Bryan Joiner

January 19, 2010

Connecting the Dots on Health Care

If Martha Coakley loses today, and if Scott Brown effectively scuttles the Obama Health Care bill, someone’s eventually going to connect the dots and conclude that it might be Ted Kennedy’s fault. I’m going to do it first.

The facts are these: Ted Kennedy’s wish was to see a health care bill passed. He died while it was being constructed, and it has taken longer than expected to get to the final stages before some version of it is signed into law. None of this, nor the fact that the exuberance of the 18-month campaign has fizzled under the work of actual governance, could really be considered a momentus surprise. Nor is it incredibly surprising, despite what most national news outlets make you think, that a Republican could mount an effective campaign in Massachusetts. I lived there almost exclusively under Republican governors, and more recently, Mitt Romney held that position. I knew far more Republicans when I grew up in Massachusetts than I do now because I chose to be in a place teeming with liberals, just as political pundits seek out other political pundits and create a self-serving narrative where it’s a “shock” that a GOP candidate can compete in the Bay State. Both classes of people — the blue establishment and the punditry — underestimate Republicans at their own risk.

My friend Robb, who is a Republican living in Massachusetts, is pro-Scott Brown. To him, and to others, I sense that they see his insurgent candidacy as a vindication of sorts; Robb parrots tea-party rhetoric on his Facebook page, and while I don’t get the sense he actually believes Barack Obama is a socialist, there’s a certain resentment there that’s exacerbated by living in Massachusetts, which is sort of a Petri Dish for blue ideas. For all I’ve just written, Massachusetts is obviously solidly blue; it’s just that the state has never been afraid to elect a single member of the GOP at any given time. The Republican Party is Massachusetts is always ready to send a message, and the Democratic Party is able to stay in “bend-but-don’t-break” mode and flourish. One loss, for them, isn’t worth crying about—usually.

If Scott Brown wins, it will certainly disrupt the health care bill and possibly scuttle it altogether. Is that worth crying about if you’re a Democrat? Absolutely. Is that worth beating a drum over if you’re a Massachusetts Republican? Strangely enough, I don’t think that’s the motivation here. I think the motivation is far more provincial than that. This move is really meant to stick it to Massachusetts Democrats, and my reasoning is this: If Ted Kennedy was still alive, and this election was still happening, Martha Coakley would wipe the floor with Scott Brown.

Robb posted this Brown quote on his Facebook page the other day—one that I happen to agree with:

“With all due respect, it’s not the Kennedy seat and it’s not the Democrats’ seat, it’s the people’s seat.”

… but as true as that is, it wouldn’t make a lick of difference if Kennedy was still alive: If he had resigned early in the Obama term, that would have pegged a special election somewhere between 145 and 160 days from the time of his resignation. Obviously he didn’t know when he was going to die, but having taken the Senate seat with him, he didn’t get to throw his support behind a candidate while he was still alive. Scott Brown tore down the perception that the seat belonged to Kennedy, but he did so because the perception was strong. He has done so as effectively as he could have done, and Martha Coakley has fought back as weakly as anyone could have done. But suppose Ted Kennedy has resigned and his office spent his final weeks urging his supporters that the cause endured, the hope lived, and the dream would never die with Martha Coakley in office. Are you telling me that a guy who posed naked in Cosmo would beat that?

So to any voters in Massachusetts who read this: If you think Scott Brown is a better representative of the people of Massachusetts than Martha Coakley, vote for him. But if you’re voting for Scott Brown as a referendum on Obama, think about this for a second. Obama was a objectively great campaigner, and you likely think he’s a bad President. Scott Brown is objectively a good campaigner… but that doesn’t necessarily make him a good Senator. What you’re taking away from with this vote has the strong, strong potential to affect every American and their children, and their children’s children, for decades. If no one has explained to you why that’s so important, imagine Ted Kennedy is doing it as you enter the voting booth. He might have messed up: He wasn’t there to help you through it, because he didn’t foresee the sequence of events that got us here today. That may be his mistake, but it’s one that hundreds of of millions of Americans will pay for. Health care might die because Ted Kennedy, of all people, miscalculated. It’s my hope that if your mind isn’t made up, you can find that mistake worth forgiving.

