In deference to T99, a song that the ever-charming (and rarely understandable) Pandora sent me about a girl who likes machetes.
Well, and who doesn't like a good machete? Or girls who like them?
As to why they thought I'd like the song, that's another question entirely.
UPDATE: I'm probably not being fair to Pandora. I find that if I answer its questions about what I like and what I don't from what it plays, in a week or so any new station is playing nothing but Johnny Cash tunes. I do like Johnny Cash! So the system works, sort of.
However, what I wanted to explore was utterly different types of music. Pandora has, for example, a good selection of early music, but it doesn't know how to differentiate it so that you don't end up with Johnny Cash. For that reason, I tend to plug in something and not adjust the station much; and so I get odd results. It's not their fault, though.
UPDATE: Oh, and Elvis. I never really listened to Elvis before Pandora; but she's right. I do like Elvis.
Of course, Elvis is everywhere. What I really wanted to listen to when I created that station, though, was songs about motorcycles.
Elvis is Everywhere
Tin-Cup Urbanism
Tin-Cup UrbanismTwo articles today about the looming municipal bankruptcy problem: Steve Malanga at Real Clear Politics, and yesterday's Washington Examiner OpEd. Malanga reports:
A recent study of the 77 largest municipal pension systems by finance professors Joshua Rauh of Northwestern University's Kellogg School and Robert Novy-Marx of the University of Rochester estimates that total unfunded liabilities of America's municipal pension systems is well north of half a trillion dollars. On a per capita basis, the professors estimated that each household in the 50 largest cities and counties they studied owes an average of $14,165 for future retiree liabilities. . . .The Examiner editorial blames the problem on cities' addiction to the federal teat:
The city with the highest per household unfunded liability in the nation is Chicago, $41,966 per household, or $45 billion in total obligations. Illinois, meanwhile, is the state with among the most troubled pension systems, with about $285 billion in unfunded liabilities. "Even if all other spending was shut down, the city of Chicago would need to allocate about eight years of dedicated tax revenues to cover pension promises it has already made," the study by Rauh and Novy-Marx estimates. Meanwhile, Illinois' pension obligations amount to seven times annual state tax collections.
California is in particularly bad shape. San Francisco and Los Angeles are among the places with the greatest liabilities among cities, amounting to $34,940 and $18,643 per household, respectively. Their combined pension debt of $33 billion is in addition to some $600 billion in Golden State unfunded liabilities. Also on the watch list from California are a host of other cities and counties, including Contra Costa County, Santa Barbara County and the city of San Jose. Los Angeles County, which runs many municipal functions in addition to those of the city of Los Angeles, has its own woes with a staggering $27 billion in unfunded liabilities. . . .
The cost of funding retirement benefits for New York City employees . . . has increased from $1.5 billion in 2000 to some $7 billion today, out of a city-funded budget of $44 billion.
Growing dependency on federal solutions to local problems has almost always stifled innovation. "Tin-cup urbanism," as it came to be known, removed the ability of citizens to control the fates of their own communities, leading to ineffective governance and increased crime.
Sometimes the only solution to excessive debt is for the people with money to stop lending. Nationally and individually, maybe we should quit investing in munis despite the tax breaks that are specifically designed to keep that funding pipeline wide open. At the very least, it would be a sign of sanity if investors quit buying munis issued by insanely over-leveraged cities like San Francisco and New York. Locally, residents of cities will have to elect public servants who are committed to living within the means that their local taxpayers are able and willing to pay. Cities are going to have to cut up their credit cards.
Black Keys
I need cheering up today, so it's piano fun. This is Lang Lang fooling around in his rehearsal room with Chopin's "Black Keys" Etude.
Here's the more traditional rendition:And this is for BillT:
History & Philosophy
The first has normally been thought the proper education of princes; the latter, the road to the greatest possible human understanding. Modern educators seem to doubt the use of history:
Is history as good as finished? Our school system seems to think so. Often it seems that the teaching of history is treated by the educational establishment as the rough equivalent of the teaching of dead languages: an unnecessary luxury of a bygone age, and something the modern world no longer requires. In the most recent debates about the national curriculum, history has been granted the status of an "inessential subject."Even philosophers sometimes question the role of philosophy:
The philosophical use has stumbled from one intellectual catastrophe to another. It’s never recovered since the days of Descartes, Locke and Kant.I'd have to go along with that: back to the medievals and the ancients! Well, what about science, then?
"The main barrier is the scientism that pervades our mentality and our culture. We are prone to think that if there’s a serious problem, science will find the answer. If science cannot find the answer, then it cannot be a serious problem at all. That seems to me altogether wrong...."I suppose there's always poetry.
One of his larger criticisms of contemporary neuroscience concerns the way it characterises the activities of the brain. Dualists about the mind and brain – those who hold that there are thinking substances like souls in the world as well as all the ordinary physical stuff – say that the mind sees and thinks and wants and calculates. Contemporary neuroscience dismisses this as crude, but Hacker argues that it just ends up swapping the mind with the brain, saying that the brain sees and thinks and wants and calculates. He says, “Merely replacing Cartesian ethereal stuff with glutinous grey matter and leaving everything else the same will not solve any problems. On the current neuroscientist’s view, it’s the brain that thinks and reasons and calculates and believes and fears and hopes. In fact, it’s human beings who do all these things, not their brains and not their minds. I don’t think it makes any sense to talk about the brain engaging in psychological or mental operations.”
...
