Independent contractor? Quelle horreur!It's best to own one's own means of production. That way, you have the maximum ability to live with genuine liberty.
F. A. Hayek worried (presciently, as it turns out) that the two faces of dependency—as public ward or as hireling—would encourage certain undesirable mental and political habits, a kind of deep-set servility born of the delegation of basic responsibilities from the individual and the family to large bureaucracies, public or private. The Company Man and the Obamaphone Lady have more in common than you’d think.
Yeoman Farmers
Kevin Williamson makes a point I agree with, though he credits it to Hayek instead of Jefferson.
The Administration's Priorities for the Army
The headline says something important, although if you were paying attention you already knew it because Gen. Odierno said in 2013 that fighting sexual assault should be the "primary mission" of the Army. That would be most perfectly done by disbanding the Army, which would result in a 100% decrease in sexual assault within the service.
So it's interesting that the #2 priority is... shrinking the Army. This is described in terms of "balance" and "skillful transition," but explicitly it is about "declining budgets." (The other most effective thing we could do -- eliminating units in which people who are sexually attracted to each other serve together -- is a non-starter for this administration, which is running as hard as it can in the opposite direction for its last two years.)
It's curious that, with Middle East on fire, our Army's top two priorities are these two. But if we intend to pass the problem off to Iran by helping them expand their regional hegemony and erect their nuclear umbrella, I suppose we won't need an Army capable of going to the Middle East with any superior force. If we go at all, it'll be as partners with Iran. Indeed, in Iraq, that's already the role we are playing.
So it's interesting that the #2 priority is... shrinking the Army. This is described in terms of "balance" and "skillful transition," but explicitly it is about "declining budgets." (The other most effective thing we could do -- eliminating units in which people who are sexually attracted to each other serve together -- is a non-starter for this administration, which is running as hard as it can in the opposite direction for its last two years.)
It's curious that, with Middle East on fire, our Army's top two priorities are these two. But if we intend to pass the problem off to Iran by helping them expand their regional hegemony and erect their nuclear umbrella, I suppose we won't need an Army capable of going to the Middle East with any superior force. If we go at all, it'll be as partners with Iran. Indeed, in Iraq, that's already the role we are playing.
Iran "Deal" Grows Murkier
Iran releases its own fact sheet, claiming it will operate 10,000 centrifuges including in its underground bunker at Fordow.
May Have Been The Losing Side
Not convinced it wasn't the Viking one.
Results from a quiz:
Results from a quiz:
Harald Hardrada (The vikings)
You would fight for Harald Hardrada, the King of Norway, who is sometimes known as the “last Viking ruler.” You believe ambition and strength are excellent leadership qualities, and you value a vision of expansion and growth. Unfortunately, Harald will not achieve the level of power you think he should. He will be defeated by Harold Godwinson at Stamford Bridge in September 1066.
Inequality
Elizabeth Price Foley has a long post at Instapundit about the coming end to bans on prostitution and polygamy. Really, once you've legalized gay "marriage," you've already gone well beyond polygamy: any sort of union between reproductive couples/triples/whatever is less a violation of the principle of marriage than what you've already approved. There's no longer any reason to mind consensual unions between men and horses, if that's what they really want. We can wash our hands of it, once "gay marriage" is approved: go that far, and there is nothing beyond the Pale.
The funny thing is that all this is being done in the name of "equality." But as Foley recognizes, equality is the least likely result:
The funny thing is that all this is being done in the name of "equality." But as Foley recognizes, equality is the least likely result:
And the mother in me (which is inherently conservative) –with a teenage daughter– gets a little worried when I think of a world in which prostitution and polygamy are legal. The times, they are a-changin.’Polygamy and prostitution are fine, as long as you don't care that much about your daughters.
Congress May Still Have a Foreign Policy Role After All
Unanimous vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to restrain the White House from pursuing the Iran deal without coming to Congress.
A Response To Tex's Priest
'You shall all get the same public shaming as that pizza place.'
I find it endlessly amusing that shame is the weapon of choice here. The whole force of this argument is that somehow gays are being made to feel as if they are shameful by being "denied" marriage or, now that SCOTUS seems prepared to set aside the laws and constitutions of a majority of states to help them overcome this shame, wedding cakes on demand. For a majority to use its size and voice to make a minority feel ashamed is such a positive evil that the world must be turned on its head to avoid it.
And if you don't agree, we'll show up en mass to shame you freaks.
I find it endlessly amusing that shame is the weapon of choice here. The whole force of this argument is that somehow gays are being made to feel as if they are shameful by being "denied" marriage or, now that SCOTUS seems prepared to set aside the laws and constitutions of a majority of states to help them overcome this shame, wedding cakes on demand. For a majority to use its size and voice to make a minority feel ashamed is such a positive evil that the world must be turned on its head to avoid it.
And if you don't agree, we'll show up en mass to shame you freaks.
A Corrupt Politician Runs For President
The advantages of being Hillary Clinton in the presidential race just starting are these:
1) Everyone knows you to be a corrupt, manipulative deceiver who is motivated solely by your own interest, and knows you so well that absolutely nothing you can do or say will surprise anyone. No scandal can derail you, because no one expects any better from you.
2) This corruption is a positive recommendation to the richest and most influential political factors: large banks, multinational corporations, and big Labor. They will be delighted to have a President whose administration can always be bought when there's a difficulty.
3) You stand astride a Democratic National Committee that will not dare to cross you. The nomination, at least, is yours unless your health should decline so suddenly that you cannot plausibly serve as President. It is "your turn," everyone agrees, and no one who might credibly challenge you is preparing to do so.
The disadvantages are these:
A) No actual citizens want you to be President.
(i) The true Left does not believe in you.
(ii) The Right doesn't like you either.
(iii) The moderate center tends to want honest, effective government at relatively low tax rates. No one thinks you will provide any of that: the corruption of Clintonworld is infamous, the ineffectiveness of the State Department under your leadership compellingly obvious, the failure of your signature health care proposals your other most famous 'achievement,' and your readiness to raise taxes assumed.
B) Machines can get votes lined up in spite of zero enthusiasm, but that only gets you the bluest states. You've got to be competitive in states where machines such as labor unions are much weaker, such as Florida.
So you'll have plenty of money, given (2), and an easy path to the nomination, given (3). You'll thus have tons of cash to focus on the general election, and you'll be running against a Republican who will be weakened by the primary -- with any luck, some of his flaws will have been exposed for your attack dogs.
Still, you've got to get people to show up and pull the lever for you. No one really wants to. The worst part of being 'inevitable' is that your forthcoming Presidency is seen as a sort of chore even by Democrats. Maybe it's just something they have to do, but it's not something they are at all looking forward to doing.
I wouldn't be surprised if, in the end, that lack of enthusiasm is enough to prove her undoing.
1) Everyone knows you to be a corrupt, manipulative deceiver who is motivated solely by your own interest, and knows you so well that absolutely nothing you can do or say will surprise anyone. No scandal can derail you, because no one expects any better from you.
2) This corruption is a positive recommendation to the richest and most influential political factors: large banks, multinational corporations, and big Labor. They will be delighted to have a President whose administration can always be bought when there's a difficulty.
3) You stand astride a Democratic National Committee that will not dare to cross you. The nomination, at least, is yours unless your health should decline so suddenly that you cannot plausibly serve as President. It is "your turn," everyone agrees, and no one who might credibly challenge you is preparing to do so.
The disadvantages are these:
A) No actual citizens want you to be President.
(i) The true Left does not believe in you.
(ii) The Right doesn't like you either.
(iii) The moderate center tends to want honest, effective government at relatively low tax rates. No one thinks you will provide any of that: the corruption of Clintonworld is infamous, the ineffectiveness of the State Department under your leadership compellingly obvious, the failure of your signature health care proposals your other most famous 'achievement,' and your readiness to raise taxes assumed.
B) Machines can get votes lined up in spite of zero enthusiasm, but that only gets you the bluest states. You've got to be competitive in states where machines such as labor unions are much weaker, such as Florida.
So you'll have plenty of money, given (2), and an easy path to the nomination, given (3). You'll thus have tons of cash to focus on the general election, and you'll be running against a Republican who will be weakened by the primary -- with any luck, some of his flaws will have been exposed for your attack dogs.
Still, you've got to get people to show up and pull the lever for you. No one really wants to. The worst part of being 'inevitable' is that your forthcoming Presidency is seen as a sort of chore even by Democrats. Maybe it's just something they have to do, but it's not something they are at all looking forward to doing.
I wouldn't be surprised if, in the end, that lack of enthusiasm is enough to prove her undoing.
Frog-floaters
We got about three inches of rain just before dawn today. Not only was March was one of the area's wettest months ever, but April is turning out wet as well. Though it's not a great time of year for it from the point of view of farmers, who are trying to get out into the fields, the rest of us are happy about it; it's an emphatic end to several years of worrying drought. At times like this a second cistern would come in awfully handy. As it is, our pond is finally coming back after several years of experiencing the prairie half of its "prairie wetland" mode. The noise from the frogs is deafening. Lately you can hardly walk anywhere without scaring up a little cloud of pea-sized froglets, little guys who've only barely lost their tails. The frog population may be keeping down the mosquito population; at least the mosquitos aren't bad yet.
For several years the drought discouraged us from putting much effort into the garden, which, as the NPH puts it, has been "fallow." We've reclaimed a good bit of it from the wilderness now, so we have thriving eggplants, tomatoes, and peppers though we essentially missed the winter crop of greens this year. Soon it will be too hot to plant much of anything new, so we'll concentrate on finishing up the weeding and mulching.
This morning we got a series of klaxon warnings on the cellphone telling us to avoid flood areas. Those warnings always crack me up: in an almost totally flat area, what isn't a flood area? In any case, flood doesn't mean a great deal when the water doesn't have any noticeable flow to it. A three-inch rain can hardly cause serious problems. When we were first moving down here, there was a five-month period one fall in which 55 inches of rain fell. Even that was inconvenient rather than dangerous; the water table was practically at the surface, so no useful digging could get done, and constructive projects were a challenge. At one point the heavily mulched surface of the ground in the brush around our house felt like walking on a waterbed. When heavy machinery punched through the mulch, that was an end to purposeful movement.
When the lightning stops and it gets a little lighter outside, I'm looking forward to walking down and seeing a vastly increased pond.
North Dakota, Socialist Paradise
Well, it's an interesting argument, anyway.
