Tom Watson

Devils and Dust

Some days, I just want to listen, because there's nothing much to say. Today was one of those. And the music playing in my office above the tumult of Lexington Avenue was Bruce Springsteen's new and dark journey through the middle-aged American mind, Devils and Dust.

It's wonderful, his best work in years, better than the Ghost of Tom Joad, superior to the rushed 9/11 anthems of The Rising. In Devils and Dust, Springsteen completes a long artistic journey - from writing about people that he knows, to creating fully-formed characters he imagines. This record is his most literary work; the words leap off the page of the liner notes, the stories carry more weight than the melodies, the people seem so real.

Take Black Cowboys, the story of a kid from the Bronx who reads about the black cowboys of a previous time out west, and rides the rails to meet them. It's a tale of confronting fear and hopelessness by reaching for a longer, wider horizon and it begins with this wonderful description:

Rainey Williams playground was the Mott Haven streets where he ran past melted candles and flower wreaths, names and photos of young black faces, whose death and blood consecrated these places.
Rainey's mother said, "Rainey stay at my side, for you are my blessing you are my pride, it's your love here that keeps my soul alive, I want you to come home from school and stay inside."

But like all Springsteen characters, Rainey keeps moving in a land crossed by highways and train tracks. You know, Springsteen laid aside a career that mainly avoided directly political involvment last year to appear with John Kerry and to oppose George Bush. On those appearances, he pulled out his songs of the downtrodden. They're good, but they're the product of a younger man - a guy from New Jersey who was newly-rich, a successful father, happy with his American life.

This Springsteen has finally taken that next step; it no longer matters in the writing how much money he has, how happy his private life his, how great his buddies in the E Street Band are. He's not writing about his own journeys down the dark highway, his cars, his women. He's fully involved in the role of the creator of fiction and poetry and prose and song. My favorite song so far is Matamoros Banks, a story on the surface about Mexican immigrants, but really a poem about choosing advancement over love:

Each year many die crossing the deserts, mountains, and rivers of our southern border in search of a better life. Here I follow the journey backwards, from the body at the river bottom, to the man walking across the desert towards the banks of the Rio Grande.

For two days the river keeps you down
Then you rise to the light without a sound
Past the playgrounds and empty switching yards
The turtles eat the skin from your eyes, so they lay open to the stars

Your clothes give way to the current and river stone
'Till every trace of who you ever were is gone
And the things of the earth they make their claim
That the things of heaven may do the same

Goodbye, my darling, for your love I give God thanks,
Meet me on the Matamoros
Meet me on the Matamoros
Meet me on the Matamoros banks

So far, the critics don't like it - too dark, not accessible, and certainly not likely to pull the failing recorded music industry out of its nosedive. Too bad. Because Devils and Dust reignites some the promise of Bruce Springsteen that he's delivered on it fits and starts: the kind of storytelling he exhibited in those early John Hammond CBS sessions, doing a rambling Mary, Queen of Arkansas. Those were rhyming dictionary concoctions of a 22-year-old, but there was an alternative reality there worth exploring. Now, Springsteen's a 50-something North Jersey squire - not a skinny kid guitar player. But this work is reminiscent of those days three decades ago, a time when he was labelled the next Bob Dylan by the man who discovered the original. When you listen to Devils and Dust, you're hearing Bruce at his most Dylan-like. And man, it's worth the journey.

UPDATE: Fred likes the record.

UPDATE II: Still in heavy rotation on the Watsonian iPod. Also, good reads in Slate and the WSJ on the record and Bruce's staying power and status.

