Foreshadowed tonight in a comment by a "Top Romney Advisor":
So the argument here is that party elites will let you vote for Romney or, if you won't, they'll simply remove the decision from your hands. Romney won't get their nod, and neither will Gingrich, nor anyone else who has won delegates out of the votes of the people. The party and not the voters will decide.
The Democrats got this result in 2008. Do you remember? The debate was over whether some states -- Clinton-won states -- would be allowed to vote their full slate, or if they would have to accept limited or no participation in the convention. Then-Senator Clinton's campaign made a big deal about counting every vote. When the convention came, though, she took the Secretary of State position instead of forcing a contest; and they ended up counting none of the votes, but nominating then-Senator Obama by acclamation.
We have watched the capture of the Democratic party by public-sector unions, the vastly rich corporate powers that support the unions, and their dogs in the New Class who make up the leadership of the Occupy movements. It's destroyed a party that meant a lot to America over the course of its history; it meant something to me. I fought for it for a long time, even in twilight.
I've never been a Republican, and the fate of that party is of no special interest to me. All the same, it seems like someone ought to say this: the Republican party isn't like what the Democratic party has become. If they pull the trigger on this, and set aside the voters for the will of their internal elites, they will lose everything.
This is because the base of the Republican party is middle America, and middle America won't accept this. The success of the Gingrich campaign to date is predicated on their hatred of the party elites. Deny them the power to vote for their leadership and their representatives, and they will come looking for heads.
Perhaps that is for the best. What we need is a genuinely populist revolt against the political class, and the removal of all those who rest in easy seats of power. Perhaps in the aftermath of what was once the Republican party, we can build a movement that will break the chains of eighty years of submission to the state, to the powerful, and to the guidance of those said to be wiser than we.
Wergeld
Can we agree that, if a man kills someone's family pet over a political campaign, and that man is later hunted down and killed, we will all pledge not to convict the killer of any crime if asked to serve on the jury?
Living in bubbles
Charles Murray has a new book out, and an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal summarizing its argument. He maintains that the richest and the poorest Americans are more isolated from the rest of their culture than they were 50 years ago. He suggests that, for their own benefit, they'd both do well to break out. To the inhabitants of the decaying low-income, low-education areas, he recommends:
There remains a core of civic virtue and involvement in working-class America that could make headway against its problems if the people who are trying to do the right things get the reinforcement they need—not in the form of government assistance, but in validation of the values and standards they continue to uphold. The best thing that the new upper class can do to provide that reinforcement is to drop its condescending "nonjudgmentalism." Married, educated people who work hard and conscientiously raise their kids shouldn't hesitate to voice their disapproval of those who defy these norms. When it comes to marriage and the work ethic, the new upper class must start preaching what it practices.To the sheltered inhabitants of the "SuperZIPs," those giant gated communities near New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and San Francisco, he recommends rethinking their priorities:
Here are some propositions that might guide them: Life sequestered from anybody not like yourself tends to be self-limiting. Places to live in which the people around you have no problems that need cooperative solutions tend to be sterile. America outside the enclaves of the new upper class is still a wonderful place, filled with smart, interesting, entertaining people. If you're not part of that America, you've stripped yourself of much of what makes being American special.Most people won't listen to Mr. Murray. In order to strip out results that can be explained by ethnicity or racism, he looks strictly at statistics relating to white people. His ideas in this new book, like the ones in the past several, will therefore be dismissed as racism.
Something like the same sorting trend was described in Bill Bishop's 2009 "The Big Sort," a book that I found unsatisfying. Bishop was persuasive in his statistics about the clumping of like-minded communities, as revealed in fine-grained analysis of changing voting habits over a number of election cycles. Unfortunately, he didn't seem to know what to make of the data, other than to bemoan the increasing difficulty of civil discussions about deep political disagreements. Also, while he thoroughly understood why nice people would naturally congregate in progressive neighborhoods in his own in Austin, Texas, he seemed a little bemused about what all those Americans in red precincts could be thinking.
Mr. Murray, in contrast, has done a lot of analysis over several decades about how much more efficiently our education system now works to sort out Americans by I.Q. I was surprised to read (in "The Bell Curve"), for instance, how relatively recently the Ivy Leagues began moving toward a fairly strict meritocracy. Before 1960, they demanded a moderate minimum level of scholasticism and then mostly sorted by money and class. Back then, the brightest students from flyover country were far more likely to attend local schools and stay in their home towns performing a variety of jobs, rather than gravitate to Wall Street or the Mayo Clinic as they tend to do today.
Our neighborhood is very mixed in education and income. We like it that way.
Cruise liner
The Net brims with explanations of how Romney could have blown South Carolina, but as usual my favorite comes from Mark Steyn:
P.S. -- but I'll still vote for him if he wins the nomination. A.B.O.
Why is the stump speech so awful? “I believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that’s the America millions of Americans believe in. That’s the America I love.” Mitt paid some guy to write this insipid pap. And he paid others to approve it. Not only is it bland and generic, it’s lethal to him in a way that it wouldn’t be to Gingrich or Perry or Bachmann or Paul because it plays to his caricature — as a synthetic, stage-managed hollow man of no fixed beliefs. And, when Ron Paul’s going on about “fiat money” and Newt’s brimming with specifics on everything (he was great on the pipeline last night), Mitt’s generalities are awfully condescending: The finely calibrated inoffensiveness is kind of offensive. . . . Mitt has a ton of consultants, and not one of them thought he needed a credible answer on Bain or taxes? For a guy running as a chief exec applying proven private-sector solutions, his campaign looks awfully like an unreformable government bureaucracy: big, bloated, overstaffed, burning money, slow to react, and all but impossible to change.Well, if he loses the nomination, maybe Romney can shoot for EU president.
P.S. -- but I'll still vote for him if he wins the nomination. A.B.O.
Rainfall
Due to the torrential downpours of the last several days, we've been without phone or Internet since Saturday. It's working currently, but it's also still raining, so we'll see how long it lasts! The rain has also made some of the local roads impassable, meaning that I've had the interesting experience of being entirely shut off for the world for a few days.
Did I miss anything?
Did I miss anything?
Crazy
Cassandra reminds me in the post below that it's been too long since I did something really wrong. A man has to sin once in a while, or else he'll get to feeling self-righteous, which is the worse sin than the sin he put off.
So here. It's for the health of our souls.
You think that's bad? Try this:
So here. It's for the health of our souls.
You think that's bad? Try this:
An Interesting Day for Republicans
It looks like Newt Gingrich is about to have his best day on the campaign trail...
...and also his worst.
It's rare to get so many big stories all at once. It's hard to say how it will shake out. Here are a few possibilities:
1) Gingrich is right to say that his marital problems are old news with voters, and the endorsements of his former rival and the 100 TEA Party figures push him over the top in SC. As the new consensus TEA Party candidate, he goes on to challenge Romney with the solid backing of the more conservative wing of voters.
2) Republican voters don't like people who screw around with their marriages, meaning that today's new allegations sink Gingrich. Herman Cain shakes his head in sad sympathy as Gingrich is destroyed by the allegations.
(As to which: Why is the headline that he asked for "an open marriage"? The arrangement is hardly unheard of, especially among the rich and powerful; surely if he had honestly approached his wife with his feelings, and accepted her firm "no," we would take this as a minor sin -- or, these days, even just a quirk -- brought on by a robust nature. The problems facing Gingrich are that he got around to asking only after he'd already begun enjoying an 'open marriage'; and that, rather than accepting "no," he divorced his second wife for his third.)
There are three sub-cases:
2a) Gingrich's fall, just as conservative sentiment had lined up behind him, collapses conservative morale and allows Romney to walk to the nomination.
2b) Gingrich's falling numbers causes him to bow out of the race, endorsing Romney as a way to salvage what he can for his political future with the Republican establishment. While many of his supporters will never accept Romney, enough follow his lead to end the nomination contest.
2c) Conservatives swap their allegiance to the last non-Romney in the race, Rick Santorum, who was just announced to have actually won Iowa after all. Only three states having voted so far, there remains a real race for the nomination.
So, the first breaking point is whether we get scenario (1) or one of the sub-cases of (2). We'll know that pretty soon. If it's (1), Santorum -- who seems the best of the remaining candidates to me -- probably has no chance of success. If it's (2), and Gingrich endorses Romney, Santorum also probably cannot overcome the combined weight at this point. If it's (2) and Gingrich does not endorse Romney, we'll see Romney win anyway unless there is a quick and decisive shift to Santorum. Even then, he'll be under significant disadvantages of money and establishment support; but perhaps he can make a fight of it there.
Sadly, none of that is in Santorum's hands -- as they say in the NFL, at this point he does not control his own fate.
...and also his worst.
It's rare to get so many big stories all at once. It's hard to say how it will shake out. Here are a few possibilities:
1) Gingrich is right to say that his marital problems are old news with voters, and the endorsements of his former rival and the 100 TEA Party figures push him over the top in SC. As the new consensus TEA Party candidate, he goes on to challenge Romney with the solid backing of the more conservative wing of voters.
2) Republican voters don't like people who screw around with their marriages, meaning that today's new allegations sink Gingrich. Herman Cain shakes his head in sad sympathy as Gingrich is destroyed by the allegations.
(As to which: Why is the headline that he asked for "an open marriage"? The arrangement is hardly unheard of, especially among the rich and powerful; surely if he had honestly approached his wife with his feelings, and accepted her firm "no," we would take this as a minor sin -- or, these days, even just a quirk -- brought on by a robust nature. The problems facing Gingrich are that he got around to asking only after he'd already begun enjoying an 'open marriage'; and that, rather than accepting "no," he divorced his second wife for his third.)
