TOYS FOR IRAQI KIDS
The Chief Wiggles Toy Drive for Iraqi children is back in business, thanks to an amazing volunteer effort to warehouse, sort, and ship toys. They also need cash donations, which can be made through PayPal.
Dynamist Blog
GOOD-LOOKING GOVERNMENT
Several readers have pointed to Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm as an example of a good-looking female politician. (Granholm, who was born in Canada, is the Democrats' argument for amending the Constitution to allow presidents who weren't born in this country.)
On the other hand, Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow is an argument that polish is enough in a female politician.
OVERREACTION
Instapundit reports, with many links, that ESPN has fired Gregg Easterbrook. Obviously I'm not a fan of his recent remarks or his various righteous crusades, though I do like his more analytical work. But this is a bizarre overreaction to what should have been a one-day story.
BOOK TV
C-Span 2's Book TV will replay my Manhattan Institute talk on The Substance of Style tomorrow (Sunday) at 10 p.m. Eastern. (The Book TV schedule is here.)
THE TROUBLE WITH GREGG
In response to my post about Gregg Easterbrook, Skip Oliva writes:
A lot of commenters (at least the ones I've been reading) have missed the forest for the trees on Easterbrook. He's not an anti-Semite, but an anti-capitalist. His attack was not on Jews per se, but on Jews who seek profit producing products he doesn't like. This is consistent with other Easterbrook targets, such as "antisocial" SUV owners, and the National Football League (he doesn't like the league's choice of DirecTV as a broadcasting partner.)
I agree. Easterbrook's easy recourse to hoary anti-Semitic rhetoric comes from his hatred of certain commercial products, not (as far as I can tell) from a hatred of Jews. Indeed, the "WTF? WTF? WTeffingF?" reaction stems, in part, from the fact that nobody expects such rhetoric from a respectable goo-goo like Easterbrook. That he slips into anti-Semitic rhetoric to attack certain movies and the people who make them just makes his self-righteous hatred more obnoxious. Of course, the slope from hating commerce to hating (or killing) Jews is one of history's most slippery.
This is a one-day story, but a revealing one.
THE SAME THING?
Gregg Easterbrook, whose views on greedy Jews and violent movies prompted the apt response "WTF? WTF? WTeffingF?" from Meryl Yourish, doesn't get it. He tells the NYT that he's an equal-opportunity scold:
Mr. Easterbrook said he wrote a column last week about Mel Gibson's coming film "Passion," and added: "I raised the issue that Mel Gibson professes to be an ardent Christian. Maybe he is. But his background previous to this movie is making movies that glorify violence."
"I raised the exact same question about a Christian," Mr. Easterbrook said, and "there was not a single peep."
He said Mel Gibson "worship(s) money above all else"? Where?
Aside from his self-righteous recourse to anti-Semitic stereotypes, Easterbrook's confusion of stylized fantasy violence and real-world slaughter is artistically, morally, and psychologically obtuse. For more on that subject, I highly recommend Gerard Jones's book Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Make-Believe Violence, and Super Heroes. (No, I don't approve of bringing little kids to Tarantino movies. Get a babysitter. But some of Jones's insights apply to adults as well.)
UNINTENDED, BUT PREDICTABLE, CONSEQUENCES
Every time in history that the United States has tightened control on the border with Mexico, the result has been more permanent Mexican immigrants and fewer Mexicans who simply visit the U.S. to work or trade. That was true long ago, when the new barriers were as simple as a small fee or a health exam, and it's been true since the crackdowns of the late 1990s.
In the Sacramento Bee, columnist Dan Walters takes note of the most recent example:
Ironically, the major impact of Proposition 187 has been precisely the opposite of what its framers intended; it has actually increased the number of illegal immigrants in California.
Although its specific provisions were never implemented, its passage sent a message to politicians, including then-President Clinton and California's senior U.S. senator, Dianne Feinstein. At her behest, the Clinton administration tightened up controls along California's border with Mexico, making it much more difficult to cross.
With immigrant guides (coyotes) demanding higher payments and the border-crossing routes stretching into the California-Arizona desert and becoming more dangerous, Mexicans who once came to California for seasonal work, especially in agriculture, but maintained their homes in Mexico, found it less dangerous and less expensive to remain in the state permanently. And they began relocating their families as well.
A new analysis by the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, based on 2000 census data, finds that between 1990 and 2000 California's foreign-born residents expanded by nearly 40 percent, from 6.4 million to 8.8 million, and now make up a quarter of the state's population. Other studies have found that immigration and births to foreign-born mothers now account for virtually all of the state's net population growth. There's little doubt that the post-Proposition 187 border controls contributed to this sharp increase, which mostly came from Mexico.
The socioeconomic impacts have been immense, especially in the urban core of Los Angeles and in the farm communities of the San Joaquin Valley. Economist Phil Martin of the University of California, Davis, and his colleagues first charted the effects, noting that as California's overall economy boomed during the middle and late 1990s, poverty was increasing sharply in rural communities as they struggled to absorb year-round populations of immigrants.
WI-FI DISTRACTIONS
The PopTech Wi-Fi is mighty convenient. So convenient that people read and write email and surf the web throughout the conference speeches. It's a high-I.Q. audience, and I'm sure these folks convince themselves that they're multitasking and believe they could tell you exactly what's being said. I don't believe them.
As a friend of Steve's once said, always-on Internet at work is like having a TV in your office. This conference setup is actually much worse. You can tune out a TV in the background. It's much harder to read, and harder still to write, while listening, especially to a speaker far away on a stage. (I keep my computer off during the talks.)
DREIER SPECULATION
Responding to my posts below, a reader who works on Capitol Hill writes:
I don't have any inside information just speculation. Dreier will be term limited out of his Rules Cmte Chairmanship at the end of this Congress. He wouldn't be the first Chairman to retire or run for another office rather than to return to being a mere Congressman.
That doesn't mean he'll run against Barbara Boxer, of course, but it's a pretty definitive answer to the "Why give up the Rules Committee chairmanship?" question.
Update: The pollsters haven't caught up with the Dreier speculation. A new Field poll shows Boxer running slightly ahead of four possible Republican candidates. Dreier, who is better known than at least three of the four, wasn't on the list.
OFF TO MAINE
I'm off to Pop!Tech early Thursday morning. Assuming all goes well, it's about an 10-hour trip, door-to-door, and those hours don't include Internet access. Conference organizers, do, however promise Wi-Fi once I'm there, so I'll try to blog a bit on Friday.