Thank you, General Powell

Colin Powell, talking to reporters this morning, answering a question about the part that "McCain's negativity" played in Powell's decision to endorse Barack Obama:

It troubled me. We have two wars. We have economic problems. We have health problems. We have education problems. We have infrastructure problems. We have problems around the world with our allies. So those are the problems the American people wanted to hear about, not about Mr. Ayers, not about who's a Muslim or who's not a Muslim. Those kinds of images going out on Al Jazeera are killing us around the world.

And we have got to say to the world, it doesn't make any difference who you are or what you are; if you're an American, you're an American. And this business, for example, of the congressman from Minnesota who's going around saying, "Let's examine all congressmen to see who is pro-America or not pro-America" — we have got to stop this kind of nonsense, pull ourselves together, and remember that our great strength is in our unity and in our diversity. And so that really was driving me.

And to focus on people like Mr. Ayers and these trivial issues, for the purpose of suggesting that somehow Mr. Obama would have some kind of terrorist inclinations, I thought that was over the top. It was beyond just good political fighting back and forth. I think it went beyond. And to sort of throw in this little Muslim connection, you know, "He's a Muslim and, my goodness, he's a terrorist" — it was taking root. And we can't judge our people and we can't hold our elections on that kind of basis.

So yes, that kind of negativity troubled me. And the constant shifting of the argument. I was troubled a couple of weeks ago when in the middle of the crisis, the campaign said, "We're going to go negative," and they announced it, "We're going to go negative and attack his character through Bill Ayers." Now I guess the message this week is, "We're going to call him a socialist. Mr. Obama is now a socialist, because he dares to suggest that maybe we ought to look at the tax structure that we have."

Taxes are always a redistribution of money. Most of the taxes that are redistributed go back to those who pay them, in roads and airports and hospitals and schools. And taxes are necessary for the common good. And there is nothing wrong with examining what our tax structure is or who should be paying more, who should be paying less. And for us to say that that makes you a socialist, I think is an unfortunate characterization that isn't accurate.

I don't want my taxes raised. I don't want anybody else's taxes raised. But I also want to see our infrastructure fixed. I don't want to have a $12 trillion national debt, and I don't want to see an annual deficit that's over $500 billion heading toward a trillion. So, how do we deal with all of this?

(Transcript from CNN.)

Rachel Maddow and sneakers

Rachel Maddow, asked to name a clothing item that a talk-show host needs:

For me, it is sneakers, which I can wear 80 percent of the time, secretly behind the desk. That reminds me who I am, even though I am dressed up like an assistant principal in order to meet the minimum dress code for being on television.

A Pundit in the Country (New York Times)

RM wore sneakers as a guest on Leno's show a week or two ago. Yes, we're Rachel Maddow fans at my house.

(Found via one of Matt Thomas' always choice New York Times Digest posts.)

Sarah Palin's first press conference

So Sarah Palin has finally held a press conference, though

(a) it was during a Saturday Night Live skit and

(b) she didn't take any questions.

But it's a start, right?

Bupkes

The Berkeley 1956 recording of Allen Ginsberg reading his then-unfinished poem "America" provides a nice demonstration of how hearing a poet read can alter one's sense of a poem. Lines that might seem grandiose or nostalgic on the page — "America save the Spanish Loyalists / America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die" — turn into one-liners in what comes close to a stand-up comedy routine. The audience cheers and laughs and stomps along the way.

"America" as Ginsberg reads it is looser and much longer than the poem as published in "Howl" and Other Poems (1956). One difference sent me to the dictionary today. In the poem as published, the poet recounts going to "Communist cell meetings" with his mother: "they sold us garbanzos a handful a ticket a ticket cost a nickel and the speeches were free." In the Berkeley reading, garbanzos is bubkes.

Before going to the dictionary, I knew that bubkes is Yiddish and means "nothing." My favorite instance of the word comes at the end of a song from Christopher Guest's film Waiting for Guffman (1997): "Bubkes ever happens in Blaine." So how did Ginsberg get from bubkes to garbanzos? Merriam-Webster Online explains:

Main Entry: bub·kes
Variant(s): also bup·kes or bup·kus \ˈbəp-kəs, ˈbu̇p-\
Function: noun plural but singular in construction
Etymology: Yiddish (probably short for kozebubkes, literally, goat droppings), plural of bubke, bobke, diminutive of bub, bob bean, of Slavic origin; akin to Polish bób bean
Date: 1942

: the least amount : beans < won't win bubkes this year — Ivan Maisel > ; also : nothing < received bubkes for their efforts >

It pleases me that the same metaphor is available in English, in another of my favorite films, the one in which "the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans." My guess is that Ginsberg revised to avoid the possible obscurity of a word that most readers were likely to know bubkes about (and would have had difficulty looking up).

Brad Pitt and Homer's Odyssey

From Variety:

After turning Homer’s epic poem "The Iliad" into the 2004 film "Troy," Warner Bros. and Brad Pitt are teaming with George Miller to adapt the Greek poet’s other masterwork, "The Odyssey."

Their intention is to transfer the tale to a futuristic setting in outer space.

Warner Bros. has quietly set up "The Odyssey," and the early hope is that Pitt will star and Miller will direct, with Pitt’s Plan B producing. Pitt played Achilles in the Wolfgang Petersen-directed "Troy," a global blockbuster that David Benioff adapted from "The Iliad."

Both Homer poems dealt with the Trojan War; "The Odyssey" focused on the exploits of Odysseus, who hatched the idea to build the Trojan Horse. "The Odyssey" deals with his long journey home after he declines to become a god.

Well, sort of.

Toothpaste we can believe in?

Strange to see design elements from the Obama campaign in a toothpaste. (It's not coincidence, is it?)

Sloppy dresser

Cursory attention to detail seems to account for the sloppy dresser behind Ditto — or is the open drawer a neo-cubist touch? I thought I was done with Hi and Lois posts. But just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

Related reading
All Hi and Lois posts

Happy birthday, Noah Webster

Yale celebrates an alum: Noah Webster 250.

Joe the plumber

Joe the plumber. Joe the plumber. Joe the plumber.

Or is it Joe the Plumber?

As the son and grandson of tilemen, I note the patronizing way in which a tradesman was just made part of our political discourse. (He must be Joe Six-Pack's cousin.)

[Context: the final presidential debate, underway.]

[Update, October 16: The New York Times reports that Joe's first name is Samuel and that he's not a licensed plumber.]

George Orwell on totalitarian history

From the totalitarian point of view history is something to be created rather than learned. A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened.

George Orwell, in "The Prevention of Literature" (1946)

That Bridge to Nowhere? Thanks but no thanks. That ethics report? No abuse of power there at all.

Related posts
Couric and Palin and Orwell
George Orwell on historical truth