Rain, Silliness Pound Mid-Atlantic

Tropical Storm Ernesto, despite its lack of hurricane status, is dumping large quantities of badly needed rain on the mid-Atlantic this morning. The sudden cooling seems to have unblocked my cranial logjam, and now I'm deciding which of a half-dozen topics I can't leave for last.

The race to fill the Senate seat being vacated by Paul Sarbanes is at the top of my talking points this morning, because the crowded Democrat field has pulled into the final two weeks of the primary campaign sounding more like Monty Python than The West Wing. Polls, pundits, and common sense all converge on the reality of a two-man race between Kweisi Mfume and Ben Cardin, but that doesn't stop the also-rans from demanding attention.

Last night, the Maryland League of Women Voters sponsored a debate among the Democrats, but only the aforementioned two met their established criterion of polling at least 15% support in the weeks before the debate. Three minor candidates noisily and publicly protested the decision at a public rally in Annapolis, but the League stood firm.

Allan Lichtman tried to make the most of the situation, but it may just have backfired on him. Lichtman is probably the only one of the minor candidates anyone outside Maryland has ever heard of. If he stuck to his day job, as a history professor at American University, you wouldn't have heard of him either. But Lichtman is also that cable TV talking head with the annoying voice and the weird hair, who shows up regularly on CNN and MSNBC, flogging his goofy "Keys" system of predicting election results (not to be confused with Alan Keyes, who is another bizarrerie of Maryland politics). He has never polled higher than 3%, he had raised less than $300,000 in a race where one of his junior league competitors has spent $5 million of his own money, and unless he's certifiably insane he could never have regarded this race as anything but a publicity stunt.



(Despite the evidence of your own eyes, these gentlemen are not, left to right, Tim Gunn of Project Runway and Michael Kinsley of Crossfire being studiously ignored by Senate candidate Allan Lichtman. They are Senate candidate Dennis F. Rasmussen and Senate candidate Josh Rales being studiously ignored by Senate candidate Allan Lichtman.)

He's got publicity now. The three excluded candidates reappeared at the debate site in Owings Mills, and Lichtman brought a posse that included his wife, Karyn Strickland. For years, Strickland was head of Maryland NARAL, and no doubt she has much experience of her own in staging political protest stunts. So when the Baltimore County police moved in to arrest the party for criminal trespass she shouted out advice on the proper response, advice that was captured by local radio reporters and played nonstop on the AM airwaves this morning.

Lichtman will never, I predict, be able to live down the fact that he is the man whose wife stood on the steps of the Maryland Public Television studios and bellowed: "Allan, go limp! Allan!! Go limp!!!"

The only possible career move for him now is to film a Viagra ad with Bob Dole.

Possible Prez Candidate Appears in Online Video Game

Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner (D) yesterday appeared in a popular on-line video game, the user-created online world Second Life. Wagner James Au reports in New World Notes that staff members of Warner's exploratory campaign staff contacted him to ask if he'd "be interested in interviewing Governor Warner in Second Life."

Au reports on how it came about:

“Well,” Nancy Mandelbrot (RL info here) explains, “we were sitting in our offices one day and kind of goofing around, just geeking out about social technologies, gaming, that sort of thing, as we're wont to do. Someone made a joke about how great it would be if we brought an avatar of Governor Warner into Second Life.

“When we all quit laughing, we kind of looked around and said, ‘Hey, that's not a bad idea.’

“One of Governor Warner's operating principles is to go where the voters are,” she continues, “not make them come to you. We saw how rich an environment [SL] was. I mean, you can sit next to someone's avatar, strike up a conversation, and forget that you're not in the same room. We started to see that in Second Life, people can get together and talk politics with other folks without the obstacles of real life.”

Au, known as Hamlet in Second Life, agreed to interview Warner on the site, "But it’s still a bit vertiginous to be in-world standing there in front of the avatar of a man that leading Democratic Party financier Chris Korge (speaking to Bai) pronounced as, '[T]he one to watch as an outsider in this race. He seems presidential.' ”

The proprietors of the site are understandably excited about Warner's appearance in the online world, and are characterizing it as a history-making event. However, it is nothing of the sort.

Instead of slaying a gigantic robot or inventing a new kind of staple food, Warner's avatar simply sits in a comfy chair and answers questions about contemporary politics in the former governor's usual smarmy way.

