefs about Santa can shed light on how children interpret testimony that they cannot personally verify through firsthand observation,” he says.

For most kids, at some point the weight of evidence against the likelihood of Santa being real becomes too heavy to sustain their belief, even if their parents continue to encourage it. Shtulman relates the story of one child whose mother continued to talk up Santa. Then, as she set about wrapping presents, she found a note that her son had written on the back of the paper: “If Santa uses this paper, Mom is Santa!”

The Democratic debate on the Saturday before Christmas

I won't be live-blogging this poorly timed debate, which you can watch on the ABC News website.

You might be able to find some live-blogging at TPM, National Review, Libertarian Girl (who's working for Rand Paul's campaign), Althouse (my mom), and Alex Knepper.

Are you more likely to be killed by a gun or a car?

The New Republic tells us it's "no longer true" that "you’re more likely to die in a car accident" than by being shot (in the United States). TNR's evidence is that the number of gun-related fatalities has just barely exceeded the number of deaths in car accidents.

But that conclusion is at odds with the evidence. TNR follows the standard practice of those who support stricter gun control in focusing on gun-related deaths in general, without pointing out that many of those deaths are suicides or killings in self-defense.

TNR links to a Washington Post blog post that says that about two-thirds of gun deaths are suicides. So if you, like most people, are confident you're not going to intentionally kill yourself with a gun, then it's safe to say you're more likely to die in a car crash than by being shot.

I don't know how many of the gun deaths were killings in self-defense — I imagine it's difficult to come up with reliable statistics on that. But of course being fatally shot in self-defense is a serious concern only for those who attempt to commit serious crimes.

TNR also says that "gun deaths have inched up" (while fatal car crashes have declined), which gives the impression that you should be alarmed at your increasing likelihood of being fatally shot. After all, the TNR post is largely written in the second person, talking about "you." But the WaPo post clarifies that the increase in "gun deaths" has been driven by increasing gun-related suicides — not gun-related homicides, which have been decreasing.

Live-blogging the first main Republican debate since terrorist attacks in Paris and California

I'll be live-blogging the debate here — while trying to make risotto! Keep reloading this post for more updates.

There's more live-blogging going on by National Review, TPM, Althouse (my mom), and Alex Knepper.

8:49 — Rand Paul gives an opening statement strongly bearing down on his unorthodox views on foreign policy and terrorism.

8:50 — John Kasich says his daughter doesn't like politics because it's too darn loud.

8:53 — Carly Fiorina says, "It's time to take our country back" — but "insults won't take our country back." She describes how she's been repeatedly tested, including being "called every B word in the book."

8:54 — Jeb Bush's theme (in his attempt to salvage his campaign) is that these are "serious times," so we need a serious leader like him.

8:56 — Marco Rubio reminisces about his grandfather telling him they're in the greatest country in the history of the world — in contrast with President Obama, who wants America to be more like the rest of the world.

8:58 — Ben Carson begins his opening statement with a moment of silence for the victims of the attack on San Bernardino.

9:01 — Moderator Wolf Blitzer asks Donald Trump if "the way to make America great again is to isolate ourselves from the world."

9:03 — When Bush is asked about Trump's proposal to bar non-American Muslims from entering the country, Bush hits Trump hard, calling him "unhinged" and unfit to be commander-in-chief. "He is a chaos candidate, and he would be a chaos president." [VIDEO.]

9:06 — Cruz is asked about Trump's proposal, and doesn't take the bait to attack Trump. He briefly says he "understand[s]" why Trump proposed it, and quickly pivots to attacking Obama.

9:09 — Fiorina focuses on technology, noting that social media as we know it didn't exist when the Patriot Act was enacted.

9:13 — Kasich emphasizes the need to work with our Arab and European allies.

9:14 — Cruz stands by his vote for a law to reform our "bulk collection of metadata of law-abiding citizens." Rubio disagrees: "We are now at a time when we need more tools, not less tools." Cruz retorts by calling Rubio a liar, saying he "knows that what he is saying is not true."

9:17 — Paul agrees with Cruz's vote but takes a much stronger position, saying the metadata collection made us "less safe." Paul adds that Rubio is "the weakest of all the candidates on immigration" since he's for "an open border." "Rubio has more of an allegiance to Chuck Schumer and the liberals than to conservative policy." [VIDEO.]

9:20 — Christie slams all three of the Senators who were talking about metadata — Cruz, Rubio, and Paul — suggesting that they've "never had to make a consequential decision." Christie declares that the viewers "don't care" about "which bill these guys like more."

9:22 — Bush on surveillance by the FBI and NSA: "We shouldn't even be talking about it!"

9:26 — Fiorina points out that Obama should have consulted with "the private sector" while creating the infamous healthcare.gov.

9:33 — Alex Knepper observes:

The right whines about 'political correctness' so often that it is starting to truly degrade the power of the term, much like 'racist' doesn't have the impact it used to due to overuse by the left.

9:36 — Another dust-up between Rubio and Cruz on fighting terrorism.

9:37 — Trump is asked why he supports killing terrorists' families. Trump says: "That will make [terrorists] think, because they may not care much about their lives, but they do, believe it or not, care about their families." Bush says that's "crazy." Trump retorts that Bush is "very nice," but "we need toughness." They then descend into crosstalk, aggressively interrupting each other. Trump: "I know you're trying to build up your energy, Jeb, but it's not working!"

9:43 — Paul says Trump's proposal on the internet would require getting rid of the First Amendment, and his position on terrorists' families would require us to withdraw from the Geneva Convention. Trump responds incredulously: "So they can kill us, but we can't kill them?!" When Trump clarifies his position on the internet, the audience boos, and Trump directly tells the audience he can't understand why they're booing: "These are people who want to kill us!"

9:48 — Rubio sounds impressive with his knowledge of Syria, but Paul interjects: "That's factually incorrect."

9:50 — Fiorina, who explicitly refused to play the gender card in the first main debate that included her (see 10:55 here), quotes Margaret Thatcher: "If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman." [Ian Tuttle of National Review objects: "Conservatives are respecters of individuals, and of reasoned arguments over mating calls, and should act and speak accordingly."]

9:54 — As CNN cuts to a commercial and the camera backs away from the stage, we see some revealing body language: Cruz shakes Trump's hand, and Trump pats Cruz on the back, while Trump, with a serious look on his face, appears to say just a couple words to Cruz.

9:58 — Cruz maintains that the focus should be on killing terrorists rather than promoting democracy.

9:59 — Cruz mocks Obama for seeking to work with "moderate rebels." "It's like a purple unicorn — they never exist!" [VIDEO.]

10:01 — Trump pauses for a few seconds while a protester yells during his time. Then Trump says we should have taken the $4 or 5 trillion we spent on "nation building," which we got "nothing" out of, and instead spent it on infrastructure in the United States. Fiorina: "That's exactly what Obama said!"

10:04 — In response to a series of questions about whether to try to spread democracy in the Middle East, Carson points out that on airplanes, the announcement says that in case of an emergency, you should put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others. "We need oxygen now."

10:07 — Cruz obnoxiously keeps speaking while Blitzer tries to cue Hugh Hewitt to ask Trump a question, and the audience boos Cruz.