There are three sub-cases:
2a) Gingrich's fall, just as conservative sentiment had lined up behind him, collapses conservative morale and allows Romney to walk to the nomination.
2b) Gingrich's falling numbers causes him to bow out of the race, endorsing Romney as a way to salvage what he can for his political future with the Republican establishment. While many of his supporters will never accept Romney, enough follow his lead to end the nomination contest.
2c) Conservatives swap their allegiance to the last non-Romney in the race, Rick Santorum, who was just announced to have actually won Iowa after all. Only three states having voted so far, there remains a real race for the nomination.
So, the first breaking point is whether we get scenario (1) or one of the sub-cases of (2). We'll know that pretty soon. If it's (1), Santorum -- who seems the best of the remaining candidates to me -- probably has no chance of success. If it's (2), and Gingrich endorses Romney, Santorum also probably cannot overcome the combined weight at this point. If it's (2) and Gingrich does not endorse Romney, we'll see Romney win anyway unless there is a quick and decisive shift to Santorum. Even then, he'll be under significant disadvantages of money and establishment support; but perhaps he can make a fight of it there.
Sadly, none of that is in Santorum's hands -- as they say in the NFL, at this point he does not control his own fate.
Troll Valley
I have just finished reading Lars Walker's Troll Valley, which is available for the Kindle and for the Nook readers. Since we have the benefit of Mr. Walker's company, I really ought just to suggest that you read it, in the hope that we might have the pleasure of all discussing it together.
The book treats the integration of myth into modern life: both the pagan mythos of Norway and Norwegian immigrants, and Christian myth. That this is meant to be of contemporary interest is demonstrated by the "present day" characters who frame the book, but the action takes place mostly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
In the story, a child with a fairy godmother grows up to lose sight of her, and the myths that guided his childhood. In the process he becomes a vile and unpleasant man, under the guidance of a mother who becomes ever more domineering and destructive to her own family. The mother, actually, is one of the most interesting characters. She embraces the prohibition movement allegedly out of a desire to "do good," but over time we see that her real interest is in control. She uses prohibition to force her husband's father into submission within his own house; then, she moves into new fields of progressive thought -- eugenics, vegetarianism, and the lot -- to force the old man out of the house entirely. Finding sparks of resistance remaining in her eldest son and husband, she cranks up the embrace of these intolerant philosophies until she has driven everyone out, and can bask in her role as a woman who has sacrificed everything for Prohibition and Temperance.
There is a wider lesson to her example. A family home is like a broader human community in that it has rules that establish a way of life, and under that way of life a community is possible. We see in the early chapters how the traditions of Norwegian families at Yuletide sustained a broad community through hard work. It is at that feast that the mother first uses her power to force a change in the rules, in her interest and against the interests of others. It is by forcing continual alterations of the rules of life that she destroys the community within the house, so that finally no one can live with her at all.
Each of these rules is meant to represent moral progress, but each of them destroys the living community in which human kindness is possible. The living spirit of the community is broken by the rules themselves, and in the climax of the book -- when the mother tries to wield her church group to destroy a young woman who dared to taste beer and dance at a wedding -- we find the broader lesson. That part, though, you must read for yourself.
I will say no more at this time, but if you are interested, I would be happy for us to reconvene to discuss it once everyone who wishes to join the discussion has had the time to read it. If you would like to join in, let me know in the comments and we'll arrange a time: hopefully Mr. Walker will be so kind as to join in our discussion as well.
What's Killing Manufacturing?
Via D29, an answer that may surprise:
“Wages?” I ask.
His dark eyebrows arch as if I were clueless, then he explains the reality of running a fab -- an electronics fabrication factory. “Wages have nothing to do with it. The total wage burden in a fab is 10 percent. When I move a fab to Asia, I might lose 10 percent of my product just in theft.”
I’m startled. “So what is it?”
“Everything else. Taxes, infrastructure, workforce training, permits, health care."
...
Take tax policy. Historically, manufacturing was the high-wage sector of the economy -- manufacturing jobs still pay about 30 percent more than service jobs in education and health care -- so tax policy milked it. Manufacturing companies, in the old days, actually paid the corporate income taxes that many others avoided. Commodity producers (oil, timber, agribusiness) lobbied for, and received, federal subsidies, with investors in oil and gas wells simply voiding corporate income taxes on the profits they earned. Banking, retail and services found their own ways around taxes, often by offshoring intellectual property or shifting profit to tax havens. Eventually, manufacturers figured out how to duck taxes as well -- by going overseas.
Yet it isn’t just taxes. Wind turbines, for example, are enormous, heavy and expensive to transport -- so there is a big advantage to fabricating them close to the installation point. But consider the predicament of the Spanish wind manufacturer Gamesa Corporacion Tecnologica SA after it began operations in Pennsylvania. Because the George W. Bush administration’s Department of Transportation wouldn’t establish uniform standards for transporting the enormous turbine blades, each state followed its own rules. Whenever a blade crossed a state line it had to be unloaded by a construction crane and then reloaded to conform to the next state’s specifications.
Against SOPA
The blackout is in support of the anti-SOPA movement.
An article describes the issue:
An article describes the issue:
For example if you post a link to the story on your Facebook wall. Under SOPA, all of Facebook can be blocked. To avoid this fate, Facebook would be responsible for policing the copyright status of every piece of content its users post. The same happens with search engines, which to avoid being shut down, Google and Bing would be responsible for policing the copyright ownership of every piece of content they index.That includes Blogger too, of course: we could easily find ourselves on the wrong side of this, simply because some other blog on Blogger posted something that was copywritten. How likely is that? I'd have to say the probability approaches certainty.
A Poet Looks at Africa
Eliza Griswold reports from the edge of Europe, an island in the Mediterranean called Lampedusa. It's an interesting piece, if only stylistically -- being a poet rather than a journalist, Ms. Griswold thinks nothing of devoting an entire paragraph to the question, "What am I doing here?" That liberty is a strength.
The name Misericordia is familiar. I realize I heard it last week when I was with fellow Civitella artists touring the Umbrian town of Sansepolcro. There, in the famous Piero della Francesca triptych, a hooded man kneels at the base of the cross. He looks like a hangman, but in fact he’s a member of this group, Misericordia. While they were doing charity work among the sick and dying, they wore black masks to protect against disease, and to protect their identity so they couldn’t be thanked. I imagine Luciforo in his yellow hazmat suit and a hood.
“Luciforo, what have you seen that you can’t forget?” I ask.
“One night, I watched mothers throw their babies into the sea. They popped up like corks,” he says.
The Romney Oppo Book
By coincidence, it appears that the McCain campaign's oppo book on Romney has been released to the web. Given our ongoing discussion, it might serve as a useful source of information. While it is, of course, an opposition book -- and therefore designed to be harmful rather than sympathetic -- a good oppo book must be tight enough that the candidate relying on it won't look foolish.
One for the Gibbet
It is possible to ask questions about the recent shipwreck, and we may choose to draw wider lessons or to resist that temptation. One narrow lesson, though, is clear enough: the captain should hang.
The chaos and the deaths, whatever else they are, represent a failure of leadership. They are the direct result of an officer abandoning his post just at the moment when his post was most necessary. If we would have the order we desire in these emergencies, we must enforce discipline on those charged with maintaining that order. The old standard that a captain goes down with his ship had a purpose; but even if we no longer wish to maintain that standard, the captain surely should not be the first man off of the ship, nor should we suffer him to refuse to return to his post.
Chesterton had King Alfred speak of these things to the people who came to him, asking that the king help them restore the order of the world. Alfred replied in a metaphor, using the plucking of the White Horse to explain how all civilization depends on constantly renewing and reinforcing the old order.
The chaos and the deaths, whatever else they are, represent a failure of leadership. They are the direct result of an officer abandoning his post just at the moment when his post was most necessary. If we would have the order we desire in these emergencies, we must enforce discipline on those charged with maintaining that order. The old standard that a captain goes down with his ship had a purpose; but even if we no longer wish to maintain that standard, the captain surely should not be the first man off of the ship, nor should we suffer him to refuse to return to his post.
Chesterton had King Alfred speak of these things to the people who came to him, asking that the king help them restore the order of the world. Alfred replied in a metaphor, using the plucking of the White Horse to explain how all civilization depends on constantly renewing and reinforcing the old order.
"And though skies alter and empires melt,
This word shall still be true:
If we would have the horse of old,
Scour ye the horse anew.
"One time I followed a dancing star
That seemed to sing and nod,
And ring upon earth all evil's knell;
But now I wot if ye scour not well
Red rust shall grow on God's great bell
And grass in the streets of God."
Of Wrath and Goodness
It is the wise man who knows that the answer to a contemporary puzzle is often best sought in the ancients.
To say that it is appealing does not go far enough: it is necessary, and it is the hardest thing in the world. The reason to praise Hector is not just that he got it right, but that getting it right is so very difficult to do.
In the Western heroic tradition, the paragon of the humane warrior is Homer's Hector, prince of the Trojans. He is a fierce fighter: On one particular day, no Greek can stand up to him; his valor puts the whole Greek army to rout. Even on an unexceptional day, Hector can stand up to Ajax, the Greek giant, and trade blow for blow with him. Yet as fierce as Hector can be, he is also humane. He is a loving son to his aged parents, a husband who talks on equal terms with his wife, Andromache, and a tender-hearted father. He and King Priam are the only ones in Troy who treat Helen, the ostensible cause of the war, with kindness.
One of the most memorable scenes in The Iliad comes when Hector, fresh from the battlefield, strides toward his boy, Astyanax. The child screams with fright at the ferocious form encased in armor, covered with dust and gore. Hector understands his child in an instant and takes off his helmet, with its giant horsehair plume, then bends over, picks his boy up and dandles him, while Andromache looks on happily. Astyanax—who will soon be pitched off the battlements of Troy when the Greeks conquer the city—looks up at his father and laughs in delight.