The interview shows conclusively that politicians are politicians whatever the medium, and that empty suits are empty suits even when they're computer-generated.

From Karnick on Culture

UK Cracks Down on Violent Pornography

The United Kingdom is cracking down on violent pornography, after a campaign led by the family of a 31-year-old teacher killed by a man obsessed with watching websites showing necrophilia.

The Home Office said on Wednesday that it will "make it an offence to own images featuring scenes of extreme sexual violence," according to Reuters:

The new law would outlaw any material that featured violence that was, or appeared to be, life-threatening or likely to result in serious and disabling injury.

This type of material was already illegal in the United Kingdom, but websites were ignoring the law and the government was doing nothing about it:

Although it is already illegal to distribute or publish such images under the Obscene Publications Act, the material has become increasingly available via the Internet.

"The vast majority of people find these forms of violent and extreme pornography deeply abhorrent," Coaker said.

"Such material has no place in our society but the advent of the Internet has meant that this material is more easily available and means existing controls are being by-passed -- we must move to tackle this."

Presumably, the government will now enforce the law. We'll see.

From Karnick on Culture.

Religion And Polity

Two commentators of great skill, Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute and Professor Michael Pakaluk of Clark University, appear to have "squared off" over how great an influence religious faith and its expression should have on political discourse. Miss MacDonald's article takes a strong secular position, whereas Pakaluk's adopts a position more favorable toward traditional public invocations of faith. Both evince considerable passion, both mount elegant arguments, and both miss the point.

The brilliant Michael Novak, America's foremost thinker on the interface between religion and politics, recently responded to a challenge from Miss MacDonald that Christianity prove its claims to truth:

Mac Donald is right to demand as much.

Either the Catholic Church (to stick to what I know best) is true, or it isn’t. That’s where the Church makes its stand. (As Lenny Bruce used to joke, “It is the only one true church.”) It can do no other, for the name it accepts for God is that God is “Spirit and Truth.” The very first commandment, handed on to the church by Judaism, is “thou shalt not have false gods before me.” Between false gods and the true God the decisive point is truth.

The significance of Novak's approach will be lost on many persons of our time, mostly because of the shallowness of contemporary education. Any religion that addresses the great questions of the human experience must deliver answers that, at the very least, do not require us to accept demonstrably false statements. If a creed's claims are consistent with the truths revealed by reality, it may get a respectful hearing. Of course, with the passage of time, Mankind becomes more capable of testing such claims; accordingly, a faith that appeared consistent with temporal reality in year X might not look so good in year X+100, or X+1000. But that's built into the nature of intellectual inquiry.

The two great Thomases, Aquinas and Jefferson, agreed that true religion does not demand that the mind accept absurdities, Tertullian's nonsense notwithstanding. In other words, they conceded that the evidence of the world around us, delivered through our sense organs and the instruments we build to extend them, is primary; it trumps theories of all kinds, not merely scientific ones. Neither Hillel nor Christ uttered a single word to dispute them.

Wherefor, then, the wrangle over the political admissibility of faith? Politics -- "the art of the possible" -- is concerned with achieving particular conditions and results in this world. Politicians have unlearned the nasty habit of predicting that their opponents will roast in Hell; among other things, the concomitant lip-smacking tends to leave spots on one's tie. More important, the temporal world operates according to strict rules of cause and effect, without regard for one's faith. A political platform that promises results of some kind because God, if properly petitioned and propitiated, will intervene to deliver them is massively presumptuous, to put it mildly.

The great orators of America's past were sensible enough to confine their public religious statements to expressions of faith and gratitude. Those who argued for this or that policy or program "because God wants it that way" are less well remembered. But conversely, secular sorts were once far less disposed to take offense at public figures' expressions of faith in or gratitude to God. Our contemporary anti-theists have turned militant, as if for President Bush to quote Isaiah or cite Christ as his favorite philosopher were somehow a mandate laid upon them as well. That's a modern vice which we would do well to unlearn.

Well, As Long As We're Being Shameless...

...perhaps the new guy can get away with inviting The Reform Club's readers to peruse this brief disquisition on classical liberalism and constitutionalism.

(It struck me as a bit discursive for this site.)

