Hurrah for Entropy!

When the Hutton story broke and word was that it vindicated Blair and damned the BBC without bothering with the faint praise routine, I immediately thought of an English acquaintance of mine who was surely chewing the carpet with rage or doing his best Redcrosse in the Cave of Despair imitation as he heard the outcome. Not one to intrude on the secret sorrows of another, I turned to The Spectator to read the carpet chewing reaction to the Hutton report, and I must say this is floor covering mastication of the very highest order. (See also the nice Persian in the parlor.)

Fun though these were, and even though this issue has the ever amusing Mark Steyn being, yes, amusing about New Hampshire, entertaining travel articles, and a "Stupid Americans, Tony Blair is not your friend!" riff (a refrain also favoured by the aforementioned acquaintance), the finest article in this issue is, bar none, this one. Yes, New Urbanist proponents, it really is the best article in the issue. (Although as someone who is slogging through How the Dead Live for a book club, I cheered when I read the piece on Will Self.)

Things that actually matter

Yes, yes, you're all up on matters political, but what are you reading? Read any magazine, webzine, and even blog during the summer months, and everyone is in your face telling you what books they recommend, but in winter no one bothers. Why is reading only a topic of general interest only in the summer? Do people not read the giddy year around? Surely the ideal time to curl up with a book is February, when it's sleeting and there's a lovely fire in the grate and a glass of scotch to hand, and not August ,when you can spend time body surfing and poking about the outdoors and calypsoing to "Rum and Coca-Cola."

As a pitiful conformist, I must admit that I do do the summer reading voodoo that I do so well, and every year, when I go foraging for the summer vacation reading pile, I hear the voice of Professor James P. Warren thundering in my ears in his passionate summation to some random classroom diatribe: "When you go to the beach this summer instead of reading John Grisham's latest, why don't you read something decent like Henry James' The Golden Bowl?

You will doubtless intuit from this comment that Professor James P. Warren is an idealist in matters literary. I was one of the biggest dweebs in the long history of "Introduction to American Literature", and I would never consider reading The Golden Bowl at the beach. It is far too long and serious. The secret to a good beach book is brevity and frivolity. After all in Summer we're going to live forever, dancing along the ocean shore or the mountain heights, laughing about the uncle who died from the chestnut blight.

Winter, however, is the ideal time for getting to grips with those massive novels that you always swore you were going to read and never did or did read but remember imperfectly. Despite central heating and the advances of medical science, in Winter, as we slip on icy sidewalks or suffer from the flu, we become aware of our own mortality, and thus more inclined to think about the more serious matter of life. Books that center around the nature of man and the state of the soul, books that seemed downright depressing and dreary in summer become warm and comforting.

I am not alone in this opinion. I have data, anecdotal data to be sure, but it will have to do. A group of friends spontaneously formed a book club around The Brothers Karamazov this winter, and they are, to a person, madly gung ho for the book. At parties while other dance and chatter, they sneak into corners to palaver about characters and scenes and themes, whispering so that those who haven't read as far as they won't hear them. Now go ahead. Try to form a Brothers Karamozov book club in the summer. You'll find that A will be out of town for weeks, B will be too busy with summer soirees, and Caesar will be willing but somehow will never get around to going to the library or the bookstore to obtain the book. (Admittedly the first time I read The Brothers K. was during the Summer, but I was a teenager, and thus by definition peculiar. )

So break out the Cragganmore, or the Lagavulin, or even, if your tastes incline this way, a few a well chilled shots of your favorite vodka and pull out that big long novel you've always been meaning to read. You?ll find it easy going.

And if you can't think of a big long novel you've always wanted to read, well, there's always The Golden Bowl.

Dr. Potomac's Memo

Pity the poor New Hampshirites! Subjected to the quadrennial burden of exercising grossly disproportionate influence of dubious quality on the American political system. I can see as how they -- and we -- would need a break. Anyone else in favor of making, say, Texas the first-in-the-nation primary?