The scene concentrates what is most appealing about Hector—and about a certain kind of athlete and warrior. Hector can turn it off. He can stop being the manslayer that he needs to be out on the windy plains of Troy and become a humane husband and father.
To say that it is appealing does not go far enough: it is necessary, and it is the hardest thing in the world. The reason to praise Hector is not just that he got it right, but that getting it right is so very difficult to do.
Reductionism
Theodore Dalrymple writes of Belgium, in a way that sounds very familiar:
As I write, Belgium has not had a central government for more than 500 days. While I must admit, as an occasional visitor to that country, that the difference between Belgium with and Belgium without a central government is not apparent on casual inspection, this interregnum may take the theory of limited government too far.
The reason that Belgium has lacked a government for so long is that the country is divided into two populations (actually three, but the third is too small to count) with incompatible politics: French-speaking Wallonia and Dutch-speaking Flanders. Belgium is officially bilingual, yet you see not a word of Dutch in Wallonia and not a word of French in Flanders. The division could not be starker if barbed wire separated the two provinces. Only in the capital, Brussels, does one find any concession to bilingualism.
Historical and economic factors deepen the division between the two regions. Wallonia, though it contained a minority of Belgium’s population, long dominated its culture and economy. Even the Flemish upper class spoke French at home, while Dutch was the language of the peasantry; until recently, Belgian schools forbade children from speaking Dutch in class. With the decline of Wallonia’s coal and steel industries and the economic rise of Flanders, however, the pattern of dominance changed. Flanders went from being the poor relation to being the rich one, albeit with something of an inferiority complex. In the process, it started to make large transfer payments to Wallonia, which suffered from comparatively high unemployment. Such payments rarely promote goodwill between groups. Resentment is common among both the donors, who harbor suspicions that the recipients are exploiting them, and the recipients, who indulge in mental contortions to explain their dependency away.
It is no surprise, therefore, that the largest political parties in Flanders are either nationalist or free-market; both philosophies lead to reducing or stopping the transfer payments. It is equally unsurprising that the largest political party in Wallonia is socialist and wants the payments to continue or increase. The Wallonian socialist party’s patronage powers in its territory are almost feudal in nature and extent; the last thing that the party of social change wants is actual change.
If not quite deterministic, Dalrymple's description is reductionist: the difference between free-marketeers and socialists boils down mostly to which side of transfer payments they find themselves. The principles follow the economics as nicely, on this example, as they ever did in Marx's theory.
I take us all to be a bunch of free-marketeers and nationalists; I assume that most of us are also not receiving any transfer payments from the government. Are we in the same boat as the people of Flanders -- thinking ourselves principled, but really driven by rice-bowl issues? Are our opponents in the same boat as the people of Wallonia, having concocted an idea of "fairness" and "justice" that is really limited to a desire to be paid out of someone else's wallet?
Both sides have elaborate arguments to the contrary. Dalrymple's suggestion is that these arguments are not rational, but rationalizations. What do you think?
The Fat Man
Since I spend most of my time with ancient and medieval writings, I'm sometimes a little surprised when I run across what contemporary thinkers take to be an interesting puzzle. From the Stanford Law Review, "The Fat Man":
1) Party X is going to be killed by Party Y unless Party Y is killed first.
2) Party Y is doomed anyway.
This case brings out two issues that are important to ideas about the use of force. The first is that innocence is sometimes not a purely moral issue: sometimes innocence is practical. The baby is surely morally innocent, but practically the baby (or the Fat Man) is going to kill someone. Thus, we can consider using force against a kind of target that normally would be exempt from consideration.
The second is one that any ancient thinker would have understood: doom changes moral calculus. We don't have a case here where we can save Party Y. We are either allowing them to die, or killing them ourselves. The outcome for them is not different. Thus, we do our moral work on the issues that we can affect.
Taking action against such a target is a tragedy, but it may also be a duty.
* The footnote here says that "theories that rest on moral culpability would not justify shooting down an airliner carrying 100 innocent passengers and 3 hijackers, when the hijackers intend to fly into a building, killing everyone on board, and hundreds or thousands more on the ground. This is not to say that shooting the airline down cannot be justified; the calculus relies on a combination of consequentialist body-counting and double effect." But this is not correct: there is no need for a "combination" of this sort, because one of the components of the medieval doctrine of double effect is proportionality. Modern consequentialist thinking does not need to be added to make sense of the calculus; St. Thomas Aquinas established standards for dealing with that aspect of the question.
Consider one of the most famous hypotheticals on the subject of self-defense: the Fat Man puzzle. In Fat Man, you find yourself in a small boat at the bottom of a chasm. Although there are many versions, what they have in common is that an enormously fat individual is hurtling down from the cliff. You have no idea why he is falling—whether, say, he jumped or was pushed. All you know for sure is that if he hits you, you die. You have no space to maneuver, and no time to escape. Fortunately, you are armed with your trusty Fat Man gun. You can pull the trigger and vaporize him, thereby saving yourself.
Theorists of self-defense usually posit that killing another to protect the self must be based either on the status of the attacker (e.g., enemy soldier in war) or what the attacker is doing (e.g., actively shooting at you). The Fat Man problem usefully divorces the justification for violent self-defense from the motive of the assailant. Robert Nozick’s original version of the problem stipulated that Fat Man has been pushed, and is therefore morally innocent; thus theories of self-defense that depend on what the attacker is doing (e.g., is he engaged in aggression?) cannot justify the use of the vaporizer.*
And yet the Fat Man problem is in other ways too easy. Augustine, to take an example, would surely have rejected the use of the vaporizer gun, on the ground that your life is not intrinsically more valuable than the Fat Man’s. Liberalism’s refusal to weigh lives against each other also makes calculation difficult. Yet I find that my students have little difficulty with the problem, answering as Nozick intended: they are by and large perfectly willing to blow Fat Man to smithereens to save themselves.This situation is exactly identical to a non-theoretical problem that we've discussed here just recently: the case of abortion where a zygote is wrongly implanted in the mother. Without needing the machinery of a "Fat Man Gun," we can see that the moral issues are fairly straightforward:
1) Party X is going to be killed by Party Y unless Party Y is killed first.
2) Party Y is doomed anyway.
This case brings out two issues that are important to ideas about the use of force. The first is that innocence is sometimes not a purely moral issue: sometimes innocence is practical. The baby is surely morally innocent, but practically the baby (or the Fat Man) is going to kill someone. Thus, we can consider using force against a kind of target that normally would be exempt from consideration.
The second is one that any ancient thinker would have understood: doom changes moral calculus. We don't have a case here where we can save Party Y. We are either allowing them to die, or killing them ourselves. The outcome for them is not different. Thus, we do our moral work on the issues that we can affect.
Taking action against such a target is a tragedy, but it may also be a duty.
* The footnote here says that "theories that rest on moral culpability would not justify shooting down an airliner carrying 100 innocent passengers and 3 hijackers, when the hijackers intend to fly into a building, killing everyone on board, and hundreds or thousands more on the ground. This is not to say that shooting the airline down cannot be justified; the calculus relies on a combination of consequentialist body-counting and double effect." But this is not correct: there is no need for a "combination" of this sort, because one of the components of the medieval doctrine of double effect is proportionality. Modern consequentialist thinking does not need to be added to make sense of the calculus; St. Thomas Aquinas established standards for dealing with that aspect of the question.
One of Those Ideas...
So there's this woman in New Zealand who decided to answer her bills by auctioning off part of her backside:
Breaking Headline: Backside Tattoo Auction Sparks Copycat Craze!
Some ideas the world would have been better off without.
Bids on a cheeky online auction, giving the winner the chance to tattoo an image of their choice on a Lower Hutt woman's buttock, have topped the $10,000 reserve price with a week still to run. Tina Beznec is selling a 9cm by 9cm space of skin on her Trade Me auction "YOUR tattoo on my Bum!!" after being made redundant twice in the past year....
Ms Beznec suggests the canvas is the perfect place for a marriage proposal, business promotion, or an artist wanting to share a design.
She is promising the winner's idea - no matter how outrageous - will end up on her rear.'Well, that's just a terrible idea,' you may be saying, 'but the world is full of quirky individuals, and one such example is no reason to..."
Breaking Headline: Backside Tattoo Auction Sparks Copycat Craze!
Some ideas the world would have been better off without.
Wicked, Wicked Woman
Cassandra has apparently decided to begin posting again, in spite of her many previous threats to be done with it forever. You'd have thought she might have mentioned it to us!
150 Conservative and Evangelical Leaders Endorse Santorum
This has to be very encouraging for the Santorum campaign, and also for any of us whose hope for 2012 lies in consolidating conservative opinion behind a single candidate. While not an "evangelical" myself, and not much given to joining organizations of any kind if I can help it, it's good from my perspective if it helps move people in one direction.
Mr. Santorum hadn't seemed to me to be one of the serious candidates until Iowa, but I wonder to what degree that judgment was improper. It was made based on the fact that no one seemed to take him seriously, plus his infamous Google problem. The latter, though, was a work of viciousness by a character of low morals who ought not to be granted a veto over anything. The former is an unfortunate necessity of democratic politics, because no matter how good your candidate is, he can't win if no one will vote for him. (Not that this usually stops me; I can't recall the last time I voted for someone who won a primary election.)
