Wired

I'm not sure I can add to the long list of fans and critics praising The Wire as "the greatest television series ever", since I watch so little TV. It would be like a man who reads one book per year proclaiming that the book he had just read was the best book ever written. There are some judgments we are not in a position to make.

Still, having just watched the first season of The Wire, I can say that it really is fantastic. The writing is absolutely stellar; these are obviously people who know what they're writing about. David Simon, the show's creator, was a reporter in Baltimore for a dozen years, and even wrote two books about the city's crime problems.

The show has a fascinating array of characters, and the acting is superb. The pacing, too, is perfect: not too slow, but also not in the absurdly fast-paced, six major plot twists per episode league either (I'm looking at you, Battlestar Galactica).

What has struck me most about the show, however, is the cinematography. It is rare to find even a movie in which there is this much attention to detail. The Wire aims at realism without resorting to any of the cinema verite cliches (shaky cameras, people peering ominously into the camera, etc.). The use of colour, lighting, and subtle continuities between scenes create a really unique, and inviting, atmosphere.

Incidentally, I began watching this show with a friend, who rented the first season on the recommendation of Thomas Scanlon, who is apparently a big fan. My friend lost interest after the first six episodes, but I'm hooked.

P.S. It appears that I'm about six years behind the times in discovering this show. Actually, that's not bad for me. Maybe ten years from now I'll have gotten a Blackberry. Or at least a cell phone.

We're Alright

Fareed Zakaria praises "the genius of the Canadians":

Canada has done more than survive this financial crisis. The country is positively thriving in it. Canadian banks are well capitalized and poised to take advantage of opportunities that American and European banks cannot seize. The Toronto Dominion Bank, for example, was the 15th-largest bank in North America one year ago. Now it is the fifth-largest. It hasn't grown in size; the others have all shrunk.

That's not to deny that these are trying times, even in the Dominion of non-deregulated banks. But in the midst of The Worst Economic Crisis Ever, Canada looks a lot like it's the place to be.

Bringing down the government

On the recent inanity in Canadian politics, I recommend Andrew Coyne's take. Sure, Harper was being provocative. Does the plan for a new coalition government (led by whom, exactly?) constitute a measured response?

Thanksgiving

I'm enjoying my first American Thanksgiving. Canada should really think about switching to a four day Thanksgiving weekend. Anyway, I see that the Liberals and NDP are apparently seriously considering forming a weak coalition government. This would be a bold, and extremly risky move. The Liberals distrust their leader, with the contest to replace him ongoing. The economy is in shambles, and it's pretty clear that the opposition doesn't know any better than the Conservatives what to do about it. The plan to eliminate public financing for parties has already been dropped. Will the Liberals take the plunge? Stay tuned...

Dovish

The National Review is, from what I understand, not what it used to be. Some of its columnists are very smart and always interesting to read - Ramesh Ponnuru, for instance, or Yuval Levin. Overall, though, the NRO crowd tends to consist of Republican cheerleaders; and their reflexive opposition to Obama has not always been very thoughtful. I was speaking to a faithful NRO reader yesterday who assured me that Obama would pull out from Iraq within 60 days of his inauguration, that he would slash funding for the military, and that his supposed concern for Afghanistan was just a ploy to attract centrist voters.

This is certainly a caricature. Obama has said he will pull out of Iraq within 16 months, but he will leave residual forces there. Oh, and he will be very careful to pay attention to the "facts on the ground" - so 16 months might be just a guidline. He has said that he will increase defense spending, that he will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons, that he's willing to make incursions into Pakistan (as indeed the U.S. military has already been doing), and that he supports Nato membership for Georgia (which is certain to further strain relations with Russia). And he's supposed to be too dovish?

On the other hand, liberals I've been speaking to agree that, yes, Obama certainly speaks like a somewhat hawkish liberal internationalist, but this is not what he really believes. Once he's elected, he'll begin to scale back U.S. military engagements. One can always hope, I suppose. But I wouldn't be too audacious about it.

