Anarchy in the U.S.

Every now and again, I find myself astounded afresh that a Connecticut-born Yale alum with a summer home in Maine managed to re-invent himself as a Texan cowboy. And given a very long list of possible criticisms the press can choose to thrust on Mr. Bush, at the end of the day, they will still revert to that folksy-guy image that has proved to be such a lasting PR success.

The Economist published an interesting briefing of the “American right” a couple of weeks ago. It was suggested that more Americans happily label themselves as “conservative” than “liberal” (roughly 33% versus 20%). Of course, when you define conservatives as “God-fearing patriots who dislike big government and are tough on crime and national security,” it’s very easy to classify yourself as such: even I would do so. Maybe minus the “God-fearing” part. So that leaves liberals to be amoral atheists who love red tape and getting attacked by terrorists? That’s interesting.

It seems that very few Americans remember that conservatism used to equate to small government. Neither side of the spectrum appeals to the “bureaucracy is the problem, not the solution” school of thought nowadays. Strange, because there are countless examples to prove that axiom to be true, and not just during the reign of Bush junior. George Washington said over 200 years ago to avoid “entangling alliances” at all costs; today, that advice is neglected both US foreign and domestic policy.

Libertarians who choose to vote Republican often like to label liberals as “emotional” and “irrational.” But the fact of the matter is, Republicans don’t spend a lot of their time pandering to fiscal conservatives – those votes aren’t the ones that give them the edge. Instead, they spend their time on the campaign trail talking about gay marriage and abortion ruining American society. It’s the putative moral rhetoric that delivers the votes. Show me a socially liberal fiscal conservative that gets elected president by talking about letting free markets solve our problems, and then I might start to think otherwise. Until that day, both elephant and donkey are equally emotional and irrational in my book.

Top Trumps

Big news. I have a new favourite columnist.

The honour goes to Robert J. Samuelson of the Post.

Nick Kristof didn’t do himself any favours by first ignoring the human rights factor (which, accompanied by the persistent moral pleas, is what essentially drew me to his writing in the first place) in his comparison of China and India. Even worse was his assumption that if couples were given a choice, sexism would significantly impact the number of male versus female births in those countries, but not in America. He even stuck to this claim in his response to the comments on that particular column:

And in these troublesome ethical areas, I have a strong bias toward letting parents decide. That also explains why I would let parents use PGD to choose a boy or girl (in this country, though not in China or India because of the son preference in those countries).

As if the “son preference” is archaic in American culture.

In comparison, Samuelson mostly does an excellent job of balancing journalistic accountability with moral high ground, as evidenced by the column I referenced on Tuesday. This piece on climate change also attempts a reconciliation.

But the icing on the cake is this column. I absolutely love it.

Yeah, I’m a major nerd. But if you’re reading this, I’m going to go ahead and make the assumption that you like me because of – or in spite of – that fact.

Jana Gana Mana

Happy Swatantra Divas.

In honour of our Indian offshore teams who are doing on-site training, our desks have been decorated with miniature Indian flags! I’ll post pictures soon. Some of them have green on top. :-/ Still, it was a nice thought.

Also on the bulletin board: Balloons in the colours of the triranga along with a brief history and the Indian national anthem in Hindi, Bengali and English, complete with translation. Aw, I’m feeling a bit senti.

Upon observing all the festivity, one of my Indian friends, Swati, commented that “I think they’re feeling guilty about the tyranny.” Imagine a stampede of Indians, fuelled by a sudden jingoistic fever in the spirit of Independence Day, storming out screaming “DOWN WITH THE OPPRESSORS! WHY ARE WE HELPING THEM?”

Swati’s answer: “They pay better.”

Ah, of course. Silly me.

Antitrust!

Already not doing a good job of the consistent posting. Anyway…

I’m so upset that the NY Times has taken over the Freakonomics blog!

Sure, it’s great publicity for Levitt, Dubner and company, but they had such a cute and individualistic web space on their own. What was wrong with just mentioning the old site in the extremely exhaustive blog roll that the Times already touts?

There’s been much commentary on news conglomerates lately what with Mr. Murdoch’s acquisition of the WSJ. While I’m not one to have the knee-jerk reaction of “He’s going to turn the paper into the briefcase-friendly arm of Fox News”, I still find the merger and white-knight business disturbing when it has such profound effects on our news culture. Some time ago, I posted a link to a column where the author pondered whether it’s possible to reconcile business with journalistic integrity, and whether standards today are any lower than they were forty years ago. This particular writer concluded that the landscape is much the same as it used to be in terms of news content, despite transformations in the ways in which we receive our information. The gap between big business and quality journalism, however, was reduced to something of a myth due to snobbishness on the part of the press.

Is it, though? Maybe I have a rose-coloured view of American journalistic history as a child of immigrants who, in their youth, greatly admired the freedom of the American press. This is, of course, in comparison to a post-partition South Asian society struggling with the challenges of newfound independence. Still, allowing business principles to overwhelm our journalism just seems like bad news (please excuse the pun), and this time it’s not an issue of economic monopolization – though you could certainly make that case as well.

Instead, the important issue should be encouraging outlets for free thought through journalistic integrity, and trend of news conglomerates could significantly undermine that. I don’t think the Sulzbergers are necessarily poring over every line of Freakonomics looking to strike anything that they find disagreeable, but my fear is that the American news landscape will ultimately begin to mimic its political landscape: two giants, both polarizing, neither of which captures the whole story. They may change their slogans to adapt to the times, but at the end of the day, we are forced to choose one side or the other.

What can be done to make the mold more malleable, I wonder?

SIR -

It would seem that I’m incapable of writing more than 10 posts/month. That’s no good. I’ll change that this month.

So I found myself getting up on the feminist soapbox yet again earlier this week. Note the following passage from this week’s Economist, discussing the problems posed by a falling population:

States should not be in the business of pushing people to have babies. If women decide to spend their 20s clubbing rather than child-rearing, and their cash on handbags rather than nappies, that's up to them.

Also note the accompanying image, this week’s cover:

That’s a bit besides the point, but it does have a certain “WTF?” effect to it.

My first reaction to the above statement was to laugh. But after re-reading it, I thought, “Wait…that’s not so funny.” It paints twentysomething women as shallow and frivolous, and fails to recognize the fact that women often have those options as a result of increased independence. I realize that the article is about demography and not women’s life choices and what triggers them, but there was no need to throw that stereotypical rhetoric in there.

And so I wrote a letter to the editor:

“SIR –

I was disappointed that you chose to attribute the falling number of births among women in their twenties to the desire for nightlife and handbags. What about the women who choose to delay child-rearing to pursue higher education and successful careers? You’ve failed to acknowledge the fact that women’s increased financial independence is often what makes those handbag purchases possible in the first place. As a woman in her early twenties, I’d be most appreciative if an astute and influential newspaper such as yours moved away from the stigma that so many already thrust upon my demographic.”

Probably sounds familiar. I don’t know that it’s worthy of publication, but I’m satisfied nonetheless. Ciao, bella.