The indispensable Iowahawk made a 2003 entry in a "Why am I a Democrat" contest, including this succinct explanation of the welfare state: "I am a Democrat because I believe in helping those in need. All of us, you and I, have an obligation to those less fortunate. You go first, okay? I'm a little short this week."
But he really caught my attention with this quip about a subject that's been worrying me lately: "I am a Democrat because I recognize that education is important. Very, very, extremely very important. We must increase spending on education and enact important education reforms, such as eliminating standardized tests. Because we can never hope to measure this beautiful, elusive, important thing we call education."
He refers, of course, to the problem of "teaching to the test." It's been years since I engaged in a discussion about the public schools here in Texas without hearing at least one person lament the problem of "teaching to the test." I used to ask what it meant, then gave up. It came up again last week, when I was hanging out with the Fiber Women, several of whom home-school. (One does it because her strong religious principles. Our hostess has this in common with her, but has often remarked to me how incomprehensible she finds her friend's religious convictions on the subject of birth control. It seems so obvious to her that a truly moral person would not burden the planet with four children. She literally cannot fathom how her friend views procreation; her friend, of course, is only too familiar with the opposite point of view, but chooses to go her own way and not argue about it. They have other attitudes in common to sustain their friendship.)
But back to schools. Here's what mystifies me: what's wrong with teaching to a test? Why is it so difficult to devise a means to determine whether the kids are learning what we want the schools to impart to them, and to determine whether one school does a better job than another at this task? Do I imagine that a child's entire worth can be summed up in a standardized test? No, of course not. Am I blind to the fact that kids from disadvantaged homes will find many aspects of eduction unusually challenging? Obviously not. But have we really come to the point of arguing that most under-performing students are lost causes as a result of their families or neighborhoods? I don't blame a doctor who can't cure a dead body, but I also don't offer to pay him an annual salary for trying. Similarly, if a condition is impossible to diagnose, then I neither blame the doctor for missing it nor pay him for the effort. The "I'm not to blame for failure" argument is great for answering undeserved withering scorn, but it's not a good reason to keep signing paychecks -- it's a good reason to encourage educators to find a more productive line or work. The task of education isn't hopeless, or we wouldn't keep at it. If it's not hopeless, and we have any idea at all what we're aiming to accomplish, then why is it a bad idea to find a means for judging the results of our efforts?
Once you can accept the idea that it's theoretically possible to devise a test for determining whether each student has benefited from the year he just spent in class, then the question becomes whether the school was doing something to impart that benefit, or if the kid merely soaked it up by osmosis as a result of the inexorable march of the calendar. Presumably if anything about the comfort of the lives of the people employed by the school are going to depend on the results of the test, they will be motivated to see the kids do well on it. This leads to the dread "teaching to the test." But what is the problem with that? To put it another way, if teachers are drilling the kids in something stupid and irrelevant in order to increase their chances of testing well, then isn't the test stupid? And if so, why can't we craft a better one?
This week I decided to read articles objecting to "teaching to the test" until I encountered a sensible idea somewhere, but I gave up. Teaching to the test is bad because it focuses on narrow facts instead of the thrill of learning or "critical thinking skills." The kids are only learningtesting strategies. Education is too complex to be judged by a checklist. The kids spend all their time on reading, writing, and ciphering instead of social studies and "enrichments." The test only measures the socio-economic status of the kids' families. High-stakes tests encouragecheating and undermine self-esteem. Schools should teach cooperative learning skills instead of knowledge. Fine, but can they read, write, and cipher? If not, what are we paying the school for? If the school doesn't know how to judge whether the kids are learning this stuff, how about letting the parents decide, and vote with their feet? Yes, I know that professional educators worry that parents aren't up to the job, but after all, the educators just confessed that they're incapable of making the judgment, too, and someone has to. Otherwise, the teachers devolve into monopolistic baby-sitters with public pensions.
What I'm starting to see now are articles about the shiny new field of "curriculum alignment," which apparently means devising a test that has something to do with what we were hoping the kids would learn. This concept differs from existing tests in a way that continues to mystify me. Whose bright idea was it in the first place to give the kids tests that weren't aligned with the curriculum we wanted them to master?
It's not that I don't value an education system that leaves all its participants with a lifelong thirst for self-instruction, not to mention good citizenship and other sterling qualities, but these are kids, not graduate students. They have to start with the basic knowledge, or all the thirst in the world isn't going to help society much. All those nifty cooperative learning and critical thinking skills are great if they actually produced some learning. There has to be some good reason for these ad valorem taxes, beyond providing a place to park the kids while we're at work, and a secure retirement for the products of teaching colleges.
These are no ordinary chihuahuas
I see this story entirely from the perspective of the poor dogs, ditched by their shiftless owner and spurned by their clueless neighbors. What kind of useless neighborhood says this about a "pack" of five or ten little tail-wagging chihuahuas: "My daughter -- she'll be outside, but then I have to have her come back inside because they all -- I'm afraid they're going to -- you know what I mean." Um, no, I'm not really following your point.
Fast and Furious
The LA Times reports on its unraveling of the knot:
When the ATF made alleged gun trafficker Manuel Fabian Celis-Acosta its primary target in the ill-fated Fast and Furious investigation, it hoped he would lead the agency to two associates who were Mexican drug cartel members. The ATF even questioned and released him knowing that he was wanted by the Drug Enforcement Administration.
But those two drug lords were secretly serving as informants for the FBI along the Southwest border, newly obtained internal emails show.
So the ATF arrested someone wanted by DEA, whom they let go because they wanted to use him to get two other guys, who were already working for the FBI? And along the way they got a Border Patrol Agent killed?
Let's have some appropriate music for our Federal Law Enforcement team!
The career not taken
Douglas said something very kind below about my bee-adorned mailbox, which happened to touch on the central crisis of my life.
Though a successful architectural student, I wasn't cut out to be an architect. I have no gift for arranging spaces to be beautiful or surprising. My gift instead lay in working out floor plans in two dimensions, and solving problems, and taking standardized tests. (It's a little-known fact that standardized tests are designed to measure how close the test-takers are to someone exactly like me.) I love the good architecture created by other people. But figuring out that architecture was a blind alley for myself was the most wrenching decision I ever made: dropping out of the graduate school that had awarded a full scholarship. I drifted for a long time afterwards before stumbling onto law school. Then in every single interview for three years, I had to answer the question, "Why did you drop out of architecture to pursue law?" Though I eventually worked out a brief answer that seemed to satisfy people, the choice occasionally bubbles to the surface to this day. There is a haunting line in a Leonard Cohen song: "The skyline is like skin on a drum I'll never mend." For whatever reason, the compulsion was unanswerable.
We were told in architecture school that we'd be shot if they caught us reading "The Fountainhead," but the horse was long out of the barn on that insidious romantic message.
I was meant to be a decorative artist, probably: in an earlier age I'd have made sure that all the handmade items like swords and doorknobs and keyhole plates were properly embellished, like those gorgeous Scythian tools carved with reindeer. My bee, for instance, lit me up on all registers, as something worth doing in its own right. He makes me happy every time I drive up to my gate. In contrast, no building design of my own creation ever once inspired me with a burning desire to see it built. I figured, an architect has to be practically willing to die to see his stuff go up, or it will never happen, it's such a difficult process. In my heart of hearts, I didn't like my designs. How would I persuade a wavering client to buy and build them?
Here's a mosaic that lights me up, in the Houston Intercontinental Airport, designed and executed by Dixie Friend Gay. It took a year's work from four artisans and 1-1/2 million pieces of glass tile. This definitely would be a job worth having. Check out the other views in the link; this work is on a long, undulating wall. I want one.
Never cared that much for law in its own right, but I could make a bazillion bucks and retire early, and a passion for identifying logical flaws makes me a good brief-writer and law review editor if not an all-around good lawyer.
The First Day of Spring, Actual:
The Hound of the Hall
Happy Vernal Equinox! Subjective Spring started weeks ago here, but today we reach the real event. As you can see, at least one of us is celebrating.
Fire-fightin'
I believe that T99 is associated with her local VFD, and my father was a long-time Captain of ours. I expect you'll find this interesting:
The Fire Critic is asking opinions on this one, which it considers quite aggressive (although they note they don't know from the cam if there is a backup line behind the guy). (H/t: FARK.)
The Fire Critic is asking opinions on this one, which it considers quite aggressive (although they note they don't know from the cam if there is a backup line behind the guy). (H/t: FARK.)
The End of the First Amendment
News from Chicago:
Thus the freedoms of speech, assembly and the press. As Elise notes, we're also seeing an end to the freedom of religious expression insofar as it pertains to how one lives one's life, as apart from merely how one prays in private.
We'll have to decide if Elise is right that the First cannot be saved. If so, we'll have to move on to the Second. That is not a light matter, not at all: but consider her argument. There is very widespread support for simply compelling people to violate their beliefs: and not merely to fail to do something their faith says is right (which might apply to human sacrifice, in some religions), but positively to do something their faith tells them is wrong.
The only obvious parallel lies in the draft, which compels military service from all citizens. America's history of support for conscientious objectors is mixed, but has generally found a way to recognize and offer alternatives to most who felt such objections. It's unclear why war should be an easier place for such objectors than the provision of contraception or abortifacients, the need for which is debatable rather than existential.
