Shots in the Dark

The Times reports that, by pulling Republicans to the polls, Joe Lieberman’s quixotic run for Senate may doom the chances of three Democratic congressional candidates, which might in turn doom the Democrats’ chances of winning back the House of Representatives.

Which is funny, in a way, because it is Lieberman who claims that he is running for “the good of the party.”

Meanwhile, Republican congressional candidates are campaigning with Lieberman, who has hired a Republican media firm….

The New York Post yesterday ran a big take-out on The Price of Admission: How America’s Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges—And Who Gets Left Outside the Gates.

(I’d link to it, but the Post website is too dysfunctional for me even to find the article online.)

“One of the last taboos among America’s aristocracy is talking—or writing—about pulling strings in college admissions,” Golden writes.

He cites several examples quoted in the Post:

—Super-agent Michael Ovitz’s son was admitted as a “special student” at Brown, but “didn’t last a year.”
—Lauren Bush, the babe-alicious niece of the President, was admitted to Princeton even though her application was a month late.
—Al Gore’s allegedly not-that-impressive son, who “preferred partying to homework,” got into Harvard.

This book is sure to get a big push from Random House; it comes packaged with glowing blurbs from, among others, Skip Gates and Lani Guinier. (Gates: “I was bowled over by The Price of Admission.”)

It’s not out till September 5th…anyone out there got an advance copy?

Lauren Bush:
Perhaps not
as smart as
her uncle…

…but strong
extracurriculars.

Would you
admit her?

A few weeks ago, I wrote of Martha Nussbaum’s devastating New Republic review of Harvey Mansfield’s new tome—well, sort of—called Manliness. (I’d link to it, but TNR online is subscriber-only.)

Now Mansfield has responded in the letters section of TNR. I reprint his letter, in full, in the interests of fairness.

Among the many errors and misrepresentations in Marha Nussbaum’s review of my book on manliness is the statement that I have retired from a chair at Harvard. Not so. Apart from that, I say that I did not follow her instruction for writing my book because I did not want a product quite as earnest as the books she has done lately. Nor do I desire the servile future of caring males listening raplty to righteous females that she has in mind for us.

That sure does sound like a grim future. One wishes, though, that Mansfield would follow up the accusation that there are “many errors and misrepresentations” in Nussbaum’s review with more than one specific.

If only, of course, because it would make for a more entertaining letter.

Here’s an economics problem that I’d like to see some hotshot young economist work on: Why capitalism sometimes doesn’t work. Specifically, why technical innovations that should lead to price cuts for consumers actually wind up costing consumers more money.

Three examples.

Remember when gas stations first started making some gas pumps “self-serve”? They justified the cutback on customer service by pricing self-serve gas lower than full-service pumps. The idea was, okay, you might have to get out of your car on a freezing cold day, or in a rainstorm, but doing so will cost you seven cents less per gallon.

Over time, of course, that price savings vanished, even with the advent of credit card machines that fully automate pumps. Now everything is self-serve except in New Jersey and (I think) Oregon, two states which mandate that gas station attendants pump gas. (It’s a silly full-employment law.) But does gas cost less as a result?

Example two: Ordering movie tickets via the web. It’s a feature that benefits both movie theaters (they can sell more tickets and cut down on labor costs) while obviating the need for people to wait in line. But for some reason, theaters charge you about $2.00 for the privilege of…buying a ticket! When in fact they should give you a discount, as airlines do when you buy a ticket online. This may be one reason why people don’t go to movies as much as they used to…because the basic amenities of movie-going can, totaled up, make the whole experience considerably more costly than renting a dvd from Netflix (whose customer service is fantastic).

Here’s the latest outrage: When you buy tickets online from Ticketmaster, the site now gives you an option of having your tickets e-mailed to you, for you to print out. “TicketsNow!”, it’s called, or some bogus name like that.

Obviously, this saves Ticketmaster money; they don’t have to print and mail the tickets, and once the computer program is written, there’s no human cost whatsoever. Yet for some reason (i.e., greed), Ticketmaster charges $2.50 to send you the e-mail containing your tickets. (This on top of the $9.50 service charge for $49.50 tickets to see The Killers at Madison Square Garden.) That’s better than the ten bucks Ticketmaster charges to actually put your tickets in the mail, but still…..

Of course, there’s probably nothing illegal about any of this, at least when the federal government doesn’t look into anti-trust actions with any vigor. No one has to buy movie tickets online; no one has to go to concerts. (Though if you do, you pretty much have to use Ticketmaster. Thanks, Justice Department!)

But I wonder if it’s occurred to people in either the film or concert industry that such price-gouging probably has a lot to do with why both their businesses are in such dire straits….

In the Globe, Marcella Bombardieri reports that the gambling website bodog.com is taking bets on who will be Harvard’s next president; law school dean Elena Kagan is the current favorite at 3:1; provost Steve Hyman is at 7:2; Radcliffe Institute dean Drew Faust is at 15:1.

(Hmmm…I would lower the odds on her signficantly—she seems at least as likely a choice as Steven Hyman.)

Some of the names are a little silly: Lee Bollinger, for example. Harvard’s not about to admit that it should have chosen Bollinger the first time around. Ditto with Harvey Fineberg. And Shirley Tilghman isn’t about to leave Princeton. But would Ruth Simmons leave Brown? I think she might. But would Harvard choose a black woman and risk appearing politically correct? (A black woman from Brown, to boot…and think of those cranky alums who think Larry Summers was driven out of town on a PC-rail.)