That’s the best I can do.

6 Comments

January 18, 2010

East Pakistan

So this 1970 atlas is really a treasure trove, and I found something I never knew about just now: East Pakistan. Now it’s Bangladesh, but when this book came out it fell under the government of Pakistan, many, many miles to the west. From Wikipedia:

East Pakistan was a former province of Pakistan which existed between 1947 and 1971. East Pakistan was created from Bengal Province based on a plebiscite in what was then British India in 1947. Eastern Bengal chose to join the Dominion of Pakistan and became a province of Pakistan by the name East Bengal. East Bengal, also comprised East Pakistan in 1956 and later became the independent country of Bangladesh after the bloody Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, which took place after General Elections of 1970. Large sections of East Pakistan’s people felt that they were colonised and suppressed by the West Pakistanis.

It’s things like this that I have trouble wrapping my head around. How were these places supposed to be the same place? I realize that this isn’t a unique situation, as I only need to look as far as Alaska to find a modern equivalent. I have, however, always considered Alaska a special case because its terrain relatively inhospitable compared to most places on Earth, and I understand how the land would once be considered “available” to some group or nation. (Thanks, Seward!) I’m not saying all of Pakistan is hospitable, just that the band of terrain that stretches from Pakistan to East Pakistan seems like a much more traditionally forgiving landscape than that beyond the Great White North—as many of India’s more than 1 billion people, including 16 million in greater Kolkota (Calcutta) can attest.

It’s likely that my edition of the atlas is the second-to-last one that features East Pakistan. This is from the Bangladesh Liberation War Wikipedia entry:

The Bangladesh Liberation War was an armed conflict pitting West Pakistan against East Pakistan (two halves of one country) and India, that resulted in the secession of East Pakistan as the independent nation of Bangladesh.

The war broke out on 26 March 1971 as army units directed by West Pakistan launched a military operation in East Pakistan against Bengali civilians, students, intelligentsia, and armed personnel who were demanding separation from West Pakistan. Bengali military, paramilitary and civilians formed the Mukti Bahini (or liberation army) and used guerrilla warfare tactics to fight against the West Pakistan army. India provided economic, military and diplomatic support to the Mukti Bahini rebels leading Pakistan to launch Operation Chengiz Khan, a pre-emptive attack on the western border of India which started the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.

On 16 December 1971, the allied forces of the Indian army and the Mukti Bahini decisively defeated the West Pakistani forces deployed in the East, resulting in the largest surrender, in terms of the number of prisoners of war, since World War II.

After watching six episodes of Jersey Shore tonight, I needed something like this to get the brain working again.

7 Comments

January 15, 2010

My Book of Maps

Among the many things that make me a festering nerd of the highest order, I have a giant National Geographic Atlas of the World that I’ll occasionally study over meals. Not only that, I’ve done it since I was a child. Not only that, I’ve done it with the exact same book. The book I own is the 1970 National Geographic Atlas of the World, and I see no reason to update it. I can always find a current map of the world, but what I didn’t know until the fall of the Soviet Union, and what is more pronounced now, is how much a map is just a snapshot in time when the word “map” is commonly used to signify the exact opposite. (This phenomenon is what my friend over here has basically devoted his recent life to studying, and which I wrote about here.)

Last night I thought about going through the book and pulling out the examples of countries whose name had changed, a change which usually precipitates a host of similar changes. Off the top of my head, you’ve got Rhodesia, Burkina Faso, Benin, North/South Vietnam, East/West Germany, the USSR, the borders of Israel/Palestine, Yugoslavia, Egypt (listed as the United African Republic; is that still so), Namibia, NOT “Zaire” (which went to and from that name between then and now), Guinea-Bissau is listed as “Portuguese Guinea” (that could be a technicality) — and I realize I’m only scratching the surface here. I find the whole thing compelling. It’s like a treasure map. A colorful, vibrant treasure map that costs $150 new. So yeah, I like my old map.

I think Ben would kill me if I did all this talking about maps and didn’t do this, so here it goes. And FWIW, as I’ve caught up on about a decade’s worth of music in the last 10 months, the YYY’s are at the absolute top of the list:

2 Comments

January 15, 2010

Happy Birthday to this guy

Well we’re here again, aren’t we? That’ll happen. Gonna have a good day today. I can feel it.