The officer who handcuffed them is recorded on camera warning members of the media that their First Amendment rights could be terminated. "Your First Amendment rights can be terminated if you're creating a scene or whatever," the officer said. When asked how they were creating a scene, the officer said, "Your presence is creating a scene."From the District of Columbia:
HR 347 was recently signed into law by President Obama. This statute had wide support amongst both parties of Congress. In essence, it criminalizes disruptive behavior upon government grounds, at specially designated national events (Super Bowl, nominating conventions, etc.) and anywhere that Secret Service is protecting “any” person.Since all of the presidential candidates are now receiving Secret Service protection, that means no "disruptive behavior" anywhere near anywhere that anyone running for president might be speaking.
Thus the freedoms of speech, assembly and the press. As Elise notes, we're also seeing an end to the freedom of religious expression insofar as it pertains to how one lives one's life, as apart from merely how one prays in private.
The issue is so clearly one of violating the First Amendment that I am unable to find any common ground with anyone who doesn’t see that. We have nothing to say to each other on this topic. And their belief either that this does not violate the First Amendment or that violating the First Amendment is acceptable is so inexplicable that we don’t really have anything to say to each other about anything else related to the Constitution or governance in general.
Furthermore, it doesn’t matter how this situation comes out. Even if the Administration backs off completely on the contraception mandate for all employers, it’s too late. Even if the Supreme Court rules that the mandate is unconstitutional, it’s too late. That a President of the United States believes it is acceptable to simply ignore the First Amendment is a sea change in our form of government. Perhaps if the Administration had established this mandate and every single person and institution other than President Obama and Secretary Sebelius had screamed bloody murder, I could believe that we had, in a moment of national inattention, elected as President one of the only two people in the United States who consider the Bill of Rights irrelevant. But that wasn’t the case; Obama and Sebelius’ attitude toward the Constitution is clearly so widespread that there is no going back.
We'll have to decide if Elise is right that the First cannot be saved. If so, we'll have to move on to the Second. That is not a light matter, not at all: but consider her argument. There is very widespread support for simply compelling people to violate their beliefs: and not merely to fail to do something their faith says is right (which might apply to human sacrifice, in some religions), but positively to do something their faith tells them is wrong.
The only obvious parallel lies in the draft, which compels military service from all citizens. America's history of support for conscientious objectors is mixed, but has generally found a way to recognize and offer alternatives to most who felt such objections. It's unclear why war should be an easier place for such objectors than the provision of contraception or abortifacients, the need for which is debatable rather than existential.
Bristol Palin's Got A Spine of Steel
It's no surprise to discover it, but it's impressive all the same.
A Fairy Tale Wedding
At least, it reminds me of a fairy tale we were recently discussing.
Apparently there is some division in the commentariat as to whether or not this shouldn't be an acceptable form of marriage.
(I also like the suggestion that this approach to marriage really streamlines the adultery process.)
I guess we've reached the point that the two-parent family has been so completely undercut that no one remembers why married couples were given tax breaks at all. If mostly we're raising kids with single or divorced parents, what's the point? In fact, it's downright unfair: the married couple already has natural advantages. They shouldn't get a tax break, too: the tax breaks should go to the ones who are doing it the hard way. (As, indeed, they already mostly do, since EITC is tied to relative poverty, and poverty correlates strongly with these "hard way" types of families.)
Apparently there is some division in the commentariat as to whether or not this shouldn't be an acceptable form of marriage.
I believe everyone has the right to marry, regardless of sexual preference. For some people being alone is what feels most natural. Shouldn't they too be entitled to tax breaks?Sure, why not? And this way no one will ever interfere with their right to visit their spouse in the hospital.
(I also like the suggestion that this approach to marriage really streamlines the adultery process.)
I guess we've reached the point that the two-parent family has been so completely undercut that no one remembers why married couples were given tax breaks at all. If mostly we're raising kids with single or divorced parents, what's the point? In fact, it's downright unfair: the married couple already has natural advantages. They shouldn't get a tax break, too: the tax breaks should go to the ones who are doing it the hard way. (As, indeed, they already mostly do, since EITC is tied to relative poverty, and poverty correlates strongly with these "hard way" types of families.)
Song of the Working Man
Rick Santorum, though he himself is a wealthy man and a former Senator, shows working-class audiences that he understands them by talking about his grandfather. His grandfather was a miner, and Santorum's Iowa speech talked about the old man's funeral. Looking at the corpse, at the funeral, he focused on the hands: "Those hands," he said, "dug freedom for me."
I feel inclined to tell a few stories this morning, about some men I know.
The first one of these is the father of two kids, both special-needs. Between their needs and surgeries, he's a million dollars in debt. To carry that debt he works two jobs. He's an officer in the US Navy reserves, which means he has to travel out of state for duty on a regular basis. His full-time job requires him to rise and leave by four AM some mornings every week, and keeps him at work until six or seven at night most nights. His boss is a miserable human being who can't be bothered to speak civilly to him, even though it's my friend's willingness to come in early that sets the boss up for whatever success he enjoys in the day. I hear he just took a pay cut.
I once told him I thought what he was doing for his kids was noble. He laughed, rather darkly, and went on to talk about something else. Last Christmas he sent me a card with his family's picture on it.
Another man I know grew up much as I did, racing fast cars through Appalachia. As a young man he joined the Army. He became a sergeant, and then got out; he and his wife had some kids and he went to work for a company. He tried to move up the ranks, but never got very far, ending up in middle-management. His wife decided she didn't like being home with the kids, so she went back to work as soon as she could; then she decided she didn't like the job, so she wanted to go back to school. He supported her through all that, and her failed business venture. One day she got angry with him over something, some fight, and left for a while. He later told me that he'd been dressing for work that morning, and happened to see his pistol laying on a shelf. He told me he thought, "If I shoot myself, I won't have to go to work today."
Fortunately he had an upbringing that steeled him against moments of despair. Things worked out with her and him. Still, I don't know if she ever knew, or understood that it was really only ever all for her. When it didn't look to him like it mattered to her, he'd rather have died than face his job even one more day.
One of the men I like best in the world not only was but is an Army sergeant, at this point a senior NCO. He was a man who came from a working-man's background, never did well in school. He had never managed to read a whole book in his life when I met him. I don't know why the education system didn't figure out how to help him, but it never did, and when he got married and had a few kids there was a long time when he couldn't find work. This would have been about the time of the economic downturn from the first Bush administration: the one that caused him not to get re-elected. My friend was a casualty of that recession.
One day he was at home, waiting for his wife to get off work, having almost given up hope of ever being worth anything to his family. An Army recruiting commercial came on television, and promised him all the good things those commercials do. He went right then to a recruiter, who assured him -- being as how he was a husband and father -- that the Army would take care to station him close to home so he could support his family and still be with them. He signed that very day. His first duty station was Korea.
He went on to serve in Somalia, Bosnia/Herzegovina, and Iraq. He had sixty-six kills in OIF 1. Along the way he was blown up by a mortar round, and had to be retrained for a support position. The Army picked one for him that required a lot of skill at reading and writing. When I met him -- in Iraq again, in his new role -- he was gritting his teeth and fighting to make it work. He finally did, due to nothing but hard work and dedication. I thought he would like Louis L'amour's Sackett novels, so I gave him one, and it was the first book he ever read all the way through. He went on to read all of them. He understood them and they spoke to him, he told me, because "These books are all about guys who are fighting for their family."
It happens he and I share a birthday. We could almost be brothers, except he has blue eyes.
I could tell you about my own family: about my great-grandfather, who was a farmer in rural Tennessee around the turn of the last century, but who somehow managed to put his eight kids -- all sons -- through trade school. Or I could tell you about my grandfather, who was a welder, who managed to put his sons through college.
Each of these men is a kind of tragic hero. They've suffered, greatly, in the service of those they love. I don't know how many people have taken the time to understand just how much their sacrifices have cost them.
I think I chose the right word when I told my one friend that he was noble. This kind of sacrifice in the service of the beloved is the mark of a man of the highest honor. It is the mark of true nobility.
I feel inclined to tell a few stories this morning, about some men I know.
The first one of these is the father of two kids, both special-needs. Between their needs and surgeries, he's a million dollars in debt. To carry that debt he works two jobs. He's an officer in the US Navy reserves, which means he has to travel out of state for duty on a regular basis. His full-time job requires him to rise and leave by four AM some mornings every week, and keeps him at work until six or seven at night most nights. His boss is a miserable human being who can't be bothered to speak civilly to him, even though it's my friend's willingness to come in early that sets the boss up for whatever success he enjoys in the day. I hear he just took a pay cut.
I once told him I thought what he was doing for his kids was noble. He laughed, rather darkly, and went on to talk about something else. Last Christmas he sent me a card with his family's picture on it.
