A Tragedy, Not A Talking Point.

The previously little-known story of Trayvon Martin’s death has become an inferno of controversy during the past week. It’s shocking, heartrending, and it strikes at the core of America’s identity as a tolerant nation. Like many other stories, it might also prove to be more complicated that it seems.

These are the generally agreed-upon facts of the case:

Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African-American boy, is walking home after purchasing some candy and iced tea at a 7-11. He’s talking to his girlfriend on the phone. George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watchman, spots him, and immediately pegs him as a suspicious figure. Zimmerman calls 9/11, and pursues the boy. A struggle occurs, and Zimmerman shoots Martin. Trayvon Martin is dead by the time police arrive. Zimmerman claims the action as self-defense, and even though Trayvon was unarmed, he isn’t prosecuted.

I first heard the story on the radio. But in my mind, I could visualize Zimmerman clearly.

White.
Probably middle-aged or older.
A paranoid racist with too much time on his hands, and an itchy trigger finger.

Later, I googled “George Zimmerman,” to find out as much as I could. His picture was one of the first items that popped up. And it surprised me.

George Zimmerman, as it turns out, isn’t white, or middle-aged. He’s a 28-year-old Hispanic of mixed ancestry. According to his family, he has many black friends and family members. Given that his town’s population is 30% African-American, that doesn’t sound like a stretch. None of those things preclude racism as a motive. But, they do raise several questions.

How does a young, middle-class Hispanic man living in a racially diverse town end up with a level of racial paranoia that leads him to snuff out an innocent life for no reason besides “walking while black”? Upon further inspection, the racial aspect of the story doesn’t disappear, but it certainly becomes cloudier.

Regardless of the circumstances, prosecuting Zimmerman is the right thing to do. Trayvon Martin’s family deserves justice. But we shouldn’t be too quick in forming simplified narratives about the motives behind the case before all the facts are known. Turning an unspeakable tragedy into an opportunity for grandstanding on the state of race relations in America is a mistake.

We should push for justice, but remain patient for the details.

The Sporting Life.

Based on the general rumblings emerging from the Internet-o-sphere, I’m aware that basketball-related events are happening right now. Basketball-related events that somehow fall under the banner of “March Madness.”

I literally have no clue what this is. None.

As it stands, my interest in sports is exactly equal to the amount of interest a porcupine has in knitting tiny hats for human babies. Which is quite low, unless you happen to be Knudsworth, The Knitting Porcupine Who Loves.

My first instinct is to ridicule everyone who thinks that sports are significant in some way. However, since everyone else on the planet falls into that category (with the exception of Knudsworth, whose legendary abundance of love does not extend to sports), I’ve since learned to suppress my instincts.

In fact, if you’re totally into sports, I respect your lifestyle. I don’t understand it, but I respect it.

You see, if you follow sports, you have a crazy amount of stuff going on in your brain. The casual sports-talk that normal Americans are able to rattle off is completely mystifying to me. Sports people know a mind-boggling number of things. They know hundreds of teams, and the players on those teams, and the records of those players, and players in the past they can compare them to. They know about coaches, league organizations, strategies, obscure lingo, and rules.

And they know all that without any sort of formal education on the subject. By any measure, that’s pretty darn impressive.

Granted, my inner-Knudsworth can only think, “Gosh, if people devoted a fraction of the brain-space they use for sports to local politics, think about how healthy our communities would be!” But I know this is a false choice. There are people who are completely savvy and politically engaged, and know millions of sports factoids as well.

Again, my tiny, non-sports brain can’t comprehend this. I don’t know how people can seemingly know everything about the constantly changing world of sports, and all the personalities therein, and also fit other information into their brain. But millions of people do.

I don’t like sports. But I respect anyone who knows many things about things, even if those things are things I don’t understand.

So, to all those who know what “March Madness” is: I salute you.

You make America great.

Now, go back to doing... your brackets... for the games. I hope Michael Jordan scores lots of touchdowns!

