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Culpability and the Best of 2010
After compiling my selection of the best articles of 2010, I’ve concluded this past year’s theme was culpability. We’re guilty of being ignorant or worse, being complacent. We’re guilty of not knowing boundaries, or trusting—out of fear or passion—ourselves too much.
The New York Times
- World: “In Icy Tip of Afghanistan, War Seems Remote”
by Edward Wong (Oct 27) - U.S.: “Defectors Say Church of Scientology Hides Abuse”
by Laurie Goodstein (Mar 6) - New York: “Rangel Steps Aside From Post During Ethics Inquiry”
by Carl Hulse and David M. Herszenhorn (Mar 3) - Sports: “A Disgraced Rider’s Admissions, and Accusations”
by Juliet Macur (May 20) - Home: “The House Inherited Them”
by Penelope Green (July 21) - Travel: “My Own Private (Rental) Island, in the Bahamas”
by David Carr (Nov 4) - Magazine: “Tuna’s End”
by Paul Greenberg (June 22)
The New Yorker: “The Hunted” by Jeffrey Goldberg (April 5)
Did American conservationists in Africa go too far?
The Atlantic: “The Wrong Man” by David Freed (May)
This is the story of how federal authorities blew the biggest anti-terror investigation of the past decade—and nearly destroyed an innocent man.
- World: “In Icy Tip of Afghanistan, War Seems Remote”
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- Me: That's how Katy Perry wants us to feel on the inside.
- Me: Because we'll never be as pretty as her on the outside.
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Wearing many hats, including dumb question predictor.
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Dry Goods (for Web Developers)
In anticipation of the alkalineapp.com launch, here’s a sampling of the goods that some of your favorite Web sites are running:
- Content management: Movable Type ($395), ExpressionEngine ($150-300)
- eCommerce: Many options, very expensive
- Message boards: vBulletin ($195), Invision Board ($150), XenForo ($140)
- Image management: 4images ($130), Pixaria ($250), Alkaline ($TBA)
- Statistics: Mint ($30)
There are hundreds of commercial Web applications from ad serving to sweepstakes management, so this is just a snapshot of the most popular. You can also peruse a run-down of Alkaline’s competition over at Wikipedia. It’s been nearly a year in the making (Alkaline’s birthday is February 11), but I’m almost there, I promise.
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Alkaline still needs a “It works!” default photo. This won’t be it.
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The Sane and Silent Majority
Let’s not ignore yesterday was not only a referendum on the President but also on the Tea Party. Do voters connect with candidates who hold empty or fanatical political positions? The answer is a resounding no.
The most-publicized Tea Party-backed Senate candidates lost—O’Donnell (DE), Angle (NV), Miller (AK) as well as the superrich political novices Fiorina (CA) and McMahon (CT) who got swept up in the same excitement. Americans realize the importance of the Departments of Agriculture, Education, Transportation even if they’re not entirely sure what they do. Most realize that cutting the taxes on the rich isn’t a form of economic stimulus. And many of us don’t question the Civil Rights Act of 1964—except perhaps in Kentucky where Rand Paul won.
Of course, other Tea Partiers talk a big talk but avoid thorny political issues entirely. You see, having positions—when radical in the state you’re running to represent—can make you less palatable or even downright toxic (see Fiorina on abortion). Take Angle for instance, she repeatedly dodged the question-bearing press while secret donors funneled tens of millions of dollars into advertising for her. She lost too.
Who’s at work here? The sane and silent majority. We don’t form political nonprofits or attend political rallies or even write to our congressmen. We don’t threaten our representatives who make unpopular votes, at least not in public. Many of us are angry too—except not in a crazy, “I want to burn this motherfucker down” kind of way.
In New York State, voters en masse turned down Paladino’s offer to take a baseball bat to Albany. Not least of all because he alienated minorities, women, and gays. He even insulted Orthodox Jews by tempering remarks he made days earlier about just how unnatural and repulsive gays are in order to woo them over. This guy is nuts.
Where do we go from here? The election margins, especially once stripped of party-line voters, were decisive. Despite the enthusiasm gap, disillusionment with incumbents, and stubbornly high unemployment, anyone Sarah Palin sees fit to endorse is virtually unelectable.
The sane and silent majority wins again. Don’t try to contact us, we’ll be in hibernation for the next two years.
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- Photographer: I used to shoot politicians.
- Me: As in bang-bang?
- Me: Oh.
- Me: Nevermind.
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After 40-odd days, I finally received my incorporation papers—along with the latest issue of Wired.
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“Hero”
Let’s all agree to reconsider our collective use the word “hero,” at least until we can come to some sort of consensus about what the word means. And yes, CNN, I’m also talking to you. I remember a few years ago you did a piece on a elementary schoolteacher who, after one of her students was accidentally stabbed by another, had enough common sense not to pull out the pair of scissors protruding from the poor girl’s abdomen.
Don’t get me wrong, it made for an exemplary human interest story (a k a the meat and potatoes that makes CNN viewers salivary glands run), but this woman wasn’t a hero. She was faced an emergency and made a decision. If she had instead chosen to remove the scissors, we wouldn’t have gone around castigating her for some great moral failing, she would have simply made a mistake. In fact, her heroism is based on merely maintaining the status quo: she chose to do nothing until help arrived. Moreover, she confronted a freak accident, not an existential conflict.
That’s not to say there aren’t heroes.
Take, for instance, Jimmy Weekley, a 70-year-old West Virginian whose house is situated next to a large coal mining project, which has since been stalled by the EPA under the Obama administration. Weekley been suing the developers of the project, Arch Coal, since 1998. While all of his neighbors have left, his litigation continues over a decade later despite having lost his wife, seeing his town all but disappear, and being offered “close to $2 million for his eight acres.” One lone man fighting an industry worth hundreds of millions annually to his state is a real-life David versus Goliath for the fossil-fuel age.
Or perhaps, a more recognizable name, Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City. Last week, he gave a speech defending the Islamic community center and mosque to be built two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center. He told the audience, “We do not honor their lives by denying the very Constitutional rights they died protecting. We honor their lives by defending those rights—and the freedoms that the terrorists attacked.” While Bloomberg was advised to quietly navigate the political divide until the heat dissipated, he didn’t. He risked the ire of a good share of his constituency to fight on behalf of a much-maligned and misunderstood minority over an issue he ultimately has no control over.
I propose a hero choses personal sacrifice over betrayal of their principles. In which case, it’s comforting to know a few are still around.
About Me