“The fact is that if you look from one domain of cognitive neuroscience to another you will find that the operations of the brain thus conceived are being advanced as explanations for human behaviour, for our thinking, believing, seeing, hoping and fearing. That’s wrong, because it’s no explanation. If someone wants to know why poor old Snodgrass, as the result of some lesion, can’t do something that normal people can do, and you say that his brain can’t do it, you haven’t advanced any explanation at all. One cannot explain why someone cannot see by saying that his brain cannot see. One cannot explain why someone behaves in a certain way by suggesting that his brain tells him to. Cognitive defects can indeed sometimes be explained by reference to damage to the brain – but not by reference to cognitive deficiencies of the brain, since the brain has no cognitive powers at all. There is no such thing as a brain’s thinking, wanting, reasoning, believing or hypothesizing.”
Refudiate
Apparently the New Oxford American Dictionary really liked that turn of phrase. Congratulations, Mrs. Palin! Not everyone invents a word that makes it into the dictionary. It's more of a contribution to English than most will make; that would be an irony, if the common slanders pointed at the lady were true. Instead, it's just a pleasure to see.
Boom
What's the difference between this:
And this:
Acceptable answers include, "There's no difference at all"; but you have to defend your answer, whatever it is.
Human Worth
What's the worth of a human life? What is it about a human life that makes it worth something? That's a hard question: harder than it seems.
What's the worth of the man who drinks at the well, uninvited? None at all, to Sherif Ali: and it is the insight of honor cultures that not everyone is created equal, but that some are better than others. Does that mean that some can be worth nothing, or is there some minimal quality beyond which no human being can fall? "He was nothing," Sherif Ali says, and that is the honest attitude of many to those who get in the way.
"Nothing" in ethics is the equal opposite of infinity: once we have reduced the good of a person to "nothing," you would be irrational if you didn't trade his life for a penny. After all, a penny is worth something.
In the West, we have tried to provide other answers. Let us consider three, as exemplified by a very moving piece on fatherhood. There is Dr. Singer's answer.
As I grew older, I was inspired by Socrates' statement that "the unexamined life is not worth living." Similarly, Aristotle's dictum that man is the animal having "logos," the power of reasoning, impressed me. The notion that the human being is a rational animal made sense, and I internalized it as a basic assumption, as I did Socrates' pronouncement. At San Francisco State University, I became intrigued by the Enlightenment. John Locke, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant fascinated me. Who would not want to be enlightened? Who in his or her right mind would choose in favor of a benighted past of superstition, ignorance, and blind faith in custom? I put my faith in reason....There is the answer the doctor eventually comes to about his son.
After his birth, as I entered the intensive-care nursery, I was deeply ambivalent, having been persuaded by the Princeton philosopher Peter Singer's advocacy of expanding reproductive choice to include infanticide. But there was my son, asleep or unconscious, on a ventilator, motionless under a heat lamp, tubes and wires everywhere, monitors alongside his steel and transparent-plastic crib. What most stirred me was the way he resembled me. Nothing had prepared me for this, the shock of recognition, for he was the boy in my own baby pictures, the image of me when I was an infant.
Eight months after the birth, a doctor commented, after viewing the results of a CT scan, that his brain looked like "Swiss cheese," it was so full of dead patches.
So from the start, I had to wrestle with the reality of his condition. Martin Luther held the opinion that, because a child such as August was a "changeling"—merely a mass of flesh, a massa carnis, with no soul—he should be drowned. And Singer reasonably would maintain that my son would not qualify as a "person," because he would have no consciousness of himself in time and space.
And I agree with Rabbi Harold Kushner when he writes and talks about bad things happening to good people: August's disability does not form a part of "God's plan" and does not serve as a tool for God to teach me or anyone else wisdom. What kind of a God would it be, anyway, to deprive my boy of speech and movement just to instruct me? A cruel and arbitrary God. August's disabilities are not a blessing; but neither are they a divine curse. To traffic in a cosmic economy of blessings and curses is to revert to an ancient prejudice. Indeed, even though August's disabilities offer ample opportunity for public interpretation, they do not mean anything at all in and of themselves—they have no intrinsic significance. They simply are what they are.There is the third position, which he understands well enough to articulate it:
That is not to deny that August, along with my daughter and my wife, is the most amazing and wonderful thing that has ever happened to me, for he has allowed me an additional opportunity to profoundly love another human being.... there are limits to reason.
And then there are the Christians, who see in August a child of God. Given the educated alternative I just sketched out, that response seems a relief. Here in the South, they come up and say "God bless!," to which, depending on the occasion and the person, I sometimes respond, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased."You've probably sorted out that I have more to say about this, but before I do, I want to hear what you think (and why).
It is not power but fear
I'm a little bit amazed to see that the Burmese government actually released Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest. The negotiations to have her released were one of those permanent stories in the press; as if one were assigned to report on the tides, without understanding the effect of the moon. "Water is up! We think this is the day!" "No, the water went back down." "Water is up again!"
If you're not accustomed to following Asian politics, you may not be familiar with her. Here is an introduction. She also is associated with an interesting speech, which is aimed at trying to alter Burma and its society in accord with what are widely perceived to be Western principles. The people who are concerned about her being a 'puppet of the West' are thinking of the kind of Westerner who works with the UN and authored things like the Geneva Conventions and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Gerrymandering
GerrymanderingHotAir linked to a Zombie article about the nation's most ridiculously gerrymandered federal congressional districts. We have the honor to live in one of them: Texas District 14, home of Ron Paul. You can find our little piece of Heaven way down in the lower left corner, in Aransas County. We're technically contiguous with the rest of the district by virtue of some barrier islands populated by wild animals and cattle.
