Polygon, the Dancing Bear

Occasional notes on politics, history, technology, architecture,
and the life of a county clerk

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Current entries

Tuesday, May 29, 2007, 11:22 am

Personal Best from the Fray. The online magazine Slate has a reader comments section called "The Fray".

I've been a sometime participant in the Fray, and though most of the things I have written there have long disappeared, a few remain today on Slate's web site, and six of those carry the coveted check mark that means "Fray Editor's Pick".

The comments function is about to be completely rebuilt, and I'm guessing that the old comments will disappear. I'm copying a few of them here, so I can find them later.

1. Nixon and McGovern. I wrote this in response to a Slate piece about Nixon the Populist:

Subject: Nixon and McGovern
From: Polygon
Date: Oct 2 2003 7:47AM

Greenberg is persuasive as to the history, but he writes about the American electorate as if it were essentially unchanged from 50 years ago.

Back in 1972, conservative pundits pointed to what they saw as the key difference between Nixonites and McGovernites: the Nixon voters were productive, that is, they made tangible, real-world stuff. Farmers, factory workers, tradesmen, and so forth were portrayed as morally superior to effete McGovern supporters whose occupations were caricatured as sitting around thinking and dreaming, or writing and talking.

Leaving the moral dimension out of it, they were on to something: today we recognize it as the schism between the Old Economy and the New Economy. In retrospect, McGovern's campaign was part of an epochal shift of highly educated professionals from being the most Republican occupational category to the most Democratic.

At the same time, the professional category has quadrupled its share of the vote, from 5% to 21%. As Judis and Teixera documented in The Emerging Democratic Majority, most of the economic and population growth in the U.S. is concentrated in New Economy metropolitan areas (which tend to prefer more liberal candidates), while the old farming and manufacturing regions are in relative decline.As usual, the political conventional wisdom is late catching up to changed conditions. It stands to reason that a growing population segment will grow in political influence.

2. Two Columbus Circle. During the controversy over whether to preserve 2 Columbus Circle, Timothy Noah (Chatterbox) challenged its chief defender to call it beautiful. I wrote as follows:

Subject: 2 Columbus Circle
From: Polygon
Date: Oct 17 2003 8:51AM

I'm not a fan of Tom Wolfe, but he is absolutely right about architecture. And surely 2 Columbus Circle is historically significant.

Chatterbox asks if it is beautiful. But architectural beauty has to be judged in context. Among 1964-vintage architect-designed major buildings, 2CC may be the most beautiful on earth, though admittedly that isn't saying much. (Okay, Saarinen's fascinating TWA terminal, also hated by the Modernists, might be close enough to 1964 to outrank 2CC.)

In the 1960s, the International Style was the ideology of destruction and forgetfulness. Just as Gropius discarded Harvard's architectural library, declaring history to be irrelevant to architecture, International Style architects and theoreticians sought to level historic landmarks and neighborhoods and replace them with arid concrete plazas and glass boxes. International Style buildings are unbeautiful because beauty was never the goal. Only ideological purity mattered.

What is revealing about the treatment of Stone's building is that the rigid, Stalinist, International style orthodoxy STILL has a stranglehold on the architectural profession. Architects (to this day) apologize to each other for designing those "vulgar" postmodern buildings. Postmodern ornament is permitted if-and-only-if it is "ironic", which is to say, that it's thin and fake-looking and not integral to the building. It's as if architects look forward to a messianic era when all the postmodern buildings will be stripped back to their International style "purity".

Establishment architects hate 2 Columbus Circle not because it is ugly (their own buildings are MUCH uglier), but because it was a heresy. All these years later, it is STILL a heresy, and sneering critics like Herbert Muschamp have never stopped demanding that it be demolished.

2 Columbus Circle should remain as a rebuke to the Herbert Muschamps of the world and their brutal ideological certainties.

3. The Pulitzer Prize. Jack Shafer ridiculed the Pulitzer Prize in journalism. I was one of many who responded:

Subject: Pulitzer Prize
From: Polygon
Date: Apr 7 2004 8:07AM

As other Fraysters have commented, the Pulitzer Prize in journalism actually does correlate to a large extent with talent and accomplishment.

It's silly to assign too much significance to the numbers of prizes handed out in a given year (five to one newspaper, two to another) as indicating any kind of mathematical truth about the two papers. A single year's prizes are a tiny sample size.

