Marbury

bound together

Julian Finney/Getty

I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Royal Wedding yesterday; the pageantry and the gossip and the music, as well as the happiness of the couple at the centre of it, and - most of all - the feeling of participating in a national and communal celebration. As is often the case on big days like this, the best commentary came from abroad, in particular Sarah Lyall's report for the New York Times, admiring and amused. Overall, she writes, the day "proved that the British still know how to combine pageantry, solemnity and romance (and wild hats) better than anyone else in the world." And she is good on those hats:

The outfits of the guests were generally tasteful and royal-friendly. A few things stuck out. The exotic costumes of foreign dignitaries, seeming throwbacks to imperial times. The hats worn by the ladies, which resembled, variously, overturned buckets, flowerpots, lampshades, fezzes, salad plates, tea cozies, flying saucers, abstract artworks or, in one case, a pile of feathers. There were also a number of fascinators, decorative shapes with flowers or feathers, that are stuck in one’s hair but are not hats.

Our own Norm also enjoyed it, even though he is a republican and believes our monarchy should be abolished. He has written an excellent defence of his unexpected enjoyment of the day, partly in reaction to some of its churlish critics. He points us to this line from the Guardian editorial today:

An undeniably affecting wedding between two people who seem nicely primed for their shared future – though who can really say, after last time?

Wow. Let's leave aside the wince-inducing lameness of "nicely primed for their shared future" and linger for a moment on that question, which one can imagine being delivered in an indiscreet whisper by a sour aunt on her fifth gin and tonic, as the dessert is being served. Who can really say, after last time? Well, dear, nobody can really say. But, first, that's true of all marriages, every one being a gamble of some sort; second, its future success or otherwise has very little to do with what happened to the groom's parents' marriage (unless you want to indulge in facile psychologising and I'd really rather you didn't); third, this couple have known each other far longer than the participants in the marriage being referred to; fourth, it's their wedding day, shut up already.

Jonathan Freedland, of the same paper, does much better, as you would expect, even though he too is a republican (and the headline of his piece is a thudding statement of the bleeding obvious). Well, I say he's a republican because twelve years ago he wrote an (excellent) anti-monarchy polemic entitled Bring Home The Revolution. But today, he is surprisingly and touchingly warm about the wedding and its meaning. He concludes with a critique, not of the monarchy, but of republicanism:

Republicans in Britain have long made their case in the language of political institutions, explaining why an elected head of state would be a better system. They've couched the argument as if abolishing the monarchy were like a move to AV. It's nothing of the sort. What we saw yesterday is proof that a shift away from royalty would require an entirely new form of British patriotism – for the two are utterly bound together, hand in hand, like a prince and his bride at a gorgeous wedding.

I think this is spot on. With his closing image, I think Freedland tacitly concedes to having shifted position - after all, who in their right minds would want to wrench apart two such harmonious partners? I'm not sure whether he still thinks creating "an entirely new form of British patriotism" is desirable or feasible, but it's clearly neither. I think we can feel pretty good about the patriotism we have arrived at, which is more open, generous and gentle than many.

I can see the logic of the republican position. There's certainly much that is absurd about having a monarchy. We didn't ask for it any more than we asked to be born into our own families. But imagine being given the chance to conjure up your perfect mother and father and siblings. You'd soon end up thinking, I rather like the ones I've got thanks, despite (or because of) their imperfections.

Politics, particularly the question of national identity, is about much more than logic. A nation is a compound of legal contracts, political institutions, and a big dollop of sentiment and romance; the stuff that defies rationality; the stuff you feel in your bones and in your heart. For the British, yesterday was a great day to be infused with that feeling.

UPDATE: Jonathan Freedland has taken to the Twitter to reassure the faint-hearted that he is still a republican. Hmm. He says that. But is he feeling it?

UPDATE ii: Anthony makes an excellent comment in the, er, comments.

save our species

 

Seed magazine has had the good idea of asking leading scientists to come up with a single statement that represents the most important lesson for humanity from their field. Here's one answer, from Carl Folke of the Stockholm Resilience Centre:

“Humans have a tendency to fall prey to the illusion that their economy is at the very center of the universe, forgetting that the biosphere is what ultimately sustains all systems, both man-made and natural. In this sense, ‘environmental issues’ are not about saving the planet—it will always survive and evolve with new combinations of atom—but about the prosperous development of our own species.”

I've long wondered why it is that we talk about "saving the planet" when what we really mean is saving ourselves. The planet was here long before us and it will be here long after us. The planet couldn't care less.

send out the clown

 

 

Any grown man who begins a sentence with the words "Today, I am very proud of myself..." has never really left kindergarten. Trump is like a grotesque version of Tom Hanks's character in Big, a child who has somehow assumed the form of an adult. 'OK Mommy, now I want to be president!'

