Suicide by court

The New York Times' version of this Associated Press article has an ominous URL:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Suicide-By-Court.html

The article itself never uses the phrase "suicide by court," or even the word "suicide." But that's what it's about: death-row inmates in the United States who choose not to contest the death penalty, thus passively committing suicide.

How often has this happened? 131 times since we reinstated the death penalty in 1977. That's 12% of defendants who've been sentenced to death. The most recent such inmate is going to be executed tomorrow.

The article focuses on the ethical anguish of the lawyers:

Attorneys are required to follow the client's wishes or have themselves removed from the case, said Michael Mello, a Vermont Law School professor who teaches ethics and death penalty law.

''Their hands are pretty well tied,'' Mello said. ''These are the cases that haunt you. This is the most hideous of cases.''

That's how Gus Cahill felt when his client, Keith Eugene Wells, told him he wanted to die. Wells was convicted of beating a couple to death in 1990 in Idaho. He went through the mandatory appeals, then decided to waive any remaining legal options and was lethally injected in 1994.

''I really liked Keith,'' said Cahill, a public defender in Boise. ''You're just thinking, 'Oh, my God, I feel so sorry for being part of what Keith wanted to do.'''

It's understandable, of course, that anyone would feel queasy about being helpless to save a human being from death.

But shouldn't this also cheer up criminal defense lawyers, or anyone who's morally opposed to the death penalty?

Dogmatic opposition to the death penalty would seem to only make sense if execution is -- at least for the person executed -- a really bad thing. Not just garden-variety "bad," but truly awful.

Doesn't the fact that 12% of people who receive death sentences actively prevent their lawyers from fighting it suggest that it's not so awful?

"The United States economy has never been in better shape. ... Monetary policy is spectacular." -- Arthur Laffer, 2006

My mom blogged this YouTube clip of Peter Schiff from 2006 through 2007, predicting the whole recession and financial crisis while all the other "experts" ridiculed him:



Note that the first wrong pundit in the clip is Arthur Laffer, the famous Reagan adviser associated with supply-side economics and the eponymous Laffer curve.

Aside from the relevance to our immediate situation, the clip is also instructive in demonstrating how to look like you're obviously right when you don't know what you're talking about. 2 key tips:

1. Be vehemently optimistic about whatever you're in favor of, and put down any expression of pessimism. (This can also work at the other extreme: be vehemently cynical about whatever you're against, and put down any optimism as being ridiculously naive.)

2. Heartily laugh at whoever disagrees with you, completely regardless of whether anything funny has been said. (Watch at 3:40.)

"You're at Vassar College! The world is your oyster! There's nothing you can't do! Learn Chinese, you idiot!"

This is the best discussion of the racial significance of the election of Barack Obama I've seen:



That's John McWhorter and Glenn Loury.

I repeatedly blog about Eliot Spitzer without having much of an opinion about him one way or the other.

So, my previous post was just blogged by my mom. Typical thing that happens with blogging: I'm suddenly exposed to potentially hundreds of people as someone who's taking a strong stand about the need to get Eliot Spitzer back into power -- which is weird, since I essentially have no actual opinion about him.

On top of that, this wasn't the first time I've blogged about Spitzer. My mom posted this post in the aftermath of the Spitzer scandal based on my point (which she credited me for) about how Spitzer's record of prosecuting prostitution cases might actually explain his behavior. I also suggested the title of that post:

From penetrating the world of prostitution to penetrating the prostitute.

It makes sense -- read the post!

Speaking of Spitzer and prostitution, my mom added this commentary to my post about getting Spitzer into the Senate to replace Hillary Clinton if she becomes Secretary of State:

I know. I know. It's not just adultery. It's prostitutes. And hypocrisy. But they're all hypocrites, and there will always be prostitutes...

Of course, it's true there was prostitution and hypocrisy involved. But unless you think all politicians who have affairs should be banished from public life, then I don't see the relevance.

It's easy to say, "Oh, it wasn't the adultery itself -- it was all the other stuff." But isn't just about any adultery going to look extra lurid if you look at the specifics of what happened? Think about the most notable political adulterers in the U.S. who've been discovered in the past 10 or 15 years: Clinton, Edwards, Gingrich, Giuliani, McCain. None of them just had a generic one-night stand and then went back to their normal lives. No, in each case, there was layer upon layer of sleaze. Lying, hypocrisy, sex with subordinates, cheating on a terminally ill or seriously injured spouse, questions about whether taxpayers foot the bill for any of it, and countless other disgusting details I'm happy to have forgotten (and a few I wish I could forget).

In fact, out of all the ones I've named, couldn't you argue that Spitzer's adultery was the most innocuous? At least he kept it "professional" and didn't drag another person's whole emotional life into it.

To be clear, I'm not trying to defend any of that behavior. It was all profoundly immoral because of the consequences for the families involved. But should it have consequences for me or you as American citizens? I don't think so. Tragically, adultery is so common that barring adulterers from public service is just not a good plan.

