July 2001

Adultery and the young adult
Linda Chavez finds a new villain in the Case of the Missing Intern, Chandra Levy's aunt, Linda Zamsky. The 24-year-old told Zamsky all about her affair with a married 53-year-old congressman, and the aunt failed to tell her the facts of life about young women and older, powerful men.

In our value-free society, we're told to suspend judgment on the behavior of others, Chavez writes. "We've now extended the ban against stating a moral objection not just to strangers but to family as well."

From Maureen Dowd's column, I learned that the aunt had suggested ways for her niece to please her lover. No Saran Wrap and whipped cream. She urged Levy to arrange Condit's shirts by color and make him a cactus terrarium.

Dowd dismisses the notion that Condit's right to privacy excuses lying for nine weeks during a police investigation into the fate of a person he's supposed to care about. "This is a classic story about whether a powerful man can put himself above the law, and about the unappetizing inequity of relationships in Washington between older married officials and young, needy women."

Richard Cohen disagrees, saying sweet young things may wield sexual power over needy, older men. He cites Lolita. Cohen calls Condit a low-power jerk, and includes a nice line about the "weird ventriloquism of Washington, lying by spokesman."

As it happens, my 20-year-old daughter is a government intern in Sacramento this summer. Chavez and Dowd will be happy to know that I've told her explicitly not to have an affair with a married politician in his 50s. She said, "OK, Mom. If you insist." I do.

Update: Apparently, Chandra's mom knew about the affair and tried unsuccessfully to get her daughter to end it. According to the Washington Post, the Levy's gardener, also a Pentecostal minister, told Mrs. Levy his 18-year-old daughter had been one of Condit's conquests seven years earlier. -- 7/12

Low expectations
President Bush appears to be compromising on school accountability in his education bill, the New York Times reports. Governors had complained that too many schools would flunk under the standards in the House bill, so Bush is going for the much laxer Senate version.

The critical issue is how to judge whether a school is succeeding. Do you look at an average of how all students are achieving? Or do you separate students by race, ethnicity and poverty, and insist on improvement for all groups? The latter, known to its friends as "disaggregation,'' was very powerful in forcing Texas schools to focus on black and Hispanic students. It's apparently out.

Nicholas Lemann called this issue a crucial test for Bush in the New Yorker. (It's not online but you can read Kausfiles on Lemann if you scroll down far enough.)

With states picking their own tests and with a fuzzier formula for defining "adequate yearly progress,'' I'm lowering my already modest expectations that the education bill will force meaningful change. -- 7/10

Cheney's heart
Talk of Dick Cheney resigning because of his heart condition makes no sense to me. As Charles Krauthammer writes, the vice president is not impaired in his ability to do his job. He just has a higher risk than average of a heart attack.

And, so what? He's the vice president. The sudden death of a vice president is not a national emergency. Sure, Bush relies heavily on Cheney as an advisor. Should we demand that all of Bush's senior advisors have tip-top tickers? No listening to guys who might keel over before the term is up? -- 7/9

Brits get hard on hard drugs, soft on pot
The Brits aren't legalizing marijuana. But they're not bothering much about it either. Under the Blair government's new drug policy, Customs and police officers will focus on hard drugs, such as heroin and cocaine. They'll seize marijuana only if it shows up in a search for priority drugs.

Furthermore, police in Brixton, which is in south London, will "caution'' people found with small amounts of marijuana, instead of arresting them.

The government's goal of reducing hard drug consumption by half by 2008, makes the shift "inevitable," a Customs official told the Manchester Guardian. "'Overall, the Government strategy is about reducing harm,' one chief police officer said. 'That has to mean placing a priority in reducing the supply of Class A drugs'."

Legalization of marijuana is being discussed. Peter Lilley, the former deputy leader of the Conservative Party, advocates the Dutch model, allowing sale of marijuana in licensed outlets. Their conservatives aren't quite like ours, I guess. -- 7/9

Free verse is worse
Writing in the July issue of "Prospect," Michael Lind attacks modern America's professor-poets, who write free verse so arcane nobody but academics can read it, or wants to. Lind hails Dana Gioia for his "mastery of form, lyrical prowess, diversity of technique, and musical cadences," but notes Gioia is either ignored by the academic poets or attacked.

I was an English major in college. I used to read poetry with great pleasure. But after Auden, there's not much to get excited about. Give me that old-time rhyme that draws power from the sounds of the English language. -- 7/6

Artificial love
I paid $9 a ticket to see "AI." Since it's several movies stitched together, I guess that's a deal. What's frustrating is that there's a good movie in there somewhere. It just got buried in treacle about mother love.

The thesis of "AI" is that loving mommy makes robo-David a real boy. But he has no free will. Once imprinted on his foster mom, he's programmed to love her mindlessly and endlessly, like a cyber-stalker. Spielberg doesn't seem to get the creepiness of David's obsession with mom. The promos say: "His love is real. He is not." The problem is that David's love is not real.

The movie includes a sex-bot programmed to make love to women. Surely, Gigolo Joe is supposed to show that programmed passion is false, just like David's programmed mommy-love, but the point is lost. By caring for David -- despite a lack of big brother programming -- Joe achieves some sort of humanity at the end. OK. But why are we supposed to respect the nanny-bot's programmed love for David? It's what she's designed to do, so big deal.

My favorite character is David's foster brother, malicious Martin. He's not loving. But he's real.

Under the heading "Bad Movie Alert," Virginia Postrel lists some of the ways in which the movie's future world just doesn't make sense. Like: Who owns Gigolo Joe? Surely, his customers pay for his services.

I'd add: Maybe the Frankensteinish robot designer would make a robotic copy of his dead son, but why would he plan to market thousands of "David" model robots? Why in the future does society resemble the '50s, with Monica as a full-time homemaker -- with no maid-bot -- even when her child is in suspended animation and before she has a pseudo-child at home?

If you're trying to decide whether to spend $9 -- or even $8.50 -- here are some reviews.

Me: It's boring.

My 20-year-old daughter, Allison: Incredibly depressing.

David Edelstein review in Slate: Anti-human.

Andrew Sullivan: Enthralling.

Charles Taylor review in Salon: Wildly problematic, a cold fairy tale.

John McCarthy, artificial intelligence pioneer, interviewed in San Jose Mercury News: Jerked heartstrings, butchered science. -- 7/4