(And Knudsworth sends his reluctant blessing as well. He's already knitting hats for your present and/or future babies.)

Not S'Mitten.

Mitt Romney's belly-flop in the South is yet another demonstration of Romney's inability to purchase the hearts and minds of GOP voters. The delegate math is still in his favor, but votes for Romney tend to be more motivated by antipathy toward Obama than anything else. Romney isn't oozing toward a presidential nomination because he's loved. It's because he's electable.

But the logic behind the electability assumption seems a little flawed. Is a man really electable if he can't muster enthusiasm among his own supporters? If flooding media markets with absurd amounts of cash still results in narrow wins alternating with narrow losses?

A politician has a lot of jobs, and being likeable is one of them. It's not as trivial as you may think. Presidents aren't elected by a neutral council of performance analysts who sit in a dark room crunching numbers. They're elected by humans, with human emotions, and human reasons for the votes they cast. Connecting matters. Being liked matters. In races where less than half the population votes, the deciding factor is generally the level of enthusiasm behind either side.

So if Romney can't fire up his own party, what does that say about his electability? Yes, some of the things that make Republicans hesitant about Mitt -- like his moderate record -- will be assets in the general election. But let's be honest: Willard Romney will never be confused with Slick Willy. He does not regularly charm tiny birds from their nests. When Romney opens his mouth, he tends to say things that alienate normal people. No one likes his style, and activists from both sides of the political spectrum dislike his substance. If the economy continues to improve, the single issue he's based his campaign on could be swept from under his feet.

Electability is important. But being less crazy than other candidates isn't necessarily the same thing as being electable. Just ask President Dole, or President McCain.

Paywalling.

Newspapers have been grousing for years about the best way to pull in the revenue they need to survive the digital onslaught. The so-called paywall has lots of critics, but an increasing number of news sources are adopting it. It’s a pretty straightforward idea: good journalism doesn’t happen without money, so the public ought to pony up some dough to access it.

Which brings me to a handy little anecdote: after months of stalling, I’m now a paying subscriber to nytimes.com.

I’m not saying that online subscription fees are the best solution for every organization. My reluctant payment isn’t an endorsement of the business practice. But I paid nonetheless, because it was simply more convenient than constantly trying to work around the free article limit.

I read the New York Times a lot. Even if you’re a Palin-esque conservative who believes that The Grey Lady is a bastion of communism and vice, there’s no question that the New York Times produces more original journalism at home and abroad than any other single source. Every day, I visit the New York Times because I know I’ll read things there that I won’t find anywhere else. It offers a blend of opinion, hard news, and cultural reporting that I’ve relied on for years.

And that, I think, holds the true key to journalism’s survival. The digital space is still a harsh frontier for the news industry. No one knows what things will look like in 20 years. Are online subscriptions the answer? Micro-payments? Non-profit corporate structures?

Frankly, I have no idea.

But I do know that if you offer something essential -- something that people can’t live without -- there’s a good chance you’ll survive. As a consumer, I’m annoyed that I have to pay for something I used to enjoy for free. But I’ll pay anyway, because I want what the New York Times has to offer.

The business side of the newsroom has a long way to go in developing sustainable business models. But unless journalists are creating content people depend on, the most innovative corporate minds won’t be able to save the industry from collapse.

In other words: make the news awesome. The money will come, eventually.

Andrew Breitbart (1969-2012)

Every morning, I head over to my inbox to skim Mike Allen’s daily Politico Playbook news summary. Today, the subject line promised something about a feud within the Cato Institute. But on the inside, I was confronted by six stunning words that appeared to have been inserted at the last minute: BULLETIN - ANDREW BREITBART DIES AT 43.

My first thought was that it was all a Tom Sawyer-esque hoax. I could imagine Breitbart gleefully watching the media’s reaction to his own death, a glass of pinot noir in hand, relishing yet another chance to humiliate the establishment he despised. But at this point, I’m not holding my breath.

Andrew Breitbart is dead.

