The G Spot

Economic fundamentalism and the minimum wage

By Kathy G.

I've got another post up at Crooked Timber. This one concerns the economics of the minimum wage. You can read it here.

The Hillary-ization of Michelle Obama

By Kathy G.

Before I get to the main subject of this post, I wanted to share my enthusiasm about my favorite new blog: Ta-Nehisi Coates. Though Ta-Nehisi's blog centers on politics, he is also the author of a fascinating-sounding new memoir, The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood. (You can watch an engaging video about the memoir here). He's had some especially smart things to say about the presidential race. Read this post, for example, about Hillary Clinton's instantly infamous "hard-working white people" remark, and why "the obligatory 'not a racist' defense" is irritatingly beside the point, and offensive to boot.

All this is by way of introduction to my favorite of his most recent posts, this expert takedown of Christopher Hitchens' recent nasty, dishonest, and embarrassing attempt at a hit job on Michelle Obama (which appeared in Slate, wouldn't you know. And just when I thought Slate couldn't possibly suck any harder). Ta-Nehisi has a much, much higher opinion of Hitchens than I do (I think the man descended into disgraceful hackdom long ago), but that doesn't stop him from seeing very clearly what Hitchens was trying (and pathetically failing) to do in that piece, and calling him on it. Among other things, Ta-Nehisi points out that if you want to smear someone for the non-existent radical views they allegedly had in college, it would help matters if you yourself don't have a lengthy and well-documented past as a Trotskyite Trotskyist, as Hitchens himself does. D'oh!

The Hitchens piece, contemptible piece o' shite though it is, a surefire sign that, now that it's clear Hillary's presidential campaign is all but over, the right is proceeding apace with its attempt to Hillary-ize Michelle Obama. We have, of course, all heard about how "unpatriotic" she is. Maureen Dowd has already cattily attacked her for not being sufficiently deferential to her husband. And now we're being treated to Hitchens' exegesis of how her college term papers prove she's really Stokely Carmichael in drag. Delightful! But hey . . . radical, unfeminine, unpatriotic -- remind you of any other right-wing caricatures of a certain prominent Democratic woman with a famous husband?    

New post on unions, productivity, and innovation

By Kathy G.

I have a new post up at Crooked Timber, here. It concerns Toyota, unions, innovation, and productivity.

Apology

By Kathy G.

I wanted to draw your attention to this post  from Megan McArdle, which I hadn't seen until today. What the person who blogs at Economics of Contempt says is true: I read his post criticizing McArdle's post on the Coase theorem, and in my own post I borrowed a crucial idea from it without linking to or acknowledging it. That was wrong. While my posts on that subject also drew on my own prior knowledge and other research I was familiar with, his post made a very important point about the applicability of Coase in the real world upon which my post was based. He also quoted from Coase himself, and I used an extended version of the same quote in my post. I'd read the Coase paper before but my memory of it was hazy; his use of the quote inspired me to go back and reread it.

Not to have acknowledged the Economics of Contempt post was ungenerous and dishonest. I apologize to the blogger and I promise that from now on I'll take care to cite the sources I use and give them the appropriate credit.

What Lindsay said

By Kathy G.

Re: blaming the victims of the mortgage crisis. Key graf:

The mortgage crisis is not a reflection of the moral turpitude of the borrowers. If you want to criticize someone's values, assail the greed and shortsightedness of lenders who got caught up in a speculative frenzy and loaned money to people who had no realistic prospect of paying it back. Professionals loaned money to amateurs, not the other way around.

World's stupidest commentary on l'affaire Schlafly

By Kathy G.

Here.

As Atrios says, the stupid, it burns!

She's a journalism major, too. Oy!

More on Schlafly

By Kathy G.

I've written a long post about Washington University's disgraceful decision to award Phyllis Schlafly an honorary degree. You can read it up on Crooked Timber, here.

UPDATE: It's great to see that the General is on the case as well.

New Crooked Timber post up

By Kathy G.

I have another post up at Crooked Timber. This one is about inequality and pain. As it turns out, economic inequality impacts practically every dimension of human existence; even physical pain is unequally shared. You can read the post here.

Shulman for Congress: This Week's Reason Why He Deserves Your Support

By Kathy G.

I've decided to institute a new feature: each Tuesday, I will provide a different reason as to why you should support Dennis Shulman, the Democrat (and blind rabbi) who is running for Congress in New Jersey's 5th District. The incumbent, Scott Garrett, is a pro-war, anti-choice, Bush-loving zealot (he has a lifetime "perfect" score of 100 from the American Conservative Union).

You can read my earlier post about the race, which contains detailed info about Shulman's positions and Garrett's record, here.

Here's today's reason: last week, Scott Garrett voted against a bipartisan effort to make college more affordable. According to Shulman's website, Garrett voted against "a series of amendments that would allow families hit hard by the mortgage crisis to still access PLUS loans and protect families participating in lender of last resort programs from abuse." The final roll call vote on the bill was 388-21. Garrett was the only member of Congress from New Jersey to vote this way.