10:11 — My mind was starting to wander amid all this foreign policy talk, but then Kasich grabbed my attention by saying: "It's time that we punched the Russians in the nose."

10:14 — Christie calls Obama a "feckless weakling." Christie says he'd shoot down Russian planes in a no-fly zone over Syria, even if this would risk war with Russia. "It's called a no-fly zone. Maybe it's because I'm from New Jersey — I just have this plain-language hang-up." Paul responds, while pointing to Christie: "If you're in favor of World War III, you have your candidate!"

10:16 — Bush's explanation for why he'd be better than Trump at dealing with Russian President Vladimir Putin: "I know what I don't know. I will seek out the advice." Knepper says:

Jeb "Socrates" Bush knows what he doesn't know! (But can he be as wise as Rumsfeld and consider what he doesn't know he doesn't know?)

10:18 — Trump scolds the moderators for starting so many of their questions, especially in the earlier debate (with the lower-tier candidates) with asking about what "Mr. Trump" has said. Trump says it's "in order to get ratings," and it's "very unprofessional." Bush suggests that if Trump thinks this debate is "tough," he isn't ready to be president. Trump sarcastically responds, "Oh yeah, you're a tough guy, Jeb!" [VIDEO.]

10:21 — Carson says just because he's quiet and not "boisterous" doesn't mean he wouldn't be a strong leader. "I don't do a lot of talking. I do a lot of doing." (So there, Carly Fiorina!)

10:25 — CNN gets Cruz and Rubio to go after each other for a third time, this time over immigration. CNN has used a split screen of the two every time this happens, clearly trying to play up the rivalry between the two 44-year-old first-term Senators. Yet again, Cruz accuses Rubio of lying about Cruz's record: "It's like saying the firefighter and the arsonist have the same record because they're both at the scene of the fire." [VIDEO.] [Added later: Politico says this was the #1 "takeaway" from the debate:]

Rubio is the Barack Obama of 2008: He rises to big moments, lives up to the hype, and is a gifted communicator and performer. There’s a reason Hillary Clinton allies fear Rubio, and are suddenly publicly pushing the idea that the GOP nominee will be Cruz, an opponent they would much prefer.

Rubio is better than Obama was at this point in ’08, and way more consistent. Tangling with Cruz, Rubio was much more detailed and convincing.

10:29 — Trump calls himself "very hard-line" on immigration. "You just need to speak to the people of Israel — walls work, if they're properly constructed. I know how to build."

10:34 — Paul is asked whether he'd send home the 2,000 Syrian refugees who have already been admitted to the US. He says he "hasn't taken a position" on that, but he wouldn't allow any new ones.

10:35 — A college student, asking a question by video, suggests that taking in Syrian refugees is biblically mandated. Christie responds directly to the student, saying his top priority as president would be to keep her and her family safe. (I wish he had added that the role of government is not to carry out biblical mandates.)

10:45 — I've found Carson dull throughout this debate. He tries to show off his knowledge by listing the antiquated weapons in our arsenal. I've been mostly tuning out this latter part of the debate — it's hard to pay attention to two hours of fast talk about foreign policy in the evening.

10:51 — Trump and Cruz are both asked about their willingness or unwillingness to attack each other in public. Trump pats Cruz on the back and says he's gotten to know Cruz better just in the last 3 or 4 days. At the beginning of Cruz's answer, Trump interjects: "You better not attack!" They both decline the invitation to attack each other.

10:54 — Trump is asked if he can assure us that he'll "run as a Republican and abide by the decision of the Republicans." "I really am. . . . I'm totally committed to the Republican Party. . . . I'll do everything in my power to beat Hillary Clinton." [VIDEO.]

11:03 — Bush stumbles through his closing statement. You can sense that he knows he's not doing enough in this debate.

11:06 — In Trump's closing statement (the last one of the night), he seems to be exhausted, running out of steam — as if he's one of those dolls who says a few recorded statements when you pull a string on its back, but the batteries are running low: "We aren't winning anymore . . . If I am president, we will win again. We will have a great, great country — greater than ever before."

How far The New Republic's standards have fallen after the shakeup

After the exodus of editors from The New Republic last year, the magazine is printing things like this:

Ban guns. All guns. Get rid of guns in homes, and on the streets, and, as much as possible, on police. . . . Ban guns! Not just gun violence. Not just certain guns. Not just already-technically-illegal guns. All of them.

"Do not write about this trade."

“Don’t you dare.”

Two presidential candidates say the same thing but don't get the same response

Here's what one candidate said, followed by what another candidate said. See if you can tell which one has been widely ridiculed by the media.

We’re losing a lot of people because of the internet. And we have to do something — we have to see Bill Gates and a lot of different people that really understand what’s happening. We have to talk to them — maybe in certain areas, closing that internet up in some ways. Someone will say, ‘Oh freedom of speech, freedom of speech.’ These are foolish people. . . . We've got to do maybe something about the internet, because they are recruiting by the thousands.

Now, here's the other candidate's statement:

Self-radicalization that leads to attacks, like what we think happened in San Bernardino, we’re going to have to ask our technology companies . . . to help us on this. You know, the government is good in some respects, but nowhere near as good as those of you who are in this field. . . . We're going to have some more support from our friends in the online world to deny them online space. And this is complicated — you’re gonna hear all of the usual complaints, you know, 'freedom of speech, etc.,' but if we truly are in a war against terrorism . . . then we've got to shut off their means of communicating.

Click here for the answer.


(Note: I tweaked and added to the transcriptions based on watching the videos — those quotes aren't identical to the text in the linked article. Also note that the link goes to Playboy, but there's no nudity; however, you still might not want to click a Playboy link at work.)

Why liberals shouldn't support Obama's proposal to ban people on the no-fly list from owning guns

"It has not historically been the hallmark of a healthy democracy when governments have kept lists of people they didn’t like."

If you mock the idea that Muslims should actively denounce and fight against Islamic extremism . . .

. . . you're against President Obama on this:

We cannot turn against one another by letting this fight be defined as a war between America and Islam. That, too, is what groups like ISIL want. ISIL does not speak for Islam. They are thugs and killers. Part of a cult of death. And they account for a tiny fraction of a more than a billion Muslims around the world, including millions of patriotic Muslim-Americans who reject their hateful ideology.

Moreover, the vast majority of terrorist victims around the world are Muslim. If we're to succeed in defeating terrorism, we must enlist Muslim communities as some of our strongest allies rather than push them away through suspicion and hate.

That does not mean denying the fact that an extremist ideology has spread within some Muslim communities. It's a real problem that Muslims must confront without excuse.

Muslim leaders here and around the globe have to continue working with us to decisively and unequivocally reject the hateful ideology that groups like ISIL and Al Qaeda promote. To speak out against not just acts of violence, but also those interpretations of Islam that are incompatible with the values of religious tolerance, mutual respect, and human dignity.

But just as it is the responsibility of Muslims around the world to root out misguided ideas that lead to radicalization, it is the responsibility of all Americans, of every faith, to reject discrimination.

Scott Weiland, the former Stone Temple Pilots singer, has died at 48.

