I just wanted to wish "Happy Birthday" to one of this blog's most devoted readers, Heidi Klum.

Happy Birthday Heidi!  

Yeah, a few days after I complain about how interacting with the cultural products of GE, Disney and Vivendi is terrible, I find myself thrilled by an NBA game (the first time in a while). LeBron James' 48 point performance last night was the most incredible single player performance I have ever scene. It was better than Jordan's Flu Game - it was better than my favorite performance - Stockton's last five minutes in game 6 in Houston in 97, which ended with a buzzer beater. it was also better than Vince Young's Rose Bowl game.

What I find so fascinating about LeBron is that it is so obviously his physical makeup that gives him such an advantage. He's great because of his size, speed and agility. That's it. Another point to be made. Craig Sager asked him in the end: Did you ever know you could be this good. "No." James said with a smile. You could see that he was starting to enjoy himself.

Also, this is the first weekend in a while where I've been able to just relax - and I'm going to spend part of it watching "Knocked Up." Read the Times' Profile of Judd Apatow.

The conservative movement (excluding the neocons and fundies) almost seems necessarily quietest, and with the “wheels of history” rolling all over you, this is a proper response. It is telling that the premiere vehicle for properly conservative thought, The American Conservative, advocates a kind of cultural quietism, a recognition that quotidian political involvement necessarily runs counter to the traditional virtues Anglo-American conservatism tries to preserve and cultivate.  If the two planks of your politics are man’s imperfectibility and that individuals can’t really improve society more so  than “3000 years of beautiful tradition from Moses to Sandy Koufax,” canvassing for Marilyn Musgrave or debating over whether hedge funds’ carry should be taxed as capital gains or personal income just isn’t going to come naturally.[snip]

Paleocons have “resurged” so many times, outraged at “liberal” overreach; after the French Revolution, the invasion of the Philippines, WWI, the founding of the UN, GATT, the Civil Rights Movement, the ERA, Gulf War I, NAFTA, Bosnia, Kosovo and now,  with Gulf War II. Too bad their very orientation is one that necessitates marginalization and irrelevance. - Matt Zeitlin

Having earned some street cred from paleos like Daniel Larison and I, Matt Zeitlin drops this on us. First of all I find it encouraging that Zeitlin recognizes in all these historical eras a paleo-tendency. Secondly, I'd point out that the "Next Conservatism" article does not necessarily reflect the thinking of The American Conservative as a whole or even a majority of its editors and writers. It is a very worthy attempt to get out from under the "wheels of history." (One can almost sense that "h" wants to be a capital "H" - tread carefully Mr. Zeitlin) Third I'd like to take a minute and say that the paleo orientation does not necessitate marginalization and irrelevance at all. Let's build on that.

The surprising thing isn't that paleo-conservatism (or conservatism) fails to win - it is that is exists at all. Managerial liberalism occupies all the powerful positions because it is the natural ideology of a managerial state. Managerial liberalism is an incumbent force and has been so since at least the 1930s. To get ahead in politics, business and academia - you basically have to comply with it. We do not all choose marginalization and irrelevance - it is just our necessary position vis-a-vis a managerial regime we cannot yet overcome or displace.

Conservatism, as the paleos and I understand it is not in a defensive position, but in an insurgent position. Certainly many figures in conservatism have contributed to the movement's marginalization and irrelevance - deliberately courting their destruction. But once a group is marginalized it begins to attract marginal people. Think bow-ties, walking sticks, cigar habits and a propensity to include middle names in bylines. Have you ever been to CPAC? That doesn't even mention the conspiracy theorists and Clinton-haters. The conservative movements has all sorts of pathologies that work to its disadvantage. Being marginalized sucks.

Each one of the above examples of "overreach" has been just that: "overreach." The electoral constituency of the Right doesn't actually  find itself in all out rebellion against incumbent managerial liberalism. In fact, most middle-Americans basically deal ok with how things are. Sure they kinda wish family formation was cheaper. But they have cable television and they eat alright. They do occasionally chafe under liberal overreach and thus give a party of the Right a few electoral victories here and there. What true conservatives must do is begin marching through the institutions of culture and transforming them or dismantling them. They must educate their natural constituents and begin to turn the occasional complaints about managerial liberalism into a more sustained revolt. They must do this at the same time that managerial liberalism begins to suffer from and die from it's exhaustion and internal contradictions - as it inevitably will. Managerial liberalism will not last forever - no ideology has. When will this all come together? We don't know.

