Too Good to Check

Conservatives lean right because they're so much prettier than liberals.

The scholars said hot people lean towards the right because they grow to develop a blind spot that leads them to not see the need for more government support or aid in society - a core liberal value.

They add that attractive people don’t face the same hurdles as others as their attractiveness gains them more attention and they are more successful in social situations. Their lives are generally “easier,” the pair claim.

I mean, possibly. But I'll wager that if you study the development of conservative/liberal attitudes, a lot of it depends on personality traits that are set before attractiveness becomes a big deal -- by childhood, I mean, rather than later in life when one becomes physically mature. That's not to say that ideas don't change. We all know people who become liberal in college under the academic and social pressure; we all know people who trend conservative once they get out in the world and see how badly liberal ideas work out in practical terms. Others double down because they become attached to structures that reinforce liberal or conservative ideas.

Still, a lot of the basics are there from the beginning.

Also, I note that the researchers have a clear cognitive bias that is evident in their description of conservatives as having a 'blind spot that leads them not to see the need for more government.' That treats the need for more government as a fact, rather than an opinion. Conservatives are thus supposed to be flawed, even mentally disabled, because they cannot see a thing that is really there. They've just had it so easy that it's crippled their minds.

Is it true that the easier one's life, the more likely one is to be a conservative? Not obviously. Justice Clarence Thomas grew up in a shack insulated with newspaper, his family's sanitation being an outhouse shared with neighbors. It's not hard to name others whose conservatism arose in difficult circumstances; nor is it hard to name celebrities with easy lives who are lefties. Celebrities tend to be attractive, too; not always, but it correlates strongly.

So, my sense is that this study is probably not very valuable. It's still fun, though.

I certainly don't

Mea culpa.  I never make this connection at all:

“Few white people make the connection between their attraction to yoga and the cultural loss their ancestors and relatives experienced when they bought into white dominant culture in order to access resources,” they write.

I can't even sort the sentence out. One of the things I like best about white dominant culture is its persistent nagging to watch your pronoun precedents.

With enemies like these, who lacks friends?

The man the academic left loves to hate:

"[I]nstinctively, I knew I would like to find out about anybody described as dangerous by the trade paper of American higher education...."

Listen to the Mouse

Headline #1: "'America No Longer Matters.' Davos Isn't Worried About President Trump."

Headline #2: "Here’s How and Why Trump’s Going to Blow Up the Foundations of Davos."

"The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it."
-Paul-Muad'Dib
UPDATE: Headline, NYT: "Trump Arrived in Davos as a Party Wrecker. He Leaves Praised as a Pragmatist."

Good Article on the FBI

At the Hill, Sharyl Attkisson argues that it's time for some sunlight.

[T]he Department of Justice has officially warned the House Intelligence Committee not to release its memo. It's like the possible defendant in a criminal trial threatening prosecutors for having the audacity to reveal alleged evidence to the judge and jury.

This is the first time I can recall open government groups and many reporters joining in the argument to keep the information secret. They are strangely uncurious about alleged improprieties with implications of the worst kind: Stasi-like tactics used against Americans. “Don’t be irresponsible and reveal sources and methods,” they plead.

As for me? I don’t care what political stripes the alleged offenders wear or whose side they’re on.

I think they actually view a secret police targeting conservatives as highly desirable, rather than it merely being that they lack curiosity.

Finexit

A young populist candidate running for "Finland First" is worrying members of the EU.

She claims the EU has turned “Finland into its province” and has railed against the country’s political elite, who she argues do not represent the working class.

Huhtasaari has also demanded more immigration controls and has campaigned in favour of a burka ban – a far cry from Finland’s traditionally subdued politics.

I had a good friend in Finland at one time. They had, and I believe still have, mandatory military service and I knew him during his stint in their army. Their proximity to Russia makes it a wise policy to have a fully-trained militia that can be readily armed as needed.

Eight Illustrated Philosophical Thoughts

Colorful illustrations of several thought experiments. These are mostly presented for fun, with their meanings sketched rather than argued over tooth-and-knife (as is more customary among philosophers).

Friday Safety Briefing

Tell Us How You Really Feel, Mr. Sykes

[Missouri Republican U.S. Senate primary candidate Courtland Sykes] said he doesn't want his daughters to grow up to be "career obsessed banshees who forego home life ... to become nail-biting manophobic hell-bent feminist she devils who shriek from the tops of a thousand tall buildings."

The article goes on to note that he 'faces an uphill battle' for the nomination. I'll wager.

McCarthy: Release the Memo

His argument is here.

I think this story has gone far enough that releasing the memo can't possibly be enough to resolve the deadly questions raised. We're going to need to see a lot more than that to make a judgment about whether these charges are true, or whether Republicans in Congress have been raising such explosive questions without basis. One way or the other, we need to know.

"Gang Life"

Looks like an easy win on DACA just got harder. Rubio may have internalized the message that he won't be winning any future Presidential nominations until he gets right with the base on immigration.