--
Another man I know grew up much as I did, racing fast cars through Appalachia. As a young man he joined the Army. He became a sergeant, and then got out; he and his wife had some kids and he went to work for a company. He tried to move up the ranks, but never got very far, ending up in middle-management. His wife decided she didn't like being home with the kids, so she went back to work as soon as she could; then she decided she didn't like the job, so she wanted to go back to school. He supported her through all that, and her failed business venture. One day she got angry with him over something, some fight, and left for a while. He later told me that he'd been dressing for work that morning, and happened to see his pistol laying on a shelf. He told me he thought, "If I shoot myself, I won't have to go to work today."
Fortunately he had an upbringing that steeled him against moments of despair. Things worked out with her and him. Still, I don't know if she ever knew, or understood that it was really only ever all for her. When it didn't look to him like it mattered to her, he'd rather have died than face his job even one more day.
--
One day he was at home, waiting for his wife to get off work, having almost given up hope of ever being worth anything to his family. An Army recruiting commercial came on television, and promised him all the good things those commercials do. He went right then to a recruiter, who assured him -- being as how he was a husband and father -- that the Army would take care to station him close to home so he could support his family and still be with them. He signed that very day. His first duty station was Korea.
He went on to serve in Somalia, Bosnia/Herzegovina, and Iraq. He had sixty-six kills in OIF 1. Along the way he was blown up by a mortar round, and had to be retrained for a support position. The Army picked one for him that required a lot of skill at reading and writing. When I met him -- in Iraq again, in his new role -- he was gritting his teeth and fighting to make it work. He finally did, due to nothing but hard work and dedication. I thought he would like Louis L'amour's Sackett novels, so I gave him one, and it was the first book he ever read all the way through. He went on to read all of them. He understood them and they spoke to him, he told me, because "These books are all about guys who are fighting for their family."
It happens he and I share a birthday. We could almost be brothers, except he has blue eyes.
--
Each of these men is a kind of tragic hero. They've suffered, greatly, in the service of those they love. I don't know how many people have taken the time to understand just how much their sacrifices have cost them.
I think I chose the right word when I told my one friend that he was noble. This kind of sacrifice in the service of the beloved is the mark of a man of the highest honor. It is the mark of true nobility.
Decorative Arts
I don't have any tattoos. Not that I object to them in principle, but two things stop me: hep C, and my mania for decorative arts, especially those that conform to an irregular three-dimensional surface, like pottery, or the body. Decoration like that has to be just so, or it drives me bats. I need to be able to repaint over it if it doesn't suit me.Spring-break brings high spirits and the occasional burst of vandalism. Our small neighborhood's mailboxes suffered from a minor outbreak a few nights ago, which inspired me to repaint our mailbox before we re-installed it. Lately I've had an overpowering urge to paint bees; there's one on our front gate, too. This is not a good example of painting on an irregular solid, since the mailbox's shape is so simple, but it is an example of fitting graphics to their context. If I were to be tattooed, I'd agonize for a long time over the design, and finding an artist who could execute it properly.
Here are some I admire.PS - A neighbor's mailbox disappeared altogether in the outbreak. The next day, the mailman found it in another community a couple of miles away, recognized it just by its number, "23," with no name or street, and brought it back. Small communities are nice.
The Lost Leonardo
National Geographic has a wonderful article on what is believed to be a long-lost Leonardo da Vinci painting. It is a beautiful piece, with a sorrowful story.
The Re-programmable Tattoo:
I don't come from a tattooing family. I'm pretty sure that none of my family has or has ever had a tattoo; not even the WWII veterans, as far as I can recall. It's just not something we do.
Nevertheless I have to say that this is a pretty cool idea. Apparently it uses e-ink similar to what you find in a Kindle. One of the reasons to avoid tattoos is that you're stuck with it forever; if it seems like a bad idea in ten years, nevertheless, there it is (barring expensive and painful surgery). This tattoo, though, you can turn off whenever you want; or you can swap it out for something else.
Nevertheless I have to say that this is a pretty cool idea. Apparently it uses e-ink similar to what you find in a Kindle. One of the reasons to avoid tattoos is that you're stuck with it forever; if it seems like a bad idea in ten years, nevertheless, there it is (barring expensive and painful surgery). This tattoo, though, you can turn off whenever you want; or you can swap it out for something else.
The Age of Arthur
These may also be of interest to those of you who undertook reading the novel I sent out to volunteers a few weeks ago. The encyclopedia is thorough enough to mention Moren, who before the book appears only in one line of one story, the Welsh Culwhch and Owen.
St. Patrick's Day
In deference to Lars Walker's report from Beyond, let us start with something appropriate. "St. Patrick's Breastplate" is a famous hymn that survives to us from the Old Irish.
Can't be anything more Irish than this:
And then something else genuinely Irish:
Can't be anything more Irish than this:
By this point, most Americans will have exhausted their ability to tell the Irish from anything generally Celtic.
'Hey, I think I remember this song is Irish...'
...after which they'll stumble on this one, and be disappointed to realize that it's about an actual brigade. It's Irish, though! And American!
(The "Fighting 69th" went on to serve in World War I as part of the "Rainbow Division." Yes, really.)
Right... so, Australian is kind of Irish, yeah? And there's bagpipes, which are totally Irish.
What could be more Irish than a song about an Irish ship?
What could be more Irish than a song about an Irish ship?
Perhaps even that isn't as wholly Irish as it could be: here's the greatest of Irish bands singing a song by a Scot named Ewan MacColl. It's a fine song, all the same.
Happy St. Patrick's Day.
"America's Real War On Women"
Peggy Noonan has an excellent column today. As you know, I refuse to give attention to those who behave in this way, because it is such attention that has generally allowed such people to thrive and to rise to public notice. These days, notorious and famous are no longer obviously distinct categories: the coin of the realm is attention.
This should not be surprising. Some years ago the Defense Science Board -- since we are speaking of these things as a "war" -- conducted a study of military strategic communication. I take its key findings to be these:
Now take the second and third points together. What this means is that credible voices are more likely to be powerful and effective, but that what makes someone credible isn't an even game. In the case of these bad actors, what makes them credible is that they are voicing deeply felt feelings that echo in many people's hearts. Thus, even when they make the most incredible statements as points of fact, they are asymmetrically quite highly credible. Thus, insofar as their message gains attention, they will gain power.
The current disruption of Mr. Limbaugh's revenue stream may be an exception to this general rule; but it also may not. He is quite wealthy enough to survive a temporary disruption of revenue stream, and appears to have settled on a strategy (and a very wise one) of using the opportunity to retrench his financial support among groups who will not be susceptible to future disruptions of this sort. He is punishing those who abandoned him, and helping those who are willing to stand by him: this will strengthen his position. It is the general approach of the USMC, when it advises, "No better friend; no worse enemy."
A strategy to defeat these messengers -- right or left -- must be based around denying them the attention that they command. Their credibility probably cannot be undermined, because it is not based on the factual accuracy of their remarks. It is asymmetric credibility.
What is needed is to forward the idea of a general principle of shunning anyone who speaks this way of women. It needs to be applied even-handedly, but it also needs to avoid the error of demanding that political allies of the speaker condemn their remarks after the fact. To condemn the remark is to rebroadcast it, which brings it to new attention among those whose hearts agree with it.
For those who happen to be actually present at the time, of course, it is proper to condemn the remarks and the man making them, if he does not apologize and reform himself. Any gentleman who happens to be present ought to insist upon such an apology with all appropriate force.
This should not be surprising. Some years ago the Defense Science Board -- since we are speaking of these things as a "war" -- conducted a study of military strategic communication. I take its key findings to be these:
Information saturation means attention, not information, becomes a scarce resource.
Power flows to credible messengers.
Asymmetrical credibility matters.The first point is independent; the second two are related. Attention is the scarce resource: thus, the speaker who can command attention is the minter of the coin of the realm.
Now take the second and third points together. What this means is that credible voices are more likely to be powerful and effective, but that what makes someone credible isn't an even game. In the case of these bad actors, what makes them credible is that they are voicing deeply felt feelings that echo in many people's hearts. Thus, even when they make the most incredible statements as points of fact, they are asymmetrically quite highly credible. Thus, insofar as their message gains attention, they will gain power.
The current disruption of Mr. Limbaugh's revenue stream may be an exception to this general rule; but it also may not. He is quite wealthy enough to survive a temporary disruption of revenue stream, and appears to have settled on a strategy (and a very wise one) of using the opportunity to retrench his financial support among groups who will not be susceptible to future disruptions of this sort. He is punishing those who abandoned him, and helping those who are willing to stand by him: this will strengthen his position. It is the general approach of the USMC, when it advises, "No better friend; no worse enemy."
A strategy to defeat these messengers -- right or left -- must be based around denying them the attention that they command. Their credibility probably cannot be undermined, because it is not based on the factual accuracy of their remarks. It is asymmetric credibility.
What is needed is to forward the idea of a general principle of shunning anyone who speaks this way of women. It needs to be applied even-handedly, but it also needs to avoid the error of demanding that political allies of the speaker condemn their remarks after the fact. To condemn the remark is to rebroadcast it, which brings it to new attention among those whose hearts agree with it.
For those who happen to be actually present at the time, of course, it is proper to condemn the remarks and the man making them, if he does not apologize and reform himself. Any gentleman who happens to be present ought to insist upon such an apology with all appropriate force.