I assumed that, when Texas receives its four new congressmen, our district's boundaries would get more reasonable, but apparently not. The changes are expected mostly to occur elsewhere.
As silly as our district is, it can't hold a candle to Illinois District 2, whose northern and southern portions, each gerrymanderedenough in its own right, are joined by a strip of median running down the center of Interstate 294.
American Dunkirk
My sister sends a piece on mass panic and emergencies:
The idea of mass panic shapes how we plan for, and respond to, emergency events. In Pennsylvania, for example, the very term is inscribed in safety regulations known as the state's Fire and Panic Code. Many public officials assume that ordinary people will become highly emotional in an emergency, especially in a crowded situation and that providing information about the true nature of the danger is likely to make individuals panic even more. Emergency management plans and policies often intentionally conceal information: for ex- ample, event marshals may be instructed to inform one another of a fire using code words, to prevent people from overhearing the news - and overreacting....So: on 9/11, we saw the American Dunkirk:
In the 1950s, as a researcher at the University of Chicago, Fritz made a comprehensive inventory of 144 peacetime disaster studies[.] He concluded that rather than descending into disorder and a helpless state, human beings in disasters come together and give one another strength.
Shortly after the second tower was struck, well before either tower fell, something remarkable, almost miraculous, happened. A fleet of boats began arriving in the waters around lower Manhattan. They were boats of all shapes and sizes – ferries, tugs, excursion boats, fireboats, buoy tenders, patrol boats and yachts. Large and small, public and private, they began an entirely spontaneous, unplanned, unsupervised and uncontrolled evacuation of Lower Manhattan. By the end of the day between 300,000 and one million people, depending on which estimate you use, were carried to safety. Over 2,000 of those rescued were injured. When there were no more people to transport, many of these boats began shuttling supplies to the rescue effort at Ground Zero. It was the largest maritime evacuation since Dunkirk and has gone largely unreported in the media.More here. "Who was in charge of the massive evacuation of lower Manhattan? No one."
Some Friend
I question the headline here, which suggests that a homeowner killed a friend.
Ezekiel Wiley says he fired all six bullets at a man who crawled through a busted kitchen window, armed with a screwdriver Wednesday. Wiley said he couldn't see the burglar's face.If you're really a good friend of long standing, how is it you didn't understand your buddy was the kind of guy who sleeps with a revolver close to hand?
Several hours later Wiley learned the burglar was William Bernard Stafford, a friend of 30 years. Authorities said Stafford had a drug history and several convictions.
Mexico
The question of insurgency:
The most important part of Sheridan’s story, I think, is the notion that U.S.-Mexican military-to-military relations have vastly improved of late. Nearly as interesting, though, is the notion that the Pentagon is sharing “many of the lessons we’ve learned in chasing terrorist organizations in Iraq and Afghanistan,” according to Gen. Victor Renuart (formerly NORTHCOM’s commander).Playtime in Mexico?
Roscoe Browne
I'm just going to repost TBSBFB's take on this.
Real Men Can Cook: And tell a story. Look after children. Charm a woman. Strike an honest bargain. Command respect. Oppose evildoers.
And a real actor can read a recipe with a camera pointed at him, and make it scintillating. Roscoe Lee Browne. Gone but not forgotten.
Demolition Goes Wrong
I tried to find a direct YouTube embed, but all the ones there had incredibly annoying ads up front, so just go to this Daily Caller link. It's only a minute and a quarter long.
Earmarks
EarmarksSen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) has a piece in the National Review Online today about earmarks, a subject that's been puzzling me lately. Sen. Coburn joins Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and 12 other conservative senators, including the new Tea Party candidates, in pushing an earmark ban:
- Pat Toomey (R-Penn.)
- Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)
- Rand Paul (R-Ky.)
- Mike Lee (R-Utah)
- Ron Johnson (R-Wis.)
- Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.)
- John Ensign (R-Nev.)
- Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.)
- John Cornyn (R-Tex.)
- Richard Burr (R-N.C.)
- Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.)
- Bob Corker (R-Tenn.)
The Deficit Commission also supports an earmark ban. The prospective new Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), does not.
The argument against an earmark ban usually goes like this: the money's going to get appropriated anyway, so wouldn't you rather have your own congressmen decide what project it will be spent on than some bureaucrat sitting on a panel in an executive branch controlled by the other party? What's more, earmarks the tail wagging the dog: they're a small fraction of overall spending.
Sen. Coburn's argument is that "a small rudder can help steer a big ship." As one commenter noted, earmarks are bribe solicitation. The point of many earmarks is not to appropriate funds for a specific project that really is important on national grounds (which would be the only legitimate reason for using federal money rather than local funds), but an out-and-out bribe to secure a vote for some completely separate measure that may dwarf the earmark itself in terms of cost and intrusiveness. Use of the Cornhusker Kickback to obtain a vote for ObamaCare is a recent and glaring example.
Sen. Coburn quotes Thomas Jefferson, who predicted that federally funded local projects would "be the source of eternal scramble among the members, who can get the most money wasted in their State; and they will always get the most who are the meanest." He adds: "Thomas Jefferson understood that earmarks and coercion would go hand in hand." Coburn also argues that
earmarks are a convoluted way for Congress to try to regain authority they have already ceded to the executive branch through bad legislation. The fact is there is nothing an earmark can do that can't be done more equitably and openly through a competitive grant process.It's not clear to me that the feds ought to be funding anywhere near as many local projects as they do. If they must, I'd prefer they made block grants to the states and let the states work out where to spend the money. Even better, they could stop collecting federal taxes for this kind of thing and let the states decide how much to tax and spend on local projects. The only exceptions should be truly federal projects, like military bases, the location of which should be determined by some much more transparent process than backroom pork-barrel rolling. I'd rather my federal congressmen spent more time worrying about getting the federal government to keep its mitts out of local affairs, and less about bringing federal largesse to my district -- particularly when I'm the one paying for the federal largesse in the first place.