I wonder if the Republicans will stand firm on all the things they've now tied to a DACA fix? The wall, e-verify, an end to chain migration and also an end to the visa lottery program -- that's a lot of weight to pull. It could just be the Trump technique of making a 'big ask,' and then settling for less. I won't be surprised if e-verify is discarded, as that would be the part that would actually make it hard for corporations to hire illegals. That would drive up their labor costs, and they can't be happy about the idea.

Star Wars Fan Films

After the recent discussion of The Last Jedi, I saw that movie and then started looking for Star Wars stuff on YouTube. Something I discovered is that there are a lot of short fan-made videos out there, and some of them are fairly good, all things considered.

Of course, the classic Troops has been out for 20 years now.

But there's a lot of more recent stuff that's well-made, at least for amateurs. I kinda wish I could make something along these lines.

Here's one that's a little dark ...

Mathematics and the Battle of Clontarf

"The Brian Battle," as it was also called, was a turning point in Irish history. However, historians have long debated the exact nature of that turning point. Those with a patriotic Irish heart liked to portray it as a cleansing of Ireland by a native Irish hero, Brian Boru, who led his Irish armies to defeat the invading Vikings. That romantic reading fed the hearts of those who, likewise, wanted to cleanse Ireland of another bunch of invading Germanics.

More sober historians pointed to a lot of factionalism within the Ireland of the day, and suggested that it was probably more of a civil war in which the Vikings backed the losing side.

Now, a mathematical model suggests that the romantics were right, or at least more right than not.

To perform the study, the academics examined Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh (“The War of the Irish with the Foreigners”), a chronicle from the early twelfth-century that reported on events in Ireland between 967 and 1014. They wanted to know how all the Irish and Viking characters in the text fit together in a network, monitoring whether the interactions between them were benign or hostile. They developed a mathematical measure to quantify whether hostility in the network mainly connected Irish to Irish or Irish to Vikings.

They then calculated the difference between the measure of hostilities between each type of character (Irish and Viking) and what would have been hostile interactions in the network, indiscriminate of whether characters were Irish or Viking.

A positive value of the resulting measure would signal Irish civil war and a negative number would reflect an Irish versus Viking conflict. The results gave an overall negative value suggesting that the text mainly describes an Irish against Viking conflict.

However, because the negative value was moderate (-0.32 on a scale from -088 to 1) they suggest the text does not describe a fully “clear-cut” Irish versus Viking conflict. Instead, the network portrays a complex picture of relationships and social networks of the time.

We tend to be inclined to doubt romantic opinions, but sometimes romance wins one.

Burned at Burns Night

In which Theresa May decides that Robert Burns should be treated as a symbol of enduring Union, and then mangles all the Scottish aspects.

Actually, I imagine that really did capture the spirit of the 'enduring Union' from the Scottish perspective.

An Argument on Abortion

Patrick S. Tomlinson has what he thinks is a knock-down argument in favor of abortion. In fact, it's not a particularly difficult argument to answer if you are equipped with a little Aristotle.

It's a simple scenario with two outcomes. No one ever wants to pick one, because the correct answer destroys their argument. And there IS a correct answer, which is why the pro-life crowd hates the question.

Here it is. You're in a fertility clinic. Why isn't important. The fire alarm goes off. You run for the exit. As you run down this hallway, you hear a child screaming from behind a door. You throw open the door and find a five-year-old child crying for help. They're in one corner of the room. In the other corner, you spot a frozen container labeled "1000 Viable Human Embryos." The smoke is rising. You start to choke. You know you can grab one or the other, but not both before you succumb to smoke inhalation and die, saving no one.

Do you A) save the child, or B) save the thousand embryos? There is no "C." "C" means you all die.

In a decade of arguing with anti-abortion people about the definition of human life, I have never gotten a single straight A or B answer to this question. And I never will.

Nonsense. "A" is the correct answer; but understanding why it is the correct answer shows that this argument actually tells us nothing much about abortion.

The reason "A" is the correct answer depends on the actual/potential distinction. As Aristotle explains in the Physics, potential is a kind of actuality -- he calls it 'first actuality.' A forest is potentially many houses in a way that a sand-filled desert is not, in that one could make houses out of the trees but not out of the sand. Yet you would not be surprised if someone valued one actual house, especially if it were well-made, over a forest of potential houses. The well-made house will keep him from freezing to death in a way that the potential house will not.

So you can set up a perfectly analogous story about a fire department that shows up to a fire that threatens both a well-made house, and also a nearby forest. They can stop the fire from spreading in only one direction. Does the owner prefer to protect his house, or his forest? It's going to be the same answer. What that shows is that abortion is actually irrelevant to the problem; you get the same story even if all the human lives are removed from the problem.

Tomlinson goes wrong in thinking that this means that destroying the embryos is not morally problematic. That's like arguing that it would be morally fine to set fire to the guy's forest since he cares so much more about his house.

“If they’re allowed to bully they just bully more.”

If you can believe it, that's a quotation from Samantha Power.

Kyle Smith doesn't much care for a new movie about the "Final Year" of Obama diplomacy.

