I know everyone’s knuckling down for finals (or just pushing hard before Slippery When Wet…)

Anyway, this is moderately hilarious.

It’s no secret I’m not a fan of the Republican party.  I don’t think anyone who writes for the Portside is.  Though not a Democrat, I would classify myself as “not-Republican.”

Yet I am a fan of political discourse and an interchange of ideas.  I understand the need to have a “loyal opposition.”  While Paul Krugman might fill that role in some ways, the Democratic Party needs a different kind of “loyal opposition.”

And that’s why the Republican Party’s free-fall is so disappointing. Arlen Specter’s defection wasn’t so much a victory for the Democrats (he’s already voted against Obama’s budget; sorry Dems, but he’s not going to be a rubber stamp) as a loss for the Republicans. It didn’t show the strength of the DNC, but rather the weakness of the GOP.

This last election represented a transformation in American politics, and not because Barack Obama was elected. It’s because independents and moderates, by and large, came over to the Democratic side.

But that was just for November 4th, right? Surely after the country got over the election and the Bush fiasco, we could move forward; the Republicans could come back to being a party that appealed to a broad swath of voters.

Unfortunately that didn’t happen. In the aftermath of the election, the independents who turned out for Obama by wide margins were still up in the air; voting for the Democratic President clearly did not turn them Democrat. But the progression, and perhaps transgression of the Republican Party has turned them not-Republican.

With the loss of independent voters, moderate Republicans like Specter became rarer and rarer. As they became rarer, the party makeup turned more and more conservative. As unfair as it is, which I have discussed before, Rush Limbaugh was seen as the face of the Republican Party.

The Republican “base”, unfortunately, took over the rest of the pyramid. And that, more than the election, more than the popular current President and more than the unpopular past President, is why the Republican Party is in trouble.

A recent poll conducted by the Washington Post/ABC found that just 21% of the country now self-identifies as Republican. If we look at the numbers over time, we see the real problem:

Percent of Country Identifying as “Republican”:

November 4, 2008: 32%

Mid-March, 2009: 25%

April 28, 2009: 21%

The Republicans have effectively lost 11% of their voters, most of whom are now Independents. The poll also showed that 38% of the country was “Independent,” while 35% were Democrats.

Since Nov. 4 the Democrats have consistently been between 35-40%. That means most opting out of the Republican Party have now become Independent, or probably more accurately, “Not Republican.”

Nate Silver came up with this graph:

The Republican Party, in playing their Southern strategy, has won 20% of America who will not leave them (these are probably the same 20% of Americans who approved of George Bush in his final months).  Unfortunately, no one else is on their side.  With that 20% controlling the party, the GOP won’t be able to win back independents who by and large dislike that 20% (most hated the Tea Parties, and most hate Rush Limbaugh).

And while that may be fantastic news for Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, it isn’t good news for Americans like myself who want the debate and the “loyal opposition.”

Unfortunately, I see no end of the tunnel for the Republicans. If you look at the statements made yesterday about Specter’s defection, you see why the Republican Party is in such poor shape. They complain that Specter shouldn’t have switched and that now Franken must never be seated, for to do so would give the Democrats filibuster proof majorities, allowing them to ram through all legislation they want.

They argue that Specter has done a disservice to the American people, forsaking the nation to crazy-liberal legislation.  Minority leader Mitch McConnell said:

The threat to the country presented … by this defection really relates to the issue of whether or not in the United States of America our people want the majority party to have whatever it wants without restraint, without a check or balance.

He couldn’t be more wrong. It isn’t Specter’s fault the Republican Party couldn’t hold him. It isn’t 79% of Americans’ fault for saying they are not Republican. What the Republicans don’t seem to understand is that they don’t get a voice on principle; they have to earn it.

The Republicans aren’t earning it. If they want more Senators they need to win State-wide election. The only way for that to happen is for them to leave those 20% on the far right, and start to appeal to a wider variety of voter.

No doubt America is becoming more progressive; more are okay with abortion, marijuana legalization, and gay marriage.

That’s the way America is changing; unfortunately, the Republicans aren’t changing, trapped in the web of the bottom 20%.