The Trouble with Tags

Over the past few weeks, I've noticed a new presence in the clickstream for the ol' blogerama: Technorati tags. Because this little site is partly an ongoing media laboratory, I'm always tinkering to see what works, what doesn't, and how people react. So I threw a few tags into the mix - you know, stuff like "Tom DeLay" or "Pope" or "Mets." And lately, they've brought some folks a calling - but nothing major, not like Google or James Wolcott, or Wilson and Jarvis. Just a few. And frankly, I'm not sure what they added on the outbound experience for readers; it you clicked on my DeLay tag, you got pages of blogs that mentioned the GOP Exterminator - but so what? I could've searched. (I've also been messing around with del.icio.us - a bookmark-sharing site - on Fred's recommendation; after all, he invested in the company. And I've taken to using Flickr for my photographs, and the tag system there works very well. You can see some of my favorite pictures on the lower right of this page; my photostream is here - let me know what you think). I know that tags are supposed to create a seamless patchwork of intellectually-consistent linking, a new "thought-stream" through the blogosphere. Maybe they will, and maybe they won't. For now, I don't see a business model. There's only so many nickels AdSense clicks are gonna bring in. And I don't see bloggers digging paid-for tag placement any time soon. So I suspect tags are just a nifty feature. That doesn't mean they're a bad investment, however. Blogs are hot - almost like a small toaster oven of super-heated value, compared to the vast boiling cauldron of the the Net bubble of the late 90s. Some of these puppies will surely sell to companies looking for the next big thing. And that's their value to their founders and their investors.

Save Tom DeLay!

This is a call to all Democrats, all liberals, all progressives and yes, you libertarians and moderate Republicans. (Indeed, all patriots). We are in grave danger. Congressman Tom DeLay's political career is on the rocks, the death watch has started, and the inevitable end seems near, one expose at a time. So it's time to come to the rescue, to band together, to stretch this thing out.

In short, we need to save Tom DeLay.

Because it's too early. Because if DeLay resigns now, or is censured and forced from the leadership in disgrace, it won't mean very much to the mid-term elections of 2006. Because the country needs to slap down the particular hard-core, religion-obsessed faction that holds iron-clad sway over both policy-making branches of the Federal government. Turning the Senate majority over is possible, the House is a longshot. With President's Bush's poll ratings in Watergate Nixonian territory, a swing back to the center is in the offing.

There is one man who could guarantee the return of checks and balances.

Tom DeLay. Still in office in the spring of 2006, when the big Senate races really kick off. Still under investigation. Still defended by the hard-core religionistas. Still the national symbol of overreaching greed and avarice in the name of the Almighty. Still the shining example of power run amok.

Save Tom DeLay.

Pope, Karl Rove Model

It's as if Geoge W. Bush Ronald Reagan died in office and a handful of selected followers sent up the white smoke to signal the rise of Pope Karl Rove I Pope  James A. Baker. Seriously, Cardinal Ratzinger - lately, Pope Benefict XVI - was very close to John Paul II and, most agree, was his tactician and enforcer. But there is a wide gulf between President and advisor, Pope and enforcer, spiritual leader and inquisitor. One does not follow the other; and if so, the results are rarely good. The real popular leaders have something going for them that unites, that rises above politics and administration. Yes, this includes George W. Bush. Further, this Pope is fatally flawed. Sure, I forgive his membership in the Hitler Youth, his service in the German Army, his decision not to actively oppose the Nazi regime for fear of death. I believe resistance may well have been futile, a death sentence, and I'm very unsure of collective guilt for the Holocaust and the sins of the Nazis. But do you make someone with that past the Pope? The leader of a billion Catholics worldwide? What were they thinking? More importantly: what are Africans and Southeast Asians thinking today? What are women thinking? What are young people thinking? This was a chance to move forward. We Catholics took a step back.

High Noon for Will Kane

Joe Gandelman is the last reasonable man. Indeed, his blog is aptly named The Moderate Voice. Throughout the vitriol of the fall campaign, Gandelman stayed close to his values; he stayed on the track of the middle path, the center lane of American politics. He discussed policy and found common cause in states both blue and red. If the Swifties were wrong, so were Michael Moore and his crowd. President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry could both find a home in Joe Gandelman's tent. Republicans and Democrats felt welcome. Joe linked to rabid right-wingers like Glenn Reynolds and lefties like Kos.

But now Joe Gandelman is riled.

Like Sheriff Will Kane in Stanely Kramer's High Noon, Joe Gandelman has been pushed too far. As the right side of his readership scurries for the back rooms of the saloon, Joe Gandelman is strapping on his six-shooters and heading out into the street to confront evil. Joe is the Gary Cooper of the blogosphere. Frank Miller's gang? Senator Bill Frist, Congressman Tom DeLay, and religious zealots like the Family Research Council.

