2. Can jazz ever be cool again?
4. "Conservatism, if it means anything, is a resistance to ideology and the world of ideas ideology represents, whether that ideology is a function of the left or the right." More here.
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“I believe that although Obama is indeed a liberal in the sense that he believes government really can and must improve the lives of its citizens, he is much much more like a real conservative than his detractors on right and left. The change he still represents at home is an abandonment of this ideological, red-blue abstract form of politics toward a realistic, pragmatic, reasonable center. Abroad, he represents an attempt to defuse the dangerously polarizing religious and cultural warfare that is fomenting terrorism, and further fusing religion and politics in so many places across the world. In this sense, I regard him as a vital, indispensable figure standing against the forces of ideology and religious warfare, whose failure could lead to catastrophic consequences for our future.”
He is actually talking about Bill Clinton, who I pine for more by the day. I don’t care what Obama “represents” as a symbol. I care what he does, or attempts to do. If he symbolizes getting out of Iraq, while increasing our commitment there then he’s just a politician. I think Obama is much more ideological than this description. We thought he wasn’t, or might not be, but he is. We thought he’d come to the negotiating table with no agenda other than consensus, he hasn’t. There is plenty of evidence, but all you need is the intense focus on healthcare when he should have focused on getting the government involvement in the economy right, even from his perspective. Clinton would have shifted focus from his personal desires to focus on the economy. Maybe Sullivan is suffering from endowment effect in judging his guy.
To wit, one of the people Sullivan I’m sure would ridicule recently told me the best summary critique of Obama’s policy thus far:
“The best way to get the most uninsured people insured right now would be to get them employed.”
From the mouths of Palin-ites.
Sullivan has fallen into the trap of believing that he is pragmatic and rational, his opponents are not, and since he labels himself a conservative, that being pragmatic and rational in the way that he believes himself to be is Conservatism. In his view, of course, gay marriage is conservative.
A far better lay version of conservatism is simply to define it as prudence and understanding that traditions may have arisen for good reasons and have value that is not necessarily easy to describe.
Teachout is either highly sheltered or deranged. For his sake, I hope its just a massive shell he’s living under.
Today, thousands upon thousands of artists, groups and evolving conglomerations are enriching the classics and exploding the form in infinite directions. Likely, more people are playing and experiencing jazz today than ever before.
Wearing his Amerikan Popular Culture Critic glasses, Teachout is likely blind to much of the innovation and exchange happening in music today. How does he know what we’re listening to or playing?
Recently, Hiromi, one of my favorite contemporary jazz pianists played nine shows in a Thu-Sun gig at the Jazz Showcase here in Chicago. If that’s not cool, what is?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihAGAc0xm3Q
Re the Teachout/Jazz link: Why should we expect any musical style to last forever? Jazz had a good seven decade run. In the art world no one asks “What ever happened to Cubism?” In the 19th century, lovers of what we now call “classical music” weren’t asking “Why is nobody writing good Baroque music anymore?”
CLAIM:
“The best way to get the most uninsured people insured right now would be to get them employed.”
FACTS:
64% of uninsured have a full-time/full year worker in family
24% of uninsured have a part-time worker in family
12% of uninsured have no worker in family
Uninsured are more likely to have serious gaps in preventative care
Uninsured are more likely to identify the emergency room as their usual source of care
Employment is a great thing, and we certainly need more stimulus, but maybe the best way to get the most uninsured people insured would be to pass health care reform.
mulp,
Energy independence is a chimera; if it were possible to do it would have been done when it was first proposed in the Nixon administration (yeah, the early 1970s). Every administration since then has had grand plans for energy independence … Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II. An integrated, globalized energy market is the only rational path available to us. I wish neo-conservatives, greens, liberals, etc. would get that through their very thick heads. For more on this see Robert Bryce’s insightful “Gusher of Lies.”
Erik,
Well, the question is, is health insurance really something that a person always needs? A lot of people in their 20s make a very good bet that they do not need insurance.
BKarn,
I stopped reading when I came across the term “energy independence.” Yeah, autarky, that’s the solution!
Why do people disagree? Because one of them just sees the world as it is and tries to muddle through, while the other is in the grip of some weird alien ideology that distorts their perspective. Duh.
“Cool” jazz didn’t start with Miles; it started with Bix.
Christopher Hitchens, a longtime friend of Andrew Sullivan, has remarked on more than one occasion that ‘Andrew Sullivan wants to have Barack Obama’s baby.”
Jazz started and ended with >Louis Armstrong and Neil Haptom. beside them most boring music ever
Christopher Hitchens, a longtime friend of Andrew Sullivan, has remarked on more than one occasion that ‘Andrew Sullivan wants to have Barack Obama’s baby.”
Andrew, a Google search of the phrase you typed above turns up four hits, one of which is your comment here and the other three point to the same blog post written by someone named “Ace” with the unsourced quotation. Do you have a specific reference to the apparently multiple occasions when Hitchens has said this?
Not sure whether Camus was conservative. He said, “All attempts to create Heaven on Earth have resuted in hell on Earth.”
Uncapitalized ‘conservatism’ opposes stupid, unworkable ideas that clueless intellectuals, hate-filled socialists, and hysterical college kids keep dreaming up. The latest opposition targets are the unneeded hells that Obamacare and cap and trade will unleash.
So, conservatism is rational and correct to oppose all the lib/dems moronic programs that never work, at best, and, at worst, unleash unnecessary hells.
Conversely, conservatives are 100% supportive of workable solutions for real problems. The libs either make up crises or exaggerate crises’ effects, and propose failing solutions.
Jazz was born in New Orleans. You would have to be dead to call the original jazz “boring”. (And it started as after-burial music…) The jazz that became famous was close to the original. The stuff that calls itself jazz now is something else entirely.
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