So, Santorum? He gave a good speech at the Iowa convention, and since I have been paying attention, I like what I see of him. I won't go as far as Mr. David Brooks in endorsing his vision, but I do agree that we need to think about a system that looks out for the interest of those Americans who play by the rules and work hard. Santorum clearly believes in such a system, though it is worth noting that he rejected Gingrich's bashing of Bain capital, and truly groups like Bain are a necessity in a free market economy. Gov. Perry wasn't wrong to call them "vulture capitalists," though -- the positive contribution they make is very similar to the work that vultures do for the world. Any man who spends enough time in the wild comes to like vultures.
I think I could vote for Santorum, all things considered. We have to choose from what is on the table. Of those options, this may be the best.
Mr. Santorum hadn't seemed to me to be one of the serious candidates until Iowa, but I wonder to what degree that judgment was improper. It was made based on the fact that no one seemed to take him seriously, plus his infamous Google problem. The latter, though, was a work of viciousness by a character of low morals who ought not to be granted a veto over anything. The former is an unfortunate necessity of democratic politics, because no matter how good your candidate is, he can't win if no one will vote for him. (Not that this usually stops me; I can't recall the last time I voted for someone who won a primary election.)
So, Santorum? He gave a good speech at the Iowa convention, and since I have been paying attention, I like what I see of him. I won't go as far as Mr. David Brooks in endorsing his vision, but I do agree that we need to think about a system that looks out for the interest of those Americans who play by the rules and work hard. Santorum clearly believes in such a system, though it is worth noting that he rejected Gingrich's bashing of Bain capital, and truly groups like Bain are a necessity in a free market economy. Gov. Perry wasn't wrong to call them "vulture capitalists," though -- the positive contribution they make is very similar to the work that vultures do for the world. Any man who spends enough time in the wild comes to like vultures.
I think I could vote for Santorum, all things considered. We have to choose from what is on the table. Of those options, this may be the best.
Another Take on Abortion
With h/t to Power Line, this image makes one aspect of the question pretty clear. Regardless of where one falls on the abortion question, the grandparents have a large, if not decisive role.
Eric Hines
What were those Taliban doing in those Marines' latrine anyway?
To put this in a little perspective, In WWII, Marines were boiling the flesh off of Japanese skulls and sending them home to their girl friends.
To put this in a little perspective, In WWII, Marines were boiling the flesh off of Japanese skulls and sending them home to their girl friends.
A Stinging Rebuke
It's not every day that you see our Supreme Court decide an issue 9-0. On the other hand, given the merits of the case, any other split would have been quite alarming. Though the case revolves around a mundane question of just why a woman was fired -- for cause or for health -- the EEOC's position on what they were prepared to recognize as a minister was outrageous.
SCOTUSblog notes that Alito's separate opinion was joined by Kagan, which is another remarkable feature of this decision.
SCOTUSblog notes that Alito's separate opinion was joined by Kagan, which is another remarkable feature of this decision.
Good Point
The "Young Americans Foundation" reports:
Government policies, meanwhile, have managed both to over-regulate and under-regulate the economy, resulting in the massive unemployment. Regulations on industry and manufacturing have made it far, far harder (and far, far more expensive) to open a new and productive business. Under-regulation of financial gamesters, as well as political pressure from Congress, allowed for the inflation of the housing bubble.
So, yes, if you're young, government is very much your problem. Any government spending is coming out of your hide, as is the debt created by the past generations. Think carefully about what you really want the government to do.
Young people today face a three-pronged attack on their financial security—educational debt from their past, unemployment in the present, and a future plagued by the burden of massive government debt. The government is largely responsible for all three problems.The one that might not be obvious is student loan debt, but government policies have also led to massive increases in it. This is both by making such lending (to youth without capital) easier by subsidizing the process; and also, at the state level, by massively increasing tuition in order to suck up every dime that the Federal government was willing to help the kids borrow.
Government policies, meanwhile, have managed both to over-regulate and under-regulate the economy, resulting in the massive unemployment. Regulations on industry and manufacturing have made it far, far harder (and far, far more expensive) to open a new and productive business. Under-regulation of financial gamesters, as well as political pressure from Congress, allowed for the inflation of the housing bubble.
So, yes, if you're young, government is very much your problem. Any government spending is coming out of your hide, as is the debt created by the past generations. Think carefully about what you really want the government to do.
Perhaps Here Too
We should be startled if we were quietly reading a prosaic modern novel, and somewhere in the middle it turned without warning into a fairy tale. We should be surprised if one of the spinsters in Cranford, after tidily sweeping the room with a broom, were to fly away on a broomstick. Our attention would be arrested if one of Jane Austen's young ladies who had just met a dragoon were to walk a little further and meet a dragon. Yet something very like this extraordinary transition takes place in British history at the end of the purely Roman period. We have to do with rational and almost mechanical accounts of encampment and engineering, of a busy bureaucracy and occasional frontier wars, quite modern in their efficiency and inefficiency; and then all of a sudden we are reading of wandering bells and wizard lances, of wars against men as tall as trees or as short as toadstools. The soldier of civilization is no longer fighting with Goths but with goblins; the land becomes a labyrinth of faërie towns unknown to history; and scholars can suggest but cannot explain how a Roman ruler or a Welsh chieftain towers up in the twilight as the awful and unbegotten Arthur. The scientific age comes first and the mythological age after it.From Chesterton's A Short History of England.
St. Joan of Arc
Another event I missed by a few days is Joan of Arc's 600th birthday. The link is to artwork done in her honor; here is Mark Twain's.
Old Hickory Said...
We're a few days late on this, but only a few. On 8 January 1815, American forces, largely militia, led by Andrew Jackson defeated elements of the most powerful military in the world.
It's a more interesting story than the famous song suggests:
That makes it sound like Jackson won in a walk, against an inept opponent. In fact the British forces were disciplined and supplied with artillery and rockets, and the fighting lasted half a month. It is only the remarkable disparity in casualties that make it seem, with hindsight, like an easy victory.
It's a more interesting story than the famous song suggests:
That makes it sound like Jackson won in a walk, against an inept opponent. In fact the British forces were disciplined and supplied with artillery and rockets, and the fighting lasted half a month. It is only the remarkable disparity in casualties that make it seem, with hindsight, like an easy victory.
It's Even Worse Over There Than We Feared
I've never heard of Ryan Air before, but it sounds like an Irish/European Southwest Airlines on steroids, relying on no-frills flights, unfashionable airports, and a uniform 737 fleet.Those of us who don't travel in Europe won't be able to take advantage of Ryan Air's many ten-quid flights. That doesn't mean we can't enjoy this guy tearing the European Commission a new one. H/t Maggie's Farm, which gave this talk the appropriate title: "Why the EU Will Never Again Ask an Actual Innovator to Speak at an Innovation Convention." His explanation of why Ryan Air charges a fee for your checked baggage is priceless.
Margaret Thatcher gave the airline one of its early breaks. The entertainingly snide Wiki article gives detail about the wide variety of preposterous suits that have been brought against this innovative airline, which got one of its early breaks from Margaret Thatcher.
The airline's own website is here.
It's Probably Wrong To Enjoy This So Much
I've got a friend who really, really hates Tim Tebow. I've been enjoying watching him foam at the mouth at various points during the season. He's a huge Broncos fan too, from Denver -- it's really Tebow that he hates, hates, hates.
So, naturally, I just sent him an email.
So, naturally, I just sent him an email.
Woosh...
...and there goes the Christmas tree, which we left up a little longer than usual this year. I'd normally make some remarks about a long, cold and joyless winter ahead; but lately it's been more like March than January. Daffodils are up, and the frogs are singing by night. I feel like I ought to be able to jump on the motorcycle and take off for wherever with tent and Bowie knife, as the blood suggests in the springtime.
Speaking of Women and Jews...
...which we were doing both in the last post and in the recent post on Medieval Islamic poetry, Haaretz reports on Jewish prayer from 1471. Just to keep the accounting clear, though both are "medieval" these prayers are several hundred years later than the period in Spanish history in which female Jewish poets were absent (it's also 246 years after Magna Carta, which is to say, a little longer than America has existed as a nation):
In her better-known writings, Arendt speaks sharply against those who allow themselves to be defined by others, and brightly of those who seize upon the categories of their birth and use them to construct an identity that is theirs alone. Thus, in The Origins of Totalitarianism (pp 81-5 in this edition), she has hard words for "inverts" (i.e., homosexuals) and "Jewish" men who hid in salons; but very high praise for Proust and Disraeli, who each took one of those qualities and constructed something worthy of a true individual. In Disraeli's case, for example, he was in no way satisfied with being 'Jew-ish' -- he insisted on being a Jew, and in a way that was his very own.
Her position thus guards against the ravages of our modern identity politics, in which people are taught to think of themselves as members of a group -- she wants you to take whatever your genetic or cultural identity happens to be, and find a way to do something new and unique. The quality of being Jewish or an invert, she says in OT, is "meaningless" when it is a way of putting people into groups: it can only be valuable if it flourishes as a part of the character of an individual of worth.
That isn't the limit of her insight, however. In her letters, she expressed a profound sense of gratitude for every kind of human difference that is truly, genuinely impossible to bridge. It is my belief that you can find her reasoning for this in her horror at the Nazi movement -- which she encountered first hand, arrested by the Gestapo and later spending time in a concentration camp in France. She writes of how Hitler was so proud of the SS for turning a thousand men into 'examples of the same type.' That there are differences we cannot bridge is therefore something to be grateful for: they provide sources of resistance to tyranny.
More than that, though, such differences also provide a unique perspective. This is crucial to our ability to believe in our own perceptions of the world -- after all, our sense perceptions are often wrong. Our eyes may fail us, or we may not be sure we heard correctly. It is in hearing or seeing our perceptions confirmed by an independent observer, another person, that we gain confidence in our impressions. The more independent the observer -- that is, the more genuine and deep the differences between them and us -- the more confidence we can have from their confirmation of our thoughts and impressions.
