mlawyue:

I’ve been [in Tanzania] all of seven days, and I know my life has already changed. The cynical, bitter crust that sprouted over my every word, every thought – I can feel that disintegrating. Perhaps it’s the lesser intake of American politics, sports, Twitter and everything else I consumed daily back home that’s playing a significant factor. Or, and more likely, it’s opening my eyes to the unfamiliar, taking a knife and tearing a fucking hole through the bubble I was living in for so long.

My longest-story-ever hit Twin Cities news-shelves a few weeks back. In my hasty exit from town — winding up in New York necessitated 17 states in 14 days — I overlooked posting it here. I’m more than grateful to the folks at City Pages for the opportunity to pen this profile of Mike Veeck, one of the doofiest, most gracious individuals I’ve ever met in the world of sport. Son of a man with a peg leg, father to a blind daughter in love with the game of baseball, Veeck was the subject of a Tolstoyan profile by SI’s wondrous Gary Smith a few years back, seeding my piece. (Largest compliment in the weeks leading up to its release? Mike telling me I carried a similar demeanor to Gary. Not that I blush easily, but that’ll do.) Anyway, the article’s linked above, and here’s hoping you’ll find yourself dancing through a Saints game sometime.

On that warm July night, 60,000 people packed Comiskey Park, with another 40,000 outside, backing up traffic all the way to O’Hare. During the first game, anti-disco banners flew through the stands, and chants of “DISCO SUCKS!” rang through the ballpark. Intermittent firecrackers popped, and as Mike describes it, “the haze over the top of the ballpark was astounding.”

After the Tigers won the first game, nearly 20,000 records were carted to center field. Dahl, bedecked in an army helmet and drab-green trench coat, set off the explosions along with DJ “Rock Girl” Lorelai Shark.

Disco records promptly began whizzing onto the field, and fans by the hundreds started hopping the fences, shimmying the foul poles, and bear-hugging security guards scampering to stop them.

The batting cage was shredded. Bases were uprooted. The field, through fires and mayhem, was ruined.

Mike watched it all unfurl, his stomach churning.

“The second the riot started, I knew my life was over.”

I don’t often re-post entire blocks of text, as their arguments often fall somewhere out of line with my own, but this piece — from a law student at Harvard — is too good to chop up. The entire piece is worth a read, and meditation. His entire conceit focuses on the notion of ‘faction-based thinking’ — otherwise known as tribalism, occasionally seen in identity-based politics. It’s taking a name or category or belief, and turning it from label to something more sacrosanct. It’s the ability to encircle a certain identity and support it regardless of reason or critical thought. It’s automatic, knee-jerk defense, damning logic in the face of assault. (Or, even worse, falling back on this purportedly innate trait while you are the aggressor.)

Since I’m not sure if I’m broaching any borders of trust — this was sent in a listserv, forwarded from the professor to whom it was addressed — I’ve left his name out. (Emphasis is the professor’s.) Here’s hoping it’s not the last I read of him:

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I don’t want to spend too much time dissecting Mitt Romney’s war-path to the presidency — the one that’s tarred anything he’s touched, and dropped his unfavorability numbers to record lows — because A) I’d hate to alienate any secret Romneycons among my friends, and B) while I do have enough time, I’d rather spend it transcribing minor league interviews, or clipping my toenails, or listening to the Mariners get thwacked by the A’s to start the season. That is to say, I’d like to avoid entering the GOP’s rabbit hole of un-reason, and continue on with my life.

But there are some things that are too good to pass up.

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(Wasn’t sure where to link the basis of this post, so here it is, via awkward parenthetical insert.)

One of the main reasons you, I, and the collective hard-news internet follow and contribute to news-gathering is, on the face, facts. There may be snappy prose, or colorful imagery, or even a nice penguin-prod to represent the current state of the GOP race. But all of that revolves around a core of ever-produced facts, as series of undisputable points that hold a certain ground. As a subscriber to the merits of facts – be it through opinion polling, IRS statements, or printed religious text and dogma – I take some semblance of pride in pointing to a factoid and deflating someone’s argument. There’s nothing sweeter than countering rhetoric with reality, and there’s no better reality than to channel a fact.