On this issue, as with so many others, Scott Garrett is out of step with the mainstream views and middle class values of his constituents. It's time for a change, which is why I urge you to support Dennis Shulman for Congress. To contribute to the Shulman campaign via Act Blue, click here. To learn more about Dennis Shulman, visit his campaign website here.

This week: guest blogging at Crooked Timber

By Kathy G.

I'm proud to announce that this week I'll be guest blogging over at Crooked Timber. Crooked Timber is one of my favorite blogs, and I'm honored that Henry Farrell asked me to write for them this week. I can only hope that I can live up not only to Crooked Timber's high standards, but to the flattering things Henry said about me in his introduction.

My first post, which concerns the Iraq War and Edward Said's Orientalism, is up. You can read it here. I apologize to Henry and the crew for waiting until today to start; I had been planning to get the post up yesterday, but life intervened, as it has its way of doing.

New anti-Schlafly Facebook group

By Kathy G.

I wanted to inform readers that a new Facebook group has been created to protest Washington University's plans to award antifeminist Phyllis Schlafly with an honorary doctorate. It's called Official Commencement Protest of Phyllis Schlafly, and you can find it here.

I'm told that while the earlier Facebook group is intended to be more a discussion forum, this new group will focus on anti-Schlafly protest and activism. Which is a little confusing, because the other group was also listing actions you can take to protest, but whatev. If you're interested in putting pressure on Washington U. to put an end to this farce and abandon plans to award her the doctorate, then I urge you to join this new group.

Here's part of the group's description:

We view the sexist and anti-intellectual views expressed by Ms. Schlafly as offensive and feel an honorary degree from our university is completely inappropriate. While we support her right to speak her mind we also wish to use our own right to free speech. Regardless of your political convictions, if Ms. Schlafly's views on the rights of women (especially the status of married women) are completely out of touch with what you believe, then join us in protesting at commencement.

And just to emphasize: it's Schlafly's anti-intellectualism as much as her antifeminism that makes the university's decision to honor her so offensive. Unless, of course, you think that granting an award to someone who has made a career out of propagating kooky, fact-free conspiracy theories completely consistent with the values of scholarship and intellectual integrity.

The new Facebook group points out that, among other things, Schlafly rejects the theory of evolution and believes that creationism (or "intelligent design") should be taught in schools. Which is not exactly surprising, but it's another reason why Washington University's decision to honor her is such a colossal embarrassment.

Did Bush declare today National Feminist Just-Shoot-Me-Now Day and not tell me?

By Kathy G.

Meanwhile, I just learned that The Atlantic's twisted, hate-filled, overprivileged antifeminist-superhack-in-residence -- in other words, Caitlin Flanagan -- has won a major national magazine award.

The judges called Flanagan's work "thoughtful and bracingly honest, filled with humor and empathy, and free of cliches and political correctness."

Excuse me while I barf.

"Thoughtful" -- only if you consider it "thoughtful" for a writer to display stunningly shameful levels of ignorance not only of feminist writings and scholarship but also of the most basic social science research on the subjects she writes about.

Filled with "empathy" only if you think that smug, vicious attacks on working women are compassionate.

And "free of cliches and political correctness" -- what the hell? Flanagan gleefully traffics in every goddamn wingnut antifeminist cliche in the book! Both the ones that date back at least as far as the antisuffragist movement of the 19th century (i.e., women as keepers of home and hearth), as well as the more newly minted ones, such as that HIllary Clinton is a hateful ballbusting bitch.

To paraphrase a line from Zoolander, is everybody on crazy pills today, or what?

Washington U: A Travesty of a Mockery of a Sham

By Kathy G.

The Washington University scandal  -- said scandal being the fact that they're planning to award an honorary doctorate to arch-antifeminist, arch-wingnut, arch-anti-intellectual conspiracy freak Phyllis Schlafly -- just keeps getting better and better.

Know who they've chosen as commencement speaker this year?

C'mon, just guess. I'll give you a hint. Try to think of the one person in America who, more than any other, has been driving the left blogosphere in general, and the feminist blogosphere in particular, out of our everlovin' collective mind of late.

Have you got a guess? Good. Answer after the jump.

Department of What. The. Fuck.

By Kathy G.

Washington University, the highly respected research university located in St. Louis, Missouri, is planning to award Phyllis Schlafly with an honorary doctorate.

Dude, I am so not kidding. See here.

Excuse me, but I'm gonna lose my lunch. While I'm retching away in the toilet, you can read the message below, which is from the Facebook group, No honorary doctorate for anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly:

Wash. U. will honor anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly at commencement.  WHAT?

This is the woman who lives the hypocrisy of having a career that takes her around the country lecturing "family values" groups on how women should stay home.

This is the woman who said of husband-wife rape, "By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don't think you can call it rape [sic]."