Glenn Ford and the American Character

Actor Glenn Ford died yesterday at the age of 90 after a long career in the movies and television. Perhaps best known to modern audiences as Clark Kent's father in Richard Donner's Superman—The Movie, Ford made a solid career as a leading man despite a near-complete lack of charisma and magnetism.

Ford's stolid, mature persona contrasted greatly with those of popular contemporaries such as Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and James Dean who valued a high degree of explicit emotional expression. Ford could show passion when called upon, as in the suspense film Ransom (remade in 1996 as a Mel Gibson vehicle) and the drama The Blackboard Jungle, but even in those cases his stoicism is what we remember most vividly.

Ford's characters often had serious flaws—such as stubbornness, irresponsibility, jealousy, and lack of intelligence—and these flaws led to interesting moral complexities in his best films. In both his virtues and his flaws, Ford represented a strong strain of the American character—the adventurousness, the uncompromising striving for rectitude, and the relentless and often disorganized pursuit of what is right and good in life.

Ford's best films and most memorable performances admirably reflect this complex set of attributes: classic crime dramas such as Gilda, The Big Heat, and Experiment in Terror;The Man from the Alamo, westerns such as 3:10 to Yuma, The Desperados, Cimarron, and The Violent Men; dramas such as Trial, The Blackboard Jungle, and The Brotherhood of the Bell; films in which he played contemptible villains as in The Man from Colorado; crazy comedies such as The Gazebo and The Teahouse of the August Moon, and many others.

He was a man who made the most of his talents and opportunities.

Commemorating 9/11

The TV networks will be doing a significant amount of programming commemorating the forthcoming 5th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

ABC has produced a four-hour docudrama, The Path to 9/11, which is based on the government report on the attack and helps explain how the attack happened. After the second, concluding episode of the miniseries, ABC will air a special edition of Primetime hosted by Charlie Gibson. Good Morning, America, World News, and Nightline will also cover the story.

NBC will run a number of programs, including coverage on the Today show. The network will rerun in primetime several programs originally aired in 2001. MSNBC and CNBC will present programs as well, but nobody will watch them.

CBS will air an updated version of the documentary 9/11 on Sunday evening, and on Sept. 6 will present an hour-long, primetime special, Five Years Later: How Safe Are We? (My guess: they'll conclude that we've been demn lucky, not smart.) In the special, Katie Couric will interview President Bush. Hilarity ensues when Couric takes offense to the President calling her Elfy and giving her a whopping great noogie.

From Karnick on Culture.

CBS Does Its Part

A Proper Response

Some years ago, at the conclusion of an essay on competitive monies and monetary reform, economist Pamela Brown of Auburn University quoted Brian Loasby's statement in Choice, Complexity, and Ignorance that "competition is a proper response to ignorance." This concept can be traced back through several economic minds, including Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek. The central filament of the thing is, of course, that the results of free-market competition in the provision of some good or service cannot be predicted ab initio, the presumptions of statists and monopolists notwithstanding.

Today, John Stossel at Jewish World Review makes a vital connection to America's preeminent ignorance factory:

When a government monopoly limits competition, we can't know what ideas would bloom if competition were allowed. Surveys show that most American parents are satisfied with their kids' public schools, but that's only because they don't know what their kids might have had!

Surveys taken in various parts of the nation indicate that the average high-school graduate of our time is less knowledgeable, particularly in the politically critical fields of American and world history, than an eighth grader of a century ago. The need for such graduates to take remedial classes in English composition and mathematics as college freshmen is a well known national ignominy. The persistent inability of college graduates to express themselves clearly and coherently in the workplace speaks even more eloquently about the low standard of performance to which we hold our expensive educational institutions.

This has been going on, and getting worse, since World War II. You'd think we didn't know any better...or didn't want to.

Yet the major educrats' union, the National Education Association, maintains a stout barrier against educational competition of any sort: vouchers, tuition tax credits, open enrollment among public schools, or any other alternative. The NEA's ability to galvanize its two-million-plus members to fight initiatives toward that end has defeated school choice proposals in state after state. It's also thwarted the expansion of pilot choice programs such as those established in Cleveland and Florida. It routinely wins the support of state Departments of Education, which should surprise no one. Today, it fights most fiercely against measures intended to ease the burdens of homeschooling families, an option it has impeded but failed to criminalize...so far.