Dr. Potomac reverts to his post following the Iowa Caucus: Senator John F. Kerry is the overwhelming favorite to win the Democratic nomination for President. (As an aside, do you think the Democrats are flocking to Kerry in part because it will allow them to chant, "All the Way With JFK!" thus committing Camelot in their hearts?) Pollsters are reporting significant surges for Kerry in most of the February 3 primary states although I should think South Carolina remains a bit of a hurdle for him. The Bush campaign now needs to focus like a laser-beam on Senator Kerry's record and get ready to rumble.

The most significant political problem Kerry faces is how to defeat Dr. Dean in such a way that he is able to keep his vanquished foe in the party and tap the energy of the Deaniacs. Killing him softly is the challenge and it won't be an easy one. Dean's spokesmen are promising to "live off roots and berries" if need be to continue the campaign. This is all very shades of Gary Hart in 1984 who pursued poor old Fritz Mondale all the way to the convention.

Those truly committed to the re-election of President Bush ought to consider making a contribution to the Dean campaign and signing up to hand out literature. Our motto: "Let's you and him fight!"

Well, that's over. Kerry won by considerably more votes than I thought he would; I was thinking a 5-8 point margin. But on they go, leaving us here in NH alone for a few months.

Moving on. Interesting UPI story about Iraqi Oil Ministry documents linking oil money to politicians and businesses in Europe and the Arab world. I am shocked! Shocked that prominent French pols were taking Iraqi bribes! You mean that the French position against the war was not really about morality?

I must read this again and think it over: a spirited defense of Oliver Cromwell as a conservative.

Memo from Dr. Potomac

Well, a fine kettle of fish seems to have been set to a boil in New Hampshire. The ARG tracking poll has Dr. Dean gaining 5 points overnight with a surge among older women who think Dean has been treated unfairly. This cuts Kerry's lead by almost one-third. If true, this amounts to a stampede toward Dean. Oh, to have some exit poll data!

Dr. Potomac notes the new Zogby tracking poll for the New Hampshire primary that has Dean surging to within three points of Kerry. Needless to say, even a close second for Dr. Dean would once again scramble the race for the Democratic nomination setting up a fight between a well-financed but wounded Dean and underfinanced, wounded Kerry. It is too much to hope for but wowza.

Zogby is known for being prescient (as in calling the 1994 GOP takeover of the House and Senate) and also for getting things badly wrong. For instance, the Sunday before the 1998 Senate election in New York, the Zogby tracking poll showed incumbent Al D'Amato closing rapidly on Chuck Schumer in a stunning reversal of fortune. The New York Post ran a screamer (when don't they, you ask?) AL STORMS BACK announcing the poll results and had Republicans, including Dr. Potomac, dancing in the aisles. Unfortunately, the poll was either seriously flawed or recorded a dead-cat bounce with Schumer rolling to a solid victory.

It is worth noting at this point that the Zogby poll is an outlier: USA Today and ARG are both out this morning with polls that show Dean hovering in the high teens/low 20s. ARG's three-day trend line shows only that Dr. Dean has staunched the hemorrhaging -- not even a dead-cat bounce there. In other words, the balance of the polling evidence is that the Iowa Scream is still dead-weight around Dean's neck. This view is reinforced by the fact that Kerry has not shown the least concern about Dean in the past few days, breaking his positive messages only to dope slap Wes Clark for questioning his military credentials.

I am afraid this means that Albert's bet with dear old dad remains in jeopardy.

This looks like a worthwhile publication: The Electric Review, a self-described high Tory review of politics, art and literature. We approve most heartily. I wish I had found this earlier, in fact. Here is a very interesting 2003 article on why Oliver Cromwell is loved by some conservatives. The author writes: The truth, whatever one thinks of it, is that Cromwell’s reign was nothing but an inglorious little coup d’etat, making no serious constitutional points and leaving little in its wake other than many thousands of cripples, a legacy of economic damage and a salutory if expensive horror of civil war. His decision to kill King Charles was as much an act of desperation as it was one of pique. The tribunal in front of which the King was tried had no legitimate authority, having been cobbled together out of stray members of the Rump Parliament and assorted hangers-on. And even if it had been better chosen, as the Earl of Northumberland rightly argued at the time, how on earth could a sovereign commit treason, when treason was defined as action taken against the sovereign? Charles’s subsequent trial was nothing but an early essay in that sad convention, the political show-trial, and his execution simply an assassination played out with all the tawdry trappings of bogus legality. Or to put it another way, to approve of Cromwell’s role in the killing of Charles I is to approve, tout court, of the arbitrary irruption of military force into normal political life. Whatever else this might be, it is not exactly redolent of Conservative principles. Neither were Cromwell’s assaults on an established and popular religion, nor his limited and half-hearted gestures at social levelling.