However, the Pulitzers have been handed out for nearly nine decades now, to newspapers in hundreds of cities large and small, all across the U.S. Some cities, like New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, have received dozens of Pulitzers.

My favorite trivia question: what's the largest city in America which has NEVER had a Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper? And what's the second-largest?

You used to be able to answer these questions with the World Almanac (which came from Pulitzer's New York World). Unfortunately, they have stopped publishing the list of past Pulitzer Prizes.

Shame on the World Almanac for throwing that history away. And shame on San Antonio and Columbus (answers to those trivia questions above) for having such wretchedly bad newspapers.

4. Disappearing Gas Stations. In an article about the shortage of oil refineries, Daniel Gross (Moneybox) went on to bemoan the loss of gas stations in Manhattan:

In New York, the least obtrusive component of the petroleum supply chain.the neighborhood gas station.is an endangered species. Nearly 20 percent of Manhattan's gas stations have disappeared since 1999, according to Monday's New York Times. And it's getting worse. Gotham's remaining gas stations are generally located on the far East or West sides.formerly commercial and industrial areas with easy access for delivery trucks and motorists. But these are precisely the areas that savvy builders are now seeking to develop. The gas station I used to frequent, on a run-down corner at 92nd Street and First Avenue, was demolished last summer to make way for a 32-story hotel/apartment building.

That struck me as remarkably uninformed about the consolidation of oil retailing, so I wrote the following:

Subject: Why there are fewer gas stations
From: Polygon
Date:Jun 10 2004 11:02AM

Moneybox comments on the decline in the number of gas stations in Manhattan. However, that trend is everywhere, not just in NYC, and it is not primarily due to competing land uses.

In the old days, there were lots of independently owned gas stations everywhere. Not any more — not even in places which have plenty of commercial road frontage available.

The business of selling gasoline to motorists has a very narrow profit margin. To sell sufficient volume and minimize staff costs, you need massive investment in a battery of automated self-service pumps, and a very specific type of high-traffic location.

Most 1960s and 1970s gas stations were in the wrong places for this, and their costs were too high. The economic censuses document a steep decline in the number of gas stations nationally and in almost every local area. Everywhere on commercial strips, you can recognize the shapes of those sturdy 1970s gas stations, now converted to restaurants or car dealerships or other uses.

For consumers, there is more limited choice, and a longer drive to the nearest fueling outlet, but lower prices and round-the-clock availability. Driving father is an environmental negative, but with fewer and better-run sites, there is less likelihood of gasoline leaking from tanks into ground water, and fewer neighborhood externalities.

Indeed, in most communities, the heavy traffic which is an economic prerequisite for siting a new gas station has probably already driven out anyone who might have objected to it being built.

5. Jackson, the Whigs, Slavery, and the Civil War. Fred Siegel's piece When History Meets Politics contained so many dubious assertions that it was vigorously disputed by the author of the book he praised. I was involved in the Fray debate to rebut other dubious ideas about mid-19th century America. Here are three postings:

Subject: RE: Jackson Vs. Industrial America
From: Polygon
Date: Dec 12 2005 5:29PM

First of all, the influence of abolitionists is being gigantically overstated here. Prior to the war, there were never more than 1% in the North who favored immediate abolition of slavery. No matter how evil slavery looks to us in retrospect, at the time, respect for property rights was held very high, and no one wanted to be responsible for the expropriation of a huge amount of Southern "property". Abolitionism was not a mainstream idea.

In the political rhetoric of the 1850s, to be "anti-slavery" meant to be opposed to the then-potent political influence of the slaveholders. It was roughly the equivalent of someone today who might self-describe as anti-oil-industry or anti-pharmaceutical industry, who (if mainstream) certainly isn't advocating that all the refineries or drug labs be destroyed.

It is absolutely misplaced to describe the Whigs as abolitionists; after all, many of them owned slaves. The Whig Party was a coalition of critics and complainers who were out of power most of the time and agreed on little. Whig candidates for president got elected by taking no positions on anything for fear of straining the creaky coalition. The Whig Party became a political home to critics of the slaveholders, but they also helped alienate the Southern wing and break up the party.

Subject: No, those were distinct
From: Polygon
Date: Dec 13 2005 2:03AM

The idea of confining slavery to the South and hoping for its eventual disappearance should not be confused with abolitionism.

Today, an environmentalist who says we should work to eventually reduce greenhouse gas emissions could be considered mainstream. But one who says greenhouse gas emissions should all stop NOW would be dismissed as a wacko.