This is the woman who described sex education classes as "in-home sales parties for abortions." Do her views fit with the future the men and women of Wash U's graduating class see for themselves and their peers? Probably not. Then why honor her with them? Wouldn't having someone like her in the midst of Wash U's female graduates be incongruous at best, offensive at worst?

E-mail Chancellor Wrighton and let him know what you think!  Wrighton@wustl.edu.

Invite your friends, talk about what's going on.  This should at least be an issue.

Other people to contact are:

Jane Stone, coordinator of the Board of Trustees: jane_stone@wustl.edu

William Danforth, Chancellor Emeritus: 314-935-9850.

Okay, I'm back. I wonder -- would any university even think of awarding an honorary Ph.D. to a person whose most prominent contribution to American public life was as an anti-civil rights crusader? Or an anti-Semite?

Another thing that is so very disturbing about this is that Phyllis Schlafly holds so many truly nutty views about things other than gender. This is unsurprising, given that she was once a card-carrying member  of the John Birch Society (the Birchers, you may remember, believed that President Eisenhower was a conscious agent of the international communist conspiracy).

She is deeply anti-intellectual and throughout her life has shown nothing but contempt for the values of scholarship and intellectual honesty. She has also promulgated all manner of bizarre conspiracy theories. For example, she has been identified as one of the leading proponents of conspiracy theories about the National American Union -- the belief that “behind closed doors, the Bush administration has collaborated with the governments of Mexico and Canada to merge the three nations into one Socialist mega-state." She has described Mexican immigrants as "invaders" seeking to take control of America.

In short, Schlafly is not just a misogynist who has done great harm to the cause of women's advancement in this country, she's also crazy as a loon about virtually every other issue under the sun. And we are supposed to honor her -- why, exactly?

This is a monstrosity and a farce. If Schlafly is awarded a doctorate, every decent person connected with Washington U should hang their heads in shame. It will be a very sad day indeed for women, for academia, and for America.

Weekend Diva Blogging: Laura Nyro

By Kathy G.

Laura Nyro is a part of the template from which my own musical and feminine consciousness  was printed. In the back of my mind, I knew Laura had done it, even before I knew what "it" was. It turns out that "it" meant making no apologies, not being a victim, celebrating the voice and exploring how the voice connected to being a woman in the real world. She has done a lot of work for us, as a matriarch, as a singer and songwriter, to make sure we are more comfortable in our own authority, to encourage and defend, to give us permission. Thank you, Laura. It would have been a lot harder without you.

-- Rosanne Cash

With her characteristic eloquence and wisdom, Rosanne Cash puts her finger on one of the things that is so special about Laura Nyro: her songs broke new ground in telling the truth about women's lives. Laura wrote about a female sexuality and women's experiences with a rawness and emotional honesty that, among her contemporaries, only Joni Mitchell would equal. To me, the work of those later female singer/songwriters who also were intimate chroniclers of women's emotional and erotic lives -- artists like Rickie Lee Jones, P.J. Harvey, and Liz Phair, for example -- are simply unimaginable without her.

Laura Nyro was born in the Bronx in 1947, to a Jewish mother and an Italian Catholic father (her birth name was Laura Nigro). She was a remarkable prodigy, writing such classic songs as "And When I Die" and "Wedding Bell Blues" before she was 18. Other artists, such as Peter, Paul, and Mary, the Fifth Dimension, Blood Sweat and Tears, and Barbra Streisand had top 40 hits with the tunes she wrote. (Personally, I think Babs' cover of the torchy "I Never Met to Hurt You" is the best of these).

But what is most remarkable about Laura Nyro are those albums she made in which she sings and plays her own songs. These records -- More than a New Discovery (1967), Eli and the 13th Confession (1968), New York Tendaberry (1969), and Christmas and the Beads of Sweat (1970) -- were like nothing anyone else was doing at the time. Musically, they were complex and formally inventive, an improbable melange of folk music, jazz, gospel, show tunes, and 60s girl-group rock and roll. Lyrically they were wildly, kaleidoscopically poetic and deeply, intensely personal. At the time there were only a handful of others playing the singer/songwriter game at this level. Besides Joni, there was Dylan of course, and Leonard Cohen, and Neil Young. But that was about it, so far as I can see.

Those first four albums were thrilling, and then? Well, after that furious burst of productivity, Laura's creative spigot slowed to a trickle. In 1971, working with the singing group LaBelle, she released an album of cover tunes of 50s and 60s doo wop and girl group hits. That album, Gonna Take a Miracle, is a favorite of mine, and of other fans as well. After that, though, there was nothing I got very excited about. She released four more albums of original material, but I never much cared for her later stuff. She made her most lasting and important contributions with those first four brilliant albums.

