Category: Politics

Summing-up the Beijing Games

The LA Times boils China’s Olympics down to their real essence:

Yet what planners in Beijing miscalculated is that no matter how well you teach performers to smile, the strain behind the lips is still detectable. The near-hysterical drive by Chinese leaders to put on the biggest, most spectacular sporting event ever, and to engineer a generation of Chinese medalists regardless of the financial or human costs, is rather more disconcerting to the outside world than convincing. If it was Beijing’s intention to prove China’s greatness via the Games, what it has demonstrated instead is the fragility of its ego.

Couldn’t have said it better myself. So what does this say for the London Games?

British officials are no doubt wondering how they can possibly top the spectacle of Beijing when London hosts the Summer Games in 2012. They shouldn’t even try. The British have nothing to prove, and it will be refreshing to watch an event in which athleticism matters more than image. The London Olympics will probably be messier and less awe-inspiring than the Chinese Games, but it’s a good bet they’ll be more fun

Sports is supposed to be fun, you know.

That being said, an opening ceremony featuring Daleks and Cybermen would be welcome.

Like I said

I hate to say “I told you so” (actually, I love it, but play along), but the director of the Beijing games’ opening and closing ceremonies touts the obedience of his countrymen in boosting his own work:

China’s most famous film director, Zhang Yimou, who directed both ceremonies, said only Chinese performers were skilled, disciplined and obedient enough to lay on the sort of song and dance display seen on Sunday night and admired around the world…

He also showed little concern for the few critical voices who found the mass organisation of thousands of performers reminiscent of the Soviet era.

“I often joke with (foreign interviewers) and say that our level of human performance is second in the world,” he said. “Number one is North Korea. Their performances are totally uniform, and uniformity in this way brings beauty. We Chinese can do it too. After hard training and strict discipline, Chinese achieve that as well.”

It takes a peculiar aesthetic taste to find thousands of people acting in perfect unison beautiful, and there’s no accounting for it. Either you do or you don’t, and I’m among those who would rather see individual talent than such displays. The Brit segment during the closing stressed individualism and was therefore much more enjoyable.

The Beijing Games were certainly well organized, with a minimum of cheating outside of boxing and women’s gymnastics, and flowed well except for problems caused by the climate in Beijing and Hong Kong. Of course it rains in London as well, but it won’t be so hot and muggy, and the equestrian events won’t be shortened. It’s kinda sad that baseball and softball won’t be played, but all the events outside the core track and field competitions should be regarded as optional fluff anyhow; the Greeks didn’t tumble and play ping-pong, because Britain didn’t invent ping-pong until the 19th century.

Mao’s Little Helper

John Schwartz generally works the tech beat at the New York Times, but he’s written a fine review of “Snow Falling in Spring”, a children’s book about Mao’s China. We join the narrative in the middle of the account of the Great Leap Forward:

…Neighbors contribute their cooking pots and cutlery for the cause. When Li’s grandmother asks if anyone has seen her cleaver, the little girl proudly responds, “Yes, I helped our country with it.” The family retrieves the big kettle and some spoons from the pile, but the cleaver, as she recalls, “had joined its comrades in the burning fire, doing its share for China.” Everyone has a good laugh over that one.

Then there is the war on the sparrows, a crusade to eliminate the accused scourge of crops. Li and her brother, Di Di, cheer lustily as her father’s pellet gun fells one feathered threat after another.

But things do not go as hoped. Making good steel, it turns out, is more difficult than it looks, and the government rejects the lot, leaving the neighbors downhearted and decidedly less well equipped in their kitchens.

As for the sparrows, well, the government had not considered the fact that sparrows eat insects. Crops are ravaged. In coming years, as a result of natural and man-made disasters, millions die.

And then things really begin to get bad.

I don’t suppose China’s youngsters are reading this book.

And speaking of the Times’ tech beat, Ashlee Vance has jumped to the Grey Lady from The Register. My condolences on the demotion.

Obama: Not a Serious Person

The great Obama speech on race in America impressed a lot of people, but they were already Obama supporters. It left me cold, and more than a little offended. To compare his grandmother’s probably rational fear of black men on the street with the bitter public rhetoric of the bombastic Jeremiah Wright shows a distinct lack of judgment on Obama’s part. Women are often fearful of men on the street at certain times of the day and certain parts of the city, and it’s a fact that black men are more likely to commit violent crimes than other demographics. There are all sorts of reasons for that, but it’s a fact and we’re all aware of it.

Wright has claimed, among other things, that the government of the US created the HIV virus in order to commit genocide against the black race. He has said, in effect, that the KKK rules America. Wright evidently hates white people, and doesn’t feel bashful about saying so from his pulpit. To compare Wright’s racism – and there’s no other way to describe it – to granny’s private fear is simply bizarre.

[added 3/21]

Consider the differences between Obama’s granny and Wright. Granny expressed a private fear to her grandson, perhaps to help him understand attitudes that people have. She didn’t take to a pulpit and denounce all black men as criminals, which is apparently the way Wright would have behaved in her shoes. And moreover, Obama doesn’t get to choose who his granny is, but he does get to choose a pastor. And of all the pastors in the city of Chicago, he just happened to choose the most hateful one.

It’s simply bad judgment, or a lack of intellectual honesty, not to make these distinctions.

[end of addition]
Obama must be so inured to black racism that he can’t even recognize it. And given that the two most significant people in his life in recent years – his wife and his pastor – express anti-white racism with no apparent discomfort, that’s not surprising.