There's a romantic fallacy that the North went to war to destroy slavery, parallel to that other romantic fallacy that the U.S. went to war with Nazi Germany to save the Jews of Europe. These are widely believed, but no serious historian takes either one seriously.

Subject: RE: No, those were distinct
From: Polygon
Date: Dec 13 2005 1:09PM

For decades prior to 1860, presidents had been figures who were allied with or deferential to the power and interests of the slaveholders in the South. Southern leaders were accustomed to this deference.

The ascension of Lincoln was a departure from this. Lincoln was also elected on a protectionist platform which was economically threatening to the South, dependent as it was on the cotton trade with Europe.

Lincoln was no friend of slavery, but he was not an abolitionist. He never would have been nominated or elected if he were. Operationally, his "anti-slavery" (like that of other mainstream politicos up through 1860) consisted of confronting the political power of the slaveholders on issues peripheral to slavery itself: expansion into the territories, handling of fugitive slaves, etc.

Absolutely, protecting and justifying slavery were central to secessionist rhetoric. Yes, it would be fair to argue that the South began the war in part to protect slavery. But the North's military response was intended to protect the Union, not to get rid of slavery.

Lincoln is revered as the Great Emancipator, and it is a common misconception to retroactively think of him as an abolitionist in the 1860 campaign or even earlier. You're misreading those debates and speeches if you believe this. What might seem 140 years later like mincing little distinctions carried huge weight at the time.

....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum —

Monday, May 28, 2007, 8:09 pm

On this day three decades ago, a northern Kentucky nightclub was destroyed in one of the worst fires in American history.

When my wife was growing up in Northern Kentucky, one of her high school graduation events was held at the Beverly Hills Supper Club, in Southgate (just a few miles south of Cincinnati). It was a nightclub and a familiar venue for high school proms, wedding receptions, and so on. Many famous performers appeared there over the years.

The original building was built in 1937, but it had been greatly expanded over the years with little or no safety inspection or enforcement. It postdated Prohibition, but locals thought of it as an old speakeasy, and it was said to be a headquarters for illegal gambling.

On May 28, 1977, a fire broke out in the building, apparently caused by faulty aluminum wiring. The cheap building materials burned rapidly and generated toxic fumes. In the vast, crowded Cabaret Room, the exits were unmarked and access to them was constricted.

About two thousand people escaped from the building that night, but 165 died — most of them in the Cabaret Room.

Until last year, I had not known about Walter Bailey, a teenage busboy who saved hundreds of lives. More than a thousand people were packed into the Cabaret Room, watching a comedy act, unaware of the fire raging at the other end of the building. Bailey ran down the long hallway, jumped on stage, grabbed a microphone, warned the audience to evacuate, and pointed out the exits. Most of the crowd did escape safely. Two minutes after Bailey's warning, fire and thick smoke exploded into the room.

Wikipedia has an article about the fire. There's an edit war still going on over whether the fire that burst into the Cabaret Room was a backdraft or a flashover.

The location of the Supper Club (at the end of a long driveway some distance back from the road) has never been built on. Some rubble still remains there. There has been some agitation for a memorial at the site. Survivors and families are gathering there today to observe the anniversary.

Three years ago, when I first posted about the fire in my blog, I started a QuickTopic comment page. That board now contains comments from quite a few people who experienced the disaster either directly or indirectly.

....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum —

Tuesday, May 22, 2007, 12:56 pm

Mulberry, 1991-2007.

Mulberry was a small black-and-white tuxedo cat who came to us in 1991, when Katie Geddes found her as a tiny, motherless kitten on her farm near Grass Lake, Michigan.

Back in 1990-91, on M-Net (local Unix-based conferencing system), "mulberry" was an anonymous writer, also known as "Thisbe Alcestis". Mulberry fascinated us all with postings of original poetry, often done as commentary on M-Net happenings and people. The real identity of Mulberry was a much-speculated-upon mystery. Some of us had figured it out by the time this kitten came along, and so it was natural to endow her with the name of the secret alter ego of the woman who had given her to us.

Even some time after that, I remember when John Perry, one of the M-Net board members, disclaiming knowledge of who was writing the mulberry postings, declared that as far as he was concerned, "Mulberry is Larry Kestenbaum's cat."

Being motherless, Mulberry grew up a bit undersocialized. The arrival of another, older cat in our household seemed to help her mellow out a bit, but she was always feisty about being crossed, and very shy or skittish with strangers; she never fully trusted anyone besides me and Janice.

