Author: jbenton

election predictions, retroactive

Well, that’s the last time I try to predict an election. I really thought Michael Badnarik would pull it out. Okay, I didn’t, but a Badnarik landslide ended up being roughly as accurate as my own projection.
Here are some of my past predictions in key races:
– 1864 presidential race: I predicted the nation, in a time of war and great conflict, would reach back into its history and draft the one leader who could bind the nation’s wounds: Franklin Pierce, the New Hampshire legend. Only Franklin Pierce, I predicted America would feel, could unite us, not divide us: Reality: Lincoln reelected.
– 1967 NFL season: I predicted the New Orleans Saints, in their first season as an expansion team, would get high on crawfish etouffee and win the inaugural Super Bowl. Reality: The Green Bay Packers win.
– 1985 Oscar race: I predicted Chip McAllister‘s bravura performance as the black guy in the epic Weekend Pass would be enough to snag the Best Supporting Actor prize. Reality: That fucker Don Ameche.
– 2004 presidential race: I predicted Michael Badnarik to sweep through the South, find strength in the industrial Midwest, and do well enough in Hawaii to fuel a stunning electoral college victory. Reality: Optimus Prime wins, vows to end the Decepticon threat.
(Aside: When trying to pick a random ’80s actor for the Oscar item, I had no idea Chip McAllister somehow went on to win The Amazing Race 5, for which I understand he won the Best Screenplay (Adapted) Oscar.)

yawhs

Apologies for the lack of posts. A technical problem prevented new posts from appearing for a couple days — they’re now below.
My story in today’s paper: “Wilmer-Hutchins schools weren’t on the ballot Tuesday. But they weren’t far from it. Outside polling places throughout the school district, a group of activists gathered hundreds of signatures on a petition to abolish Wilmer-Hutchins altogether.”

john peel r.i.p.

John Peel, R.I.P. Truly one of the great figures of rock music.
And he got his start in Dallas, on WRR (back before it was classical). “WRR had a late night program that all the kids used to listen to called ‘Kat’s Karavan’ which was a rhythm ‘n’ blues program and played almost entirely black music. But the audience was almost entirely white in one of those kinda strange things that goes on in American culture, and the kids who listened loved the music but if any of the musicians had turned up on their front door they would have called the police, because it was quite a racist society at the time. But I had some records which were only available in Europe — some in this country, some in the Netherlands — and I took them to the radio station and they asked me to go on the program and talk about these records, which I thought they’d done because of my extraordinary knowledge of the music, but I think they probably did because they thought I had such an amusing accent — which by Texas standards I certainly did.”
Read the link for his own brief brush with Lee Harvey Oswald.

pitcairn sex trials end

Speaking of faraway places I’ve been: the sex trial on Pitcairn Island has ended in convictions.
Some background: Pitcairn Island is, depending on your definitions, perhaps the most remote inhabited place on earth. It’s a tiny inaccessible speck in the South Pacific, home to 47 people. Those people have a history: They’re the descendants of Fletcher Christian and the other sailors who led the famous mutiny on the Bounty. (If you watch late-night cable, you’ve no doubt stumbled upon one of the five movie versions of the mutiny, in which Fletcher has been played by such actors as Marlon Brando, Mel Gibson, Errol Flynn, and Clark Gable.)
In 1999, through a series of happy accidents I won’t bother you with, I became the first American reporter in more than a decade to visit Pitcairn. (I think the first since 1986, if memory serves.) I wrote a series of articles about the island and its impending demise for my old newspaper. (Here they are: the main story; a sidebar on the mutiny; a sidebar on getting to Pitcairn; and a sidebar on their language. Some of my photos are here and here.)
Anyway, shortly after I left the island, a child sex scandal erupted. It seems that, for decades, the men of Pitcairn have been having sex with the island’s girls, some as young as 10. After an investigation dragged on for years, 12 men were charged with a variety of sex crimes — six island men and six ex-Pitcairners who now lived elsewhere.
Now the trials of the first six have concluded, and they’re guilty. It’s strange to look down a list of men convicted for child rape and see quite a few I know. The alleged “kingpin,” Steve Christian? I stayed at his house for a week. Dennis Christian? I have a wooden model Bounty he carved in my closet. Dave Brown? I have some honey he gathered in a jar in my kitchen.
This process has been screwed up from the very start. First of all, it’s taken five long years for the charges to be tried. Second, some of the charges are based on incidents 40 years old. I’m not sure what’s gained by trying a four-decades-old sex crime case.
At first, the Pitcairn men argued that they’re Polynesian islanders, and that you can’t judge them with traditional British sexual mores. (Pitcairn is still a British colony, and they were tried under British law.) But we’re not just talking about underage consensual sex here — we’re talking about rape.
On the other hand, the sexual lives of Pitcairn men appear to have been established for centuries — it’s not as if these guys were doing anything their fathers and grandfathers hadn’t done before them. It’s what they were taught from a young age. Dozens of Pitcairn women (past and present residents) stood up to defend their men, saying the island’s sexual habits were just the way things were — they’d had sex at an early age and survived just fine, thank you very much. When something is so clearly ingrained in a culture, the question of individual blame becomes dicey.
But the worst thing the trials have brought, from an island-wide perspective, is division. This is an island with 47 people. They’re all related. And a lot of them hate each other already. (Lots of petty, decades-old disputes.) Now you’ve got many of the women accusing the men of rape, apparently rightly so. The island was near death when I visited five years ago — I can’t imagine how it can proceed with that sort of divide hanging over it. Not to mention the fact that if the men actually end up going to jail, the island simply may not be able to operate. (There are very few able-bodied adults left to do the island’s work.)
I feel worst of all for the girls I met on Pitcairn. There were a handful of young teenagers on the island when I visited. All sweet girls. One younger girl, maybe 8 years old, was so cute and darling and sweet I wanted to cram her into my bag, take her back to the States and adopt her. Her dad was an ass, and it was clear there wasn’t much of a future for her on Pitcairn. I hate to think what she’s been put through in the name of island tradition.

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zambia independence day

Happy Zambian Independence Day! Forty years ago yesterday, the British government transferred power to a group of freedom fighters led by Kenneth Kaunda. It’s not too late to send a greeting card to the Zambians you love!
For those unfamiliar with my interest in Zambia, I spent six weeks there last year as a Pew Fellow. Here’s the blog I kept while there.
I had a chance to meet with Kaunda while I was there. He’s a great (if imperfect) man. I’m glad the current administration in Zambia finally admitted a few days ago that Kaunda was not involved in the 1997 coup attempt, for which he’d been arrested. (Kaunda lost reelection in 1991 and was replaced with the deeply unimpressive Chiluba regime. Chiluba, growing increasingly unpopular and fearing a Kaunda return to power, trumped up the coup charges.)
Speaking of Zambia, Sunday Times readers may have seen this travel piece by Jill Abramson, the Times’ managing editor. It’s all about her stay at the Royal Livingstone, next to Victoria Falls on the Zam/Zimbabwe border. If it sounds like an appealing place to stay, don’t get too excited until you get to the end and see the price tag: rooms starting at $539 a night.
When I was in Livingstone, I saw the Royal Livingstone on a couple occasions. Seemed like a nice place. I stayed, however, at Gecko’s Guesthouse, a perfectly acceptable place that cost $12 a night. While I (unlike Jill) didn’t have a personal butler, I’m still convinced I made the right choice.