Veteran's Day
To all of you who've served, my thanks.
To all of you who haven't, McQ at BLACKFIVE thanks you.
Why Do Things Cost So Much?
Why Do Things Cost So Much?
Megan McCardle has a thread going about trade barriers and the impact on the cost of goods and the standard of living. I liked this comment about the difficulty of comparing standards of living today against those of 50-60 years ago, when U.S. manufacturing looked very different from today:
Well, if you give me 50's housing and 50's health care, I can probably live pretty cheaply. Part of what drives those prices up is the fact that we consume much more. And if you give me 50's school kids coming from intact 2-parent 50's families and attending 50's churches every Sunday, and 50's school teachers who are either unmarried single women or married and more or less supported by their husbands, I can doubtless cut your education costs (and local taxes), too.
Infinite Ethics
On grizzly bears:
One human being is worth more than an infinite number of grizzly bears. Another way to put it is that there is no number of live grizzlies worth one dead human being.That really depends on who the human beings in question happen to be. I can think of some good examples of people I'd be willing to trade for grizzlies.
Ethics doesn't admit of infinites. "Never" and "forever" are neither for men (as Fritz Leiber wrote in "The Circle Curse"). We don't do ethics this way because ethics is always about balancing goods. Declaring one good to be infinite, even relative to another, means discarding entirely something else that is good. Do we say that human life is infinitely more valuable than horses? Well, people are often killed riding horses -- we should do away with the brutes! How about human life versus candy? Eliminate candy! Bacon? Fatty foods in general?
Of course, that depends on grizzly bears being in any way good. Are they good? The author deploys some Christian arguments, so let's talk about what Christianity says about the matter.
St. Augustine would have said that they were, because everything created is good. This is another reason to avoid assigning infinities, then: by effectively reducing the value of the opposite to zero, you are denying a truth about it. Everything that humanity has to make decisions about has some good. It may not be much, but it cannot be nothing. Therefore, nothing has infinite good.
(Since we are in the realm of specifically Christian ethics we must ask: What about God? Augustine would say that God has infinite goodness, and indeed is infinitely good; but that even in the case of God, humanity must make non-infinite calculations about him. After all, sometimes we have to turn our attention away from God and toward food, or charity towards fellow humans. Charity toward men is good, but even the best charity is not infinitely good -- and therefore, it has no value next to God. Yet it is certainly clear as a point of Christian ethics that God wants us to engage in charity. One might reply: "But since God wants it, you're really serving God by showing charity toward his creatures." Yes; and that's true of grizzly bears also, even if it is true to a lesser degree.)
The author cites the Bible as evidence that the land is cursed if people and livestock are being killed by savage beasts. The Bible also cites livestock dying of illness as evidence of a divine curse, but some livestock are always dying of illness in every nation.
What about David? He had to fight bears off the livestock. That doesn't look like proof of a curse on his nation, but the way in which he became brave enough to be a useful servant of God.
The presence of the bear can be a blessing or a curse, depending on how you encounter it. The difference doesn't depend on the bear. It depends on you.
1775
It's the Marine Corps Birthday.
A committee of the Continental Congress met at Tun Tavern to draft a resolution calling for two battalions of Marines able to fight for independence at sea and on shore.Now that was a Congress that knew how to shape legends.
The resolution was approved on November 10, 1775, officially forming the Continental Marines.
This is a good year for remembering those original Marines, who helped win the space in which the Constitution was crafted. Their descendants have defended that space ever since.
Hulu is launching a patriotism channel, which will feature among other things the stories of the lives of Medal of Honor recipients. There are about fourteen up this morning.
The Project VALOUR-IT fundraiser is still going on, for today and tomorrow. Team Marine is doing very well, having more than doubled its original goal. If you'd like to help them help today's wounded Marines, this is a fine day to do it.
Semper Fi, Marines.
Snake ID
Snake IDW. C. Fields
The title of the last post reminds me: I don't think we've ever taken a look at W. C. Fields. He's certainly an American icon.
Guinness is good for you
Two of my favorite things:
Zenyatta could be getting her favorite beer straight from the tap if she wins the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Saturday. Guinness said Friday it is offering a trip to Ireland and its famed St. James Gate Brewery in Dublin for Zenyatta, trainer John Shirreffs and owners Jerry and Ann Moss if the 6-year-old mare wins at Churchill Downs to close her career with a 20-0 record. Shirreffs is known to open a bottle of Guinness and pour it into a bowl for Zenyatta in the afternoon. He says she’ll only drink the dark Irish stout with its creamy head.No wonder she's a winner!
Seriously?
This report is stunning:
[D]uring President Obama's trip to India, Gibbs assumed the role of press advocate and threatened to pull Obama out of bilateral talks with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh because three U.S. reporters were blocked from covering the meeting.It's nice that Gibbs has the interest of the American press at heart, but -- did I understand that the press secretary was going to pull the US President out of bilateral talks? Gibbs said he was "serious" about this threat.
