Adam Berenzweig

Moving!

I finally got a hold of berenzweig.com, so I'm moving the non-academic stuff here to my new site: Adam Berenzweig.

Please use that site from now on, I'll be taking down most of the content from here pretty soon.

Cheney on the cost of AIDS

During the Vice Presidential debate tonight, Gwen Ifill asked: "Black women between the ages of 25 and 44 are 13 times more likely to die of the disease than their counterparts. What should the government‘s role be in helping to end the growth of this epidemic?"

CHENEY: Well, this is a great tragedy, Gwen, when you think about the enormous cost here in the United States and around the world of the AIDS epidemic—pandemic, really. Millions of lives lost, millions more infected and facing a very bleak future. In some parts of the world, we‘ve got the entire, sort of, productive generation has been eliminated as a result of AIDS, all except for old folks and kids—nobody to do the basic work that runs an economy.

This is a most incredible response to a question about AIDS. Here is a question about a health epidemic, and essentially about justice and equality in health care, and he answers in the language of money. In his mind, it's a great tragedy because of the "enormous cost". Now, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he means human cost - pain and suffering. But he continues, pointing out that the "productive generation" has been eliminated in some countries, with "nobody left to do the basic work that runs an economy." While I agree that this is a major problem, I am horrified and fascinated by the way that all problems are viewed through the green lens of economic costs.

Politics is over.

At least, it's over according to Godwin's law, or what we usually mean when we say "Godwin's law", even though it's not exactly what Godwin meant.

The Bush and Kerry campaigns are embroiled in a flame war over the use of Nazi imagery in campaign ads. Since they apparently don't have anything meaningful to debate, like how to fix health care, education, Israel/Palestine, Iraq, North Korea, or social security, the obvious thing to do is to create TV ads that compare Bush to Hitler, then counter-ads that splice in above-mentioned Hitler footage with shots of Kerry, Gore, and Gephart, then emails that denounce the confusing above-mentioned spliced footage as "disgusting", then counter-emails that denounce above-mentioned email as, well, disgusting.

So now that the thread of political discourse has degenerated into a Hitler flame war, the ultimate destiny of all dessicated debate, we can finally unsubscribe and stop reading. This place was dead, anyway...

Reality Television

The "Dean Scream" was played in a loop, practically, for the few days after Iowa. I winced as I watched it live on CNN from our living room, somberly watching the results come in. It seemed so out of place, and a bit creepy. As a Dean supporter, I wanted him to say something to lift my spirits, but it was obvious that he was in a different world -- a raucous, desperate frenzy of mutual cheering. I thought, doesn't he know he's on TV?

The fact is that he *was* in a different world, at least a different place. I may have felt it entirely appropriate, or even uplifting, if I was in the room with him. A candidate should be sensitive to the larger audience, however. But isn't that exactly what makes the lifeless, predictable, formulaic politicians that we all know and hate?

One way of looking at the Scream is that it was a litmus test; people took it as evidence to support a deep-down feeling about him that they'd already been harboring.

But it seems to me that another view is just as valid -- that the media makes opinion as much as reports it, and the commercial news sources that feed us today are more interested in a hot story than in accurate reporting -- and Howard Dean suffered for it. And since I believe Dean is an inspiring and thoughtful man who would make an excellent President, the whole country may have suffered for it.

For an interesting take on the Scream, and a rare sort of apology from the networks, take a look at this piece by Diane Sawyer: http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/news/012904_NW_r2_group_deanscream.html

CBS can't avoid controversy

Here's a letter I sent to the NY times, regarding CBS's refusal to run MoveOn's superbowl ad:

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If you can't even buy "free" speech for $1.6M, then how much does it cost?

CBS won't run the MoveOn-sponsored issue ad, which criticizes the Bush administration's $1 trillion budget deficit, because it's "too controversial". But even Bill O'Reilly of Fox, not exactly known for being an enemy of the Bush administration, said that "It's not offensive, (it) makes a legitimate point politically."

If CBS seeks to avoid controversy, they better stop broadcasting. We are a sharply divided nation, and despite the proliferation of media sources, television is still an extremely influential outlet. Both sides will strive to make their voices heard on television, as is their right.

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Go to MoveOn to see the ad.