Last Post of the Semester

As I continued in The Crossing, it continues to get more interesting and confusing as most McCarthy books do. The main conflict so far seems to be between the protagonist, Boyd, and a she-wolf that has been walking around hunting the cows that are roaming free. In one scene, McCarthy sis something I have never seen him do before. He showed the book from the perspective of the wolf. This threw me for a loop for a little while. The wolf’s thoughts were rational and coherent, though fairly simple. McCarthy explained the wolf’s situation and background about how its mate had died in the jaws of a trap. This makes the wolf very difficult for Boyd and his father to catch, as she digs up and overturns all the traps. Once again I am a little surprised at McCarthy’s knowledge of somewhat antiquated things like wolf trapping, which he explains step by step, or horse breaking in All the Pretty Horses. I guess being from an upper-class suburb makes me kind of surprised he is so knowledgeable about these things, but it goes back to McCarthy’s history as a wonderer. Once again, in The Crossing, McCarthy fails to break any gender barriers with his female characters. Boyd’s mother is rarely seen and when she is, it is in the stereotypical female role of cooking, clean, and communicating for the family. I think this book has started out faster than All the Pretty Horses and has pulled me in more in the first few pages than ATPH did, but I can’t imagine this wolf hunting is the main conflict in the book, so it will be interesting to see what twists the plot takes.

New McCarthy Book

Now that I have finished my commentary on The Running Mate, a very good book I would recommend to anyone interested in politics, I have started reading The Crossing, the sequel to All the Pretty Horses and the second book in The Border trilogy by Cormac McCarthy. I may or may not be able to finish it before it is due in the library on Jan. 12 though… But it is very interesting to compare and contrast The Crossing with both ATPH and The Road. Of course, McCarthy style is still the same, with long awkward sentences followed by short equally awkward ones, no quotation marks, and dialect within the quotations. The Crossing also seems to be set somewhere in Texas though that has not been clearly defined yet. There is another dark, introversive character like John Grady Cole, named Boyd who I believe will be the protagonist, but that could also be his younger Billy. (I can’t help but think who would name their kids Billy and Boyd.) But there are also differences in the books already. Boyd seems more attached to his family than JGC was which leads me to wonder what is going to happen to make Boyd leave home, as he surely will. McCarthy also has put a lot of figurative language into the beginning of The Crossing which is a literary device I do not remember him using in either of his two other books I have read.

I liked The Road and I like ATPH even more, so I wonder where The Crossing will fall once I (hopefully) finish it.

Ethics in Politics

One topic that is brought up almost incessantly in The Running Mate is ethics in politics, more specifically in elections/confirmations. The main character, Senator Charlie Martin, is forced to make several ethical decisions, first in the confirmation of his friend from war to the post of Secretary of Defense, and then in his own reelection campaign.
His friend up for confirmation, Sly Parkinson, was discovered to have abused dieting pills, and later female member of his staff. However, he was easily the most qualified person for Secretary of Defense being a brilliant military mind. The questioned posed by the situation is, should a person’s personal actions affect their job, and in this case even Parkinson’s good friend Charlie Martin had to say yes, and vote against his confirmation. The question gets a little stickier when you get into the less egregious sexual actions of people such as Bill Clinton and Newt Gringich. Did their actions affect their ability to do their jobs? Probably not. But did their action disqualify them from hold as high of offices as President and Majority Leader? That is where people get into arguments?
Another ethical issue that was addressed in the book is what information can you use against your opponent in a political campaign. Charlie Martin’s political opponent had a radio show in which at one point he condemned “partial-birth abortions.” Martin’s staff found out that his opponent’s wife actually had an abortion fairly late in her pregnancy. Martin debated furiously within himself about whether he should use that information in an add. It would be devastatingly effective and almost guarantee him the win, but it would also be very cruel. It was a difficult situation for both candidates that perplexes me still after thinking about it for awhile. I don’t know what I would do.

Backwards Discrimination

After finishing The Running Mate there are several political and literary ideas that can be discussed. One political idea was mentioned only once, in passing, but in was very poignant and I kept thinking about it the next few days. The situation comes up as Senator Charlie Martin is going to meet the Senate Majority leader and is bring along his homosexual and HIV positive press secretary, Hilton Devereaux. Martin wants to walk despite the frigid temperature and Devereaux’s protests.

“Come on, Hilton don’t be such a sis–” Charlie stopped abruptly, turned crimson.
“You’re such a liberal,” Hilton said.