Perhaps the “New Republican Ideas Factory” can help.

A former Republican National Committee chairman and a prominent GOP pollster are leading a new organization that will promote conservative principles and try to counter the Democratic controlled White House and Congress on economic and national security matters.

The organization, Resurgent Republic, will be comprised of GOP strategists, academics, former congressmen. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour,former RNC chair and senior advisor to President G.W. Bush Ed Gillespie, and GOP strategist Whit Ayres co-founded the organization.

“Our nation is at an historical junction and the actions we take today with regards to promoting free market principles will have an impact for a generation or more,” Gillespie said in a statement sent to CNN. “Resurgent Republic will serve as a strategic resource for the general public, policy makers and Congressional leaders.”

The organization emphasized that it would help “promote market-oriented policies, lower taxes and economic growth, and strong national security policies.” On Wednesday, Resurgent Republic said it will release a report on President Obama’s budget

This is of particular interest to the CMC community because Professor Pitney is going to be on this new council.

Is it me, or does this “New Republican Ideas Factory” sound like it may emerge as an organization competing with the RNC?  If so I think that’s great - the RNC, perhaps too set on pleasing the same 20% of voters, are perhaps unable to move forward.  This new Ideas Factory may represent a way for Republicans to start making sense to more voters, earning a role as the “loyal opposition.”  In most arguments with two disparate viewpoints, the best answer is usually a combination of the two.  Hopefully the Republicans can earn their role as the other viewpoint.

If the new Factory is going to echo the same sentiments as the RNC, it will be a useless group.  If it can make  arguments for conservatism in a smart way that appeals to voters, America will be better off.

A few months ago, Abe Shimm, CMC’10, wrote a piece for the Compass called “The Death of the Moderate Republican,” in which Senator Arlen Specter is discussed in detail.

Unfortunately for the Republican Party, they just lost their 41st Senator. Specter will switch from Republican to Democrat, thereby avoiding the Republican Primary he would have been destroyed in. Specter will likely win statewide election and keep his Senate seat.

Unfortunately for the Republican Party, as moderates have trended to the left and more Republican extremists have been pushed into prominence, they have lost many moderates who once voted Republican. Specter comments on what he has seen in Pennsylvania:

Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats.

Without those moderate Republicans, Specter had no shot at the Republican nomination.

Its not that Republican ideals or conservatism in general are necessarily bad or wrong; its that the Party, seen through who it elects and finances, doesn’t reflect those ideals. Specter, a Republican Senator since the Reagan era, remarks:

Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right… I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans.

Though Specter is being criticized by most prominent Republicans, including Michael Steele and John McCain, moderate Republicans understand where Specter is coming from.  Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME), one of three Republican moderates to vote for the President’s stimulus package, came to the defense of Specter [emphasis mine].

On the national level of the Republican Party, we haven’t certainly heard warm, encouraging words about how they view moderates, either you are with us or against us  National Republican leaders were not grasping that political diversity makes a party stronger and ultimately we are heading to having the smallest political tent in history for any political party the way things are unfolding.

A few months ago, Specter was approached by Vice President Joe Biden and former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell about switching parties.  Specter declined, remarking that he thought there was “room for moderates in the Republican Party.”  I wonder what made him change his mind…

Interesting implications abound.  Gaining a 59th member, the Democrats are almost filibuster proof (pending Al Franken’s seating).  Furthermore they will most certainly add Senate seats in 2010, pushing their majority further.

The NRSC will now redouble their efforts to keep Franken out of the Senate. If the prospect of a 59th Senator was scary, the prospect of a Democratic filibuster-proof majority is terrifying.

This blog has also discussed Michael Steele’s leadership (or lack thereof) as chair of the Republican Party.  On the heel of Jim Tedisco’s (R) loss to Scott Murphy (D-NY) in the special election in the NY-20, a conservative district, the Republican Party hasn’t had very much good news under Steele’s stewardship. Steele’s going to have a hard time dealing with this one.