What caused Laura to slow down? Well, for one thing, she was a shy and sensitive person who was deeply uncomfortable living her life in the public eye. Her second major stage appearance, at the Monterey Pop festival in 1967, was a legendary disaster -- she got booed off the stage, it was said, and she was so crushed she never quite got over it. Only, years later, evidence came to light which indicated that wasn't exactly the case; D.A. Pennebaker, the director of the documentary about Monterey, dug up footage of Laura's performance there which he described as "mesmerizing," with nary a boo to be heard. I've linked to a video of one of her songs from that concert below; you can judge for yourself.

Laura's desire for privacy in her intimate life may also have had something to do with why, periodically and for years at a time, she turned her back on her career. Laura was bisexual; though she married and had a child, and had important relationships with men, her most lasting partnership was with a woman, an artist named Maria Desiderio. Maria was with Laura when she died in 1997, at age 49, of ovarian cancer. The same diseased had also killed Laura's beloved mother, who was the same age as Laura when she died.

Searching for Laura Nyro videos on Youtube was a frustrating experience. In contrast to other divas I've blogged about (such as Dolly Parton, Etta James, etc.), I could find very few clips of Laura performing. Since thsoe were so scarce, I'll also link to some Youtubes that are audio only. And even there, I couldn't find audio of some of her greatest songs, including "The Confession" ("Only now am I a virgin/ I confess"), "Woman's Blues" ("My lover's mouth/Been so good to me"), "New York Tendaberry" ("Sidewalk and pigeon/You look like a city/But you feel like a religion/To me") and others.

We'll start with one of those rare videos of Laura in her prime performing one of her classic songs."Save the Country." Sure, the lyrics are full of pie-in-the-sky 60s utopianism, but they also touch ground upon occasion ("I've got fury in my soul"). And I'll confess, I've always found the song's direct invocation of King and the Kennedys to be quite moving. Plus, Rosanne Cash covered this song and Kanye sampled it, so it's gotta be cool, right?

"He was nude. Nobody made him nude, he took his clothes off!"

By Kathy G.

Skyline, Jersey City, New Jersey

I'll explain the title of this post in a bit (and trust me, it will be worth the wait).

But first: while reading this fun and informative article about the political culture of Jersey City, New Jersey in Politics magazine, I came across the following quote, from former Jersey City mayor Gerald McCann:

"Politics is a big deal in Jersey City," he says. "Everywhere else the national pastime might be baseball, but in Jersey City the pastime is politics."

And it occurred to me: so maybe that's where it comes from -- "it" being my lifelong penchant for political junkiedom. I suppose I get it from my parents, both of whom are Jersey City born and bred. And I myself lived in Jersey City for a few years early on in my life -- in fact, my earliest childhood memories are from that period.

Here's the thing about Jersey City: local politics is indeed the number one obsession there. The other important thing about Jersey City is its longstanding tradition as the most politically corrupt city in America. New Orleans? Chicago? Kansas City? Providence, Rhode Island? Cicero, Illinois? Pikers, all of yiz*!

(*Linguistic note: "yiz" is the Jersey City-ese plural for "you" -- exactly as "youse" is the Brooklynese version of same).

As the Politics article points out, Jersey City has long held a well-deserved reputation on the corruption front. It goes back at least to 1889, when a New York Times story, headlined "Jersey City Corruption," described the city as (in Politics' words) "a hopeless cesspool in which corrupt judges, law enforcement officials, politicians and the press all interact to operate with equal disregard for law, ethics or the public good."

My family's history intersects with Jersey City's history. Indeed, my paternal grandfather was a Jersey City Teamster and a ward healer. I'd love to claim that he was a principled lefty who courageously fought the machine and stood up for the rights of workers everywhere, but sadly, the evidence indicates otherwise. Indeed, while Jersey City was very much a Democratic city, its political culture was not progressive at all, not even when it came to labor. Beginning in the 1930s, for example, the city's despotic mayor, Frank Hague, tried to suppress union activities.

Interestingly, both of my parents had a strong visceral reaction to Jersey City's head-to-toe, all-permeating culture of political sleaze: they became conservative Republicans. They tell a story that when they voted for president in 1964, theirs were two of only three votes in their Jersey City precinct for Goldwater (and they never did find out who the mysterious third voter was, either). My dad later became involved in local politics in the town where I grew up. Both my parents remain devout conservatives to this day, though I've spent a frustrating lifetime trying to argue them out of it.

Back to Jersey City -- there is at least one thing to be said in that metropolis's favor: politics there are rarely boring. Indeed, the history of Jersey City is one long, tawdry, albeit richly comic, spectacle. Above all, there are The Mayors. With depressing but predictable regularity, they end up in jail. And even when they don't, many of them blaze new trails in the annals of American buffoonery. Herewith follows a brief rundown of a few of Jersey City's finest.

Researchiness: breastfeeding department

By Kathy G.

The invaluable organization STATS, which monitors misreporting about science and statistics in the media, has caught the New York Times misrepresenting the research on breastfeeding. The Times recently reported that:

Studies have shown that children who are fed formula have increased risks of ear and respiratory infections, obesity, diabetes and even cancer.