Come back, Eliot Spitzer!

We need your help!

Yes, you cheated on your wife, thus making it clearly necessary for you to be replaced by someone who, uh, cheated on his wife.

And it's certainly gracious of you to say -- while laying out your vision for how the federal government should tackle the financial crisis -- that "mistakes I made in my private life now prevent me from participating in these issues as I have in the past."

But can't we just say you had a really humiliating "time-out," and all's forgiven?

If Hillary Clinton becomes Secretary of State and you're appointed to replace her (as proposed in the first link), you'll hardly be the first or the last philandering Senator.

In fact, there's one particularly famous Senator who cheated on at least one of his wives, and possibly two. You know who committed adultery? You might never know ... that one!


UPDATE: "I repeatedly blog about Eliot Spitzer without having much of an opinion about him one way or the other."


(Photo from Wikimedia Commons.)

Why does every great, long-lived rock band lose their greatness?

The phenomenon seems too widespread to deny: if you're a great band/artist who plays any kind of rock or pop music, and if you stay around for more than a few years, at some point you're going to lose your greatness. You might keep playing fantastic shows for decades, but only by heavily relying on your old material.

Just a few examples: the individual Beatles after the first couple solo albums from John, Paul, and George. Stevie Wonder after Songs in the Key of Life. Prince after Lovesexy. U2 after Achtung Baby. The Smashing Pumpkins after Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Nine Inch Nails after The Downward Spiral.

And there's an alarming number of great bands from the current decade whose most recent albums have exhibited a dramatic drop in standards: Death Cab for Cutie (Narrow Stairs), The Arcade Fire (Neon Bible), Rilo Kiley (Under the Blacklight), Dresden Dolls (Yes, Virginia), Spoon (Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga), and — I know some people strongly disagree with this — Radiohead (In Rainbows).

I would have added Of Montreal to that list when Hissing Fauna Are You the Destroyer? was their most recent album. But they have a new one out, Skeletal Lamping.

You can hear a full Of Montreal concert, with lots of songs from the new album, by going to this article and click the "hear the concert" link near the top of the page.

I love this band, so I was excited to see they had a new concert online. But looking over the set list (available at the same link), I was disappointed at how few songs they played from their 3rd and 4th most recent albums, The Sunlandic Twins and Satanic Panic in the Attic. You can hear the songs from those albums — which in my opinion are the highlights of the concert — by skipping ahead to these points:

• 4:40
• 32:30
  
• 43:50
  
• 1:02:00
  
• 1:41:30

As of this posting, you can hear Of Montreal's new album, more or less in its entirety, for free at their MySpace profile (tracks 1-15).

Their last two albums have a lot of the qualities that are all too common in past-their-prime rock bands: the music is, if anything, slightly more accomplished on a technical level, but it sounds like they ran out of ideas and tried to make up for it by doing a really good imitation of themselves.

As one example, "A Sentence of Sorts from Kongsvinger" (from Hissing Fauna...) sounds like they decided to scrounge through their previous album (The Sunlandic Twins) looking for hooks to piece together into a new song. (You can hear the song starting at 1:28:50 in the concert.) It's not bad, but it's sort of disillusioning, like watching a documentary on how they did the special effects in a movie.

So . . . what happens? Is it that the pressure of success makes them too self-conscious to come up with spontaneous ideas? Or is there just a certain age when rock musicians lose their magic, and one day, all they can come up with is well-intentioned fluff like . . .

Mark Bittman on how America's relationship with food has gone wrong

Every American should watch this entertaining 20-minute talk by Mark Bittman:



My favorite point:

I'm not a vegetarian.… Now, don't get me wrong — I like animals. And I don't think it's just fine to industrialize their production and to churn them out like they were wrenches. But there's no way to treat animals well when you're killing 10 billion of them a year.… That's just the United States.… Kindness might just be a bit of a red herring. Let's get the numbers of animals we're killing for eating down, and then we'll worry about being nice to the ones that are left.

3 thoughts on Election Day 2008 (with photos of the Obama family watching the results)

(All these photos are from Obama's election night Flickr set.)


1. Considering that I've been supporting Obama since he announced his campaign in early 2007, I was surprised that my own reaction on the night of Election Day was muted. I had to tell myself, "You should be really excited." 

Maybe this is because I assumed he'd win, so I'd already gradually absorbed the news. 

Maybe it felt wrong to be gleeful about how America is transcending its history of prejudice on a night when California, of all states, deprived people of their right to marry who they want regardless of gender.

Maybe it's that Obama has such a facility at making you feel like you really know him personally that seeing him win was like seeing your friend become president. Sure you'd be happy for them, but you'd also be nervous about all the things that might go wrong.

2. Naturally, conservatives are debating what caused McCain to lose. This conversation between Jonah Goldberg and Ross Douthat -- taped a few days before Election Day under the assumption that Obama would win -- is a particularly thoughtful example.

