Why humor matters in a speech: 2011 SOTU edition

NPR, one of the biggest news outlets in the nation, asked 4000 listeners to respond to the 2011 State of the Union address. Here's what they got back, in word cloud version: 

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The discussion:

"Why is "salmon" so big? As The Two-Way explains, NPR's Facebook followers were referring to one of the night's humorous moments — when the president joked about the complicated and convoluted way the government regulates salmon.

"The Interior Department is in charge of salmon while they're in fresh water, but the Commerce Department handles them when they're in saltwater," Obama said. "I hear it gets even more complicated once they're smoked." That last line drew big laughs from lawmakers in the Capitol."

Note that this prominence cut across all party lines, according to the word cloud diagrams, and played a little better with Republicans and Independents than Democrats.

Why was the joke less popular with Dems? Probably because some Democrats think he's doing Reagan.

Alex Parenne at Salon articulates this point: 

Oh god he's doing Reagan. The government is so big and complicated, I have a folksy anecdote about fish that illustrates the absurdity of the entire enterprise of managing a massive, wealthy, post-industrial nation. (Obama is also bad at delivering "jokes," his apparently developed sense of irony nothwithstanding.)

But I disagree. The joke got a huge laugh in the room, and obviously played well out of the room as well. Obama showed he wants the government to make sense, by kidding it a little. Is that so wrong? 

And he showed he understands the power of humor. That's important, for an American president. Whether you like Reagan or not. 

UPDATE (1/28): Actually the President was "misinformed" — the same Federal agency oversees salmon populations, in fresh or salt water — the National Marine Fisheries Service. That's according to the reporting of Elizabeth Shogren, NPR's top-flight enviro reporter, who makes her point irrefutably. 

In other words, Obama is beginning to sound like Reagan…funny and wrong. Alarmingly so. 

h/p: Andrew Sullivan 

What will Obama say about climate in tonight’s speech?

What will, if anything, President Obama say about climate in the State of the Union address?

John Kerry, the de facto leader on the issue in the Senate, told The Hill that he expects President Obama to embrace "major initiatives" on climate in tonight's State of the Union address.  

Carol Browner, former director of the EPA, currently serving as director of the White House's effort on climate change, said she believed the State of the Union address would include a "strong endorsement" of clean-energy efforts led by her office, but also said she's leaving the office, a discouraging sign. 

What could Obama say about climate? The story about Browner strongly implies that he will simply duck the subject, in an effort to be nice to Republicans, who have become — almost without exception — deniers. Even John McCain, who once championed legislation on climate change, has changed his spots, and on the campaign trail talked about the "great questions" on the science of climate change. 

Advance word says that Obama will term this our Sputnik moment, and call for $150 billion in clean energy over ten years, while touting the appointment of GE chairman and clean energy advocate Jeff Immelt to a largely ceremonial jobs post. 

What would climate hawks like to see? I would like Obama to point out the comparison between the predictability of the Great Recession, which was avoidable, a bipartisan report concluded today, and the damaging effects of climate change, the worst of which are still avoidable.

The full report on the financial crisis won't be released until Thursday, but here's the conclusion from preliminary reports: 

"The greatest tragedy would be to accept the refrain that no one could have seen this coming and thus nothing could have been done.”

Similarly, the worst downstream effects of climate change — scarring droughts, the acidification of the ocean, the melting of the ice sheets — are still avoidable, if we act now.

Fortunately, we have thoughtful folks thinking this through for us, as Toles reminds us…

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The gospel of the cult of Mac

Since it's Sunday, it's worth bringing back a gorgeous little essay recently posted by Andrew Crouch. He takes seriously an idea easy to deride — that Steve Jobs offers a desperate world a faith: the cult of the Mac. Of Apple. 

As Crouch says:

As remarkable as Steve Jobs is in countless ways—as a designer, an innovator, a (ruthless and demanding) leader—his most singular quality has been his ability to articulate a perfectly secular form of hope. Nothing exemplifies that ability more than Apple’s early logo, which slapped a rainbow on the very archetype of human fallenness and failure—the bitten fruit—and made it a sign of promise and progress.

