Author: Art Diamond

“Increasing Minimum Wages Can Cause Some Job Loss”

(p. B6) Increasing the minimum wage could lead employers to lay off some workers in order to pay others more, said David Neumark, an economics professor at the University of California, Irvine.

“There’s a ton of research that says increasing minimum wages can cause some job loss,” he said. “Plenty workers are helped, but some are hurt.”

A 2019 Congressional Budget Office study found that a $15 federal minimum wage would increase pay for 17 million workers who earned less than that and potentially another 10 million workers who earned slightly more. According to the study’s median estimate, it would cause 1.3 million other workers to lose their jobs.

For the full story, see:

Gillian Friedman. “Base Wage Of $15 Gains In Popularity Across U.S.” The New York Times (Friday, January 1, 2021): B1 & B6.

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Dec. 31, 2020, and has the title “Once a Fringe Idea, the $15 Minimum Wage Is Making Big Gains.”)

Operation Warp Speed Developed “Vaccines and Therapies in Record-Breaking Time”

(p. A10) . . . , Mr. Trump could have been the hero of this pandemic. Operation Warp Speed, which his administration announced in May [2020], appears on track to deliver vaccines and therapies in record-breaking time. The United States may well become the first country to bring the virus to heel through pharmaceutical prowess.

For the full story, see:

Donald G. McNeil Jr. “Long, Dark Winter Looms Before U.S. Gets Vaccines.” The New York Times (Tuesday, December 1, 2020): A1 & A10.

(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed year, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated Dec. 24, 2020, and has the title “The Long Darkness Before Dawn.”)

Optimal Size Changes With Changing Demand and Technology

(p. B1) Twirling above a strip of land at the mouth of Rotterdam’s harbor is a wind turbine so large it is difficult to photograph. The turning diameter of its rotor is longer than two American football fields end to end. Later models will be taller than any building on the mainland of Western Europe.

Packed with sensors gathering data on wind speeds, electricity output and stresses on its components, the giant whirling machine in the Netherlands is a test model for a new series of giant offshore wind turbines planned by General Electric.

. . .

(p. B5) In coming years, customers are likely to demand even bigger machines, industry executives say. On the other hand, they predict that, just as commercial airliners peaked with the Airbus A380, turbines will reach a point where greater size no longer makes economic sense.

“We will also reach a plateau; we just don’t know where it is yet,” said Morten Pilgaard Rasmussen, chief technology officer of the offshore wind unit of Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, the leading maker of offshore turbines.

For the full story, see:

Stanley Reed. “A Monster Wind Turbine Is Upending an Industry.” The New York Times (Saturday, January 2, 2021): B1 & B5.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Jan. 1, 2021, and has the same title as the print version.)

“Hillbilly Elegy” Book (but Not the Movie) Suggests a “Culture of Poverty”

(p. C3) “Hillbilly Elegy,” published in June of 2016, attracted an extra measure of attention (and controversy) after Donald Trump’s election. It seemed to offer a firsthand report, both personal and analytical, on the condition of the white American working class.

And while the book didn’t really explain the election — Vance is reticent about his family’s voting habits and ideological tendencies — it did venture a hypothesis about how that family and others like it encountered such persistent household dysfunction and economic distress. His answer wasn’t political or economic, but cultural.

He suggests that the same traits that make his people distinctive — suspicion of outsiders, resistance to authority, devotion to kin, eagerness to fight — make it hard for them to thrive in modern American society. Essentially, “Hillbilly Elegy” updates the old “culture of poverty” thesis associated with the anthropologist Oscar Lewis’s research on Mexican peasants (and later with Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s ideas about Black Americans) and applies it to disadvantaged white communities.

Howard and Taylor mostly sidestep this argument, which has been widely criticized. They focus on the characters and their predicaments, and on themes that are likely to be familiar and accessible to a broad range of viewers. The film is a chronicle of addiction entwined with a bootstrapper’s tale — Bev’s story and J.D.’s, with Mamaw as the link between them.

But it sacrifices the intimacy, and the specificity, of those stories by pretending to link them to something bigger without providing a coherent sense of what that something might be. The Vances are presented as a representative family, but what exactly do they represent? A class? A culture? A place? A history? The louder they yell, the less you understand — about them or the world they inhabit.

For the full movie review, see:

A.O. Scott. “I Remember Bev and Mamaw.” The New York Times (Friday, November 27, 2020): C3.

(Note: the online version of the review has the date Nov. 23, 2020, and has the title “‘Hillbilly Elegy’ Review: I Remember Mamaw.”)

J.D. Vance’s book is:

Vance, J. D. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2016.

Reagan’s Tribute to the Loyalty of Man’s Best Friend

The above clip is Ronald Reagan in an episode of Death Valley Days. (Today is Ronald Reagan’s birthday.)

(p. A15) George Graham Vest, a 39-year-old lawyer, . . . [on] Sept. 23, 1870, . . . delivered one of the most enduring arguments ever performed in a courtroom.

. . .

He told jurors that “the one absolutely unselfish friend that a man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him and the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous is his dog. A man’s dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground . . . if only he may be near his master’s side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer.”