How can they possibly figure this out? Wouldn't you need to run numerous experiments to determine what really caused the outcome? But since the circumstances of this election are unique, there's no way to perform even an approximation of a controlled experiment.

If you want the GOP to stay tethered to the right, you'll say McCain lost because of his history as a centrist maverick, which cast a shadow over any of his attempts to position himself as more traditionally conservative. If you'd like the GOP to become more moderate, you'll say he lost because he played too much to the Republican base; he should have just been his old self. You can avoid critiquing McCain in either direction by blaming it on all sorts of other factors -- the Bush administration's incompetence, the financial crisis, Obama's dastardly scheme to get young people excited about participating in democracy...

How can you choose between these theories in an intellectually honest way? Exit polls? But even those are flawed and offer only hints about how voters actually made up their minds.

People love to feel like they know why things happen. But can you really assume this when minds are involved?

3. No one again will be able to seriously doubt that America is ready for a black president -- or a female president.

Oh, people will make the same old, tired complaints. They'll say it doesn't count because he's not a "real" black person, whatever that means. And they'll play up Hillary Clinton's defeat as a crushing blow for women.

So let's remember that Obama won a decisive victory including would-be deep-red states like Virginia, North Carolina, and Indiana. This happened despite massive race- and religion-based attacks on Obama that make the Willie Horton ad against Michael Dukakis in 1988 seem dignified by comparison. (I'm including not just the official McCain campaign but also outsiders' campaigning that McCain tolerated.)

As for Hillary Clinton -- if you believe in treating women as adults who are the equals of men, then please give her enough respect to say she failed. She wasn't a passive, helpless victim. Out of the whole field of 20+ presidential candidates, who were mostly white men, she came in 2nd or 3rd overall. That's no injustice -- that's just the rough, adult world, where you try really hard and risk failure if you make too many mistakes. 

There are still groups that probably can't expect to have a fair shot at the presidency for a while -- gays, atheists, etc. But in the future, when a woman or a black person runs for president, we can fairly assume (without knowing to an absolute certainty) that the candidate himself or herself is the one who's responsible for the outcome, whether it's bad or good.

And this one's pretty good.

Music Friday: Girly edition

I've recently been obsessed with new, synth-heavy pop with female singers. They tend to be British, or at least non-American.

I've already blogged a few artists of this ilk: Goldfrapp, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Imogen Heap (Frou Frou).

Here are more from around the world:

From the United States: Uh Huh Her (the only Americans mentioned in this blog post). This is "Not a Love Song":




From Wales: Jem. "They" has instrumental backing straight out of Bach:




From Australia: Decoder Ring. I can't stop listening to "Fractions":




From Norway: Kate Havnevik. "New Day." How timely.

Obama !!!

Time to feel good about America again.

Why I'm voting for Obama

A few weeks ago, I did a series of posts called "How Obama lost me." The basic premise: I was a big fan of his during the primaries, but during the general election I came to realize that he's not a particularly better candidate than any generic Democrat would have been.

Some people who read that series seemed to think it was important for me to also explain why I was still voting for him or why I was so supportive of him in the first place. I disagree — I don't think it's very important for me to explain why I'm voting for him. There's no shortage of newspaper and magazine endorsements of Obama, and there must be thousands of blog posts extolling his virtues. But if one more blogger's reasons for voting for Obama don't matter much in the grand scheme of things, then I might as well give them.

First, let's get McCain's negatives out of the way. Here's what I said at the conclusion of my "How Obama lost me" series:

Every candidate has a slew of flaws, and I think McCain's are worse. There are the staggering self-reinvention and flip-flops, which dwarf anything I've seen from Obama. There's his refusal to admit that invading Iraq turned out to be a bad idea. There's his painfully shallow understanding of economics. There's his "How dare you question my integrity or righteousness — I was a POW!" attitude, which makes Bush look humble by comparison.

And yes, there's his age. Of course I think people in their 70s can handle serious jobs. I have no problem with, say, an 80- or 90-year-old judge, as long as they're able. But being president is a uniquely stressful and demanding job, so I do have a problem with an 80-year-old president (which is what McCain will be if he has a full, successful presidency). The idea that this is somehow offensive or taboo is ludicrous. The stakes are just too high to worry about offending people.

Now onto Obama's positives. Since this is pretty well-tilled soil, I'll mostly rely on snippets from other people's endorsements that happen to reflect my thinking:

The Economist (which has endorsed Democrats and Republicans for president):

Merely by becoming president, he would dispel many of the myths built up about America: it would be far harder for the spreaders of hate in the Islamic world to denounce the Great Satan if it were led by a black man whose middle name is Hussein; and far harder for autocrats around the world to claim that American democracy is a sham. . . .

A man who started with no money and few supporters has out-thought, out-organised and outfought the two mightiest machines in American politics—the Clintons and the conservative right. . . .