The New York Times reports:

Scott Weiland, the American musician whose mercurial vocals were a signature of the rock band he co-founded, Stone Temple Pilots, and who later sang lead in Velvet Revolver, died Thursday in Minnesota. He was 48.

His manager, Tom Vitorino, confirmed the death. A statement posted to Mr. Weiland’s Facebook page said he “passed away in his sleep while on a tour stop in Bloomington, Minnesota, with his band The Wildabouts.” . . .

At the height of Stone Temple Pilots’ fame in the 1990s, Mr. Weiland was known for commanding large stages. The band was initially slammed by critics as sounding like a knockoff of popular grunge acts like Pearl Jam and Nirvana. But S.T.P., as the band was known, found its fan base with broody melodies and memorable riffs. . . .

Throughout his career, Mr. Weiland struggled with drug addiction and was often deemed defiant and bedraggled, but he was also seen as a capable vocalist.

Happy birthday, Woody Allen!

Woody Allen turns 80 today.

He’s been making one movie a year for the past five decades, and shows no signs of slowing down. He’s had just as many misses as hits, but it doesn’t matter; he’s an iconic figure in the filmmaking world.

That's from Biography.com, which lists some interesting facts about him:

While he was still in high school, he tried sending his jokes in to the newspaper, which promptly started printing them. A typical one went something like this: “A hypocrite is a guy who writes a book on atheism, and prays it sells.”

When Allen’s jokes started appearing in well-known columns, . . . he decided he didn’t want his classmates seeing his name there, so he changed it. Allen Stewart Konigsberg legally became Heywood Allen, and then Woody Allen, a name that seemed to lend itself to comedy writing. And he just kept writing jokes, and soon he was up to 50 a day. He hasn’t been out of work since. . . .

Early Woody Allen films are pretty surprising to those who grew up in his post Annie Hall era. His movies had him slipping on a gigantic banana peel (Sleeper), getting shot out of a cannon (Love and Death), or running around in a sperm suit (Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask). He admits he’s been as influenced by the Marx Brothers as he was by Bergman.

These wackier movies were all made in the 1970s, so one might conclude that he’d at least dabbled in some of the popular substances of the times. But he’s never tried any recreational drugs, and says he can’t fathom why anybody else would. He hasn’t taken Valium (another hugely popular drug of the 70s, although a legal one), or Prozac, or antidepressants. He’s never even taken a sleeping pill. . . .

Actors in Woody Allen movies always seem perfectly cast; they inhabit their parts so well that viewers can’t imagine anyone else in those roles. While there were times when it was inspired by a particular muse, like Mia Farrow or Diane Keaton, generally the movie is written and then Allen and his longtime casting direction Juliet Taylor make decisions about who should play each part. And so begins the audition process, which happens so quickly you might miss it if you blink. . . . Taylor says the shortest casting session has come in at ten seconds.

When he’s interested in an actor, he’ll send them a copy of the script, but it’s never via email, and it’s never through their agent. Scripts arrive, hand delivered directly to the actor, and are picked up again within a few hours. They are accompanied by a typed or handwritten note from Allen, sometimes reintroducing himself (“You may remember me from a film of mine you did called Melinda and Melinda”) and saying he hopes they like the script, and if they take the part, they should feel free to change any of the lines that don’t suit them. He says the biggest favor he can do for actors is to get out of their way and shut up. . . .

Woody Allen says he has never sent or received an email. He writes on the same typewriter he bought for $40 when he was a teenager. Now that he’s writing scripts instead of jokes, he has the challenge of needing to cut and paste, but he handles it old school-style: he cuts up the paper he’s typing on, and staples the pieces together in the order in which he needs them.

This is why we need more philosophers!

If Marco Rubio had thought more carefully about the relationship of the state to the people, perhaps he wouldn't have made this ridiculous statement.

(See my live-blog of the last Republican debate at 9:11.)

"Cultural appropriation"

Cathy Young writes in the Washington Post:

At one time, . . . critiques [of "cultural appropriation"] were leveled against truly offensive art — work that trafficked in demeaning caricatures, such as blackface, 19th-century minstrel shows or ethnological expositions, which literally put indigenous people on display, often in cages. But these accusations have become a common attack against any artist or artwork that incorporates ideas from another culture, no matter how thoughtfully or positively. A work can reinvent the material or even serve as a tribute, but no matter. If artists dabble outside their own cultural experiences, they’ve committed a creative sin.

To take just a few recent examples: After the 2013 American Music Awards, Katy Perry was criticized for dressing like a geisha while performing her hit single “Unconditionally.” Last year, Arab-American writer Randa Jarrar accused Caucasian women who practice belly dancing of “white appropriation of Eastern dance.” Daily Beast entertainment writer Amy Zimmerman wrote that pop star Iggy Azalea perpetrated “cultural crimes” by imitating African American rap styles.

And this summer, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has been dogged by charges of cultural insensitivity and racism for its “Kimono Wednesdays.” At the event, visitors were invited to try on a replica of the kimono worn by Claude Monet’s wife, Camille, in the painting “La Japonaise.” The historically accurate kimonos were made in Japan for this very purpose. Still, Asian American activists and their supporters besieged the exhibit with signs like “Try on the kimono: Learn what it’s like to be a racist imperialist today!” Others railed against “Yellow-Face @ the MFA” on Facebook. The museum eventually apologized and changed the program so that the kimonos were available for viewing only. Still, activists complained that the display invited a “creepy Orientalist gaze.”

These protests have an obvious potential to chill creativity and artistic expression. But they are equally bad for diversity, raising the troubling specter of cultural cleansing. When we attack people for stepping outside their own cultural experiences, we hinder our ability to develop empathy and cross-cultural understanding.

It's time for cultural appropriators to proudly reclaim "culturally appropriative" as a positive, empowering term. When asked "Isn't that cultural appropriation?" you should enthusiastically answer: "Yes! I freely adopt any cultures I choose, and I wouldn't have it any other way!"

The pejorative use of the phrase "cultural appropriation" marginalizes historically oppressed groups by trying to scare others away from being anything like those groups. In everyday real life (as opposed to theoretical discussions on the internet), people normally go around emulating other people who they want to be like. In fact, it's often very beneficial to be emulated. For instance, Chuck Berry would not be such a huge rock star if white guitarists had ignored him rather than imitating him. Copying is not theft!

Happy 50th birthday to the great Björk!

I highly recommend her 3rd and 4th albums, Homogenic and Vespertine.




"You shouldn't let poets lie to you."



(Transcript and explanation.)

Why talk about "Islamic terrorists"?

Chris Matthews asks:

Why does [Marco] Rubio want to have this as a clash of civilizations? I though that was what ISIS wanted, what al Qaeda wants, to have the Islamic world fight with the Western world! Why would he want what they want — to see the world in a religious struggle? Why say "Islamic"? Why don’t we say "terrorist"?

I'd resist any suggestion that we should speak only in vague terms about terrorism/terrorists and constantly avoid mentioning the ideological underpinnings of those who have built an international network that threatens civilization as we know it. There are many other terrorists around the world with a variety of agendas, but we rightly don't put as high a priority on stopping them because they lack the global ambitions of groups like ISIL and al Qaeda.