For that reason, it is right to feel gratitude for being a woman and not a man, and it is right to feel gratitude for being a man and not a woman. It is right to feel gratitude for any difference given to us that cannot be bridged. These things make us stronger, in that they give us access to parts of the world that our own perspective does not, and in that they can help us know how much weight it is safe to place on our own perceptions.
This -- Arendt calls it "plurality" -- is a strength that arises from human nature. Therefore, it is a virtue: one of the absolute ones. It is a virtue for anyone, and a weakness in those who will not have it.
According to the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), the 600-year-old siddur replaces the traditional prayer recited by women, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, Master of Universe for Creating me According to your Will”, with “Blessed Are You Lord our God, Master of the Universe, For You made Me a Woman and Not a Man.”
The prayer offered by the 1471 siddur stands as a clear counterpart to the morning prayer recited daily by observant Jewish men: "Blessed are You For Not Creating Me a Woman".The article runs with this in several directions, but let me offer something from a thinker -- who happens to have been both a woman and of Jewish extraction -- whose approach to this question strikes me as the right one. I'm speaking of Hannah Arendt, who wrote quite a bit about the differences that define us. She has a pretty sophisticated approach, so bear with me as I try to explain it, because I may not convey it quite right the first time.
In her better-known writings, Arendt speaks sharply against those who allow themselves to be defined by others, and brightly of those who seize upon the categories of their birth and use them to construct an identity that is theirs alone. Thus, in The Origins of Totalitarianism (pp 81-5 in this edition), she has hard words for "inverts" (i.e., homosexuals) and "Jewish" men who hid in salons; but very high praise for Proust and Disraeli, who each took one of those qualities and constructed something worthy of a true individual. In Disraeli's case, for example, he was in no way satisfied with being 'Jew-ish' -- he insisted on being a Jew, and in a way that was his very own.
Her position thus guards against the ravages of our modern identity politics, in which people are taught to think of themselves as members of a group -- she wants you to take whatever your genetic or cultural identity happens to be, and find a way to do something new and unique. The quality of being Jewish or an invert, she says in OT, is "meaningless" when it is a way of putting people into groups: it can only be valuable if it flourishes as a part of the character of an individual of worth.
That isn't the limit of her insight, however. In her letters, she expressed a profound sense of gratitude for every kind of human difference that is truly, genuinely impossible to bridge. It is my belief that you can find her reasoning for this in her horror at the Nazi movement -- which she encountered first hand, arrested by the Gestapo and later spending time in a concentration camp in France. She writes of how Hitler was so proud of the SS for turning a thousand men into 'examples of the same type.' That there are differences we cannot bridge is therefore something to be grateful for: they provide sources of resistance to tyranny.
More than that, though, such differences also provide a unique perspective. This is crucial to our ability to believe in our own perceptions of the world -- after all, our sense perceptions are often wrong. Our eyes may fail us, or we may not be sure we heard correctly. It is in hearing or seeing our perceptions confirmed by an independent observer, another person, that we gain confidence in our impressions. The more independent the observer -- that is, the more genuine and deep the differences between them and us -- the more confidence we can have from their confirmation of our thoughts and impressions.
For that reason, it is right to feel gratitude for being a woman and not a man, and it is right to feel gratitude for being a man and not a woman. It is right to feel gratitude for any difference given to us that cannot be bridged. These things make us stronger, in that they give us access to parts of the world that our own perspective does not, and in that they can help us know how much weight it is safe to place on our own perceptions.
This -- Arendt calls it "plurality" -- is a strength that arises from human nature. Therefore, it is a virtue: one of the absolute ones. It is a virtue for anyone, and a weakness in those who will not have it.
And Here I Thought I Was Old-Fashioned
House Bill 1580 is the product of such a brainstorming session this summer between three freshman House Republicans: Bob Kingsbury of Laconia, Tim Twombly of Nashua and Lucien Vita of Middleton. The eyebrow-raiser, set to be introduced when the Legislature reconvenes next month, requires legislation to find its origin in an English document crafted in 1215.
"All members of the general court proposing bills and resolutions addressing individual rights or liberties shall include a direct quote from the Magna Carta which sets forth the article from which the individual right or liberty is derived," is the bill's one sentence.
Can we start with getting them to cite the Constitution?
Some version of this concept might be a very good idea, although if you were going to pick one document the Magna Carta is probably not it. A large number of its provisions pertain to issues like scutage, dowries, and feudal relief payments. In general these no longer pertain to how we organize society (although perhaps we should reconsider the feudal system, which at least required that all recipients of government support provide the government with clear public services in return). There are also some disabilities for women and Jews that force us not to consider the Magna Carta as the be-all, end-all of our rights.
On the other hand, there's something wholesome about the idea of requiring the government to prove its claims. Rights language has been abused by those who favor an expansive government role (e.g., 'education is a right!', 'decent housing is a right!', 'health care is a right!', etc). If the Magna Carta is not sufficient by itself, it might serve as one of a list of documents that show a given liberty or right to be well-recognized and of long standing. The protection of rights and liberties of that sort ought to be one of our chief concerns.
For example, provisions 38-9 would be problematic for the administration's current policy toward assassination or indefinite detention of US citizens without trial:
In future no official shall place a man on trial upon his own unsupported statement, without producing credible witnesses to the truth of it.
No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.
These Are The Worst Pirates We've Ever Seen
Rear Adm. Craig S. Faller, who commands the carrier strike group, looked at the chart and radar images of the Sunshine’s location with something like disbelief. The Sunshine and the Stennis were only a few miles apart. “These might be the dumbest pirates ever,” he said.It proved a chance to rescue some Iranian fishermen -- a good deed freely rendered to a people who have probably been told to expect no such from us.
Santayana wrote of England at her height as the "sweet, just, boyish master," and -- though there were times and places when England was fierce, and her justice was administered without remorse -- there are many examples that prove his point. Much of what was said in honest praise then can be said in honest praise now, not of England alone, but of our combined navies operating to keep the sea lanes safe and free.
Shelob vs. the Sandworm
And glowing red eyes, to boot. Well, they're not actually huge (yet), but they are genetically modified hybrids of silkworms with spider genes added to make their silk stronger. I think the GM engineers added the glowing red eyes just to freak us out.Some commenters to this "Not Exactly Rocket Science" article raised the specter of escaped silkworm super-hybrids wreaking havoc in the natural world, only to be reassured that silkworms have been domesticated for so long they can't survive in the wild. Oh, sure: that's what they said about the lysine contingency.
We have some friends who raised silkworms long ago in California. They haven't tried it here in Texas; something about the food supply or the climate. Anyway, it sounds at least as wonderful as beekeeping, another seductive hobby. But now it seems my attention is to be diverted by the spiders, and I'm going to have to put my hands on Leslie Brunetta's "Spider Silk," which offers information about the fascinating proteins that make up this amazing substance. (Ha! It's available on Kindle, and I can have it instantly! -- as if I didn't already have a high enough pile of books to read.)
It was a touch of genius to get the silkworms to start spinning spider silk, because they produce their fibers in the more useful form of long, continuous strands wrapped around a cocoon, unlike the tangles favored by most spiders. Someone is even working on worm genes that will impregnate the modified silk with bacteriocides, so that it will make a better wound suture. Can elf-cloaks be far behind? Beanstalks?
Abortion Restrictions Up Substantially in 2011
It's interesting to me that the states continue to push this point, since SCOTUS has so often attempted to assert that almost no restrictions are acceptable. Nevertheless, I suppose every time you pass a law, someone has to go to the trouble of challenging it in court; perhaps over time they expect to convince the federal courts that an unrestricted access to abortion is not acceptable to the people of many states within the United States.
Also, some of these "restrictions" are just restrictions on who has to pay for abortions. Given the deep moral issues involved, it is surely reasonable to say that no one should be forced to contribute to abortion against their will. That means no taxpayer funding, and it also means that conscience exceptions ought to be thought reasonable. We often hear from the pro-choice party that a woman's right to make a decision on the morality of abortion for herself ought to be respected; but surely we ought also to respect the moral choices of others who are horrified by the practice, and not force them to enable, participate in, or fund what they regard as a killing of an innocent.
Of course, it's also problematic to suggest that a woman's right to choose should be unilateral; it runs up against the common sense notion that it is not wise to allow someone to be the judge in their own case. It is not that people mean to be unfair, or even think that they are judging unfairly; it is just that we all have unconscious tendencies to over-emphasize our interests when we are judging in our own cases. This is a well-known fact of human nature that applies to all people at all times; naturally it applies here as well.
Thus, even though I am sure that most women who go through this decision believe they are carefully judging the matter, it should neither be surprising nor controversial to suggest that these sub-conscious processes lead them to judge their own interests above those of the father or those of the child. The father may or may not want the child, but the child's interest will surely often be best served by being born even if it is then given up for adoption. Sadly, we find that all these new restrictions occur in a context in which too often abortion numbers remain at near record highs, and adoption referrals decline.
Also, some of these "restrictions" are just restrictions on who has to pay for abortions. Given the deep moral issues involved, it is surely reasonable to say that no one should be forced to contribute to abortion against their will. That means no taxpayer funding, and it also means that conscience exceptions ought to be thought reasonable. We often hear from the pro-choice party that a woman's right to make a decision on the morality of abortion for herself ought to be respected; but surely we ought also to respect the moral choices of others who are horrified by the practice, and not force them to enable, participate in, or fund what they regard as a killing of an innocent.