In the early twentieth century, agriculture-dominated North Dakota was swept by a populist agrarian movement borne of farmers sick of watching bankers and railroad bosses take advantage of their work and run amok with their savings. That agrarian movement produced two entities that are still flourishing over 100 years later – a state-owned grain mill, which has become the largest grain mill in the United States, and a public bank that ensured North Dakota would be unaffected by the recession of 2008 that rocked the other 49 states and the rest of the world.... The bank didn’t engage in the risky derivatives trading that crashed the rest of the financial sector in the late 2000s, and its executives are state employees that earn a respectable but not excessive salary, and are thus not incentivized to make high-risk bets with deposits to enrich themselves.Jacksonians generally hate state banks, but it's hard to argue with the 115 year record of success by the grain mill. It's the largest in the country, but not a monopoly as you might suspect: it grinds only 10% of the grain in North Dakota.
Civil disagreement
Father Z has a good idea for businesses targeted for their beliefs and threatened with boycotts if they don't cater gay weddings: agree enthusiastically to take the business, and explain to your clients that all the proceeds of your work for the event will be donated to a conservative cause. If your employees' t-shirts say as much, even better.
H/t Bookworm Room.
H/t Bookworm Room.
Whisky and Beer
A paradox of life in the South: we have the fewest number of breweries by state, but by far the largest and best American whisky producers. What explains it?
It's an interesting theory. The South does have some microbreweries, including several good ones not too far from me. I'm a fan of the Highland Brewing Company's Oatmeal Porter, and Terrapin Brewery's Hopsecutioner IPA . North Carolina's beer culture is starting to flourish, at least in the mountain west. As for Terrapin, it has a brand new competitor in downtown Athens, Georgia: a brewery called Creature Comforts that is set up in an old tire shop.
UPDATE: So this video of New Yorkers trying moonshine reminds me that there has been a trend of fake moonshine drinks that have been approved around the South the last few years. I've never tried any of them, for two reasons.
1) I hate attempts by the soft to create tourist versions of the South. The last time I passed through Pigeon Forge on the way to the Smoky Mountains, I stopped at a place called The Iron Boar Saloon, billing itself "Best Biker Bar in Pigeon Forge." The bartender looked horrified when I walked into the place. It was all stucco and Yuppies in khaki shorts.
2) I've had enough real moonshine that I don't feel any special nostalgia for it. That stuff will wreck you. I only consent to drink it when a friend has made it, will have his feelings hurt if I don't try it, and I'm settled in for the night and not going anywhere at all before morning. This usually happens around a campsite, as the stuff doubles as a very effective fuel for beer-can alcohol stoves.
Still, the video is amusing -- especially when, after several tourist versions, they finally produce the real stuff at the end. Ninety percent pure, baby.
Around the nation, big beer producers contribute to the campaigns of politicians who will support policies that discourage competition from local upstarts—for example, taxes on breweries and laws that prevent breweries from selling their kegs directly to consumers (instead of through a distributor). But what's unique about the South is that there's a voting bloc—the Baptists—whose moral stance against alcohol happens to align with large producers' desires to keep new competitors from getting started in the business.So micro-brew is becoming increasingly popular, and only in the South can big breweries effectively smash their competition by using government to restrict people from entering the field of competition. Micro-whisky isn't much an issue as yet, but if it became one, it might follow the same pattern. Kentucky Bourbon and Tennessee Whiskey would then be a kind of historical accident; you might see a similar pattern of distribution to micro-breweries, just because they'd find it easier in non-Baptist states to get the laws changed to make their business legal.
It's an interesting theory. The South does have some microbreweries, including several good ones not too far from me. I'm a fan of the Highland Brewing Company's Oatmeal Porter, and Terrapin Brewery's Hopsecutioner IPA . North Carolina's beer culture is starting to flourish, at least in the mountain west. As for Terrapin, it has a brand new competitor in downtown Athens, Georgia: a brewery called Creature Comforts that is set up in an old tire shop.
UPDATE: So this video of New Yorkers trying moonshine reminds me that there has been a trend of fake moonshine drinks that have been approved around the South the last few years. I've never tried any of them, for two reasons.
1) I hate attempts by the soft to create tourist versions of the South. The last time I passed through Pigeon Forge on the way to the Smoky Mountains, I stopped at a place called The Iron Boar Saloon, billing itself "Best Biker Bar in Pigeon Forge." The bartender looked horrified when I walked into the place. It was all stucco and Yuppies in khaki shorts.
2) I've had enough real moonshine that I don't feel any special nostalgia for it. That stuff will wreck you. I only consent to drink it when a friend has made it, will have his feelings hurt if I don't try it, and I'm settled in for the night and not going anywhere at all before morning. This usually happens around a campsite, as the stuff doubles as a very effective fuel for beer-can alcohol stoves.
Still, the video is amusing -- especially when, after several tourist versions, they finally produce the real stuff at the end. Ninety percent pure, baby.
Yeah, Yeah
You've heard the old joke about double negatives versus double affirmatives. But how about "No, totally"? Its structure suggests that you mean to affirm the negative to the strongest possible degree -- in fact, it means the exact opposite.
Against the Shaving of Beards
Some visual persuasion. Obviously there's a third kind of person without a beard -- a serving member of the US military, with a few exceptions for folks like Sikhs and Special Forces. Still, once you get to the numbered arguments, there's something interesting going on.
There's A Point To Be Made Here
Prompted by host George Stephanopoulous to name “the most promising Republican candidate not in the race yet,”... a smirking [William] Kristol suggested the former vice president.I'm pretty sure we all know why that's not a serious suggestion, but it is true that he has a better record. If you hate Dick Cheney, you hate him for something he did. If you hate Hillary Clinton, it's probably not because you were injured by one of her accomplishments.
“If they get to nominate Hillary Clinton, why don’t we get to nominate Dick Cheney? I mean, he has a much… he has a much better record,” Kistol said as the entire panel burst into laughter.
Polio anniversary
The first effective polio vaccine was developed just before I was born, but the disease stubbornly persists in a few chaotic corners of the world that, often for good reason, distrust Western medicine.
The effort is so old that it began to be publicized back when you could find work hand-painting billboards:
The effort is so old that it began to be publicized back when you could find work hand-painting billboards:
On The List Of Things To Avoid
"Rob a man who keeps a sword."
If you want to see some graphic photography of the damage he did, you can do so here. Apparently it wasn't very hard for the police to find the criminals: they just followed the trails of blood.
If you want to see some graphic photography of the damage he did, you can do so here. Apparently it wasn't very hard for the police to find the criminals: they just followed the trails of blood.
A Drop of Nelson's Blood Wouldn't Do Us Any Harm
The Fisherman's Friends ...
as an introduction to this BBC special on sea shanties and sea songs.
as an introduction to this BBC special on sea shanties and sea songs.
Question: Does Memory Reside in the Brain?
Answer: Not only.
That might create problems for this head transplant I've been reading about. Or not! We'll see what happens, I suppose.
That might create problems for this head transplant I've been reading about. Or not! We'll see what happens, I suppose.
A Literary Moment: Heroic Potential
In a recent discussion, I said to Mike:
By far the best writer of adventure stories that explain how the hero develops into someone worthy of being a hero is Louis L'amour. There's a Medieval predecessor tradition that includes Malory, who inherited a tradition that didn't dwell on it much as both the troubadours and their audience was part of a knightly class that knew very well what kind of work went on in the background of developing a knight of prowess. It is generally mentioned in passing, and mostly for the edification of young listeners who might need to undergo that work themselves yet. Malory and a few others in the Grail tradition tried to lay out what spiritual work would be necessary to develop the spiritual virtues to go with the physical ones. They were striving for perfection, which is impossible to reach, and it is clear that they understood just how much work moral perfection would entail. Yet they were already talking about heroes, men like Sir Lancelot, whose education in physical prowess was highly advanced long before they turned to spiritual things. That education gets little description because it was so well known to the audience.
L'amour was very interested in the question. Over and over in hundreds of books and stories -- of which I have read very many, as they were always readily available from dusty trade-your-books shelves in Iraq -- he describes the upbringing and character of his heroes. His heroes differ greatly in occupation and heritage, and in accidents of speech or clothing. Some are miners, some are gamblers, some are cattlemen, a certain number are lawmen -- though surprisingly few, given that his plots turn on defending the weak and defeating the wicked. He clearly is thinking of that as primarily the business of a good man, a good friend, a good brother or cousin, a good citizen.
Whatever accidental differences there are in his heroes, they have an essential core.
1) They work hard and in a self-directed fashion. Whatever they do, they do a lot of it. They are conscientious about their responsibility to be actively engaged in making the world better through some form of productive labor -- even the gamblers work to be good at gambling, and to impart their skills to morally worthy young men. His book The Comstock Lode is a positive ode to hard-rock mining, which the hero does on his own account, with no boss and no schedule, working hard whenever he isn't trying to solve the mystery.
2) They have a love of learning, and self-educate passionately. If there is a mentor figure, he imparts this lesson (perhaps with a favorite book, generally a classic of Western civilization such as Plutarch). Many books mention that the hero, a hard man of his hands, has a private library that he has cultivated whenever the chance has arisen.
3) They take care of their bodies. I don't think I can recall reading any other author who made a point of the fact that his characters did a certain number of push-ups and squats every day. They approach fitness in an engaged way, as an art: if they fist-fight, they probably studied boxing in a careful and serious way.
4) They are moderate in their pleasures. If they drink, it is described as 'Not a drinker: perhaps a drink or two, now and then.' They do not allow themselves to be ruled by their animal nature.
5) Sexually, they are universally moral in character. They never take advantage of a woman. To do so would be to be marked as a villain in L'amour's world. They treat women with respect, and if they love them, they love them seriously. Many marry at the close of the adventure; others never marry the woman they love, but love her faithfully from a life that would not be fit for her.
Many of these stories start with the hero as a boy; others describe his upbringing in flashbacks, or in description. Always, though, we come away with the understanding that he is the hero because he has earned the right to be. It should be easy to see that a hero could dispense with any one of these qualities, but that any such loss would weaken the man. He would not be as fit to be the hero if he fell from any of these standards. Virtue and the potential to be heroic are very tightly linked: as tightly, indeed, as cause and effect.
That's what I think we may be in danger of losing. Heroism is just an accident, now, or perhaps an unearned gift. It's a kind of unfairness, then: everyone should get to be a hero. Everyone should be treated equally, after all, so that a gift given to one should be given to all. An accident of fate should be rectified. It's fine for different heroes to have different super-powers, but no one should be better than anyone else.
