The Thirteen American Arguments: Enduring Debates That Define and Inspire Our Country by Howard Fineman
Random House, 320 pp.

Americans love to argue. In fact, we would not be Americans if we didn’t.

So says journalist Howard Fineman in his new book, The Thirteen American Arguments: Enduring Debates that Define and Inspire Our Country. Arguing, Fineman says, is what we do and who we are. “We are the arguing country, born in and born to debate,” he writes. “We are an endless argument.”

Fineman is Newsweek’s senior Washington correspondent and columnist, and he’s a news analyst for NBC and MSNBC. By his own description, he has covered every presidential campaign and major candidate since 1983.

In The Thirteen American Arguments, Fineman taps into his decades of experience to find perspective on the American experiment. He looks not at petty partisan bickering and political posturing but rather at the larger, fundamental questions Americans have wrestled over since the country’s founding.

“To understand our nature, and to sustain it, we need to appreciate the lucky mix of accident and intention that made us who we are,” he writes. “We have been debating our very identity from the first days of our existence. Was this to be a Christian New Jerusalem, a Dutch speculation, or an English shire?” Those competing views in many ways still jockey for dominance, he says, but the most important thing is the tug-of-war balance that has resulted.

In that same way, America has defined itself through thirteen ongoing arguments that, in various combinations, pit the State, Church, Tribe, Market, and Academy against one another—with individuals caught in the middle. The tug-of-war balance that results from the arguments themselves “define, inspire, and ultimately unite us by bestowing legitimacy on hard-fought deals,” Fineman says. “Arguing keep us moving fitfully forward.”

Fineman arranges his arguments into what he calls “concentric circles” that ripple out from the individual to the world itself and, finally, to the abstract ideal.

For instance, who is a person, who is an American, and what responsibilities do Americans have toward each other? What can Americans be told to believe in matters of faith?

As a country, how do we define money and manage debt? How do we balance centralized versus decentralized government? What is the relative strength of the president “in a federal scheme dedicated to find the midpoint between monarch and mob”?

What is our place in the world and what is out relationship with other countries? What role do trade, diplomacy, and war play in those relationships?

Does the environment belong to the current generation to use and exploit or is the environment something we hold in trust for future generations?

And what does it mean to have—and what do we have to do to achieve—that “more perfect Union” our Founding Fathers envisioned?

Don’t expect to find the arguments articulated in a civics book. As packaged neatly here in a convenient and catchy list of thirteen, they are Fineman’s creations, but the debates themselves are certainly as old and as vital as Fineman suggests.

Fineman explores each question from historical as well as modern perspectives, taking great care to first ground each question by drawing on contemporary events. As he explores “Who is a person,” for instance, he starts on the steps of the Illinois state capital as Barack Obama launched his presidential bid. Fineman draws parallels between Obama and Lincoln, “the Great Emancipator,” and from there examines a number of facets to the question of personhood.

He looks at the old debate over slavery (were slaves people or property), the current debate over abortion (when does a fetus qualify for “personhood”) and the not-too-distant questions that will arise in the future over genetic experimentation.

If Fineman had his way, Americans would argue more. “Rather than argue too much, which is the conventional wisdom’s critique, we in fact do not argue enough about the fundamentals,” he says. The Thirteen American Arguments, he hopes, is one more way to encourage continued dialogue—a dialogue in which everyone has a role. 

“If arguing is our saving grace, everyone must feel they have a voice and a chance to be heard,” he writes. “Do they?”

And the argument goes on.

The Old Man and The Hawk
for Carrie

If he hadn’t been thirsty, the boy might have missed it. He saw it when he raised his canteen. It didn’t seem like much at first, he thought, just a black speck curling through the blue Utah sky. But he kept looking, curious. He squinted at the distant mystery, his thirst temporarily forgotten.

“Mr. Seth, is that a bird?”

The old man leaned against a stout but gnarled juniper, thumbs hooked in the shoulder straps of his worn canvas pack. He knew how and when to steal a few seconds’ rest as the minutes and the hours and the days and the life flowed by. He curled his arm around the juniper, letting his palm see and know the tree’s rough bark. He didn’t look up. He didn’t need to.

“It’s a hawk, son.”
Full Story »

There is nothing new under the sun, or so they say.

I’m not a big fan of groups that slavishly imitate their influences, but I do love bands with a sense of history and a desire to explore older styles in search of new angles. This obviously establishes a tricky standard - be true to the masters, but not … too true. It’s equally tricky for me as a listener and armchair critic, as well - I might like a contemporary band for the same reasons I liked the bands they’re riffing on, but is there enough in the way of originality going on? As I’ve noted before, the CDs I like and those I think are great aren’t always the same ones. Full Story »

Art?