It isn't convincing to suggest that the terrorists aren't really Islamic because they're evil, and Islam itself isn't evil. Using the adjective "Islamic" to apply to terrorists is not saying that all (or even most) Muslims are (or even support) evil. If you believe that, then to be consistent, you should object to describing the Crusades as Christian, or the Holocaust as German, etc. Well I'm sorry, but you're just not going to get anywhere by trying to erase the parts of history that make you feel uncomfortable. Someone else, who's in the habit of speaking or writing more bluntly, will always be able to come along and point out the truth in a more compelling manner than you have. If you believe in your message about terrorism — whatever that message is — you should want to communicate it in clear language that describes reality with precision. Instead of objecting to those who use such language when it's disturbing, we should be fighting against those who have made the use of such disturbing language necessary.

What to do about ISIL after the attacks on Paris

Roger Cohen writes in the New York Times:

The Paris slaughter claimed by the Islamic State constitutes, as President François Hollande of France declared, an “act of war.” As such, it demands of all NATO states a collective response under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. This says that, “An armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.” . . .

The only adequate measure, after the killing of at least 129 people in Paris, is military, and the only objective commensurate with the ongoing threat is the crushing of ISIS and the elimination of its stronghold in Syria and Iraq. The barbaric terrorists exulting on social media at the blood they have spilled cannot be allowed any longer to control territory on which they are able to organize, finance, direct and plan their savagery.

Hollande left no doubt that that [sic] the attacks were “prepared, organized and planned from abroad, with complicity from the inside.” ISIS, or one of its affiliates, has also claimed responsibility for the recent downing of a Russian passenger jet, with the loss of 224 lives. The United States and Britain believe these claims are credible.

It was wrong to dismiss ISIS as a regional threat. Its threat is global. Enough is enough. A certain quality of evil cannot be allowed physical terrain on which to breed. Pope Francis declared the Paris attacks “not human.” In a sense he is right. But history teaches that human beings are capable of fathomless evil. Unmet, it grows.

To defeat ISIS in Syria and Iraq will require NATO forces on the ground. After the protracted and inconclusive Western interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is reasonable to ask if this would not be folly. It is also reasonable to demand – and many will – whether military action will only have the effect of winning more recruits for ISIS as more lives and treasure are squandered. Terrorism, the old nostrum has it, can never be completely defeated.

Such arguments are seductive but must be resisted. An air war against ISIS will not get the job done; the Paris attacks occurred well into an unpersuasive bombing campaign. Major powers, including Russia and China, have vigorously condemned the Paris attacks. They should not stand in the way of a United Nations resolution authorizing military action to defeat and eliminate ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Regional powers, especially Saudi Arabia, have an interest in defeating the monster they helped create whose imagined Caliphate would destroy them. . . .

It is not enough to say, as the Obama Administration has up to now, that ISIS will be defeated. These words lack meaning without a corresponding plan. There is time pressure because time is being used precisely to plan new atrocities.

With each one, the possibility of a spiral of religious and sectarian violence in strained European societies increases. Hatred of Muslims seems to be on the rise. The Bataclan, the club targeted in the Paris attacks, has, as the French magazine Le Point pointed out, been a frequent meeting-place for Jewish organizations.

The killings occurred as hundreds of thousands of desperate Muslim refugees from Syria are streaming into Europe. This is not the time to turn on them, but to help them, even if extreme vigilance is needed. They, too, in their vast majority, are fleeing ISIS, as well as the indiscriminate violence of President Bashar al-Assad. Nonintervention in Syria has proved a policy fraught with bloodshed and danger, now seeping into Europe.

The battle will be long. . . . Crushing ISIS in Syria and Iraq will not eliminate the jihadi terrorist threat. But the perfect cannot be the enemy of the good. Passivity is a recipe for certain failure. It is time, in the name of humanity, to act with conviction and power against the scourge of the Islamic State. Disunity and distraction undermined past military efforts to defeat the jihadis. Unity is now attainable and with it victory.

Live-blogging the second Democratic debate of 2016

I'll be live-blogging the debate here. Keep reloading for more updates.

This is the first Democratic debate after Biden announced he wasn't running, and after three candidates dropped out. There are only three candidates, so no one should need to complain about not having enough time in this two-hour debate.

As always, I'll be writing down quotes as I hear them, so they might not be verbatim, but I'll try to keep them reasonably accurate.

For more live-blogging, check out TPM, the New Republic, and Althouse (my mom).

[Here's the transcript.]

9:06 — First, each candidate is asked for their thoughts on the attacks on Paris yesterday. Sanders vows to "rid our planet of this barbarous organization called ISIS."

9:08 — Hillary Clinton denounces the "radical jihadist ideology" of ISIS, a "terrorist group." The use of the word "jihadist" seems to mark a shift from President Obama, who shies away from referring to the Islamic nature of Islamic terrorism.

9:10 — Clinton is asked if Obama underestimated the threat posed by ISIS. Clinton fails to answer the question, and instead makes her standard points about ISIS and terrorism. The moderator calls her out on this, and asks the same question again. [VIDEO.]

9:13 — Martin O'Malley takes a hawkish tone, calling ISIS "evil" and saying "this is America's fight," though "not only America's fight." [Added later: O'Malley was responding to Clinton's repeated statement that "this cannot be an American fight." However, she added: "American leadership is essential."]

9:13 — Sanders is asked if he still believes climate change is the greatest threat in the world. He says yes — in fact, climate change leads to terrorism. [VIDEO.]

9:14 — Sanders and O'Malley both criticize Clinton for understating America's responsibility to defeat ISIS.

9:15 — Sanders notes that Clinton voted for the Iraq War, which led to ISIS.

9:16 — Clinton defends herself with a long-winded and confusing historical account going back to the '90s. As I understand it, she's basically emphasizing that terrorism was a serious problem well before the Iraq War — but how should that allay any Democratic voters' concerns that her vote to authorize the Iraq War made things worse rather than better?

9:17 — Sanders calls himself "more conservative than the Secretary" on "regime change" — meaning he's more cautious and aware of the unintended consequences. [VIDEO.]

9:21 — The moderator, John Dickerson, points out that Clinton "championed" Obama's invasion of Libya, and quotes Obama saying he learned from Libya that it's important to think in advance about what happens "the day after." Dickerson asks: shouldn't that lesson already have been learned by then, from the Iraq War?

9:23 — O'Malley is asked about his lack of foreign-policy experience. He says: "We are not so good at appreciating threats and building up stable democracies." He also talks about a mom who urged him not to use the phrase "boots on the ground" because she felt her son was diminished by the metonymy. (Of course, he didn't use the word "metonymy.")

9:26 — Clinton is asked if she agrees with Marco Rubio's statement that we're "at war with radical Islam." Clinton dodges the question by saying "we're not at war with all Muslims." As the moderator points out, that isn't what Rubio said — Rubio limited his statement to radical Islam. Clinton praises President Bush for speaking appropriately about this sensitive topic in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks. [VIDEO.]