Actual events don’t align with the Rhodes-Obama rhetoric. Vladimir Putin, frustratingly, keeps failing to be bent by the Arc of History (™) and doing whatever he wants, seizing Crimea and abetting Bashar al-Assad. Perhaps he notices the nonstop signaling from the White House that there’s a new sheriff in town, and said sheriff thinks crime-fighters have been way too tough on outlaws. “The error that we may have made is Putin doesn’t seem to pursue Russia’s national interests. He pursues Putin’s interests,” Rhodes says. In other words, surprise! — Putin doesn’t share a liberal American Democrat’s vision about what’s best for Russia. Only liberal American Democrats would need seven and a half years to figure this out. Power, riding in the back of a car, marvels at Russia’s naughtiness: “If they’re allowed to bully they just bully more.” Funny how that works. Kerry, after Russia breaks the ceasefire in Aleppo in 2016: “It’s just so frustrating because we really had an agreement that could have worked. And unfortunately we have some people who didn’t want to cooperate.”

So The Final Year is about the Obama Doctrine, also known as hashtag diplomacy, also known as leading from behind, also known as voting “present” — also known as hands-off. That a lot of people can get killed while you’re wringing them is the movie’s unintended lesson. Summing up, I give you none other than Samantha “Soft” Power herself, who near the end of the doc says in a moment of sudden clarity: “My world is a world where you have 65 million displaced. Yemen and Syria and Iraq, Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad, Central African Republic, Burundi, South Sudan, Darfur, you know, the list, Afghanistan, of course, Venezuela imploding . . . There are concerns about terrorism and there is a fear of the other and . . . all the trendlines — on democracy, right now, at least — are going in the wrong direction.”

If only she or her friends had held positions of authority, maybe they could have done something about some of that.

That's Why You Wear A Suit And Tie

A new workplace prejudice is identified: 'lookism.'

It’s called “Lookism.” That’s the name for what happens in the job interview process when the way a candidate looks and presents themselves significantly affects whether they get the job. It can be the way they are dressed, the makeup on their face, the handbag at their feet or the style of their hair.

It can be a myriad of tiny little aesthetic details, all of which subtly affect discrimination in the hiring process. In 2006, a study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that 73 percent of employers admitted that grooming has “a lot of influence” on whether they would hire a candidate.... This is what Ursula McGeown, CEO of Dress for Success Sydney, wants to end.

Ursula McGeown's approach is remarkably sensible, actually: rather than trying to convince employers that they shouldn't favor candidates who can groom themselves appropriately, she's started a charity to help poorer women dress and groom well.

"We were going to decide what mattered"

I was led to this from http://ace.mu.nu and rather than post Truth Revolt's editorialization of the original, I decided to go to the source itself, to make sure some context or additional verbiage was not being left out so as to color what the original actual said.  It did not.

Agreeableness in arguments and success

Another good video clip from Maggie's Farm this morning.  I always enjoy Jordan Peterson, but this exchange is especially revealing, not only about the startling unfamiliarity of his interlocutor with ideas outside of her echo chamber, but about Peterson's ability to remain calm and focused in an increasingly irrational argument.  There's a lovely moment around minute 23 when the interviewer nearly admits that she has completely lost the ability to deny the reasonableness of his approach--but she recovers quickly and goes back on the attack.



It's really a shame she can't listen to him instead of trying to drown him out.  He could do a lot more to advance her ostensibly feminist goals than most of the people she's been listening to so far.

Crimes before the FISA court

From Maggie's farm:



This is a clearer exposition than most, but I still find myself swimming in a story that's hard to keep track of.  One part that caught my attention was the late November 2016 visit to Trump Tower by Admiral Rogers, which ex-federal prosecutor Joe di Genova describes as the hidden hero's story in this ugly sage.

Rogers's visit was portrayed by the progressive media at the time as a breach of professional ethics.  Di Genova sees it as a principled whistle-blowing, followed immediately by Trump's charges that Obama wire-tapped him, as well as a general decampment from Trump Tower to temporary New Jersey offices until the Trump Tower could be swept and debugged.

So, it's working?

My husband warned me that many aspects of this long article were silly, but recommended it for the schadenfreude.

Alexander Hertel-Fernandez of Columbia, and Vanessa Williamson of the Brookings Institution examined the long-term political consequences of anti-union legislation by comparing counties straddling a state line where one state is right-to-work and another is not. Their findings should strike terror into the hearts of Democratic Party strategists: Right-to-work laws decreased Democratic presidential vote share by 3.5 percent. . . . The authors estimate that Democrats control 5 to 10 percent fewer seats in state legislatures (in both chambers) after a right-to-work law is enacted.

I enjoyed reading how unfair it was for workers to benefit from unions without paying dues, without any mention of what it was like for workers to have union dues extorted from their paychecks without getting anything back in services that they were interested in.

This leads to a vicious cycle wherein the GOP can use that power to further suppress votes, gut union rights, and gerrymander legislatures—in other words, embark on a fundamental retooling of American political mechanics.