Crouch goes on to quote Jobs speaking about his cancer diagnosis in a famous speech, and, implicitly, about his faith. 

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It’s life’s change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it’s quite true. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.

Yes, it's an elegant statement — perhaps we shouldn't be surprised! As Crouch says, it is "the gospel of a secular age." 

If religion is anything, it is alive today even in the lives of perhaps thirty-million Americans who consider themselves non-religious. Many of those people use Apple products, and buy Apple stock. Some even work for Apple. 

We can make fun of the cult of Mac. It is a religion. But as William James, the psychologist and empirist of faith, and the author of Varieties of Religious Experience, said, at the end of the day, we can only judge a religion by its fruits. And Apple's fruits have been very good…

Could the Australian floods be caused by climate change?

Are the devastating and deadly recent floods in Australia caused by climate change?

No. Australia has always been "a land of drought and flooding rains," as a foundational poem about the nation, My Country, by Dorothy McKellar, described it over a hundred years ago. 

But could a tendency towards drought and flood be worsened by climate change?

Yes, says Australian researcher David Karoly, of the University of Melbourne. 

“What gives very heavy rainfall is high Indian Ocean temperatures and La Niña in the Pacific,” Karoly explains. “This year we have both of those, and both are at record highs.”

The toasty temperatures in the Indian Ocean aren’t just a one or two year occurrence, however. Looking back over the past several years, there is a pronounced long-term warming trend in the waters near Australia. Karoly says, “This isn’t just climate variability. This is man-made climate change.”

But not according to Fox News's Tom Switzer. He mocks an Australian representative for suggesting in public that climate change could worsen the nation's a) flooding, b) drought, and c) wildfires. 

That one trend could push the climate towards extremes of precipitation, drought, and heat is apparently inconceivable. 

Except to scientists like Karoly. When the poem by McKellar was mentioned to him by Climate Central's reporter Alyson Kenward, he said:

“What I think now is that climate change is making Australia the land of more droughts and worse flooding rains.”  

Don't tell Fox News. They don't want to hear it.  

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Writer vs. Critic 2010-2011

Patrick Goldstein, who might be the single best blogger at the LA Times, covers Hollywood, and in his case, that means interviewing influential people in Hollywood. Most of them, because they're in the Industry, cannot stand — for professional reasons — to be disliked, and will not be quoted by name.

But Goldstein knows how to work with that, and when he does have a chance to put someone on the record, he almost always shines. In a column last week, he interviewed the seventy-three-year-old writer David Seidler who is — to his own surprise and delight — the front-runner in the competition for best screenplay, for The King's Speech.

After years — decades even — spent grinding out forgettable fodder for television, little-known Seidler is on top of the world, and deservedly so.

But there's a fly in the ointment. A number of commentators, including Richard Corliss at Time, have pointed out that The King's Speech is a virtual grab-bag of Oscar bait: 

"The King's Speech" adheres to every rule in the Oscar playbook. It's a fact-based drama about a British monarch with a crippling vocal handicap, set in the years 1925 to '39 and climaxing with Britain declaring war against Nazi Germany. It's also a very effective example of the noble weepie…. It should play well among the real target audience–Academy members."

Corliss has a point. In fact, he even compiles some statistics to prove it. (For instance, he says that 60% of Best Picture winners in the last fifty years were set in the past, despite the indisputable fact that Hollywood much much prefers to make movies set in the present day.) 

But Goldstein interviews the writer, who fires back with a point of his own. Goldstein writes:

At any rate, when I asked Seidler whether he thought you could really write an Oscar-bait movie, he let out a raucous peal of laughter. "If I could've done that so easily, do you really think I would've waited this long?" he said. "If screenwriters could just put all those things into an simple equation, everyone would have had a shelf full of Oscars a long time ago. Trust me, it ain't that easy."

And therein lies a wonderful tale, of a writer earning his way to being able to tell a great story. It's a story Goldstein (and many others) have told well. 

But the funny thing is, in this conflict between the critic and the writer, in a sense both are right.

Yes, there is such a thing as a movie likely to appeal to the Academy, and yes, The King's Speech fits the mold.