Here, here.

In view of the current political focus on the Doc's state, not to mention the Doc's near-obsession with the Old Man of the Mountain, I thought it was only sensible to direct your attention to this interesting article in the web journal of early American History, Common-Place.

Among other things, author Karen Haltunnen places the Old Man neatly within the cultural history of the 19th century, observing that the recently departed rock formation was a classic lusus naturae.

Yes, that's what I said, lusus naturae.

Making the rounds

A lovely article by Theodore Dalrymple explaining why he is leaving the UK to settle in France.

I'd say I'm surprised, but of course I am not. A hard left Brit pol named Jenny Tonge mused that if she were Palestinian, she'd consider being a suicide bomber (sympathy for the oppressed, don't you know). Apparently being killed by these psychopaths does not count as oppression as well, just getting in the way of a just cause. Thankfully, the Liberal Democrats saw this for the insanity it was and asked her to step down.

I don't quite know why this strikes me (perhaps I am hungry), but here is how you make bacon. Thanks to An Englishman's Castle for this tip.

Kofi Annan on the Scottish poet Robert Burns. Whodathunkit?

Dr. Potomac's Memo

While not retracting what I said about the "long race" theory, there has been some interesting conjecture today on the impact of the Democratic Party's proportional representation rules regarding delegate selection. The column, by Robert Moran of the GOP polling group Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates, argued that unlike the GOP, which has winner-take-all primaries, Democratic caucuses and primaries divide up delegates according to the percentage of votes each candidate receives. Ergo, if Dean, Edwards and Clark stay in for a prolonged period with each picking up a chunk of the vote in each state, together they could deny Kerry the majority he needs for nomination. I remain skeptical in part because I think the money will dry up for some (Edwards and Clark) and votes for others (Dean) but the ill-conceived Democratic rules -- the likes of which are the bane of parliamentary democracies across Europe -- appear to make this outcome technically possible. Frankly, it sounds like the fevered dream of every political junkie (including me): a brokered convention -- Chicago 1968 on steroids. But who am I to question the wisdom of a highly paid political professional?

Kerry's surge naturally makes Republicans, who had gotten used to dreaming of a Dean nomination, a little nervous. Kerry is, after all, within the 40 yard lines of American politics. He gets Al Gore's electoral base without too much trouble and takes a couple close ones the Bush team was eyeing (like Minnesota) out of play. However, assuming the electoral map reverts to form in November and both parties get all the states they got last time around, Bush still wins and by a wider margin than in 2000 due just to population shifts in the last census. It is difficult to see how Kerry, who in the final analysis is a Massachusetts Democrat, breaks into the South, the Border states or the Mountain West -- with or without Edwards as his running mate. And that assumes that Bush doesn't steal Iowa, Wisconsin, New Mexico and Oregon all of which he lost by a whisker last time around.

Notes from NH II

I came home too late last night after a lovely dinner out at the Inn, so no blogging. That may be a blessing because little has happened. Quite odd really. With all the attention the NH Primary is getting, for those of us living in the state (but in the rural areas) life is little changed.

Edwards signs are appearing more often, as are Kerry. But Dean's supporters have smothered the state with signs in recent days. Last night's debate was a real sleeper. Besides a few blips (Sharpton lecturing on monetary policy, Clark saying Michael Moore can say whatever he wants, Kucinich wandering around a thought on energy policy, Lieberman heroically defending his pro-Iraq record), nothing happened. My students, however, told me that outside it was quite a scene. All the usual suspects, sign-holders, and crazies swamped campus, and fights broke out between the camps. Two people were arrested.