The devil you say! That hasn't been done since Democrats used their power to establish public employee unions. Speaking of that,

Right-to-work will decimate private-sector unions, while the five Republican justices on the bench may be poised implement the equivalent of right-to-work nationally for all public-sector unions in the upcoming Janus decision.

A Bit of Intersectionality

Holding Your Own Hostage

To my sorrow, the government shutdown looks likely to end. I was really hoping it would drag on long enough for Americans to realize that there are at least 800,000 Federal employees whom we don't really need. The average Federal salary in 2014 was $84,153 -- half again higher than the average non-Federal worker. Assuming the average holds for workers classified as non-essential, we could save north of $67 billion a year by firing them all.

With all these companies repatriating money thanks to the new tax cuts, they'd even likely find work. Maybe not quite at their old salary, of course, but work all the same. The kind of work that contributes to economic growth instead of taxing it, even.

Federal workers know this, which is why their donations point very heavily to Democrats. It's easy to see why the Democrats in Congress folded. They took their own core constituency hostage.

Gentlemen

Peggy Noonan wants to revive the concept.

There was a time when I wrote about all this quite a lot. I don't think I have anything to say that I didn't say back then about what the concept is, or how it applies; my sense is that the gentleness falls out of the fact that our old norms for gentlemen were invented by men who were essentially a cavalry class. An important part of taming a horse and riding it to war is learning the self-control necessary to control the horse. That's why gentlemen are gentle. Moreover, what makes a gentleman isn't a commitment to be nice to people, but the moral seriousness that comes from taking up the sword in earnest.

Once those ideas were suffused through our society; even Robert E. Howard's Conan, mentioned recently, is frequently described as having 'a rude chivalry' about him because otherwise he would have behaved in despicable ways (and thus not been a suitable hero for 1930s Americans). Actually, I think of Howard as mirroring Tacitus, whose Germania describes the northern barbarians as having similar qualities, and likewise attributes the nobility of those qualities to the very barbarism of the men. “Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split," Conan says in The Tower of the Elephant.

The collapse of morals attends the collapse of consequences. Men aren't gentlemen any more because there is so little danger of having their skulls split, or of splitting another's.

Where Are You From?

In Sweden, a campaign tags this question as racist. The idea is that many people, both immigrants and some born in Sweden, may not look exactly like the archetypal Swede. Asking them where they are from is a way of pointing this up, which could be offensive to them.

We had a similar controversy just recently involving the President, who asked a woman of Korean ethnicity where her people were from. Another Korean-American wrote, "[M]any Americans still subscribe to the insidious myth that Korean Americans are somehow less American. Whatever his intention, Trump’s alleged words perpetuate the idea that no matter how long we’ve lived in the U.S., we will always 'really' be from somewhere else."

The thing is, though, ethnicity is treated as of fundamental importance by many on the left, as well as some on the right. The number of people who answer the question "What ethnicity are you?" with "American" is not large, and it is concentrated in my own Appalachian South. That means that, for now, answering "American" is just another way of telling people where you're from.

By Stevey7788 (talk) (Uploads) - Own work, Public Domain, Link
It would be great if we had a lot more people self-identifying their ethnicity in that way. We're so far down the rabbit hole of hyphenated-Americans, though, I wonder if it's possible. Nor is that new: Theodore Roosevelt spoke against the concept in 1915, and John Wayne spoke against it in his 1973 album on patriotism. Ironically for today's debates, this bit contains the line, "A wall you always have to climb" as well as a paean to immigration.

In defense of John Wayne's concept, one of the most American people I ever knew was a first-generation immigrant from Korea who had fought against the Communists before emigrating here. That was a man who knew what America was about, and who knew what made America great. I'd take all the Americans like him we could find, wherever they came from.

Outlaw Music

To return for a moment to the Kingston Trio, the one of their songs that always struck me strangely was their treatment of the traditional "Jesse James." They made a joke out of it. I assumed that it was just an attempt to remark that the James Gang wasn't really worthy of the veneration that American folklore had assigned them. But in the talk about 'moving left' as a result of exposure to folk music, I wonder if that was the whole agenda.

Here is a traditional version.



Here's the Kingston Trio's version:



It's a strange complaint to say that 'when his best friend died he was right there by her side/ and he lifted off her golden wedding ring.' The intent is to suggest theft, but to be by one's wife side at death is a sort of ideal seeing-through of the promise to be there 'till death do us part'; and saving the wedding ring to give to a daughter or grand-daughter or niece satisfies the 'something old' tradition as well. It's not a fair hit, even if it were true.

That's not to say that the James Gang aren't fairly criticized on certain points. Here's a piece that dings them fairly, I think. It's solid on the history.



And here's Johnny Cash doing an outlaw song that is fairly critical, also, of another American legendary, John Wesley Hardin.



And here's the Pogues doing the ballad because the Celtic take always has a home here.



If you still want more, Ry Cooder does a beautiful version with a long instrumental part.

No, Let's Go For A Few Months

If we can figure out a workaround to get military personnel paid, let's go for years.