That this man has somehow become a major player in American politics - because right now, that's what he is, even if you think it's unlikely to last - should be a matter of pained reflection for the Republicans. It's in a weird place at the moment, the GOP; all the energy is on the wing of the party that is, essentially, unserious and unelectable. The 2012 Republican presidential field is like a nearly-empty party that's dominated by Trump (whose name is slang for 'fart' in British slang, appropriately enough). He stands there, booming inanely away, whilst the more serious candidates wonder nervously whether or not they should enter and risk being stuck with him. Some party. The longer it goes on like this, the worse it is for the Republicans. One or two of them are going to have to man up and take him on.

Obama did well yesterday, dealing with the issue smartly and deftly. But as with Sarah Palin and 'blood libel', his most prominent political opponent of the moment has done him the favour of setting him up perfectly for a slam-dunk.

Imagine Trump hanging out with Berlusconi at G8 summits.

Oh and the Onion says it well, as ever.

so happy i could die

When the advocates of happiness make their case they invariably warn of rising rates of depression and suicide in our society. But societies that are happier overall don't necessarily have lower suicide rates. Indeed, quite the opposite.

Andrew Oswald, a professor of economics from Warwick University, has teamed up with colleagues from the US to produce a study into the causes of suicide, using data from countries all over the world. Their report reaches an unexpected conclusion: the happiest places tend to have the highest suicide rates.

The paper, entitled "Dark Contrasts: The Paradox of High Rates of Suicide in Happy Places", establishes that a range of countries with relatively high happiness rates - including Switzerland, Denmark, Canada, Iceland, and the US - also have unusually high rates of suicide. It investigates this paradox further by comparing different regions of the U.S to each other (this has the advantage of stripping out the kind of cultural differences that exist between countries). This is from the paper's press release:

Comparing U.S. states in this way produced the same result. States with people who are generally more satisfied with their lives tended to have higher suicide rates than those with lower average levels of life satisfaction. For example, the raw data showed that Utah is ranked first in life-satisfaction, but has the 9th highest suicide rate. Meanwhile, New York was ranked 45th in life satisfaction, yet had the lowest suicide rate in the country.

The researchers then also tried to make their comparison between States even fairer and yet more homogeneous by adjusting for clear population differences between the states including age, gender, race, education, income, marital status and employment status. This still produced a very strong correlation between happiness levels and suicide rates although some states shifted their positions slightly. Hawaii then ranks second in adjusted average life satisfaction but has the fifth highest suicide rate in the country. At the other end of the spectrum, for example, New Jersey ranked near the bottom in adjusted life satisfaction (47th) and had one of the lowest adjusted suicide risks (coincidentally, also the 47th highest rate).

(Not sure if the New Jersey tourist board can do something with that.)

So why should this be the case? That's hard to answer conclusively. But the hypothesis of the researchers is that it's to do with the way that human beings measure themselves against each other; we rely on relative comparisons to assess our own happiness. So in a society where more people are happy, the person feeling a little discontented is likely to feel more miserable than she would if she were surrounded by glum faces. If you live in an unhappy society, at least when you're unhappy you feel a sense of solidarity with those around you.

This is a big problem for Happiness advocates. If you spread the idea that everyone deserves happiness - that everyone should be happy - you risk increasing the misery of those who just aren't feeling it.

Link to paper.

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how do bikes stay up?

Simple question, right?

obama's secret identity revealed

He was raised as a pirate!

His mum looks about 13.

promiscuous consumers

OK Cupid is a successful dating site that was set up by a group of Harvard maths geeks. Given that its users fill out a questionnaire about themselves to join, and then take parts in lots of user-generated questionnaires and games, the site is a very rich datasource on relationships. Now and again OK Cupid's founders plunder this information to produce some truly eye-opening graphs.

The one above purports to show a relationship - quite a strong one - between an interest in casual sex and per capita wealth of the country, which is quite surprising because you might have thought that religion or culture played the defining role here.

Of course, the sample is not a scientific one, in that OK Cupid users are not necessarily representative of the population as a whole. But still, it's interesting. Why are people more likely to seek out one-night stands in wealthier countries? Perhaps, as people become better-off, acquire more money to spend on consumer goods and become acquainted with high street shops and supermarkets, they're more likely to extend the psychology and behaviours of shopping to other areas of their life, including romance. It's a connection that's been made before, of course.

the power of simple

When interviewed, songwriters can find it hard to say something new or interesting about one of their own songs, but get them on to the craft of it and they're usually fascinating. This interview by SongFacts with Bill Withers - who has written or co-written at least three of the most popular songs ever recorded - is no exception. He sounds slightly bored by questions about the genesis of Ain't No Sunshine or Lovely Day. But he has strong views about what makes a great lyric:

SF: You mentioned you're a lyrics snob, when I thought you were exactly the opposite when listening to some of your songs. You have a way of making your lyrics so simple yet understandable.