My point was more that there's a danger that Americans -- who increasingly live sedentary and TV-bound lives -- are losing an understanding of how virtue is linked to the potential to be heroic.On reflection, I can think of few examples of writers who do this very well. I wonder if there's a moment in human history associated with the insight. It would be the moment at which the work is no longer ordinary enough to be assumed, but familiar enough to be described and understood.
By far the best writer of adventure stories that explain how the hero develops into someone worthy of being a hero is Louis L'amour. There's a Medieval predecessor tradition that includes Malory, who inherited a tradition that didn't dwell on it much as both the troubadours and their audience was part of a knightly class that knew very well what kind of work went on in the background of developing a knight of prowess. It is generally mentioned in passing, and mostly for the edification of young listeners who might need to undergo that work themselves yet. Malory and a few others in the Grail tradition tried to lay out what spiritual work would be necessary to develop the spiritual virtues to go with the physical ones. They were striving for perfection, which is impossible to reach, and it is clear that they understood just how much work moral perfection would entail. Yet they were already talking about heroes, men like Sir Lancelot, whose education in physical prowess was highly advanced long before they turned to spiritual things. That education gets little description because it was so well known to the audience.
L'amour was very interested in the question. Over and over in hundreds of books and stories -- of which I have read very many, as they were always readily available from dusty trade-your-books shelves in Iraq -- he describes the upbringing and character of his heroes. His heroes differ greatly in occupation and heritage, and in accidents of speech or clothing. Some are miners, some are gamblers, some are cattlemen, a certain number are lawmen -- though surprisingly few, given that his plots turn on defending the weak and defeating the wicked. He clearly is thinking of that as primarily the business of a good man, a good friend, a good brother or cousin, a good citizen.
Whatever accidental differences there are in his heroes, they have an essential core.
1) They work hard and in a self-directed fashion. Whatever they do, they do a lot of it. They are conscientious about their responsibility to be actively engaged in making the world better through some form of productive labor -- even the gamblers work to be good at gambling, and to impart their skills to morally worthy young men. His book The Comstock Lode is a positive ode to hard-rock mining, which the hero does on his own account, with no boss and no schedule, working hard whenever he isn't trying to solve the mystery.
2) They have a love of learning, and self-educate passionately. If there is a mentor figure, he imparts this lesson (perhaps with a favorite book, generally a classic of Western civilization such as Plutarch). Many books mention that the hero, a hard man of his hands, has a private library that he has cultivated whenever the chance has arisen.
3) They take care of their bodies. I don't think I can recall reading any other author who made a point of the fact that his characters did a certain number of push-ups and squats every day. They approach fitness in an engaged way, as an art: if they fist-fight, they probably studied boxing in a careful and serious way.
4) They are moderate in their pleasures. If they drink, it is described as 'Not a drinker: perhaps a drink or two, now and then.' They do not allow themselves to be ruled by their animal nature.
5) Sexually, they are universally moral in character. They never take advantage of a woman. To do so would be to be marked as a villain in L'amour's world. They treat women with respect, and if they love them, they love them seriously. Many marry at the close of the adventure; others never marry the woman they love, but love her faithfully from a life that would not be fit for her.
Many of these stories start with the hero as a boy; others describe his upbringing in flashbacks, or in description. Always, though, we come away with the understanding that he is the hero because he has earned the right to be. It should be easy to see that a hero could dispense with any one of these qualities, but that any such loss would weaken the man. He would not be as fit to be the hero if he fell from any of these standards. Virtue and the potential to be heroic are very tightly linked: as tightly, indeed, as cause and effect.
That's what I think we may be in danger of losing. Heroism is just an accident, now, or perhaps an unearned gift. It's a kind of unfairness, then: everyone should get to be a hero. Everyone should be treated equally, after all, so that a gift given to one should be given to all. An accident of fate should be rectified. It's fine for different heroes to have different super-powers, but no one should be better than anyone else.
Right vs. left
Kevin Williamson argues:
I will say that Democratic leaders in the House and Senate in the last few years have exercised better control than Republicans over their caucuses.
We have a tea-party movement, and a raucous and rivalrous gang of independent groups, precisely because GOP leaders cannot exercise the sort of control over their coalition that Democrats do over theirs. Left-leaning PACs and independent groups are a supplement to the Democrats’ machine; right-leaning groups are an alternative to the Republicans’ machine.Naturally this narrative appeals to me; I'd like to think I support the party that values honest debate over mindless conformity. But I wonder if it's really true? Democrats--even potential donors--do exhibit some fracture lines in their political solidarity. The fulminating fury at left-wing sites about the sell-out DINOs sounds to me remarkably like its counterpart at right-wing sites: indeed, remarkably like the frustration I vent daily over why everyone in power can't be sensible enough to agree with me all the time.
I will say that Democratic leaders in the House and Senate in the last few years have exercised better control than Republicans over their caucuses.
CL
A man's word to anything, even his own destruction, must be honored. The movie ends well all the same, thanks to General Sheridan.
Knights of the Holy Whatever
My results from a quiz sent by a friend: Which RPG Class Are You?
Congratulations, you are a paladin!"Whatever alignment they follow"? We are getting broad minded.
Paladins are knights of great power, prowess, and respect. They are natural leaders and fearless in battle. These fighters are normally very faithful to whatever alignment they follow, unafraid to show their beliefs. This gives them an important advantage in battle, for they know that, whether they live or die, they will die fighting for a cause and will be rewarded in whatever afterlife they expect. This allows them to fight confidently, fearlessly, and with great focus. If dedicated enough in their faiths, they can even gain abilities and power from their alignments, making them even more lethal in battle.
These are fortified, focused, and strong-willed fighters.
They're Lucky He Didn't Read Them Out of the Religion Entirely
The President's Easter Breakfast remarks didn't take the ISIS tact for cake-denying bakers, as you might have expected: they are permitted to remain within the broad walls of Christianity, which is a religion big enough to encompass hateful and intolerant people.
Interview with Edward Snowden
John Oliver's not my very favorite, but he did an interesting interview here.
A Question of Political Friendship
Political friendship is a topic we don't discuss very much in American society, but Aristotle thought it was crucial for the stability of a political project. It is very natural to pursue your own interests. It is natural to pursue your children's interests: most parents are happy to sacrifice a great deal of their own wealth and time to see that their children have a chance to do well. It is likewise natural to make sacrifices for your parents, especially if they did for you. What is less natural is to make sacrifices for strangers. Those who aren't bound to us by family ties can only rely on us to make regular sacrifices to help them if they are friends. Since any society requires that we all sacrifice of ourselves once in a while, for the common good that we obtain by having a community, we should strive to be friends as far as possible.
Aristotle thought we couldn't be friends with everyone to the same degree that we can be friends with one particular person: the more people you add, the harder true friendship is to maintain. But there is a posture of mind that is appropriately directed toward members of your society, an analogy to friendship if not true friendship. We should strive to have a polity in which we can think of each other in friendly ways, if not as friends. It is less radical than Jesus' command to love your neighbor as yourself (and even to love your enemy), but along the same lines. Aristotle wants you to love your neighbor in a way, and not at all the same way in which you love your true friends: but if we lose that, we lose the integrity of the political project. Instead of having a common good to pursue, we become divided and hostile.
I mention this because I've been appreciating Conor Friedersdorf's recent articles trying to rebuild a sense of political friendship between supporters and opponents of maintaining traditional marriage as a cultural standard. His first article was aimed at his fellows, who believe as he does that marriage ought to be extended to any two persons who want to claim it. He was asking them to think through the limits of punishment for religious dissenters.
His second argument is intended for both sides of the debate, trying to help them each understand why the other side feels like it is under siege. Now if you are under siege, you are under attack; and if you are under attack, it is by an enemy, not a friend. There's a grave danger of losing what political friendship remains to America as it becomes more diverse. Since we are now diverse enough to lack a consensus on what constitutes a right morality, we could perhaps have a consensus on what constitutes a proper toleration of differences in morality.
In an important way, this refers back to the origins of the American story on religion. Religious tolerance in early America was very much about whether and to what degree variations on behavior compelled by differing religious belief would be tolerated. The answer in Colonial America was usually "Not very much." Many colonies had official religions, especially the ones founded by religious dissenters like the Pilgrims, who were determined not to be overrun in their new home. Others, like the colony of Georgia, were tolerant broadly of Protestants but not Catholics. In Georgia's case this was because it was founded to serve as a buffer for the British colonies against the Catholic Spanish colony in Florida and Catholic French settlers in the west, and was therefore staffed with hardened and warlike groups: Scottish Highlanders who had been in rebellion against the Crown, German Protestants who had been expelled from their homes by Catholics, and men with skills who had fallen into prison through debts. The religious wars were not over in those days, if indeed they are today.
By the early period of statehood, though, religious toleration of dissenters had greatly expanded, and states began to eliminate their established religions. As the states experienced both a successful rebellion against the old crown, and the desire to tighten their ties following the Articles of Confederation, they began to see each other as Americans who could be trusted as political friends in spite of religious differences. The Puritan states in the Northeast held out longest and well into the 19th century, but still not as long as Canada where no rebellion forged a new sense of national unity.
I think that if we are going to get through this new national moral crisis, it will need to begin with making some room for each other -- meaning making some room for dissenters from our own view, whatever that may be. The most obvious way was to allow states to have different laws, as different states had different established religions in early America, but the Supreme Court seems poised to disallow that obvious option. Failing that, protection for religious dissent ought to be formalized so that we can live together without agreement. Let us protect each other's interests, so that we can see each other as friendly even if not quite as friends.
If we fail in that -- if we come to the place where the question really is submission or resistance, so the siege is not merely felt but real -- then I think Aristotle will be proven right. A polity that loses political friendship does not long endure. That last phrase evokes Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, but his Second Inaugural is perhaps more on point. At the end of a bloody and terrible war, Lincoln too was urging his own side's most intense partisans to rethink how to pursue a sort of political friendship with those they hoped to conquer. It was on that basis, Lincoln believed, that a new American birth might succeed.
Aristotle thought we couldn't be friends with everyone to the same degree that we can be friends with one particular person: the more people you add, the harder true friendship is to maintain. But there is a posture of mind that is appropriately directed toward members of your society, an analogy to friendship if not true friendship. We should strive to have a polity in which we can think of each other in friendly ways, if not as friends. It is less radical than Jesus' command to love your neighbor as yourself (and even to love your enemy), but along the same lines. Aristotle wants you to love your neighbor in a way, and not at all the same way in which you love your true friends: but if we lose that, we lose the integrity of the political project. Instead of having a common good to pursue, we become divided and hostile.