9:27 — Clinton is asked if we need to "understand" ISIS. This is a politically tricky question, but she gives a clever response: she first says it's "very difficult to put ourselves in their shoes," but then proceeds to do just that by describing ISIS's worldview as one of "nihilism," "a lust for power," and "rejection of modernity and human rights." [Added later:] I'm struck by how Clinton went straight for the hawkish view of ISIS (they're just a bunch of nihilistic, backward people who crave power), and passed up the opportunity to urge us to have a greater understanding of the "root causes" of terrorism. Clinton sounded much like the conservative Charles Krauthammer, writing in the month after the September 11 attacks:

It turns out that the enemy does have recognizable analogues in the Western experience. He is, as President Bush averred in his address to the nation, heir to the malignant ideologies of the 20th century. In its nihilism [the same word used by Clinton], its will to power [similar to the "lust for power" mentioned by Clinton], its celebration of blood and death, its craving for the cleansing purity that comes only from eradicating life and culture, radical Islam is heir, above all, to Nazism. The destruction of the World Trade Center was meant not only to wreak terror. Like the smashing of the Bamiyan Buddhas [in Afghanistan earlier in 2001], it was meant to obliterate greatness and beauty, elegance and grace. These artifacts represented civilization embodied in stone or steel. They had to be destroyed [that would be an example of the "rejection of modernity," as Clinton put it].

9:28 — O'Malley says our Muslim American "neighbors" are not our "enemies" — "they are our first line of defense."

9:33 — Clinton says she supports taking in 65,000 Syrian refugees. Of course, she says we should have a "careful" screening process to "prevent people who wish to do us harm from coming into our country." (Easier said than done.)

9:42 — Sanders is asked how high he'd raise taxes. He doesn't have an "exact number," but it will be lower than the highest rate under President Eisenhower — "I'm not that much of a socialist compared to Eisenhower!" [VIDEO.]

9:44 — Clinton vows to "defend" Obamacare, in contrast with Republicans, who will tear it up and throw us back into a "contentious debate" about health care. She says she disagrees with Sanders on health care, but Sanders retorts that he was on the committee that drafted Obamacare.

9:46 — Sanders says we need to "end the national embarrassment of being the only advanced country on earth that doesn't guarantee health care to all people as a right, not a privilege."

9:51 — O'Malley says that net immigration in the past year was "zero." He blatantly pleads for media attention: "Go ahead, fact-check me!" (Clinton says he's "basically" right.) [Update: The Washington Post's Fact Checker obliged.]

9:53 — Sanders is asked how much "job loss" he'd find an "acceptable" consequence of raising the minimum wage. Sanders vaguely acknowledges that any policy will have some negative consequences, but he'll "apologize to nobody" for supporting an increase to $15 an hour. For some reason, he suggests that this will especially help to reduce unemployment among black youths.

9:56 — O'Malley is asked why he raised Maryland's minimum wage only to $10.10, when he now calls for increasing the whole country's minimum wage to $15.

9:56 — Clinton admits that "there are no international comparisons" to what would happen if we raised the minimum wage to $15, so she only supports raising it to $12, which "would be the highest above the historical average we've ever had."

10:02 — Clinton is asked how she can rein in Wall Street when she's "indebted" to so many people on Wall Street since they've donated so much money to her. Clinton says this is obvious from the fact that two "billionaire hedge fund managers" have been putting out attack ads against her. Sanders says Clinton's answer is "not good enough," and asks why Wall Street has been such a "major contributor" to Clinton. "Maybe they're dumb! But I don't think so." [VIDEO.]

10:05 — Things really heat up between Clinton and Sanders over Clinton's connections to Wall Street. Clinton says: "He has basically used his answer to impugn my integrity." Sanders protests: "No I have not!" Clinton presses on: "Oh, wait a minute here . . ." She adds that Sanders's plan of "breaking up the big banks" is "not enough." Sanders seems like he's trying to turn down the heat: "I respectfully disagree with you, Madam Secretary." [VIDEO.]

10:08 — O'Malley repeatedly says, very slowly and emphatically, that Clinton's proposal on Wall Street is "weak tea."

10:09 — As in the last debate, Clinton seems to be trying to minimize any apparent difference between herself and the other candidates on financial regulations: "If the big banks don't play by the rules, I will break them up."

10:10 — Sanders says, in a thinly veiled swipe at Clinton: "Here's my promise: Wall Street representatives will not be in my cabinet."

10:11 — Clinton repeats what she said in the last debate about her disagreement with Sanders about lawsuits against gun manufacturers. The moderator shoots back: "If he can be tattooed by one vote . . . why can't you be tattooed by your vote on Iraq?" Clinton frankly admits: "I made a mistake on Iraq."

10:13 — On gun control, Sanders says, "I don't know that there's any disagreement here," and both of the other candidates laugh at him.

10:14 — O'Malley goes after Clinton on gun control: "You've been on three sides of this." She was for gun regulations at first, but then "painted [her]self as Annie Oakley, saying we don't need regulations at the federal level." Sanders tries to take the rug out from under O'Malley with the understatement that Baltimore, of which O'Malley was mayor, is "not the safest city in America."

10:16 — A viewer asks Clinton why she invoked "9/11" to defend against Sanders's charges of being too close to Wall Street. Clinton seems to suggest that the viewer misunderstood. (Well, I didn't understand Clinton's point either.)

[Added later:] Here's how Politico quotes Clinton:

I represented New York, and I represented New York on 9/11 when we were attacked. Where were we attacked? We were attacked in downtown Manhattan, where Wall Street is. I did spend a whole lot of time and effort helping them rebuild. That was good for New York. It was good for the economy, and it was a way to rebuke the terrorists who had attacked our country. [VIDEO.]

TNR tries to explain it. Politico reports on more negative reactions to what Clinton. David Axelrod, Obama's former adviser, mocks her on Twitter:

@HillaryClinton vehemently offers support for Wall Street as post-911 recovery effort. Does that fly?

O'Malley's deputy campaign manager, Lis Smith, gets personal:

My dad worked in WTC from the day it was built to the day it went down. @HillaryClinton, never invoke 9/11 to justify your Wall St positions

10:17 — Clinton says some stuff that I didn't catch about Glass-Steagall. She admits it's an "arcane" discussion, and I think she knows that talk of "Glass-Steagall" doesn't mean much to most viewers, especially when no one bothers to explain it. Even Ben Bernanke, the former chair of the Federal Reserve, doesn't understand why there's so much focus on it in the debates! I don't know if the candidates are even thinking about the fact that some of their viewers who will be eligible to vote in 2016 are teenagers; Glass-Steagall was repealed in 1999, when they were babies.

10:25 — Sanders is asked about the apparent discrepancy between his statement in the last debate that he was "sick and tired" of hearing about Clinton's emails, and his later comments, but Sanders brushes this off as a media invention. We get a sequel to the Sanders/Clinton love-fest from the last debate, with Sanders saying: "I didn't know that I had so much power! We don't hear much about her emails anymore! . . . We've gotten off of Clinton's emails — good!" Clinton: "I couldn't have said it better myself!"

10:27 — Clinton: "President Obama deserves more credit than he's gotten for what he got done in Washington, despite Republican obstructionism."