In terms of painting a brighter future for America and the world, Mr Obama has produced the more compelling and detailed portrait. He has campaigned with more style, intelligence and discipline than his opponent. Whether he can fulfil his immense potential remains to be seen. But Mr Obama deserves the presidency.

The Chicago Tribune (which has endorsed Republicans since Abraham Lincoln and had never endorsed a Democrat until now):

We have known Obama since he entered politics a dozen years ago. We have watched him, worked with him, argued with him as he rose from an effective state senator to an inspiring U.S. senator to the Democratic Party's nominee for president. We have tremendous confidence in his intellectual rigor, his moral compass and his ability to make sound, thoughtful, careful decisions. He is ready. . . .

We know first-hand that Obama seeks out and listens carefully and respectfully to people who disagree with him. He builds consensus. He was most effective in the Illinois legislature when he worked with Republicans on welfare, ethics and criminal justice reform.

The Washington Post (which seems to mostly endorse Democrats for president, but also supported the Iraq war):

Mr. Obama is a man of supple intelligence, with a nuanced grasp of complex issues and evident skill at conciliation and consensus-building. At home, we believe, he would respond to the economic crisis with a healthy respect for markets tempered by justified dismay over rising inequality and an understanding of the need for focused regulation. Abroad, the best evidence suggests that he would seek to maintain U.S. leadership and engagement, continue the fight against terrorists, and wage vigorous diplomacy on behalf of U.S. values and interests. . . .

On most [foreign] policies, such as the need to go after al-Qaeda, check Iran's nuclear ambitions and fight HIV/AIDS abroad, he differs little from Mr. Bush or Mr. McCain. But he promises defter diplomacy and greater commitment to allies. His team overstates the likelihood that either of those can produce dramatically better results, but both are certainly worth trying. . . .

Mr. Obama's temperament is unlike anything we've seen on the national stage in many years. He is deliberate but not indecisive; eloquent but a master of substance and detail; preternaturally confident but eager to hear opposing points of view.

The New Republic (which always endorses Democrats for president, but endorsed McCain in the 2000 primaries and supported the Iraq war):

Obama will work to achieve an ambitious agenda but will revise his opinion when the evidence dictates a different course. He is a sincere liberal but without the temperament of an ideologue. His health care and environmental plans are broadly progressive but make concessions to the free market and do not fit the platonic ideals of the left. He doesn't intend to create a single-payer system (alas) and expresses openness to nuclear power. His recent education rhetoric has incorporated the best of the reform movement.

In the middle of this recession, the national mood will run raw. Major policy changes, now inevitable, will exacerbate the anger. . . . Fortunately, Obama has a fetish for data and the company of social scientists, as Noam Scheiber has shown in his reporting. And, just as important, he has the soothing demeanor that might calm tempers and the gift for language that could make necessary, but not necessarily popular, policies more palatable.

Individual Slate editors (each paragraph is an excerpt from a different editor's explanation of why they're voting for him):

I'm a liberal person and I usually vote for Democrats, and while I'm not proud of being a totally predictable voter in this election, I don't mind admitting it. Any further justification would be post facto reasoning for a decision I made by default a long time ago.

As for the accusation that he doesn't have enough experience: No one has enough experience. Nothing prepares you for the presidency. Nothing can. But Obama has the temperament and the humility to surround himself with smart people and let them do their jobs.

It's important not to ratify failure, and the current Republican administration is a failure.

I'm choosing Obama for one main reason: He's the smarter candidate. I don't just mean he's got smarter policies, though he does. I mean he seems to have the higher IQ. His books and speeches suggest deep intellectual curiosity—a calm, analytical, rational mind of the sort we haven't seen in the White House in years.

Obama seemed an implausible candidate when he first announced because he was so short on experience. But . . . Obama's disciplined and level-headed campaign style and his commonsensical grasp of domestic and foreign policy proved his mettle. It doesn't hurt that along the way he gave at least one speech that my grandchildren will study in school. Obama ain't the messiah, but I think he'll be a good president and maybe a great one.

I admire Obama's quality of balance: between attention to details and grasp of ideas; or to put that somewhat differently, between politics and ideals. Beyond that quality of balance, he has demonstrated in action an impressive ability to keep his balance through two challenging, stressful campaigns, for nomination and election.

I like his obvious inner calm. It suggests that his decisions will come from somewhere other than expediency, anger, or fear.

For his charisma, his cautiousness, and his cool. In a time of high stakes, we need someone who can sort out the best course of action without bridling in anger. A candidate who actually nods when his opponent makes a powerful counterargument—as Obama did several times during the last debate—is a rare bird.

Fareed Zakaria:

Let's be honest: neither candidate has past experience that is relevant to being president, except that they have now both run large, multiyear, multimillion-dollar, 50-state campaigns. By common consent, McCain's has been chaotic and ineffective, while Obama has run a superb operation, and done so with little of the drama and discord that usually plague political machines. . . .