Party leaders and rank-and-file senators spent all day Sunday haggling over a deal to reopen the government. But Washington's painful shutdown will nonetheless drag into Day Three.

Painful? I spent the day on the motorcycle riding all over north Georgia, and I haven't noticed a damn thing different.

UPDATE: We won, I guess. *Sigh* I suppose we'll have to let them have their government back, for now.

At least maybe Sen. Schumer will have learned not to threaten us with a good time.

Being needed

Arthur Brooks talks about the worst part of poverty.

A few months into the program, I asked Rick, "How is your life?" and he said, "Let me show you." And he showed me an email from his boss: "Rick, emergency bedbug job, East 65th Street. I need you now."

I said, "So what?"

He said, "Read it again: 'I need you now.' That is the first time in my life anybody has said those words to me."

Another Government Shutdown

I guess we'll just have to get along without them, somehow or other.

Hägar the Horrible had a cartoon, years ago, where the little tax-man in his executioner's hood walked into the pub to announce to the assembled Vikings that the government was shutting down. When they throw up a cheer, he exclaims, "You're not supposed to be happy!"

Maybe not, but you'll excuse me if I don't mind particularly. I'm pretty sure we could do without most of what they do even if nobody else ever picked it up -- which somebody would, if it was something they missed. Aside from the military and a few other basic functions I think we could do without them. If I were Congress, I wouldn't get too cocky about us mourning for them and begging them back.

What Were Their Names?

AVI has a post up about the Kingston Trio. I mentioned that a particular favorite of my father's was the following song.



On a similar token, we went to see "12 Strong" this afternoon. A few Hollywoodisms aside, it's not bad. My wife said that she appreciated that they avoided the usual heavy-handed attempts to manipulate our emotions common to Hollywood films. When you start the film with 9/11, I guess you don't need them so much.

Fighting for Western Civilization and the Church

Yesterday morning’s Dennis Prager show had on as a guest Reverend Doctor William J. Slattery (Ph.D in philosophy, with a specialization in epistemology (the theory of cognition) at the Pontifical Gregorian University), to promote his new book "Heroism and Genius”.

In it, he is promoting the great names of Church history, and the heroism they exhibited in serving God and preserving and growing Western Civilization, as a model for priests in today’s world engaging in the fight for the preservation and elevation of Western Culture.

There’s even a chapter titled “Fathers of Chivalry: A New Type of Warrior”.

He also introduced me to a fine quote:
“No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.”
-Thomas Carlyle

I’ll be ordering this book immediately.

Blaming Invisible Men

The least surprising headline I've seen lately, except that we haven't had a big mass shooting lately: "Don’t Blame Mental Illness for Mass Shootings; Blame Men."

This part of the argument was more surprising, but she doesn't I think realize what's surprising about it.

Men don’t just constitute almost all mass shooters in recent history; they are also responsible for the vast majority of gun-associated deaths in the country. Men own guns at triple the rate of women in the U.S., at 62 percent compared to 22 percent—and also commit suicide at nearly triple the rate of women.

Mass shootings are a very tiny percentage of shootings. Suicides make up two thirds of deaths from shootings. The problem she wants to talk about is small enough that it's hard to say much of use about it using statistics, because it's already an outlier; but the suicide problem is very much not an outlier. If gun deaths are a problem, then suicide is the main part of the problem.

What does it mean that men commit suicide at three times the rate of women? When we speak of other minorities (and men are, however slightly, a minority), a high suicide rate is considered a sign that society is oppressive towards them. Society is blamed for their suffering. Here, of coure, "Blame Men" is the answer because it is always the answer. They are at fault because of "toxic masculinity," which the author describes as not measuring up to the masculine ideal.

This means that nobody wants them. Maybe that's what's driving all the suicide -- and also some of the mass shootings.

Madfis also notes that many men who commit mass shootings tend to be those who have failed to achieve financial and romantic success in ways that our society values and accredits as “manly.” As a result, Madfis explains, men may feel emboldened to resort to violence to gain both revenge and some level of notoriety as compensation for being denied what they thought they were owed, or felt pressure to attain.

This is roughly parallel to the big discussion our culture is having about transgenderism, except that there the idea is that society is at fault for not wanting them -- for not accepting them just as they are. Here there is no similar move to try to find ways to embrace and extend love or respect or acceptance, even though it might really solve the problem. Certainly, it's supposed to be the solution for others who suffer from social rejection.

This, though, isn't a problem with men -- well, not straight men. It's a problem with women (and gay men). They generally don't tend to find unmanly men attractive.

Should they be retrained, or forced to pretend that they find unmanly men attractive? No one is suggesting it, and of course it's a useless and terrible suggestion. It does happen to be the suggestion being aimed at straight men where trans-women are concerned, of course, because it's always fine to force straight men to carry the blame for problems. But it's a terrible suggestion there, too, as well as an unworkable one. Nobody's going to be attracted to someone they just aren't attracted to, and it's unconscionable to suggest that they have a moral duty to yield themselves up sexually just because (or even though) it would mean a lot to someone else.