Normally that would seem to be overstepping one's authority a little bit. The idea that a press secretary might have veto power over whether the President is allowed to attend negotiations with another head of government... that's alarming. I know they work closely together, but still! The President might value his advisor's opinion without the advisor having that kind of authority over him. Gibbs seems confident, though: he didn't say he would ask the President to pull out of the negotiations, but that he would pull him out.
The End of (a) Tyranny
The West awakes:
The US, bizarrely, is running at least 10 years behind in this process, having elected a government which chose to embark on the social democratic experiment at precisely the moment when its Western European inventors were despairing of it, and desperately trying to find politically palatable ways of winding it down.Here's to the end of the Soviet Union, and to the good people long under her who had the sense to walk away. They were the ones who carried the weight, and when they came to see things clearly, they are the ones who laid it down.
The American people – being made of rather different stuff and having historical roots which incline them to be distrustful of government in any form – immediately rejected the whole idea....
So a generation after the collapse of totalitarian socialism, its democratic form is finally crumbling as well. And, oddly enough, the latter may take longer than the former to unravel. The one virtue of totalitarian governments is that they can be swept away in a single blow, either through violent overthrow or – as in the case of Soviet communism – by their populations simply walking out from under them.
May we know such sense, in our own way.
Not Quite, Bill
There's a serious error in the first few seconds of this video, which undermines the message quite a bit. He posits a situation in which a unanimous Congress passes a law overturning the First Amendment, signed by the President; and he says that the right thing to do would be to resist this 'procedurally correct, unanimous' law.
What he wants to get at is a discussion of positive law (or 'political law,' as he calls it) versus natural law.
Unfortunately, the example doesn't go with the discussion. All of you see the problem: a law of the sort he describes would be unconstitutional on its face. A simple act of legislation cannot amend the Constitution. A government that tried to set aside the Constitution through simple legislation would merit a revolt even within the limited terms of positive law. Many of us have an obligation by oath to uphold the Constitution in such circumstances.
In order to get at the point he wants to get at, we need to think about whether or not it would be legitimate to amend the Constitution in a way that eliminates the First Amendment freedoms. The President doesn't sign proposed constitutional amendments; they go to the states for ratification.
The real point only becomes clear if and only if three-quarters or more of the states ratify the law -- the amendment that overturns the First Amendment. Now, perhaps, it's a question of natural law justifying a revolt against an unjust positive law.
Boom
Apparently the makers of Cassidy's ad received certain complains.
I thought that was a most civilized reply.
Super-Rabbit
The ultimate lines of this episode are relevant.
Bugs Bunny-Super rabbit
I assume you know why.
Celebration Ale
My favorite drink appeared today. It's available for about two months of the year, from sometime in November until the end of Yuletide.
Fine stuff. It reminds me of a joke, though. I was shopping for a birthday card, and I came across one that said something like:
"Happy birthday! I consulted a prominent astrologer to learn about your stars, and now I know which sign has the greatest influence on your life."
You open up the card, and a sign folds out that reads: "BAR."
Well, it's Friday. Be merry.
Demotivators
I was asked to link to Cassandra's Demotivator's post, as a part of the VALOUR-IT challenge. Asked, and by a lady of noble spirit, I obey.
I would have done it sooner, but I wanted to think of a good demotivator. The truth is, while I had some good ones last year, I can't think of anything this year.
Apologies
One of you wrote today to ask me after something I once wrote on how a gentleman ought to apologize. I can't remember where it was, and I haven't found it; but it takes only a moment to spell out the rules. The rules are simple. A gentleman is a fighting man, and is therefore meant to be frank.
1) Take responsibility for the fault.I realize that can be very hard. I didn't say it was easy, though; I said it was simple. There is a sense in which God is simple. That doesn't make it easy to understand his nature; in fact, it makes it much harder.
2) Explicitly say either "I am sorry" or "I apologize."
3) In a few words, explain yourself without attempting to excuse yourself.
That's what Carl Von Clausewitz said, though: 'In war, everything is simple; and the simplest things are hard.'
Speaking of what is hard, a harder thing to do than to give a good apology is to receive one. I hold with Alexander Dumas, who wrote -- I can't seem to find the precise quote of his either -- that a gentleman can do no more than apologize. Once that has been done, his honor is neatly concerned with having his apology received on honorable terms. If that is also done, he can do very much more: but if it is not done, he cannot.
It is therefore of chief importance that we learn to accept an honest and sincere apology. We are enjoined to forgive everything, and love our enemies as well as our neighbors. That is another simple rule that proves very hard.
Yet there it is.
"A penny for the old Guy, sir."
If no one else is going to get to it, I guess it's up to me to remind us of today's date.
Remember, remember, the Fifth of November
'Twas Gunpowder Treason and plot.
I see no reason why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
I'm giving you early warning so you can get your bonfires going for tonight, and prepare your bangers and mash, bonfire toffee, parkin, and baked potatoes.Air America
I don't know if Hulu works in Iraq -- I never had time to try to use it -- but if it does, you might enjoy this little comedy.
Poetry Time
Nicholas Kristof writes, "Mr. Obama, it's time for some poetry."
I like poetry. I'm especially fond of this:
And the eyes of Guthrum altered,
For the first time since morn....
As such a tall and tilted sky
Sends certain snow or light,
So did the eyes of Guthrum change,
And the turn was more certain and more strange
Than a thousand men in flight.
For not till the floor of the skies is split,
And hell-fire shines through the sea,
Or the stars look up through the rent earth's knees,
Cometh such rending of certainties,
As when one wise man truly sees
What is more wise than he....
