Society

Thursday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

If we’d all have been living in California, We wouldn’t have worked at all…

Some things never change. Classicist Mary Beard swaps cold and windswept Cambridge for sun-kissed Berkeley and is immediately overwhelmed by American abundance: Amazingly I have no borrowing limit. Accustomed as we Cambridge academics are to a more or less strictly enforced 10 book limit, I approached the Berkeley borrowing desk with some trepidation. How would I choose between the 12 I wanted to borrow (Berkeley has a wonderful collection – and I had stumbled upon the ‘laughter’ section)? I needn’t have worried. I can borrow as many as I like for up to year. This was like the proverbial child in a sweet shop… On the other hand, this part

Alex Massie Alex Massie

California is another country, they do things differently there

MattF’s comment on the previous post merits a post of its own: My favorite (true!) New England-to-California story: A New England native moved to California and decided to start a garden. He went to the garden store and bought various seeds and bulbs. At the checkout counter the following exchange took place: New England Native: When do I plant these? Guy Behind Counter: When you get home.

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Lithuanian Conundrum

Matt Yglesias wants to know why Lithuania (population 3.8million) is so good at basketball: As everyone knows, to succeed at basketball you need tall people. Not only do even your backcourt players need to be tall, but you need to be able to pull several freakishly tall big men together. It seems inconceivable that such a tiny country could manage to field so many quality basketball players consistently over an extended period of time no matter how basketball-mad the country may be. Is Vilnius just full of people 6′8″ and taller? I don’t know very much about basketball, let alone eastern european basketball, but I’d guess that these factors (some

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Tonight’s McCain ad

The McCain campaign used to rail against the media’s obsession with Obama but now it feeds it. It has jumped into the conversation through a series of ads mocking Obama and tough charges all of which has helped turn the election into a referendum on Obama. (This shift from a referendum on the Bush years to a referendum on Obama is the best explanation for why race is so close.) As part of this approach, the McCain campaign will bracket Obama’s acceptance speech tonight with an ad from McCain asking Obama a series of pointed questions. The ad will undoubtedly get good play in the media but it is a

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A hard balancing act

The expectations for Obama’s speech tonight are a mile high. I’d be tempted to say they’ll be impossible to match but, as First Read points out , Obama has never yet failed to deliver on one of these set piece occasions. Obama speaks as the first African-American nominee of a major American party on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech’, emphasising the historic nature of this moment. Add to this the fact that Obama is regarded as the best political orator in a generation and that his political career took off with his 2004 convention address, and you realise just how much people are

Sean Martin

Political correctness is the real failure of stop and search

Laura Richards, a former head of the Met Police homicide prevention unit has claimed stop and search makes gangs stronger not weaker. The method has been used by the Met in stabbing “hotspots” to catch knife carriers. Richards feels the indiscriminate searches are marginalising young men, and suggests that – as 90 percent of knife murderers are previously known to police – searching targeted youths would get better results. On the surface this seems a great idea, with excessive police interference only worsening what are already poor relations with young people. The problem emerges when we look at who the targeted street knife criminals are: generally under 20 and disproportionately

Sean Martin

How McCain can beat Obama

We’ve just uploaded the latest magazine content, and I’d recommend you check out Reihan Salam’s cover piece on how John McCain can beat Barack Obama in the forthcoming US Presidential Election. Here’s Salam’s thesis: “By all rights, Obama should be crushing McCain. Instead, Obama has seemed defensive and cautious. The selection of Delaware Senator Joe Biden as running mate is best understood as an effort to play it safe — to select a veteran legislator who is on record praising McCain, and who voted for the Iraq war. Meanwhile, McCain is the candidate who is growing more confident and aggressive. In my view, what he needs to do now to secure

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Biden lands some blows on McCain, but the convention as a whole fails to pack a punch

Joe Biden did go after John McCain tonight, drawing contrasts between McCain and Obama. His solution to the question of how you attack a man with McCain’s record of service was to paint McCain as a good solider at a time when America needs a wise leader. The contrasts Biden drew were effective and the speech was the most useful of the convention so far for Obama. The section attacking McCain’s national security judgement was delivered with passion and should reassure some voters nervous about Obama’s national security credentials. At the end of the address, Obama joined Biden on the stage. The visuals looked good—Biden appeared a reassuring presence next

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Kerry, this time with feeling

When John Kerry got up there to speak with his insomnia-curing drawl, I thought I’d watch the old loser just from a sense of schadenfreude. But then his attack came out. It was interesting, potent and it had Michelle Obama rising to her feet. In fact, it struck me as the punchiest, hardest-hitting speech of the convention. Who would have thought that dull old Kerry had it in him? He found a nice way of dealing with the Democrats key problem. McCain is – in Clinton’s own words – “a good man who loves his country.” But Kerry separated “Senator McCain” from “Candidate McCain” saying he’d mutated into a tool

Wednesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

What Hillary couldn’t quite bring herself to say…

Hillary Clinton is, on the whole, enjoying rave reviews for her speech at the Democratic convention last night. Well, it wasn’t terrible, I suppose. But she wasn’t exactly fulsome in her praise either. I mean, she could have said something like: You know, as I look at all of you here tonight, and I think of all the people watching at home, I don’t see Clinton supporters or Obama supporters, I see Democrats. I see a party that recognises the importance of this election, that appreciates that this country faces a choice between the change we need and four more years of the same old Republican policies that have done

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Don’s Final Century

On to more important matters than the Democratic convention. Today marks the centenary the birth of Sir Donald Bradman, perhaps the greatest sportsman who ever lived and a man whose brilliance becomes more, not less, mysterious as the years pass and no fresh pretender emerges to challenge his claim to the crown. The numbers peak for themselves: Bradman’s test average of 99.94 runs per innings is a summit beyond reach. No-one before, or since, has come close to his record of scoring a century every 2.75 innings. His closest comeptitor – of those who have played a serious amount of top-class cricket – is George Headley and even the great

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Culture can be turned up to 11…

I’ve a wee piece at the new webzine Culture11, which launches today, looking at sports that might profitably be brought back into the Olympic fold in times for London 2012. Also well worth checking out: Rod Dreher’s article on keeping chickens in Dallas…

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Farewell, Mushtaq Ahmed

Alas, Mushtaq Ahmed is retiring. Injuries and the grind of the county circuit have taken their toll on the amiable Pakistani spinner, leaving him just 93 wickets short of the magic number of 1,500. Though overshadowed by Shane Warne and (to some extent) Anil Kumble, Mushtaq’s role in the revitalisation of wrist-spin should not be overlooked. And he had a better googly than either of his more illustrious contempories. More importantly, he played the game with a joyous enthusiasm that did him great credit. I prefer to remember his Somerset days, even if they were less successful than the six splendid seasons he’s enjoyed at Sussex. Still, even accepting that

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Waiting for the boy from hope

Bill Clinton’s speech is going to be the dramatic focal point of the night. Whether it is an emotional rapprochement with Obama, a lukewarm endorsement or a reflection on the prosperity of the Clinton years it will be news. The nervousness among Democrats here in Denver about the speech will only have been increased by the news that Bill told a group of donors that “Last night after she spoke, anyone who helped her were glad they did. And some were sad they didn’t.” If Bill’s evident regret that the Democrats didn’t pick his wife seeps into his speech tonight then the press will have a field day and another

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Clintons dominate in Denver  

Another day in Denver, another day of Clinton stories. The extent to which the Clintons are dominating this convention really is quite remarkable. This morning, the news shows have three new angles to keep them busy. First, Bill Clinton is not attending Obama’s acceptance speech on Thursday—a snub and a half. Second, The New York Times have a couple of Clinton aides talking anonymously about her plan to run in 2012 if Obama loses. And last but not least, the dispute over Bill Clinton’s speech is still rumbling on with all the news shows running with a quote from a Clinton confidant that ‘no one tells Bill Clinton what to say.’

Peter Hoskin

Are we heading towards the point of no return?

The Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has a comment piece in today’s FT in which he defends his decision to recognise the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia by drawing parallels with the West’s recognition of an independent Kosovo.  But whatever the rights and wrongs on that front, it’s hard to read Russia’s defiance of the West on this as little more than an act of agression.  Accordingly, then, there’s a growing sense that the jaw-jaw just isn’t working.  The rhetoric has already stepped up a notch, with Medvedev claiming that “We are not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a new cold war”.  And accusations have already started flying around that the Americans are trying to

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Hillary praised Obama but the damage has not been undone

Hillary Clinton did what her duty compelled to do in terms of supporting Obama and attacking McCain in her speech. But it didn’t inflict lasting damage on McCain; she attacked him on the issues you would expect a Democrat to and praised Obama on the issues you would expect her to. The 3am genie she let out the bottle has not yet been put back in. There is now talk that Bill Clinton will try and do this tomorrow night but given his recent behaviour that’s hardly reassuring news if you are an Obama supporter. The Democrats have not yet worked out how to attack McCain. The barbs aimed at

Susan Jacoby

Reading on the web is not really reading

One of Senator Barack Obama’s persistent themes, since the drawn-out US presidential campaign began in the snows of 2007, has been the need for parents to turn off the television, put away video games, and spend more time reading to and talking with their children. Although no candidate would be dumb enough to call potential voters dumb, Obama is in fact referring to the dumbing down of American culture over the past three decades — a phenomenon that can be measured by everything from a sharp decline in book and newspaper reading to the mediocre performance of American students on international assessments of proficiency in science and mathematics. Obama’s approach