As far as I know, feminism doesn't really even have a sketch at an answer to this problem. "Toxic masculinity" is just an attempt to throw the problem of being unwanted back on the unwanted men, who are told that they shouldn't have to measure up. But even if they free themselves from any sense that they ought to measure up, and go around putting on dresses or whatever, still nobody they want is going to want them.

Being isolated like that must be miserable, and it's no surprise that it leads to suicide in many cases. Instead of blaming them, it might be worth at least trying on some sympathy for the bitter loneliness they must be experiencing day in and day out. Mostly they don't kill anyone else, after all. Mostly they just go home one day and kill themselves.

Indeed, the only thing I've read recently that even sounded a little bit like an answer to this problem came from Vox.

Inequality has been so much a part of the conversation — in terms of economic inequality, health care inequality, and educational inequality. This is probably overdue. But people don’t talk about inequalities in our access to intimacy and our access to sex. I don’t think we pay attention to the way in which, through no fault of their own, lots of people just have a lot of trouble finding partners.

They may be disabled. They may just not be conventionally attractive. They may be in situations, like prison or mining camps or something like that, where they can’t find people of the opposite sex. Or they may be gay or lesbian and they may be living in a small town in Alabama. There’s lots of ways in which people just don’t have access to any kind of sexual intimacy. I think that technology may not be as ideal as actually having a human partner, but I think, for many people, it’s better than nothing.

I happen to think that this won't solve the problem, as sex is a small part of the real issue of missing human intimacy. But at least it correctly identifies the problem, rather than resorting to the easy solution of blaming the men nobody wants for the fact that nobody wants them.

Conan Was Right

One of the conceits of the Robert E. Howard stories is that history has simply forgotten many ancient civilizations, which were far more technologically advanced than believed. He may well have been right about that.

Iceland's First Black Resident

Sounds like a fellow with an interesting story.

Hans Jonatan was born into slavery on a Caribbean sugar plantation, and he died in a small Icelandic fishing village. In those intervening 43 years, he fought for the Danish Navy in the Napoleonic Wars, lost a landmark case for his freedom in The General’s Widow v. the Mulatto, then somehow escaped to become a peasant farmer on the Nordic island.

Apparently he was the subject of an academic biography, if you're interested.

Briar Patch

Maybe this threat isn't aimed at Trump voters, whom I agree will probably not be much moved by it.

A Decent Act from the New York Times

The Grey Lady is taking one day off of its constant drum-beat to give a voice to the other side.

"'Mansplaining?' Nonsense, I'm a Democrat"

In fairness to Sen. Booker, 'mansplaining' is a stupid word; he's perfectly right that he should be able to be critical of a cabinet secretary regardless of sex. On the other hand, he wasn't at all fair or reasonable in his conduct at yesterday's hearing.

Ultimately his complaint came down to how unfair it was that the Secretary had produced the report on international terrorism that she had been directed to produce by a formal Executive Order, and not the report on white nationalist domestic terrorism that he would have preferred. He also objected to the fact that she didn't remember the President's use of a word he wanted to take offense to, such that her memory agrees with my Senator (David Perdue) rather than Senator Durbin (who has been known to lie through his teeth on occasion). What he wants is another Sally Yates, a woman who will refuse to do her job or carry out the President's orders, and then call him a racist after she is fired for nonperformance. Anything else? He'll scream at her and insult her publicly.

But that doesn't mean it's sexism. Maybe Sen. Booker would have treated Secretary "Chaos" Mattis exactly the same way, or White House Chief of Staff John Kelly. I mean, no doubt.

A Good Idea

There is a campaign calling itself "New California" that wants to separate the rural parts of California from the existing state. It's much easier to effect than secession, requiring only the consent of Congress and the state legislature. It is also a generally good idea for many states, not merely California.

Probably the biggest divide today is between the interests of big cities and the interests of everyone else. Almost everyone in America would be happier if they lived in a state which reflected the values of their community, and under a Federal government that was much less important. The 10th Amendment is the answer to the second half of that equation: if the Federal government does only what the Constitution says it should do, and the other powers devolve to the states or to the People as the 10th Amendment says that they should, then we don't have to impose one-size-fits-all solutions on a vast and diverse America.

That still leaves the problem that many states are dominated by a big city or a few big cities, whose interests are in grave tension with that of the rest of the state. A few states have big cities that are dominated by the rural majority, leaving them in a similar position.

The New California proposal solves the problem in a novel way. I think we should consider a similar solution in many other places. Perhaps we could do what William Gibson suggested, and combine the 'Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Axis' into a single state bordered by many rural states.

Parodies of the Day

The Resistance aids Darth Vader, via the Intercept.

Meanwile, DB: "Chelsea Manning hopes to become Senate’s first openly transgender disgrace."

“There have been many disgraceful senators,” said political analyst Rob Tembley. “In fact, there are many serving right now. Manning, however, would be the first openly transgender one.”...

“We need someone willing to fight,” Manning continues, referring to her inability to fight when her supervisor removed the bolt from her rifle after she was found in a cupboard in the fetal position.