I admit to a personal interest. I have a 9-year-old son named Omar. I firmly believe that he will be able to do absolutely anything he wants in this country when he grows up. But I admit that I will feel more confident about his future if a man named Barack Obama became president of the United States.

Well, I don't have much more to add to all that. A few more points, though:

You might notice that some of these excerpts cite superficial qualities like his "style," "cool," and "charisma." But wait — shouldn't we be focusing exclusively on "the issues" instead of superficialities? I don't think so. The superficialities matter too.

Does anyone really cast their vote based on reading the candidates' bullet-pointed position statements on "the issues," subjecting them to rigorous intellectual and empirical scrutiny, and finally tallying up the strengths and weaknesses of each candidates' policies to see which one is stronger overall on "the issues"? Kudos to you if that's how you make your decision, but I don't think people are that rational.

I wish I could figure out how to solve the credit crisis, but I just don't know enough. None of us really knows enough to cast a fully informed vote. So we have to focus on what we are capable of perceiving. It's easier to perceive character, habits, and personality than to predict the consequences of whatever legislation the president might end up signing by extrapolating from the promises on the candidates' websites.

So, what traits do I care about? Intelligence. Open-mindedness. Cautiousness vs. recklessness. Humility vs. arrogance. Pragmatism vs. dogmatism. Is there any serious doubt that Obama trumps McCain on all of these traits?

The president isn't just the top bureaucrat or policy wonk. Our president is the equivalent of Britain's Queen and Prime Minister smooshed into one person. The president needs to encapsulate the spirit of the nation and speak for all of us.

Don't you feel like we don't quite have a leader right now? Don't you feel like our country is missing its voice? It's not a very good feeling, is it?

What are the scariest pieces of classical music?

That's the question for today, since this Music Friday happens to fall on Halloween.

Everyone knows Saint-Saëns's Danse Macabre:




And don't you love Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain?




But have you heard the 2nd movement (Scherzo) of Bruckner's 9th Symphony, which starts out quietly creeping along but then suddenly bursts out into the classical equivalent of heavy metal?



(In case you couldn't tell, the conductor is Leonard Bernstein.)


And for absolutely bleak despair mixed with terror, nothing beats Shostakovich's 8th String Quartet, which he originally intended to serve as his own suicide note! And not a very subtle one, at that. (Fortunately, the only part of this plan he carried out was the music; he died of cancer many years later.)

1st and 2nd movements (it first gets scary at the beginning of the 2nd movement — around 4:45):



(This performance is by Students of the Royal Academy of Music in London: Alexandra Hjortswang, Beatrice Scaldini, Nicola Grant, Madeleine Ridd.)

3rd movement:



4th and 5th movements (notice how the end of the last movements recalls the beginning of the first movement):



Had enough?

If not, then feel free to suggest some more in the comments!

UPDATE: See the comments on the post you're reading now and also the 60-odd comments on this other post for suggestions.

86-year-old Charles Alexander meets Barack Obama.

"My God, all these young people, they're tomorrow's future. I'm dying off. Everybody my age is dying off. Everybody. Next 4 or 5 years, I probably won't be around."

More greatest moments from the 2008 presidential race (up to 120)

This should conclude my list of moments from the presidential race. I hope that this year is different from 2000 and 2004 in that there won't be any more surprising moments from now through Election Day.

100. "The fundamentals of the economy are strong."
[video]

101. "Would you like to ask him a question?" "Uh, no. I would like to mention that a couple days ago Senator Obama was out in Ohio and he had an encounter with a guy who's a plumber, his name is Joe Wurzelburger."
[video]

102. "Quite frankly, um, it might have been a better pick than me."
[video]

103. "It's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to our state."
[video + transcript]

104. "I am surprised ... that he wasn't willing to say it to my face."
[video]

105. "You know who voted for it? You might never know -- that one!"
[video]

106.



107. "There's a place in Hell reserved for women who don't support other women."
[video + transcript]

108. "Senator Obama doesn't understand ..."
[transcript]

109. "No coal plants here in America. Build 'em, if they're gonna build 'em, over there."
[video + commentary]

110. "We need a steady hand at the tiller."
[video]

111. "Here's what you do if you're running a campaign in the middle of an economic crisis.... You go back to Washington. You handle what you need to handle. Don't suspend your campaign! You let your campaign go on, shouldered by your vice-presidential nominee. That's what you do. You don't quit! Or is that really -- is that really a good thing to do?"
[video at 2:55]

112. "I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago."
[video]

113. "You like to pretend the war started in 2007."
[video] + [transcript]

114. "We'd be happy to get to Michigan and walk through those plants of the car manufacturers. We'd be so happy to get to speak to the people in Michigan who are hurting because the economy is hurting. I want to get back to Michigan and I want to try."
[story]

115. "The more I'm in public, the more I don't even want to pick my nose."
[video]

116. “I have to tell you, he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States.”
[video at 0:25] + [story]

117. "I can't trust Obama . . . . He's an Arab." "No, no, no ma'am, no ma'am, he's a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues."
[video at 0:50]

118. "Zero!" "Zero?!"
[video] (watch McCain's face)

119. "Health of the mother . . . that's the extreme pro-abortion position -- quote, 'health.'"
[video]

120. "Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. . . . Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy. . . . Gird your loins."
[story]

The 120 greatest moments on the path to the White House

Here's the list:

1 - 44

45 - 77

78 - 99

100 - 120

Let me tell you about the awesome musicians I know, part 3: Polydream (with free mp3 downloads!)