Sure sounds as if there's something the NEA doesn't want us to know, doesn't it? Which explains a lot about the erudition level of our kids, when you think about it. But Americans don't like to be kept in the dark. When we discover that someone in authority has been hiding something from us, we tend to take it badly. The more important the subject, the worse we take it.

So: When confronted by a gigantic, very wealthy union determined to keep you and your children ignorant, what would you deem a proper response?

Of Vikings and Christians: A TRC Emeritus Post

I came out of semi-retirement just to put you on the scent of a remarkable author, the intrepid Lutheran (ya listenin' Sam?) Lars Walker. I already posted about him at TAS and Southern Appeal, but I couldn't bear thinking any of the TRCers might miss out.

It happens every once in a while. You discover something that is really special, that should be incredibly successful, but unaccountably, isn’t. A very well read friend made me aware of the fiction of Lars Walker. He writes mostly about Vikings during the period when Christianity contended with pagan religions, but he also has a contemporary novel (which happens to deal with Viking lore!).

I cannot give a high enough recommendation to Lars Walker’s The Year of the Warrior. I had to wait for it, but it was completely worth the wait. The narrator of the story is a young Irishman taken captive to sell as a slave by Vikings. They give him a tonsure to make him look like a priest so he’ll fetch a higher price. A newly converted Viking nobleman buys him because he needs a priest for his village. The Irishman decides to play the part of the priest in order to survive and the action flows from there.

Wonderful historical saga. Interesting insights about the Christian faith and its relationship to political power. Some beautiful battle sequences, too. Fully developed characters. Worth reading in every way.

So why the lack of bestseller status? I have a guess. The Lars Walker novels are published by Baen, which really specializes in sword and sorcery/science fiction. The covers of the Walker books have that look to them, but they are actually much deeper. I think the normal Baen reader is disappointed by the lack of standard genre stuff when they buy the book. But you, dear reader, will not be disappointed. You shall be blessed.

Baby Poop Art

In our ongoing Everything Happens in the Omniculture department, E! Online reports that a bronze sculpture purporting to be the first solid poop from Tom and Katie Cruise's daughter, Suri, goes on display today at a Brooklyn, NY, art musuem.

Yes, but is it Art?

Short answer: No

Of course, the museum makes a nice excuse for it, as E! reports:

"It's partially a statement on modern media that 'celebrity poop' has more entertainment value than health, famine or other critical issues facing society and governments today," the Capla [Museum] crew said in a statement, "and also the absurdity of the media coverage on Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' new baby, Suri Cruise, which has reached stellar proportions, eclipsing far more notable events with more substance."

Yes, a comment on modern media. Thanks for that. Without a sculpture of baby poop, we would never have known that the modern media are superficial—and that modern museums are so much better.

From Karnick on Culture.

Re-Colonizing China

Yes, China took over Hong Kong, but it may well be that Hong Kong's former colonizer, Great Britain, is about to take over China—through the media.

Variety reports that the BBC has established a content-provision deal with Chinese broadcasters, through which the Beeb will provide drama programs to more than 300 local and regional channels, including outlets in Beijing and Shanghai. In addition, the latest season of David Attenborough's BBC program Life in the Undergrowth, which will be shown on the national network China Central Television.

The Chinese will be playing cricket and stopping for afternoon tea before you know it.

From Karnick on Culture.

Hong Kong Entertainers Protest Invasions of Privacy; Seek Government's Help

A protest movement in Hong Kong (led by one of my favorite entertainment figures, Jackie Chan), sheds light on some interesting differences between America's wide-open Omniculture and other, politically different places, and also on a conflict endemic to modern societies and which will surely become increasingly thorny.

AP reports:

Jackie Chan and fellow stars marched silently Tuesday to Hong Kong's government headquarters, protesting against a gossip magazine that featured a cover photo of a pop singer changing backstage.

The celebrities, wearing black T-shirts, handed over a petition denouncing the photos that were secretly taken of Hong Kong pop singer Gillian Chung, part of the popular female duo Twins. The stars urged the government to tighten laws governing racy publications.

Chung was shown adjusting her bra backstage after a concert in Malaysia's Genting Highlands. It appeared on the cover of the current issue of Easy Finder weekly.