Return of the Uber-Wasp

Just a few days ago I was explaining to a British friend visiting from the UK that, really, the elite East Coast establishment was dead and gone with the Mid-Atlantic accent.

Jonathan Last at the Weekly Standard provides an anecdote from the Kerry Campaign that may force me to substantially revise that opinion:

Earlier today in Nashua, John Kerry tested a populist stance, saying, "This election is not just about which candidate wins, but about whether we will win the fight to put opportunity and security in the hands of the many and not the few." Tonight he's at The Philips Exeter Academy in an auditorium with rich crimson carpeting, ornate moldings and pediments, dozens of formal portraits in big, gilded frames, and 1,500 adoring fans.

Founded in 1781, Exeter is the most prestigious boarding school in America and one of the most expensive, too--a year at Exeter costs more than a year at most private universities. In other words, tonight John Kerry is among "the few." He looks comfortable.

As he should. Kerry begins by reminding the audience that, while his father and daughter went to Andover, and he's a St. Paul's man himself, his wife and chief of staff are both Philips graduates, so really, everyone here is on the same side. He laughs. The audience laughs with him.

Gazing down from their portraits, Harlan Page ("The Seventh Principal of The Philips Exeter Academy, 1895 - 1913") and Sanford Sidney Smith ("President of the Board of Trustees, 1903 - 1920") must surely be comforted.

Kerry's populist appeal should, perhaps, be put on hold.

BBC Bias

Compare headlines:

Boston Globe: "President firm on Iraq, terror, urges more action on economy"

Boston Herald: "President lays the groundwork for his re-election"

Manchester Union Leader: "Bush speech sets reelection themes"

Nashua Telegraph: "Bush Looks to Stay Course"

Concord Monitor: "President defends war, tax cuts"

Washington Post: "Bush Defends Iraq War, Economic Policy"

These are a mix of local and national newspapers, of liberal and conservative editorial policies. Now look at today's BBC lead headline:

BBC: "Democrats Slam 'Go-it-alone' Bush"

They highlight the Democratic response, not the SOTU. And you wonder why so many in the UK and US think the BBC (with a pile of public money) is in the advocacy business rather than news reporting.

Notes from NH

It is Wednesday evening, I am sipping on a martini, and thinking over what I have seen today, now only six days from the New Hampshire primary. Not much. Fox News has taken over the college where I teach and made it their "NH Primary Headquarters," which makes for interesting media celebrity watching. I think I saw Major Garrett from Fox today, but I am not sure; I know I recognize his face. Tomorrow night, Fox is hosting the final candidate debate at the college, so all the bigwigs will be around and about.

The only thing I have noticed changing in recent days are (how dull) the political signs studding every roadside. For months, the blue and yellow Dean signs have dominated, so long in fact that many are looking ratty and wilting. In the last few days, however, fresh ones have popped up. Kerry has surprisingly little "signage" outside a half-dozen massive 4 by 5 billboard signs in towns between Manchester and Keene (the one in my town has been vandalized -- one of the r's has been ripped off, so now it says "Ker_y"). Today, however, a handful of new Kerry signs (bright red and white ones, far different from his usual dull blue) appeared in Goffstown, NH reading "Debating Dean? Vote Kerry." The red and blue Clark signs are very common, an easy second place behind Dean. Lieberman and Kuchinich are there as well, with more signs than Kerry I would bet. Edwards signs are nearly non-existent. As I recall, I have seen only two between Keene and Manchester. That may change. In fact, there are as many Bush-Cheney signs as Edwards, although the Bush sign in Dublin, NH has been vandalized with the word "sucks" beneath the President's name. Real classy.

Almost drove off the road the other day in Peterborough, NH: I was behind a Volvo station wagon ... with a Bush bumper sticker. A first for me. They usually are plastered with "Arms are for hugging" and "Hate is not a family value." Then again, those usually have Vermont license plates. This one had a NH plate. God bless.

No sign of the candidates yet. They have stuck to the cities: Manchester, Nashua, Concord, Portsmouth, Keene.

I'll keep my eyes open and report everyday.