Tellingly, the hard-core lefties like me, and Wolcott, and Chervokas, and Gilliard, and Kos haven't been as taught and good and tough the last week. We've seen this act before, and while appropriately revulsed, we're not surprised. Seen it too many times. Ho hum, another right-wing outrage, another attack on freedom. Rather, the centrists are on fire with passion - Jarvis, and the Bull Moose, and Jack Shannon...and Sheriff Joe Gandelman, walking tall down a dusty Main Street with posts like this one:

Readers should know that in private emails, phone calls, and a centrist Internet discussion group, TMV has been struck by the wave of absolute revulsion and alarm expressed by centrist Democrats, libertarian Republicans and independents over something we have not experienced up to this point in American history: an attempt to blatantly use the precious concept of religion as a divisive tool for the transparent purposes of getting political power.

This is brilliant writing. It is also a call to action to the thousands and thousands of centrists who turn to bloggers like Gandelman for the common cause, the big American tent, that his site and hiw viewpoint delivers on a daily basis. The be frank: Joe's patented news wrap-ups are fine and dandy and useful; but his eruption at the overstepping of the religious right in terms of Schiavo, judges, and the filibuster is nothing short of vital leadership. To be blunt, this is Joe Gandelman's moment. More from Gary Cooper:

We've gotten emails saying "How can you call yourself a moderate? You don't sound moderate on this issue?" The answer: those speaking out and making it clear that they want the America in which they were raised — an America where other religions are respected and religion is not used as a tool to smear and stir up hatred against others — are moderate.

Let's face it: the Republican party of not just your father but of your BROTHER is now in the process of being hijacked. And that's why the people who are now being most verbally abused — in politics and those with sites on the Internet — are Republicans, lambasted by the ascendant faction of Republicans and by those who unquestionably follow and echo whatever stand the leaders of their party take.

We've said it before and we'll say it again: if you hear a weird sound tonight it's probably the sound of Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln rolling over in their graves.

This is a leader, folks. And this is evidence Frist's linkage of "people of faith" and one narrow stripe of Christianity to the Federal bench and stripping the United States Senate of its tradition, its history, and its checks and balances is a bridge too far. Here's more of Gandelman last week - pin it to your fridge:

If he does it, it'll be a watershed moment — a transformational moment for the GOP...marking the political death of a dominant part of its party. Forget Democrats. Anyone who is a libertarian Republican, centrist, or independent voter has to be extremely concerned — and angered — by this.

Right on, Joe. And since you're busy taking the lead among the vast center online, I'll try and "do a Gandelman" on some other centrist positions on Frist's Holy War. Here we go...

: Here's the Moose: Pastor Moose alerts his parishioners that the Right Reverend Bill Frist, M.D.'s Amazing Salvation and Medicine Show may be soon coming to a mega-church near you. Praise be the Lord! Deliverance is just around the bend as the Righteous Doctor is taking his healing powers and his ministry to the airwaves. Frist's faith-inspired healing powers, that were on full display in his video-diagnosis in the Schiavo case, will now attempt to prevent the pagan Democrats from employing Satan's devious tool, the filibuster.

: Reliably centrist Jarvis says this: The Republicans just can't stop from allying themselves with the religious fringe.

: Jim Joyner tries to be fair, but in the end, flays Frist's prayerful posturing: I support Frist's efforts to get judicial nominees an up-or-down vote and even support invoking the so-called "nuclear option" to get it done. However, this particular move is not only unseemly but likely to backfire. Frist's appeal is that he appears above politics. This sort of slimy tactic will not serve him in the long term, especially as he seeks the White House in 2008.

: The All Spin Zone takes a strong stand: Seems clear to me. A whole conference arranged for by Radical Right Wing Christian Clerics with the sole purpose of labelling Democrats as "anti-Christian" and Bill Frist is headlining the conference scheduled to be broadcast to radical right-wing churches throughout the nation. That violates the non-profit status of those churches, but make no mistake, absolutely nothing will be done to enforce the tax laws. This is Bush's Administration, after all.

Two things. Progressives of faith need to speak up. They need to say specifically that faith belongs in the heart, and also in caring for others. They need to decry the kind of demonization the Radical Right Wing Christian Clerics view as moral. Demonization = moral? How twisted can they get?

Second, we need to support Republicans like John McCain, who has said he will not be voting for the Nuclear option.

: Obsidian Wings, a self-desribed moderate Christian site, is pretty strong against the the overreaching of DeLay and Frist, and you know, that's the real story.