King Guthrum was a great lord,
And higher than his gods--
He put the popes to laughter,
He chid the saints with rods,
He took this hollow world of ours
For a cup to hold his wine;
In the parting of the woodways
There came to him a sign....
Far out to the winding river
The blood ran down for days,
When we put the cross on Guthrum
In the parting of the ways.
Chronicle of Philanthropy article on Tea Parties
The rise of the Tea Party movement, in short, suggests that fears of civic disengagement in the United States may have been exaggerated. When motivated by a compelling set of issues, it seems that Americans can still put together an impressive campaign, spontaneously, swiftly, and with little professional leadership or guidance. Whatever their inclination toward “bowling alone,” they are capable of working together when necessary. For that reason alone, the philanthropic world should find at least some comfort in the Tea Party’s accomplishments.
Read and enjoy!
Hey, Let's Bail Out Some Broke States!
Hey, Let's Bail Out Some Broke States!I know I said yesterday the new House would be chilly to proposals for a California bailout, but my husband points out we're already on the hook for some of that. The Spendulus Bill that contributed so heavily to the wave of voter revulsion on Tuesday left us with a little gift that's still giving: the "Build America Bonds Program." ("Build" is being used here in its technical progressive sense of "throwing tax revenues at cronies who demonstrate some tenuous connection to economic activity as long as it involves unions.") The bonds are not tax-exempt, like most munis. The Obama administration is said to disfavor tax-exempt munis, which mostly benefit high-bracket investors for whom tax deductions are more valuable. But as unpopular as tax-exempt munis may be with the current administration's financial team, they felt compelled to address the credit-crunch-induced 17% drop in muni sales between 2007 and 2008. They chose to address it with a program that directly subsidized the interest burden on taxable debt issued for capital projects:
Since its introduction last year, the Build America program has come to account for about 26 percent of the muni-bond market, and October was its biggest month yet.The program expires at the end of 2010. Will the lame-duck Congress extend it? Worse, will the new House extend it? In the meantime, program participants are issuing federally guaranteed bonds like crazy in the time they have left. But they're finding that the spreads are growing. Does this reflect an increasing unease over whether the issuers will be expected to foot the bill for their own interest obligations in the near future, or just a recognition that the market is about to be flooded with issuances by users trying to get in under the wire? Bloomberg reports:
One reason: Issuers were scrambling to take advantage of the program's benefits — which include the federal government footing the bill for 35 percent of the bonds' interest costs. Of course, demand for the bonds, now a significant cornerstone of the $2.8 trillion muni market, has also been strong.
Build America Bonds, the fastest- growing part of the $2.8 trillion municipal debt market, are poised for the biggest monthly loss in 2010 as an increased supply of the taxable debt drives up yields.
States and municipalities have sold about $4.9 billion of the federally subsidized securities this week, the most since the five-day trading period ended April 24, 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Issuers have placed 49 offerings for sale, the highest number since the program’s creation by the economic stimulus package in February 2009, Bloomberg data show.
President Obama announced on Monday of this week a proposal to expand the Build America Bonds program to include refinancing some existing debt and covering "short-term governmental operating costs." In other news, the Fed is going ahead with a $600 billion purchase of treasuries in order to prop those prices up, too. What could go wrong? When we finish bailing out the states and everyone else we can think of, someone surely will bail out the U.S. I'm sure they'll be nice enough not to impose any onerous conditions.
Elections
This is the fourth time I have written about national election results on this blog; first in 2004, then 2006, and last in 2008. The elections have swung wildly: 2000, 2002 and 2004 were the swing toward Republicans, and then 2006-8 were the swing away from the Republicans. Now there is a swing back, historic in size but still insufficient to yield control of more than one house of Congress.
The lesson in each of these elections has been that the Federal government is too powerful relative to the states and the citizenry. It matters too much who wins. It shouldn't be so big a deal; it wouldn't be, if we could re-balance the load along constitutional lines.
It's not just the elected branches suffering from this strain: we can't fill Federal judgeships because the power invested in Federal courts has become so great. There's no room left for trust, whether it's for liberal senators considering a conservative judge or conservative senators considering a liberal one. The courts have taken on so much power that they are breaking under the weight of it.
I don't find that these recent results make me feel any better about the direction of the country. They have staunched the bleeding in some respects, but there remains a lot of harm that can be done by bad policy; and no way to address the structural problems, because the divided government won't be able to make the changes we need.
The Federal government by necessity imposes one-size fits all solutions on the people of the United States. The lesson of these wild swings is partially that there are strong minorities with deep opposition in their world views. We will continue to experience distrust as long as we have to believe that our way of life is threatened by the other side of the aisle. We have little choice but to believe that as long as the Federal government claims the power to ignore or revise the Constitution on the fly, and as long as it continues to ignore the hard limits imposed by the Constitution, especially the 10th Amendment.
Both liberals and conservatives would feel far more secure and at ease in their nation if we stopped using the Federal government to force major changes on the whole Republic. Forcing issues like abortion and the nature of marriage with Federal power is causing us to tear apart at the seams.
This is to say nothing of the power it has claimed to promise our children's generation enormous debts, in order to spend today; just as it placed those now entering their age a future of poverty when it spent the so-called "trust fund," and failed to lay aside adequately to fund its pensions.
This is a weapon that needs to be unmade. The only way to restore peace and stability to the Republic is to make the Federal government surrender much of its power to the states and to the People, and to obey and abide by the Constitution according to the intent of the framers, or the original intent of the amendments.
We must also address the spending habits of the government. Only this last item shows any real hope for improvement from this week's elections. As I said, it's a way of staunching some of the bleeding; but it doesn't close the wound, and it doesn't mean we've healed.