Yet this doesn’t mean that Democrats will now be on the fast track to getting whatever legislation they want passed. Specter is still a moderate, and regardless of what side he’s on he’ll vote his beliefs. He may more often vote with Democrats now, but probably won’t vote down the party line. In Specter’s statement today he announced that he would continue to oppose the EFCA. He may have switched the letter after his name, but the Senate will still be dependent on the moderates. The Republican Party is hurt symbolically, their tent shrinking; in terms of policy, the switch will probably have a marginal impact (unless some strong Democratic Primary opposition emerges… Specter may have to trade votes to keep the DSCC, and Pennsylvania Democrats, from backing or supporting a primary challenger.)

I’m going to preface this by saying that it is long - probably too long.  I’ve bolded what I feel are the salient points in the “pull-quotes”. 

I understand that I may be an “alarmist” overreacting to the threat of global warming, but frankly, this isn’t the kind of stuff you want to fool around with.  Just think of Pascal’s wager…

If you want to debate, try to read the entire thing; I hate addressing objections already addressed in the post.

So I wrote an admittedly hasty and over-simplistic answer in the comments section of “On the Banning Of Trays” regarding environmental regulation.

My response was:

The short answer is no - people in general cannot be trusted to make smart, environmentally conscience decisions.

To which commenter Jeremy points out:

I’m sorry to say it, Nirant, but that’s the argument for the nanny state: People can’t be trusted to act in their own best interest, and so they need the state to do it for them.  That’s awfully paternalistic and it fulfills the Right’s worst fears about the Democratic Party.

I thank Jeremy for the response (though I wouldn’t call myself a “Democrat”), but it isn’t entirely accurate.  I’m going to lay out what I’m thinking in full, and then we can talk about this stuff.

This isn’t just the belief of a few radical Dems.  The Founders knew that people, in general, are very bad at looking out for their long-term interests and instead will pursue action that is satisfying in the short-run.

That’s one of the fundamental reasons (aside from political necessity) that our legislature is constructed as it is.  Congressmen get 2 years and Senators get 6; Congressman look out for the nation’s short-term interests and Senators look out for the long-term interests.  With 2 year terms, Congressmen have to react, more or less, to opinion polls; Senators (2/3 of the time anyway) don’t.

The House passed HR 1586, voting (probably unconstitutionally) to levy 90% taxes on the A.I.G. bonuses.  Bear in mind that they didn’t just pass it with a simple majority – the vote was 328-93.  That’s an obscene amount of Congressmen agreeing on an obscene bill.  And it’s because opinion polling told them so.

Polling data from Rasmussen, Gallup, DailyKos and various other outlets poured in. They all revealed the same public opinion:

Only Congressmen with an RCP of at least +10 for their party (or just crazy favorable/unfavorable splits) and without any semblance of a primary challenge would have been wise to vote it down.  And that’s fine. Because a Senate term is 6 years.

Next the Senate steps up.  Maybe ~1/3 of the Senate act like Congressmen (unless also quite safe), but in general they make long-term decisions. The caucus may allow vulnerable senators (i.e. Chris Dodd, who needs to step down if the Dems are going to keep his seat) strut on this stuff to pick up some political points.

All in all, passing the bill would have been terrible for long-term economic policy. The Senate, knowing this and knowing that their re-election won’t vanish by killing it, kill it.

Furthermore, Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) declared:

I don’t believe that Congress should rush to pass yet another piece of hastily crafted legislation in this very toxic atmosphere, at least without understanding the facts and the potential unintended consequences.

Toxic atmosphere?  Unintended consequences?  If that isn’t a condemnation of the human ability to make rational, long-term decisions when passions arise, I don’t know what is.

Generally people fulfill their short-term interests at the expense of their long-term interests (anyone who’s taken an intro Psych class knows most would rather have $5 today than $10 next month.)

John Maynard Keynes states it eloquently in his description of Animal Spirits:

Even apart from the instability due to speculation, there is the instability due to the characteristic of human nature that a large proportion of our positive activities depend on spontaneous optimism rather than mathematical expectations, whether moral or hedonistic or economic. Most, probably, of our decisions to do something positive, the full consequences of which will be drawn out over many days to come, can only be taken as the result of animal spirits - a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities.

