Mind is roaming a wee bit today and started thinking about influences on me - particularly literary influences. There were three that came immediately to mind. In order, they are:
James Clavell
Douglas Adams
Ayn Rand
Clavell is an awesome storyteller who managed to tell whole stories from various points of view all in the same book. Read any of his Asian saga books and you can see how he weaves different characters into the same plots while presenting each of their disparate viewpoints. If there were ever an author I would want to be able to follow, it would be Clavell. I have read each of his books multiple times to the point where each is worn with care and, in some cases, taped back together. For those who do not like to read 1000+ pages at a time, then read A Children's Story. It is a short book that weaves heavy (and dark) political undertones to an innocuous school room of children and their teacher. It is different from his Asian saga but certainly a telling piece, much like Orwell's Animal Farm.
Douglas Adams did satire within a science fiction format that is one of the few to have me in stitches each time I read it. The satire of human nature and how foolish people tend to behave is both hilarious and telling. Whenever I want to start cracking on people, I tend to think of how Adams may have phrased it and then hope to rise to his standard. Indeed, one of my favorite things to point out is that his Hitchhiker's trilogy actually consists of 5 books. Makes sense to me.
Ayn Rand, I have discovered, is an author (and person) who is either loved or hated. There is no middle ground, much as her characters in her major novels. Indeed, I recently saw a bumper sticker asking "Where is John Galt?" and it made me smile. It is a reference that only a Rand devotee would understand. Her writing is passionate about her point of view (more commonly known as Objectivism) and she brooks no dissent nor disagreement from it. While it has been called extreme by critics (among other things), there is certainly more than a grain of truth to her commentary - which is why she still has such a huge following almost 30 years after her death. Whether one agrees or not that the rights of the individual supersede the rights of society, her argument is extraordinarily powerful. Regardless, my favorite of her books is Atlas Shrugged and, while it is long and the commentary occasionally repetitive, certainly worth the read.
What are some others that I may be missing? There are others whom I enjoy reading but I am always open to other suggestions that I may have missed. While I don't read as much fiction as I used to, I think it is because much of what is published today is tripe (don't get me started on John Grisham).
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
The letter, not the spirit, of the law
Tagging onto my commentary from yesterday (about which I still have some thoughts that I need to coherently put together before posting), there is another issue dealing with race in this country - one that will probably receive more attention from the Democratic members of Congress than Harry Reid's comments have. That is the NFL's Rooney Rule. Yes, that is the rule that was put forth by the owner of the NFL's Pittsburgh Steelers that required owners of teams to interview at least one minority candidate for open coaching (and subsequently general manager) positions. The underlying hope for this was to open the door to more minority coaches in the NFL. And, putting his money where his mouth was, Rooney himself hired Mike Tomlin several years ago when his former coach resigned. Tomlin, who is black, was not even one of the leading candidates prior to his interview with the Steelers but surprisingly won the job.
However, in the same way that quotas tend to work in the "real" world, compliance is often met with the letter of the law, if not the spirit. This season has been clearly indicative of following the letter of the law in regard to the hiring of new head coaches. The Washington Redskins and the Seattle Seahawks both fired their previous coaches with clear designs on who their intended replacements would be - Mike Shanahan and Pete Carroll, respectively. Now, there is nothing wrong with wanting to hire a specific individual if you think that person will able to provide the services you need. Frankly, I see nothing wrong with either team hiring the individuals that they hired.
No, the problem is that the teams paid lip service to following the Rooney Rule. The Redskins interviewed one of the assistant coaches already in the organization (several weeks before they ever fired the head coach!) in order to comply with the rule. And the NFL green-lighted the interview as being within the framework of the Rooney Rule. Frankly, the interview was clearly perfunctory as no one believed that he would be hired - the rumors regarding the Redskins pursuit of Shanahan was big news even before the interview and they were simply waiting until the end of the season when they could fire the previous coach and openly pursue him. Indeed, it took only two days for Shanahan to become the new coach after the season ended.
The Seahawks fired their coach a week later and there were rumors immediately following that there was an agreement in place to hire Pete Carroll - then the coach at the University of Southern California. However, before they could hire Carroll, they first had to interview a minority candidate. They asked Leslie Frazier (an assistant with the Minnesota Vikings who has interviewed for several positions previously) to interview and he promptly rejected the interview request on the basis that he would not have a serious chance at the position based on the rumors of Carroll's impending hire. However, additional negotiations took place and Frazier (and the NFL, apparently) was convinced that it would not be a pro forma interview and he would have a serious shot at the job. He was interviewed over the weekend and no further consideration was given to his chances for the job. Two days later, on Monday, Pete Carroll was officially announced as the new head coach - the person originally sought by the Seahawks. Again, Carroll may be the best person to help the team and they have every right to hire him.