The View from the States
The View from the StatesFrom the point of view of the states, it's not just the governor's mansions that changed hands yesterday. Because over 500 state legislative seats turned from blue to red, Republicans now hold the majority in both chambers of 26 state legislatures. Nor did Democrats fare well in state and local school board elections.
All this points to massive changes in states' approaches to their widespread budget crises, especially those stemming from defined-benefit pension obligations. As J.P. Friere points out, lately New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has been getting all the publicity as he battles entrenched teachers' unions. Now, all public sector unions in at least half the states in the country can expect a headwind. And don't forget the vouchers, guys.
Rebuke
Dainty
Via Cassy Fiano, whose blog I've been reading on account of her participation in the Marine Team, Project VALOUR-IT(!), an examination of the question of whether chivalry is necessarily sexist. The philosophical inquiry into the question begins at the 1:50 mark.
The answer given to what about chivalry is sexist is this: "The notion of gender difference whereby women are these sort of... you know, the dainty, delicate, in need of assistance... sort of the 'women and children first' on the liferaft."
Some people are certainly guilty of making such assumptions about women; but chivalry is not guilty of them. For example, consider the following plate from the work of Hans Talhoffer, a fifteenth-century master of arms. It is telling for two reasons:
1) It treats a judicial duel. In an era when every legal question could be resolved by such a duel, women might well find themselves wanting to fight one. The assumption of modern readers is that they were therefore placed in a position of 'needing assistance' -- as from a champion, perhaps. Not so! The medievals simply balanced the playing field, by constructing rules that made for a fair fight. The man is required to fight with a wooden club (limiting his force and the effectiveness of any martial training), while standing in a pit two feet deep. The woman swings a stone in her veil, of about five pounds -- around the weight of a small sledgehammer.
That a master of arms like Talhoffer -- who made his living teaching fighting skills -- went to the trouble of drawing up such plates indicates that this was common enough that prospective clients were worried about it.
2) The plate here is described as follows: "The woman has grasped the man's head from behind to pull him out of the pit onto his back, and strangle him." In other words, no one thought she would be dainty.
This series of plates, by the way, ends with a plate described as follows: "The woman has the man locked in a hold by the neck and the groin, and pulls him out of the pit." If you want to see the plate (and many others nearly as interesting), it's available in Medieval Combat by Hans Talhoffer, trans. & ed. by Mark Rector.
We've talked about all this before, of course, but it's important to separate 19th-century ideas from the original fighting ideas. Chivalry as an term didn't treat of women originally; it was at first just a name for a band of horsemen. Eventually it became an ethic, one based on feudal loyalty. The language of courtly love is the language of feudal oaths, with service and loyalty being a mutual bond: one between lady and knight, as between lord and knight. It was an ethic of mutual service and love, whereby I helped you and cared for you, and you aided me in return. The lady was often of greater power and status; there was much she could do for a young knight, in return for his friendship and service. This was as true for the feudal bond between lord and knight, as for the courtly bond between lady and knight.
If chivalry is "sexist," it is so in the sense of recognizing a difference between the sexes with the intent of honoring it. It is no insult; practiced properly, it entertains no insults. It is only an offer of service and friendship, in the hope that such service and such friendship will meet with a fit reply.
In the frank offer, at least, it is the language of equals. To the degree that this is an illusion, it is an illusion because the knight is the weaker party. In making an offer in the language of equals, he is the one who is making bold.
Various pics
The Feast of All Saints
Having been raised Presbyterian, I encountered the concept of saints fairly late -- initially just as honorifics associated with certain people who had either known Jesus directly (St. Mark, St. Luke, St. John, etc.), or people who were important thinkers about the nature of God (St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, etc).
I learned about other ways that people became saints later in boyhood, though still within the context of a church that didn't really believe in the idea of saints in Catholic terms. Still, I learned that some saints had become saints by overseeing the baptism of many people -- for example, St. Vladimir, St. Edwin of Northumbria, and St. Olaf. Others became saints by allowing themselves to become martyrs for the faith -- including the patron saints of England and Scotland. The one is St. George, about whom not very much beyond martyrdom can safely be said; the other is St. Andrew, who also qualified as an Apostle and one who was close to Jesus in his lifetime. (Most confusing of all is St. Michael, for whom the title almost seems like a demotion.)
The idea of martyrs didn't make much sense to me as a boy. I think that is unusual: I gather what normally doesn't make sense to people are the St. Olafs and St. Edwins, who achieved their sainthood by the sword. For someone raised in the Appalachian Scots-Irish tradition, that part made perfect sense. For that matter, there was no trouble about understanding -- since we were just talking about The Alamo, below -- martyrs who went down fighting. Of course those are heroes of the faith!
The idea that my boyhood self found confusing was that of martyrs who went placidly to their deaths. I think I understood that the idea was that this behavior was in emulation of Jesus himself; but (as I recall my childhood thoughts) the point of Jesus doing it was so that the rest of us didn't have to. I was under the impression that Jesus hadn't wanted us to emulate him in that particular way; and furthermore, I reasoned later in life, hadn't he told his disciples to arm themselves with swords precisely to avoid being martyred with him?
By the same token, however, Jesus' remarks when the sword is used to defend him are interesting. There are two versions, one clear and the other unclear. In Luke, the followers ask if they should strike with their swords, and one does; Jesus says, "No more of this," heals the would given, and goes off with his captors. In Matthew, Jesus rebukes the disciple who strikes directly, saying that all will die with the sword who slay with it.