Continuing with the shameless plugs for music being made by friends of mine, it's ... Polydream.

That's them in the photo, which I took one afternoon by the lake in our hometown of Madison, Wisconsin.

Their drummer, Brit Rice (top left in the photo), is someone I've played in a few different bands with over the years, not to mention countless random jam sessions and State Street outings.

As far as their music, think: U2, Coldplay, Tom Petty, Death Cab for Cutie.

You know -- clean, crisp, optimistic rock music. The anti-grunge!

Other influences they cite: "the sky, the world, life, ladies, love, mountains, being on mountains, newspapers, domestic and international issues, you."

You can download 2 Polydream songs for free:

1. The anthemic "Catch Me If You Can." (If you're using a PC, you can download the song by right-clicking the link and selecting "Save Target As." If you're using a Mac, "control"-click the link and select "Download Linked File.")

It's the kind of song that you hear and think: "Wait a minute, I can't believe that song hasn't always been around." That's a very good thing.

And it features a children's choir! So I give them points for incongruity.

2. "Hollywood." (If you're using a PC, you can download the song by right-clicking the link and selecting "Save Target As." If you're using a Mac, "control"-click the link and select "Download Linked File.")

This song is so packed with imagery, expression, and a sense of motion -- I always picture an animated cartoon accompanying the lyrics when I listen to it.

Like a few of their other songs, "Hollywood" almost sounds like country, which would be amusing if you knew these guys.

I've been repeatedly listening to their new album, Send Me to the Sun, which you can buy on iTunes (or buy a physical CD here). I'm obviously biased, but I mean this: if you listen to the two sample songs linked above and you enjoy them, you cannot go wrong getting the whole album. While there are no weird curveballs -- those two songs convey the overall feel of the album -- there also aren't any two songs that sound alike. There are no "duds," and I don't think there's even a single moment where they don't stay committed to their characteristic sincerity and uplift.

If you're interested in background info, interviews, or reviews, see their Wikipedia entry. And here's their MySpace profile, which has free streaming songs, etc.

--

I'm in a never-ending, years-long argument with Polydream's singer, Jon Knudson (the fellow in the red shoes up there), about his embrace of Naderism -- or, the refusal to support the party most capable of implementing your own policy preferences instead of an unattainable ideal.

I shouldn't really single Jon out. I had this debate with probably 20 or 30 friends in 2000, when most residents of the far-left town of Madison were considering if not outright supporting Ralph Nader. (You saw more Nader yard signs than Gore and Bush yard signs put together.)

You have their counterparts in Florida to thank for all the Bush administration's actions and inaction, and the missed opportunity to have an intelligent, environmentalist president who believes a woman has a right to choose what to do with her own body, believes that "gay men and women ought to have the same rights as heterosexual men and women," and would have appointed two of the nine Supreme Court justices if he'd served a full two terms. Yes, let's remember the actual contributions that have been made by the far left in America: you have them to thank for the United States' environmental policies of the past 8 years, tax cuts overwhelming slanted toward the rich, and the deaths of who-knows-how-many innocent people in the Iraq war.

To my friends who supported Nader in 2000: have you discerned the subtle differences between Bush and Gore yet?

Admittedly, this is a transparent ploy to get Jon to show up in the comments section.

Oh, and sorry, Polydream guys, to turn this post about your music into a political tirade.

But hey ... at least I plugged your band.

--

RELATED: Reality for Hillary Clinton supporters.

Could Kennedy v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court's child rape case, be overruled?

I was talking with _____, who had an idea for a creative response to the Supreme Court's decision in Kennedy v. Louisiana.

As a reminder, Kennedy was the case where the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional to impose the death penalty on a defendant who's been convicted of raping a child, if the crime didn't result in death.

_____'s idea is about new legislation that could be enacted. The goal would be not to violate the holding in Kennedy, but to test its limits and possibly get it overruled. (I have _____'s permission to use the idea with the anonymous attribution.)

Before I get to the mechanics of how the idea could work, I want to be clear: there are many reasons why it's implausible that this would actually happen. So I don't mean this post to be a serious suggestion to anyone.