Yet with that said, it's also true that there's infinitely more to writing a good screenplay than choosing a topic, a setting, and a conflict.

If you don't believe it, as Seidler said, just try it.

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The Tucson Memorial speech

The news event of this month has been, without question, the horrific assassination attempt and mass shooting in Tucson, the shock and horror of experiencing that, and the extraordinarily uplifting speech President Obama gave in response, many days later, at a memorial. 

Never have I seen a speech so widely admired, across the political spectrum. Even right-winger Glenn Beck was said to approve, and Rush Limbaugh, though of course unable to say a single generous word ever about a Democrat, could not find a single specific fault with it. (Here's a transcript of Limbaugh's wrap-up discussion of the speech: as you can see, he makes nasty, juvenile remarks, but dares not point derisively to a single word or passage from the speech.)

I think, though sorrowful, that it's as great a speech as I have ever heard. When Obama talked about the little girl who was shot, Christina Taylor Green, and evocated her life and her spirit so beautifully, I could not help but hear the concern for his own children in his voice. One wonders what sort of threats have come in against not just the President when he's been in the White House, but his family too. 

On Post Secret, someone else has had much the same thought…Fearlives

The Decembrists bring back REM

Remember REM, back in their So. Central Rain days, when the band was great? (Even Cobain said so, a little enviously, when he got frustrated with his own sound on In Utero.)

Well, so do the Decembrists, sounds like, from their soon-to-be-released The King is Dead, which you can listen to in its entirety for a week or so, thanks to NPR, right here. 

Apparently Peter Buck (of REM) had a hand in the recording, so maybe we shouldn't be surprised. 

Here's the band, with front-man Colin Meloy holding flowers, and the marvelous singer Gillian Welch, who joined the Decembrists for this effort. 

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Something for the weekend…

Another gay hero saves the day

The great interviewer, reporter, and columnist Patt Morrison lays it down again, as always finding a fresh take on a big subject. Here's a taste of her newest story, to intrigue you: 

A 20-year-old congressional college intern with only five days on the job saved Gabrielle Giffords’ life.

Daniel Hernandez ran toward the sound of gunshots. He pressed Safeway workers’ aprons against the congresswoman’s head wound to stanch the bleeding, and lifted her and held her upright so she wouldn’t drown in her own blood. Photos show him evidently covering her hands with his as he walked alongside her as she was carried off on a stretcher.

Daniel Hernandez is gay, a member of Tucson’s city commission on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues. I bring this up not only because gay websites are talking it up, but because it reminds me of another gay man who thwarted an assassination attempt — but in a very different time and cultural climate.

This time it was Daniel Hernandez. As Morrison recounts, last time it was Oliver SIpple, who saved a President, and suffered for the privilege of doing his duty as a Marine. 

Here's the iconic photo, from an astonishing site that focuses on that and only that: iconic photos.

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Thin ice in the Arctic means cold winters back East?

Put perhaps as simply as possible, that's the speculation among some experts about the cold snowy winters experienced this year in many Northern hemisphere climates, such as New York.

Here's the most concise, detailed explanation I've found so far, from Climate Central:

Recent scientific studies have shown that the dramatic warming that has been occurring in the Arctic during the past few decades, along with the associated loss of sea ice cover, may be changing atmospheric circulation patterns throughout the northern hemisphere. This could be contributing to the recent outbreaks of unusually cold and snowy weather. Sea ice loss during the spring and summer melt season, which leaves a thinner and more sparse ice cover throughout the fall and early winter, is a key suspect in influencing winter weather patterns. When the ice melts, it allows incoming solar radiation to warm water and air temperatures, which in turn has an influence on atmospheric pressure and circulation, and may help shift Arctic air southward, while the Arctic remains unusually warm.

One meteorologist has described the pattern this way: "This pattern is kind of like leaving the refrigerator door ajar — the refrigerator warm up, but all the cold air spills out into the house."

It's important not to overlook the ancient planetary cycles, of course. Down here in SoCal, it feels the past few days as if La Niña has taken hold. It's cold and dry, with no sign of precip in sight. 

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