Check out the really cool fake suspense trailer advertising the Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy at the New York Public Library. I wish they did cool stuff like this when I worked there.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Friday, March 23, 2012
Bill Maher NYT Op-Ed: Please Stop Apologizing
Bill Maher had an op-ed in Wednesday's New York Times about the quasi-outrage over everything these days. As usual, he makes some good points:
"The answer to whenever another human being annoys you is not “make them go away forever.” We need to learn to coexist, and it’s actually pretty easy to do. For example, I find Rush Limbaugh obnoxious, but I’ve been able to coexist comfortably with him for 20 years by using this simple method: I never listen to his program. The only time I hear him is when I’m at a stoplight next to a pickup truck.
When the lady at Costco gives you a free sample of its new ham pudding and you don’t like it, you spit it into a napkin and keep shopping. You don’t declare a holy war on ham."
My only issue with the op-ed is it reads like one of his "New Rules" on 'Real Time with Bill Maher'. So if this is the same New Rule I'm going to hear on Friday night, I'm going to be really disappointed.
"The answer to whenever another human being annoys you is not “make them go away forever.” We need to learn to coexist, and it’s actually pretty easy to do. For example, I find Rush Limbaugh obnoxious, but I’ve been able to coexist comfortably with him for 20 years by using this simple method: I never listen to his program. The only time I hear him is when I’m at a stoplight next to a pickup truck.
When the lady at Costco gives you a free sample of its new ham pudding and you don’t like it, you spit it into a napkin and keep shopping. You don’t declare a holy war on ham."
My only issue with the op-ed is it reads like one of his "New Rules" on 'Real Time with Bill Maher'. So if this is the same New Rule I'm going to hear on Friday night, I'm going to be really disappointed.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Sports fans = Prison inmates? Bill James thinks so.
Bill James writes a very interesting piece on Grantland about how the deterioration of fan conduct at baseball games and prisons in America seems to have happened around roughly the same time. A great tidbit that stood out:
"That's the thing about regulating conduct; there is always some conduct that doesn't get policed. When baseball effectively prohibited its players from defending their good names with physical threats and small weapons, this in essence required the players to put up with verbal abuse from fat, pimply guys whom they could have very easily beaten the grits out of. People say things in public all the time now for which, if you had said them 40 years ago, somebody would have kicked your ass. We've regulated the ass-kicking, so the rudeness is out of control, and we wind up with Keith Olbermann and Rush Limbaugh doing political commentary that falls in the same general class as drunken, shirtless bellowing.
I used to know both of those guys. Limbaugh used to work for the Royals. I didn't really know him, but I bumped into him a couple of times. Olbermann used to be a broadcaster; funny, funny guy. They're good guys; I wouldn't have any trouble playing poker with either one of them, but I'm not sure what moron gave either one of them a microphone.
Which is an unfair thing to say; they have complex political philosophies, both of them, and they have microphones because somebody figured out that you could make a lot of money by combining a sophisticated political philosophy with oral flatulence. But I was reminiscing about the good old days, when men were men and high school girls didn't have nipple rings, and you knew who the heavyweight boxing champion of the world was — even the high school girls did — because there was only one at a time and he was a big deal."
He goes on about a number of topics that don't seem related at first but overall it's a good piece worth reading.
"That's the thing about regulating conduct; there is always some conduct that doesn't get policed. When baseball effectively prohibited its players from defending their good names with physical threats and small weapons, this in essence required the players to put up with verbal abuse from fat, pimply guys whom they could have very easily beaten the grits out of. People say things in public all the time now for which, if you had said them 40 years ago, somebody would have kicked your ass. We've regulated the ass-kicking, so the rudeness is out of control, and we wind up with Keith Olbermann and Rush Limbaugh doing political commentary that falls in the same general class as drunken, shirtless bellowing.
I used to know both of those guys. Limbaugh used to work for the Royals. I didn't really know him, but I bumped into him a couple of times. Olbermann used to be a broadcaster; funny, funny guy. They're good guys; I wouldn't have any trouble playing poker with either one of them, but I'm not sure what moron gave either one of them a microphone.