I mention this because I've been appreciating Conor Friedersdorf's recent articles trying to rebuild a sense of political friendship between supporters and opponents of maintaining traditional marriage as a cultural standard. His first article was aimed at his fellows, who believe as he does that marriage ought to be extended to any two persons who want to claim it. He was asking them to think through the limits of punishment for religious dissenters.
His second argument is intended for both sides of the debate, trying to help them each understand why the other side feels like it is under siege. Now if you are under siege, you are under attack; and if you are under attack, it is by an enemy, not a friend. There's a grave danger of losing what political friendship remains to America as it becomes more diverse. Since we are now diverse enough to lack a consensus on what constitutes a right morality, we could perhaps have a consensus on what constitutes a proper toleration of differences in morality.
In an important way, this refers back to the origins of the American story on religion. Religious tolerance in early America was very much about whether and to what degree variations on behavior compelled by differing religious belief would be tolerated. The answer in Colonial America was usually "Not very much." Many colonies had official religions, especially the ones founded by religious dissenters like the Pilgrims, who were determined not to be overrun in their new home. Others, like the colony of Georgia, were tolerant broadly of Protestants but not Catholics. In Georgia's case this was because it was founded to serve as a buffer for the British colonies against the Catholic Spanish colony in Florida and Catholic French settlers in the west, and was therefore staffed with hardened and warlike groups: Scottish Highlanders who had been in rebellion against the Crown, German Protestants who had been expelled from their homes by Catholics, and men with skills who had fallen into prison through debts. The religious wars were not over in those days, if indeed they are today.
By the early period of statehood, though, religious toleration of dissenters had greatly expanded, and states began to eliminate their established religions. As the states experienced both a successful rebellion against the old crown, and the desire to tighten their ties following the Articles of Confederation, they began to see each other as Americans who could be trusted as political friends in spite of religious differences. The Puritan states in the Northeast held out longest and well into the 19th century, but still not as long as Canada where no rebellion forged a new sense of national unity.
I think that if we are going to get through this new national moral crisis, it will need to begin with making some room for each other -- meaning making some room for dissenters from our own view, whatever that may be. The most obvious way was to allow states to have different laws, as different states had different established religions in early America, but the Supreme Court seems poised to disallow that obvious option. Failing that, protection for religious dissent ought to be formalized so that we can live together without agreement. Let us protect each other's interests, so that we can see each other as friendly even if not quite as friends.
If we fail in that -- if we come to the place where the question really is submission or resistance, so the siege is not merely felt but real -- then I think Aristotle will be proven right. A polity that loses political friendship does not long endure. That last phrase evokes Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, but his Second Inaugural is perhaps more on point. At the end of a bloody and terrible war, Lincoln too was urging his own side's most intense partisans to rethink how to pursue a sort of political friendship with those they hoped to conquer. It was on that basis, Lincoln believed, that a new American birth might succeed.
The High Feast of Easter
My usual prayer is for God to save all those I love, and all I ought to love. Have a grand feast.
Unboycotting
For those offended by the mob attack on the Indiana pizzeria for anti-gay thought crimes, there's a "Go Fund Me" site benefiting the pizzeria owners. This in turn has sparked outrage from the compassionate progressives, one of whom (acting as a journalist or an activist, but I repeat myself) reported the Go Fund Me project "for fraud, just in case." Can it be long before Go Fund Me is itself the subject of boycotting? Nothing will be left then but the need to set up a new site through which relief can be funneled, until the online response to the outrage of the week becomes an even more unrestrained free-for-all.
Absurd as the whole spectacle is, I'm pleased to see supporters of the pizzeria adopt civil and effective tactics to combat bullying, and I admit to pleasure at the vein-popping reaction on the left.
Absurd as the whole spectacle is, I'm pleased to see supporters of the pizzeria adopt civil and effective tactics to combat bullying, and I admit to pleasure at the vein-popping reaction on the left.
Different Scales
This sounds right, but I wonder if the results would hold up in a non-Western country?
You find a time machine and travel to 1920. A young Austrian artist and war veteran named Adolf Hitler is staying in the hotel room next to yours. The doors aren't locked, so you could easily stroll next door and smother him. World War II would never happen.If the findings held up, it would seem to have significant consequences even within a given culture in which those findings held. It would be more interesting by far, though, if it proved to hold in non-WEIRD countries. Then you'd have enough difference in nurture to have pretty good reason to suspect a difference in nature.
But Hitler hasn't done anything wrong yet. Is it acceptable to kill him to prevent World War II?
This is one moral dilemma that researchers often use to analyze how people make difficult decisions. Most recently, one group re-analyzed answers from more than 6,000 subjects to compare men's and women's responses. They found that men and women both calculate consequences such as lives lost. But women are more likely to feel conflicted over what to do. Having to commit murder is more likely to push them toward letting Hitler live.
"Women seem to be more likely to have this negative, emotional, gut-level reaction to causing harm to people in the dilemmas, to the one person, whereas men were less likely to express this strong emotional reaction to harm," Rebecca Friesdorf, the lead author of the study, tells Shots.
Good Friday: Crucifixion in the News
The National Review has a piece on the revival of crucifixion, which is apparently enjoying a rush of popularity in ISIS-controlled territory.
Father Robert A. Sirico, president of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, based in Grad Rapids, Mich., offered me these reflections on this ghastly phenomenon:It takes all kinds to make a world.Crucifixion is as barbaric now as it was when the Romans inflicted this form of capital punishment on Jesus. There are several rubs in this for the Christian: Because we hold to a reverence for human life, this must include even the lives of our persecutors. Their lives are also precious — so precious, in fact, that we are obliged to pray for their conversion. Additionally, while each of us is taught to expect such persecution, and even admonished by Christ to take up our own cross and follow him, we see the cross in many forms these days. Of course the most obvious and brutal form, that you identify here, but it also comes in more subtle and sophisticated forms like the Christophobia evident in the secular hostility to letting Christians practice their faith. Still, this reality does not exempt the Christian from seeing the dignity even in their persecutors nor in developing prudent and effective ways to combat the persecution.Father Sirico takes the high road of forgiveness, as Catholic priests usually do. When ISIS members reach the Pearly Gates, they can beg for mercy. Civilization’s urgent challenge is to get them to stare up at Saint Peter at the earliest possible moment.
The End of Democracy, by Silicone Valley
Democracy in America is dead, according to Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel.So, is he right?
No, not in the anthropological, Alexander-de-Toqueville sense. The PayPal co-founder means it literally.
"It's not clear we're living in anything resembling a democracy," he told a crowd Tuesday at George Mason University. "We're living in a republic that's modified by a judicial system, that's been largely superseded by these agencies that drive the decision-making."
"Calling our society a democracy is very misleading," Thiel went on. "We're not a republic; we're not a constitutional republic. We live in a state that's dominated by these technocratic agencies."
The real picture is much more complicated. Take the growing concentration of executive authority. As Vox's Dylan Matthews explains, it's a rational reaction to other institutions' chronic inability to govern. The White House couldn't allow the government to default on its debt in 2011, no matter what happened in Congress.Two examples of "other factors" given oddly dovetail, though: the lobbying by powerful corporate interests, and the revolving door between business and government -- to whit, those same agencies being mentioned as 'wagging the dog.' I'm not sure that really qualifies as "other factors" -- it sounds to me like "further evidence."
They knew that, if push came to shove, they had to have a way out … Obama would have shredded the debt ceiling. Republicans would have said it was an unprecedented executive power grab, and Democrats would have told them to calm down, it's not that bad. They're both right: Obama would have been claiming new powers, but that wouldn't have involved some kind of epic descent into tyranny.
The point is not that executive power grabs could never lead to tyranny but that executive power grabs rarely happen in a vacuum. Of course agencies have an incentive to expand their jurisdictions. But the idea that the entire dog of government (or the country, even) is being wagged by the tail of agencies is a little far-fetched when we know there are so many other factors that play a role in decision-making.
It's an interesting critique. I'm not sure where it leaves us, though. If he's right that Washington is no longer adding value, presumably at some point its power will begin to wither. That point has not yet been reached.
The Georgia Legislature Wraps Up A Banner Year
Having killed their own version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Georgia's Legislature is considering a bill that would regulate churches if they talk about politics around election time. Wonder why they might be concerned about that?
UPDATE: The Georgia Senate killed the speech-regulating bill in the last half-hour of the session. In the last four minutes of the session both houses took up a major tax bill that almost no one had read, as it was cobbled together today. The speaker just instructed delegates "Take your seats. Desist throwing objects."
UPDATE: Witching hour. The House passed the tax bill in the last seconds. The Senate appears to have hung up on procedure, and drifted past midnight. They are still in session, considering the tax bill in apparent defiance of the law.
UPDATE: The Senate passed the tax bill after midnight, which should produce an interesting legal challenge. What was so important, you ask?
First Georgia Republicans cut a deal with Democrats. They would kill Georgia’s RFRA legislation in exchange for Democrats supporting roughly a billion dollar tax increase.Georgia Republicans, mind you, are the ones who are raising taxes, killing religious freedom protections, and suppressing free speech by churches. Or should I say Georgia Republicans? Thank goodness our legislature is forbidden to operate more than forty days a year. It's like a plague of locusts.
Not content to deprive Christians of religious protection, Georgia Republicans have decided to go after churches and other non-profits directly.... According to the legislation, any organization that engages in “election targeted issue advocacy” within 180 days of an election is subject to regulation by the state. What is “election targeted issue advocacy”? If any person or group writes about a candidate, uses the image of an elected official or candidate, or discusses a ballot initiative, the person or group doing that can be regulated.
Voter education, in other words, is going to be regulated by the State of Georgia. But there is also another wrinkle in this.
UPDATE: The Georgia Senate killed the speech-regulating bill in the last half-hour of the session. In the last four minutes of the session both houses took up a major tax bill that almost no one had read, as it was cobbled together today. The speaker just instructed delegates "Take your seats. Desist throwing objects."
UPDATE: Witching hour. The House passed the tax bill in the last seconds. The Senate appears to have hung up on procedure, and drifted past midnight. They are still in session, considering the tax bill in apparent defiance of the law.
UPDATE: The Senate passed the tax bill after midnight, which should produce an interesting legal challenge. What was so important, you ask?
Ho-Hum: An Iran "Deal"
Except it isn't, apparently: it's not an actual agreement to do anything except meet and talk further along certain lines. It sounds like there's some lack of agreement about what lines those are:
Israel's not happy, but I don't see that they have anything more to be unhappy about today than yesterday. A framework isn't a deal. When parties to it are contesting the content using words like "lying," it isn't even a framework.