I'm wholly offended that anyone in Congress would suggest anyone else is less Christian than they are. By standing with the vile likes of Dobson and Perkins (anti-Christs in all but supernatural powers), Frist is forever tainted by their rabid extremism in my opinion. His people should have advised him better.

Secondly, let's expose this secular power-grabbing freak show for what it is: spiritually and politically corrupt. There is no justification for the so-called nuclear option (other than arrogance and a grossly overdeveloped sense of entitlement)

: Right-leaning, neo-con Andrew Sullivan has this to say, destroying the dying reputation of the failed American Joe Scarborough: "Whether the debate centers around a Presidential election, the right to die movement, the gay agenda, prayer in school, or simply letting our children recite the Pledge of Alligence, the teachings of Jesus Christ always seems to thwart the agenda of America's left wing elites. Forget what you heard in the 1960s. God is not dead. In fact, he is very much alive and beating liberal elites on one political issue after another. Maybe that is why so many of them hate the Prince of Peace." - Joe Scarborough. Is Scarborough honestly saying that Jesus Christ had a position in the last presidential election, that only Republican voters were true Christians? Is he saying that criticism of a Pope's style or record is somehow identical to "hatred" of the Gospels? Did a Jesus who never mentioned homosexuality take a position on gay politics in the 21st century? The complete conflation of politics and religion among today's Republicans just gets deeper and deeper. And dumber and dumber.

: This fella at Right Thinking from the Left Coast is clearly no friend of the Democrats, but he flays Sen. Frist and his gang:

The Democrats are being obstructionist dickheads right now, and Bush’s nominees are being used for nothing but political posturing to score points with the Democrat electoral base.  It’s an unconscionable attack on judges with expressed religious and conservative beliefs.  There’s no excusing what the Democrats are doing.  But eliminating the power of the filibuster is more akin to the Vietnam-era statement that “we had to destroy the village in order to save it.” One day the GOP is going to be the minority party in Congress.  (I think it’s going to happen sooner than anyone thinks.  My prediction: look for the Democrats to pick up the Senate in 2006.) And when the find themselves in the minority, they’re sure as hell going to wish they had that filibuster.

Johnnie, We Hardly Knew Ye

Four score is a good run for a blues piano player, a session man, a back-up guy who played thousands of dates and hundreds of sessions, content to sit and play while others strutted and duck-walked across the stage. The great Johnnie Johnson passed from this life on Wednesday and I can't let the sober week settle into the weekend drinking without a brief mention of this wonderful, lyrical man. As Rolling Stone noted, Johnson died at his home in St. Louis, at the age of 80, after bouts with pneumonia and a kidney ailment. With his death, rock & roll lost a vital link to its roots in the Chicago boogie-woogie of Meade Lux Lewis and the jumping-piano jazz of Earl Hines and Count Basie. But let's face it: Johnson's name will always be linked with another St. Louis lad, the great Chuck Berry. While Berry invented rock and roll guitar, Johnson laid down the chords, the deep resonance that matched bass and drums to form the erotically-charged melange of rock. He was Johnny B. Goode. Johnson discovered Berry, not vice versa, and gave the guitarist his big break. But Johnson became the sideman - perhaps the great rock n' roll sideman - and played on all the great Berry sides during the decade-long run from mid-50s to 60s, from Maybelline to Nadine. Here's what Keith Richards, who reunited Berry and Johnson for a mid-80s film, had to say about the great piano man - a cool and fitting eulogy:

Johnnie had amazing simpatico. He had a way of slipping into a song, an innate feel for complementing the guitar. It's the kind of thing I hear when I listen to Muddy Waters with Otis Spann or Pinetop Perkins. Back then, I was also listening to Scrapper Blackwell and Leroy Carr, Big Maceo with Tampa Red. I always thought piano and guitar were a very interesting combination. Johnnie was a jazzman, too. In fact, most of the best blues piano players were basically jazzmen. You should have heard Johnnie talk about Art Tatum.

It was that left hand. That left hand was a power station. And the right hand - listen to "Wee Wee Hours." Wow! You knew you were in the wee, wee hours.