I think there are two senses in which someone can be considered great. One is a complete, moral sense. There are great men and women who are admired for what they fought for, and how they fought for it. But there’s another, lesser sense. Some men and women have a greatness that isn't always the same as goodness. They’re great in an earthly sense, because of the shadow they manage to cast during their short time in the sun. They make a dent in the fabric of society, for good or ill.

In that sense, Andrew Breitbart was a great man.

If William F. Buckley Jr. was emblematic of the last generation of conservatives, Andrew Breitbart was the heart and soul of the current one. Buckley was an erudite Ivy League elitist, always ready to disarm opponents with a verbal flourish. He was part of an intellectual conservative establishment that at the very least seemed to value high culture and the search for meaning. Breitbart was an unabashed bomb-thrower to his core. Every action he took was animated by anger against a vast liberal elite, and those he felt had been brainwashed by them. Buckley may have scoffed at liberal protesters in witty columns; Breitbart would march right out to them and yell until he lost his voice. He didn’t just want to fight his enemies. He wanted to destroy them, in hand-to-hand combat if necessary.

And often, he succeeded. Anthony Weiner resigned in disgrace. Shirley Sherrod lost her job. ACORN was cut off from federal funding. Breitbart harnessed his anger to the anger of thousands, and used it to relentlessly push stories online until mainstream news sources could no longer ignore them. He mastered the new media to beat the old media at its own game.

By any account, Breitbart was not a particularly religious person. But the enemy of his enemy was always his friend. His Big Hollywood blog often featured voices ranging from culture-warrior evangelicals to gay libertarians. As long as you wanted to take a wrecking ball to the ivory tower, you were welcome on Team Breitbart. The battle was an all-consuming obsession for him. In Breitbart’s mind, Hollywood elites, liberal newscasters, and hippy protestors weren't just wrong -- they were at war with the country. Somewhat ironically, Breitbart’s tactics were self-consciously modeled after the left-wing radical groups of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Now that they had taken over, he felt that it was his turn to give them a taste of their own medicine.

In style and substance, I never had a whole lot in common with Breitbart. But out of all the conservative political figures in the country, I always felt he would be the most fascinating to have a conversation with. He was a colorful political oddity in a country that manufactures characters by the dozens. He may not have been Limbaugh, but he loved to talk, rambling combatively about the communist plot to take over the country, while making obscure pop culture references and praising the goodness of middle-Americans. The persona he projected was a strange combination of poise and sloppiness, something like a disgruntled think-tank fellow who had just crawled out of bed after a night of heavy drinking. Breitbart was a political conservative who didn’t care for maintaining a clean-cut image. You always got the feeling that he was the guy you’d want to have a beer -- or several beers -- with. But my own chances of grabbing a pint with Breitbart have dropped from .001% to 0.

The man is gone. The media landscape he helped transform remains.

The DangerRuss Files: Savory Collection Vodka Cream Sauce

In the world of dollar-aisle foods, none are more intriguing than the elusive Savory Collection Vodka Cream Sauce. This legendary consumable promises to combine the romance of a fine Italian meal with the raw despair of a Russian hangover.

Unfortunately, with great promise comes the chance for great disappointment. Can a single dollar really buy you the delicate balance of cream and vodka needed to fulfill your most fevered dreams of pasta bliss? As with the question, "are those berries poisonous?", there's only one prudent way to find out: you gotta put that thang in yo' mouth. 

Packaging:

Savory Collection Vodka Cream Sauce comes draped in the fanciness one would expect from an item in a collection of savory. Of particular note is the enticing copy on the back of the jar, which proclaims that Savory Collection Vodka Cream Sauce provides an "Italian" style dinner.

Yes, that's in quotes. Who could "resist" such an "authentic" sounding "meal"? Certainly not "me."