Of course, it's also problematic to suggest that a woman's right to choose should be unilateral; it runs up against the common sense notion that it is not wise to allow someone to be the judge in their own case. It is not that people mean to be unfair, or even think that they are judging unfairly; it is just that we all have unconscious tendencies to over-emphasize our interests when we are judging in our own cases. This is a well-known fact of human nature that applies to all people at all times; naturally it applies here as well.
Thus, even though I am sure that most women who go through this decision believe they are carefully judging the matter, it should neither be surprising nor controversial to suggest that these sub-conscious processes lead them to judge their own interests above those of the father or those of the child. The father may or may not want the child, but the child's interest will surely often be best served by being born even if it is then given up for adoption. Sadly, we find that all these new restrictions occur in a context in which too often abortion numbers remain at near record highs, and adoption referrals decline.
Britain Looks Abroad
Since we were thinking the other day about inviting the UK into NAFTA -- or possibly even forming a wider Anglosphere alliance that was both economic and military -- these remarks from the British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs may be of interest. They are from the Bangkok Post, and intended for audiences in Asia, which is also where our own administration appears to believe our future focus should be located.
Structuring an alliance that is designed to enrich as well as empower an ally suggests being careful to pick allies with broadly aligned cultures and values, as well. The UK is clearly thinking along those lines already; so must we.
Our commercial relationships in the region are strongest with our Commonwealth partners, Singapore and Malaysia who between them account for a commanding majority of our bilateral trade in goods. While continuing to strengthen these important relationships we should also be looking for opportunities in Thailand, Vietnam and elsewhere. We also need to continue to work with EU partners to secure free trade agreements with Asean countries which will open up markets and boost trade.
And lastly we need to do more to promote two-way investment. The UK offers attractive investment opportunities for emerging economies. International institutions regularly rate the UK as the easiest place to do business in Europe, with the strongest business environment on the continent and the lowest barriers to entrepreneurship in the world.
Our relationship, however, is about more than trade and investment. We have shared interests in maintaining security in a region which straddles some of the world's most important shipping routes and to tackling together common threats such as terrorism, nuclear proliferation, cyber-crime and climate change.
The UK therefore maintains a stake in regional security and defence cooperation through our 40-year commitment to the "Five Power Defence Arrangements". This agreement between the five Commonwealth partners of UK, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand is unique for East Asia and enables our countries to undertake joint exercises and to share information on issues from piracy to illegal fishing. There are a number of separatist or other domestic conflicts within Asean and tensions remain in the South China Sea. The UK has experience which we are keen to share to help promote stability and we are already part of a small group of countries formally supporting the Philippine government and Mindanao groups in their efforts to end conflict in the south of that country.
Externally, the voices of Asean leaders will be increasingly influential in regional and global affairs. Indonesia's impressive democratisation and Malaysia's strong stand against violent extremism are examples of where the experiences of countries in the region can be of great value to the international community.This may be the way that the future looks, especially as we ourselves are apparently going to cut hundreds of thousands of ground forces and hundreds of billions of dollars from our security posture. That means we need to make sure that the economic interests of our security partners align with our own -- otherwise, they won't play in a game we no longer can play on our own.
Structuring an alliance that is designed to enrich as well as empower an ally suggests being careful to pick allies with broadly aligned cultures and values, as well. The UK is clearly thinking along those lines already; so must we.
The Female Glories of Islamic Spain
In an article on poets from Al Andalus, an interesting lesson: Muslim but not Jewish women wrote significant poetry. Another, then: women were among the great poets of Islam at the period when it was at its height.
What is surprising is that during this period, there were numerous Muslim women whose poetry has been preserved. Although Muslims refer to the Jews as ahl al-kitab or “people of the book,” Muslim women seem to have been more successful in creating lasting poetic works.
It is rather difficult to account for this discrepancy, for it seems odd to imagine that Muslim women in medieval Spain were far more educated than their Jewish counterparts. Arabic became the lingua franca following the Muslim conquest of the country in 711. When Jewish poets began to compose in Arabic and later in Hebrew, were the women entirely excluded?
There are very few extant poems written by Jewish women dating to this period. Although only a fraction of all poems from that time have survived, this does not mean more were not written. The poems that are available are of a high quality, but the problem of quantity cannot be ignored.
Kasmunah (“little charming one” or “one with a beautiful face”) of Andalusia in southern Spain was the daughter of Isma’il ibn Bagdala “the Jew.” Her Arabic verses were included in a 15th-century anthology of women’s verses (compiled by an Egyptian). Little is known about her; there are debates as to whether she lived in the 11th or 12th century. Some of those favoring the earlier date contend that she was none other than the daughter of Samuel Hanagid, who was also known as ibn Nagrella (he indeed had a daughter). The assumption is that Bagdala and Nagrella are similar enough to have been confused.
At any rate, Kasmunah’s father taught her by means of intellectually creative collaboration. He composed two lines; she needed to respond in kind.
The style he chose is known as muwwashah, a rather difficult genre of poetry in which both he and his protégé excelled. Reading her verses reveals a tremendous originality and expertise in Arabic poetry, as well as the gentleness of this cultured woman.
The wife of Dunash ibn Labrat lived at the end of the 10th century; very little is known about her. Her husband was born in Fez, studied in Baghdad with Rabbi Sa’adia Gaon and spent time in Cordoba in the court of the eminent diplomat Hasdai ibn Shaprut. Her name is not recorded anywhere, but this does not detract from the fact that her erudition and expertise in Hebrew poetry are astounding.
In truth, the scholars of medieval Hebrew poetry, such as Haim Shirman and Ezra Fleischer, were convinced that this was a field entirely reserved for men. However, a series of discoveries of fragments from three different collections in the Cairo Geniza produced evidence to the contrary.
In 1947, a fragment of a poem was found and published by Nehemia Allony, who surmised that it dealt with a bride and groom, or possibly a separation. In 1971, the tables turned when a complete copy of this poem appeared (albeit with the lines in the incorrect order); the missing lines revealed that it referred to a couple and their child. The husband had left his beloved wife and child behind in Spain, and their future was unclear. A third discovery solved the mystery of the poem’s authorship because of its header: “from the wife of Dunash ibn Labrat to him.” This fragment included a second poem written by the absentee husband, defending himself and professing his love to “an erudite woman like you” (see Ezra Fleischer, “About Dunash Ibn Labrat and his wife and son,” Jerusalem Studies in Hebrew Literature, 5 (1984) in Hebrew).
This detective work revealed beautiful poetry and the correct identity of the sources; it reflected the talents of the eminent poet’s wife as well as that of her husband. Mr. and Mrs. ibn Labrat, although separated, and Kasmunah were creative and impressive poets who made important contributions to the medieval Spanish literary heritage.
Medieval Islamic Spain seems to me to hold much that we ought to try to recover. Modern Islam would find in it much native pride, as it represents the height of their religion's worldwide civilization. The rest of the world would find it a means of helping guide their Islamic neighbors onto a more wholesome course than is sometimes the case.
These End is Nigh
These boys -- with one noteworthy exception, all boys -- are good for morale. If I believed any of this was true, I'd be feeling pretty good about the future.
Unfortunately, I have trouble buying it. They are taking counsel from their fears, not from wisdom; I do not believe that the danger is nearly as great as they say. More's the pity!
Unfortunately, I have trouble buying it. They are taking counsel from their fears, not from wisdom; I do not believe that the danger is nearly as great as they say. More's the pity!
Hip-Hop Music in the Age of Our Current President
Ya'll may remember the author better from a '90s hit that is still in current play during sporting events.
Same guy. New era. It's gotta be hard for the President, seeing the hip-hop demographic turn on him.
Sorry, Ma'am
I wanted her to do well. She brought it on herself, but she also made some solid points in the many debates, and advanced some strong arguments on how to think about the Constitution. It's a loss to all of us that she couldn't carry the good parts home.
"Those Hands Dug Freedom For Me"
A pretty good speech, from last night's real winner.
It'll be a miracle if he manages to overcome the weight of the establishment, and the wealth, that is ranked against him. But he believes in miracles; I suppose it's part of his job.
It'll be a miracle if he manages to overcome the weight of the establishment, and the wealth, that is ranked against him. But he believes in miracles; I suppose it's part of his job.
Rivals in Archaeology
A little less flamboyant than the Indiana Jones / Belloc feud, but it's close to home.
There are some very interesting prehistoric sites in Georgia, but this is the first time I've ever heard it floated that they might be Mayan. I'd wager that Dr. Williams is right: this sounds more like cashing in on the 2012 Maya-mania than a highly probable theory. Nevertheless, here's the article; the author claims he'll answer questions on his website. Maybe I'll ride up there sometime soon and take a look.
Thornton declares that an area near Brasstown Bald is “possibly the site of the fabled city of Yupaha, which Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto failed to find in 1540, and (is) certainly one of the most important archaeological discoveries in recent times.”
Thornton uses Williams’ research on Indian mounds and the studies of archaeologist Johannes Loubser, who excavated the north Georgia site, to bolster his claims.
Williams couldn’t disagree more. “This is total and complete bunk,” Williams wrote on Facebook. “There is no evidence of Maya in Georgia. Move along now.”
Williams’ reaction brought forth legions of bloggers and Internet experts calling him “arrogant” and “dismissive.”It was certainly the latter!
There are some very interesting prehistoric sites in Georgia, but this is the first time I've ever heard it floated that they might be Mayan. I'd wager that Dr. Williams is right: this sounds more like cashing in on the 2012 Maya-mania than a highly probable theory. Nevertheless, here's the article; the author claims he'll answer questions on his website. Maybe I'll ride up there sometime soon and take a look.