It was very fortuitous that I got to do the Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll movie with him. I knew Johnnie and Chuck hadn't been together for years and years, and I didn't honestly know if Johnnie was still playing. The most surprising thing was Chuck said, "Yeah, he's in town . . . I'll give him a call." That, for me, was the crown on the taping. And it was such a beautiful thing, the way he slipped in and, through that movie, had a whole new career.

He was a real gent, absolutely. He was such a sweet, warm guy - almost like a big baby at times. But inside, there was a very strong guy, and it came out in the music. I was fascinated by those huge hands, doing such incredibly precise, delicate work. I always compared them to a bunch of overripe bananas. But he could do amazing things with those bananas.

The New Peacocks

Bill Keller is an embarassment to his profession today. Worse, Arthur Sulzberger is an embarassment to his family. The hapless, befuddled executive editor of The New York Times and his primogeniture-cursed boss have added the pathetic ThursdayStyles to their lineup of special sections, replacing the popular Circuits, which covered consumer technology. The result is a public humiliation for the newspaper, happy guffaws thumping from the chests of rivals, chump change from advertisers peddling luxe goods, and more evidence that the citadel on West 43rd Street is even further out of touch with the world than even its harshest critics previously believed.

Formerly, Circuits did a decent job on reviewing new technology, discussing the advance of digital media, debating issues of copyright and intellectual property, and providing tips to consumers. Led by its terrific David Pogue weekly column, the section was relevant, lively and - importantly in a more distributed media world - much-discussed elsewhere in the digital landscape, on its own message boards, in blogs, and so forth. Now, it's been gutted and left to die the death of content not wanted in the back of the Thursday business section.

Today, this is what Keller and Sulzberger gave us in its place, the featurette that has led to their self-inflicted public humiliation:

It's nice to know that American men haven't taken recent corporate scandals lying down. No siree. They sucked in their guts, bade farewell to their families and hurried to the mall. The urge to look corporate - sleek, commanding, prudent, yet with just a touch of hubris on your well-cut sleeve - is an unexpected development in a time of business disgrace.

Let me just say this: the scandal-plagued world of big business doesn't need a touch of hubris on its well-cut sleeve. No siree. And the Times (it's lost the traditional right to the uppercase "T" with this debacle, in my view) does not need more mindless fluff like this in its lineup, not in an age when few people automatically trust its reporting anymore, when traditional news-gathering is under attack, when reporting is too often viewed as a hackneyed, lying, corrupt profession. No siree.

I'm guessing Al Siegal didn't edit these next few blurbs, but damn I'd love to have seen his face this morning as he edged from his office on the verge of the newsroom, ThursdayStyles shaking unsteadily in his veteran's hands, red rage spilling down his jowls. Did he resign, I wonder? OK, just a taste:

Many men dress well for the pleasure of it and because they know that clothes can telegraph all kinds of messages, above all belonging.

People with darker complexions tend to be the most vulnerable to laser peel damage, often seeing an uneven coloration after a treatment. Fraxel is less likely to have that effect.

There's a growing subculture of shaving mugs and rich lathers, a world of bristle brushes and razors with a little heft to them.

Ah, I could go on, but won't. And you know, it ain't personal. Heck, Circuits once cost me a nice gig with the NYT. Back when it launched in the late 90s, the print section replaced many features of the old CyberTimes, where Chervokas and I were columnists under Rob Fixmer's watchul eye for a few years. Then, after a brutal lunch with the new editor, Tim "Master" Race, we were out. So be it. I still enjoyed the section, especially as it grew and matured. Pogue's work has been particularly good (it was nipping at Walt Mossberg's heels until ordered to Siberia), but I'll miss the contributions of back-in-the-day friends like Lisa Napoli and Pamela O'Connell as well.

So now the Times has too much style, and far less substance. But you know, I think Andrew van den Houten, 25, "a filmmaker in New York [who] is having the tailor Alan Flusser make him a three-button gray suit and shirts for meetings" really summed it up best:

"It's a mature way to have edge. It's a little bit peacocky."

I'm sure that's what Keller and Sulzberger thought as well. They should fire the tailor.