For now we conservatives have to content ourselves with hearth and home and fun magazines. Occasionally managerial liberalism takes a few pointers from us about efficiency. That's nice. Unfortunately we have to endure these triuphalists talking to each other about the power of global capitalism and autonomy and "allowing people to fulfil their own ends". It's actually gotten boring. This kind of speech sounds so high-minded but in reality it means something cruder: the continued cultural dominance of centralized mass media entertainement. For managerial liberalism autonomy means watching the same television programs in Beverly Hills and Jakarta. If interacting with the cultural products of GE, Disney, and Vivendi is all that managerial liberalism promises us - then I can assure you it's not progress. Hell it's not even remotely as interesting as the old bourgeois values of the 19th century.

Obviously Ron Paul has been the candidate du jour for the media. Here are three pieces from the past week that have appeared online. First, Dave Weigel in Reason with a rather dour piece on "The Paul Paradox", which goes like this: The success of Ron Paul's message is inversely proportional to the support his campaign receives. I think this is a little too depressing and I wonder if the chat around the offices at Reason is the material cause for Brian Doherty to say, "Culturally, he strikes a lot of the more cosmopolitan libertarians as a yokel" to Michael Crowley in The New Republic's profile of Paul. Today Peter Suderman added to the pile-on at NRO, with a surprisingly sympathetic article. 

And I'll join in. My profile of Ron Paul will appear in the next issue of The American Conservative, along with a piece by Kara Hopkins on the party establishment that is acting so quickly to try and silence him. 

What I've found fascinating about Ron Paul is that my friends who do not care at all about politics find themselves excited by him. The sheer novelty of a strongly anti-war Republican totally blows their mind. It is enough to make one wonder if the increased ideological conformity of the major parties actually makes them more susceptible to serious challenge. If GOPism and Democratism are taken as shorthands for conservatism and liberalism - then those categories have become more brittle than ever before since it is rather easy to attack the major parties.

I caught the Jazz-Spurs game last night. Deron Williams is a very special player. He is very different from John Stockton (with whom Williams trained last summer). Stockton had court vision and the ability to read defenses very well,  making him seem both fundamentally sound and creative in the pick and roll offense. Williams has an amazing knack for getting his defenders off-balance by penetrating and alternating between a layup and a pull-up jumper. The thing they have most in common is a killer instinct and the will to take over a game when their teammates are fading.

Too bad the Jazz couldn't overcome Manu Ginobili's performance of 22 points, 18 flops, 6 rebounds 4 dives and 1 bald spot. A bravura performance. Is it prejudiced of me to assume that the refs must have been pretty bad not just by the huge disparity between free throws attempted but also because a mostly Mormon crowd began throwing things onto the court in protest? That's always been a lively crowd but I've never seen anything like that from them before.

You may have noticed there are going to be some changes around here. I've added social bookmarking links to each post. I use Ma.gnolia myself. I've also been updating and adding links. Be sure to check out great blogs by conservative Shawn Macomber, New York libertarian Todd Seavey, the transatlantic Alex Massie, and two young liberal bloggers that I really enjoy: Michael Corcoran who is working at The Nation right now and the irrepressible and prodigious Matt Zeitlin.

In the future we will be seeing less in the way of pictures here and more in the way of content. I've let concerns about visual uniformity between posts prevent me from writing this blog. That ends today.

Finally someone has said it. It may be a bit over the top. Here it is,

Nor did the Thatcher government represent as much of a break with Macmillanism as her admirers and detractors both claim. The things she attacked were not the core of Labour's achievements. The welfare state, comprehensive education and the bizarre worship of the NHS as a state religion all survived her. So did the state-sponsored war against the married family and the abandonment of principles of responsibility and punishment in criminal justice. Serious social conservatives should concede that her rule was damaging to traditional Britai [bold mine - MBD] Serious leftists should admit that while she demolished the tottering nationalised industries, she retained an enormous state sector in the NHS, the education service, quangos and local government. - Peter Hitchens

Reagan too has faced some much needed revision recently. Read Daniel McCarthy's excellent review of John Patrick Diggins, Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom, and the Making of History

Conservatives, especially social conservatives need badly to get over their hero-worship - as if electing one person in the political arena could reverse deep cultural changes. I'd like someone out there to list for me the conservative cultural accomplishments that can be credited to electing Thatcher and Reagan. I can't think of any.  In fact, we may soon find more conservatives arguing that the type of market reforms initiated by these regimes did much to erode traditional norms and expectations. I doubt many on the right will defend the managerial economies of the 60s and 70s. But did the reforms of the 80s do anything to enhance the economic independence of the average family? Or did these reforms just enhance Wall Street profits while at the same time discouraged what we now call "family formation"? Is integrating more families into the investor class a solution?

These questions may make for a boring series of articles that will have difficulty finding a place to be published - but the person who sets about this work will certainly change the way conservatives think about themselves and their mission in the next few decades.