That is what's considered racy over there, in terms of open publication at least. And in great contrast to America's entertainment community, which perpetually worries that the nation is sliding down a slippery slope to imminent federal censorship of entertainment (an entirely absurd notion), the Hong Kong entertainers and members of the public are actually calling for the government to step in and stop certain types of publication:

The photos have sparked a major backlash. Government regulators have received a deluge of complaints. Hong Kong's Obscene Articles Tribunal has classified the magazine issue "indecent," which could lead to prosecution. Chan and fellow stars attended a TV special protesting the photos Monday.

Hong Kong leader Donald Tsang spoke out against the photos Tuesday.

"I identify with society's strong criticism of these tactics," he said.

I'm not familiar with Hong Kong's constitution, but I suppose that like that of its former parent Great Britain, and very much like that of its new overseer, China, it does not have press protections nearly as universal as those in our First Amendment (and even ours does not protect obscenity, although the Supreme Court has effectively defined the latter out of existence). Hong Kong journalists, in any case, disagree with the entertainers:

Journalists have opposed restrictions on their coverage as a threat to press freedom. Legal reforms propose banning secret surveillance by private parties, but the government is still considering the recommendations.

Chan acknowledges that celebrities are news and should expect to be treated as such:

Asked if he wants to see paparazzi photos banned completely, Chan said he believed celebrities should be held accountable for their actions.

Chan correctly observes, however, that invasions of privacy that would be illegal when done to noncelebrities should be illegal for everybody:

"As public figures, we should allow our pictures to be taken. If we crash our cars when we're drunk, it serves us right. People should scold us. But for a girl to be photographed when she's in a changing room, such a private place, is despicable behavior," he said.

AP reports that Hong Kong publications have indeed been closed down for such activities:

Eastweek magazine was shut down amid the backlash after publishing on its cover a photo of a visibly distressed, seminude female star, widely reported to be Carina Lau, in October 2002.

Eastweek was then owned by businessman Albert Yeung, who controls Chung's record label EEG. It was later reopened under new ownership.

Certainly nothing like that is apt to happen here, although on the state level it would be perfectly constitutional, and on the federal level it would likewise be constitutionally acceptable in response to publications that traffic in obscenity. But even so, it won't happen in the foreseeable future. (Note that I'm not advocating any particular policy in this situation but merely pointing out the constitutional issues.)

American entertainers complain about papparazzi, understandably, and they would certainly like to see local governments step in to ensure that people are prevented from intruding too greatly into their lives. (And I agree with them on that.) Even so, it is very difficult to imagine Hollywood entertainers calling for the government to attack the problem by suppressing the publications in which the photos appear. Well, impossible, really.

This is a very interesting controversy because it places in stark terms our current cultural conflict over what is public and what is private as media penetration into our lives becomes increasingly ubiquitous. It involves an endless series of tradeoffs, to which I think there will never be any easy, conclusive answer.

From Karnick on Culture.

Still More Shameless Self-Promotion

Here is my op-ed from today's Orange County Register on global warming and the report of the California Climate Action Team. the editors butchered it a bit---The Little Ice Age ended, not entered, around 1850, and Alar is not a pesticide. But I think the points get across.

Comments welcome.

Self-Debasement Among the Campus Lefties

Awhile back the Brown Journal of World Affairs asked me for a paper---sorry, no honorarium--- on important problems looming for the Chinese economy. The paper is based upon a book (Fault Lines In China's Economic Terrain) that Charles Wolf Jr. and I and a couple of others wrote a few years ago. Anyway, I agreed to do it, as I truly am a moron still laboring under the illusion that the marketplace of ideas is something worthy of sacrifice; it took about two weeks of my time.

Sent the paper in, whereupon the editors began to "fix" it so that the writing style would appeal to above-average freshman. Anyway, I put the kibosh on most of those changes, but one change that they insisted upon reveals quite an interesting dynamic. One of the problems confronting the Chinese is the spread of HIV/AIDS; unlike the incidence of more-traditional diseases spread by various forms of pestilence---which the Chinese have done a remarkable job reducing--- HIV/AIDS presents formidable problems in substantial part because it is behavioral, that is, the incidence of the disease depends crucially on various risky types of behavior by individuals.

Well. This obvious truth---denied by no one anywhere---is too "sensitive," too "controversial," and might "anger" some readers, in particular, the homosexual lobby at Brown University. And so the editors demanded that HIV/AIDS not be described as a "behavioral" disease, even though that central reality is one important dimension of the problem faced by the Chinese government, as some of the policies implemented to reduce the spread of the infection will drive part of the affected population into the shadows. Their argument---believe it or not---is that any disease is in some sense behavioral, and so describing HIV/AIDS in that way conveys no useful information. Really? Malaria? Lymphatic Cancer? Etc. I am not making this up.