Flavortaste:

The jar suggests adding shrimp to the sauce, to transform it into true "Italian" comfort food. So, I added shrimp to the sauce. I served it over angel hair pasta. And here's the thing: it was pretty good. Having never experienced any sort of vodka cream sauce, I wasn't sure what to expect. But it turned out to be a solid tomato sauce, with just a little extra somethin'-somethin'. The shrimp was a nice touch, taking the meal beyond the level of your average weeknight pasta dish. It won't knock anyone's socks off, but for a dollar, this is a legitimately good sauce choice. And unlike pricier brands of pasta sauce, Savory Collection Vodka Cream Sauce has a surprisingly wholesome formula, devoid of an alphabet soup of additives. The top ingredients? Crushed tomatoes, cream, and vodka. Seriously. If you're like me, and you enjoy spicing things up yourself, this is a good thing.

The bottom line -- a decent sauce for a great price. Or, as the Italians would say, "the dire economic straits our country is facing, combined with the broader euro zone crisis, is threatening to destabilize the entire world!"

Final Score:

3.5 / 5 Narwhals

Fighting For A Truthier Tomorrow.

Even though the GOP primary field has been essentially whittled down to two terrible candidates, it’s hard to tell who will be leading the charge against Obama in November. But, it’s not hard to tell what rhetoric the Republican's anointed leader will be spouting. When they’re not busy proclaiming that every other candidate eats babies, the presidential hopefuls have been refining their line of attack against our arugula-lover-in-chief. The script has been well rehearsed:

"Obama doesn't believe in work."

"Obama doesn't believe in America."

"Obama wants to foster a culture of dependence."

"Obama thinks America should apologize for itself."

"Obama believes in equal outcomes instead of equal opportunity."

Now, the problem I have with these anti-Obama soundbites is that they aren't true.

I think it's perfectly valid to argue that Obama's policies are bad for economic growth. It's valid to argue that he hasn't created enough jobs. But to say that he doesn't want people to get jobs at all, or doesn't respect the concept of private-sector employment is silly. And silly anti-Obamaisms like this have been at the center of every GOP candidate's stump speech.

In the end, it doesn’t matter what Obama says, or what he does. Republicans will always see an amalgamation of left-wing clichés sitting in the oval office. For example, it doesn’t matter that Obama has followed Dubbya's defense policy to a tee, and aggressively (perhaps even illegally) expanded the war on terror beyond Iraq and Afghanistan. It doesn’t matter that he ordered the death of Bin Laden. Obama’s a liberal, and we all know that liberals are hippie-flower-child-pot-smoking-draft-dodging-America-hating-one-worlders! The man’s obviously too busy eating fancy cheese to keep us safe.

Straw-man arguments like this bother me. They bother me because I think America could be having real political debates right now, over issues like the effects of taxation on growth, the best way to control healthcare costs, and what America's proper role in the global arena should be. Republicans should argue vigorously with Barack Obama. But they should be arguing with the real Barack Obama, not the arbitrary set of liberal stereotypes they've pinned to him.

There are real differences between Obama and his would-be GOP opponents. But with the exception of gadfly Ron Paul, the differences are not as black and white as people would think. The vast majority of Republicans, like Democrats, believe in a social safety net. They believe there's a proper role for government regulation, and that taxes are necessary. Democrats and Republicans both love America, and would like America to remain a powerful global player with a strong military. Republicans and Democrats both believe that capitalism is the best way to generate wealth. The differences often lie in the details of how they would balance competing concerns. And as we all know, details are boring, and sometimes contain the devil.

Once the GOP picks their candidate, and the race starts in earnest, it’s a pretty sure bet that Obama will set up his own set of straw men to knock down. And millions of Americans will accept this as the way politics are, and always have been. We don’t care that politicians are lying, because we expect politicians to lie. We accept a comically shallow level of political discourse, because it’s what we’ve been raised on.

But should we accept it? Will we ever stand up and demand that our leaders say things that are actually connected to reality? Will we collectively reject horserace journalism that treats issues like colorful props in an ongoing soap-opera?

Probably not.

Goodnight, America. If you need me, I’ll be looking at hilarious pictures of cats doing things.