Benedict XVI is a reactionary. Or so Le Monde declared in an editorial from a few weeks ago. He "delights the militants of tradition." As we used to say in kindergarten when teacher scolded someone: oooOOOooohhha! One can practically see the scowl across the writer's face.  The occasion for this remark is a rumored document, a moto proprio that will grant greater liberty to priests to say the traditional Mass according to the rubrics of 1962. For the non-Catholics, a bit of history: After the Second Vatican Council, a revised liturgy was introduced into the Church, called the Novus Ordo Missae or the Mass of Pope Paul VI. The big changes most parishes saw: priests facing the people during the mass, Latin dropped in favor of the vernacular, alter rails pulled out, chant also disappeared. Also, and perhaps most importantly, a number of prayers were omitted, changed, or translated into the vernacular in decidedly odd or new ways. Here is a concise summary of the criticisms. Here is Dietrich von Hildebrand's more lyrical plaint. And (now reaching overkill) the precise critique put forward by Cardinal Ottiavanni.

Anyway, devotees of the traditional liturgy have been laboring in small corners of the Church, or sometimes outside the jurisdiction of local bishops.  Benedict, hoping to reconcile the renegade traditionalists and ease the burdens on those already in the Church, will likely encourage bishops to accommodate them. He may even allow them to organize their liturgy with local priests, sans a bishop's say-so. But Le Monde has an oddly politicized version of Christianity.

After issuing the usual complaints (too conservative in Poland, it weighs in against gay civil unions in Italy), the editorial goes on to say,

A papal decree will liberalize, in May, the ancient rite of the Church (Mass in Latin, with the back turned to the people). It is a measure dreaded by a majority of French Catholics, led by the episcopate, attached to the legacy of the council of the 1960s. If, in his recent "apostolic exhortation", Benedict XVI proclaims his fidelity to Vatican II, his liturgical legalism delights the militants of ancient tradition. These struggles are largely misunderstood by those, believers or not, for whom the vocation of Christianity expresses itself more through aid to marginalized populations than through this disciplinary legalism [lit.: pointillisme], more on help to those who suffer than on this reactionary temptation. - Le Monde translation via Rorate Caeli

You hear that: dreaded? You can tell how excised the French Catholics are because they are rioting in Gare du Nord and setting fires to cars and books of Latin grammar. Oh... wait. That's not the army of French Catholics revolting against a rumored moto-propio? Uh, nevermind.

It's fascinating that Le Monde would invoked what non-believers think the vocation of Christianity ought to be. Exactly where can I find the Dominical commands relating to "marginalized peoples?" I'm still waiting for that. Whenever I open up a New Testament I find exhortations related to my behavior with neighbors and enemies. Chesterton quipped that these are likely to be the same people. So they are.

When did Christian charity (love) become reduced to the coercive extraction and redistribution of surplus income by the state? Though it may or may not be necessary "aid" administered by the state is impersonal, undemanding and doesn't resemble at all the morality preached by Jesus. Is the editorial implying that traditional liturgy is antithetical to charity? Or that charitable persons can only be committed to "the legacy of the council of the 1960s?" As is the style for unsigned editorials - nothing makes any sense. It's just a series of stated prejudices straining to become an argument.

I cannot wait to see this fight! Boxing has been suffering for lack of quality fights. You gotta give HBO a ton of credit for really promoting this fight. The "reality" series 24/7 that follows these fighters as they prepare for their match  The prodcuers of the show prepared us for the contrast in styles by showing their behavior at the press conference (pictured above) in which De La Hoya tried to conduct himself like a gentleman pugilist and Mayweather dressed in a track-suit acted like a total jackass - taunting De Lay Hoya and interrupting him constantly, "I'm gonna beat you till you call me 'pretty' Biatch." Mayweather wants to be the villain. The contrast was deepened as we see De Lay Hoya resting in his palatial kitchen in Puerto Rico, quietly watching Tiger Woods at the Masters with his father and son. Cut immediately to Mayweather in his Las Vegas home getting his hair cut and boasting at the camera. All of a sudden there appeareth 50 Cent riding a Segway!!! Gob Bluth-Style!!! Now that is a contrast. You're supposed to route for the classy ageing veteran. But Mayweather chooses to wear a black-hat so black that its deliciously tempting to route for him.

The profile of Mayweather in ESPN magazine is just fantastic.

One night in March, Mayweather had what amounts to an epiphany. He was sitting in his home theater watching a lower-rung boxing card and marveling at the disparity of fortune. The guys on the television, he surmised, were making $20,000 or $30,000 per fight, less than he had in his pockets at that very moment.

"Hell," he says. "I bet more at the sports book every night."