And so I told them not to publish the paper; I allowed them to waste two weeks of my time, but I will not allow them to impose upon me the asinine dogmas of political correctitude. And so the efforts of lefties to impose censorship is amusing indeed, particularly in the sense that defense of their position has led them to descend into such absurdities as the argument that HIV/AIDS is not behavioral. It just doesn't get any better than that.

More Shameless Self-Promotion

Here is my op-ed column from today's San Diego Union-Tribune, on Arnold's endorsement of price controls on pharmaceuticals. What a disaster he is.

Comments welcome.

Co-Evolution, A Coda: Voting Power

The possibility I broached yesterday that Joseph Lieberman might emerge from his current struggles more powerful than ever derives from a somewhat obscure study in finite mathematics called voting power.

In a situation whose outcome is to be decided by a vote, a participant's voting power is the percent of possible vote configurations in which his is the deciding vote -- in other words, the relative frequency with which he would effectively pick the winner. Even static voting tableaus can be fascinating in this regard. Consider, for example, a committee of four persons, whose chairman is empowered to break ties. The chairman's voting power is three times that of any other committee member, a result that's not intuitively obvious from the simple statement of the rules.

Voting-power studies get really interesting when time, coalition dynamics, and horsetrading are included. If the stakes in a given contest are perceived to be high, as the hour of decision approaches the price of a "swing" vote can rise dramatically, which is why persons of, let us say, flexible convictions tend to keep their options open until the last possible moment. Other things being equal, the longer the bidding war goes on, the higher the final bid will be.

It's that "other things being equal" part that bedevils analysts of Congressional hijinx. For the bidding never really ends, nor is any person's vote irretrievably locked down until it's actually been cast. As the price of a swing vote rises, persons whom one had deemed committed might reassess their positions, and decide to "put themselves on the market." The political rationale is always expressed in terms of relative gains, losses, and priorities: "Well, yes, I'd have to trade away my opposition to X, but look at all the concessions I could get on Y, Z, and Q!" The increase in the supply of votes for sale would depress their price, as an increase in supply always does.

You might not think like that. Politicians do. Never doubt it. Whatever his party alignment, religious affiliation, or avowed political ideology, one must always assume that Legislator Smith can be bought, if the price is right.

We're likely to get some examples of this in the coming fracas over Ambassador John Bolton. Objectively, Bolton is everything one could wish for in an ambassador: candid about his views, fearless before any and all opposition, and devoted to representing American interests. But Bolton is a Bush Administration nominee, and will therefore be fought bitterly by Senate Democrats despite his evident merits. It's odds-on that the excessively spending-friendly Republican caucus will attempt to buy a few Democratic votes with offers to logroll on other subjects. If the game becomes obvious, quite a few Democrats, who have no real objection to Ambassador Bolton, will offer to break ranks for the right subvention.

Any bets on where the mass media will locate the odium for such unprincipled dealing?

Which brings us back to Joseph Lieberman, the only Democrat to speak strongly against the conduct of Bill Clinton during Clinton's trial before the Senate. Senator Lieberman was scathing about Clinton's moral deficits...yet he voted to acquit the president, who had admitted lying to a grand jury, to Congress, and to the American people.

Media profiles of the senator have unanimously praised his moral seriousness and integrity. Perhaps different standards must be applied to politicians. But one cannot help wondering whether the GOP caucus failed to approach Lieberman, failed to meet his asking price, or whether the Clintons outbid them, with the payment to come at the 2000 Democratic National Convention. After all, there are no higher stakes than those in a removal trial before the Senate.

You Heard It Here First . . .

Regular readers of Karnick on Culture and TRC will recall that your faithful correspondent stated last week that Paramount's willingness to let Tom Cruise's production company leave the company lot had nothing to do with Cruise's strange behavior in recent years and everything to do with simple economics:

Cruise's deal at Paramount was on very good terms for him, which means it was expensive for the studio—more than $10 million a year. Cruise's representatives say that Paramount made an offer to Cruise to keep his production company on Paramount's lot, but the offer was significantly less money than the Cruise's company had been receiving, so they decided to shop around for private financing. This is not unusual: the Hollywood studios have been slashing costs recently, especially payments to big stars such as Cruise. A slowing of growth in DVD sales has certainly contributed to this trend.