Discuss.

It’s a totally new literary genre!

Well, sorta. You may have noticed that mobile is getting to be a really big deal, and you may have noticed that Them Danged Kids® are texting until their thumbs fall off. You probably didn’t realize, though, the magnitude of mobile and the SMS phenomenon. There are now over 3 billion mobile phones in the world and nearly all of them have SMS capability. Telephia estimates that revenue from premium SMS entertainment services in the US topped $1B last year. And the stuff that people are paying for - $5/month for a joke of the day (and Yo Mama joke of the day!), horoscopes, music reviews, health tips, sports, and on and on. It’s all a little hard for a guy like me to believe, but there it is. Full Story »

In case you missed it, Trent Reznor yesterday released the new Nine Inch Nails CD, The Slip, as a free download. I’ve only had time to listen to it once, and that was while I was working. So I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve been able to give it a few minutes of real attention. In any case, it’s free NIN, and what’s not to love about that.

Industry watcher and pundit extraordinaire Bob Lefsetz predictably has some thoughts about the release. I’m a big Lefsetz fan, mainly because of his relentless assaults on music industry greed and stupidity, and if you’re somebody who’s disgusted, dismayed or confused by how bad the music biz has gotten in recent years, you need to be a Lefsetz Letter subscriber. Full Story »

Oh, my. This is … uhhmmm … I guess this what happens when a crew of Obama’s kids gets a little punchy after watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode #107 ten times in a row.

Thanks to Jim Gilliam for pointing this out. I think.

Ahhhh. An unseasonably balmy day here in the flyover zone. Upstairs, my riotous infant had subsided into what passes for a nap these hellish days. Downstairs, the dogs and I were cautiously relaxing into sunshine and silence. I snapped open a can of Diet Dr. Pepper, settled into the spot on the couch that fits my rear just right, and fired up the trusty laptop to while away a blessed hour with Google as my friendly guide… and saw this:

And said this: “Good God. Jeff Koons just crapped all over my Google.”

Full Story »

The Bloody Shirt
by Stephen Budiansky

Most Americans don’t realize that a large portion of our country was, once upon a time, overrun by barbarians.

That age of barbarians isn’t covered in most history texts, and when it is, it’s usually called the Era of Reconstruction. And as many Southerners resisted reconstruction, they resorted to acts of barbarism to impose their terrible will over the rule of law.

Stephen Budiansky’s new book, The Bloody Shirt: Terror After Appomattox, explores this age of barbarism—for age of barbarism it was. No other word can suffice to explain the acts of terror and violence committed by large numbers of Southern whites in the decades immediately following the Civil War. Full Story »

Most art students learn to appreciate art by studying its history. Thus they’re usually exposed to the figurative art of past centuries before they are to twentieth-century art, with its effusion of styles.

But some have a natural inclination for the avant garde. For example, jazz, with the homage it paid to old standards and show tunes, seemed too, well, straight, for this author when he was young. His gateway to its wonders, current and past, was John Coltrane. Full Story »

As we watch gas prices surge past $4 per gallon many places in the country and we receive ever more alarming reports of the self-destructive effects of our war on nature, it behooves us to indulge in what John Stuart Mill might have called the consolation of poetry. First, we look at Wordsworth’s warning to us in “The World is too much with Us”:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not…. Full Story »

In a garbage dump in Haiti, people scavenge for food.

They look at me and say, ‘Papa, I’m hungry,’ and I have to look away. It’s humiliating and it makes you angry.

— Saint Louis Meriska of Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, whose “children ate two spoonfuls of rice apiece as their only meal recently and then went without any food the following day”; food prices in Haiti have spiked 45 percent since 2006; April 18.
Full Story »

Give me one last dance
We’ll slide down the surface of things

You’re the real thing
Yeah the real thing
You’re the real thing
Even better than the real thing

I figured out a long time ago, even before I began encountering grad-level feminist critiques, that our media’s stylized construction and portrayal of female beauty was problematic. It’s bad enough that unattractive people don’t appear in movies, on TV or in magazines unless the narrative expressly requires someone unattractive, and sometimes even that isn’t enough. I mean, the star of Ugly Betty isn’t really ugly.