The Market is All
A few days ago we had a long conversation about the problems of assuming that markets (and contracts) were good models for handing other social forms (like marriage). I found this piece from the Atlantic to be an interesting meditation on some of the problems that arise.
The author begins by listing some of the things that are now for sale:
However we resolve the question of labels for the position, though, the position strikes me as correct.
UPDATE:
A related concern: when we say that the market decides, what we really mean is that the buyer decides.
The author begins by listing some of the things that are now for sale:
• A prison-cell upgrade: $90 a night. In Santa Ana, California, and some other cities, nonviolent offenders can pay for a clean, quiet jail cell, without any non-paying prisoners to disturb them.Why not other things?
...
• The right to immigrate to the United States: $500,000. Foreigners who invest $500,000 and create at least 10 full-time jobs in an area of high unemployment are eligible for a green card that entitles them to permanent residency.
When we decide that certain goods may be bought and sold, we decide, at least implicitly, that it is appropriate to treat them as commodities, as instruments of profit and use. But not all goods are properly valued in this way. The most obvious example is human beings. Slavery was appalling because it treated human beings as a commodity, to be bought and sold at auction. Such treatment fails to value human beings as persons, worthy of dignity and respect; it sees them as instruments of gain and objects of use.There are some weak points in the overall argument, and some examples that don't strike me as being a strong as the author suggests. However, his summation seems quite right to me.
In hopes of avoiding sectarian strife, we often insist that citizens leave their moral and spiritual convictions behind when they enter the public square. But the reluctance to admit arguments about the good life into politics has had an unanticipated consequence.... [Market reasoning] empties public life of moral argument. Part of the appeal of markets is that they don’t pass judgment on the preferences they satisfy...
This nonjudgmental stance toward values lies at the heart of market reasoning, and explains much of its appeal. But our reluctance to engage in moral and spiritual argument, together with our embrace of markets, has exacted a heavy price: it has drained public discourse of moral and civic energy, and contributed to the technocratic, managerial politics afflicting many societies today.
A debate about the moral limits of markets would enable us to decide, as a society, where markets serve the public good and where they do not belong.This could be seen as anti-conservative, insofar as support for market-based models is a core feature of current conservative thinking. Or, it could be seen as profoundly conservative, insofar as support for traditional and religious insight into deeper issues of the human condition is a bedrock feature of conservatism.
However we resolve the question of labels for the position, though, the position strikes me as correct.
UPDATE:
A related concern: when we say that the market decides, what we really mean is that the buyer decides.
For centuries, my predecessors and I have been inculcated with what has come to be called the “Hippocratic Ethic.” This tradition holds that I am ethically required to use the best of my knowledge to recommend to my patient what I consider to be in my patient’s best interests—without regard to the interests of the third-party payer, or the government, or anyone else.
But gradually the medical profession has been forced to give up this approach for what I like to call a “veterinary ethic,” one that places the interests of the payer (or owner) ahead of the patient. For example, when a pet owner is told by a veterinarian that the pet has a very serious medical condition requiring extremely costly surgery or other therapy, the veterinarian presents the pet’s owner with one or more options—from attempt at cure, to palliation, to euthanasia—with the associated costs, and then follows the wishes of the owner.
A General Principle:
When a man with a long grey beard tells you that he's going to teach you a secret about shotguns that he had from his father, it's always worth taking time to listen to what he has to say.
Via LawDog, who has an interesting story to tell about the history of this approach: it dates to poachers, African safaris and the British Home Guard.
Via LawDog, who has an interesting story to tell about the history of this approach: it dates to poachers, African safaris and the British Home Guard.
On The Importance of Picking One's Battles
There may be principled objections to the idea behind the Violence Against Women Act -- for example, the assumption it makes that women need to be under the special protection of the Federal government. It's clear that Maid Marian benefited from her status as a royal ward, but it's not equally clear that all women ought therefore to aspire to an equivalent status. Nevertheless, in politics as in war, there are times for digging in and dying in place if necessary; and there are times to recognize that you've been outmaneuvered, and preserve your forces for another day.
In this case, though, the Republicans seem to be doing neither the principled thing nor the smart thing. This is largely a re-approval of a bill that passed with broad bipartisan support before, so it's not clear that the Republicans do have any strong principle at work as a party here. This isn't a TEA Party stand against the idea of women as wards of the state; the party leadership is wholly OK with the VAWA, except for a couple of changes in the re-approval.
So, it isn't principle; and as for smarts, those changes (as Mother Jones points out) were made last year. Good job picking your moment.
Those changes do touch on hot-button issues. Nevertheless, one of these policies is totally reasonable if you buy the VAWA as a general principle: while there are very good reasons to oppose the idea that lesbian relationships can constitute a marriage, there are no reasons to oppose the factually obvious reality that they can be violent. If you believe that VAWA is an appropriate solution to violence against women, then there's no reason it shouldn't hold for lesbian women as for unmarried girlfriends of bad men.
One certainly could oppose the immigration-visa change, but by itself it's not worth the price of the fight. It would be wiser to let this one go; there will be better ground for re-fighting that issue on another day.
In this case, though, the Republicans seem to be doing neither the principled thing nor the smart thing. This is largely a re-approval of a bill that passed with broad bipartisan support before, so it's not clear that the Republicans do have any strong principle at work as a party here. This isn't a TEA Party stand against the idea of women as wards of the state; the party leadership is wholly OK with the VAWA, except for a couple of changes in the re-approval.
So, it isn't principle; and as for smarts, those changes (as Mother Jones points out) were made last year. Good job picking your moment.
Those changes do touch on hot-button issues. Nevertheless, one of these policies is totally reasonable if you buy the VAWA as a general principle: while there are very good reasons to oppose the idea that lesbian relationships can constitute a marriage, there are no reasons to oppose the factually obvious reality that they can be violent. If you believe that VAWA is an appropriate solution to violence against women, then there's no reason it shouldn't hold for lesbian women as for unmarried girlfriends of bad men.
One certainly could oppose the immigration-visa change, but by itself it's not worth the price of the fight. It would be wiser to let this one go; there will be better ground for re-fighting that issue on another day.
Rules To Waste The Land:
Three little rules today -- two of them from Health and Human Services, a foreshadowing of the increased importance it will take on in every little aspect of your life from now on.
#1: The first rule has to do with ensuring that abortions are paid for by, well, you.
#2: 'You know what would be really neat? It'd be neat if we could take your Federal tax dollars, and use them to lobby state and local governments to raise your taxes. It's like a feedback loop!
'Too bad it appears to be illegal... but that's a temporary problem we will ignore for now. Perhaps we'll ask some future, compliant Congress to fix the law later... but we may not bother, since we are the ones who decide when to enforce the laws.'
#3: Remember how, when you were a kid, you used to love to go swimming at the public pool on hot summer days?
#1: The first rule has to do with ensuring that abortions are paid for by, well, you.
The Department of Health and Human Services this month issued a final rule regarding the exchanges required under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The rule provides for taxpayer funding of insurance coverage that includes elective abortion through a direct abortion subsidy.
To comply with the accounting requirement, plans will collect a separate $1 abortion surcharge from each premium payer. As described in the rule, the surcharge can only be disclosed to the enrollee at the time of enrollment, and insurance plans may only advertise the total cost of the premiums without disclosing the abortion surcharge.H/t D29, who also links the actual rule. My favorite part of it is the part where HHS asked for public comments:
A large number of commenters offered feedback on proposed §156.280... We considered the comments received on this section, and are finalizing the provisions of proposed §156.280 without modification....Well, naturally.
#2: 'You know what would be really neat? It'd be neat if we could take your Federal tax dollars, and use them to lobby state and local governments to raise your taxes. It's like a feedback loop!
'Too bad it appears to be illegal... but that's a temporary problem we will ignore for now. Perhaps we'll ask some future, compliant Congress to fix the law later... but we may not bother, since we are the ones who decide when to enforce the laws.'
#3: Remember how, when you were a kid, you used to love to go swimming at the public pool on hot summer days?
On Jan. 31 of this year, DOJ granted the industry's call for a clarification: But it was not the answer they wanted. All 300,000 public pools in the United States must install a permanent fixed lift. The deadline for compliance is tomorrow, March 15....
There is no way all 300,000 pools can install permanent lifts by Thursday. There simply are not enough lifts in existence or enough people who know how to install them, according to industry spokesmen. Plus, each lift costs between $3,000 and $10,000 and installation can add $5,000 to $10,000 to the total.
So what happens tomorrow when a disabled individual checks into a Holiday Inn and finds no lift at the pool? The Obama DOJ has said it will not be enforcing the new guidelines right away. That means no fines from the government, for now.
But the ADA also empowered citizens to sue businesses that are not in compliance with DOJ guidelines. The result will be a huge payday for enterprising trial lawyers everywhere.Officially, the Constitution empowers Congress to issue letters of marque and reprisal. Maybe we're now issuing them to trial lawyers, for use against American citizens.
Home Work
If you'd like to see how my friend's home-schooled young son is coming along on that great big piano I posted about a while back, here he is playing Chopin's Prelude No. 17 in A-flat major and looking very grown-up in his grandfather's tie. If he can't pick up girls with this kind of performance, he's not half trying.