The Matthew version appears to suggest that Jesus intended to license self-defense and defense of the human community from physical dangers; but not the use of the sword to protect him personally. By extension, the suggestion is that he would not approve of war for religion -- whether Crusades or conquests of the type St. Olaf led.
The Luke version is unclear; we are left as mystified as his own followers about whether to use the swords or not, in general terms. We just know that he wanted us to have them, but thought the one blow given in his defense was enough -- or was irrelevant to his purpose.
In any case, martyrs have been from the earliest days among the most beloved and venerated of saints. What was puzzling to me as a boy was natural and obvious to very many others.
The idea of having a day for celebrating all the saints. It's a good reminder that the tradition contains many people who have contributed to the faith in different ways. Some of these ways are puzzling -- martyrdom to me, sword-bearing to others -- but we have a certain debt to each of them. It is wise to reflect on that.
UPDATE: Martyrs are made today, at a church in Baghdad.
USMC Team
If we are speaking of virtue, bravery and Fortune, we might take a moment to remember some of our brave and virtuous men who have suffered from her ill winds. Project VALOUR-IT aims at helping them in the hard first moments, and giving them a better shot at the rest of their lives.
It isn't only their virtue that matters in facing down the winds of Fortune. It's ours too: our friendship, our sense of justice, and honor. Please consider donating if you have the means.
Fortune Favors the Coward
A talk on facing Fortuna in the modern world:
Today, conspiracy theory has gone mainstream, and many of its most vociferous promoters can be found in radical protest movements and amongst the cultural left. Increasingly, important events are viewed as the products of a cover-up, as the search for the ‘hidden hand’ manipulating a particular story comes to dominate public life. Conspiracy theory constructs worlds where everything important is manipulated behind our backs and where we simply do not know who is responsible for our predicament. In such circumstances, we have no choice but to defer to our fate.The Roman idea about Goddess Fortune is not the only one superior to mere conspiracy theory, however: the Medieval ones were also superior. The two basic answers, St. Augustine's and Boethius', are quite different. Each has something to recommend itself. Compare Boethius' account with the Book of Job, for example.
It is through conspiracy theories that Fortuna reappears – but it does so in a form that is far more degraded than in Roman times. To their credit, the Romans were able to counterpose virtus to Fortuna. In a precautionary culture, however, fortune favours the risk-averse, not the brave.
Alamo @ 50
There's a piece on the anniversary of John Wayne's classic at Big Hollywood today.
The Alamo was a Grim's Hall Movie Club movie back in April 2006. If you're interested in rereading our discussion, we talked about the mythic themes that Wayne explored.
In the Iliad, these heroes are Agamemnon, Achillles, and Odysseus. In the Alamo, they are Col. Travis, Jim Bowie, and Davy Crockett.
Travis asserts his authority through military discipline, and right of command. He is willing to speak insultingly to Jim Bowie to shut down challenges to his orders ('You were drunk at the last officer's call, and I do not wish to discuss my plans until the next'). He is willing to publicly slur the credibility of friendly Mexican caballeros....
Bowie and his men (like Achilles' Myrmidons) are volunteers, and can leave when they wish. Travis needs them to hold until aid can arrive. He also needs the help of another body of volunteers who arrive under the command of another hero, Davy Crockett.
Crockett appears less of a hero to Travis than his reputation would suggest. Travis is not happy to find his Crockett and his men brawling and drinking, and he refers to Crockett's usual manner of speech as a 'bumpkin act.' Yet when he hears Crockett's speech about the Republic, he is taken aback. So it was said of Odysseus:
One might have taken him for a mere churl or simpleton; but when he raised his voice, and the words came driving from his deep chest like winter snow before the wind, then there was none to touch him.
How about a little Irish legendry appropriate to the Feast of Samhain?
Fionn decided that he was ready to become a warrior and he went to the High King Cormac Mac Art at his hall in Tara, Co. Meath and announced that he was Fionn son of Cumhail and that he had come to take his place among the Fianna and to serve Cormac. Cormac took Fionn into the Fianna although Goll Mac Morna and his brothers murmured against this particularly Goll who was now the captain of the Fianna having helped to kill Cumhail, Fionn's father.Not every encounter with the faery is reported to have gone badly. Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene was the lady who held St. George's service and fealty; and she did well by him, the poet tells us.
It was nearing Samhain and every year for the past nine years a warrior from the Sidhe Finnachaidh of the Tuatha De Danann by the name of Aillen Mac Midhna came to Tara to cause havoc among the Fianna. He had burned the roof of Tara with his magic and had caused all the warriors to fall into a deep sleep with his Faery music.
When he heard this Fionn went before Cormac Mac Art and promised to rid him of this nuisance providing that his right of inheritance to the title of captain be honoured. Cormac swore to fulfill this request on the surety of all the tributary kings of Ireland and all his royal Druids.
The night before the warrior of the sidhe was going to appear, one of Cormac's men Fiacha Mac Conga, who had served with Fionn's father and was therefore protective towards him, came to Fionn and offered his help. He gave Fionn a magical spear which made the sound of battle when it was unsheathed and when it was laid on the forehead of the warrior who carried it he would be protected from evil magic.
So Fionn took the magical spear and went out against Aillen Mac Midhna and killed him. He struck off his head and carried it back to Tara and put it up on a pole for all to see.
When dawn broke and the High King and all his retinue awoke from their enchanted sleep, Cormac called Fionn before him and invested him with the captaincy of the Fianna in accordance with his promise.