Daily Archives: January 22, 2005

Velvel on blogging

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Lawrence R. Velvel is the dean of the University of Massachusetts Law School and writes an interesting blog called Velvel on National Affairs. This earlier post referred to one of Dean Velvel’s earlier posts relating to the plagiarism scandal at Harvard Law School.
In this recent post, in the course of complimenting this Joseph Ellis op-ed regarding what George Washington would recommend as goals for the Bush Administration’s second term, Deal Velvel provides one of the most insightful descriptions of the power of blogging that I have seen:

Frankly speaking, I assume — I don?t know this, but am assuming it — that the column got into the papers in the same way that the book and newspaper industries normally work together. That is to say, to flog sales publicists at big name publishers ask big name newspapers to carry a column by a big name author relating to the subject of a new book the author wrote. Because the publisher and the author are big names, the big name newspaper agrees. This typical arrangement is symptomatic of the symbiotic elephantiasis which exists everywhere in this nation and is ruining the country: It is typical of the fact that, in every walk of life, only the huge in size, huge in money, huge in reputation, and/or huge in connections can really get anywhere.
This fact, incidentally, is one of the reasons for the rise of the poor man?s printing press called The Internet, which gives a small opening to people who are otherwise shut out regardless of competence — just as, conversely, others are insiders regardless of competence.

The risks of the Texas-Mexico border

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This Washington Post article reports on a troubling development that many Texans prefer to ignore — that is, the increasing number of missing persons who are being abducted in the Mexican border towns along the border of Texas and Mexico.
21 U.S. citizens have been kidnapped or disappeared between August and December of last year. Of those 21, nine were later released, two were killed, and 10 remain missing. Moreover, law enforcement officials report an alarming rate of kidnappings that are occurring across Mexico, including what are dubbed “express” kidnappings that are performed for “quick cash” ransoms.
The Rio Grande Valley of Texas — or “the Valley” as Texans call it — has always been a fascinating and troubling part of Texan culture. Larry McMurtry portrayed the late 19th century version of the area brilliantly in his Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Lonesome Dove, which was made into one of the best television mini-series of all time in 1989 with Robert Duvall and Tommie Lee Jones in the main roles. Filmmaker John Sayles provides an equally remarkable portrayal of the area during the 1950’s and 1980’s in his fine 1996 film, Lone Star, which includes Valley native Kris Kristofferson in the flat out best performance of his acting career. The area is among the lowest in terms of per capita income in the United States, yet even that chronically depressed economy is a fantasy of riches for many of those living in the poverty of the teeming Mexican border towns.
The region’s problems are complex and difficult, which makes the area prone to being ignored. The increased violence of late is the natural result of such neglect, and the usual response to such spikes in violence along the border — i.e., heightened law enforcement — is only a short term solution that often contributes to the animus that many of the Hispanic citizens of the area have toward the state. The area is desperate for leadership and a vision for solving its problems, yet those intractable problems tend to repel those in government who are in a position to do something about them. In short, the Valley needs statesmen, which are in short supply in the polarized American political landscape of the early 21st century.

The real reason for the Jenn-Brad split

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There just had to be more to the breakdown in the Jennifer Aniston-Brad Pitt marriage than the MSM has been reporting. This Watley Review piece reveals the true reason for the breakup:

“Brad’s always been a fan of Wittgenstein,” confided Hanson Terrell, an assistant at the Plan B production company co-owned by the pair. “You know, kind of abstract, more focused on issues of language and so on. Jennifer, on the other hand, is a pure Karl Popper fan, all pragmatism. It’s kind of amazing they got married in the first place.”
“She felt Brad was screwing around with her, that when he stared into space at the beach he wasn’t resolving apparent paradoxes through analyzing their phrasing, but instead checking out the brunette in the thong,” said gossip columnist Mark Lisanti of The Defamer.