Dr. Potomac's Memo

Tuesday night showed us yet another way to lose a major party presidential nomination. In 1972, Ed Muskie took himself out of the race by crying in front of the Manchester Union-Leader headquarters which had unjustly attacked the candidate's wife. In 1988, Bob Dole lost the New Hampshire primary after snarling, "Stop lying about my record," in complaint of George H. W. Bush's anti-tax attack ads. This year it was Dr. Dean's post-caucus weird-out. At the moment the spotlight was burning the hotest, Dean brought his mental health into question with a not-so-presidential tantrum that revealed adangerously imbalanced inner-child. "Buyer's remorse" doesn't begin to describe how Democrats from Al "Hands of Stone" Gore to the union leadership of SEIU and AFSCME to Dean's starry-eyed precinct workers must feel.

Albert has suggest that Dean survives to fight another day. Others, like New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson are arguing for a long race now that Dean has been dethroned. I beg to differ. John Kerry is 7/8ths of the way up the greasy poll now. The Washington Post reported this morning that Kerry enjoys a 70 percent favorable rating in New Hampshire which offers a lot of room for mind-changing among electibility-minded Democrats previously smitten by Dean. So, let's give Kerry a win in New Hampshire that effectively knocks Dean out of the race and exposes Wes Clark for the empty uniform he is. The long-race theory then holds that Kerry has "nowhere to go" because he mortgaged himself, literally, to win Iowa. This ignores the fact that once critical mass is reached (in Fred Barne's phrase) momentum trumps organization and a campaign begin to live off the land. Think Sherman's March to the Sea. Everyone, except Kerry, is off balance trying to absorb the abrupt change in terrain. Kerry, on the other hand, is vote scooping in a Democratic electorate that now has a potential nominee who has shown he can take a punch and is broadly acceptable to the country. If the Democrats ever needed a reason to love the Iowa flatlanders, this is it. Residual common sense has rescued them from the fate of nominating a rage-monkey for president.

The Kerry surge calls for some rather quick recalibration on the part of the Bush team. We now are up against a prize fighter instead of flaky weirdo. Kerry voted for the war and for the Iraq reconstruction package which, along with his Vietnam service, goes a long way toward innoculating him agains the charge of being soft on national security. As a liberal Democrat, he will have boatloads of proposals for government fine-tuning the economy and improving health care and education. Those are the pluses. The minuses are, well, that he is a U.S. Senator with thousands of votes to be scrutinized, misrepresented and exploited, and a rather wooden speaking style ("Sad-tree," as Albert's father describes him.) The infamous return of his Congressional Medal of Honor and dissembling over that event will be up for re-examination. The bottom line, however, is that President Bush must now run on his own accomplishments rather than against Dean's obvious loopiness. That will be a much tougher race to make.

I was going to do a bit of a shout out for the Eve of St. Agnes but as Enoch Soames has beat me to it, I'll simply send you along to his page. I found Keats' little letter quite amusing, as he can be a bit of a sugarplum himself, especially when compared to the more mature charms of Messrs. Donne and Herbert, but nonetheless what a sugarplum he was.

If you're looking for more to read on this bitter chill evening, after the SOTU, and in light of the musings below on the anti-American English, I happily refer you to an Irish writer's musings upon the nature of Americans (and also the English), namely Oscar Wilde's The Canterville Ghost.

As the good Doctor has expressed on many occasions his fondness for cocktails, perhaps he would care to make Infusion his signature scent. As for me, I'm going to stick with Channel No. 5.

Morning After

Wow, was that ever a good game...I mean primary. Caucus.

I'm still sticking with my Grand Narrative of Election 2004. Sure, Howard has shown that he is as crazy as a bedbug with that "concession" or "victory" speech. But Howard has staying power. Dr. Potomac will no doubt be soon sending me a memo on how things will shake out. I anticipate that there will be much discussion of Michigan.

We now rely upon the Doc to give us the view from the icy ground of New Hampshire. Surely he can take time from his busy schedule to attend at least one Clark rally...

Oh, go ahead Doc, poor salt in our wounds.