On top of that, I have no desire to see it happen. My view is: some people think it's already crossing the line just to execute anyone. Now, even if you don't take that position (i.e. if you support the death penalty), it seems like there should be some line that we can't cross. If we're going to have the death penalty, it seems like a good idea to say: we're not going to kill anyone unless that person killed someone. It's not that I deny that there are terrible people who deserve to die even though they didn't kill anyone; it's that if my government is going to be going around killing people, I want it to be tightly reined in by the clearest, most stringent principles. "An eye for an eye" is pretty clear. "An eye for anything that's arguably in the ballpark of the level of seriousness of an eye" sounds like a frighteningly expansive government power.

With that out of the way, here's the idea:

So, the Kennedy decision was based on various factors, but the main one was "evolving standards of decency" -- in other word's, America's (supposed) consensus on the issue of executing child rapists. According to the Court's majority opinion, a survey of the law in the jurisdictions that do allow the death penalty shows a "national consensus" that is "divided ... but, on balance, ... against it."

Now, it's open to question whether that's remotely accurate. Indeed, we now know that the Court was simply wrong on the facts when it comes to one pesky little jurisdiction: the federal government.

And I tend to cringe when the Supreme Court suddenly appoints itself supreme pollster of the American people's legal principles.

But that's what they said, so let's take it as a given.

Again, the Court looked at the specific statutes from each death-penalty state to discern a national consensus.

Doesn't that mean that if there were new statutes going the other direction, that the Court would have to reconsider?

"Oh, but now that the Court has already decided this case, you couldn't have new legislation going against it. The states can't choose not to obey the Supreme Court."

Well, I'm not talking about violating the Court's decision. Follow me here:

Death-penalty states could work together to draft uniform legislation, which each state would then pass, saying that they'll have the death penalty for child rape -- but with a twist.

Here's the twist: the statute may not be enforced until a sufficient number of states have passed this very legislation.

How many states would need to do this? I don't know -- that would have to be worked out. According to the Kennedy opinion, six states had laws authorizing the death penalty for child rapists. So let's say you had, oh ... 20 states adopting this sort of new legislation. Wouldn't that show an undeniable direction of change (to use the Supreme Court's phrase) of our "standards of decency" in the other direction, i.e. in favor of executing child rapists?

So the picture is this: you'd have state after state adopting this uniform legislation, but without anyone ever using it until they reached some magic number -- whatever number is specified by the law. Then, once that magic number is reached, a defendant could be sentenced to death for raping a child without causing death. This defendant would be very likely to petition the Supreme Court, and the Court would have a very strong basis for granting certiorari (i.e. choosing to hear the case).

The Supreme Court would then be faced with the argument: "You said it's based on evolving standards of decency. And you based this assessment on a survey of the relevant legislation in all states. Now there's new legislation that clearly indicates a sea change across the country. The rationale for Kennedy v. Louisiana no longer exists; therefore, it should be overruled."

Again, do I think this has the slightest chance of happening? No.

Do I want it to happen? Well, it'd be really cool if I could say that one of my blog posts led to a Supreme Court case ... but no.

In theory, though, I don't see why this isn't a wide-open possibility.

If _____ and I are right about that, then what does that say about how the Supreme Court decides its cases?


UPDATE: See the comments section over here for reactions to this post.

Overheard conversations in a diner and cafe

1. Dad and his daughter (about 6 years old):

Daughter: What's my maiden name?

Dad: You don't have a maiden name -- you're not married. No, your maiden name is the name you have now. And don't ever change it! Don't take a guy's name. Don't let him trick you into it.

2. Two female college students talking to each other, interrupted by an old man sitting at the other end of the counter:

Student (to other student): He told me I need to "invest" my money.

Man (calling out): Invest it in what?

Student: I have no idea!

Man: The best way to invest your money is put it in a coffee can and leave it there. I have a friend who had $7,000 and put it in a coffee container and left it there for 2 years -- best investment he ever made.

Let me tell you about the awesome musicians I know, part 2: Fort Wilson Riot

Yet another great band I know personally: Fort Wilson Riot.

Jacob Mullis was the frontman for our band in middle school and high school, and he now plays guitar for Fort Wilson Riot. He also does some singing, along with their female lead singer -- that's the two of them over there in the picture. (Nice depth of field!)

The live show for their last album was an extended theatrical performance. An "indie-rock opera," as they call it. Pretty ground-breaking stuff.

If you like St. Vincent, who I blogged about before, you should definitely give Fort Wilson Riot a listen.

My former bandmate is the bespectacled fellow in this video -- an exquisite minute-and-a-half of music that I've been having trouble getting out of my head:



That's an excerpt from their song "An Imagined Civil State." You can download the whole song for free here, and you can buy the whole album, Idigaragua, here.

To my Minnesotan readers (I know there are some of you out there): they play in Minneapolis on a regular basis. So if you're in the mood to see some interesting live music from a band you hadn't heard of before, here's your excuse ("Well, I saw this blog post about them, and...").