We still have around our house a number of those plastic rings (about an inch-plus in diameter) from the tops of plastic milk jugs. Mulberry liked to play a game with these. She bring one of these rings to me or Janice and mew, in a particular warbling way, for us to throw them across the room. She would chase after the ring, sometimes knocking it around in a frenzy, and finally capture it. Then she did a very clever cat thing: she would put her paw down on one side of the little hoop, so that the other side rotated upward, and grasp the rising edge in her mouth. She would triumphantly bring the ring back, drop it within our reach, and mew for it to be thrown again.

I don't think she played the ring toss game in the last year or so of her life, but she was still doing it from time to time even as a fairly old cat.

Some cats engage in habits which become almost ritualized, and no cat I have known was more into this than Mulberry. When she was a young cat, she got into habit of attacking me every night about 11 pm. I came to dread this, but I also knew that once it happened, it was over for the night.

Much later, when we would confine her to our room for feeding (to keep the other cats from eating the medicine in her food), she would take a few bites of food, then urgently demand to be let out of the room. Let out, she would wander into the living room and back for no apparent reason, then return to our room to finish the meal. She did this day in and day out for quite a while.

All her life, Mulberry never liked it when somebody made the bed, and would remain on the bed, mewing insistently, while we tried to straighten the sheets and pull up the covers.

Mulberry was diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease some years ago, and was treated with prednisone. Cats tolerate steroids much better than humans do, and as long as she had her medicine, she was fine. On occasion, she would lose her appetite and hence not get the medicine, and her condition would further suppress her appetite until she was dehydrated. So we would pack her off to the veterinarian, who would inject some prednisone, and she'd be fine again.

But when Janice came home Friday evening, Mulberry was considerably sicker than usual, and was extremely weak and passive. She barely even bothered to object when put in the cat carrier and taken to the veterinary ER.

It turned out that in addition to being dehydrated and unable to keep food down, she was jaundiced and in liver failure. Possibly she had liver cancer (quite common among cats), or possibly it was a side effect of the prednisone. Either way, any treatment would be difficult, invasive, expensive, and of dubious usefulness. We had to euthanize her.

It's ironic that the same medication which kept her alive these last seven years may have destroyed her liver. Former U.S. Senator Paul Tsongas had a similar fate. Even "miracle" drugs can carry a downside.

....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum —

Friday, May 18, 2007, 3:48 pm

Short notes:

My daughter Sarah (age 8) received her black belt in karate (Tae Kwan Do) last Saturday.
Also on Saturday, at the Ann Arbor Democratic Party meeting, I finally met Juan Cole, University of Michigan professor and internationally famed blogger on Middle East issues.
On Tuesday, I testified before the Michigan House Elections and Ethics Committee, arguing (1) in favor of students voting in college towns, where they spend most of their time and are counted by the Census for representation purposes, (2) against a proposed bill that would break the connection between driver's license addresses and voter registration addresses, and (3) in favor of amending the law to allow all voters (but particularly students) to have a separate mailing address in addition to their physical residence address. This is done anyway for the homeless and for people who insist on it, so why not open the option to everyone, and regularize it as part of the management of voter and driver lists?
Also on Tuesday, blogger Hugh Stimson had some flattering things to say about me and my blog.
Last night, we attended the taping of the NPR radio news quiz Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor.
Today is the 80th anniversary of the Bath school disaster, when an angry and paranoid school board member put explosives under the school and killed 45 people. I grew up near where this happened.

....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum —

Monday, May 3, 2007, 6:26 pm

The Lost Convention. Congress proposed the 21st Amendment (repeal of Prohibition) in 1933, and specified that ratification would be through state conventions rather than state legislatures.

Michigan was the first state to act. The ratification convention was scheduled for April 10. Delegates, elected only a week earlier, voted 99-1 to ratify the repeal amendment.

Unlike other state elections and conventions, none of this was documented in the 1933 Michigan Manual. In 1951, a fire at the state archives destroyed most of the records.

The election and convention has sunk into such obscurity that people knowledgeable in Michigan political history had never heard of it. I myself didn't know about it until I came across it in a 1933 newspaper. Of course, I wanted to collect the information for Political Graveyard.

Over the last few months, I gathered data from county and state archives, and from newspapers published at the time. I'm delighted to report that I now have all the delegate and candidate names. I didn't try to collect and reconcile the vote totals.

Here's the report: Delegates to Michigan Convention to Ratify 21st Amendment.

....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum —

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