Almost There
A young Oklahoma mother shot and killed an intruder to protect her 3-month-old baby on New Year's Eve, less than a week after the baby's father died of cancer. Sarah McKinley says that a week earlier a man named Justin Martin dropped by on the day of her husband's funeral, claiming that he was a neighbor who wanted to say hello. The 18-year-old Oklahoma City area woman did not let him into her home that day.The only thing left is to convince the dispatchers that they can tell her it's OK to shoot. Twenty-one minutes isn't unreasonable for a police response time, all things considered. We should work that reality into how we train people to think about cases of home invasion, and how we train 911 dispatchers to advise people to react.On New Year's Eve Martin returned with another man, Dustin Stewart, and this time was armed with a 12-inch hunting knife. The two soon began trying to break into McKinley's home. As one of the men was going from door to door outside her home trying to gain entry, McKinley called 911 and grabbed her 12-gauge shotgun.
McKinley told ABC News Oklahoma City affiliate KOCO that she quickly got her 12 gauge, went into her bedroom and got a pistol, put the bottle in the baby's mouth and called 911. "I've got two guns in my hand -- is it okay to shoot him if he comes in this door?" the young mother asked the 911 dispatcher. "I'm here by myself with my infant baby, can I please get a dispatcher out here immediately?"
The 911 dispatcher confirmed with McKinley that the doors to her home were locked as she asked again if it was okay to shoot the intruder if he were to come through her door.
"I can't tell you that you can do that but you do what you have to do to protect your baby," the dispatcher told her. McKinley was on the phone with 911 for a total of 21 minutes.
When Martin kicked in the door and came after her with the knife, the teen mom shot and killed the 24-year-old. Police are calling the shooting justified.
"You're allowed to shoot an unauthorized person that is in your home. The law provides you the remedy, and sanctions the use of deadly force," Det. Dan Huff of the Blanchard police said.
Stradivari v. The Moderns
This survey itself is not that interesting, but there are two minor points that caught my eye.
A less respectful view of Dr. Fritz’s study is offered by the violinist Earl Carlyss, a longtime member of the Juilliard String Quartet. “It’s a totally inappropriate way of finding out the quality of these instruments,” he said. The auditions, he noted, took place in a hotel room, but violinists always need to assess how an instrument will project in a concert hall. He likened the test to trying to compare a Ford and a Ferrari in a Walmart parking lot.
“The modern instruments are very easy to play and sound good to your ear, but what made the old instruments great was their power in a hall,” he said.The anti-Walmart snobbery aside, that's a good point. However, I am reminded of Eric Blair's remarks that it is recording -- and not concert halls -- that offer us the real power of music in our current age. Just in the last two weeks, we've listened to recordings of songs that we might not ever have heard before the internet age; now, they're free for exploration. Thus, the "power in a hall" standard may need to be rethought, even by concert musicians. The question may become "How optimized is it for our best current recording and playback techniques?" The other remark that I found amusing was this defense by the study's author:
Dr. Fritz acknowledged that her study used few violins. But it is quite difficult, she noted, to get owners to lend out their million-dollar instruments to be played by blindfolded strangers.That surely must be true. It must be doubly true that it is hard to get such loans when the purpose of the study is to undermine the legend on which the value of their million-dollar investment is based!
Addendum on National Myths
I've been away from here for a few days, but was glad to see Grim raising that topic of perennial importance: national myths. The highly successful (the Chinese have one of the most successful national myths in the world; and their beastly treatment of the Uighurs and Tibetans comes along with it), the once successful (for I can dimly remember a time when public schools in this country taught an American national myth, and I've read enough old things to know it was once very strong), and the decidedly troubled.
Now, what Grim's saying in these discussions, and especially in the second one, I entirely agree with. In fact, if I had to pick a single factor that really makes a recognizable "people," a national myth is that factor. A common language helps; a common government helps; a common religion helps; but it is the national myth (that may well be bound up with all these things) that really does the trick.
Michael Totten has two recent posts, highly apropos. To the first. In this and comments, he discusses Newt Gingrich's characterization of the Palestinians as an "invented" people. And he links to this article by Lee Smith, who opines:
"The real question, then, is not whether Palestinian nationalism is 'authentic,' but whether this particular national fiction is useful."
And I think he is on the right track. Smith however concludes that the Palestinian myth is not "strong enough" because their leadership is unwilling to accept a limited state that coexists with its Israeli neighbors. But I think that is not a sign of the myth's weakness, but simply its character. For better or worse, and mainly for worse, the Palestinians have indeed become a people because they have got a national myth. It's just a barren and ugly one. It is of recent vintage - that is the kernel of truth in Mr. Gingrich's statement (which I used to agree with) - but that doesn't invalidate it. All national myths have got to start somewhere.
In his post and especially in comments, Mr. Totten goes further in opposing the notion of the Arabs as a "people" - which Mr. Gingrich accepts in rejecting the Palestinians as an "invented" subset. And in my view, he's right there, insofar as the Pan-Arab ideologies (Ba'athism, and whatever-you-call-it that was supposed to create the overarching UAR) - didn't catch on; they were unsuccessful myths, and given the character of the regimes that used them, that is probably just as well. Mr. Totten, however, declares the idea not only pernicious ("National Socialism for Arabs") but simply false:
Anyway, it isn't hard to see that for a country with any kind of consensual government, a national myth is a precious possession - hence the second post, on Claire Berlinski's determination to violate a Turkish law by referring to the Armenian genocide as "genocide," and a French law by denying it was genocide. In these places, I think, and especially the first, the governments are trying to defend the national myths in their current forms, and are curtailing free speech to do it. (Which is what Ms. Berlinski is opposing, and by referring to a French figure of mythic proportions.)
What makes our own myth remarkable is the way it rests on ideas and laws, more than any race or religion. The complaints that led to independence for certain grew out of the British constitution, and its common-law way of developing rights. Let colonists vote for the assemblies that tax them, as Britons vote for the Parliament that taxes them, and they'll pick up the idea that they have a right to it - not in the civil-law sense that someone formally granted it, but in the common-law way, that the unifying theory is to be discerned from the actual decisions made. And our myth certainly relies on the idea of these things as rights - yet is blessedly detached from any continued racial identity. Our national identity is not weakened if we admit that Anglo-Saxons can commit beastly atrocities - the document that started it all is filled with such accusations. More remarkably, if we admit that the ideas are noble, and the men who made them law were doing noble acts, we can admit much more wihtout weakening the myth at all - that they carried flaws with their nobility, as true heroes always do, and that Americans have done many awful things since by not living up to those ideas.
(The Jewish "national myth" of the Old Testament shows some strong parallels - 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronicles recast, often with some pretty heavy shading, the history of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms as a matter of "We did well when we kept the commandments and we did very badly when we didn't.")
To the Turkish government, it seems, if you deny that "the Turkish people, as such, are too noble to have committed genocide," you're striking too hard at an idea bound up with their race and religion (for it certainly precedes their current constitution) that they believe holds them together.
P.S. - Yes, I know, I'm oversimplifying by writing as if there's one unchanging successful myth among each people. I oversimplify to be able to write at all.
Now, what Grim's saying in these discussions, and especially in the second one, I entirely agree with. In fact, if I had to pick a single factor that really makes a recognizable "people," a national myth is that factor. A common language helps; a common government helps; a common religion helps; but it is the national myth (that may well be bound up with all these things) that really does the trick.
Michael Totten has two recent posts, highly apropos. To the first. In this and comments, he discusses Newt Gingrich's characterization of the Palestinians as an "invented" people. And he links to this article by Lee Smith, who opines:
"The real question, then, is not whether Palestinian nationalism is 'authentic,' but whether this particular national fiction is useful."
And I think he is on the right track. Smith however concludes that the Palestinian myth is not "strong enough" because their leadership is unwilling to accept a limited state that coexists with its Israeli neighbors. But I think that is not a sign of the myth's weakness, but simply its character. For better or worse, and mainly for worse, the Palestinians have indeed become a people because they have got a national myth. It's just a barren and ugly one. It is of recent vintage - that is the kernel of truth in Mr. Gingrich's statement (which I used to agree with) - but that doesn't invalidate it. All national myths have got to start somewhere.
In his post and especially in comments, Mr. Totten goes further in opposing the notion of the Arabs as a "people" - which Mr. Gingrich accepts in rejecting the Palestinians as an "invented" subset. And in my view, he's right there, insofar as the Pan-Arab ideologies (Ba'athism, and whatever-you-call-it that was supposed to create the overarching UAR) - didn't catch on; they were unsuccessful myths, and given the character of the regimes that used them, that is probably just as well. Mr. Totten, however, declares the idea not only pernicious ("National Socialism for Arabs") but simply false:
If Egyptians, Syrians, Lebanese, etc, stopping viewing the Palestinians as part of some great Arab “mass,” the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would instantly become localized and would eventually become solvable. The minute Lebanese people, etc, insist the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is somebody else’s problem, we’ll be 80 percent of the way to where we need to be...Arab nationalism is built on a lie and must die.And there he misses the mark (as Mr. Smith does not) - the idea that the Arabs should see themselves, and attempt to act, as one people is simply a myth that didn't catch on. (And would, I suppose, have been as perniciously used as Panslavism, if it had.) The preamble to the current Iraqi Constitution is a deliberate effort to foster a national myth in that country - if Mr. Totten's reports in this book still hold, the Kurds are not buying it at all just now.
Anyway, it isn't hard to see that for a country with any kind of consensual government, a national myth is a precious possession - hence the second post, on Claire Berlinski's determination to violate a Turkish law by referring to the Armenian genocide as "genocide," and a French law by denying it was genocide. In these places, I think, and especially the first, the governments are trying to defend the national myths in their current forms, and are curtailing free speech to do it. (Which is what Ms. Berlinski is opposing, and by referring to a French figure of mythic proportions.)