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Primer: “Fisking” is a term that originally derives from the line-by-line dissection of the work of Robert Fisk, that inimitable Independent reporter whose writing is apparently replete with misinformation and poorly-constructed (and -construed) sentences. It’s relatively common on the interwebs, and easy enough to do. You should try it sometime! But not on this piece, preferably.

The last time I fisked something in earnest – that is, went through a text piecemeal and responded to each line on its own – was in high school, in a Bible as Literature course that required an exegetical study in order to pass.* It’s typically easy enough to respond to pieces in bulk, either tossing around block quotes or assuming the audience has read enough of a piece to get the counter-arguments. But every once in a Comanche moon, you need take a scalpel where a delete button would have done. Been six years since that exegesis, so I’m sure I’m rusty. But bear with me, because this fisking – or semi-fisking; at 6,500 words, I’m not going to parse every word – will not center on anything mundane like biblical text or Rick Santorum’s devil-may-come speechifying. It focuses, instead, on something which has touched all of us, which weighs and affects not merely our individual lives, but civilizational development as we know it. I’m speaking, of course, of Portland.

*I have little memory of the project, other than that I didn’t parse one of the “hinge” words well enough and ended up receiving a “Better Than Satisfactory” assessment in the class. It was that kind of course. It was that kind of high school.

The Weekly Standard recently ran an … investigory? analytical? opinion? piece on the tribulations and turbulence of the Columbia’s crown jewel, sending online editor Mark Hemingway on a mission of popping the bubble Portland  inhabits and exports. Hemingway, neither born nor residing in Portland, takes 6,500 words to shred the New York Times’ pet city. (Not that you need the disclaimer, but I spent my first 18 years in the Hollywood District in Northeast Portland.) (Also, you can either follow the link to his piece, or read it bit-by-bit in the block quotes below.) As he notes in the opening salvo, he “keeps expecting America’s trendsetters to get over Portland.” But Hemingway, through ad hominem assault, mis-stated statistics, and general dourness, affects a critique that’s poor in logic and scuffed in flow. The piece duly contains nuggets of necessary information – indeed, Portland’s bubble has run long without notable backlash – but he comes across as as smug and high-hatted as he claims Portland to be, and crumbles any pathos, logos, and ethos he’d hoped to use. That’s not to say that Portland and its residents couldn’t use self-effacement, tough love, or anything in between; rather, it’s that, while censuring my city, we’d prefer the methods to be fact-based and analytical. To offer anything less is, indeed, embarrassing.

On to the (semi-)fisk:

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Over the last few days, there’s been an ongoing debate on my Facebook wall as to the merits of the OSCE’s criticisms that came out following Kazakhstan’s recent Majlis election. After I posted Nazarbayev’s response to the criticisms – that is, his refusal to allow future critical monitors into his nation – a series of Kazakhstani friends came out in defense of the electoral results. Or, perhaps they didn’t defend it, so much as lambast the OSCE’s decision (or gall?) to stand as the lone group opposed to the electoral process. Which makes me wonder at a few things – media trust, New Great Game motions – but also, whether or not such a belief actually carries any merit.

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And this is why Peace Corps, with volunteers but bystanders, is leaving Kazakhstan.

The last few days has seen an interesting debate emerge over at The Daily Dish, pertaining to the label of “Christian” as it applies to Mormons:

[T]he idea that Mormons are becoming more Christian seems to contradict the argument that Mormons aren’t Christian to start with. And the overarching objection seems to be that Mormons are “outside the Christian denominational mainstream,” as Mr Goldberg puts it. Well, so? At one point people would have said that about Protestants, and they would have been wrong then, too … Mormons have always professed their faith to be Christian, and there is a consensus, I think, that they believe themselves to be so. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, the profession of faith should be enough.