January 14, 2010

The List

The list of stuff I need to buy for my apartment is staggering. This is the first time I’ve been living by myself, so I lack many of the basic possessions of a household. A hammer, for instance. I didn’t have one of those until a couple months ago, and until about a month after I needed it (I’m good at putting things off). After years of buying things in the moment for the moment, it’s odd that I’m buying things that will belong to me, potentially, forever. I feel like I’m in high school again. It’s bizarre. At the same time, I’m wary of valuing my possessions too much. What I value now is motion. What the last couple days have taught me—or reminded me of, as this happens several times per year—is that I need to stay focused on working through things like, well, work blowouts. I didn’t end up going in to the office today, handling a minor early morning crisis that could have easily been avoided (by myself, but mostly the other party, if they had done their job in a timely manner) before spending the rest of the day “recovering.” This meant watching Capote, which I had DVR’ed off IFC, and drinking Green Tea until I ran out, which prompted a Trader Joe’s run at around 8 p.m. that finally got me up and moving for the day. I don’t like going to Trader Joe’s after work, and as such rarely go, but today the whole thing flowed very nicely and I just saved myself a bunch on lunch for the next week or so.

That motion eventually pushed me to the gym, where I had a workout the vigorousness of which I haven’t had in years. Honestly, I started thinking of Sarah Palin. I thought: If she is inspired to be her dumb idiot self and it works that well for her and she gets her inspiration from running, why am I half-assing it here? And soon enough, I was flying around a fake track conscious of the scowl on my face. The whole thing was cathartic. I wonder if it’s what my friend Ravi has gone through in the last couple years, as he’s transformed himself from a beer-guzzler into a lithe semi-triathalete who beat the tar out of me in a four mile race last month. I’ve committed to three races with him this year. I have to do better, especially at $40 or so a race. You get fun shirts though.

Anyhow one thing I need to buy is a bedframe, and about $200 worth of other stuff for my bed. And a new comforter, because mine leaks fluff (which has a nasty way of infesting the apartment). So I’ve got all the stuff here (on the bed from which I’m typing), and then you move onto the bedside table, which doesn’t exist and probably should, and you put it on the list… and it reminds me of an old joke a friend used to make about Chicago construction. As soon as they were done with all of it, he said, it would be time to start again. The list never ends.

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Also on the list would be writing something eloquent about Haiti, but I don’t know what to say.

2 Comments

January 13, 2010

Time for something new?

This post is about my job, so anyone who doesn’t like hearing about the day-to-day of being a trade editor should probably just skip it. But I am wiped. out. today to the point that I’m finally realizing it’s time to get serious about moving on. It’s one thing to be the editor of a magazine, and it’s one thing to technically be responsible for every p and q therein, but being a small enough operation where it’s my responsibility to personally inspect every p and q 10 times has taken its toll on me. As I wrote yesterday in a fit of delirium, I’ve done this before, and what I didn’t write yesterday is that while last night’s staying-up-late-to-finish-the-magazine session was unique for some reasons (i.e., being in the office for 16 hours), it was typical in the sense that finishing these issues is a drain.

That’s not entirely an accident, because as much as I would like to convince myself otherwise, this is a straight-out-of-college job, a starter job that I backed into after my rough go in Queens. In fact, my career has gone roughly the exact opposite direction you’d expect given the two experiences; I’d be a much better reporter now, and I would have had more energy to be the big fish in the tiny jar six years ago. But what’s happened has happened. I just don’t know how much more I can take. I have another issue that I have to turn around in exactly two weeks and I can’t even think of going into the office tomorrow because I’m so worn out. The good part is that the other main editor and I have discussed and agreed to a division of duties (me, more writing; her, more layout and editing) that suits both of our strengths, but we’re not putting that into play until after this is done. Right now I am very much in the shit, and it sucks.

The question is, where to go from here? I don’t know, and the whole thing is exacerbated by the fact that I’ve got a headache and can’t stomach the fact of going back to the office in 8 or so hours. At least I’ll get birthday drinks on Friday. That’s a plus.

