Spreadin' Love

Dooce and other mommybloggers were interviewed by Kathy Lee Gifford on the Today show.

Kathy G. defends unionized workplaces. She writes, "The best research has found that unionized firms are, on average, more productive than their nonunionized counterparts."

In a recent comment thread about teacher tenure, I said that I didn't think that too many professors slacked off after getting tenure. Some of you disagreed with me. Dan Drezner proudly declares it's donut and hobby time, now that he's been made full professor. (While you're there, read his two posts on HIllary.)

In Democracy in America, deTocqueville fears that great mediocrity will happen as the world becomes more democratic and less aristocratic. There will be more malls and Levittown and less Versailles. According to an article in Foreign Policy, the architecture in autocratic nations today is incredibly innovative. Check out the buildings in Dubai and Azerbaijan.

Comments

[Wendy]

If I ever seem argumentative, it's because I don't usually post to say "I agree!" :)

OK, Levittown. Don't knock it! Both my husband and I grew up in Levittown or Levitt-built communities. About 14 years ago, we had to move in with my in-laws for 4 months, and I used to spend hours with a Walkthing pacing the streets of the neighborhood, exercising/getting out of the house. I became fascinated with the ways that the 3-4 basic Levitt designs were updated/remodelled. So much variety. So much personality. And this was before the big loot-the-HELOC-to-remodel phase of the early 2000s. I had just moved from the Triangle area of NC, home of the building boom in Planned Unit Developments (ugh--Cary, NC was full of them). Levittown was far superior.

If I read Drezner's two posts on Hillary, will I want to throw things at the computer? I need fair warning.

[bj]

Well, do you mind if he tells everyone that Hillary has been race-baiting?

Honestly, I have lost a tremendous amount of respect for Hillary. I really have admired many things about her (as I've posted on this very blog), but she has now committed difficult-to-forgive sins.

There's a Tom Hayden article that says that the battle-toughened Hillary is now running (against Obama) against the person that she could have been. It didn't have to be like this -- she could have run on who she is, rather than what Obama is not. But, there's still time for all of us to come together and sing the happy family song. I only hope we do it, so that we have the best chance we can at beating McCain.

[Amy P]

bj,

I have a new all-time favorite Obama quote:

"I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did."

I take it that mid-20th century history is not a favorite subject for BHO.

[bj]

"I take it that mid-20th century history is not a favorite subject for BHO."

why?

(although I suspect I'm going to hear some conservative blog talking point, you're the only reason I ever hear them)

bj

[Doug]

"There will be more malls and Levittown and less Versailles."

This is bad for the median person how?

[laura]

It's not bad for the median person. Tocqueville also says more people will be educated, but less people will be truly wise. He says that democracy improves conditions for the average guy, but something is also lost in the process. I'm not sure I agree with him, but we just read him in class and it fit in well with that Foreign Policy article on architecture.

re: the Drezner post on Hillary. I think that Hillary's just tired right now. I don't think she meant what she said.

Wendy, I'm a great fan of Levittown. Check out the links in this .

[Amy P]

bj,

It's a talking point because it's true--it's a damning quote because it shows ignorance on the part of both Obama and his campaign. Although you can certainly make a case for open communication with hostile states, Obama's choice of presidents to demonstrate this was really weird. It would have made a lot more sense to name Reagan and Nixon, but he understandably did not choose Republican presidents as his examples. Let's just say that Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy are not the guys that immediately come to mind when one is trying to think of the virtues of conciliation and dialogue with hostile foreign states.

[dave.s.]

Roosevelt met with our ally, Stalin. Enemies? I can't think of any. It was Chamberlain who met with Hitler.

[bjbj]

So, the comment is bad 'cause it's supposed to show that he doesn't know what Roosevelt/Truman/Kennedy did?

Has anyone asked him to explain it? Before attributing the statement to ignorance, it seems like an opportunity to clarify should be in order. Of course, as we've already established, I adore him, but, my guess is that there's a sophisticated and reasoned argument behind the statement :-).

Of course, I'm not going to admit for a second that there's no clarification of the comment, but all in all, attributing the wrong president (if he did) for "talking to your enemies" must at least wash with McCain's confusion about the Shiites, Sunnis, and Al Quaeda in Iraq. We know a certain type of conservative seems to think it's a sign of patriotism not to know these things about other countries, but we suspect that's the kind of thinking that's gotten us into our current mess.

The bj talking point (of reasons to adore Obama) is that he pronounced Pakistan correctly in one of the debates. Paak-is-thaan, not, Pack-is-tan. I liked both that he got it right (and choose to attribute it to a sophisticated and intimate knowledge of the world), but also that he didn't decide to pronounce it incorrectly out of some form of posturing.

I would love to see the candidates in a trivial pursuit game on history, world affairs, science, and maybe even math, though. It would be fun. I wonder how they'd do? Which of them do you think knows what the integral of e^x is? Any?

[Amy P]

"So, the comment is bad 'cause it's supposed to show that he doesn't know what Roosevelt/Truman/Kennedy did?"

Yes. A president should have (at minimum) a pretty good idea of the shape of 20th century US history. And by the way, I'd pay to hear Obama's explanation of the distinction between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

One oddity of Obama's friends-vs.-enemies formulation is the strawman it creates. I think that there is probably a lot of continuity between the GWB administration and previous administrations in its treatment of foreign powers. The US has and has probably always had lots of "friends" that aren't really friends--think "our friends the Saudis," Pakistan, Egypt, etc.

With regard to the pronunciation issue, that is a huge pet peeve with me. We have our official American English pronunciations, and the fact that they differ from the official pronunciation in other questions is just how the language cookie crumbles. We say Paris, not "Par-ee," and there is no reason to change. Likewise, we say Moscow, not Moskva, and Warsaw, not Warszawa (pronounced Var-shah-va). It's not feasible to start pronouncing every place name to the satisfaction of the locals, and I assure you that they don't do it with American place names. You don't really want to mess with traditional mispronunciations. I could bore you all day on the subject of the correct pronunciation of Khrushchev (it's not Kroo-shev, but Hroo-shchoff with the accent on the last syllable). Likewise, Gorbachev is not Gore-buh-chahv but Gar-buh-chov (also with the accent on the last syllable).

[Dr. Manhattan]

Check out the comments to the Kathy G post. I have never seen so much pushback on CT against a liberal talking point.

[Amy P]

Ugh, Dr. Manhattan, please let's not use that term "talking point." Isn't Kathy G the person who recently ripped off someone's post? There was something about that on Megan McArdle's blog a while back.

[Dr. Manhattan]

Yes, and that was one reason I used that term rather than... I don't know... "argument."

[laura]

Thanks for sending me over to see the latest comments, Dr. Manhattan. I am no expert in this area and can't weigh in on one way or the other, but I do find the debate interesting.

[Amy P]

Megan McArdle also had a good comment thread on this stuff recently. I suspect that within the US, there are so few surviving unionized companies and industries that it's difficult to find counterparts for comparing productivity. Where are the unionized counterparts of Google or Microsoft?

While I normally hate the but-their-culture-is-different argument for education, I think it does have to be raised if we are comparing unionized Japanese to non-unionized Americans. I am not even certain that an American union and a Japanese union have much in common. How often does it happen that a Japanese union goes on strike, shuts down a production line, and brings a company to its knees over compensation issues? How adversarial is the relationship between a Japanese labor union and management?