10:28 — Dickerson brings up her recent congressional testimony on Benghazi, and asks if she can assure us the "other shoe isn't going to drop." Clinton: "I think after 11 hours, that's pretty clear!"

10:30 — When O'Malley is asked about criminal justice reform, he says he has more "graveside" experience than the other candidates.

10:32 — Sanders calls to "end minimum sentencing" and legalize marijuana at the federal level, so states can be free to legalize it.

10:35 — Sanders is asked why government should pay for tuition, when about 40% of college students don't graduate. Isn't the taxpayer money just "thrown away" on them? Sanders doesn't answer that question, but simply reiterates his support for "free" college (to the extent anything that would cost billions of dollars can be called "free").

10:38— Clinton: "I disagree with free college for everybody." Her rationale is that taxpayers should have to "send Donald Trump's kids to college." (Of course, Trump's kids went to private colleges, which wouldn't be affected by Sanders's plan.) Government and families should both "contribute."

10:40 — The moderator points out that Clinton's health-care plan back when she was First Lady was "Sanders-esque." Clinton seems wistful: "Revolution never came! . . . I have the scars to prove it!"

10:42 — As the moderator is starting to go to a commercial break, O'Malley begs for more time, but Dickerson blames it on technology: "I'm sorry, Governor, we've got to take a break, or the machine breaks down!" [Update: Out of the three candidates, O'Malley spoke the least — 25% of the time — and Clinton spoke the most — 40% of the time.]

10:46 — The candidates are all asked about "a time you've been tested," which they could draw on as president. Clinton says the time she had to advise Obama on the mission to kill bin Laden. Clinton gets personal: "It was an excruciating experience — I couldn't talk to anybody about it," including her husband. Sanders's answer is pretty dull by comparison: he says he'd draw on his experience compromising with Republicans when he was Chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

10:51 — In his closing statement, O'Malley says we shouldn't return to "polarizing figures of the past." I can't imagine who he has in mind!

10:52 — Clinton starts her closing statement with a good line: "I've heard a lot about me in this debate. I'm going to keep talking and thinking about you." At the end of her statement, she gets wild applause.

10:54 — Sanders's closing statement is evocative of Larry David's impersonation of him: "We need a political revolution! . . . Turn off the TV! . . . Please become a part of the revolution!"

O'Malley successfully baited Trump into giving him some much-needed publicity.

Peter Beinart, a liberal, thinks this debate showed troubling signs for Clinton:

imagine @marcorubio on that stage and u can imagine how far on the defensive @HillaryClinton will be on ISIS

So who won tonight? It's hard to say. Maybe the Republicans.

Update: Many are saying the winner was John Dickerson.

"What we affirmed by our mourning on September 11, 2001"

Apropos of yesterday's acts of war against France, here are Leon Wieseltier's comments on the 10th anniversary of September 11, 2001:

Though we encounter it as suffering, grief is in fact an affirmation. The indifferent do not grieve, the uncommitted do not grieve, the loveless do not grieve. We mourn only the loss of what we have loved and what we have valued, and in this way mourning darkly refreshes our knowledge of the causes of our loves and the reasons for our values. Our sorrow restores us to the splendors of our connectedness to people and to principles. . . .

Here is what we affirmed by our mourning on September 11, 2001, and by the introspection of its aftermath:

that we wish to be known, to ourselves and to the world, by the liberty that we offer . . . as a matter of right, to the individuals and the groups with whom we live;

that the ordinary lives of ordinary people on an ordinary day of work and play can truthfully exemplify that liberty, and fully represent what we stand for;

that we will defend ourselves, resolutely and even ferociously, because self-defense is also an ethical responsibility, and that our debates about the proper use of our power in our own defense should not be construed as an infirmity in our will;

that the multiplicity of cultures and traditions that we contain peaceably in our society is one of our highest accomplishments, because we are not afraid of difference, and because we do not confuse openness with emptiness, or unity with conformity; . . .

that we believe in progress, at home and abroad, in social progress, in moral progress, even when it is fitful and contested and difficult;

that just as we have enemies in the world we have friends, and that our friends are the individuals and the movements and the societies that aspire, often in circumstances of great adversity, to democracy and to decency.

(That's a photo of Paris's beautiful Cimetière du Père-Lachaise which I took 10 years ago.)

Live-blogging the fourth main Republican 2016 debate

I'll be live-blogging the debate here, so keep reloading this post for more updates.

As everyone has been observing, there will be enormous pressure on Jeb Bush to do well tonight, after his widely panned performance last time. There will also be fewer people in this debate (8) than any of the previous main Republican debates.

As always, I'll be writing down quotes on the fly, so they might not be exactly right, but I'll try to keep them reasonably accurate (and I might correct some of them later).

For more live-blogging, check out National Review, the New Republic, TPM, Althouse (my mom), and Alex Knepper.

[Here's the transcript.]

9:06 — Donald Trump is asked if he has any sympathy with those calling for a $15 minimum wage. He says "we have to leave it the way it is," and he uses this as an opportunity to repeat his standard points: "we don't win anymore," etc.

9:08 — Ben Carson notes the high unemployment among "black teenagers" — "if you lower the minimum wage, that comes down." He mentions his early jobs — "no one would have given me those jobs if I had required a large amount of money." He uses my favorite metaphor on this issue: we need to let people "ascend the ladder of opportunity." My added comment: raising the minimum wage is like cutting off the lowest rungs on the ladder and feeling pleased with yourself for encouraging people at the bottom to jump higher. Not everyone is able to jump that high!

9:11 — Marco Rubio raises the specter of robots replacing workers: "If you raise the minimum wage, you're going to make people more expensive than a machine." He adds: "Welders make more money than philosophers. We need more welders and less philosophers!" [VIDEO.] Alex Knepper responds:

The sentiment he's expressing here is precisely what's wrong with our nation's attitude toward education. Our politicians think the meaning and purpose of education is to make money. If something doesn't have an immediate economic purpose, it's treated as useless, even offensive. The irony that Rubio will never grasp is that this exceptional country — the country that made his life possible, and made it possible for the son of a maid and a bartender to run for president — was made possible by philosophy.

9:18 — Jeb Bush talks back at John Kasich for trying to jump in when the moderator is about to ask Bush a question. "You've already made two comments, John! It's my turn!" [Politico calls this one of the most "explosive" moments of the debate.]

9:19 — Bush tries to stand out as a conservative, noting that the Wall St. Journal said he's put forward the most pro-growth plan. Also: "We need to repeal every rule that Obama has."

9:21 — The moderator notes that far more jobs were created under Presidents Obama and Clinton than under President George W. Bush. Carly Fiorina doesn't directly address this, and instead goes into her standard speech about how Democrats have enlarged the government and made the economy worse. (See my update at 10:01.)

9:23 — Rand Paul is asked about income inequality. He points out that it's "worst" in places where Democrats are in control — so "let's look for root causes!"

9:30 — Neil Cavuto asks Carson about "potential inconsistencies in your life story." Carson's response: "I don't mind being vetted. I do mind being lied about." He pivots to attacking Hillary Clinton for her conflicting comments about the Benghazi attack. [VIDEO.]