(Photo of Jacob and Amy by Alexa Jones, from Fort Wilson Riot's MySpace.)

Live-blogging the last Obama vs. McCain presidential debate

Keep reloading for live updated commentary.




9:01 - Starting.

9:02 - Oh yeah, this is the "domestic policy" debate.

9:03 - A forced, perfunctory "good to see you again" from McCain to Obama, after McCain's been roundly criticized for his supposedly contemptuous demeanor toward Obama.

9:07 - I'm finding it impossible to focus on the recitations of their policy prescriptions. Does this stuff really sway anyone? ... Ah, this is more like it: a story about Joe, a plumber.

9:09 - Obama says, looking at the screen, "95% of ya out there will get a tax cut." This kind of thing seems to have been pretty effective: surprisingly, more voters think McCain than Obama will raise taxes on "people like you."

9:13 - The last 5 or 10 minutes have been all about Joe the Plumber. Apparently he's the new Joe 6-Pack.

9:17 - My mom says: "Generally, Obama seems much more fluid and complex, and McCain is wooden and overprepared, unwilling to react on the spot."

9:19 - McCain is back to his trusty "overhead projector" distortion from the second debate.

9:20 - McCain whips out a scripted attempted at a strong moment: "Senator Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run against him 4 years ago." [UPDATE: Here's the clip.]

(Note: quotes in this post are approximate, since I'm typing in real-time.)

9:22 - Obama boasts that he hasn't "made [himself] popular with environmentalists."

9:25 - Good question from Schieffer (after listing inflammatory quotes from both campaigns' ads): "Are each of you willing to sit across the table and say to each other's face what your campaigns have been saying?" McCain says he "regret[s] some of the negative aspects of both campaigns." Oh, and it's all Obama's fault for not agreeing to more town-hall debates.

9:27 - For the first time in the debates, McCain is bringing up Obama's breaking his pledge to accept public funding. "You broke your word."

9:28 - Responding to McCain's comment that Obama has spent more money on negative ads than any other campaign in history, Obama says: "100% of your ads have been negative!"

9:31 - Obama brings up the McCain fan yelling, "Kill him!" in the middle of a Palin speech, with no response from Palin.

9:33 - Ah, a twist! Obama is the first one to bring up Ayers, albeit allusively: "pals around with terrorists."

9:34 - McCain speaks out against "very unacceptable" t-shirts at Obama rallies.

9:36 - "Mr. Ayers has been the centerpiece of Senator McCain's campaign for the last 2 weeks." Obama gives the full-fledged defense of his association with Ayers -- excellent.

9:45 - Best word of the night: "cockamamie."

9:51 - McCain admires Obama's "eloquence." How nice of him. Kind of like Obama praising Palin for being a "capable politician."

9:53 - McCain is back to the "he doesn't understand" line against Obama, this time about Colombia trade policy. Obama: "Actually, I understand it pretty well ..." Oh, but how can that be? He's never traveled south of the border!

9:57 - Ramesh Ponnuru over at the Corner gives a snapshot of the conservative response to the debate: "A couple folks here have been saying that McCain is doing better than in the previous two debates. I wish it were true, but I just don't see it."

10:00 - McCain is back to the "fine" that he railed against in the previous debate. "He'll fine you!" McCain needs to know whether you'll fine Joe! Obama responds, looking straight at the camera: "Joe, if you're out there [!!!] ... here's your fine: zero!" McCain is taken aback. [UDPATE: Here's the clip.]

10:07 - McCain incorrectly says that Obama voted against Justice Breyer.

10:08 - The same old question about whether they'd apply a litmus test to Supreme Court nominees. The answer is always no.

10:12 - Obama: "If it sounds incredible that I would vote to withhold life-saving treatment from an infant, that's because it's not true."

10:16 - The last question is about education. That means it's time for both candidates to tell you how fundamentally important education is and how passionately they feel about it, and then proceed to sway not a single voter based on their education policies.

10:23 - McCain is frankly surprised that Obama didn't pay more attention.

10:26 - I know I'm going to base my vote on whether the Washington, DC school superintendent supports vouchers or charters -- aren't you?

10:27 - The closing statements.

10:28 - McCain has been stumbling over his words like crazy tonight.

10:28 - "There's a long line of McCains" who have served their country. That's the first time I've heard McCain invoke his aristocratic lineage. Is that really going to win over many voters?

10:31 - McCain to Obama right after the debate: "Good job! Good job! Good job!"

10:40 - That's it. We're almost there.

My mom, listening to the closing statements, says:

McCain sounds over-rehearsed and he stumbles over many things. He says "abased" for "based." I think he knows he hasn't done enough tonight. He hasn't rattled Obama, not enough anyway. Obama is doing his final statement now. It's not particularly interesting, but it's filling the space, and we're probably not listening, because we know, he's survived the final ordeal. He will be our President, I think, and I think they both know that.