. . .

Ronald Reagan portrayed George Vest in a 1964 episode of “Death Valley Days” and delivered his famous summation. You’ll find it. Have a tissue ready. Vest’s oration, referred to as “Tribute to a Dog,” is revered by judges and lawyers.

. . .

Vest, . . ., concluded his speech by reminding the jurors that a dog remains loyal to the end. Even after his master’s funeral, and all others have left the cemetery, Vest said, “There by his graveside will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad but open in alert watchfulness.”

For the full commentary, see:

Randy Maniloff. “Stand on Precedent. That’s a Good Boy!” The Wall Street Journal (Wednesday, September 23, 2020): A15.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Sep. 22, 2020, and has the same title as the print version.)

Black Cuban Dissident Rapper: “Donald Trump 2020! That’s My President”

(p. A12) HAVANA — In another era, the detention of a young Cuban dissident may have gone completely unnoticed. But when the rapper Denis Solís was arrested by the police, he did something that has only recently become possible on the island: He filmed the encounter on his cellphone and streamed it live on Facebook.

The stream last month prompted his friends in an artist collective to go on a hunger strike, which the police broke up after a week, arresting members of the group. But their detentions were also caught on cellphone videos and shared widely over social media, leading hundreds of artists and intellectuals to stage a demonstration outside the Culture Ministry the next day.

This swift mobilization of protesters was a rare instance of Cubans openly confronting their government — and a stark example of how having widespread access to the internet through cellphones is testing the power balance between the communist regime and its citizens.

. . .

In a country hammered by U.S. sanctions, the politics of some in the group have raised eyebrows. Mr. Solís is a die-hard Trump supporter: In the video he posted of his arrest, he screamed: “Donald Trump 2020! That’s my president.”

For the full story, see:

Ed Augustin, Natalie Kitroeff and Frances Robles. “‘An Awakening’: Cubans’ Access to the Internet Fosters Dissent.” The New York Times (Thursday, December 10, 2020): A12.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated Jan. 11, 2021, and has the title “‘On Social Media, There Are Thousands’: In Cuba, Internet Fuels Rare Protests.”)

“The Crown” Unfairly Portrays “Thatcher-Era Britain as a Right-Wing Dystopia”

(p. A12) Through four vivid seasons of “The Crown,” Mr. Morgan has never denied taking artistic license with the saga of the royals, playing out their private joys and sorrows against the pageant of 20th-century British history.

Yet “The Crown” is now colliding with the people who wrote the first draft of that history.

That has spun up a tempest in the British news media, even among those who ordinarily profess not to care much about the monarchy. Newspapers and television programs have been full of starchy commentary about how “The Crown” distorts history in its account of the turbulent decade in which Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer and Mrs. Thatcher wrought a free-market revolution in British society.

The objections range from the personal (the queen’s brittle, coldhearted treatment of her emotionally fragile daughter-in-law, which the critics claim is unfair) to the political (the show’s portrait of Thatcher-era Britain as a right-wing dystopia, in the grip of a zealous leader who dares to lecture her sovereign during their weekly audiences). Historians say that is utterly inconceivable.

“There has been such a reaction because Peter Morgan is now writing about events many of us lived through and some of us were at the center of,” said Mr. Neil, who edited The Sunday Times from 1983 to 1994.

Mr. Neil, who went on to be a broadcaster and publisher, is no reflexive defender of the royal family. Suspicious of Britain’s class system, he said he had sympathies for the republican movement in the 1980s. But he grew to admire how the queen modernized the monarchy after the upheaval of those years, and has been critical of renegade royals, like Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan.

For the full story, see:

Mark Landler. “‘Nonsense’: Witnesses to the Actual Events of ‘The Crown’ Have Some Criticisms.” The New York Times (Friday, November 27, 2020): A12.

(Note: the online version of the story was updated Nov. 27, 2020, and has the title “‘The Crown’ Stokes an Uproar Over Fact vs. Entertainment.”)

After 19 Rejections in Britain, Walsh Self-Published “Knowledge of Angels”

(p. B11) Jill Paton Walsh was greeted with acclaim in the 1960s when she began writing young-adult books that challenged her readers in both plotting and messaging.

. . .

But in 1994 Ms. Paton Walsh achieved a whole different level of acclaim, by an unlikely route, with a book for adults, “Knowledge of Angels,” a genre-defying medieval fable about an atheist and a girl raised by wolves. Here she delved into themes of faith and reason and more.

Yet despite her success with books for young readers, “Knowledge of Angels” struggled to assert itself: No one in her native England would publish it.

. . .

And so, in a move that was rare for the time, she published it herself — and had the last laugh. The book was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, one of the top literary awards in the world, and is said to be the first self-published book to make that elite list.

Peter Lewis of The Daily Mail had a crisp rebuke for all those publishers — 19 was the final count — who had said no to the book. “To open it and start reading,” he wrote, “is to be appalled by their lack of judgment.”

. . .