9:33 — Trump praises the recent decision by a federal appeals court blocking President Obama's executive order on illegal immigration.

9:34 — Kasich lambastes Trump for his proposal to deport illegal immigrants: "Think about the families! Think about the children!" Trump repeats his same retort to Kasich that he used in the last debate: "You're lucky in Ohio that you struck oil." When Kasich starts to respond (though this whole exchange started with Kasich usurping someone else's turn), Trump says: "You should let Jeb speak!" Bush lobs some sarcasm at Trump: "Thank you, Donald, for allowing me to speak at the debate! What a generous man you are!"

9:37 — Bush bears down on his "lose the primary to win the general" strategy by saying we need to be more pragmatic and compassionate on immigration, and the Clinton campaign is doing high-fives when they listen to Trump.

9:38 — Rubio is asked about the problem of robots taking away jobs — though Rubio already made that point on his own in response to the earlier question about the minimum wage. It would be nice if the moderators had some flexibility to change their questions on the spot so that the same candidate doesn't get to make the same point repeatedly.

9:43 — Ted Cruz comes down hard against illegal immigration, pointing out that his family immigrated from Cuba legally.

9:44 — Carly Fiorina says Obamacare is hurting the people it's trying to help. "No one can possibly understand [Obamacare] except the big companies." She says we need to try the free market — and to do this, government should require health care providers to publish their costs and outcomes, because right now we don't know what we're buying. I'm glad to see her make the point that just repealing Obamacare wouldn't give us a "free market" system — there isn't nearly enough price transparency for that. When pressed by moderator Maria Bartiromo, she emphasizes letting the states come up with their own policies, and she gets passionate when saying: "I'm a cancer survivor. I understand: you can't have someone who's battling cancer become known as a 'pre-existing condition.'"

9:53 — Cavuto asks Paul about his comment that "you don't want your tax plan to be revenue-neutral, and that's the idea" — to deprive the government of money. Paul confirms: "I want lower taxes and much more money in the private sector." However, he claims that his tax plan will "balance the budget over five years." And he repeats his point from the last debate (which didn't seem to help his long-shot campaign) that he'd get rid of the payroll tax.

9:56 — Cruz quips: "There are more words in the IRS code than there are in the Bible, and not a one of them is as good."

Alex Knepper correctly observes:

This debate is flowing much more smoothly with 8 people on the stage.

10:01 — Bush shows that he's decided to have a vigorous debate by going back to the moderator's earlier question about how more jobs are created under Democratic than Republican administrations: all those jobs created under the Democratic administrations don't pay as well.

10:02 — Rubio botches his attempt at a moving insight: "The most important job any of us can have is being president" — he meant "being a parent."

10:04 — Paul says Rubio's policies of cutting taxes while increasing military spending are "not very conservative." Rubio retorts that Paul is "a committed isolationist." Paul keeps up his attack: "How is it conservative to add a trillion-dollar expenditure that you're not going to pay for?" Rubio says we're safer when America's is the strongest country in the world, but Paul says we won't be "safer from bankruptcy court." Cruz chimes in to support Rubio: "You think defending this nation is expensive? Try not defending it!" [VIDEO.]

10:08 — At this point, almost every remaining candidate tries to jump in — Fiorina, Trump, Kasich. The moderators let Fiorina talk for a long time when no one had said anything about her, yet the moderator was about to prevent Rubio from defending himself against Paul's explicit attack! Trump positions himself as a hawk: "I agree with [Rubio], I agree with [Cruz]."

10:13 — For some reason, soaring orchestral music starts to accompany a discussion between the moderator and Paul on trade and China. [In-depth analysis!]

10:20 — Carson, who was asked in the first debate about the perception that he's not knowledge about world affairs, tries to show his foreign policy chops in talking about how to destroy ISIS. He slips in that he's talked with "several generals."

10:22 — "What does President Trump do in response to Russia's aggression?" Bush keeps cutting into Trump's answer, but Trump is firm: "Hold it! Wait a minute!"

10:26 — Bush scolds Trump for being naive in thinking we can just let Russia take care of the Middle East. "That's like a board game. That's like playing Monopoly or something. That's not how the world works."

10:27 — After Trump talks about meeting Putin when they were both on 60 Minutes, Fiorina remarks: "I have met Putin as well — not in a green room for a show, but in a private meeting."

10:31 — Rubio calls Putin "a gangster" — "an organized crime figure."

10:41 — Bush talks about bank regulations, and contrasts himself with Hillary Clinton. In every one of his answers tonight, you can see him trying to be stronger to revive his campaign. I'm not his target audience so I'm not in a great position to say, but he seems to be doing this pretty effectively.

10:45 — Rubio takes a page from Fiorina's playbook: "You know why the big banks are so big? The government made them big by making thousands and thousands of pages of regulations." Only the big banks can afford the lawyers to navigate those regulations. It's a good point, but it's also a point that sounds a lot like what Fiorina said over and over in the last debate.

10:52 — Cruz says he would let Bank of America fail. Kasich counters that when people's livelihoods are on the line, you can't just rely on "philosophical concerns." So philosophy has really taken a hit in this debate (see 9:11). Kasich presents himself as "an executive" (a governor), who has to be more pragmatic than Cruz (a Senator). This leads to a fiery exchange between the two, and the audience loudly boos Kasich.

11:00 — Bartiromo asks Rubio how he can beat Clinton when she has so much more experience. Rubio laughs at first, then doesn't hold back from contrasting himself with Clinton based on age. Rubio says the election will be about "the future," and about "a generational choice." Clinton is offering "the tired ideas of the past."

11:01 — Cruz jumps in to make the obvious anti-Clinton argument Rubio failed to make: "She has a lot of experience, but her policies have proven disastrous."

11:05 — Paul sounds a note of skepticism on global warming, noting that the earth has been warmer and had higher levels of carbon at times in the past.

11:11 — Paul uses his closing statement to say he's the only fiscal conservative because he's the only one who'll cut both "welfare" and military spending. So he's been really coming down against military spending in this debate. I agree with him, but I find it hard to believe this will be effective in the Republican primaries.

11:13 — Fiorina's closing statement goes for Hillary Clinton's jugular, saying her presidency would "erode the character of this nation, because that is the Clinton way."

11:16 – Carson gives a chilling closing statement, listing the terrible things that have happened in the 2 hours they've been debating — the amount added to the federal debate, the number of Americans who have died of drugs, the number of abortions, and the number of veterans who have committed suicide. Some of the numbers seemed shockingly high, so I'd like to see a fact check.

11:17 — Trump says, in contrast with the several candidates who plugged their URLs tonight, "I don't have to give you a website, because I'm self-funding my campaign."

That's all. It was a much better Republican debate than the last one, but I don't expect it to change much, except perhaps to stop the media narrative about Bush's weak debating skills. We've gotten pretty used to all these characters, and it would be pretty hard at this point for any of them to surprise us anymore.

Jonah Goldberg's take:

Biggest loser on merits: Kasich. He’s done. He came across angry, condescending and unprincipled. By the end of the debate he came across as the drunk, obnoxious uncle everyone wishes hadn’t accepted the invitation to Thanksgiving dinner.