The larger issue is that there is a regulation in place to help promote minority coaches in the NFL by mandating a quota to be interviewed and, while the regulation was technically followed, the spirit has seemingly been completely ignored. So should the rule be discarded (as it apparently does nothing more than create hypocrites of the NFL and the owners of the various teams)? Should additional efforts be made at enforcement with both the spirit and the letter of the regulation? If so, how do you ensure such enforcement? Would it not require "knowing his [the owners'] heart[s]" in order to determine whether the spirit is still being followed? And clearly, based on the racism issue that Harry Reid stepped into, seeing into one's heart is clearly subjective at best.
But don't worry, I have little doubt that the US Congress will step into the debate in the NFL and leaders from both sides (but especially on the Democratic side since this is one of their best political footballs) will demand new actions be taken to remedy this grievous error! I will hopefully be able to record Harry Reid as he speaks (from a script) with no hint of hypocrisy on the need for more black coaches in the NFL - just like our light-skinned president with no Negro dialect! (If not, someone will hopefully point me to the YouTube clip...)
However, in the same way that quotas tend to work in the "real" world, compliance is often met with the letter of the law, if not the spirit. This season has been clearly indicative of following the letter of the law in regard to the hiring of new head coaches. The Washington Redskins and the Seattle Seahawks both fired their previous coaches with clear designs on who their intended replacements would be - Mike Shanahan and Pete Carroll, respectively. Now, there is nothing wrong with wanting to hire a specific individual if you think that person will able to provide the services you need. Frankly, I see nothing wrong with either team hiring the individuals that they hired.
No, the problem is that the teams paid lip service to following the Rooney Rule. The Redskins interviewed one of the assistant coaches already in the organization (several weeks before they ever fired the head coach!) in order to comply with the rule. And the NFL green-lighted the interview as being within the framework of the Rooney Rule. Frankly, the interview was clearly perfunctory as no one believed that he would be hired - the rumors regarding the Redskins pursuit of Shanahan was big news even before the interview and they were simply waiting until the end of the season when they could fire the previous coach and openly pursue him. Indeed, it took only two days for Shanahan to become the new coach after the season ended.
The Seahawks fired their coach a week later and there were rumors immediately following that there was an agreement in place to hire Pete Carroll - then the coach at the University of Southern California. However, before they could hire Carroll, they first had to interview a minority candidate. They asked Leslie Frazier (an assistant with the Minnesota Vikings who has interviewed for several positions previously) to interview and he promptly rejected the interview request on the basis that he would not have a serious chance at the position based on the rumors of Carroll's impending hire. However, additional negotiations took place and Frazier (and the NFL, apparently) was convinced that it would not be a pro forma interview and he would have a serious shot at the job. He was interviewed over the weekend and no further consideration was given to his chances for the job. Two days later, on Monday, Pete Carroll was officially announced as the new head coach - the person originally sought by the Seahawks. Again, Carroll may be the best person to help the team and they have every right to hire him.
The larger issue is that there is a regulation in place to help promote minority coaches in the NFL by mandating a quota to be interviewed and, while the regulation was technically followed, the spirit has seemingly been completely ignored. So should the rule be discarded (as it apparently does nothing more than create hypocrites of the NFL and the owners of the various teams)? Should additional efforts be made at enforcement with both the spirit and the letter of the regulation? If so, how do you ensure such enforcement? Would it not require "knowing his [the owners'] heart[s]" in order to determine whether the spirit is still being followed? And clearly, based on the racism issue that Harry Reid stepped into, seeing into one's heart is clearly subjective at best.
But don't worry, I have little doubt that the US Congress will step into the debate in the NFL and leaders from both sides (but especially on the Democratic side since this is one of their best political footballs) will demand new actions be taken to remedy this grievous error! I will hopefully be able to record Harry Reid as he speaks (from a script) with no hint of hypocrisy on the need for more black coaches in the NFL - just like our light-skinned president with no Negro dialect! (If not, someone will hopefully point me to the YouTube clip...)
Sunday, January 10, 2010
No double standards here...
Nope, the Democratic Party and its supporters - particularly African-Americans - are all lining up in support of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid after comments he made about then-candidate Obama were printed in a new book about the 2008 campaign. Specifically, his comments were that Obama was:
[sarcasm]Yep, nothing racist or even stereotypical in those comments. I can see why no African-Americans would be offended by something so trivial. Heck, I can't see why I, or anyone else for that matter, should be offended by such commentary. [/sarcasm]
I think the problem here is that this exposes the political hypocrisy to which race and racism has devolved. Without defending the idiocy that has been perpetrated by Republicans in equal measure, the refusal of Democrats and leading African-Americans to condemn either the comments or the speaker lend a great deal of credence to the belief that racism has become nothing more than a political tool for Democrats to abuse Republicans. George Allen in Virginia during the 2006 Senate campaign with his "macaca" comment and Trent Lott's commentary on Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday celebration in 2002 are two of the more egregious examples by the Republicans in recent memory and both were pilloried by their Democratic opponents and subsequently lost their positions of authority. Indeed, there was no shortage of commentators, leaders and supporters from the left of the political spectrum who rose up indignantly and shouted for some form of punishment to be inflicted upon the two of them.