Even Friedman’s “Constant Growth Rate” model account for short run craziness.

Baseball players aren’t necessarily idiots for taking steroids. I think it’s terrible what they’re doing to the game, but when confronted with short-term immortality (and $$$$) vs. long-term health problems, most choose the former.

I hope that quells the belief that the Democratic Party and myself are crazy Left-nuts who think people can’t be trusted to act in their best, long-term interests.  Many people can.  Most can’t.

Now onto the actual topic at hand – environmental regulations.  There’s actually a vast field of psychological research on the subject.

I admire the President’s Environmental Policy changes, but acknowledge that it probably won’t amount to much.  Here’s why:

On the Freakonomics Blog, the writers pose the question “Did Celebrating Earth Day Make You Pollute More?’  The salient point is:

A new study from psychologists at Northwestern University suggests that “affirming a moral identity leads people to feel licensed to act immorally.” In other words, as Ryan Sager points out, acting green one day might leave you more willing to indulge your planet-destroying consumption impulses the next.

If this is the case, and we accept that global warming/climate change are legitimate issues (there are some smart people who would argue otherwise; most people worth sharing ideas with don’t), then the challenge of climate change must come from changing human behavior and attitudes towards “Green” regulation and living.

In the New York Times’s Psychological News section, Jon Gertner writes an article titled “Why Isn’t the Brain Green?”  Essentially, Jon wonders why people don’t view climate change as an issue, and even when they do why they don’t act “Green”.

Right after President Obama’s Inauguration, the Pew Research Center took a poll of the issues Americans were most concerned with.  Global warming came in 20th.  Out of 20.

Understandably things like the economy and job production should top the list, but coming in last – really?  Really?  Why is that – why don’t people care about climate change?

Elke Weber, who holds a chair at Columbia’s business school as well as an appointment in the school’s psychology department, who is also a co-founder of CRED (The Center for Research on Environmental Decisions) talked about climate change with Jon.

“Let’s start with the fact that climate change is anthropogenic.  More or less, people have agreed on that.  That means it’s caused by human behavior. That’s not to say that engineering solutions aren’t important.  But if it’s caused by human behavior, then the solution probably also lies in changing human behavior.”

CRED views global warming as an opportunity to study how we react to long-term trade-offs in the form of sacrifices we might make now in exchange for uncertain climate benefits in the future.

Psychologists agree that this has to do with our risk assessment.  Gertner writes:

Cognitive psychologists now broadly accept that we have different systems for processing risks. One system works analytically, often involving a careful consideration of costs and benefits. The other experiences risk as a feeling: a primitive and urgent reaction to danger…

In analytical mode, we are not always adept at long-term thinking; experiments have shown a frequent dislike for delayed benefits, so we undervalue promised future outcomes. (Given a choice, we usually take $10 now as opposed to, say, $20 two years from now.) Environmentally speaking, this means we are far less likely to make lifestyle changes in order to ensure a safer future climate. Letting emotions determine how we assess risk presents its own problems. Almost certainly, we underestimate the danger of rising sea levels or epic droughts or other events that we’ve never experienced and seem far away in time and place.

Furthermore, Weber’s research demonstrates that humans have a “finite pool of worry” : we only care about very few things at a time.  So when the stock market plunges, the 401k vanishes and the job is lost, nobody cares about the environment and climate change.  But they should.

Gertner also writes about the classic Econ 50 problem, “The Tragedy of the Commons”

… climate change can be easily viewed as a large “commons dilemma” – a version, that is, of the textbook situation in which sheepherders have little incentive to act alone to preserve the grassy commons and as a result suffer collectively from overgrazing.