Biggest loser politically: Jeb Bush. On the substance, I thought his performance during the first half was the best he’s done. But by the second half he started to fade and grew more incoherent. On several occasions he gave passable answers if you could cut through the word clouds, but then Rubio came in and gave essentially the same answer better, both on substance and style. This was particularly true during the discussion of the bank bailouts. More than anything, Bush needed to outshine Rubio and lay the groundwork for a “Bush comeback” narrative. He simply didn’t do that. He didn’t do what he needed to do stop the slide of donors and voters to Rubio. . . .

Trump . . . has definitely become a better candidate and he’s still the best at the body language of these debates. His “Let Jeb speak” moment was a very unsubtle way of declaring he was the guy in charge on the stage. So was his peacemaking bit about how all the tax plans are good. Still, I don’t think he gave anyone who’s opposed to him (like me) a reason to change their mind.

The consensus among "insiders" interviewed by Politico:

Marco Rubio won the fourth Republican debate -- and John Kasich lost.

That’s the assessment of this week’s POLITICO Caucus, our bipartisan survey of the top activists, strategists and operatives in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. Nearly 40 percent of Republican participants said Rubio won the debate in a survey taken immediately following Tuesday night’s contest -- no other candidate had more than 12 percent. . . .

For the second Republican debate in a row, the POLITICO Caucus named the Florida senator the biggest winner of the night, noting his vigorous defense of a muscular American foreign policy — one of the biggest applause lines of the evening — and forceful remarks concerning Wall Street as evidence of a strong and articulate candidate.

Forty-two percent of Democrats also agreed that Rubio won the night.

“He is engaging, articulate, comfortable in his own skin and has a hopeful positive message...he packages well for a party that is looking for change but still wants a foot in policy and politics,” a New Hampshire Democrat said. . . .

The runner-ups for best performance, according to the survey, were Jeb Bush and Carly Fiorina with 12 percent each, followed by Rand Paul with 8 percent and Ted Cruz and Ben Carson at 6 percent, according to Republican insiders.

As for the biggest loser of the night, 38 percent of Republican insiders pointed to Ohio Gov. John Kasich. . . .

Kasich had a contentious evening, as the moderate conservative tussled with Donald Trump over immigration reform and was booed when he suggested there was room for government involvement in saving big banks from going under.

“Kasich's awkwardness was on full display, and his ideas are getting lost in the power of his peevishness,” a South Carolina Republican said.

“He was whining about not getting to speak, but actually had one of the highest [speaking] times,” said a non-partisan respondent from Iowa. “He came across as angry and kept trying to inject himself in the conversation. Not a good night for him.”

BREAKING NEWS

Betamax is still a thing

Are Trump and Cruz right that "no tough questions" were asked of Clinton in the Democratic debate?

Donald Trump says (this is my transcript from watching the video embedded at that link):

We have to be treated a little bit fairly. As an example, Hillary Clinton — no tough questions! I mean, why didn't they ask about Bill? Why didn't they ask about all of the different things? No tough questions! Now, that was staged by the Democrats. And frankly, they did a very smart thing in the way they staged it. . . . Hillary had only softballs, all night long.

This is similar to what Ted Cruz said in the last debate — that the Republican debate stood in "contrast with the Democratic debate, where every fawning question from the media was, 'Which of you is more handsome and wise?'"

Well, Trump and Cruz must been watching some other Democratic debate that I haven't heard about. This was the first question in the Democratic debate I saw:

Secretary Clinton, I want to start with you. Plenty of politicians evolve on issues, but even some Democrats believe you change your positions based on political expediency. You were against same-sex marriage. Now you're for it. You defended President Obama's immigration policies. Now you say they're too harsh. You supported his trade deal dozen of times. You even called it the "gold standard". Now, suddenly, last week, you're against it. Will you say anything to get elected?

The moderator, Anderson Cooper, interrupted her answer to say:

Secretary Clinton, though, with all due respect, the question is really about political expediency. Just in July, New Hampshire, you told the crowd you'd, quote, "take a back seat to no one when it comes to progressive values." Last month in Ohio, you said you plead guilty to, quote, "being kind of moderate and center." Do you change your political identity based on who you're talking to?

Later in the debate, Clinton and all the other candidates were asked a series of questions about her emails — clearly not a topic she wants to discuss. That portion of the debate did end up helping her — but only because another candidate, Bernie Sanders, made a big show of coming to her defense. Even after that, Cooper kept trying to get other candidates to attack Clinton over her emails.

But even aside from the fact that Trump and Cruz are counting on people not remembering or not having watching the Democratic debate, I don't understand why Republican candidates are wasting their time whining about getting tough questions. It might be momentarily uncomfortable for the candidate getting the question, but that's what they signed up for. Even if you think some of the questions are unfair, they still help the party overall, by making sure the eventual nominee is someone who can take the heat. After all, they're sure to face even tougher questions in the general.

Look at it this way: who should want the Republicans to avoid being asked any tough or questionable or unfair or biased questions during the primaries? A staunch Democrat. Because if that ever happened, the Democrat could look forward to going up against a paper tiger.

Even if every single question was hostile in the Republican debate, that wouldn't show a liberal bias. That would help the Republicans. The harsher the scrutiny is now, the better the nominee will end up being — both because the voters will make a better choice (they won't vote for a candidate who failed all those tests) and because the nominee will be well-practiced in defending against the attacks (and if they are reprised in the general, the nominee will be better-positioned to brush them off as "old" and "discredited").

Forget all you've heard about how Bush is a candidate from the past . . .

He's hired the same campaign coach who helped his father and Dan Quayle win their one-term presidency!

"Human trafficking" is a meaningless phrase

The New Republic explains:

[I]n practice, trafficking does not mean "modern-day slavery." Nor does it mean being transported across borders for purposes of sexual exploitation. Instead, it usually refers to one or more of the following: being underage and selling sex; illegally immigrating; being subjected to any kind of forced labor or abusive labor practices; engaging in consensual sex work.

"The public seems to believe that sex trafficking means forced prostitution,” researcher Tara Burns told me, “but when you sit down and read charging documents for sex trafficking charges, that is very very rarely the case." Sex workers are often charged with having trafficked themselves, Burns said. "Under different state laws, sex trafficking can also mean sex workers advertising for their own services or renting their own hotel rooms, or adults abusing children well outside of the commercial sex industry."

The word “trafficking,” then, becomes a way to leverage the image of young women kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery. After 9/11, [Alison Bass, author of Getting Screwed: Sex Workers and the Law], the State Department was eager to embrace the language of trafficking as another way to justify immigration restrictions and surveillance inspired in the first place by anti-terrorism—which is why initiatives like the State Department "Human Smuggling and Terrorist Center" lump together "Human smuggling, trafficking in persons, and clandestine terrorist travel" as "transnational issues that threaten national security." "Trafficking" can also be used to make anti-prostitution laws seem compassionate rather than punitive, as in the New York trafficking courts, which frames those arrested as trafficking victims in need of help, even though in practice you still end up with police arresting people (especially minority women) on prostitution charges. In either case, the word is a way to target marginalized groups like immigrants and sex workers in the name of a (confused or cynical) humanitarianism."