This tells me that Obama is a lightweight, a John Edwards, a pretty face, and not qualified to lead this country. It’s sad for Hillary and for the country that he’s seduced so many Democrats, because a Clinton-McCain contest would have put all the important issues on the table for serious discussion. With Obama the presumptive Democrat nominee, the election will revolve around experience and judgment, much less interesting topics and ones that are easily disposed of.

See the LA Times Op-Ed pages for a similar take on the speech from New York Civil Rights Coalition director Michael Meyers.

Larry Lessig for Congress?

The Larry Lessig for Congress movement is gathering steam, and the Professor himself is showing all the signs of running:

Former colleague John Palfrey, of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, launched a “Draft Lessig for Congress” Facebook group, attracting more than 2,000 social networking Larry lovers, and others soon sprung for their own DraftLessig.org” domain.

When we contacted Lessig yesterday morning to ask what he thought of all this, we didn’t get answer. But today, he told the world he is “seriously” considering a Congressional campaign. Lessig says he won’t make his final decision until “about” March 1. That would give him a month to prepare for the fight. But he’s launched a new website and a very Lessig online video to show just how serious he is.

The video confirms (yet again) that he’s determined to change the political landscape. “In my view the most exciting part of the debate around change is the idea of changing how Washington works, changing the influence of money in Washington,” Lessig says. “Not an influence that comes through bribes, but an influence that is produced by the economy of influence that money now has in Washington.”

Sounds like a born politician to us.

I think this is a bad idea, and I’d like to tell you why.

Lessig isn’t a politician, so he wouldn’t be effective at moving bills, the primary purpose of legislators. He would be another Ron Paul, the focal point of a distinctly out-of-the-mainstream ideology instead of a lawmaker. Novelty legislators are fun for the media, but they don’t serve their voters well.

And I doubt he’d be effective at constituent services, the second most effective task, because he doesn’t have the web of influence that career politicians have. Ideologues like Jesse Helms and Maxine Waters are re-elected term after term because they’re adept at constituent services.

And finally, I predict that Lessig would lose interest and resign within a few months once he’d found out that lawmaking isn’t as glamorous as leading a high-profile academic program and essentially being a rock star for free downloads.

And there’s a real danger that a guy like Lessig would be harmful to the process as well. He would be taken as a tech expert in Washington, because he’s considered one in his present niche. But Lessig doesn’t understand technology per se, he’s more an expert on certain cultural implications of technology. So I wouldn’t want someone with such a thin grasp of tech issues to become “Mr. High Tech” on the Hill.

I happen to know Jackie Speier, the real politician who was endorsed by Tom Lantos to take this place in the House. I certainly don’t agree with her on every issue, but I’ve worked with her and found her to be a competent, intelligent person. So based on my experience with Sen. Speier and her demonstrated commitment to the people and the process of government, I’d bet that a Congresswoman Speier wouldn’t drop out at the end of the first term and go on the road with a rock band.

Lessig’s an interesting character with a lot of challenging ideas, but Congress is not the place for him.

Not Impressed By Barack Obama

Seth Finkelstein explains it all:

I am not impressed by Barack Obama.

Yes, he makes nice speeches. Yes, he’s anti-war. That’s great. I don’t hate him. He’s a good guy for a Presidential candidate. However, I feel no great inspiration, and there’s a lot of ways he seems to me to be an inferior candidate to Hillary Clinton. He’s a lightweight in terms of track record, with no experience in dealing with all the mud that can be thrown at a Democrat by the Republican campaign apparatus.

These days, when someone makes an emotionally appealing speech to me, my guard goes up and I start considering how they might be trying to take advantage of me.

That’s pretty much my take. Hillary is, let’s face it, stronger all the way around than Obama. It was a tad worrying that her husband was doing so much damage to her campaign recently, but she’s reined him in, which is no small feat. Obama is doing the same tired old emotional populist appeal that Edwards has been doing forever, it’s just not credible.

Experience counts.

Net Neutrality Loses New Hampshire

Matt Stoller, the most intense of the pro-regulation, net neutrality advocates, crowed after the un-democratic Iowa caucus. Net Neutrality Wins Iowa:

Right now the telecom lobbyists that control the Republican Party and the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party should be extremely worried. On Thursday, they were soundly thumped in the most important caucus of the year, in both parties.

If that were true, then surely the New Hampshire victories for Clinton and McCain must be the death-knell of the regulation he desires. CNN’s Ann Broache nails it in fine piece on the distinct lack of passion New Hampshirites have for obscure technical regulation, New Hampshire voters: Net neutrality? Huh?

At a booth across the chrome-accented restaurant, Kelly Parsons, 32, cradled her infant son, Christian, and admitted she’d never heard of Net neutrality either. Parsons professed to be reasonably tech-savvy but said technology policy issues had nothing to do with her decision to support Mitt Romney. Illegal immigration and terrorism were among her top concerns for the next president to confront.

Stoller famously ranked net neutrality as the number one issue for the Democrats in Congress following their takeover of the House, ahead of wages, health care, the environment, or Iraq:

On the one hand, we have no legislative agenda except for net neutrality. Since we locked that down as an important issue before the election, our chances are pretty good (though it’s not by any means a slam dunk. This means that we are free to pick our fights, flexible, and not bogged down by a long list of people to satisfy. We can ride public opinion to get what we want, with agility and intelligence.

New Hampshire voters clearly don’t share his agenda, nor do Democrats generally.