Fiber-minded women gathered at my friend's house today from all over Texas. The house and various outbuildings are fairly stuffed from one end to the other with spinning wheels and looms, at least ten of each. It's like something out of Hansel and Gretel: everywhere you look there are skeins of homespun hand-dyed yarn, home-woven rugs, drawings, paintings, and carvings. Outside there are cisterns, barns, chickens, bathtubs full of Louisiana irises and lily pads, handmade concrete paving stones set with old pieces of china or license plates, fruit trees, vegetable patches, roses, wildflowers, and a lot of cats and dogs.
We dyed some cotton, wool, and silk fibers and fabrics with indigo. One of our company tried to figure out how to make an old fiber-carding machine work that someone had found. The newbies among us practiced spinning; I discovered the problem I was having on my own wheel (aside from the difficulty in keeping the newest dog from eating it) is that the treadle doesn't function smoothly. Having used my friend's better wheel, I'm inspired to fiddle with mine and improve it. I'm not quite ready to bring a loom into my home, though, a fact that should comfort my husband.
Revolution and Generation
A rather dire warning from a woman who was once an Iranian judge... until the revolution of 1979, after which she found herself promoted to "secretary."
There's no doubt that the Arab Spring movements have much to concern us. There's also no doubt that, when the existing social contract expires, "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun," as Mao Zedong rather rightly noted.
What that means is that we have to sort out who is going to have the guns and convince them that female political power is in their interests. How to do that? If it cannot be done, then there will be no rights for women in these societies for a long time to come -- until the new "social treaty" stabilizes, enough for a gentler kind of evolution of thought to take place. That is the kind of thing that takes generations, not revolutions: think how many generations were needed here.
There's no doubt that the Arab Spring movements have much to concern us. There's also no doubt that, when the existing social contract expires, "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun," as Mao Zedong rather rightly noted.
What that means is that we have to sort out who is going to have the guns and convince them that female political power is in their interests. How to do that? If it cannot be done, then there will be no rights for women in these societies for a long time to come -- until the new "social treaty" stabilizes, enough for a gentler kind of evolution of thought to take place. That is the kind of thing that takes generations, not revolutions: think how many generations were needed here.
Tone Deaf
Let's say that you're outraged by the position of Jesuit universities such as Georgetown with regard to access to birth control. You'd like to convey the severity of your feelings on the subject to Catholic no-goodsters.
Could you come up with a worse way to try to be impressive than by announcing "a week-long exercise in self-denial"... in the middle of the Lent?
Could you come up with a worse way to try to be impressive than by announcing "a week-long exercise in self-denial"... in the middle of the Lent?
The Offense of Dante
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Having seen the destruction of one Medieval masterpiece this week, a self-described "human rights" organization is advocating that we should go for two. The NGO, Gherush92, explained that Dante's Divine Comedy is -- well, the scope of their complaint embraces every modern heresy. It's everything that good-hearted people should hate.
Via Media comments that they have a few more suggestions for books that should not be presented to school-age children:
The map of the cosmology, which can be enlarged, was drawn in the 19th century by an Italian scholar and man of letters named Michelangelo Caetani di Sermoneta. It shows one of the ways in which the Comedy is helpful to students: it graphically illustrates the Western worldview's dual debt to ancient Greece and the religious tradition. Plato takes the (apparently eternal) circular movement of the heavens to be evidence of a semi-divine attempt to replicate the unchanging perfection of the Forms. The "sphere of fixed stars" and the other celestial spheres were a feature of Greek astronomy that was important especially to Aristotle's physics and metaphysics; its central place in Dante's view of reality was shared not only by Christian thinkers like Aquinas, but by Jewish ones like Maimonides and Gersonides, and Islamic thinkers -- especially Avicenna, who made those spheres the mechanism of God's creation and providence.The Bible. This deeply problematic tome has incited full-fledged religious wars and been used to justify slavery, anti-semitism, homophobia and countless other injustices. It should be banned posthaste, along with any works which make reference to its contents, such as Paradise Lost, Dr. Faustus and the collected writings of Martin Luther King Jr. Pride and Prejudice. Far from being a harmless romantic tale, Jane Austen’s novel is an offensively heteronormative work that implicitly privileges the so-called traditional family and marriage over alternative social arrangements. (We recommend substituting the morally superior Pride and Prejudice and Zombies on your syllabi.) To Kill A Mockingbird. Promotes cruelty to animals. The Qur’an. Rejects other religions as inferior. Frequently misread by a small but rambunctious minority of readers as a call to wage holy war on modernity and various national landmarks. Has something against pork, threatening livelihoods of many innocent farmers. No Country for Old Men. Ageism. Sherlock Holmes. While ostensibly centering around the exploits of the sleuth of Baker Street, this sinister series in fact promulgates anti-Mormon and anti-Jewish bigotry along the way. Case closed. Permanently.
Every one of these thinkers is subject to the same complaint as Dante: each of them is entirely certain of the truth of their faith, and the inferiority of others. Maimonides' writings, when they touch on race as such, are at least as racist as anything Dante imagined; Avicenna's writings on women will be shockingly offensive to everyone outside of the Islamic world today.
Nevertheless, the student will learn more from any one of these thinkers than from the whole corpus produced by "human rights organizations" working today. Take what you want from them, and leave what you don't; but if you were to make a list of the thousand greatest minds in history, few of these names would be absent from it. A guide who provides as useful an introduction to this rich landscape as Dante is invaluable.
The student, in any case, must be trained early to be courageous in the encounter with new ideas, and capable of sorting the good from the bad. That particular talent, I believe, is called "discrimination."
The Burning of Krásna Hôrka:
Krásna Hôrka, a thirteenth century castle in Slovakia, burned this week due to children playing with matches inside of it. It is a great tragedy, and a rare opportunity to see the danger that fire posed to medieval fortifications.
Yet fire was not only a siege weapon but a daily tool in such castles: the main form of heat, and the only form of light beyond the sky.
(Via Medievalists.net, which has far more video from the story.)
The towering flames had now surmounted every obstruction, and rose to the evening skies one huge and burning beacon, seen far and wide through the adjacent country. Tower after tower crashed down, with blazing roof and rafter; and the combatants were driven from the court-yard. The vanquished, of whom very few remained, scattered and escaped into the neighbouring wood. The victors, assembling in large bands, gazed with wonder, not unmixed with fear, upon the flames, in which their own ranks and arms glanced dusky red.
-Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe
Yet fire was not only a siege weapon but a daily tool in such castles: the main form of heat, and the only form of light beyond the sky.
(Via Medievalists.net, which has far more video from the story.)
"Errant"
High, the painful mountains,
Covered with thorny blue pine.
Mists rise from falls like fountains;
Under trees, with outstretched spine,
The sharp spires of fallen cones
Lie atop grey and aged stones.
In the smoke there shapes a girl
Or else in dreams I have with me;
In the darkening I watch her curl,
The helmet propping up my knee.
Too dark to read, with whitened blade,
I carve a staff in living glade.
Come morning I shall go, and ride
The wildr'ness ridge for distant miles;
Below, the wood is green and wide,
Above, geese sway in arching files;
I ride till trees prick sun with lance:
There in smoke my dream will dance.
Sometimes I dream she calls to me,
And reaches out to stroke my face
In that hot white city beside the sea;
But morning wakes upon the waste.
I rise up from my bed of stone,
Take up my boots, and ride alone.
Grasping the Nettle
I thought I'd touched nettles before, but this is a new one on me. Twenty-four hours later, I still felt as though I had electrodes hooked up to my fingers.Wikipedia tells me that the stem of the Urtica dioica bears short and long hairs. The long hairs are little needles that inject acetylcholine, histamine, 5-HT (serotonin), moroidin, leukotrienes, and possibly formic acid. (My nettle sting did feel a bit like an ant-bite at first.)
"Urtication" is the process of flogging with nettles. It's not done only to torment; it is considered a folk remedy for rheumatism. Similarly, a beekeeper of my acquaintance reports that it is common knowledge among his colleagues that beekeepers have no autoimmune diseases, a fact they attribute to being routinely stung in the course of their duties. I have heard reports of people cured of crippling arthritis after a dangerous bout with multiple bee stings. So maybe I should be out there grasping nettles, or annoying bees, but I think I'll pass.
Nettles lose their sting upon being cooked, and are said to taste like spinach. Late in their season, however, they produce a gritty molecule that can irritate the urinary tract, so harvest them young. They are used to flavor some cheeses, such as Yarg and Gouda. Their stems produce a fiber somewhat like linen, but coarser. Their roots produce a useful yellow dye. Their presence indicates highly fertile soil, and they are excellent sources of nitrogen for compost. They are one of the few plants that can tolerate and even flourish in soils rich in poultry droppings. We certainly have those. Major chicken-poop operation going on here, though I must say that the nettles were growing quite a distance from the chicken coops.
It's been about 27 hours, and now the effect is finally wearing off.
Just Live It Right the First Time
H/t Maggie's Farm, part of a quotation from the 17th-18th-century Shawnee leader Tecumseh as rendered in the recent movie, "Act of Valor":
When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way.
The Emotional Oracle
More links from Not Exactly Rocket Science.