Although the 30-year-old traitor with no advanced education is a historically unqualified candidate, supporters claim her emotional problems and mental instability make her a great fit for the current political climate.

It's a joke, kind of.

The Wild in Winter

Looking towards Roan High Knob

Spent the weekend in the border regions between the Cherokee and the Pisgah National Forests. It was fairly cold in the high country, single digits at nights. The stars are clear and bright when it gets that cold.

Two approaches

And as my husband points out, both countries are achieving their goals.

Vikings and Horned Helmets

Generally considered a myth, there turns out to be contemporary images of a man wearing a horned helmet from the Oseberg tapestries.

It seems like the figure with the horned helmet is leading the procession. He is somewhat larger than the others, something that may indicate his high status, and the figure is possibly portraying the god Odin....

The horned figure also appears in another textile fragment discovered inside the burial chamber. He is holding a pair of crossed spears in one hand facing a man wearing something that reminds of a bear skin. It is tempting to interpret the scene as Odin and a Norse berserker warrior (Old Norse: ber-serkir, meaning “bear-shirt”) who was said to be Odin’s special warriors.

The fragment also portrays a group of women bearing shields interpreted to be “shieldmaidens” (Old Norse: skjaldmær), women who had chosen to fight as warriors.

The article assumes the tapestry was capturing a myth, or a ceremonial costume.

A Fine Song for a Friday

If you made it through that, you're probably mad at me. But it's a fine song, just as I said, and so you'll perhaps forgive the shaggy dog story.

Besides, it's not bad advice. The part about the trusty bike, I mean.

"Treason"

On the one hand, I'm not sure that this rises to the level of 'treason.' It's not in the strict sense waging war on the Republic, or giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Even the latter phrase isn't meant to be construed lightly as 'doing things the enemy might like' or '...that might help the enemy,' but in concert with a war, actively aiding enemy agents. There's no war, at least not in the strictest sense.

On the other hand, it is a kind of coup against the elected government by what is sometimes called 'the Deep State,' and that could be construed as a waging of war on the Republic by certain members of the government.

Also on that same hand, it's a much more plausible charge of 'treason' than the ones that have been being leveled against Trump himself by the Left all this time: that he might have engaged in 'treason' by seeking to find out what Russia knew about Clinton corruption, for example. That's not war-waging against the Republic at all, and could even be said to be a kind of competitive good governance. The reason to have an adversarial politics is that everyone won't be cozy the way that the Clintons tried to be, but that instead things will be brought to light so the citizenry can hold the powerful to account.

I sometimes think that the charge the left really wants to raise isn't 'treason' but 'heresy,' only that they don't know how to frame that charge. What they really seem to mean is that Trump violates their basic ideas of what the Republic should be about. The recent pieces on Oprah as Priestess-Queen make clear the degree to which this is a more primal violation than treason: it is not really that the man has been disloyal to the state, but that he is a committed violator of their sacred ideals. Even if the worst things he'd been accused of was true, it would't be treason: it'd be unwise to take aid from Putin's intelligence officers in order to persuade voters to vote against Hillary Clinton, perhaps, but it would not be illegal. Yet this has always been treated as a capital crime by the President's enemies, intensely and passionately so.

We are getting closer to something. I wonder if all the go-along-get-along in the world among the comfortable establishment can avoid the powers being raised by these invocations.

Cats vs. Communists

Out in Austin, Texas, a young woman had an interesting idea for a business: open a coffee shop populated by her large cat collection, plus some cats who need adoption, and let customers pet the cats while they drink their coffee. Thus was born the "Blue Cat Café."

You might be surprised to learn that cats are compatible with a food service business, but apparently Texas law permits this. You won't be surprised to learn that a young woman caring for very many cats didn't have a ton of money with which to front a business, so she had to find a place with very reasonable rent for this operation. Thereby hangs a tale.



There is a longer version of the clip that opens that video, here:



Transcript: "You know, all you white people, you look really f'ing comfortable right now because you've got a small army of pigs to protect you. But they won't always be here. How does it feel to need a small army of pigs to protect you from the f'ing neighborhood?"

Notice that, in the first clip, the cafe owners confirm that 'they won't always be here' -- the police have told them that there will be no arrests nor prosecutions because they don't want to 'stir up more hate.'

Protest group 'Defend our Hoodz' has a Twitter account. They deny being involved in the vandalism, and raise counter-accusations that the young woman running the cat cafe has a racist brother she has subsequently invited to protect her establishment against these protests. 'Defend our Hoodz' are definitely Communists. They call for communal ownership of 'the land,' by which they mean all the properties in what they consider to be their neighborhood.

The Blue Cat has a Twitter account too. They are just as obviously progressives who consider themselves sensitive and loving. Peruse it for a moment and you'll discover it is full of rainbows, yoga, and women petting cats. One thing that the protesters are right about is that these are definitely "white people," in the sense of Stuff White People Like. But you push them, and you very quickly find the white people like her brother who form Nazi-themed weightlifting clubs ("the Liftwaffe").