What makes our own myth remarkable is the way it rests on ideas and laws, more than any race or religion. The complaints that led to independence for certain grew out of the British constitution, and its common-law way of developing rights. Let colonists vote for the assemblies that tax them, as Britons vote for the Parliament that taxes them, and they'll pick up the idea that they have a right to it - not in the civil-law sense that someone formally granted it, but in the common-law way, that the unifying theory is to be discerned from the actual decisions made. And our myth certainly relies on the idea of these things as rights - yet is blessedly detached from any continued racial identity. Our national identity is not weakened if we admit that Anglo-Saxons can commit beastly atrocities - the document that started it all is filled with such accusations. More remarkably, if we admit that the ideas are noble, and the men who made them law were doing noble acts, we can admit much more wihtout weakening the myth at all - that they carried flaws with their nobility, as true heroes always do, and that Americans have done many awful things since by not living up to those ideas.
(The Jewish "national myth" of the Old Testament shows some strong parallels - 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronicles recast, often with some pretty heavy shading, the history of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms as a matter of "We did well when we kept the commandments and we did very badly when we didn't.")
To the Turkish government, it seems, if you deny that "the Turkish people, as such, are too noble to have committed genocide," you're striking too hard at an idea bound up with their race and religion (for it certainly precedes their current constitution) that they believe holds them together.
P.S. - Yes, I know, I'm oversimplifying by writing as if there's one unchanging successful myth among each people. I oversimplify to be able to write at all.
A Boy, His Dog, and His Sword
Something else on a lute:
The large number of strings on this lute allows a cascade of notes at a very low tempo and across a wide range, which is an interesting effect. We are more used to hearing it done on fewer strings, and at a higher tempo, in American bluegrass.
Inside the Myth of Europe
Dr. John Gray echoes Mr. Blair's writings on the dangers of mythology.
Those dangers are real; the difference I have with these gentlemen on the point is that I think the danger means that you have to take control of the process. Myths are indispensable to human consciousness. We are most vulnerable to the baleful effects just when we -- as the modern Europeans -- think we are disposing of myths and living a new, regulated, scientific life.
We last saw Dr. Gray here writing in response to Dr. Stephen Pinker's new book, which argues a very similar myth: that humanity is engaged in moral progress that is bringing us to a state of less violence, the world wars notwithstanding. Here is Timothy Synder at Foreign Affairs rejecting Dr. Pinker (hat tip Arts & Letters Daily):
It would be striking, then, if we couldn't read history as an arc leading to our own moral values: and that will be true whoever we are, and whatever our moral values happen to be! This is a basic fallacy, an error in logic, that arises from a failure to recognize the fact that human beings learn much of their moral code from each other.
What's much more interesting to me are the counterexamples. One of the things that amazes in reading Chaucer, or Averroes, or Plato, is the degree to which we can find common ground with people centuries removed. This points to a small but crucial moral core that doesn't change, but that is accessible to human reason in every generation. There is no "progress" from this place because it is the destination: the best we can hope for, in any generation, is to reach it and to remain there for the brief space of our life. If we can also guide our children to it, and our friends, we have done all that morality can be asked to do for humankind.
[The European Union's founders] were swayed by a myth - a myth of progress in which humanity is converging on a universal set of institutions and values. The process might be slow and faltering and at times go into reverse, but eventually the whole of humankind would live under the same enlightened system of government.
When you're inside a myth it looks like fact, and for those who were inside the myth of the end of history it seems to have given a kind of peace of mind. Actually history was on the move again. But since it was clearly moving into difficult territory, it was more comfortable to believe that the past no longer mattered.
Those dangers are real; the difference I have with these gentlemen on the point is that I think the danger means that you have to take control of the process. Myths are indispensable to human consciousness. We are most vulnerable to the baleful effects just when we -- as the modern Europeans -- think we are disposing of myths and living a new, regulated, scientific life.
We last saw Dr. Gray here writing in response to Dr. Stephen Pinker's new book, which argues a very similar myth: that humanity is engaged in moral progress that is bringing us to a state of less violence, the world wars notwithstanding. Here is Timothy Synder at Foreign Affairs rejecting Dr. Pinker (hat tip Arts & Letters Daily):
A principle of the scientific method is to arrange experiments so that one's own prior beliefs can be challenged. Pinker's natural experiment with history generates instead a selective rereading, in which his own commitments become the guiding moral light for past and future. But of course libertarianism, like all other ideologies, involves a normative account of resource distribution: those who have should keep. There is nothing scientific about this, although again, like all other ideologies, libertarianism presents itself simply as a matter of natural reason, or, in Pinker's case, "intelligence." Pinker goes so far as to suggest that libertarianism is equivalent to intelligence, since holding libertarian views correlates with high IQ scores. Since he believes that the need to regularly adjust IQ tests to preserve an average score of 100 means that we are growing more intelligent generation by generation, he deduces that we are becoming more libertarian. Pinker also conflates libertarian ideology with ethics, allowing him to conclude that we are therefore becoming increasingly moral. Each step in this argument is shaky, to say the least. As Pinker might have learned from Kant or Hume or any of the other Enlightenment figures he mentions, one cannot jump from reason to morals in this way. Even if each generation is brighter than the last, as Pinker believes, being smart is not the same thing as being just. To have an account of ethics, one needs to begin from ideas of right and wrong, not simply from mental habits that happen to be widespread in one's own milieu and moment.My own critique of the whole 'moral progress' argument -- not merely Dr. Pinker's contribution to it -- is along similar lines. We obtain much of our morality from rubbing against other people, who in turn get theirs from rubbing against the people in their circles. Thus it should normally be expected to be the case that groups of people closer to each other, in time or in space, will have moral opinions more similar to each others' than groups of people who are further removed from each other.
It would be striking, then, if we couldn't read history as an arc leading to our own moral values: and that will be true whoever we are, and whatever our moral values happen to be! This is a basic fallacy, an error in logic, that arises from a failure to recognize the fact that human beings learn much of their moral code from each other.
What's much more interesting to me are the counterexamples. One of the things that amazes in reading Chaucer, or Averroes, or Plato, is the degree to which we can find common ground with people centuries removed. This points to a small but crucial moral core that doesn't change, but that is accessible to human reason in every generation. There is no "progress" from this place because it is the destination: the best we can hope for, in any generation, is to reach it and to remain there for the brief space of our life. If we can also guide our children to it, and our friends, we have done all that morality can be asked to do for humankind.
Good reason to carry a gun and a knife
. . . In case some guy goes into an icy river with three kids in his car, including one still strapped into a car-seat. Chris Willden, a former cop from a family full of cops, military, and EMTs, shot out one of the windows, cut loose the car-seat, and got all three kids out of the car. Two weren't breathing any more, but bystanders got them going again with CPR, and all are now recovering from hypothermia. Way to go, Chris.
Speaking of being the sort of fellow people would like to have around in an emergency, I've just finished "Extreme Fear," written by the guy who inspired my recent post about the inexplicable Air France disaster. It contains the perfect antidote story: an aerobatics expert whose right wing strut buckled during a strenuous stunt. With seconds to live, he remembered a pilot who popped a damaged wing back into place by flying upside down, so he flipped over. Then his engine cut out. Still flying upside down at low altitude, he coolly carried out the checklist for starting the engine back up. Next he considered whether to land upside-down in the water or in some trees, and instead lit on the idea of flipping his plane back over at the last second and landing on solid ground before the wing could buckle again. He walked away.
Definitely not the deer-in-the-headlights sort. Kudos to those who can keep their heads in situations where I'd be thinking about as clearly as the average lizard.
The Old Year Now Away is Fled...
A gentle version providing some of the verses:
The old year now away is fled,
The new year it is entered;
Then let us all our sins down tread,
And joyfully all appear.
Let's merry be this holiday,
And let us run with sport and play,
Hang1 sorrow, let's cast care away
God send us a merry new year!
...
And now let all the company
In friendly manner all agree,
For we are here welcome all may see
Unto this jolly good cheer.
I thank the master and his dame,
The which are founders of the same,
To eat, to drink now is no shame:
God send us a happy new year!
But somehow they skipped my favorite lines:
Come lads and lasses every one,
Jack, Tom, Dick, Bess, Mary and Joan,
Let's cut that meat unto the bone,
For welcome you need not fear.
And here for good liquor you shall not lack,
It will whet the brains and strengthen the back;
This jolly good cheer it must go to wrack:
God send us a happy new year!
Come, give's more liquor when I do call,
I'll drink to each one in this hall,
I hope that so loud I must not bawl,
So unto me lend an ear.
Good fortune to all do send,
And to our dame who is my friend,
Lord bless us all, and so I end:
God send us a happy new year!
Amen!It's early in the morning, and that of a new year: so let's have the Children's Meledy.
Hogmanay
It's not often that I get the feeling of really missing out, but man...
Well, maybe next year!
Here in Atlanta we ring in the New Year with the Peach Drop, but fancy being decked out like a Viking and wielding lit torches to burn your Viking long ship – that is how the folks from Edinburgh in Scotland carry out their Hogmanay celebrations.
Dressed as Vikings in their helmets and warm wrappings, locals carried torches and reenacted traditions for ringing in the New Year to include their Viking past....
Edinburgh's Hogmanay celebrations featured the longest firework display in the history of the event. A total of 5.5 tonnes of fireworks, producing more than 15,000 stars, will be let off during the display over Edinburgh Castle.
Well, maybe next year!
Hooah
Arts & Letters Daily posts this:
Liu Xiaobo is charged by the Chinese government with the “crime of incitement to subvert state power.” He has the honor of being guilty...Now that's rightly said.
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