Your brain knows more than you think. Your gut won't give you a good answer about a complex situation you're completely ignorant of, but it may give you an excellent result if you've been exposed to a lot of facts that you haven't yet had a chance to sort through rationally and systematically. Experimenters found that subjects could make very good seat-of-the-pants guesses about complex systems like the stock market, sports tournaments, and weather, after they'd had a mass of uncoordinated data shoved at them on each subject. This result is consistent with something I was reading recently about successful techniques for "cramming" for quiz shows, and with my own experience in picking crossword solutions out of what sometimes seems like thin air. I suppose it's also related to what allows great athletes to do the impossible, or even what makes typing or playing the piano possible without tripping over one's own feet like the proverbial self-conscious centipede.
I wonder if people would do better or worse at this trick after the electro-treatment I mentioned in my last post?
All Quiet in the Head
A nagging millstone, or the "still, small voice"? A mild electro-therapy to the brain is said to quiet the internal cacophony and permit its subjects to learn new tasks with greater ease. It sounds like a way to get catapulted right into The Zone. The author reports that the effect lasted for about three days, and that she missed it like crazy when it wore off. If the device were commercially available, she'd "wear one at all times and have two in my backpack ready in case something happened to the first one." But she wonders whether we would be better or worse people without the nagging doubts that we so often hear in our minds.
Art Against War
The New Criterion has an article called "The New Old Lie," which treats the current demand that war always be treated as essentially meaningless.
The latter view, Schwarz has written, “that combat, even combat that defeats Nazi Germany, is without uplift, without virtue, and without purpose” is “unusually clear-eyed” about “real war.” This belief has been overlooked by a population that wants to be coddled and so refuses to recognize that true artistry goes hand in hand with, as Schwarz would have it, the accurate, nihilistic view of war.
This conceit has long been de rigueur among professional critics of high culture. In his introduction to Patriotic Gore, Edmund Wilson equated human war to the aggression of gangs of baboons and sea slugs: “at bottom the irrational instinct of an active power organism in the presence of another such organism.”...
Over the past half century, scarcely an American student has studied Great War poetry without finding out that Wilfred Owen produced the greatest poem of the war. With its horrifying depictions of the suffering and death of fighting in the trenches, his poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” proved “the old lie”—that it is sweet and fitting to die for your country. Tellingly, we would be hard-pressed to find a student these days who has read “Dulce et Decorum Est” in its original form by Horace. After all, the Roman poet could not possibly have produced art if it contained such sentimental pap.We've spoken of that poem before. "The divide in our nation is between those who feel that the words are "the Old Lie," and those who engrave them in stone."
Why PUA Techniques Don't Work:
xkcd has it nailed.
You can't beat this without hitting bottom. And once you've hit bottom, you're not looking down on other people: you're looking up.
I think of the scene from "Fight Club" where Tyler Durden forces the Asian guy, at gunpoint, to return to his studies. It's at that moment, facing death as a failure, that you realize that anything would be better than this.
And so, you're looking up. As long as they're fighting, they're fighting for something better. God save them, and us.
Happy Lent. Mine has been a failure so far: and that means it has been a success. Lent, taken seriously, is also about hitting bottom. It lets you know that you ought to love the man who is your enemy, because a man like you deserves an enemy. The man you ought to hate is the man who will accommodate you as you are.
You can't beat this without hitting bottom. And once you've hit bottom, you're not looking down on other people: you're looking up.
I think of the scene from "Fight Club" where Tyler Durden forces the Asian guy, at gunpoint, to return to his studies. It's at that moment, facing death as a failure, that you realize that anything would be better than this.
And so, you're looking up. As long as they're fighting, they're fighting for something better. God save them, and us.
Happy Lent. Mine has been a failure so far: and that means it has been a success. Lent, taken seriously, is also about hitting bottom. It lets you know that you ought to love the man who is your enemy, because a man like you deserves an enemy. The man you ought to hate is the man who will accommodate you as you are.
A Song for Spring
The spring is upon us. And so, a song:
It has a name that honors the generation before the one currently fecund; but without them, how would we have the new?
UPDATE: As to which, our brothers at BSBFB say...
It has a name that honors the generation before the one currently fecund; but without them, how would we have the new?
UPDATE: As to which, our brothers at BSBFB say...
[W]hat's the difference between bagpipes and an onion? No one cries when you chop up a bagpipe. What's the difference between a bagpipe and a trampoline? You take your shoes off to jump up and down on a trampoline...Thanks, guys. We almost appreciate it.
A Surplus in Five Years
The senators most aligned with the TEA Party have produced legislation designed not merely to balance the budget, but to create a surplus within five years. Such a plan might begin to address the severe budgetary issues threatening the nation: the unfunded promises in Federal pensions, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid that will consume the budget. We must do this sooner and faster, rather than later and more slowly.
The Hill describes the plan -- eventually, after seven paragraphs of explaining that it is a "wish list" that can "never pass" and providing talking points about it. Here are the details.
The Hill describes the plan -- eventually, after seven paragraphs of explaining that it is a "wish list" that can "never pass" and providing talking points about it. Here are the details.
The lawmakers said they would turn Medicare into a premium support plan that would give seniors the same healthcare plan as members of Congress. They say this would save an estimated $1 trillion over 10 years....
The trio would curb Social Security spending by increasing the retirement age over time and indexing benefits to individual incomes. High-income earners would see slower growth in their benefits while low-income workers would see increased benefits.
The proposal would fund Medicaid, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, food stamps and child nutrition programs through block grants. It would cut most discretionary spending to fiscal year 2008 levels but spare national defense spending from the deep cuts mandated by the 2011 Budget Control Act. It would freeze foreign aid spending at $5 billion a year and eliminate the departments of Commerce, Education, Housing and Urban Development and Energy and privatize the Transportation Security Administration.
The plan would repeal the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.All of that sounds like a good start. It's a nice touch that they don't "eliminate" foreign aid, as it is one of our cheaper but more effective foreign policy tools. It's an easy cut that demagogues often suggest to Americans, but we get a lot of mileage out of USAID in places like the southern Philippines.
Pagans MC and the 2nd Amendment
Volokh comments on an interesting case that shows something of the limits of our legal approach to the world. American laws are based on a model drawn up by businessmen and lawyers, who have a certain way of approaching the world in which business-style arrangements are assumed to be good models for thinking about other social arrangements. Thus, we have John Locke's concept of a "social contract," which substitutes a business model for the actual facts about how political bonds are formed and maintained; and we have the modern concept of marriage as a sort-of contract rather than a kinship bond, the limits of which we've discussed at length here.
Another limitation is demonstrated by the current case. The President of a chapter of the Pagans Motorcycle Club (PMC) is a convicted felon who is, therefore, denied exercise of second amendment rights. Now, he lives in a violent world in which he might come into conflict with the Hell's Angels Motorcycle Club (HAMC), which has been trying to push the PMC out of some of its traditional territory, and so he feels (with some justice!) that he needs protection.
Many men in a situation where the law was putting their lives at risk -- and not merely outlaw bikers! -- would simply have thumbed their noses at the law and done what they felt they had to do. Our chapter President, however, actually obeyed the law in spite of his felonious past: he just asked that members of his club who were able to obtain lawful concealed weapons permits do so, and then carry firearms when with him on club business in order to protect him.
The court has held that those club members who did this -- who, remember, were able to pass the criminal background checks required for them to obtain legitimate concealed weapon permits -- broke Federal law. The reason the court believes this is true is that it accepts the government's argument that the club members were "employed" by the chapter President. The club members appealed the conviction on the grounds that, actually, they weren't employed by the President at all: he didn't pay them, for one thing; there was no contract; there were no benefits; and they certainly didn't conceive of it as an employer-employee relationship. This is because it wasn't an employer-employee relationship! They weren't his employees, but members of a club.
I frankly think that PMC is in the right here, and the government in the wrong. The government wants to act on the presumption that PMC is an organized criminal group, but it hasn't proven that. The government's argument is that 'employed' is a word with several senses, and one of those senses is 'used for a purpose'; but, while that is in some sense true, it's nonsense as an argument in this case. It's clear that isn't what the statute controls. It controls employment relationships.
The reason this law doesn't prevent what the government would like to prevent here is that the law was written by people who brought these contract-type assumptions to the problem. PMC and HAMC and the others are not like corporations (even if, as sometimes happens, they incorporate in order to register trademarks and such). Their fundamental ethic is not capitalist. They don't live in the same world as the lawyers and businessmen who wrote the law. A law built around contracts, employers and employees, and so forth, is naturally irrelevant to what these motorcycle clubs are doing.
What you are dealing with in PMC is the Jomsvikings. They are a warrior brotherhood bound by a code that separates them from the rest of American society, and which is enforced outside the law by systems of honor backed by violence and threats of violence.
The existence of such an order within American society may be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how it is used and for what purpose. My reading on these kinds of clubs is that they are usually a mixture of good and bad. The old war-band ethic has a lot to recommend it, and some men may find it to be the order that lets them structure a life worth living.
You can see a lot of the mixture of good and bad in this old documentary. (There are nine parts; watch for Jerry Garcia playing a HAMC wedding, which is conducted on terms that are surely unenforcable in any court -- a fact that might give the lie to the idea that marriage is a contract, since if it were, you could enter into a contract on such terms.) However you shake out on the idea of good and bad, though, what should be clear to everyone is this: what they are doing has nothing to do with laws based on contracts and employment. They're doing something very different from any of that.