Following the signing of an interim agreement with Iran aimed at scaling back its nuclear work, Iran accused the United States of lying about details of the agreement.Sounds like he's re-opening negotiations to me. So instead of the deal by 31 March -- another American 'red line' passes away without even a whimper of enforcement -- we get another few weeks in which Iran will make additional demands and claim they were already agreed to in order to set the stage for the next round.
On Thursday evening, Zarif told reporters the latest agreement allows Iran to keep operating its nuclear program.
“None of those measures” that will move to scale back Iran’s program “include closing any of our facilities,” Zarif said. “We will continue enriching; we will continue research and development.”
“Our heavy water reactor will be modernized and we will continue the Fordow facility,” Zarif said. “We will have centrifuges installed in Fordow, but not enriching.”
The move to allow Iran to keep centrifuges at Fordow, a controversial onetime military site, has elicited concern that Tehran could ramp up its nuclear work with ease.
Israel's not happy, but I don't see that they have anything more to be unhappy about today than yesterday. A framework isn't a deal. When parties to it are contesting the content using words like "lying," it isn't even a framework.
Speaking of the ME
And speaking of overplaying one's hand:
Support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at nearly a 20-year low among Americans, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Only 39 percent of respondents in the poll expressed support for a two-state solution, down from 58 percent in 2003, according to a Gallup Poll.
Who cares about the Middle East?
Not us any more, argues Holman Jenkins, because of fracking. They had only one card to play, and they let it get reproduced elsewhere.
The Virtue of a Good Woman
How much was in her, and how much in the man who loved her? How to tell?
Hayek v. J. S. Mill. Mill at least was a true lover, and therefore is due a good end.
Hayek v. J. S. Mill. Mill at least was a true lover, and therefore is due a good end.
Can't Vouch for the "Young"
Twice in the last couple of weeks I've met SUVs in my lane while riding my motorcycle, once 3/4s of the way in my lane (in a curve on a hill), and the other time 100% of the way in my lane while I was carrying my wife as passenger. Both times they were women on their cell phones, apparently completely mentally removed from the world in which they were navigating a heavy weight motor vehicle down a road at high speed.
They weren't young women, though. Both of them were about my mother's age. The second one shot us the bird after she wrestled her car back into her lane, as if she was deeply and personally offended that she'd had to leave off her pleasant conversation for an emergency lane change. I assume the truth is that she was embarrassed and defensive. Still, it's a good thing my wife wasn't in control of the direction of the motorcycle on that occasion. To judge from her commentary once we got to town, she was ready to rip that woman's lungs out and salt them.
They weren't young women, though. Both of them were about my mother's age. The second one shot us the bird after she wrestled her car back into her lane, as if she was deeply and personally offended that she'd had to leave off her pleasant conversation for an emergency lane change. I assume the truth is that she was embarrassed and defensive. Still, it's a good thing my wife wasn't in control of the direction of the motorcycle on that occasion. To judge from her commentary once we got to town, she was ready to rip that woman's lungs out and salt them.
Blowing one's mind
I subscribe to Quora, which sometimes sends me interesting emails with questions and surprising crowd-sourced answers. In this morning's inbox was a request for recommendations of books to expand the mind. Two surprising results: I had read very, very few of the recommended books, and Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking Fast and Slow" was the hands-down consensus winner. Now I suppose I'll have to read it.
The recommendations were about 10-1 in favor of non-fiction, also surprising. After Kahneman, some of the biggest hits were Richard Feynmann's "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feyman" (also a favorite of mine) and various Jared Diamond works, usually "Collapse" or "Guns, Germs and Steel." Only one person suggested "Lolita," and no one seemed to care for "The Tin Drum" or "Absalom, Absalom" or "The Abolition of Man." The science fiction recommendations mostly were things I wouldn't read on a bet. "Atlas Shrugged" made a fairly frequent appearance. Lots of Malcolm Gladwell and Richard Dawkins. I expected a higher profile for "1984."
"Take wine and bullocks’ gall, of both equal quantities, mix with the leek, put this then into a brazen vessel..."
Turns out this Old English potion works.
The researchers tested the concoction on cultures of MRSA bacteria in synthetic wounds as well as in rats. No individual ingredient had no effect on the cultures, but the combined liquid killed almost all the cells; only about one in 1,000 bacteria survived. At more dilute concentrations, the salve didn’t kill the bacteria, but still interrupted their communication, preventing them from damaging tissues.
"The Century of the Self"
Here is a fascinating BBC documentary about the use of Freud and psychoanalysis, especially by government, during the 20th Century. It's about four hours long, but it's well worth watching. Set aside an hour a night for a few days.
Schiarazula Marazula by Giorgio Mainerio
Three variations. First, on simple guitar so you can get the sense of the piece.
Second, in a traditional style with traditional instruments.
Third, rewritten in the Romantic style with a modern orchestra.
Second, in a traditional style with traditional instruments.
Third, rewritten in the Romantic style with a modern orchestra.
"Authority and Freedom"
The roots of every good thing...
Some regard religious freedom as a product of the Enlightenment. However, the roots of a later understanding of religious freedom as articulated in Dignitatis Humanae of the Second Vatican Council lie in the Middle Ages. These roots are threefold: first, the relative academic freedom of the period together with the scholastic theological method of doubting, secondly, the rise of constitutional government and the dualism of the Church and the State in medieval society and thirdly, the theological speculation on the freedom of conscience all eventually contributed to the idea that everyone has the right to live his or her relationship with God in a freedom that is constitutionally and judicially protected against any form of coercion.
Education and Climate Change
The more you know, the more strongly you believe your side.
I'm inclined to think that this field is much like physics: there's a broad consensus that we're close to understanding what's going on, but a small minority of stubborn scientists who persistently poke holes in the proposed consensual theory that are hard to close again. I think that means that, most likely and in both cases, the overarching theory is analogous to Newtonian physics, and Aristotelian physics before that: it's going to give way fundamentally at a point we haven't quite identified yet.
That's still no reason to avoid being concerned about many conservationist issues, such as the excess of plastic wastes in the oceans. Those are clear and persuasive problems that we ought to try to fix.
In Gallup’s view, “These opposing trends by party suggest that higher levels of education reinforce core partisan positions; in this case, Republicans’ strong tendency to question or deny global warming and Democrats’ inclination to affirm it. The trends also suggest that partisanship rather than education is a main lens through which Americans view global warming and its effects, particularly for those who claim allegiance to one of the two major political parties.”I think the explanation is simpler. It's probable that they aren't being educated in the same way. The late founder of Arts & Letters Daily was chided for setting up a parallel site, Climate Debate Daily, that provides a constant feed of good arguments from both sides of the discussion. That's not how the academy operates, especially not when teaching undergrads. Those who are inclined to skepticism will look for the skeptical arguments, and educate themselves in them; those who are not will not otherwise encounter them.
I'm inclined to think that this field is much like physics: there's a broad consensus that we're close to understanding what's going on, but a small minority of stubborn scientists who persistently poke holes in the proposed consensual theory that are hard to close again. I think that means that, most likely and in both cases, the overarching theory is analogous to Newtonian physics, and Aristotelian physics before that: it's going to give way fundamentally at a point we haven't quite identified yet.
That's still no reason to avoid being concerned about many conservationist issues, such as the excess of plastic wastes in the oceans. Those are clear and persuasive problems that we ought to try to fix.
Scholarly Economics
You might be asking yourself, 'How about a Grim post fully in favor of capitalism for a change?' I can do that.
Academic conferences run on a similarly exploitative model. Those same grad students producing free work for the journals will show up early to perform free labor for the conference. Usually these conferences cost money to attend, which leads to the strange spectacle of unpaid graduate students taking money to pass on to the conference itself. They money passes through their hands and by their labor, but none of it accrues to them. They may shuttle people back and forth from airports to hotels to conference centers. They may fetch donuts and coffee for conference attendees. A capitalist model would have this being done by taxi drivers and caterers and temps from the employment service: jobs without a great deal of prestige, but whose members are at least paid for their time.
The tenured scholars exploiting the grad students and adjuncts are at least engaged in the business of education -- they are, at least, actively involved in the pursuit and distribution of knowledge. The school administrations have absorbed the lion's share of the recent increases in tuition, while leading the charge to reduce tenured faculty as teachers in favor of badly-paid adjuncts and graduate teaching assistants. This serves no one's interests except the administrators'. Students are injured by having teachers who are not as experienced or distinguished. Faculty are injured by being trapped in adjunct positions for most or all of their careers. Grad students gain valuable experience as teachers, but graduate into a career path in which their options are far less attractive than even a few years ago, and in which ever more "free work" is expected of them if they are to be considered for one of the increasingly-few tenure track positions.
This is a model built on a love of learning rather than a love of money, which seems wise and proper. It is insulated from much of the disciplines imposed by capitalism, which are alleged to lead to inequalities and unfairness. Yet it appears to be one of the most unfair and exploitative systems out there: one that provides wealth and prestige to the people at the top, on the backs of a great deal of "free" labor being provided by those struggling honorably below. It does not appear that capitalism can be blamed for these outcomes: at least under a capitalist system, the weakest members of the system would still be paid something.
The first scholarly journals appeared in 1665, and since then, they have not paid authors, peer reviewers, or editors. “All the key players have been giving away their work for 350 years,” says Suber. “Scholars write journal articles for impact, not for money. They are freed to do this because they have salaries from their institutions.” Yet the physical aspects of print technology, still cutting-edge in the seventeenth century, today limit scholars’ ability to circulate their ideas and findings. Now, Suber says, “the Internet allows them to give it away to the whole world.”...There is, actually, no guarantee that salaries from institutions exist to provide for those giving away their work. The people who need to give away work the most are graduate students and adjuncts hoping to receive, someday, one of the increasingly-few tenure track jobs. Grad students are actually paying for the privilege of access to the libraries and research facilities that would allow them to give away work for free. Adjuncts are being paid, but usually at poverty-line levels for schedules that make additional research work a massive burden. Those who run the journals enjoy tremendous prestige, which they bestow where they will in return for free labor to produce free research which -- if it is successful -- increases the prestige of the journal as well as the author. That increased prestige for the journal produces subscriptions, and therefore revenue: but there are no royalties to the author.
CONSIDER for a moment the business model of traditional subscription journals. Scholars contribute their articles to the journals for free; they receive no royalties or other revenue. Scholars also act as peer reviewers and provide other editorial services to the journals on a pro bono basis.