[T]his parting of the ways was really just a bottom-line, cost-cutting business decision on Paramount's part. . . .

It made sense for Paramount to try to get Cruise to sign a less expensive deal and, failing that, to let him leave.

An article in today's New York Times agrees with my thesis:

Is Sumner M. Redstone crazy like a fox?

Movie industry executives may be forgiven for thinking that the Viacom chairman was mad to let Tom Cruise go after a 14-year relationship simply because Mr. Cruise seemed a little off balance. After all, the movies made by Viacom’s Paramount Pictures studio and the actor’s production company earned more than $2.5 billion at the box office.

Yet, if you ask economists and other academics that study the movie industry, Mr. Redstone’s decision was, in financial terms, spot on. The best reason to get rid of Mr. Cruise or, for that matter, Mel Gibson, or Lindsay Lohan, is not their occasional aberrant behavior. They, like most marquee names in Hollywood, are simply not worth the expense.

“Who knows what went through Mr. Redstone’s mind?” said Jehoshua Eliashberg, a professor of marketing, operations and information management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “But one can’t discard that the reason is that it doesn’t make economic sense to pay him all this money.”

It's good to see the Times echoing our analysis. It's an interesting article with some very good insights into "superstar economics" and Hollywood finance.

From Karnick on Culture.

Emmy Thoughts

I watched a few minutes of the Emmy Awards ceremony last night on NBC. Some thoughts:

• It was good to see Tony Shaloub win an award for his acting in Monk. Shaloub gave a mildly humorous speech and seems an immensely likeable person.
• Conan O'Brien is a truly scary-looking individual but is rather amusing. The opening song and dance sequence was as tedious and embarrassing as these usually are. When will awards show producers realize that bad production numbers presented with irony are still bad?
  
• Bob Newhart is still one of the funniest men alive. His subtle, intelligent brand of humor is hugely appealing in this time of general raucousness in American comedy.
• TV producers must be incredible skinflints, as they obviously do not pay their actresses enough money so that the ladies can afford complete dresses. Many of the gowns on display last night seemed to consist of little more than a few square feet of very sheer fabric. Of course, for those of us who happen to be red-blooded American males, this is a good thing.
  
• It was pleasing to see 24 win for Best Drama Series and Kiefer Sutehrland win for Best Actor (or Outstanding Performance or whatever they're calling it these days). 24 was an innovative show during its first couple of years, and its use of an overarching story line over the course of a season has been much imitated since. In addition, for all the implausibility and melodrama that presses its outlandish storylines forward, the show works very well as a romance fiction, and it is always full of interesting ideas and themes.

From Karnick on Culture.

The Decline of the University Press

After finishing an article, I once decided to treat myself to a visit to the local Borders to buy a book. But I was so dismayed at what Borders had up in their entryway, that I turned around and left. Most appalling to me were the "hack books," the partisan political books that deserve little more than a good pulping. (Think Al Franken, Bill O'Reilly, and, yes, Ann Coulter). So it's pretty dismaying to me that Princeton University Press has decided to publish Sidney Blumenthal's book How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime, which is little more (according to the book description) than a collection of his columns for Britain's Guardian newspaper. It's dismaying because UPs are supposed to be a bit different, they're supposed to be publishing scholarship. Now, I know that there's plenty of hackery disguised as scholarship - and most of it of a rather unthinking lefty bent - but this seems like a real step down for a University Press. Princeton can - and should - do better.

Georgetown Rejects Evangelical Groups

Inside Higher Ed reports that Georgetown has told six evangelical groups, including InterVarsity Fellowship, that they have lost their recognized status on campus, meaning that they can't organize Bible studies, hold worship services, participiate in student organization fairs, etc. Georgetown says that it's just an "administrative" move designed to streamline ministries on campus, but I don't believe it for a minute. Most university chaplaincies don't much like evangelical groups, staffed as they are (on the Protestant side, at least) by liberals. As an alum, I've sent a note to the chaplain involved and I'll let you know what she says.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Fran Porretto

Your new favorite blog proudly welcomes Francis W. Porretto today as a contributor. Dr. ("Don't Call Me "Dr.") Porretto's Ph.D. is in astrophysics, which should come in handy with some of the spacy ideas that fly in and out of here.

