Tag Archives: politics

the absurdists could not do better

Posted on by

Via Talking Points Memo, a transcript of a White House press conference. As a script, it is kind of lacking the absurdist oomph that The Bald Soparano has, but as a start, I’m sure it could make a scene to rival the best of the absurdist theater.

Admittedly, the press corps were being pretty ruthless, but the inability of our current administration to answer a simple question straight-on makes Bill Clinton look like a paragon of forthrightness. How the president manages to make himself seem like a straight-talking man of the people while engaging in this ring-a-ring of roses boggles my mind.

and bingo was his name-o

Posted on by

I think I neglected to blog about this earlier, but one of the funniest things about Brazil to me was their obsession with Bingo. In the US, Bingo has been relegated to the church basment social and nursing home, and occasionally for little kids (I have fond memories of playing in the library on Fun Night at Yankee Ridge Elementary School). Bingo is not what you would call a sexy game, like baccarat, poker (that’s for you, Jeff), or to a lesser extent, craps

In Brazil Bingo is a big deal. They have a Bingo Association that publishes pamphlets extolling the virtues of playing Bingo, and how various celebrities financed their careers through the game. The parlors are as full of glitz as any Vegas casino, employees smartly dressed in white shirts and green vests. The room is dominated by a large board covered in numbers which are lit up when they are selected by the MC. Cocktail waitresses serve caipirinhas or whatever your heart may desire. You want to be part of that scene, you want to be one of those people having fun and making money by getting five in a row, column, or diagonal.

So naturally, when the goverment tries to cut down on corruption by stopping the gambling, 30,000 Brazilians take to the streets to protest. If they did the same thing in Vegas, would we have tens of thousands of strippers take to the streets in protest?

don’t blame Canada

Posted on by

According to the NY Times:

Still, since President Bush took office, the economy has lost more than 2 million jobs, the worst performance since Herbert Hoover was President.

I was a little surprised to find such a critical statement hidden inside this piece, which otherwise tried to paint a rosy picture of the situation — unemployment dropped, but not by a whole lot. Perhaps this is a case where you see the editors wielding the red pen liberally but leaving little scraps hinting at what’s really going on. This is a cue for me to start doing close readings of every news story I read, but that seems a bit tedious. On the other hand, I could just bring my own bias to reading the story and hunt down the anti-Bush bits.

On the other side, the BBC seems to take pleasure in silly swipes at Dubya.

and on the seventh day

Posted on by

Everyone seems to be blogging about this piece of news (NY Times, free reg required) from Georgia, where they have stricken the word evolution from the curriculum, and toned down references to the age of the Earth. Full decision is here. I’m sure these people are pissed off. The original article is at Creative Loafing, which has some other juicy tidbits. The Georgia Superintendent of Schools, Kathy Cox, said people associate evolution with “that monkeys-to-man sort of thing.” Here’s a good one:

Cox has already caught flak for a history curriculum that, in high school U.S. history classes, starts in 1876, ignoring biggies like the Civil War. In world history courses, students won’t cover anything earlier than 1500 — you know, material like Socrates and Roman civilization.

After reading Roger Pennock‘s book, Tower of Babel, I am even more horrified than before. Young Earth Creationism, as he calls it, is about the most backwards form of creationism there is. These people not only deny evolution, but probably believe that dinosaurs were a big joke of God’s, or that they represent species who didn’t make it on the Ark.

Intelligent Design Creationism, a second “alternative” is a philosophically poor alternative to the methodology of science. It succumbs to the fallacy of “if I can’t explain it, it must be magical,” thus drawing an imaginary line between the inexplicable and the understood. Because we cannot exhibit the immense complexity of biological systems through natural selection and random mutation, they must have been designed by an intelligent creator. Many people don’t have a problem with this intellectually impoverished logic. If you stop and think about it, it’s just what the Raelians think, but everyone regards them as nutcases.

The biggest problem with intelligent design creationists is the attitude towards science that they propose. The line that they draw is akin to the line funding agencies are starting to draw between “sexy research” and “pointless research.” Rather than investigating a combination of fundamental principles and applied programs, the trend is increasingly to fund those proposals which will have an immediate application. But to really understand how to cure a disease, you need to know how it works, and for that you need a fundamental understanding of biological processes. Advocates like Christopher Reeve and Michael J. Fox use their celebrity status to help fund scientific research, but also promote their own agenda — Parkinsons becomes “more important to cure” than Alzheimers. By allowing those with little scientific knowledge to control the direction of scientific research, we run the risk of derailing scientific progress here.

vote

Posted on by

In Brazil, everyone has to vote — it’s a law. However, when you vote, you have two options to “not vote.” The first is to vote for no candidate, which means you don’t think any of the candidates are fit to hold the office. The other is to vote “white,” which means you give your vote to the candidate who gets the most votes numerically. In order to win, a candidate must obtain a certain percentage of the overall vote, including votes for no candidate. Thus in Brazil, “no candidate” an win the election, in which case the election has to be held again.

In the US, not voting is equivalent to voting “white” in a Brazilian election. Thus the act of not voting doesn’t make the statement that “I think this election is a joke.” Rather, it means “I cast my vote with the majority among people who care to vote.” In the Three Ring Circus that is California, you could vote for No Recall, but you could also vote for a candidate in case the recall passed. All those who didn’t vote for a candidate after voting No Recall just voted for Arnold. All those who didn’t vote in the 2000 Presidential Election voted for whoever won their state.

I’m not saying the Brazilian system is better, but comparison points out clearly the political significance of not going to the polls.