It was a dead boring game, as well. But it is simply further confirmation that God has a wonderful plan for Philadelphia, which involves a hell of a lot of chastisement. What, however, we have done to deserve becoming the Buffalo Bill's of the 21st century, I can't imagine.

As for the other great athletic contest, the Democratic Primary, I don't care what Andrew Sullivan is saying: Dean is going to win the nomination. I have to nail my colours to the mast because I just bet the pater familias a princely sum to that effect.

Remember that a guy by the name of Clinton lost Iowa, and then New Hampshire...and still won, back when pundits like to smugly opine that no man had ever won the presidency without winning New Hampshire. Yah, well, like most of the statistics they fill time with during a football game, that meant: absolutely nothing.

What will happen is a great big media feeding frenzy, great frothing of water, much churning of blood, talk of John Edwards' surge, Wes Clark's lunacy, John Kerrey's stoic determination, blah, blah, blah...and then Howard Dean will still have the nomination.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

What a glorious morning, eh? For Patriots fans that is. For Eagles fans, well, not so good. Two trips to the Super Bowl in three years, three trips in eight years. One of the four best defenses ever, and if they win in two weeks (making it 15 games in a row) they'll be regarded as one of the best NFL teams ever.

On another note, I've never been one to appreciate the need or appeal of motivational speakers or sayings. Some people need it, I suppose, but I've never needed someone to explain to me that work gets you closer to goals, that you need goals, that failure is necessary, etc. Not only are those things trite, they seem completely obvious and rather silly to point out. Yet everywhere there are little "buck-up, you-can-do-it" signs, quotes, and "human interest" stories (which annoy the hell out of me -- are there such things as stories that are not of "human interest?"). Well, Louis Bayard says it all for me in the Post. They are founded on the faith that our dreary existences can, with a well-timed nudge, be made worthy of even the most rigorous high-school-reunion inspection. But ask yourself. Is your life richer for Scandinavian sayings and the truisms of steel magnates or the tossed-off crumbs of Victorian essayists? Are we now a better people? Why haven't all the millions of desk calendars and motivational brochures and Successories posters eliminated poverty, racism, war, Paris Hilton? Why isn't each and every one of us leaving big honking footprints in the sands of time?

Could it be that, despite all the unsolicited inspiration we're getting from every side, some fundamental part of us remains . . . unimprovable?

Perhaps, instead of the MQs (motivational quotes, as Bayard calls them) we should have DORQs (Dose of Reality quotes) from the Book of Ecclesiastes posted on doors and desks:

One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.

That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.

Would people stop striving and mope, or just understand the context of striving and battle on?

Chronicles of Wretched Excess, con't.

An incredible story in the Monday, January 5 Washington Post. I should have linked to it long before. It's a parody, I think, except it's written as a straight news story.

It's titled "Dream Homes Come with Rural Wake-Up Call: Lured by Large Va. Lots, Many Find Big Challenges." If you grew up in the country, even on a hobby farm, it's a hilarious, hilarious piece. And kind of sickening, too.

As best as I can make out, certain suburbanites are a little unhinged when they get out to the depths of Loudoun County. They discover that it's dark, for one thing. And there are lots of, you know, strange noises. It's hard to feel secure when it's dark and strangely noisy, especially when it costs so much money to install a security system for an 8,000 square foot house with a wraparound deck and fifty windows. The golf game suffers, because the landscapers for $20,000 left you eight acres of lawn, and it takes a while to mow. And those lawns just don't look right; they're all...crooked.

Really, you cannot make this stuff up. America! What a wonderful country! The human comedy never stops!

Note the picture, btw, of the spacious home of one of these uneasy denizens of the countryside. It's the same kind of hideous crap that they build in the inner suburbs. Sigh. I guess it was too much to expect that developers or their clients would get taste during their move to the outback. They could by checking out this splendid site, that of an architect who believes in beauty more than he does in square feet.

We should offer some sort of prize for the person that can think of the best name for these ten acre estates. David Brooks has come up with Bobo's for the Charlottesville or urban hipsters, Sprinkler City for the vast exurbs, and Patio Man for the conservative denizen of Sprinkler City. Who are these people? Rural Retreaters, perhaps? Naw, there's got to be something better than that...