But it goes beyond this. Full Story »

While spring may have only recently made its appearance in some parts of the country, here in the Sunny South it’s been springtime for several weeks already. The proliferation of blossoming dogwood, cherry, and redbud trees puts one in mind of poetry about spring. So let’s start with those most famous of lines about enchanted April, Chaucer’s opening to the Canterbury Tales:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of Marche hath percèd to the roote,
And bathèd every veyn in swich licoúr,
From which vertu engendred is the flour;
When Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Enspirèd hath in every holte and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe course yronne,
And smale fowles maken melodie,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye,
So pricketh hem natúre in hir coráges:—
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimàges,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry landes;
And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunturbury they wende,
The holy blisful martir for to seke,
That them hath holpen when that they were seeke. Full Story »

With the downturn in the economy, the welfare reform Bill Clinton enacted during his presidency might not seem as politically prescient as it once did. In his New York Times article, “From Welfare Shift in ‘96, a Reminder for Clinton,” Peter S. Goodman reports on Peter Edelman, who quit his post as assistant secretary of social services at the Department of Health and Human Services in protest after Mr. Clinton signed the measure. Not only Bill, but Hillary, doesn’t “‘acknowledge the number of people who were hurt,’ Mr. Edelman said. ‘It’s just not in their lens.’”

Once Hillary was in the Senate, Goodman reports, “When the overhaul bill came up for reauthorization, Sandra Chapin, a former welfare recipient affiliated with a coalition called Welfare Made a Difference, lobbied Congress to allow more women to attend college while they received aid. Mrs. Clinton ‘wouldn’t have anything to do with it,’ Ms. Chapin said.” Full Story »

by greg stene, phd

We cannot continue to think of advertising as merely a print ad or TV spot. We need to include far more as advertising … including the actions of people and corporations.

Their Performance Art. And in contrast, their Performance Acts.

Real Performance Art is not just some dude dancing in a street. Or some Laurie Anderson musical performance. Or some geek sitting around reciting poetry that shows up on an HDTV screen in front of him in a restaurant while he’s eating raw buffalo meat. Full Story »

It’s around 9 a.m. May 1, 1994. My stepmother, Kathie, has spent the night at Forsyth Memorial Hospital with my father, Larry, who will die late this afternoon. Their next-door neighbor, Wayne, is driving her home so she can shower and maybe get an hour or two of sleep. She hasn’t slept much in the six weeks since Daddy was admitted to the hospital with massive liver failure. Wayne has been a constant and salving presence during his friend’s illness.

Ten miles, maybe, down Silas Creek Parkway, through the south side of Winston-Salem, then on out Highway 109’s low, pine-strewn roll of hills to where Gumtree Road cuts across, demarcating the northern boundary of Wallburg, NC. This is where Daddy and Kathie live, and it’s where I grew up. These are the cultural outlands of the sprawling new metropolitan South. Our neighborhood straddles the Davidson and Forsyth County lines, and stands too far out into the country to be properly called suburban. But it’s also way too close to Winston to be considered rural. In some senses it’s a border town, possessing neither the urban sophistication of the city nor the kind of “agrarian virtue” my college Politics professor liked to attribute to country living. Antebellum mystique is dead elsewhere, and it never happened here. Full Story »

Final part in a series.

How appropriate that a publication whose launch was dominated by photography of the technological wonder of the day should end its run with an equally impressive tribute to mankind’s latest technological accomplishment. As noted earlier, LIFE’s final issue was released a scant three weeks after Apollo 17, NASA’s last trip to the moon, and in the magazine’s concluding essays it found a fitting kinship with that mission.

Both LIFE and the Apollo program remained physically strong to the last – many regard Apollo 17 as the most successful of all the moon landings (12/29/72), and while LIFE was awash in red ink, its failures arguably related more to mismanagement than to substantive textual issues (in 1969 the magazine had reached an all-time circulation high of 8.5 million) (van Zuilen). Both were, in the end, overcome by financial difficulties and a lack of institutional will to carry on. Full Story »

I used to work with a HAL 9000. Back when I was at US West in the late ’90s we had a voice system into which we would record the day’s company news so that employees without Internet access could dial in and keep up with the latest events. As with any such system there was a dial-in sequence, buttons that had to be pressed in a certain order, etc.

One day, as I was working through the first stage of the sequence, our phone system apparently achieved sentience. For reasons that I still can’t explain, a decade later, and that nobody at the time had any clue about, the machine sort of … intuited what I was about to do. It performed an action or two that, put simply, it could not do. Full Story »

by Chris Mackowski

Sharp Teeth
by Toby Barlow
Harper, 312 pages

Toby Barlow’s new book is a novel. It’s also an epic poem. It’s a love story, a crime thriller, and a werewolf story, too,

Throw out everything you think you know about any of those things.

Barlow’s book, “Sharp Teeth,” is nothing less than a bold literary experiment that rewrites the rules into free-verse poetry. It’s evocative, ferocious, and frequently funny–a pop-culture fusion drink that’s jacked up on its own juices. It’s a dark, compelling nightmare that reads like a gritty dream. Full Story »