But there is some hope according to Weber:

We enjoy congregating; we need to know we are part of groups.  It gives us inherent pleasure to do this.  And when we are reminded of the fact that we’re part of communities, then the community becomes sort of the decision-making unity. That’s how we make huge sacrifices, like in World War II (Parents sacrificed their sons. Children sacrificed their fathers. Everyone sacrificed something, family vacations were unheard of, private autos couldn’t be updated, even used tires were unavailable as was the gasoline to operate them. And, there were no candy bars on store shelves. Ladies gave up hosiery. Hand me downs were the norm. Shoes were unavailable. Meat, Sugar and oils were strictly rationed and even church bells were turned in at metal drives. Life was a matter of accepted sacrifice and it was all accepted in the name of patriotism.)

And actually, Weber and her colleagues have given us remarkable psychological phenomena to examine:

The subjects in half of the 50 test groups would first make their decisions individually and then as a group; the other half would make group decisions first and individual ones second. … In Amsterdam, Handgraaf told me, he had already seen that when subjects made decisions as a group first, their conversations were marked far more often by subtle markers of inclusion like “us” and “we.” … What if the information for decisions, especially environmental ones, is first considered in a group setting before members take it up individually, rather than the other way around? … Weber’s experiments have also looked at how the ordering of choices can create stark differences: considering distant benefits before immediate costs can lead to a different decision than if you consider — as is common — the costs first. Here, then, is a kind of blueprint for achieving collective decisions that are in the world’s best interests…

It’s pretty easy to see the ethical questions this raises.  Aren’t we skewing a person’s natural decision-making process?  Weber responds aptly:

…What’s that person’s true preference? What do they really want? I think that’s the wrong question, because we want it all. People have multiple goals. If group involvement or the ordering of choices changes the process of making a particular decision, and in turn the result — whether because it tweaked our notions of risk or because it helped elevate social goals above individual goals and led to better choices for the global commons — that isn’t necessarily a distortion of our true preference. There is no such thing as true preference.

One of the issues here is “out of sight out of mind.”  Few cared about Japan or Hitler until Pearl Harbor.  We weren’t even militarily involved until we got hit.  Were the Nazis not evil and did the Japanese not pose a threat before the attack?  Or do we just have to be confronted with tragedy to care?

No one knew how urgent it was to stop the concentration camps.  When we saw it, we vowed (though have yet to fulfill…) “Never again.”  We had to see it to care.

Very few viewed terrorism as a legitimate threat against Americans.  Bill Clinton allegedly had numerous chances to capture Osama Bin Laden but passed.  9/11 happened and we were confronted directly with the problem; we immediately went to war.  Were terrorists not a threat until 9/12,  or do we just not care unless we see a tragedy?  (As an aside, was military intervention the right decision or was it the result of our passions being stirred, opting for short-term satisfaction rather than long-term success?)

Can we survive climate change’s Pearl Harbor?  And more importantly, do we really have to deal with disaster to get people to care?

Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change, decided to find out.  He went to Alaska, who more than any other state has seen the effects of climate change.

Forget the “God is hugging us a little bit tighter” joke.  Rural Alaskans have seen climate change affect their culture.  Leiserowitz put out a survey and talked to some Alaskan tribes:

His data showed that the majority of Alaskans had indeed detected a change in climate and attributed it to man-made causes; they also said they believed warming would have significant impacts on Alaska and the world. But Leiserowitz found deep perceptual gaps between urban Alaskans, whose experience of climate change was limited, and rural residents. (People living in Kotzebue [indigenous tribal leaders], for instance, were experiencing a threat to their culture from the erosion of sea ice, which limited their ice fishing.)

It seems that direct experience with certain elements reduces people’s ignorance of those elements (see Nate Silver’s TedTalk on racism in America).  If we don’t see the elements in action, though, we appear to be ignorant about them (see the Implicit Attitudes Test).

There does appear to be some hope, though.  And it comes from the psychologists.

When framing questionnaires or debates or surveys, there are ways to present information to evoke certain responses.  How we frame a question can influence the answer.  A student of Weber’s, Hardsity, came up with a study.

He presented a scenario to both Democrats and Republicans (would they favor a 2% fee on airline tickets to support Green technology development?) and framed the fee as either a carbon “tax” or a carbon “offset”.