4 Comments

January 12, 2010

Been About 8 Years

Since I’ve had a proper publishing Production Night—up late, putting the finishing touches on an issue before daybreak. Not much need for it in the trade magazine biz, and the second newspaper I worked at in Queens (and the one I worked at for by far the longest), we handled all that stuff in the late afternoon and maybe early evening hours. Our new business plan involves putting out targeted mini-magazines tied to trade shows, and the Halloween Show is coming in a couple weeks. With the other editor on maternity leave, it was basically up to me to get the magazine done in about two weeks of actual work time. It was fun as sh*t. This is what I love to do. I don’t like sitting in the office for weeks on end, waiting to know if we’re going to publish anything again, and that’s what I’ve gotten used to.

The only difference between this production night and the others is that I was the only person there. The latest anyone usually works there is 8, and that’s exceedingly rare. Most people like the job because it’s a 9-to-5; that’s what I don’t like about it, though the benefits are good (we’re grading on a curve here; I am a writer. At least nominally). No one else would even think of staying that late, but that’s my instinct. It just seems like the most efficient way to get things done, and when they are done, there’s adrenaline to spare. Hence the blog post.

But I also know that there’s quickly diminishing returns, and that I’m happy I don’t do this for a living anymore (stay up late, that is). Once is exhilirating, twice is interesting, and anything on top of that is a drain and self-perpetuating. If I wanted that lifestyle I’d be a waiter and make a lot more money doing it.

2 Comments

January 11, 2010

The Decline

The Patriots are on the decline. There’s no question about that now. I pooh-poohed people Bill Simmons earlier this year for calling them DOA after the Indy loss, but I stand by that. Simmons and his ilk fed us the Patriots as “winners when it matters” for the last decade, but called the dynasty kaput over a matter of a couple inches in Indianapolis. To suggest that 4th-and-2 had anything to do with what happened today was ludicrous. Maybe the plays preceding 4th-and-2, but not the event itself.

Randy Moss probably has to go. I’m drawing some parallel with Gisele here. Tom Brady finds a tall, lanky, good-looking friend. Tom Brady is enamored to the point of supplicance. Moss certainly appears to dog it from time to time out there, and Brady doesn’t seem to raise word one with him. Every time they talk, it’s a pep talk or they’re trying to speak some superstar language. That ain’t going to win you ballgames when a team’s got as many holes as this one. Put another way: that, in itself, probably has no bearing on much. But take away the time from Brady trying to fix the little problems with the offense, and that’s time wasted. As is becoming clear, there’s not much time left.

It seems like Brady and Moss are on one island, and the rest of the offense is somewhere else, particularly the offensive line. The defense played like crap today, and that’ll happen. It just hasn’t happened to us in such a big game in awhile. The defense was pretty good in the Super Bowl two years ago, but not anymore.

The Patriots now remind me of those late nineties 49ers teams that raged against the dying of the light with increasingly futile playoff campaigns. The magic could show up for any single game, but never stuck around to get them what they really wanted, which was another title. There were too many teams that were just younger and hungrier, despite their best efforts.

I got a Facebook message after the game consoling me. I don’t know what I have to be sad about. If this is the end, I can’t say I didn’t get everything I ever wanted, and more.

5 Comments

January 8, 2010

Boxing Promoters

My friend Chris taught me a valuable lesson after the Pacquiao/Cotto fight. When I told him the $54.99 PPV was great for the first six rounds and blah for the last six, he laughed and spewed, “That’s why they’re called boxing promoters.”

That’s all I can think about during all the back-and-forth between Floyd Mayweather and Pacquiao for their supposedly canceled March 13th fight. As I said in an email with some friends, I’ll believe they’re not fighting when it’s March 13th and they’re not fighting. Even if they do scrap it, it’ll only end up to boost the profile of whenever they eventually do go at it (and they most definitely will) — which would, at least to me, cast doubt on whether there was ever really a March 13th agreement in the first place.

2 Comments

January 7, 2010

Today’s NYT Crossword

Is a work of genius. If you’re at all interested in that type of thing and are willing to spend the time to figure out the hook, it will be more than worth your while. The constructor’s name is Xan Vongsathorn, and he/she has created something wonderful.