. . . when she shopped the ambitious “Knowledge of Angels,” there were no takers in her home country — though Houghton Mifflin had already published the book in the United States. The Guardian would describe it as “a compelling medieval fable centered on the conflict between belief and tolerance, and veined with a complex philosophical argument about the existence of God.”

. . ., Ms. Paton Walsh self-published the book in England, and though it did not win the Booker Prize, its nomination drew considerable attention.

After the nomination, Ms. Paton Walsh chided the British publishers, telling The Times, “They’re all afraid of their jobs, and they make their decisions by committee.”

For the full obituary, see:

Neil Genzlinger. “Jill Paton Walsh, 83, Author Who Scoffed at 19 Rejections.” The New York Times (Monday, November 23, 2020): D7.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the obituary was updated Nov. 19, 2020, and has the title “Jill Paton Walsh, Multigenerational Writer, Dies at 83.”)

A later edition of Walsh’s successful self-published book is:

Walsh, Jill Paton. Knowledge of Angels. reprint pb ed. London: Transworld Publishers Ltd., 1998.

Tens of Millions of Masks Were Sold on Etsy in 2020

(p. B1) Kat Panchal hadn’t yet learned how to use her sewing machine when the pandemic started. But in March, on leave from her job as a flight attendant with American Airlines and cooped up alone in her Philadelphia apartment, the 34-year-old taught herself to sew. Soon, she was stitching masks and donating them to health care workers.

With no sign of her job coming back anytime soon, Ms. Panchal — now furloughed — put her masks on Etsy, the online marketplace where crafters and artists around the globe sell handmade and vintage goods. Since April, she has sold more than 400 masks, raking in over $4,500. Sometimes, she sews until 4 in the morning to keep up with demand.

“It was a really big blessing,” Ms. Panchal said. “It gave me something else to focus on instead of thinking about losing my job.”

Tens of millions of masks have been sold on Etsy this year. The demand has created business opportunities for the likes of Ms. Panchal, but has also turned Etsy into something unexpected: a Wall Street darling.

For the full story, see:

Matt Phillips and Gillian Friedman. “Masks Help Etsy Catch Wall St.’s Eye.” The New York Times (Wednesday, December 9, 2020): B1 & B4.

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Dec. 8, 2020, and has the title “Etsy Was a Twee Culture Punchline. Now It’s a Wall Street Darling.”)

Speed of Development of Vaccine “One of Mr. Trump’s Proudest Accomplishments”

(p. A1) It is a paradox of the pandemic: Helping speed the development of a coronavirus vaccine may be one of Mr. Trump’s proudest accomplishments, but at least in the early stages of the vaccine rollout, there is evidence that a substantial number of his supporters say they do not want to get it.

. . .

(p. A5) For the most part, public opinion has been swinging in favor of vaccination. Seventy-one percent of Americans are willing to be vaccinated, up from 63 percent in September [2020], according to a survey released this week by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

. . .

Experts say that vaccine hesitancy may diminish over time if people see friends and relatives getting vaccinated without incident. Sheri Simms, 62, a retired businesswoman in Northeast Texas who describes herself as a “moderate conservative” supporter of the president, said that while she did not intend to get vaccinated now, that could change.

“As more information comes out, and things appear to work better, then I will weigh the risks of the vaccine against the risk of the coronavirus and make a judgment,” she said.

For the full story, see:

Sheryl Gay Stolberg. “Trump Pushed for a Vaccine, but His Fans Balk.” The New York Times (Saturday, December 19, 2020): A1 & A5.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed year, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated Jan. 4, 2021, and has the title “Trump Claims Credit for Vaccines. Some of His Backers Don’t Want to Take Them.”)

“We Are the People. Who Are You?”

(p. A16) A Tel Aviv University sociologist named Nissim Mizrachi who spent years studying those voters and grappling with their rejection of liberalism thought he understood why.

The problem was not, he said, as some liberals contend, that Jews of Mediterranean origin, or Mizrahim, were confused about what was best for them. They weren’t suffering from Stockholm syndrome or “false consciousness.”

What liberals failed to see, the professor asserted, was that working-class Mizrahim were consciously spurning liberalism for a reason: what they see as the endgame of the liberal worldview is not a world they wish to inhabit.

“It’s really hard for liberals to imagine that their message, their vision itself, poses a threat to the core identity of other people,” Professor Mizrachi, 58, said in an interview.

His description of liberalism’s blind spots, published in the newspaper Haaretz a year ago, shook the Israeli left like an ideological bunker-busting bomb, and could hold lessons for another deeply polarized society in the West.

. . .

“You keep ridiculing us and presenting us as undemocratic and dangerous,” he said, articulating the non-liberal view. “But we are the people. Who are you?’”

. . .

“This is the lesson maybe for you,” Professor Mizrachi said. “OK, you won the election, fine. But don’t forget that red America is still there.”

For the full story, see:

David M. Halbfinger. “Explaining Right-Wing Politics in America, via the Middle East.” The New York Times (Saturday, December 19, 2020): A16.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated Dec. 23, 2020, and has the title “To Understand Red-State America, He Urges a Look at Red-State Israel.”)