Another limitation is demonstrated by the current case. The President of a chapter of the Pagans Motorcycle Club (PMC) is a convicted felon who is, therefore, denied exercise of second amendment rights. Now, he lives in a violent world in which he might come into conflict with the Hell's Angels Motorcycle Club (HAMC), which has been trying to push the PMC out of some of its traditional territory, and so he feels (with some justice!) that he needs protection.
Many men in a situation where the law was putting their lives at risk -- and not merely outlaw bikers! -- would simply have thumbed their noses at the law and done what they felt they had to do. Our chapter President, however, actually obeyed the law in spite of his felonious past: he just asked that members of his club who were able to obtain lawful concealed weapons permits do so, and then carry firearms when with him on club business in order to protect him.
The court has held that those club members who did this -- who, remember, were able to pass the criminal background checks required for them to obtain legitimate concealed weapon permits -- broke Federal law. The reason the court believes this is true is that it accepts the government's argument that the club members were "employed" by the chapter President. The club members appealed the conviction on the grounds that, actually, they weren't employed by the President at all: he didn't pay them, for one thing; there was no contract; there were no benefits; and they certainly didn't conceive of it as an employer-employee relationship. This is because it wasn't an employer-employee relationship! They weren't his employees, but members of a club.
I frankly think that PMC is in the right here, and the government in the wrong. The government wants to act on the presumption that PMC is an organized criminal group, but it hasn't proven that. The government's argument is that 'employed' is a word with several senses, and one of those senses is 'used for a purpose'; but, while that is in some sense true, it's nonsense as an argument in this case. It's clear that isn't what the statute controls. It controls employment relationships.
The reason this law doesn't prevent what the government would like to prevent here is that the law was written by people who brought these contract-type assumptions to the problem. PMC and HAMC and the others are not like corporations (even if, as sometimes happens, they incorporate in order to register trademarks and such). Their fundamental ethic is not capitalist. They don't live in the same world as the lawyers and businessmen who wrote the law. A law built around contracts, employers and employees, and so forth, is naturally irrelevant to what these motorcycle clubs are doing.
What you are dealing with in PMC is the Jomsvikings. They are a warrior brotherhood bound by a code that separates them from the rest of American society, and which is enforced outside the law by systems of honor backed by violence and threats of violence.
The existence of such an order within American society may be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how it is used and for what purpose. My reading on these kinds of clubs is that they are usually a mixture of good and bad. The old war-band ethic has a lot to recommend it, and some men may find it to be the order that lets them structure a life worth living.
You can see a lot of the mixture of good and bad in this old documentary. (There are nine parts; watch for Jerry Garcia playing a HAMC wedding, which is conducted on terms that are surely unenforcable in any court -- a fact that might give the lie to the idea that marriage is a contract, since if it were, you could enter into a contract on such terms.) However you shake out on the idea of good and bad, though, what should be clear to everyone is this: what they are doing has nothing to do with laws based on contracts and employment. They're doing something very different from any of that.
The Afghan Ulema Council Ruling on Women
Ms. Fawzia Koofi, an Afghan Member of Parliament who survived a Taliban attempt on her life, worries that a recent ruling by the Afghan Ulema Council represents an outreach by Karzai to the Taliban.
The authors helpfully cite the source of their claim that women are secondary: verses 1 and 34 of the Surah an-Nisa' (i.e., "The Women"). As we all know by now, the Koran is supposed to be the actual word of God, filtered only by Muhammad and the angel, allegedly Gabriel, who revealed it to him.
The BBC notes that this ruling has the potential to reverse the legal freedoms instituted for women in Afghanistan a decade ago, following the American invasion.
I gather that the American people will not endure a presence in Afghanistan of the length that we devoted to, say, Japan or South Korea. That being so, it will fall on women like Fawzia Koofi to prove these freedoms are rights. Perhaps there are ways we can be of some service, even once we can no longer hold back the tide.
Americans had better steel themselves to swallow this, though, if we do choose to walk away. You're going to have a chance to reconsider just what is meant by the word "rights." Those things, taken for granted, are like wine: they are a gift from God, in the sense that the possibility of wine -- like the possibility of freedom -- is inherent in the structure of the world. Yet if the good is to be had it must be made by human hands, and made new every year. If we do not do the work, there will be no wine.
But wine, I have heard, is also banned by the Koran.
"They have started taking some of those basic rights," she said, "like working together, living together, going out like a free human being. I am worried for my daughters and for all the girls and women of Afghanistan."It's certainly right to be worried. A rush transcript of the ruling can be read here; it dwells chiefly on the rights of women in Islam until section "F," when we hear about the other side of the coin.
F. Women cannot be inherited. Similarly, there are many other rights, granted to a woman under the religion of Islam, which are observed. But, where a Muslim woman has many rights, [she also] has duties and obligations, such as:
* Adherence, in faith and action, to the orders and prohibitions of Islam’s sacred Shariah
* Complete adherence and observance of the hijab [according to the Shariah], which protects the dignity and personality of the woman
* Avoiding mingling with stranger men in various social situations, such as education, shopping, the office and other affairs of life
* In consideration of the clarity of verses 1 and 34 of Surah an-Nisa’ [of the Qur’an], men are fundamental and women are secondary; also, lineage is derived from the man. Therefore, the use of words and expressions that contradict the sacred verses must be strictly avoided.
* Respecting [the orders] about the multiplicity of wives (polygamy), which are in accordance with clear orders of the Qur’an
* Avoiding travel without a [Shariah-sanctioned] mahram (male companion)
* Adherence to the clear orders of Muhammad’s Shariah in case of divorce
The authors helpfully cite the source of their claim that women are secondary: verses 1 and 34 of the Surah an-Nisa' (i.e., "The Women"). As we all know by now, the Koran is supposed to be the actual word of God, filtered only by Muhammad and the angel, allegedly Gabriel, who revealed it to him.
1. O mankind! Be dutiful to your Lord, Who created you from a single person (Adam), and from him (Adam) He created his wife [Hawwa (Eve)], and from them both He created many men and women and fear Allah through Whom you demand your mutual (rights), and (do not cut the relations of) the wombs (kinship) . Surely, Allah is Ever an All-Watcher over you....
34. Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has made one of them to excel the other, and because they spend (to support them) from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient (to Allah and to their husbands), and guard in the husband's absence what Allah orders them to guard (e.g. their chastity, their husband's property, etc.). As to those women on whose part you see ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (next), refuse to share their beds, (and last) beat them (lightly, if it is useful), but if they return to obedience, seek not against them means (of annoyance). Surely, Allah is Ever Most High, Most Great.You may also find verse 11 to be telling, since it deals with inheritance rights between sons and daughters; though, remember that the English tradition was primogeniture; this system, though unequal, does provide a better inheritance (and therefore, property) system for the daughters than that.
The BBC notes that this ruling has the potential to reverse the legal freedoms instituted for women in Afghanistan a decade ago, following the American invasion.
I gather that the American people will not endure a presence in Afghanistan of the length that we devoted to, say, Japan or South Korea. That being so, it will fall on women like Fawzia Koofi to prove these freedoms are rights. Perhaps there are ways we can be of some service, even once we can no longer hold back the tide.
Americans had better steel themselves to swallow this, though, if we do choose to walk away. You're going to have a chance to reconsider just what is meant by the word "rights." Those things, taken for granted, are like wine: they are a gift from God, in the sense that the possibility of wine -- like the possibility of freedom -- is inherent in the structure of the world. Yet if the good is to be had it must be made by human hands, and made new every year. If we do not do the work, there will be no wine.
But wine, I have heard, is also banned by the Koran.
Sic Transit Lex
By now you will have heard that one of the most famous, and most justly famous, of the milbloggers died when his fighter crashed yesterday. The man we called Neptunus Lex was a good companion (especially, one might be inclined to say under happier circumstances, for a fighter pilot). He was also a good writer: his thoughts were clear and his expression courtly.
You can leave condolences at his place. I am going to follow the example at BLACKFIVE and close the comments here, because it's best that they be made where his family can see them.
He had a mechanical problem with his plane just a few days ago. You may remember reading about it.
You can leave condolences at his place. I am going to follow the example at BLACKFIVE and close the comments here, because it's best that they be made where his family can see them.
He had a mechanical problem with his plane just a few days ago. You may remember reading about it.
It’s funny how quickly you can go from “comfort zone” to “wrestling snakes” in this business.
But even snake wrestling beats life in the cube, for me at least. In measured doses.Spoken like a man. He certainly was one.
Some Go Back
My father was a long-time Captain of the local Volunteer Fire Department. Thus I know, and have had it impressed upon me since I was quite young, that no one should ever go back into a burning building. The people who go back in to rescue others, having made it out themselves, almost never survive.
For some things, though, I'd go back too.
For some things, though, I'd go back too.
Firefighters recovered the body of Chief Warrant Officer Edward Cantrell on the second floor of his North Carolina home, not far from the remains of 6-year-old Isabella and 4-year-old Natalia.I'm sorry, Chief. You did all you could. Angels can do no more.