Academic conferences run on a similarly exploitative model. Those same grad students producing free work for the journals will show up early to perform free labor for the conference. Usually these conferences cost money to attend, which leads to the strange spectacle of unpaid graduate students taking money to pass on to the conference itself. They money passes through their hands and by their labor, but none of it accrues to them. They may shuttle people back and forth from airports to hotels to conference centers. They may fetch donuts and coffee for conference attendees. A capitalist model would have this being done by taxi drivers and caterers and temps from the employment service: jobs without a great deal of prestige, but whose members are at least paid for their time.
The tenured scholars exploiting the grad students and adjuncts are at least engaged in the business of education -- they are, at least, actively involved in the pursuit and distribution of knowledge. The school administrations have absorbed the lion's share of the recent increases in tuition, while leading the charge to reduce tenured faculty as teachers in favor of badly-paid adjuncts and graduate teaching assistants. This serves no one's interests except the administrators'. Students are injured by having teachers who are not as experienced or distinguished. Faculty are injured by being trapped in adjunct positions for most or all of their careers. Grad students gain valuable experience as teachers, but graduate into a career path in which their options are far less attractive than even a few years ago, and in which ever more "free work" is expected of them if they are to be considered for one of the increasingly-few tenure track positions.
This is a model built on a love of learning rather than a love of money, which seems wise and proper. It is insulated from much of the disciplines imposed by capitalism, which are alleged to lead to inequalities and unfairness. Yet it appears to be one of the most unfair and exploitative systems out there: one that provides wealth and prestige to the people at the top, on the backs of a great deal of "free" labor being provided by those struggling honorably below. It does not appear that capitalism can be blamed for these outcomes: at least under a capitalist system, the weakest members of the system would still be paid something.
Religious Freedom
As frequently annoys several of you, I think that economics should always and in every respect be subordinate to moral philosophy. I think that permits a great deal of freedom to pursue one's economic interests, whatever they may be. Still, when they come into conflict, I expect you to do what you think is right, not what you think is likely to make you more money. Those two things may line up, of course. When they don't, duty and virtue have priority.
I am thus inclined to view threats of economic boycotts if we do not surrender religious liberty principles as strong evidence in favor of the validity of the proposed laws. Similar evidence lies in the court rulings that bankrupt families which have tried to assert, however politely, their refusal to surrender their moral objections in favor of physical wealth.
It's not a question of agreeing with their interpretation of their faith. Some of you may; I know at least several of you do not. That is fine. We have room for disagreement.
What is important is the correctness of their priorities. When someone tries to use economics to force you to abandon morality, you are correct to stand on morals and refuse to consider economics until your moral concerns are satisfied.
The moral concerns themselves may be right or wrong. Under the First Amendment, that's not a public concern. Moral concerns arising from religious interpretations are for the religious individual to decide. Even if you think they are wrong to believe as they do, what they are certainly right about is standing up for what they believe is right instead of for what they believe will make them wealthy.
Those who would use wealth to subvert faith are not virtuous. Those who would use wealth as a lever to try to force others to abandon their faith and their morals ought not to win the day. Laws that strive to protect people from their machinations are wise laws.
If you really need a cake you will find that there are many more bakeries in America. If the wedding gift you really wanted was to force the religious to kneel before your moral opinions, that is a right you do not and ought not have.
I am thus inclined to view threats of economic boycotts if we do not surrender religious liberty principles as strong evidence in favor of the validity of the proposed laws. Similar evidence lies in the court rulings that bankrupt families which have tried to assert, however politely, their refusal to surrender their moral objections in favor of physical wealth.
It's not a question of agreeing with their interpretation of their faith. Some of you may; I know at least several of you do not. That is fine. We have room for disagreement.
What is important is the correctness of their priorities. When someone tries to use economics to force you to abandon morality, you are correct to stand on morals and refuse to consider economics until your moral concerns are satisfied.
The moral concerns themselves may be right or wrong. Under the First Amendment, that's not a public concern. Moral concerns arising from religious interpretations are for the religious individual to decide. Even if you think they are wrong to believe as they do, what they are certainly right about is standing up for what they believe is right instead of for what they believe will make them wealthy.
Those who would use wealth to subvert faith are not virtuous. Those who would use wealth as a lever to try to force others to abandon their faith and their morals ought not to win the day. Laws that strive to protect people from their machinations are wise laws.
If you really need a cake you will find that there are many more bakeries in America. If the wedding gift you really wanted was to force the religious to kneel before your moral opinions, that is a right you do not and ought not have.
Not This Time
Some folks wrote to ask about this.
Private intelligence is often a business expense, not a profit-making venture. Sometimes it's a necessary condition for protecting other business interests, especially in places like Libya. Passing on what you were collecting anyway may not require any payoff.
Sometimes, the whole thing is a purely patriotic volunteer effort from concerned citizens who just want to help hold the world together. The people I've known from the Clandestine service have been extremely patriotic, which is no surprise since they are selected in part for that kind of deep personal commitment to the good of the nation. They already have networks from their days on the job. Sometimes they pass it on, even after they retire. Maybe that's the case here and maybe not. The Clinton machine has a well-deserved bad reputation. That doesn't mean they don't know people who are better people than they are.
All of that is to say: you can try to follow the money, but there may not be any money to follow. There may be favors instead of hard currency. There may be nothing to follow at all. It might even, conceivably, have been done for all the right reasons.
Hillary's spymaster was a former director of the Clandestine Service for the CIA in Europe. He now owns his own private intelligence firms. These are not the sorts of services purchased by poor men. These are the sorts of services purchased by very, very rich men, and big well-capitalized corporations, and even governments.That's not true, actually. They're often provided for free. If you're providing free intelligence to the Clinton machine, it's with the expectation of a quid pro quo somewhere along the way. But if you're providing it to the Secretary of State, it might be for patriotic reasons entirely separate from remuneration. Say you happened to be in position to know something important, which could really help the US government get something right. And you happened to have the right personal connections -- not directly, but you knew someone who knew how to get it in Madame Secretary's daily reading list. You might very well pass it on.
Private intelligence is often a business expense, not a profit-making venture. Sometimes it's a necessary condition for protecting other business interests, especially in places like Libya. Passing on what you were collecting anyway may not require any payoff.
Sometimes, the whole thing is a purely patriotic volunteer effort from concerned citizens who just want to help hold the world together. The people I've known from the Clandestine service have been extremely patriotic, which is no surprise since they are selected in part for that kind of deep personal commitment to the good of the nation. They already have networks from their days on the job. Sometimes they pass it on, even after they retire. Maybe that's the case here and maybe not. The Clinton machine has a well-deserved bad reputation. That doesn't mean they don't know people who are better people than they are.
All of that is to say: you can try to follow the money, but there may not be any money to follow. There may be favors instead of hard currency. There may be nothing to follow at all. It might even, conceivably, have been done for all the right reasons.
A Horror Story
Imagine an eleven-year-old girl, home alone by night. A vehicle pulls into the driveway outside, and a man gets out. He comes to the door, and knocks loudly. She doesn't answer, so he goes around to each door in turn knocking on it, seeking entry. When no one comes to any door, he forces his way into the house with a prybar.
She hides in her closet, locked in a bedroom, and hears him prowling through the house. He forces his way into the room. She hears him coming her way. He opens the closet door.
He sees her.
Then, he runs away.
She hides in her closet, locked in a bedroom, and hears him prowling through the house. He forces his way into the room. She hears him coming her way. He opens the closet door.
He sees her.
Then, he runs away.
Another Lesson in Spirituality
I think this one is very helpful even for those of us who aren't planning to date, but merely have to talk to these people once in a while.
Hampsterdance
Once upon a time...
So that reminds me of this tremendously unfair and inappropriate video.
With apologies to DL Sly at least, as I don't doubt that woman can drive anything with wheels.
So that reminds me of this tremendously unfair and inappropriate video.
With apologies to DL Sly at least, as I don't doubt that woman can drive anything with wheels.
Inconceivable!
In other words, the swing votes here, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito, may have voted for a liberal social policy because of a conservative method of statutory interpretation. Yes, the end result is to expand the social safety net for women. But the reason that result was reached was because of a close, conservative reading of the statute in question.
Just the Facts, Ma'am
We recently had an invigorating discussion about facts, so I thought I'd actually look the word up. I know, linguists tell us that dictionaries don't define words, they document usage. I'll make no appeals to authority here! Nonetheless, it's an interesting selection from the OED. Who knew that facts can be acts, disputed, and guilt? Or that Sgt. Friday never said,"Just the facts, Ma'am"?
Interesting that the word also carries the meaning of actions, deeds, events. Real things, indeed.
Firmly believed?
9 is interesting because it goes against what I think a fact is. I'll leave all the example sentences.
Source: "fact, n., int., and adv.". OED Online. March 2015. Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/67478?result=1&rskey=b6Jdx4& (accessed March 24, 2015).
fact, n., int., and adv.
Etymology: < classical Latin factum deed, action, event, occurrence, achievement, misdeed, real happening, result of doing, something done, in post-classical Latin also thing that has really occurred or is actually the case, thing known to be true (11th cent.; from 13th cent. in British sources), case, legal dispute (from 13th cent. in British sources), use as noun of neuter past participle of facere to make, do < an extended form of the Indo-European base of do v.
I. Senses relating primarily to action.
1. An action, a deed, a course of conduct; (formerly also occas.) †an effect, a result. Also as a mass noun: action, deeds, as opposed to words. Now somewhat rare.
Interesting that the word also carries the meaning of actions, deeds, events. Real things, indeed.
II. Senses relating primarily to truth.
6. Law
a. The sum of circumstances and incidents of a case, looked at apart from their legal bearing.
b. In pl. with the same sense. Also: items of information used or usable as evidence.
7. That which is known (or firmly believed) to be real or true; what has actually happened or is the case; truth attested by direct observation or authentic testimony; reality.
Firmly believed?
8a. A thing that has really occurred or is actually the case; a thing certainly known to be a real occurrence or to represent the truth. Hence: a particular truth known by actual observation or authentic testimony, as opposed to an inference, a conjecture, or a fiction; a datum of experience, as distinguished from the conclusions that may be based on it.
b. With the and following clause or preposition.
(a) The actual occurrence of an event; the real existence of a situation or state of affairs.
E.g.: 1986 Amer. Scholar 65 572/1 The fact of their nationality colors the way men and women think, particularly about politics and society.
(b) The circumstance that something is the case.
c. Uses emphasizing the truth of an assertion, esp. in fixed phrases.