The Freedom of Choice Act

My friends in the pro-life movement are despondent. It's not hard to see why. Obama told Planned Parenthood last year that the first thing he would do as president would be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would overturn most of the modest gains made by pro-lifers since Roe v. Wade. If Congress were to pass it, and Obama were to sign it into law, we would see an immediate heightening of the culture wars. Pro-lifers, who at the national level have been single-mindedly focused on overturning Roe v. Wade, would be re-energized by a desire to repeal FOCA. Cultural polarization would proceed apace. This, I think, would be bad for Obama, who has won so much good by promising a "different kind of politics". It could be an interesting next 4 years...

Obama

It's been quite the week. There has been so much commentary on Obama's victory that I don't have much to say that wouldn't be hopelessly redundant. I recommend Alan Jacobs' short reflection. Ambinder has posted yesterday's front pages from newspapers in historic civil rights cities. A remarkable week indeed.

The Kitchen Table

One lesson to take from the recent Canadian election is that, no matter how much attention they get in the media, and no matter how much Canadians claim to care about them, environmental issues tend to remain more or less peripheral come election time. During the last couple years, climate change has been central to Canadian social and political discourse. This should have been our “green” election. And Stephane Dion bet his leadership on it. Yet despite Al Gore and David Suzuki, the Green Party failed to win a single seat, and the Liberals were thoroughly humiliated.

Now it’s beyond doubt that the financial crisis played a large role in making economic issues the primary concern of many voters. It’s also true that the Green Party ran a fairly lackluster campaign, in spite of unprecedented support and participation in the leadership debates. And that’s saying nothing of Dion’s weaknesses as a candidate. But green issues were destined to be relegated to a level of lesser importance during the campaign. At the end of the day, a large chunk of voters are going to vote based on “kitchen table” issues: job security, taxes, health care, education.

Harper didn’t need to release a campaign platform. All he had to do was repeat that Dion’s Green Shift would lead to increased taxes, increased gas prices, etc. Dion’s plan might have singlehandedly reversed the direction of climate change, and it wouldn’t have mattered. It’s no secret that the Conservatives don’t care much about global warming, if they accept the science at all. And they’re at odds with the Canadian consensus in that respect. But during the election campaign, that didn’t matter. I doubt that the environmental movement will be able to keep climate change

Similarly, the election here in the US is demonstrating the ineluctable importance of kitchen table issues. During the primaries, Obama notoriously spoke mostly in platitudes about hope, change, and hope and change combined. But since he won the democratic nominations, his campaign has focused on railing against outsourcing, tax cuts for the middle class, and a new health care plan. Meanwhile, McCain has been obsessing about earmarks, and Sarah Palin’s main issue is drilling for domestic oil. It’s not surprising that the working class has been gravitating toward Obama.

Emotivism

A persisting theory about the nature of morality has it that moral judgments are a reflection of our attitudes or feelings. Emotivism (in simplified form) interprets judgments like ‘x is wrong’ as saying something like ‘boo for x’, while ‘x is right’ really means ‘hooray for x’. In her book, Natural Goodness, Philippa Foot argues against this view by claiming that we often give reasons to support our moral judgments; we have “grounds” for believing that an action is good or right. But according to the emotivist view, whatever grounds may be given, “someone may be unready, indeed unable, to make the moral judgment, because he has not got the attitude or feeling.” Foot takes it that if we have strong enough grounds for making a moral judgments, then we will make them – whatever our feelings happen to be. And so emotivism can’t be right. This seems like a fairly strong objection. Is it?

Trying to imagine

I figured I might post what I wrote in response to Kyle's recent post, where he asked:

Imagine a president who actually made ending abortion and building a culture of life the top priorities. What would happen if pro-life voters actually demanded such a president and settled for nothing less?

It would certainly shake up politics in this country. The GOP has pro-life voters in its pocket now. They need only make a few gestures, warn about how bad things will get if the Democrat is elected, and 'social conservatives' continue to support them. I recently moved to a very liberal college town in the Northeast, but even here the serious pro-lifers don't seem to have any reservations about voting Republican. It doesn't seem to matter what their other policies might be, or how little the GOP actually seems to care about pro-life issues.

As long as the GOP can get by with lip service to socons, they will. Remember the backlash among movement conservatives when it looked like Huckabee had a chance at the nomination earlier this year. It wasn't just problems with his policies; here was a very serious religious conservative who came close to the leadership of the party. And the higher ups went nuts.