Weekend Reading

The NY Times launches a new series on "Class in America".  All eyes turn to Mickey in hopes he will deliver an invaluable "Series-Skipper".  What we read seemed reasonably fair and balanced, but a bit of politics crept into this:

Even as mobility seems to have stagnated, the ranks of the elite are opening. Today, anyone may have a shot at becoming a United States Supreme Court justice...

Given the recent and ongoing controversy about whether Democrats will confirm an ardent person of faith to the courts, why not play it safe and say "Senator", or "President"?

David Brooks has a related column on the subject of America as the Land of Opportunity, as seen by"poor" Republicans, anyway.  His effort is based on the recent Pew Report excerpted here.

Frank Rich tips us to the news that all the decades-long blather about Roe v. Wade has been a diversionary smokescreen:

...unprincipled gay-baiting has mushroomed into a full-fledged political movement. It's a virulent animosity toward gay people that really unites the leaders of the anti-"activist" judiciary crusade, not any intellectually coherent legal theory (they're for judicial activism when it might benefit them in Florida).

So now we know.

Finally, historian David Greenberg recaps his apparently grueling week as a guest blogger for the vacationing (and tenure bound?!?) Daniel Drezner.  He makes the process sound so arduous that I, at least, wonder if I will ever blog again.  His newcomer's perspective was interesting:

Serious bloggers, I realized, aggressively report a pet issue, updating their sites throughout the day. They scavenge the Internet for every shard of information on a hot topic, like John R. Bolton's chances of becoming ambassador to the United Nations or Tom DeLay's ethical troubles.

...As I checked other sites for ideas, I now realized that I didn't need only new information. I needed a gimmick - a motif or a running joke that would keep the blog rolling all week. All of a sudden, I was reading other blogs, not for what they had to say, but for how they said it.

The best bloggers develop hobbyhorses, shticks and catchphrases that they put into wider circulation. Creating your own idiosyncratic set of villains to skewer and theories to promote - while keeping readers interested - requires as much talent as sculpting a magazine feature or a taut op-ed piece.

I'd always enjoyed kausfiles.com, for example, but I had taken for granted the way my friend Mickey Kaus paced his entries and mixed his news topics (Social Security) with personal obsessions (Jonathan Klein, the CNN honcho).

I knew I wasn't going to master the art in my few remaining days. And the vicious replies were wearing me down. I've gotten nasty responses to my articles before, but blogging is somehow more personal.

...To succeed in blogging you need to understand it's a craft, with its own tricks of the trade. You need a thick skin. And you must put your life on hold to feed an electronic black hole.

What else did I learn by sitting in for Dan Drezner? That I'm not cut out for blogging.

Well.  Dan Drezner has one of the better comments sections going (matched and exceeded here, of course), and the discussions frequently advance the debate (and certainly advance my own knowledge).  OTOH, not everyone has a comments section, and not all the sites that do seem to benefit from them.

As to his insight that blogging requires research and a bit of writing talent - Pejman takes no prisoners, and Patterico shoots the wounded.

More reaction at Memeorandum:  Althouse is annoyed, Joyner joins Pejman, Haugland is happy Dan will be back soon... hey, is this alliteration shtick working?

Nice to know that Greenberg had one more annoying article left in him.

Now, if you had a quarter for every time I disagreed with the powerful Pejman, you probably would not be able to get a cup of coffee (and would have no shot at a mocha cappucino). However, I am going to half-disagree here and accept this article as a qualified boost for bloggers - if a history prof and successful writer is telling Times readers that blogging takes too much time, research, and talent, that is a good thing.

Sorry, I don't have 12 1/2 cents handy.

UPDATE:  Ouch.  Jesse at Pandagon articulates a theme also sounded by Kevin Drum and others, which I will paraphrase as "gee, Greenberg pays you guys a compliment, and you still freak out".

Naturally, I dispute the notion that it is righty bloggers that are unusually thin-skinned; in fact, I question their patriotism for suggesting it (and now let's see if they burst into tears.)

That said, it looks like my 12 1/2 cents was well spent.

Comments

[richard mcenroe]

So the newspaper run by the kid who inherited his job from his millionaire father is gonna investigate class stratification in America. Yyyyyyep... this should be entertaining.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

"When they said you was high classed,
Well, that was just a lie.
You ain’t never caught a rabbit
And you ain’t no friend of mine."

--Elvis Presley

I say we investigate the heartbreak of class stratification in academia. Maybe tenured professors in top ranked research institutions v those who grade their own mid-terms.

[JorgXMcKie]

Surely Kaus will have this assigned so we can skip it. I read the first one and can see the rest of it already. We're doooooooooooooomed!

Let's see. I moved from the bottom 20% to the middle 20% to the bottom 20% to the top 20%.
My next brother moved from the bottom 20% to the top 20%, and remains there.
My second brother moved from the bottom 20% to the middle 20% to the top 20% to the middle 20% to the top 20% to the bottom or next to bottom 20%.
My sister moved fromt the bottom 20% to the next to bottom 20% and remains there.

Oddly enough, we've all been doing mostly what we like and enjoying ourselves, our families, and our work.

Hmmmmm. Maybe economic class isn't the most important thing to many Americans.

Nah. If that were true, the Democrats would never win another election.

[JorgXMcKie]

P.S. I grade my own mid-terms (and finals, and quizzes, and papers and . . . so?)

;->=

[Brian]

I had David Greenberg as a professor last year.

He's not cut out to be one of those, either.

The last day of class (by the way this was a class in the history of political media), at the end when all of the liberal yalies walked up to gush at him, I walked up, and shook his hand. I said, "Thanks for a great semester. Oh, and remember how you asked at the beginning for any advice on how to revise your teaching style? You might try considering the fact that Clinton may just be a sonofabitch, and that not all Republicans are." His jaw hit the floor, and I walked away.

I wonder if he remembers me?

[Jor]

Kevin Drum had an interesting point in that, are there really any further meritocratic institutions to put in place? It seems like as a society we've added a bunch, and now the role of nature, nurture, and entropy are taking over. Also Delong has some interesting comments too on the NYT peice. Anyway, its inherrently American to point to one sucess story as proof that anything is possible (even though highly unlikely) and ignore all the failures. HEH, the Supreme Court nit-pick is truly in style btw.

[TM]

the Supreme Court nit-pick is truly in style btw.

Thanks, I pride myself on making anal-retentive paranoia look easy.

[Crank]

I think the take-home lesson is that the NYT now admits that becoming a Supreme Court Justice is a higher aspiration than the presidency. More power, better job security, less travel involved, summers (largely) off. What's not to love?

[sammler]

A link where you make fun of someone else's comments section appears to be broken. Mock clearly, please!

[TM]

A broken link? Not so - "matched and exceeded here, of course" refers to this very Minute-site.

[Cecil Turner]

I think he's referring to the "and not all the sites that do seem to benefit from them" link. I admit being curious.

[TM]

Good point, and I have fixed it (but be ready for a let-down - I am recycling some old material.)

[BadLiberal]

Oh Jimeny Christmas, Frank Rich again. Can we please tick the clock over to his 16th minute now? The idea that people are being "tricked" into thinking abortion is an issue would is empirically disproven in about 15 minutes of driving through Kansas. Not that he actually does that. It's safer for him to bag on Kansas from the Ivory Tower. And yeah, I know he supposedly comes from Kansas -- if memory serves, he was from the Kansas City suburb of Olathe. That's like saying a someone who lives in Austin represents the rest of Texas.