Only, for the most part, they don't. As STATS explains, while there is "robust evidence" that breastfeeding decreases the risks of ear infections and diarrhea, the evidence concerning the impact of breastfeeding on respiratory infections, diabetes, and cancer is unclear at best.

STATS continues:

But not all women can breast-feed or can breast-feed all the time.

Nevertheless, the government has decided that women should do so as a matter of public health policy, and the way to get them to do that, it would seem, is to scare them into nursing by over-stating the risks and playing up limited research on the risks of formula. Unfortunately too, the Times has continued to give uncritical support to this campaign by using a journalistic formula of its own.

The point that not all women can breastfeed cannot be emphasized strongly enough. Some women are physically unable to do so -- their breasts do not produce enough milk, and their babies risk starvation if the mother relies on her breast milk alone. The relentless guilt-tripping "breast is best" propaganda can be quite harmful in cases like these.

Happy May Day

By Kathy G.

Depiction of Chicago's Haymarket protest, 1886

Today is May 1, May Day. In much of the world, this day -- sometimes known as International Workers Day, or Labor Day -- is a day that honors and celebrates workers and the achievements of the labor movement. Here in the U.S., we also celebrate Labor Day, but our version occurs on the first Monday in September. And too often America's Labor Day is treated as little more than an apolitical day of rest, in contrast to May Day in other countries, which is celebrated in a manner that is far more political and explicitly pro-organized labor. But the irony is that May Day began to commemorate an important episode in American history: the Haymarket affair.

The Haymarket incident occurred in my adopted home town of Chicago on May 4, 1886. Following three days of protests and a general strike by labor groups calling for an eight-hour workday, a rally was held in Chicago's Haymarket Square. A bomb exploded, police opened fire on the crowd, and apparently some in the crowd fired back.  A number of people were killed, including at least seven cops and four civilians. Eight anarchists, most of them German immigrants, were prosecuted for murder. Following a trial that many believed was a travesty, seven of them were sentenced to death, though only five ended up going to the gallows. The remaining three defendants were eventually pardoned.

Thereafter, Haymarket became a rallying cry for socialists, anarchists, and labor activists around the world. Emma Goldman, for example, credited her reading about the Haymarket affair with having a profound affect on her political views and helping draw her to anarchism. In 1889, a resolution was adopted by the Second International to make May 1, 1890, a day of demonstration for the eight-hour work day. That date was chosen in honor of the Haymarket martyrs. Many countries eventually adopted May 1 as a national holiday honoring workers, but not America. Uncomfortable with the radical associations of that date, Congress in 1894 deemed that the first Monday in September would henceforth be a legal holiday known as Labor Day.

And apparently, it wasn't enough for America to turn its back on the vibrant,radical, internationalist vision May Day represents and create a poor, largely depoliticized substitute (Labor Day) in its stead. We've also attempted to co-opt May 1 so that it serves an entirely different public purpose. Wikipedia notes:

the U.S. Congress designated May 1 as Loyalty Day in 1958 due to the day's appropriation by the Soviet Union.

And as if one right-wing holiday on May 1 wasn't enough for you, how about adding a second one?

Law Day was created in the late 1950s, by the American Bar Association to draw attention to both the principles and practice of law and justice, and to distract attention from International Workers Day. President Dwight D. Eisenhower established Law Day by proclamation in 1958. . . . Law Day has been resurrected by President George W. Bush.

Somewhere Joey Ramone is smiling

By Kathy G.

Awesomest smackdown yet of Jeff Goldberg, from the incomparable Spencer Ackerman :

Not only is “53rd & 3rd” one of the best songs in the Ramones’ catalogue, it also eerily prefigured Jeffrey Goldberg’s relationship with the Bush administration.

Don't it make ya feel sick, indeed.

Inequality in OECD countries

By Kathy G.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about inequality in other developed countires. The gist of the post was that, during the period studied (1979 through 1994) inequality in the U.S. and the U.K. grew much more than inequality in other OECD countries in the dataset.

Several of my commenters wondered if other datasets might show the same results, particularly if the data were more recent. So I found this 2006 OECD working paper which uses data that goes up to 2001. Two time periods are looked at: 1978 to 1992/1993, and 1993/1994 to 2001. The data are sliced and diced in various ways, using different datasets and different measures of inequality. The paper also looks at income before and after taxes and transfers. Measures of inequality used include:

-- the Gini coefficient (where 0 would be perfect equality and 1 would be perfect inequality); and

-- the ratio of the top decile of income to the bottom decile.

What is the bottom line? As it turns out, the data in the earlier period do tell a different story from the data in the late period. According to data used in this report, by most measures, inequality in the U.S. increased in the pre-1993/1994 period, but results were mixed for the 1993/1994 to 2001 period. This occurred whether you look at wages or income. 