Mr. Withers: That's why I'm a snob about it, it's very difficult to make things simple and understandable. You ever sit down and have a conversation with somebody who took their formal education too seriously...And they're speaking and throwing in a bunch of words that you don't have a ready meaning for? You're sitting there nodding because you don't want them to think you're stupid, but what you really think is, there's a lot of easier ways to say it, and you wonder if they even know what the hell they're talking about or if they're just showing off. So to me, the biggest challenge in the world is to take anything that's complicated and make it simple so it can be understood by the masses ... When I say I'm a snob lyrically, I mean I'm a snob in the sense that I'm a stickler for saying something the simplest possible way with some elements of poetry. Because simple is memorable ...There are lines that are so profound, like 'The first time ever I saw your face' or Billy Joel's 'I love you just the way you are.' For somebody to state that in that simple a form - I heard this Country song the other day that really stuck to my ribs, and it was just a simple phrase - "And when the time comes for you to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance."

SF: Yeah, the Lee Ann Womack.

Mr. Withers: Come on man, you can't say that any better. One thing that I said once, that I've never heard anybody say before or since - "Hello like before." That's one of my favorite things that ever crossed my mind. Try saying that in any shorter form, you can't do it. So when I say I'm a snob lyrically, that means, OK, the gauntlet is down - how clear can you make it and in how few words.

This reminds me that one of Stephen Sondheim's principles of lyric-writing is 'less is more'. Here Sondheim explains why lyrics, unlike poetry, reward simplicity:

A printed collection of them lyrics bereft of their dramatic circumstances and the music which gives them life, is a dubious proposition. Musical theatre lyrics, even poetic ones, are not poems. Poems are written to be read, silently or aloud, not sung. Some lyrics, awash with florid imagery, present themselves as poetry, but music only underscores (yes) the self-consciousness of the effort. In theatrical fact, it is usually the plainer and flatter lyric that soars poetically when infused with music…Music straitjackets a poem and prevents it from breathing on its own, whereas it liberates a lyric.

obama's poll slump and the price of gas

One of Andrew Sullivan's readers (an economist at a hedge fund) has a convincing explanation for the otherwise hard-to-fathom fall in the president's ratings over the past month:

Take a look at the attached chart of the US daily average pump price of unleaded gasoline -- it's up about 70 cents a gallon, or 23%, since mid-February. At $3.84 a gallon it's just shy of the peak seen in the middle of 2008. Working Americans' disposable income has taken a very nasty hit over the past eight weeks, a hit so big it basically cancels out all the income boost from the December tax deal. It's no mystery then that the US public's view of the economy has suddenly and sharply worsened, and Obama's approval rating with it...Given global demand and supply developments, gas prices will remain a real wild card for the 2012 election.

like

I told you about my love for Radiolab recently, and they have a new programme out, all about the property of symmetry (haven't listened to it yet but I can promise you it will be great). As they occasionally do, they've created a visual poem to go with it.

If I hadn't known the answer I might have guessed it was about metaphor.

Link to 'Desperately Seeking Symmetry'.

obama's leadership problem

President Barack Obama talks with senior advisors following a meeting in the Oval Office, March 3, 2011.

Marc Ambinder, one of the shrewdest and sanest of Washington commentators, has graded Obama's reelection chances. He gives him 'A's for campaign infrastructure and team; the formidable machine Obama built last time is ready to be revved up again. Obama also gets an 'A' for personal attributes and values; most Americans like him and his family (an important factor, as Bush - or Kerry - might tell you). Ambinder gives Obama his lowest grades for 'political identity' and 'leadership'. In 2008 he was able to run on the big but vague dream of 'Hope' and 'Change'. It was thought that his political identity - that core sense of what he wants to do with the job - would emerge once he was in office. But even after three years, this president still hasn't really defined himself:

Americans are not sure about Obama's leadership skills [& not just Americans]. A small majority see him as a leader, a number that has been in steady decline since he was elected, according to a Gallup poll ... Fewer than half think he can manage the government. One version of the case posits that Obama has spent way too much time blaming predecessors even as he continued Bush policies, from TARP to Guantanamo Bay. His leadership skills tie into his political identity. He seems rudderless at times. His advisers will say that Obama wants to fix problems and is a pragmatist, and that external events have made it all but impossible to chart a straight course and follow it. That may be true, but the challenge is to convince the American people that this style of governing is the right one.