Veteran Southpaw's Pitch

Baseball is the sport of Democrats. Clearly, its populist rhythm, its lyricism of movement in time and space, and its statistical richness make it so, for both dreamers and policy geeks. (Whispered aside: I may have reached this conclusion partly because baseball is the only sport that values aging lefties, or maybe it's just a visceral reaction against George Will). I'm convinced of this because Kos is doing baseball. Yeah, the prolific Markos Zúniga, Deaniac and founder of the heavily-trafficked lefty destination blog Daily Kos, is moving into Our National Pastime. The real story here to me isn't really the politics, it's the software. Kos is using the sytem created to handle dKos' traffic and diarists to assemble a network of team-oriented blogs. So far, it looks cool. Of course, I'll be hanging out more on Amazin' Avenue, especially if Reyes continues his amazing ways.

Scale Still Scales

Jeff Jarvis and Fred Wilson are wrong. Scale still scales. Especially in media. And it always will. More on that in a moment. First, their comments. Jeff says this:

The old days of big players in the economy collecting consumers, audience, distribution, manufacturing efficiency, buying power, or capital in the grip of centralized control are waning. That used to be the way to find efficiency and size. That used to be the way to scale.

But they are being foiled by our new distributed world. And they are being replaced by a more efficient means of finding size and efficiency.

Aggregation is the new scale.

Fred agrees, and adds his own take:

We all look for scale because scale is what generates returns. In the old world anyway. As Jeff Jarvis points out in a great post, scale doesn't mean what it used to anymore. You cannot collect all the pieces of a marketplace in a centralized way and control all of it. The technology won't allow that to happen. You can't "get to scale" that way.

Smart guys, both, but clearly not fans of professional golf. Because this is a media verity: Tiger scales. Old media, new media, slightly damp media, short tail media, long tail media. Tiger scales big-time. Tiger doesn't require aggregation, or citizens media, or RSS feeds, or a new path. A simple network television contract with the very old-school CBS Sports will do just fine.

The Masters final round this Sunday past was about the best sports spectacle since the Red Sox made their amazing comeback. (The Red Sox also scale, fellas). Stunning, mesmerizing, fascinating. Yeah, the hushed voices of the reverent CBS hack voices are annoying, as is Hootie Johnson's mens club, but the competition itself was sublime. So was the audience, up 41 percent over last year.

And it wasn't aggregated; it was a single buy. Sure, I'm a fan of the widening landscape of digital media. This blog is proof of that. But I reject the notion that the digital Bastille is anywhere in sight, that Sumner Redstone's head will be set on a pike on West 57th Street. The big media boys aren't going anywhere. We still love spectacle, and celebrity, and the shared experience. And Tiger Woods still scales - big-time.

UPDATE: The Daily Peg has an interesting reaction to the debate, taking more of a middle ground, and arguing there are fewer instances of media that scale well. I'm not sure I agree; the scale may be smaller but it's there. Certainly revenue growth is there for the big companies. Anyway, here's Peg:

This touches on a sticky wicket for media today -- I would argue that far fewer things scale. Pre-cable, when there were only four things to watch, a championship event scaled. Heck, even a regular-season game scaled. But those truly common experiences are fewer and further between.

Remember Roots? Heck, remember The Day After? They were common media experiences that everyone shared. I doubt the same can be said of Revelations. Sure, a lot of people may watch, but you can't be sure that everyone around the water cooler will even know it aired.

So you get scale three, maybe four times a year with championships and mega-stories. That reminds me of my early days in the city magazine business when we'd pull big, "scalable" special editions out of our hats to stay afloat. That's a risky way to live. Sooner or later you have to make money day in and out.

Also, Pamela Parker offers some perspective on Tiger and his amazing shot on the 16th green.

UPDATE II: Jarvis admits he doesn't like sports. Maybe that explains it.

Rich Man, Poor Man

This week's New York magazine cover story is appalling, in one of those "this is why they hate us" ways. The piece was about the growing class of super-rich New Yorkers, and the merely wealthy cadre of entrepreneurs that has grown up to support their habit, and collect their fees. The municipal skim from the superclass pays for parks and clean streets and subways, Daniel Gross argued, because the mega-rich pay a huge portion of the total tax take. In many ways, they are what make New York the world capital it is: we have the largest percentage of super-wealthy per square mile. And their big-spending ways (the article is sidebared with pictures of $7,000 panties and the like) trickle down to the rest of us. Heck, sommeliers can make six figures! Some busboys in this town take home sixty grand!