For example, in the pre-1993/94 period, income inequality increased in the  U.S. and  seven other countries and decreased in another seven countries, with mixed results for six  countries. In the later  period,  inequality increased in nine countries and decreased in four countries, with mixed results for the U.S. and five other countries.

So it appears that while inequality may have increased more in the U.S. in the 80s and the early 90s than it did in other countries, by the 90s the pattern in the U.S. was not noticeably different than in the other countries looked at.

Nevertheless, as of 2001, the rate of income inequality was still higher in the U.S than in all but two other countries included.

I wonder to what extent Larry Bartels' research might explain the  U.S. results. Bartels, as you may recall, has found that when Republicans are in power, those at the top of the income distribution experience larger income gains than those at the bottom, while when Democrats are in power, those at the bottom achieve larger gains. So could the increase in income inequality in the U.S. during the 80s and the early 90s have been driven by the Reagan and Bush administrations, while the more mixed picture in the 90s might be due to Clinton? It would be interesting to see what the post-2001 data say as well. But in terms of OECD data, this was the most recent comparative data of inequality I could find.

One more thing: this post looks only at within-country inequality, not between-country inequality. While within-country inequality is clearly rising in most developed nations, there's a debate as to whether between-country (global) inequality is rising as well. This UN report summarizes the debate, discusses the relationship between globalization and global inequality, and also makes an argument as to why global inequality matters.

Tables and chart after jump.   

"Don't let the pansy fool ya!"

By Kathy G.

W.C. Fields

In yet another cringe-inducing moment in this seemingly endless primary campaign (is it over yet? it already seems longer than Berlin Alexanderplatz), the governor of North Carolina used a homophobic slur in a clumsy (and how!) attempt to praise HIllary Clinton. Specifically, Gov. Easley said that Hillary "makes Rocky Balboa look like a pansy."

I've heard some debate as to whether "pansy" is indeed a homophobic slur. I'm surprised that question is even being debated, because in just about every context I've heard it used in (short of gardening), it's always had a homophobic connotation.

In fact, it appears that "pansy" has been used as a gay signifier going back at least to 1933, as I learned a couple of years ago. As I've mentioned before, I am a huge fan of precode cinema -- that period in Hollywood movies up through the beginning of 1934 when films didn't have to strictly adhere to the production code. The films of that period were able to deal more openly with a variety of topics, including race, premarital and extramarital sex, and sexual orientation.

In one of the films from this period that I've seen, a pansy is clearly code for "gay." The film is International House, a delightfully surreal W.C. Fields comedy from 1933.  Fields' beer-fueled plane, The Spirit of Brooklyn, has just landed in Wu Hu, China. He is greeted by Franklin Pangborn. Pangborn, seen here:

was a great comic character actor who nearly always played a stereotypical prissy gay man. The following dialogue ensues:

FIELDS (to Pangborn): Hey Charlie, where am I?

PANGBORN (in a manner that's friendly bordering on flirtatious): Wu Hu!

FIELDS (removing the flower from his lapel): Don't let the pansy fool ya!

Like many of the rapid-fire double entendres in precode films, it flies by in an instant. But there can be no doubt as to what was meant.

I wonder if wearing a pansy in one's lapel was a gay signifier -- in much the same way that wearing a green carnation signified gayness during the time of Oscar Wilde.

At any rate, whenever I've heard the word "pansy" it has always been used as an insulting term meaning gay or effeminate (or both).

Meanwhile, this election can't end soon enough for me.

Note to Jacob Weisberg

By Kathy G.

Dear Jacob Weisberg,

I'm really curious about something: did Ann Coulter's arm candy, Mickey Kaus ever save your life? Lend you a kidney, maybe? Or perhaps he is the sole possessor of certain letters and photos involving matters that, shall we say, might be considered sensitive?

Because unless you owe him something, bigtime, I can't for the life of me explain why you allow him to take up space on your bandwidth or keep him on your payroll.

Case in point: yesterday, Mickey was flogging the sleazy "John Edwards love child" tabloid rumor. Again. As he had done just two days before. As he has done at least 30 times since October.

You might want to take Mickey aside and gently explain to him that John Edwards has been out of the race for almost three months now. And while you're at it, you might also want to let him know that tabloids aren't necessarily your most credible news source. Because they would never just make shit up, right? Or publish trumped up stories planted by someone's political enemies? 'Cause that would be unheard of, as we know.

Of course, maybe you think that Slate's reputation is well-served if it becomes famous for laundering tabloid stories for mainstream consumption. But if that's the case, Slate is, sadly, falling down on the job. Why, just last week, one of the supermarket tabloids had a front page story on George W. Bush's secret love child. And this week, we are treated to tabloid headlines about two candidates who are actually still in the race: Barack Obama (who's "cheating") and Hillary Clinton (having a "gay affair", doncha know). Where was Slate on these breaking stories, I ask you? Enquiring minds want to know!