Yes. Another challenge - though this may apply more to his core supporters from 2008 - is explaining why his style of governing feels so at odds with his campaign; why the gap between poetry and prose has been so stark. He didn't run as a managerial Mr Fixit type of guy. He ran as a Reaganesque transformer. So it's almost as if he has to invent a new identity for 2012, or somehow make us forget the last few years and live the 2008 dream again. I wouldn't rule either out.

I don't think his political identity problem is a left/right one, by the way, and I generally think that distinction matters far less, these days, than most political observers imagine. Ambinder puts it well here:

It's not a question of goals; it's a question of guts. Where will he fight?

The Republicans are making a big mistake by allowing their critique of Obama to be dominated by the Tea Party claim that he's an extremist, bent on transforming America into a socialist state. Mainstream American voters compare that spectre with the reasonable guy they see on their TV screens most nights and just can't connect the two. Whoever emerges as the GOP candidate will best advised to define Obama as a rudderless ditherer, out of his depth in any executive position, let alone the White House.

But here we come to another of Obama's strengths: his likely opponent. Here's Ambinder again:

This grade [for political identity] is given without reference to his potential opponents. Throw a Republican with an identity crisis into this mix and Obama's grade rises.

Bring on Mitt!

Link to Ambinder.

something for the weekend

I'm going away until Monday evening. In the meantime, please enjoy this little work of genius.

 

loyal opposition

This government has been looking pretty ragged recently, but Thursday showed that it can still drive a 24-hour-news-cycle. First, there was a pre-release of the speech. Then there was the Cable criticism. All this was before lunchtime, when the PM actually delivered the speech. By teatime Mr Cameron was "hitting back" at his coalition colleague. The evening news bulletins were all about Cameron's speech, Cable's reaction, and the immigration debate. And not about the NHS.

I've no idea how joined-up with this was - whether, for instance, Cameron's office conspired with Cable's to choreograph their interventions - but, contra to the conventional view of today's events, I think today was a good day for the Coalition. First, the Prime Minister's substance-free speech dominated the day's news, sweeping away the headlines about Lansley and the nurses.

Second, and more importantly, it suggests that the Coalition may be getting the hang of something that could, if managed well, be a big advantage for them: their ability to be their own opposition. If the public comes to believe that this is a Tory-led government that is kept in check by an independently-minded partner, then the real opposition will come to seem rather redundant. 

toy story

We seem to have an inadvertent kiddie theme today. These word clouds are made from transcripts of TV commercials for toys. The top one is from ads for girls' toys, the bottom one, boys.

Wordles created and discussed by Achilles Effect.

obama steps up

Yesterday the president laid out his position on the deficit, after pretty much passing first time around and letting the Republicans make the first move. He was criticised from both sides for this approach. Presidents are meant to lead, after all. I'm still not sure this kind of poker-playing befits a president but it does seem, in purely political terms, to have played out exactly as Obama's strategists would have wished.

The GOP showed their hand first, advocating tax cuts and big cuts to popular welfare programmes. This opened up space for Obama to make a speech yesterday in which accepted the need for welfare reform but bashed the Republicans for going too far. In other words, he's been able to seize the centre ground. He also did it in a way that make him look like he had a strong point of view, something he's often not been good at conveying. Jonathan Chait, a perceptive liberal commentator, sums up the mood amongst the president's supporters today:

He expressed moral outrage in a way I've never heard him do before...it was jolting to hear Obama lambast Ryan with language like this:

I will not allow Medicare to become a voucher program that leaves seniors at the mercy of the insurance industry, with a shrinking benefit to pay for rising costs. I will not tell families with children who have disabilities that they have to fend for themselves.

This attack, by the way, is completely fair. Moreover, Obama made the crucial step of attacking Republicans for doing these things while cutting taxes for the rich. It's impossible to overstate just how commanding a position Obama holds here with regard to public opinion. People overwhelmingly favor higher taxes on the rich. They even more overwhelmingly oppose cutting Medicare. The Republican plan to impose deep Medicare cuts in order to free up room to cut taxes for the rich is ridiculously, off-the-charts unpopular. If Republicans want to take this position, Obama has to make them pay dearly.

The most important line in Obama speech was his explanation that Republicans forced him to extend upper-bracket tax cuts, but "I refuse to renew them again." That's the line in the sand I've been looking for.

It's quite Clintonian, for better and for worse. If a deal is reached (Obama proposed an end-of-June deadline) he will be in a very strong position for 2012.

Link to Chait.