(a) The (honest) truth. Freq. in the fact is with that-clause, esp. asserting something surprising, unwelcome, or controversial, or making an admission; also colloq. (orig. U.S.) without the.
(b) A true statement. Freq. in (and) that's a fact.
d. A person, an institution, etc., undoubtedly in existence; a person or thing experienced or seen.
9 is interesting because it goes against what I think a fact is. I'll leave all the example sentences.
9. A piece of information allegedly or conceivably true; something presented as a fact (in sense A. 8a) but which is disputed or unproven; (more strongly) an unproved assertion, an allegation.
1566 W. Painter Palace of Pleasure I. lii. f. 304, I humblie beseche you to tell me the truth of this facte.1632 J. Hayward tr. G. F. Biondi Eromena 21 They resolved that the Admirall should goe disguised..to assure himselfe of the fact [It. fatto].1699 tr. C. de Saint-Evremond Arguments M. Herard 113 The Fact is false, there has been no dissipation of the Cardinal's Goods by Monsieur Mazarin.a1729 S. Clarke Serm. (1730) V. i. 8 It would have been absurd to allege, in preaching to Unbelievers, a Fact which itself presupposed the Truth of Christ's Mission.1797 Morning Chron. 27 Aug. 2/4 If another soldier should call you a jail-bird, and the truth of the fact be notorious.1824 Westm. Rev. 2 209 This is..a false fact, supported by a supposed motive.1872 W. H. Lamon Life Abraham Lincoln xi. 236 Douglas denied the fact; and Lincoln attempted to prove his statement by reading a certain passage from Holland's ‘Life of Van Buren’.1941 A. M. Lindbergh Diary 13 Oct. in War within & Without (1980) 233 It bases its accusations on false statements and inaccurate facts.1968 Hartford (Connecticut) Courant 29 Aug. 16/4 One cannot help but question the credibility of the writer's facts.2002 Vanity Fair June 160/3 Waksal hotly disputed some of the facts in that story.
10. Guilt, especially actual guilt as opposed to suspicion. Obs.
Phrases
P9. orig. U.S. "just the facts ma'am" and variants: used with reference to the eliciting or presentation of an unembellished or straightforward account of factual information. Also attrib.: strictly factual; unembellished, dry.With allusion to the investigative technique of police detective Sergeant Joe Friday in the U.S. radio and television series Dragnet (first broadcast in 1949), although the exact phrase ‘Just the facts ma'am’ did not occur in either the television or radio series.
Compounds
C1 a. fact-fetishism n.
1957 D. MacDonald Triumph of Fact iii, in Anchor Rev. No. 2. 122 Fact-fetishism is to some extent a class phenomenon.
1964 K. Winetrout in I. L. Horowitz New Sociol. 149 We wind up with fact-fetishism, with a ‘social science of the narrow focus, the trivial detail, the abstracted almighty unimportant fact’.
2010 P. Garrett Victorian Empiricism 201 An all too familiar definition of empiricism as fact-fetishism.
C2. fact-proof adj. impervious to facts, willing to disregard facts.
1828 Foreign Q. Rev. Feb. 28 Nothing softer than the Reviewer's fact-proof cranium could resist it.
1909 G. B. Shaw John Bull's Other Island p. ix, He is never quite the hysterical, nonsense-crammed, fact-proof, truth-terrified, unballasted sport of all the bogy panics..that now calls itself ‘God's Englishman’.
2010 Sydney Morning Herald (Nexis) 2 Nov. 11 So anger is a standard tool, used by both sides of politics. Is there anything new about it? One striking feature of rage 2010 seems to be that it is increasingly fact-proof.
Source: "fact, n., int., and adv.". OED Online. March 2015. Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/67478?result=1&rskey=b6Jdx4& (accessed March 24, 2015).
A Plea For Reform
...to any Constitutional attorney: I can’t pay you (see above), but I have a tax return that will make your eyes bleed. Get me in front of a jury or, better yet, the Supreme Court, and let us ask 12 or nine reasonable people if the burden of completing this particular tax return – a requirement I must meet to retain my liberty and my property – is reasonable or not. And if just one of the jury or bench believes that a reasonably educated person could accurately complete my tax return in a reasonable period, I’ll be happily defeated – as long as he shows me how.
Otherwise, use me as a legal guinea pig to pull down this entire rotten structure that turns good people into unwilling law breakers or liars of both... Our tax code is so complex that people our government deems too poor to buy their own health insurance must fork over nearly a tenth of their income just to comply with it.
History and narrative
David Foster has up an interesting post about fiction and non-fiction.
In recent years I've been reading more history than was my early habit, when I tended more to fiction. I find that I have a hard time remembering the history and keeping it straight unless I can tie it into fictional worlds. Modern fiction set in historical periods can be a problem, since most authors jam everything so full of anachronisms, but this problem can be ameliorated slightly by reading fiction written during the time in question. The trick is not to take the fiction as an accurate statement of history, but as a suggestion of what facts an author of that period took for granted, and what things hadn't even occurred to him yet.
Malaria and flowers
How malaria makes its hosts more inviting to mosquitoes when it's time to jump ship:
Plasmodium's ancestors lost the ability to photosynthesize a long time ago. But they still hold onto some of the ancestral enzymes from the bacteria that their forebears swallowed 1.3 billion years ago. As a result, Plasmodium is weirdly similar to flowers and trees. Some scientists have even taken advantage of this evolutionary kinship by looking at weed-killers as potential drugs for malaria.
This ancient heritage also explains why Plasmodium can smell like lemons. Odom and her colleagues found that the parasite make pinene and limonene using enzymes that are related to the ones that plants use to make these chemicals.
There are reasons to think that the parasite are using these chemicals to lure mosquitoes. While we're painfully aware of the appetite mosquitoes have for blood, the fact is that mosquitoes also feed on flower nectar. They depend on the nectar for sugar they need to fuel their flights. Many insects are keenly sensitive to certain colors and odors that flowers produce, which guide them reliably to their next meal of nectar. Odom and her colleagues found that the antenna of malaria-carrying species of mosquitoes are exquisitely sensitive to pinene and limonene. If you want to attract mosquitoes, it makes sense to make those chemicals.
Yes, Let's Do That
"Let's hop into a time machine and go back to the England of yore!"
A small selection of readings in the original accent from a few important periods of English literary history. Well, and actually a bit earlier: all the way to Arthurian Britain, as well as we can guess at it.
But take heart: if you couldn't ask for the beer in Old Brythonic, ask for it in something like Latin. Pretty much any Romance language you know will have preserved a word for beer that Arthur's kindred would have learned to understand.
A small selection of readings in the original accent from a few important periods of English literary history. Well, and actually a bit earlier: all the way to Arthurian Britain, as well as we can guess at it.
But take heart: if you couldn't ask for the beer in Old Brythonic, ask for it in something like Latin. Pretty much any Romance language you know will have preserved a word for beer that Arthur's kindred would have learned to understand.
Surprise!
Obamacare is proving to be a drag on small business growth. Close to two thirds predict compliance costs of the ACA will "increase costs a lot" this year.
That's Some Tight Security
From American Public Broadcasting:
Nearly nine years after Brett first saw combat here, this Detroit native returned to Iraq to defend the Christian faith he holds so dear.... Brett asked us to not to us his last name for security reasons. In 2006 he served in the U.S. army’s 14th mountain division for 15 months in Iraq. Brett was wounded by a roadside bomb and is a veteran on disability.Good luck looking up his service records from the 14th Mountain Division, ISIS.
V S Naipaul on Daesh
Naipaul once wrote a book called A Turn in the South, which treated the racial problems of thirty years ago with a compassionate eye for all sides. His outright condemnation of the so-called Islamic State is the more powerful given his demonstrated ability to imagine different perspectives sympathetically. Sometimes, it's just because you can accurately imagine someone's inner life that you find them disgusting.
Update on Women in the Combat Arms
As the military drives on with President Obama's orders to integrate women into every military job, the Washington Times reports that evidence suggesting this may be unwise is being suppressed.
In particular they mention a British study that just came out late last year, which you can read here. In terms of combat effectivness -- which one would think ought to be the only consideration -- the British identified 21 factors they thought could plausibly be said to contribute to combat effectiveness. Women studied had negative results in 11 of these 21 areas.
"In three of the 11 negative factors, mitigation would be a significant challenge," the report says. "These are survivability, morbidity and deployability, much of which are predicated by physiology."
Those are some pretty important areas. Will they survive in combat? Will they suffer injuries that will hamper their teams? Can they be deployed at all?
The problems turn out to be related. Women suffer combat stress injuries much quicker than men, which reduces their ability to maneuver -- and also makes them less dangerous to their enemies, not just less likely to survive.
1. We're doing all these assessments on what amount to closed courses. The whole reason to establish a closed course is to limit the risks: you can drive at speeds that would be ridiculously unsafe in traffic, or practice combat-driving maneuvers in a relatively safe environment before you have to go out and do them for real. The problem is that the armed forces will have to go out and do this for real at some point. If we discover in a three-month survey on a closed course that we're encountering morbidity and survivability problems that also impact the ability to effectively kill the enemy, we need to understand that the effect of this on a unit deployed at war for a year or more is going to be magnified substantially. For want of a nail, the shoe... the horse... the troop... the regiment... the battle.. the war.
2. That Congress and the military are glad-handing their way through this suggests that we're not listening to negative findings if they conflict with the great goal of 'gender equality.' Will negative findings from the battlefield be enough to correct us here? Or will we refuse to see it even then? 'Their command should have trained them harder'; 'their leadership didn't provide adequate support'; 'the environment is toxic for women'; 'who dares question that she got pregnant at deployment time?'
The danger is accepting a permanently higher number of American dead and injured to further our chase for this will-o'-wisp.
In particular they mention a British study that just came out late last year, which you can read here. In terms of combat effectivness -- which one would think ought to be the only consideration -- the British identified 21 factors they thought could plausibly be said to contribute to combat effectiveness. Women studied had negative results in 11 of these 21 areas.
"In three of the 11 negative factors, mitigation would be a significant challenge," the report says. "These are survivability, morbidity and deployability, much of which are predicated by physiology."
Those are some pretty important areas. Will they survive in combat? Will they suffer injuries that will hamper their teams? Can they be deployed at all?
The problems turn out to be related. Women suffer combat stress injuries much quicker than men, which reduces their ability to maneuver -- and also makes them less dangerous to their enemies, not just less likely to survive.