Gross appears almost sexually excited by the presence of palpable wealth, but he makes a bold leap over a chasm of economic theory that leaves him quivering in space like Wile E. Coyote, ready to plunge to the canyon floor in a cloud of dust. And he does so with sections like this one:

The full scope of cultural offerings explains how local wealth contributes to economic development. New York isn’t just a center of finance. It’s home to industries like architecture and design, art and publishing, media and advertising, the businesses that attract what urban theorist Richard Florida calls the “creative classes”—hip, imaginative go-getters whom many cities regard as crucial to future growth. But the creative classes are drawn to places like New York in large part owing to what it has to offer. Consider the architects playing softball in Central Park fields lovingly manicured by the Central Park Conservancy, or the novelists tapping away in the New York Public Library’s glorious reading room. In an era of permanently constrained budgets and gaping deficits, these pleasurable activities are subsidized by friendly local plutocrats. You may be barely able to afford to live here, thanks to the very rich, but thanks to them, you don’t have to stay holed up in your studio apartment.

The rich subsidize our public services, too—and graciously don’t use them much. Mayor Bloomberg may pride himself on riding the subway, but your average hedge-fund managing director is not a connoisseur of mass transit.

Thank God for billionaires! (And by the way, let's cut poor Michael Bloomberg some slack). There is one key factor missing in New York's fawning, bosom-heaving account: you and me. That is to say, labor and consumers. The super-rich become that way either by inheriting their money in obsequious imitation of the European monarchical systems we once saw fit to overthrow, or by taking advantage of a supply of both labor and consumer demand. That is to say: no one who is rich deserves to be rich; no billionaire works any harder than an undocumented immigrant hauling bricks six days a week for 12 hours a day. Lucky, smart, educated connected, committed, motivated - yeah. More deserving, harder working? Nah. The Pope had it right.

Democrats have traditionally claimed the right to represent both workers and consumers, holding big business to account and sticking up the the little guy. Well, that's the theory. The practice is a little more slippery and last year, a plutocrat Republican who cut taxes to the super-rich cleverly used social conservatism to win a second term. The very middle class that - in theory - is hurt by policies that make it harder to declare bankruptcy, to sue careless doctors, and to assume a higher tax burden, split between Democrats and Republicans, George Bush squeaked in, and the Republicans continued to dominate Congress.

Happily, someone is watching. The Drum Major Institute for Public Policy (disclosure: I sit on its board) released its second annual Congressional report card on issues affecting America's middle class. By all means read it; today's Washington Post picked it up. And yeah, Democrats come out better than Republicans. While some are predicting very hard times in the U.S. economy ahead, the report shows that 2004 was no picnic for the middle class. Dig these stats:

• Real hourly wages adjusted for inflation fell .8 percent
• Cost of medical care rose 4.2 percent
• College costs rose 8.2 percent
• 1.3 million jobless Americans used up their unemployment insurance without finding work
• One in six middle class households lacked health insurance
• 6 million Americans lost their right to overtime pay

Yeah, I can hear you saying that in a free society there will always be winners and losers; that the benefits of our capitalist system outweigh the difficulties. Generally, I agree. But as the gap between the very rich and the barely-getting-by grows - and as the latter group broadens - it's not enough to say the poor will always be with us. And it's not enough to celebrate how many jobs a rich person's spending habits will create.

UPDATE: The Bull Moose, my fave conservative Democrat, former Republican centrist blogger, has a great post on the elimination of the estate tax. The rich do indeed get richer. Quoth the Moose:

Amidst all of the recent talk of death and morality, we arrive at the moment to eternally preserve salvation for the heirs of multi-million dollar estates. Maybe the Schiavo family won't benefit from this sacred action, but this is the true reason that G-d placed Republicans on earth - to reward those who did nothing but be born into the right family.

UPDATE II: Jim Wolcott gets into it and nails the wealth-lust thusly:

I share Tom Watson's yecch reaction to this week's cover story of New York magazine luxury class of ultra-rich, which I read attentively in the checkout line while waiting for some dimwit ahead of me to punch in the correct PIN number to purchase a bag of potato chips, a gallon of orange soda, and an apple. Written by Daniel Gross with his tongue hanging out, the article flaunts the wealth of the ultra-rich in our faces (as if they don't flaunt it enough themselves), but enjoins us to feel grateful for the wind-burn.