And that is all reasonable when the same standards are applied to the idiots on the left who make similarly embarrassing gaffes. The problem that arises here are the double standards that are clearly evident. The racist card is to be applied to your political opponents to ensure that they are labeled as such and to establish the moral high ground for your own side of any debate. But when your side makes comments that are clearly racist, then it is best to find some other way of deflecting attention away or defending them in the hope of "the greater good". The problem is that, by doing so, you then minimize the injustice of the racism that clearly does exist (except within the Democratic Party, obviously). So what is the greater good?
There has been commentary from Democratic apologists that Sen. Reid's comments do not compare with the comments of some of his Republican predecessors. That is a subjective (and specious) argument. According to those apologists, Republicans are all racist by nature so the intent of racial commentary is obviously racist by design whereas similar comments by Democrats are not intended to be racist because they are more enlightened on the subject of race. Therefore, the arguments do not compare. The problem with such an argument is that they are arguing intent and motive which can never actually be known by anyone other than the offender. Furthermore, if Democrats are so "enlightened", how can they possibly countenance such comments in the first place, let alone utter them aloud?
In a further galling move, Senator Reid apologized on the Sunday morning talk shows and then has followed up by calling every African-American leader that he can find to beg their forgiveness. And while this is obviously a necessity to help deflect attention away from his mistake, it seems that no one is questioning the fact that his mea culpa comes more than a year after the comments were made and only after it was published in an upcoming book. So, would he have apologized for his comments if someone had not outed them in the first place? Not likely. Additionally, the president, in a move clearly intended (and hoped) to defuse the situation, dismissed it with clear political motivations. If the Senate Majority Leader becomes embroiled in a distraction such as racist comments, it can only serve to detract from his goal of passing healthcare legislation - and those distractions must be avoided at all costs. There can be no clearer sign of the political machinations that have now superseded the issue of racism.
And in a country with as many open wounds relating to racism, this clearly is a problem.
a 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one
I think the problem here is that this exposes the political hypocrisy to which race and racism has devolved. Without defending the idiocy that has been perpetrated by Republicans in equal measure, the refusal of Democrats and leading African-Americans to condemn either the comments or the speaker lend a great deal of credence to the belief that racism has become nothing more than a political tool for Democrats to abuse Republicans. George Allen in Virginia during the 2006 Senate campaign with his "macaca" comment and Trent Lott's commentary on Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday celebration in 2002 are two of the more egregious examples by the Republicans in recent memory and both were pilloried by their Democratic opponents and subsequently lost their positions of authority. Indeed, there was no shortage of commentators, leaders and supporters from the left of the political spectrum who rose up indignantly and shouted for some form of punishment to be inflicted upon the two of them.
And that is all reasonable when the same standards are applied to the idiots on the left who make similarly embarrassing gaffes. The problem that arises here are the double standards that are clearly evident. The racist card is to be applied to your political opponents to ensure that they are labeled as such and to establish the moral high ground for your own side of any debate. But when your side makes comments that are clearly racist, then it is best to find some other way of deflecting attention away or defending them in the hope of "the greater good". The problem is that, by doing so, you then minimize the injustice of the racism that clearly does exist (except within the Democratic Party, obviously). So what is the greater good?
There has been commentary from Democratic apologists that Sen. Reid's comments do not compare with the comments of some of his Republican predecessors. That is a subjective (and specious) argument. According to those apologists, Republicans are all racist by nature so the intent of racial commentary is obviously racist by design whereas similar comments by Democrats are not intended to be racist because they are more enlightened on the subject of race. Therefore, the arguments do not compare. The problem with such an argument is that they are arguing intent and motive which can never actually be known by anyone other than the offender. Furthermore, if Democrats are so "enlightened", how can they possibly countenance such comments in the first place, let alone utter them aloud?
In a further galling move, Senator Reid apologized on the Sunday morning talk shows and then has followed up by calling every African-American leader that he can find to beg their forgiveness. And while this is obviously a necessity to help deflect attention away from his mistake, it seems that no one is questioning the fact that his mea culpa comes more than a year after the comments were made and only after it was published in an upcoming book. So, would he have apologized for his comments if someone had not outed them in the first place? Not likely. Additionally, the president, in a move clearly intended (and hoped) to defuse the situation, dismissed it with clear political motivations. If the Senate Majority Leader becomes embroiled in a distraction such as racist comments, it can only serve to detract from his goal of passing healthcare legislation - and those distractions must be avoided at all costs. There can be no clearer sign of the political machinations that have now superseded the issue of racism.
And in a country with as many open wounds relating to racism, this clearly is a problem.
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