These studies suggest that the relative strength of women, compared to men, when carrying the combat load are likely to result in the early onset of fatigue. This is likely to result in a distinct cohort with lower survivability in combat. Similar research points to a reduced lethality rate; in that combat marksmanship degrades as a result of fatigue when the combat load increases in proportion to body weight and strength. The risks regarding survivability are therefore relative; these are about biology rather than character.UPDATE: I think this concerns me for two basic reasons.
1. We're doing all these assessments on what amount to closed courses. The whole reason to establish a closed course is to limit the risks: you can drive at speeds that would be ridiculously unsafe in traffic, or practice combat-driving maneuvers in a relatively safe environment before you have to go out and do them for real. The problem is that the armed forces will have to go out and do this for real at some point. If we discover in a three-month survey on a closed course that we're encountering morbidity and survivability problems that also impact the ability to effectively kill the enemy, we need to understand that the effect of this on a unit deployed at war for a year or more is going to be magnified substantially. For want of a nail, the shoe... the horse... the troop... the regiment... the battle.. the war.
2. That Congress and the military are glad-handing their way through this suggests that we're not listening to negative findings if they conflict with the great goal of 'gender equality.' Will negative findings from the battlefield be enough to correct us here? Or will we refuse to see it even then? 'Their command should have trained them harder'; 'their leadership didn't provide adequate support'; 'the environment is toxic for women'; 'who dares question that she got pregnant at deployment time?'
The danger is accepting a permanently higher number of American dead and injured to further our chase for this will-o'-wisp.
Practicing without a license
I'm in favor of it, obviously. The Washington Post reports in alarm over the high cost of legal services, even approving in its own backhanded way of high hourly rates charged by lawyers in light of the poor things' unfair student debt (that being, obviously, the only excuse for a market rate in a just society). Here and there, however, people are trying out the legal equivalent of a nurse practitioner.
For years I ran my firm's pro bono legal clinic for homeless kids, 99% of whom had the same recurring problems, typically involving outstanding warrants for unpaid tickets. My neighbors come to me with the middle-class equivalent, which is wills and divorces, with the occasional business contract. Only in the case of the business contracts am I likely to add much value to what is available online to anybody with a modicum of instruction and experience. Cheap over-the-counter legal assistance for routine problems would cut way down on the cost of a lot of ordinary problems. If at the same time it makes some dull and lazy lawyers feel the cold breath of competition on their necks, well, maybe they'll get better at returning their phone calls timely.
Do I worry that people will get into trouble when a cut-rate semi-professional doesn't diagnose the zebra conditions? Not very much. The realistic alternative for most people is no legal advice at all. There are many, many controversies that can't be solved by a lawyer for less than the amount in dispute. Like a nurse practitioner, a legal practitioner who finds himself in over his head can refer people to an expert for anything really hairy. That's what I do when people approach me for consumer jobs outside my expertise: I try to do the bone-headed part up front--all the time-consuming process of extracting the facts and documents from the client, and roughing out an approach--then refer them to an expert with a situation that should now be cheaper to handle. Long experience tells me that the expensive part of a lot of legal work stems from using the lawyer as a secretary. Nearly all the cost of administering an estate, for instance, is monkey work consisting of endless repetitive letters to holders of various sorts of accounts and titles, finding out what documents they need filled out and sent in before they'll transfer title to heirs. Anyone with a bit of training can do that for himself and save a ton of money. Cassandra, with her paralegal experience and natural advantages, could do all of it standing on her head.
We sometimes couch licensing restrictions as a public protection, but there's usually a big old hunk of anti-competitive merchant protectionism built right in there.
For years I ran my firm's pro bono legal clinic for homeless kids, 99% of whom had the same recurring problems, typically involving outstanding warrants for unpaid tickets. My neighbors come to me with the middle-class equivalent, which is wills and divorces, with the occasional business contract. Only in the case of the business contracts am I likely to add much value to what is available online to anybody with a modicum of instruction and experience. Cheap over-the-counter legal assistance for routine problems would cut way down on the cost of a lot of ordinary problems. If at the same time it makes some dull and lazy lawyers feel the cold breath of competition on their necks, well, maybe they'll get better at returning their phone calls timely.
Do I worry that people will get into trouble when a cut-rate semi-professional doesn't diagnose the zebra conditions? Not very much. The realistic alternative for most people is no legal advice at all. There are many, many controversies that can't be solved by a lawyer for less than the amount in dispute. Like a nurse practitioner, a legal practitioner who finds himself in over his head can refer people to an expert for anything really hairy. That's what I do when people approach me for consumer jobs outside my expertise: I try to do the bone-headed part up front--all the time-consuming process of extracting the facts and documents from the client, and roughing out an approach--then refer them to an expert with a situation that should now be cheaper to handle. Long experience tells me that the expensive part of a lot of legal work stems from using the lawyer as a secretary. Nearly all the cost of administering an estate, for instance, is monkey work consisting of endless repetitive letters to holders of various sorts of accounts and titles, finding out what documents they need filled out and sent in before they'll transfer title to heirs. Anyone with a bit of training can do that for himself and save a ton of money. Cassandra, with her paralegal experience and natural advantages, could do all of it standing on her head.
We sometimes couch licensing restrictions as a public protection, but there's usually a big old hunk of anti-competitive merchant protectionism built right in there.
Melville on battle
From Sheridan at Cedar Creek, by Herman Melville:
Shoe the steed with silver
That bore him to the fray,
When he heard the guns at dawning
Miles away;
When he heard them calling, calling--
Mount! nor stay.
Maybe Because She's Done So Much To Earn It?
Poll: Democrats think the media is harder on Clinton than other politicians.
Never Take A "Data-Driven" Road Trip
My late father-in-law was an aerospace engineer, and his adult children still gripe about the trauma of family road trips he planned. We must hit the next sight-to-be-seen! No time for dinner! No, we can't just stop here and enjoy ourselves!
NPR found someone even less likely to plan a good time.
NPR found someone even less likely to plan a good time.
Randy Olson, a Ph.D. candidate at Michigan State University and a self-proclaimed "data tinkerer," believes he's devised a route that could allow a family to hit a landmark in each of the Lower 48 states, from Grand Canyon in Arizona to the Gateway Arch in St. Louis to the Statue of Liberty in New York, in just nine days of driving.Allow me to suggest: no.
"About 9.33 days, if you drove non-stop," Olson clarifies.
That means no time sleeping or using the restroom — and no bad traffic.
Sexual Identity
A brave soldier comes out.
(It's a parody of the genre, so expect the usual language.)
UPDATE: RangerUP finds a date for our soldier.
(It's a parody of the genre, so expect the usual language.)
UPDATE: RangerUP finds a date for our soldier.
Barriers to entry
Adam Smith warned us that merchants are forever looking for ways to protect themselves from competition. Thirty-five states have a "certificate of need" process that drives up medical costs.
The Bible and science
From "The Lost World of Adam and Eve":
Isn't the claim that readers cannot properly understand Genesis without knowing Hebrew and the ancient Near Eastern culture just a form of scholarly elitism?
It’s no more scholarly elitism than recognizing someone has to translate the Bible into English. Bringing the ancient text to us is not just a matter of word rendering; it’s a matter of understanding the culture in which it was written. We have to translate not only language but also culture. We all are dependent on the expertise of others. I’m never inclined to think that the exercise of one’s spiritual gifts or talents is elitism. I’m a hand, not an eye. And someone else is an eye and not a hand. That’s how the body of Christ works.
British tribes
I'd love to see the same analysis done in the U.S., to see whether it would corroborate the findings in David Fischer's excellent book, "Albion's Seed." With so much frontier to settle, the U.S. findings presumably would be more smeared out towards the west.
Le Sacre du Printemps
Springtime.
We got through with half a rank of wood left, which can form the first part of next winter's firewood.
We got through with half a rank of wood left, which can form the first part of next winter's firewood.
St. Chesterton
Apparently there's a movement. If it's proper, though, there will be miracles. Although possibly he is a case like Aquinas: the writings are the miracles.
What's It Like To Live Like A Viking?
Ingrid Galadriel Aune Nilsen, Master of Arts, explains how becoming a full-time Viking re-enactor has changed her views on modern society. Her English is labored, so you'll have to be patient. It's still interesting what she thinks.
The ideal of a 'functioning democracy' in the Viking Age isn't so far fetched. The Icelandic sagas suggest that it worked more often than not.
The ideal of a 'functioning democracy' in the Viking Age isn't so far fetched. The Icelandic sagas suggest that it worked more often than not.
"A Fantastic Opportunity For You To Assert Your Dominance On Everyone Around You..."
"...which improves your life."
Content warning for those of you who don't share Tex's sense of humor.
Content warning for those of you who don't share Tex's sense of humor.
"Kant is a Moron"
That's the headline of all the articles about this act of graffiti.
Thus, the proper translation is more like "Kant is a sucker," which is much more defensible than him being a moron -- or even "Kant is a square," which is actually true. Kant is the squarest of squares.
The Russian word used is a relatively mild term of abuse for a slow-witted or foolish person, and could also be translated as "loser," "dumb-ass," or "chump". The vandals did not, however, leave any accompanying critique of Kant's thinking to justify the smear on his intellectual powers.I asked a Russian-speaking comrade about this, and he tells me that the actual word needs context. It's apparently a term that is of particular origin in the criminal community in Russia, which thinks of itself as pursuing a life worthy of a man because it isn't subordinate or groveling. This term refers to someone who deserves to be robbed, because they are the kind of person who slaves away to pay taxes and be lived-off by others.
Thus, the proper translation is more like "Kant is a sucker," which is much more defensible than him being a moron -- or even "Kant is a square," which is actually true. Kant is the squarest of squares.
Welcome to the Happiest Place on Earth!
I think we discussed the NY Post article debunking claims that Scandinavian countries are happiest. Gallup has come up with a new way of asking the question.
The Simpsons were right again.
By this standard, if you are interested, the Scandinavian countries have precisely the same level of happiness as the United States (except for Denmark, which scores a point lower).
Gallup tallied the “yes” responses to five questions from roughly 1,000 people in each country surveyed. The questions included:So where is the happiest place on earth? Latin America!
Did you feel well-rested yesterday?
Were you treated with respect all day yesterday?
Did you smile or laugh a lot yesterday?
Did you learn or do something interesting yesterday?
Did you experience a lot of the following feelings during the day yesterday? How about enjoyment?
The Simpsons were right again.
By this standard, if you are interested, the Scandinavian countries have precisely the same level of happiness as the United States (except for Denmark, which scores a point lower).
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