Democrats were willing to pay a fee for an offset or a tax; Republicans were willing to pay for an offset but not a tax. Clearly, the tax frame affected the outcome — very much so for Republicans.  …  The order of the thoughts matters …. Indeed, in a follow-up study by Hardisty, merely asking people to list their thoughts about the fee in one order or another (pros first or cons first) affected their preference, regardless of whether they were Democrats or Republicans.

As Hardsity put it, a “trivial, semantic difference” can have a HUGE affect on public perception and, therefore, public policy.

Rather than allowing existing public sentiment to dictate our regulations, we need to frame the information differently. Hopefully people will care more about long-term interests, presented convincingly.  I’m reminded of a quote from the West Wing: “This campaign is a mechanism of persuasion.  We’re not asking for a show of hands.”

Again, ethical complaints arise.  Weber further addresses them:

Government constantly tries to instill behaviors that are considered to be in society’s best interest. “There’s no way around it,” she told me [Gertner]. “We’re always trying to push some agenda.”

Note that it’s “Government” trying to instill behaviors and convince folks how to act in society’s best interests.  Democrats and Republicans.  Hippie lefties and fascist righties.  Everyone wants to shape the debate.

The Founders tried to tell the “Americans” that declaring independence was in society’s best interest.  Lincoln tried to tell Americans that eliminating slavery was in society’s best interest.  Dr. King tried to convince Americans that blacks deserved equal rights.  Bill Clinton tried to convince us openly homosexual men and women ought to be able to serve in the armed forces.  Bush 43 tried to convince us that stem cell research was immoral.  They all made various arguments, presented in various ways, all meant to convince Americans of their views.

In none of these cases was there a clear consensus going in; but going out, our leaders made their points and in some cases, their views became ours.  Americans formed and re(-)formed their opinions, and we were able to form a more perfect union.  If the debate is framed correctly, we may be able to form a more sustainable one.

Sidenote: This is Nate Silver’s TedTalk

The Matt and Kim music video in Andrew Bluebond’s recent post reminded me of a video filmed at Coachella, which went viral after The Huffington Post linked to it.  In the video, a man — either severely dehydrated or stoned out of his mind — discards his clothing and faces the consequences.  Police officers confront the man, later dubbed the Naked Wizard, and tell him to put on his clothes.  When the Naked Wizard refuses, they taser him, provoking an uproar from onlookers.  

Like the Matt and Kim video, the Naked Wizard video is provocative and entertaining — at first.  But though wizards are magical, this is reality.  Seeing a naked man being brutalized while citing his First Amendment right to wear (or not wear?) whatever he wants is a haunting example of the clash between freedom of expression and government’s need to keep the peace.

Naked Wizard Tased By Reality from Tracy Anderson on Vimeo.

Many 5C students have been vocal in their opposition to banning trays from the College cafeterias.  The most vocal opponent seems to be Charles Johnson, CMC’11 of the Claremont Conservative.  He writes:

…but I see little evidence that eliminating trays would reduce waste. More likely, it would just increase students’ time in the cafeteria as they had to wait through numerous lines, meaning you’d have less turnover at the tables in the cafeteria, meaning you’d have more crowding.

Well, a class at American University just completed a study of how trays affect their dining halls.  Acknowledging the sample size may be small and the school is different, the numbers are still pretty significant.

The Seminar in Environmental Issues class at American University recently conducted a study that found that students that did not have cafeteria trays available in the lunchroom wasted 14.4 percent less food than those that did at lunch and a remarkable 47.1 percent less at dinner. The 6 week long study was carried out by randomly choosing 30 students at the beginning of lunch and dinner and giving some trays and removing the trays for others. Afterwards the food waste was weighed.The other part of the study measured the reduction in dishes used for those with and without trays. The study found a 22.5 percent reduction in dishes used at lunch and a 30.8 percent reduction in dishes used at dinner.

Obviously without knowing certain details of the study its hard to draw huge conclusions, but it is reasonable to say the significance of the data exceeds the potential error in collection.