And hey, as long as we're talking love children, we might as well dig up that old chestnut about Bill Clinton's alleged African-American love child. Good times!

But if wall-to-wall sleaze isn't really what Slate is going for, well . . . let's just say Mickey's little hobby leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. As to what other contributions his blog is making -- well, you tell me. 'Cause really, I would loooove to hear it.

Dahlia Lithwick, I feel your pain.

Sincerely,
Kathy G.

I am Spartacus, too, dammit!

By Kathy G.

Kirk Douglas in Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus (1960). Yowza!

All right, I'll 'fess up. I've already copped to being a foul-mouthed fem blogger -- pretty much every post on this site is damning evidence for the prosecution on that charge.  But now I must confess to another crime: being an associate of a known leftist radical terrorist.

No, I haven't set off any bombs or joined any radical cells. And I am not about to turn this blog over to posts preaching about the urgent need to "cherish and defend" "Chairman" Bob Avakian and insisting that you listen to the entire 11-DVD set of his speeches. Nor am I likely to start chanting "Death to the fascist insect that preys upon the life of the people!" anytime soon.

But I admit: I have broken bread with Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. Yes, that Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn.

Let me explain. I am a politically active liberal living in the Chicago neighborhood of Hyde Park. And if you are a Hyde Park liberal, sooner or later you are bound to run into these two. Barack Obama, another Hyde Park liberal (his home is a block or two away from mine) has recently run into trouble because of his (fleeting and tangential) association with Ayers.

And if I do say so myself, I called this one long ago -- as soon as Barack starting running for president, in fact. I told friends of mine that I was sure there had to be some connection, however slight, between Obama and Ayers/Dohrn. "Just you wait, they'll try to nail him to the cross for this!" I said.

Happy 7th anniversary, baby!

By Kathy G.

Seven years ago today, I did something that turned out to be the smartest thing I've ever done in my life: I got married. The past seven years, plus the three before that that my husband and I were together, have been the happiest of my life by far. And since deep down I never believed I ever really would find happiness, I feel extraordinarily blessed. It's something of a miracle to me, still.

The joys I've experienced in my relationship with my husband are countless. But today I'll write about just one of them: a deeper appreciation of the genius of Frank Sinatra.

I knew from the beginning that my husband was a Sinatraphile. It was right there in the letter he sent in answer to my personal ad. It was such an erudite and beautifully written letter that I knew right away I had to put it in the "keeper" pile. I was a little worried, though: the writer didn't give his age, and he mentioned his love for Sinatra tunes. This, I assumed, must mean that he was considerably older than me -- by 20 years at least, I reckoned. But then again -- the letter was so great. All right, I'll give him a shot, I decided.

As it happened, he was actually a bit younger than me. And he turned out to be even more wonderful in person than his letter had been.  We hit it off on the very first date. When we both started talking about our mutual obsession with Richard Nixon, we knew it was love.

And yes, we are officially the two biggest nerds on the planet.

As our relationship grew, we developed a new mutual obsession: Frank Sinatra. I'd already been a fan, of course -- how can you be a lover of American popular music and not be? Especially if you're from Jersey and you have an Italian grandma who grew up in Hoboken and who'd claimed she'd turned down a chance to date Frank Sinatra. (My beloved Nana, may you rest in peace, but I have to confess I never did buy that story).

But through my hubby, I was introduced to many Sinatra recordings that either I'd never heard, or had never listened to very closely. And I was astonished, particularly when I listened to the dark, anguished albums Sinatra had made in the 50s following his devastating break-up with Ava Gardner: In the Wee Small Hours, Where Are You?, and Only the Lonely. I don't think he was ever a greater singer than in those albums. There was a beauty, an aching tenderness, and an emotional depth there that he never quite equaled anywhere else -- though of course he made plenty of other absolutely wonderful music.

So the man who became my husband and I would frequently listen to Frank together. We'd watch his movies. We each devoured, in turn, a book that has to rank among the most gloriously trashy literary masterpieces of all time: Mr. S: My Life with Frank Sinatra, a memoir written by Sinatra's manservant, George Jacobs. It  has been said that "no man is a hero to his valet," and rarely has there been a more vivid illustration of that maxim. Except, Sinatra clearly still is the hero of that book, in spite of himself. Anyway, if you have any interest whatsoever in Sinatra, show business, or the master/slave dialectic, you must read it. You can thank me later.

So yes -- we listened to Sinatra together. And we arranged it so that lots of Sinatra was played at our wedding. In fact, the very first song we had played was "The Best is Yet to Come." We both love the brash, bold, "we're taking the world by the balls and you can't stop us" gusto of that one.

I wanted to close this post with a Youtube video of Sinatra performing that tune, but unfortunately I couldn't find one. However, I did find a different video I really liked. It's of Sinatra circa 1970 1971, singing the great Harold Arlen/Johnny Mercer tune, "One for My Baby."