I believe Hilton uncovered a serious truth about most members of the Democratic party. They are so worried about not being offensive to various minorities that they actually end up being less sensitive to minorities. It is backwards discrimination. An example would be crime. There are some Democrats who would believe almost no Africa-Americans are guilty of the crimes they commit but are merely victims of their situation. Holding such expectations of responsibility, I think is more discriminatory to do this then something like racial profiling. The same thing could be said about providing clean needles to drug addicts. If we are going to spend taxpayer’s money on people who are breaking the law, why not make specific lanes for people who are driving under the influence. No one who even propose the latter and yet the same logic doesn’t hold true for clean needles because Democrats do not want to discriminate in anyway against anyone. (Just to set the record straight the government should provide clean needles because it works, and preventing HIV is a heck of a lot less expensive than treating it.)

OTW Appears in The Running Mate

First of all, I have to write about the reference in the book made to the movie we watched in class recently On the Waterfront. The exact quote is, “Lanny assayed a modified Marlon Brando: ‘You coulda been a contender. You coulda gone all the way.’”
This quote brought to mind many other similarities between The Running Mate and On the Waterfront. I think Charlie Martin’s days in Vietnam were similar to Larry’s boxing days, and now Charlie has settled into the life of a politician, but has some moral doubts about it. If fact we recently found out, Charlie had a son with a Vietnamese girl he had no idea about. I believe this ethical dilemma may push Charlie over the edge like Joey’s death did to Terry. It will be interesting to see how Charlie handles his moral dilemma differently than Terry or Joe Keller.
Another theme brought up in the book is the effect of the war in Vietnam. There is really no way for anyone in our generation to understand that effect in the slightest. However, its effects are still prevalent today in ways as important as John McCain’s presidential candidacy. It is almost impossible to imagine a world that does not bear the scars of Vietnam. It is also difficult to imagine in the war we are waging currently is going to have as lasting of scars on the world. We have already seen one veteran of Iraq run for public office in Ashwin Madia and without any doubt there will be many more to come.

Charlie Martin in Real Life

In the first few chapters of The Natural the end of the main character, Charlie Martin’s, presidential campaign is revealed in classic Klein style. There is a girl working for Martin’s campaign who mistakenly thinks Martin, who is known somewhat for his promiscuity, is making a move on her. This scandal all but ends what is left of Martin’s primary campaign. This scene is dripping with irony because is this particular incidence Martin actually wasn’t trying to seduce the girl, but he had in many instances without being caught. This irony is an interesting literary technique of Klein’s and is particularly interesting to think about, because it can almost certainly be applied to real politician have been caught at something they didn’t do, but not caught at something they did.
Another interesting trait of Charlie Martin is that he is both a veteran and a Democrat, something stereotypically not seen very often. Klein himself is an adamant supporter of national service, and is disdainful of Democrat who are unknowledgeable about foreign policy and military affairs. In fact, Martin is politician who has never really existed in the real world. He come from a folksy, Midwestern background, was a war hero in Vietnam, and is a Democrat. If a politician with this kind of background did exist, I personally would think he would they would have a distinct advantage over most other politicians. Charlie Martin is, in some ways, the ideal candidate for me, for Joe Klein and perhaps for much of America.

Annotated Bibliography

Lynch, David J. “Does Tax Code Encourage U.S. Companies to Cut Jobs at Home?” USA Today. 20 March. 2008
David J. Lynch is a frequent contributor to USA Today write most often about economics and finances. The article explains the claims made by the Democratic candidate in the presidential primary of 2008, Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton, that they would close the tax break for companies who outsource jobs to foreign countries. Lynch informs the reader that the tax actually just postpones the tax on overseas profits, but it does provide incentive for corporations to create jobs overseas. He also provides several perspectives on what could be done about the loophole.

Greenhouse, Steven. “Offshoring Silicon Valley.” American Prispect. 19 (2008): 18-20.

Steven Greenhouse is a veteran economic journalist for the New York Times. In his series, The Big Squeeze: Tough Time for the American Worker, he writes about the effect of offshoring on many US industries. In this article Greenhouse writes about the offshoring of the technological industry, which was supposed to be safe for overseas competition. It focuses on the plight of Myra Bronstein, who worked as a software tester until a Indian immigrant was hire to do her work for six percent of the money. Greenhouse includes many warnings for prominent economist about the dangers of offshoring.