Although I couldn’t make it to as much of Kohoutek as I would have liked, I did get up to Pitzer in time to see Matt and Kim. All things considered, they were pretty mediocre. The most I can say for them was that they handled an early power outage well, but their show was fairly flat. They could never seem to get things going. After reading great reviews of their performances, I was disappointed by Matt’s lack of stage presence. For now, I am going to stick to their studio work -or their fun videos, including their newest for “Lessons Learned.” It’s got Times Square, nudity and a surprise ending. What more could one want?

Lessons Learned

A few months ago, Claremont McKenna College Literature professor Adam Bradley came out with his “Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip-Hop.” Bradley’s home town paper, the Salt Lake Tribune, just did a feature on him called “Adam Bradley, Hip-Hop Scholar.”

The Dallas Morning News just ran a column about Bradley’s book:

Some folks may scoff at the comparison of hip-hop to metaphysical poetry, but Bradley wouldn’t be among them. A literature professor at Claremont McKenna College with a doctorate in English from Harvard, he is keenly attuned to what he calls “the poetics of hip-hop,” the ways that rap both converges with and distinguishes itself from what we traditionally think of as poetry.

Here you’ll find Yeats and Frost alongside Nas and the Wu-Tang Clan, together forming a discussion on meter and accent, scansion and slant rhymes. More important, the old-timers and the new jacks seem to get along just fine: Book of Rhymes, MLA vocabulary or no, takes great joy in the written and the rapped word, and it will leave you listening to your favorite MCs with bigger and better ears than before.

Not only is this unique, but its a good way to learn literary analysis. I remember A.P. Lit back in high school; we would look at the meter of poems, always looking out for a spondee or slant rhyme, marking trochees and iambs and dactyls. I always wondered why we only studied classic poets (probably the course title…) and not modern artists and bands. When you look at music and you look at classic poems, there are a lot of similarities.

Still, the term “Hip-Hop Scholar” seems an oxymoron in principle. “Hip-Hop” is what we live on weekends; “Scholar” is what we aspire to on weekdays.  The two worlds, to most, are separate.

Bradley correctly notes [emphasis mine]:

Of course, not all rap is great poetry, but collectively it has revolutionized the way our culture relates to the spoken word.

While not all rap is great poetry, a good amount of it is.  The idea that music can be analyzed as an extension of sophisticated prose may seem odd at first, but it can open up new avenues of the thought-process.  I fear that it may, at least for me, tarnish my love of music; frankly, I don’t want to intellectualize everything I experience.

All in all, the “Hip-Hop Scholar” is a nuance many of us will have trouble coming to terms with.  Then again, Shakespeare was thought crude way back when; while it would seem absurd (Ludacris?) to think that Nas could rise to the level of Shakespeare, only time will tell.

It seems that more than the comments section of the Claremont Conservative is changing. Today, three members of its blogging team -Aditya Bindal, George Posner, and Helen Highberger -had their names removed the from the contributors list.

While none of three writes nearly as much as Charles Johnson, their contributions will be missed. None of them were quite as offensive as the site’s creator (perhaps that is why they quit?). To be sure, we have no word yet on why they left the blog.

After reading Johnson’s follow-up to my response, I decided to comment.  (His course in Ethics 101 was enlightening, really.  If anything, it reinforced the need to “consider the source,” a principle I learned in high school journalism classes and practiced during my own tenure as an Editor-in-Chief.  But after considering his lack of a source, I decided to brush off his rebuttal.)

I was still going to comment, though.  I even had a great response planned out.  I was dismayed, however, to discover a restriction on comments.  Big bold letters announce the following:

Comments on this blog are restricted to team members.

While I understand that commenters — most of whom opt for anonymity — tend to attack Johnson, I am shocked that he would engage in just the kind of censorship that his posts continually seek to expose and criticize.  How will Johnson be able to continue fighting for free speech at the Claremont Colleges if he deliberately inhibits students from exercising that same right on his own blog?  And consider the ironic timeliness of his restriction, which immediately follows the online publication of my Port Side article calling for increased dialogue between liberals and conservatives on campus.

I guess the Claremont Conservative’s slogan is to be taken literally.  ”Free thought is back,” but where is free speech?

As always, the Compass welcomes all comments.  Feel free to respond to this article, whether you are a “team member” or not.