The Raven

Wednesday, October 30, 2002

Passivist Tense

Over at the NYT this morning I saw this item titled, "Rally in Washington Is Said to Invigorate the Antiwar Movement." Mostly interviews with protest organizers who are thrilled by a level of response that surpassed expectations. But naughty of the Times to go for the passive voice in the headline.

On the same subject, Salon rounded up some letters from protesters who were in D.C and S.F. this weekend, and the overwhelming sentiment expressed by the writers is their general discomfiture with the hardcore leftist element that degraded the dignity of the event. This was inevitable, considering the coalition-building that drew so many different types of Americans together, but for a sharp analysis of how we now assemble ourselves, take a look at David Brooks's article at the Atlantic Monthly.

In his submission titled "Superiority Complex," Brooks argues that the former layering of American society into hierarchical strata has given way to a mosaic in which each tile sparkles with self-satisfaction.

We have democratized elitism in this country. Now everybody can be a snob.

You see this manifest everywhere. Whether you're the top snowboarder or a foie gras connoisseur, in some domain you've amassed sufficient cultural capital to look down on those who command less of it. The hard left is pedigreed with inassailable correctness on race-class-gender issues and no longer squelches beneath the shoe leather of the nouveau riche. This dissonance is suddenly visible when an event like the weekend protests de-enclaves its participants.

See America by Train

If you're looking for something fun to do next summer, consider heading over to Laguna Niguel in California. For nearly 25 years, people have been gathering there on the second Saturday of July to line up along a fence close to the tracks and moon passing Amtrak trains. What began as a bar bet at the nearby Mugs Away tavern that drew 5 takers has grown (as these things tend to do) steadily and this year the event "event attracted more than 3,000 people."

The owner of Mugs Away gets a lot of business out of this thing.

"San Juan Capistrano is known for the return of the swallows," he said. "Laguna Niguel is famous for the return of the mooners."

News crews show up, you've got the whole biker and redneck freakshow going on, people in campers, there's even a Website, moonamtrak.org, for keeping everyone on the same track. I like their FAQ, which has all sorts of useful information.

Q: I'm overweight, in fact very obese, is it O.K. if I moon?

A: Yes yes, please "moon" with us. We need people like you for the extra high intensity mooning you can provide.

Laguna Miguel's city manager is philosophical about all this, and doesn't think the gatherings need to be curtailed: "From our perspective, we prefer to turn the other cheek." You can click here to see what it looks like from the passengers' seats.

The Real Problem

I always thought that skyrocketing health care costs were due to greedy doctors and systemic fraud in the pharmaceutical industry. Turns out that ABCnews got the scoop in this story titled, "Healthy Patients Driving Up Health Care Costs." New findings reveal a hypochondriac class of medcare abusers known as the "worried well."

Some health-care experts believe the worried well will continue to grow in number, as managed care drops barriers to getting tests and seeing specialists.

We think this sounds like bunkum. Nobody could be so masochistic as to want to hang around in the hospital all day getting needless tests. Oh yeah? Point taken.

10:48:01 AM