As he sat there looking at men who aspire to be him, he reflected on his fortune. This was not a there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I moment; Mayweather's not built like that. Instead, he felt the weight of the cash in his pockets, considered his abundance of wealth and said to himself, "God love me, and I'm a hell of a fighter." It might as well serve as his mantra. - Tim Keown

 And below the fold, you'll find my second hero after Johnny Drama.

Click to read more ...

There is a story in the latest GQ about the Ferry Building in San Francisco and the wonderful food market therein. Obviously there has been lots of anxiety about our food culture and eating habits. See for instance the anti-scientific manifesto in the New York Times Magazine, by Michael Pollan. "Return to tradition" was the appealing call.

 GQ food critic Alan Richman explains our angst well:

These days the food pages in American publications read like police blotters, a compilation of all that has gone wrong with our diets, our dinners, even our trans-fat-laden church suppers. Organic can't be any good; it's been co-opted by conglomerates. Nutrition is a sham; artificiality dishonors it. You can't eat anything processed. (Tight. Try finding something that isn't) You mustn't pay attention to health claims on packages. (Lies! Lies! Lies!) And by the way, corn syrup kills. We've come to the point where any attempt to do something beneficial for our bodies ends up making them worse.

San Francisco now has a resource for truly healthy food, much of it grown nearby and most of it at a steeper price. Despite the terrible developments whereby Wal-Mart is able to sell "organic food" under a standard no one would recognize as organic five years ago - the upper end of the food market adapts and looks for local and truly organic food. Although that co-optation is regrettable it hasn't deterred the general trend towards healthier, more natural food in the elite. Already the hoi-polloi, (that is to say, us middle class fatties) know that they want to eat something more natural than Hungry-Man frozen dinners for each meal. I can only come to the conclusion that despite government-corporate collusion in lowering standard for organic food - that the overall trend will eventually be benefit small farmers and our national diet. What is the reason for my optimism? A change that seems this persistent in our elites, signals to me that it is an actual cultural change - not merely a market trend or fad brought on by advertising. And if we don't find enough small farmers - perhaps we can make some out of our excess of graduates from small liberal arts colleges.

I won't play Pollyanna too often, I swear.  

I expect Miss Annie of Poetic and Chic to tell us if Richman's right about the Ferry Building. He doesn't find every establishment in it, a bounty of the most moral and most healthy foods. But- overall sounds like a sign of hope. No?  

The is another essential piece in TAC by W. James Antle III. He asks:  Is the GOP
becoming a single issue party?

The money quote (as Andrew Sullivan calls these things):

Together [Giulian and McCain], they receive majority support among those who plan to vote in a Republican primary next year. Between the two of them, they make virtually the entire conservative domestic agenda—lower taxes, limited government, gun rights, the pro-life cause, and the defense of traditional marriage—negotiable. Yet on one issue, Giuliani and McCain are both unflinchingly orthodox: the war in Iraq. - W. James Antle III

It's an interesting question. If the threat of terrorism seems to recede at all, will the GOP continue to be dominated by the politics of war. It seems inevitable that there will be a hard-core section of GOP voters that adopt a stab-in-the-back narrative when the United States disengages from Iraq. Another part of the GOP constituency will blame Bush's poor leadership saying, "The cause was good." Or in the case of some, "Our ideas were right."

Continetti was essentially correct when he wrote:

The polarization that has characterized American politics since the presidency of Ronald Reagan has extended its reach to foreign affairs. Never have the differences between the two parties on issues of war and peace been so distinct. At no time since World War II has the divergence of partisan support for an ongoing war been as great. Nor have attitudes toward power--its origins, nature, and application--reflected ideological and partisan identification to the extent they do today.- Matthew Continetti

The conservative consensus was originally glued together by anti-communism- but had substantial agreement on domestic policy driving it from election to election. When the Soviet Empire disappeared the conservative movement logically would have focused on domestic issues. 1994 seemed to show that reform of Washington would henceforth be the primary mission of the movement. But with a corruptible GOP leadership that task proved difficult. After all, Washington, unlike Moscow has not been a willing participant in its own transformation. Out of desperation and a quest for an identity the conservative movement may now be defining itself by its pro-active (I would say hyper-active) foreign policy. This despite the fact that the conservatism of the larger movement doesn't necessarily commit itself to any strategy of foreign engagement. It just so happens that conservative voters are naturally drawn to candidates they see as "patriotic" for which "aggressive" is often a shorthand. A "multi-polar" vision of geopolitics will never appeal to these voters.

The only alternative foreign policy rhetoric that resonates with them is, frankly, that America-First type. It's easy to aim this arrow at conflicts that seem to have flimsy humanitarian grounds.The lesson is this: a conservative foreign policy must always be sold as a nationalist foreign policy - one that enhances the security, prosperity and stature of America and its people.