Which is an unfair thing to say; they have complex political philosophies, both of them, and they have microphones because somebody figured out that you could make a lot of money by combining a sophisticated political philosophy with oral flatulence. But I was reminiscing about the good old days, when men were men and high school girls didn't have nipple rings, and you knew who the heavyweight boxing champion of the world was — even the high school girls did — because there was only one at a time and he was a big deal."
He goes on about a number of topics that don't seem related at first but overall it's a good piece worth reading.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Friday, March 9, 2012
Hey, Mets! I Just Can’t Quit You. | NYT's David Brooks
David Brooks, who usually writes about politics, wrote about his love for the New York Mets today. He shared this great recent experience:
"I was in the media center of the Mets spring training facility in Florida this week when Ron Darling, the excellent pitcher from the great teams of the 1980s, sat down at the table next to me and started reading The Times. That was a vivid moment, evoking all sorts of memories, though I didn’t try to talk with him."
Knowing Darling's Yale pedigree (with degrees in both French and Southeast Asian History), Brooks probably could have engaged him in an interesting foreign affairs discussion. At the very least Ron Darling would likely know who David Brooks is.
However there is something endearing about this experience of a well-known and respected journalist (whom I totally respect even though I don't often agree with him) just being a fan around a former All-Star from his favorite team.
"I was in the media center of the Mets spring training facility in Florida this week when Ron Darling, the excellent pitcher from the great teams of the 1980s, sat down at the table next to me and started reading The Times. That was a vivid moment, evoking all sorts of memories, though I didn’t try to talk with him."
Knowing Darling's Yale pedigree (with degrees in both French and Southeast Asian History), Brooks probably could have engaged him in an interesting foreign affairs discussion. At the very least Ron Darling would likely know who David Brooks is.
However there is something endearing about this experience of a well-known and respected journalist (whom I totally respect even though I don't often agree with him) just being a fan around a former All-Star from his favorite team.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
The White House is good at this sport called 'Politics'...
Matt Miller's latest Washington Post column talks about the White House's recent tactics that truly exemplify 'The Sport of Politics':
"What a coincidence that President Obama’s first news conference in nearly six months just happened to fall on Super Tuesday! And what a twist of fate that the president found himself addressing the United Auto Workers conference last week on the very day of the Michigan primary, where he had the chance to blast an unnamed GOP candidate for saying we should have “let Detroit go bankrupt.”
Barack Obama is the new master of the “split screen.” The White House is managing the president’s schedule and activities so that major events on the GOP campaign calendar become chances to contrast the president in the news cycle with the frivolous, shrill and increasingly surreal Republican race. The targets of this campaign are the independent voters who will decide the November election.
The “split-screen” strategy is looking very effective so far."
"What a coincidence that President Obama’s first news conference in nearly six months just happened to fall on Super Tuesday! And what a twist of fate that the president found himself addressing the United Auto Workers conference last week on the very day of the Michigan primary, where he had the chance to blast an unnamed GOP candidate for saying we should have “let Detroit go bankrupt.”
Barack Obama is the new master of the “split screen.” The White House is managing the president’s schedule and activities so that major events on the GOP campaign calendar become chances to contrast the president in the news cycle with the frivolous, shrill and increasingly surreal Republican race. The targets of this campaign are the independent voters who will decide the November election.
The “split-screen” strategy is looking very effective so far."
Thursday, March 1, 2012
More reasons for why the filibuster is bad.
Ezra Klein with a blog post on why the filibuster promotes partisanship:
"The crucial idea here is that it is very different to kill a bill than to vote against a bill. When the minority party kills a bill, they have made the majority into a failure. And when voters perceive the majority as failing, they vote in the other guys. If you’re in the minority, there’s no faster path back to power than killing bills."
"The crucial idea here is that it is very different to kill a bill than to vote against a bill. When the minority party kills a bill, they have made the majority into a failure. And when voters perceive the majority as failing, they vote in the other guys. If you’re in the minority, there’s no faster path back to power than killing bills."
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