What do I love about this video? Well, first of all, there's the song. "One for My Baby" has got to be one of the all-time classic American songs. It's probably the greatest song ever written about what F. Scott Fitzgerald called the "three o'clock in the morning" time of the soul.

And then, of course, there is Frank. What I love about this video is that it gives you the Full Frank. It's fairly late in his career. He's wearing a really bad toupee. He starts off with crude banter that includes the typical corny jokes and casual sexism. But then he opens his mouth to sing, and suddenly he's an artist -- one of the greatest, I believe, that 20th century America produced. His voice has seen better days at this point, but he still absolutely nails the emotional content of the song. It's a beautiful thing to see.

I also love the way he casually lights up a cigarette and starts smoking it mid-tune.

This one's for you, baby. Happy anniversary!

UPDATE: Commenter Bloix points us to this absolutely wonderful video of a much younger Sinatra singing the same song. His voice was in much better shape at that point and he was able to achieve more subtle effects. It's probably more interesting musically, just as the later clip is more interesting performance-wise. I highly recommend them both!

Thank you, Bloix, and thanks to all of you for your kind wishes.

Mickey Kaus's creepy obsession

By Kathy G.

Ann Coulter's arm candy, Mickey Kaus, is at it again.

Kaus is pathetically trying to pimp the "John Edwards love child" story One. Mo'. Time.

For those of you sensible enough to avoid reading Mickey Kaus (and I'm guessing that's most of you), the John Edwards mistress/love child tabloid story has been Kaus's number one obsession this primary season. He's mentioned it at least 29 times since October, as you can see here. And this for a blogger who doesn't bother to post more than a couple of times a week. It's an even more powerful obsession for him than the perfidy of teachers' unions or the world-historic evil of Ezra "command and control" Klein.

Mickey can't understand why the mainstream media ignored the story. How about, oh, I don't know -- that the story is bogus?  Anyone remember the "Kerry had an affair with an intern" bullshit that surfaced briefly in the tabloids and on Drudge during the 2004 primary? The story died because it lacked substance, and it seems likely that that's why the Edwards story died as well.

And besides that -- has Mickey noticed that Edwards is no longer in the race?

Mickey's latest excuse for dredging up this sleazy story is Elizabeth Edwards' op-ed taking the media to task for its mind-bogglingly vacuous and altogether craptastic coverage of the primary campaign. Mickey whines that it's unfair for Elizabeth to criticize the media because the press "cut her and her husband a huge break" on the love child story

A few responses to that:

1. So far as anyone other than the parties involved is concerned, there is no good evidence that the rumor is even true (unless Mickey has his own private stash of letters, photos, and taped phone conversations, which, given his level of obsession with this, wouldn't surprise me.)

2. Even if it is true, it's unlikely Elizabeth knows about it.

3. Even supposing that: a) it's true and b) Elizabeth does indeed know about it -- what is the point? Is Elizabeth responsible for her husband's allegedly wandering genitals? If she's a cheated on spouse, does that mean she has no right to criticize the media about anything?

I suppose Bill Clinton has no right to take the media to task, either -- because as we all know, there is a vast media conspiracy devoted to covering up the well-known stories of Hillary Clinton's voracious lesbian appetites.

Of course, Mickey never bothers to actually address Elizabeth's argument. Because this is something he almost never does. There's no evidence of intellectual heavy lifting on his blog, ever, about anything. He constantly makes smug assumptions that he assumes his readers must share, almost never offering up any supporting details. For instance, whenever he writes about unions, he decries union "work rules" that  allegedly hamper productivity. But he seems unaware that the best research shows that unionized firms on average are more productive than their nonunionized counterparts, not less.

Obviously, the reason why Kaus never addresses Edwards' argument is that he himself is a prime example of the vapid, pea-brained media coverage she deplores. Kaus's recent fixation with just how much of an arrogant snob Barack Obama is, is exhibit A of this tendency. 

Kaus's nasty smears concerning the love child story are especially rich given that just last week, he blasted Joe Conason for Joe's "sleazy" 1992 reporting on George H.W. Bush's alleged extramarital adventures. And Kaus has the balls to bitch about Elizabeth's "chutzpah?"

The lack of self-knowledge constantly on display by so many media types never ceases to amaze me.

Overall, I'd have to say -- good job, Mickey! Obviously, it's much more important that you to try to smear, discredit and humiliate Elizabeth than ever have to address the serious, troubling, and entirely sensible argument she makes.

I'm an inveterate matchmaker, and a brilliant idea just occurred to me: how about pairing up perennial  bachelor Mickey Kaus with perennial bachelorette Maureen Dowd? Their dinner conversations would be scintillating, I'm sure. Maureen and Mickey can take turns -- first she can talk about Bill Clinton's cock and then he can talk about John Edwards' cock.  They  can break it up occasionally by talking about how Hillary Clinton is a ball-busting bitch and Barack Obama is an effete latte-sipping snob.

It sounds like a match made in heaven to me!