"The Premium for a Burning House Is the Price of the House"
Megan McArdle, whose columns and comment boards I so enjoy, is taking a sabbatical to work on a large project. She arranged for a handful of colleagues to cover for her; one posted today on the subject of the American healthcare system. It's a decent post, but my favorite part was a link to a couple of old articles, two of the best summaries I've found of the dumb things we do to ourselves under the name of the health insurance system. One is brief while the other is rather long, but very well worth reading from start to finish. Both make the essential distinction between insurance and prepaid medical care.
Election Day
It's election day in Georgia, and I just went and cast the shortest ballot I ever did: there was exactly one question before the electorate today. Although it's an important question, it's not very significant that you get out and vote today: Nate Silver estimates that my preferred candidate has a zero-percent chance of winning (running third behind Mr. Romney, whom Silver estimates to have a one-percent chance). My opinions line up about as well as usual with that of the democratic majority, even in Georgia.
Still, delegates are divided proportionately, so it's not a complete waste of a trip; and more, there's something to be said for participating in its own right.
Much has been said about the damage done by an extended primary, but there is a real virtue in counting the votes. The longest primary I can recall was the 2008 fight between then-Senators Clinton and Obama, which was also said to be crippling to both; but in fact, there was a landslide victory for their party in the fall. It's a good thing if people listen to the debates, read and think, and then have a chance to vote and know that their vote counts.
The Democratic Party fell down on that last point in 2008, resolving contentious issues of vote counting by having Sen. Clinton accede to a nomination of her opponent by general acclamation. She was a loyal soldier in that, as probably Mr. Santorum will be also should he lose: after all, he was once the Republican Party's whip.
The idea of democratic legitimacy may not survive, but it is an ideal I have fought for and continue to defend. This is not because it means that my side wins, because -- insofar as I have a "side" at all, there being so very few people who believe as I do -- there are far too few people like me to prevail even in the smallest and most local contest.
No, it is because my father told me as a boy about people who would stand in line to vote even though guerrillas would come and fire into the line. It is because, in Iraq, we defended people who stood in line even though mortars would fall and suicide bombers would threaten. It is because in Afghanistan we have killed men who would themselves kill to prevent women from voting, and because those women may not be able to vote for much longer.
Democracy may not be the right way to choose a government or a policy, but democracy is our cause whether it's right or wrong. That may not be a good argument, but sometimes honor demands that we do things that wiser people wouldn't do.
Still, delegates are divided proportionately, so it's not a complete waste of a trip; and more, there's something to be said for participating in its own right.
Much has been said about the damage done by an extended primary, but there is a real virtue in counting the votes. The longest primary I can recall was the 2008 fight between then-Senators Clinton and Obama, which was also said to be crippling to both; but in fact, there was a landslide victory for their party in the fall. It's a good thing if people listen to the debates, read and think, and then have a chance to vote and know that their vote counts.
The Democratic Party fell down on that last point in 2008, resolving contentious issues of vote counting by having Sen. Clinton accede to a nomination of her opponent by general acclamation. She was a loyal soldier in that, as probably Mr. Santorum will be also should he lose: after all, he was once the Republican Party's whip.
The idea of democratic legitimacy may not survive, but it is an ideal I have fought for and continue to defend. This is not because it means that my side wins, because -- insofar as I have a "side" at all, there being so very few people who believe as I do -- there are far too few people like me to prevail even in the smallest and most local contest.
No, it is because my father told me as a boy about people who would stand in line to vote even though guerrillas would come and fire into the line. It is because, in Iraq, we defended people who stood in line even though mortars would fall and suicide bombers would threaten. It is because in Afghanistan we have killed men who would themselves kill to prevent women from voting, and because those women may not be able to vote for much longer.
Democracy may not be the right way to choose a government or a policy, but democracy is our cause whether it's right or wrong. That may not be a good argument, but sometimes honor demands that we do things that wiser people wouldn't do.
On White Bread
The surprise here is how interesting the subject turns out to be:
Now I know. There's something about these little panics by mass media that we should begin to recognize: they always makes things worse. Except, of course, for Big Bread, which came out gloriously well from the exercise.
In 1890, 90 percent of the country's bread was baked in homes. The rest was purchased from tiny neighborhood bakeries. By 1930, this trend had reversed completely: 90 percent of bread was purchased, and purchased from increasingly large, increasingly distant factories....
Legions of food reformers, social workers, public-health officials, advertising executives, and an astonishing number of diet gurus worked frantically to convince Americans that choosing the wrong bread would lead to serious problems. Some pinpointed newfangled loaves as the source of cancer, diabetes, criminal delinquency, tuberculosis, kidney failure, overstimulated nervous systems, and even "white race suicide." Others heralded modern bread as a savior, delivering the nation from drudgery, hunger, and dangerous contagions carried by unscientific bread. But they could all agree on one thing: Incorrect food choices were the root cause of nearly all of the nation's moral, physical, and social problems....
Even that sentimental icon of all that is good—"Mother's bread"—was denounced under the banner of a safe and efficient diet. Scientific American, women's magazines, and home-economics textbooks portrayed careless home baking as a threat to family health, while other observers wondered whether even the most careful housewife should bake at all.This is one of those things I've always wondered about, albeit only vaguely: how did we as a nation come to give up something as wonderful as fresh bread? It's not hard to make, and a local bakery isn't a huge extravagance. Many other nations have managed to continue having locally-baked, fresh bread available even as they've modernized their economies.
Now I know. There's something about these little panics by mass media that we should begin to recognize: they always makes things worse. Except, of course, for Big Bread, which came out gloriously well from the exercise.
It's Hard To Write A Love Song To Yourself...
...but apparently that's the wave of the future.
The movie will apparently be called "Brave," but at this point, it might better be called "Hackneyed." How many movies of this type have there been over the last twenty years? It's gone on so long that it would be brave to make a movie that told a traditional fairy tale.
The difference between a traditional fairy tale and this kind goes beyond the obvious -- the female hero who can outfight all the boys with ease, which is now the standard rather than the transgressive model. Rather, the real difference is masked by that aspect: you couldn't make this movie with a male hero, because people would be outraged to see young women portrayed as a pack of useless losers. People would hate the male hero whose attitude conveyed that it was an insult to his excellence to suggest he might marry some penny-ante girl from his village. The female lead allows them to tell the story they want to tell without running up against the uncomfortable truth about what kind of a story it is they are telling.
The real difference is that the love story has been replaced, in our age, by the story of the 'hero' in love with herself. Prince Charming, whatever his flaws, was driven by love for another: his service, and his sacrifice, were for a beloved lady he valued above his own life and for whom he would suffer any pain and dare any peril. The modern 'hero' is focused on her own fulfillment, resisting every duty to her family or her society as an injustice that interferes with her personal journey of self-actualization.
I can't wait for the "Princess Bride" remake: you know, the one where Buttercup escapes by knocking the giant out with a rock, swims out to the waiting pirate ship and takes command as the Dread Pirate Roberta, calling back to shore as Wesley is led away to his doom: "You didn't think I'd waste my life on a farm boy?"
Well, no. Of course not. True love doesn't happen every day.
The movie will apparently be called "Brave," but at this point, it might better be called "Hackneyed." How many movies of this type have there been over the last twenty years? It's gone on so long that it would be brave to make a movie that told a traditional fairy tale.
The difference between a traditional fairy tale and this kind goes beyond the obvious -- the female hero who can outfight all the boys with ease, which is now the standard rather than the transgressive model. Rather, the real difference is masked by that aspect: you couldn't make this movie with a male hero, because people would be outraged to see young women portrayed as a pack of useless losers. People would hate the male hero whose attitude conveyed that it was an insult to his excellence to suggest he might marry some penny-ante girl from his village. The female lead allows them to tell the story they want to tell without running up against the uncomfortable truth about what kind of a story it is they are telling.
The real difference is that the love story has been replaced, in our age, by the story of the 'hero' in love with herself. Prince Charming, whatever his flaws, was driven by love for another: his service, and his sacrifice, were for a beloved lady he valued above his own life and for whom he would suffer any pain and dare any peril. The modern 'hero' is focused on her own fulfillment, resisting every duty to her family or her society as an injustice that interferes with her personal journey of self-actualization.
I can't wait for the "Princess Bride" remake: you know, the one where Buttercup escapes by knocking the giant out with a rock, swims out to the waiting pirate ship and takes command as the Dread Pirate Roberta, calling back to shore as Wesley is led away to his doom: "You didn't think I'd waste my life on a farm boy?"
Well, no. Of course not. True love doesn't happen every day.
Sorry Folks, Nothing We Can Do
Our friends at Samizdata continue to chronicle the disaster that is the modern state from a British perspective.
[A man] drowned in a shallow boating pond in his local park, after suffering an epileptic seizure while feeding swans. A passer-by (a woman who was in charge of a small child so did not dare enter the pond) called the emergency services. But the first firemen to show up announced that they only had Level One training, for ankle-deep water, and needed to wait for a specialist team with Level Two training for chest-deep water.Remember when "Anarchy in the UK" sounded like a threat rather than a suggestion for improvement?
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