There’s not a chance in a million.

Kagan’s a very impressive woman, and very ambitious as well. But one wonders if that wouldn’t feel pretty much like appointing a more diplomatic Larry Summers. (On the other hand, that might be just what the Corporation is looking for….)

The plot thickens…..

George Allen’s campaign aides have come up with a new explanation for the word “macaca,” which the senatorial candidate and presidential aspirant repeatedly and publicly used to describe an Indian-American man who worked for his opponent.

The Hotline reports: According to two Republicans who heard the word used, “macaca” was a mash-up of “Mohawk,” referring to Sidarth’s distinctive hair, and “caca,” Spanish slang for excrement, or “shit.”

Said one Republican close to the campaign: “In other words, he was a shit-head.“

Just in case you forgot, George Allen wants to run for president.

The problem with this explanation is that Sidarth had a mullet, not a Mohawk, and the two hair cuts are quite different. Could the candidate, who is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, have gotten the two confused? Nuh-uh. Trust me—they know mullets in Virginia. If you wear a mullet in Virginia, chances are you drive a pick-up truck and root for the Redskins. If you wear a Mohawk in Virginia, you probably try to avoid having the crap beat out of you on a regular basis….

In any event, isn’t it reassuring to know that George Allen wasn’t using a racial slur—honest!—to refer to the young campaign-worker, but was merely calling him a shithead?

A mullet: so
very wrong.

A mohawk: only
marginally better.

While the Times continues to pretend that Ned Lamont doesn’t exist, it runs yet another piece on Joe Lieberman today. I know Lieberman is the better-known name, the higher visibility figure here, but really—the Times’ coverage of this campaign is awful.

Anyway, the story is actually kind of interesting, as it shows how Lieberman is cozying up to conservatives (and vice-versa), and how his rationale for the war in Iraq is changing with the passage of time and the acquisition of wacky new right-wing friends.

If we leave Iraq too soon, Lieberman said in an interview with Don Imus, another MSM-friend, “It will be an all-out civil war. The Iranians will rush in and control probably at least the southern part of Iraq.”

During a radio interview with conservative talk show host Glenn Beck, according to the Times, Mr. Lieberman seemed to agree with Mr. Beck that the struggle against “Islamist terrorists” was similar to the campaign to contain fascism on the eve of World War II. During that interview, Mr. Beck said that invading Iraq on the basis of a perceived threat of weapons of mass destruction was a “nice side benefit,” but that the broader goal was to “go and pop the head of the snake in Iran.”

Going into Iraq for WMD was “a nice side benefit”?

“I don’t think anybody had the courage or could actually come out and say that with world politics the way they are,” Mr. Beck added.

Mr. Lieberman responded: “Well, you’re right. And I think if I fault the administration for anything before the war — because I think we did the right thing in going in to overthrow Saddam — it’s that they oversold the W.M.D. part of the argument.”

The reason, of course, that the administration “oversold the W.M.D. part of the argument” is merely that, without it, there was no argument for invading Iraq.

Let us look closely at what Lieberman has said. One of the reasons we invaded Iraq, apparently, was to deal with the threat of Iran. (How exactly the one is connected to the other, I will allow Lieberman to twist-and-shout his way out of at some future date.)

But then again, if we leave Iraq now, Iran will take over part of the country. Which it wasn’t actually threatening or even able to do before we invaded Iraq.

This is intellectual mush on the part of a senator who is supposed to be intellectually serious.

Let us also look closely at who Lieberman is keeping company with. The Times refers to Glenn Beck as a “conservative” talk show host. Not exactly. He’s nuts. Beck has called survivors of Hurricane Katrina “scumbags” and said that he “hates” 9/11 victims. Beck, who is Mormon, also believes in the apocalypse and expects “a world war of biblical proportions.“

Joe Lieberman’s personal apocalypse continues.

I’m on deadline and unable to blog today…but I’ll be back tomorrow….

I saw “The Descent” last night, a horror flick about a group of women who go cave-exploring and run into some really, really creepy monsters who want to, well, eat them. (And I won’t be giving away too much if I say they are not entirely unsuccessful.) Scared the daylights out of me. And as some of you know, I’m no stranger to this kind of film. (Saw 1, Saw 2, Hostel…not to mention all the “Alien” films, multiple times.)

But there is something about caves, about making your way through narrow tunnels hundreds of feet under the ground, that really unnerves. Perhaps the film’s most upsetting scene has nothing to do with monsters; one woman simply gets stuck while crawling through a tiny space and starts to panic.

If you’ve ever had a panic attack, you’ll note that her reaction is remarkably well-demonstrated. I have twice while diving—once on the very first dive I ever took, when I suddenly decided that I was sinking into a bottomless ocean and couldn’t stop, and once when I donned a hood for the first time, felt incredibly claustrophobic, and realized that I couldn’t take it off underwater without removing my mask and regulator. Your mind racing…your heart speeding up…the loss of reason…your lungs going in-out, in-out, so fast that you realize you’re on the verge of hyperventilating….the urge to bolt, to get the hell out of there as fast as you can….

If you like a good scare, see The Descent. It’s just terrific. And like all good horror movies, it succeeds at making you feel better about your own life: Whatever else may be happening, at least you are not stuck in a tiny tunnel a mile under ground, being assaulted by slimy albino creatures with mottled skin, blind eyes, and long, sharp teeth….