Fran lives on Long Island, is a husband and a father of two, and has dedicated his massive brainpower to defending Western Civilization not just as an engineer in the defense industry, but as the intellectual idol of millions at his own blog, Eternity Road, to which Fran will continue to post and to which we've added a link.

Mr. Porretto also maintains an 11,000-volume library at his country manor, so it's tough to slip anything by him. He's also been known to author up fiction in a panoply of genres, although he assures us that anything he writes here you can take to the bank. I've had no reason to doubt him, except when he describes himself as "bizarre but harmless."

Bizarre perhaps, but this is a very dangerous man, and we're very glad to have him. Welcome aboard, Fran, and cheers also to your faithful readers who've come over to see what other mischief you've got yourself into.

The Co-Evolution Quadrennial

The "buzz" over Joseph Lieberman and his decision to run as an independent against Ned Lamont, who defeated him in the Democratic primary for United States Senator from Connecticut, has been an amusing and misleading thing. The "netroots" -- Deaniac, DailyKos, and HuffingtonPost types -- who backed anti-war Lamont are furious that Lieberman, a well known and popular incumbent, should be outpolling their preferred candidate. Conservatives have been chortling over the debacle, which, if it plays out as it now appears destined to do, will preserve a reliably pro-Iraqi Freedom / Bush Doctrine senatorial vote while sticking a thumb in the eye of the most irritating sorts on the liberal Left. Other Democratic figures of note have been cautious in their statements on the matter, with few exceptions. Lieberman has considerable support from both sides of the aisle; if he succeeds in retaining his seat, it is not inconceivable that he could exact a price from those who backed Lamont against him during the primary campaign.

What's missing from this painting in primary colors is a candid assessment of the senator himself, of his motives, and of the three-sided war within the Democratic Party for whose outcome this contest is a straw in the wind.

Lieberman is no conservative. His voting record has received a 90% approval rating from the socialist Americans for Democratic Action; only two sitting senators stand higher in their esteem. He's on record as having stated that a legislated cap on corporate profits would be a desirable thing. Needless to say for a Democrat of national profile, he's publicly pro-abortion and a defender of the government-school educracy.

But it wasn't always that way.

Before his selection as Al Gore's running mate in 2000, Lieberman was vocally anti-abortion; he also advocated school choice, including some form of vouchers. He flipped on these things for the 2000 presidential contest, and strove to downplay his earlier stances. When observers questioned how he could square these new positions with his Orthodox Judaism, of which so much had been made at the time of his nomination, he demurred, saying that he wasn't Orthodox, just "observant."

Joseph Lieberman, whatever else he might be or claim to be, is a politician. That is, he's animated primarily by the desire for the power, prestige, and perquisites of high office.

A politician will always feel an urge to trim his sails to the prevailing winds. The democratic mechanism gives trimmers a powerful advantage over those who refuse to "evolve" in the quest for public acclaim. Also, the Democratic Party's embrace of special-interest coalition politics has made the allegiance of certain groups, particularly the National Education Association and the NARAL / NOW pro-abortion coalition, something they cannot afford to risk. The dynamics of the situation would torment any man who aspires to high office, no matter how strong his convictions.

The best plausible outcome of the Connecticut Senatorial race for the country would be for Lieberman to retain his seat, but not because the incumbent's convictions or character are orders of magnitude more wholesome than Lamont's or those of GOP challenger Alan Schlesinger. If Lieberman should win and Democrats should have to decide how or whether to make peace with him, the fault lines that divide the Kennedy/Kerry faction, the Dean/"netroots" faction, and the Clinton/McAuliffe "pragmatic" faction will become vivid. For Lieberman, despite his vice-presidential run, belongs to none of them. Each will bid for his cooperation in its bid to control the party for the 2008 presidential run. As a former candidate for national office whose profile is now higher, both in recognition and in popular esteem, than his former running mate, his endorsement will be of great value during the 2008 primary season.

Everyone in this morality play is "evolving" as we speak: individual candidates, regional political alliances, and national factions vying for party hegemony. Each is a survival influence and constraint on all the others, which must decide in their various ways when to groom one another and when to bare their teeth. What rough beast, deeming 2008 its hour, will slouch toward Washington to be born remains to be seen.