Communists vs. Nazis, feuding over a cat-lady hipster cafe in Texas. Things like this don't really happen, do they?

John Hasnas: The Myth of the Rule of Law

The Barrister over at Maggie's Farm posted this the other day. Hasnas holds a JD and a Ph.D. in philosophy. His law review article "The Myth of the Rule of Law" argues that:

... 1) there is no such thing as a government of law and not people, 2) the belief that there is serves to maintain public support for society's power structure, and 3) the establishment of a truly free society requires the abandonment of the myth of the rule of law.

This is something I've often thought about as I've reconsidered my political beliefs over the last 20 years or so. I tend to agree on the first point for simpler reasons than Hasnas gives: People always make and enforce the laws. It's just a matter of which people and how. On the other hand, the government of law is an ideal to strive for, and I believe in the value of striving for unattainable ideals.

I don't know about his conclusions. Maybe we can hash those out in the comments.

Gorgeous Jupiter

It's incredible what a difference a close-up makes.

J. D. Vance Considering Senate Run

The man is most famous as the author of Hillbilly Elegy, a book that became very popular among coastal elites trying to understand the hinterland. That makes him a kind of celebrity candidate, in that he is really being considered for office on the basis of his fame as a cultural figure. On the other hand, it's not like he's a reality TV host or a talk show host: his fame depends on a set of ideas, set out and defended in book-length form.

I wonder how popular he would be with voters who are actually a part of the culture he discusses in his book. He was not entirely flattering to them. The opioid crisis suggests that some tough-love criticism is not out of order, but that doesn't mean that they'd like his analysis of just what he thinks is wrong with them.

Cliven Bundy Walks Free

The process is the punishment: he has not been free for two years, while the government tried to railroad him by withholding exculpatory evidence. But, at last, a Nevada judge has put an end to it.

A federal judge ruled Monday that the federal government may not retry Cliven Bundy and his sons after rebuking prosecutors for withholding evidence during their felony trial stemming from an armed standoff four years ago.... She said the attorneys were in violation of the Brady rule, which requires prosecutors to disclose evidence that could be favorable to a defendant, and told them it wasn’t possible to proceed with the case.

On Monday, she dismissed the case “with prejudice,” meaning the government cannot retry the defendants. "The court finds that the universal sense of justice has been violated," Navarro said.

It was yet another defeat for the federal government at the hands of the Bundy family, who have managed to elude prosecution in high-profile trials centered around standoffs with law enforcement over access to public land.

A Philosophy Professor Runs for Congress

Richard Dien Winfield is a Hegelian who teaches at the University of Georgia. He's running for the 10th District seat, which includes the college town of Athens and is thus an island of blue in a sea of red.

Here's his agenda.

1. GUARANTEED JOBS AT A FAIR WAGE
So that anyone who wants a job can get one with pay that truly reflects America’s rising productivity and prosperity

2. A SUPER MEDICARE FOR ALL
So that we all have access to quality care covering all needed physical, mental, and dental treatment without copays or deductibles

3. PAID FAMILY LEAVE, FREE CHILD AND ELDER CARE, AND $500 CHILD ALLOWANCES
So that no one has to make sacrifices to balance family and work

4. WORKER EMPOWERMENT AND COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
Where employees have fair representation on corporate boards and collective bargaining so they have a say in decisions concerning work conditions, including equal pay, outsourcing, and automation

5. LEGAL CARE FOR ALL
To cover the expenses of all personal criminal and civil legal representation, so people can defend against discrimination, sexual harassment, wage theft, and more

WE CAN PAY FOR ALL THIS
By establishing a wealth tax on the trillions of dollars sitting idle in the coffers of the top 10%, instead of being invested productively in our economy

No, he's not kidding. Hegel's effect on Marx was no accident, perhaps: these are similar programs.

Long Live the King?

The New York Times runs a think piece on why the world needs more monarchies.

Tolkien and Kant both thought well of the concept of a monarchy, but the American tradition is not well-served by the idea. None of our political dynasties are a good fit: not the Kennedy family, absolutely not the Clinton crew, nor even the Bush family. I'm sure some people would love to appoint Barack and Michelle Obama as King and Queen of America, but others would greatly despise the idea. King Trump? His wife and daughter would be a good fit for the royalty they'd meet on state occasions, but people go nuts enough about having the Donald as first citizen, primus inter pares. Making him king is right out.

So, it's just a fun piece for a Sunday? Or what?

UPDATE: Queen Oprah? Americans might really vote for that, heaven help us.

Just use your fingernails

It's been a while since we stirred up the subject of automation and the loss of jobs:

The first cargo ship with McLean containers had set off in 1956 from the New Jersey port in Texas. The complete loading of the ship took 8 hours. An extremely short time in comparison with several days needed for the traditional method, and it was reduced shortly afterward by implementing better cranes and parallel unloading and loading of the ships at the same time. But McLean was only interested in one figure: the cost of transporting of one tonne of wares. In 1956, the cost was around $5.83. McLean’s ship Ideal-X managed to do the same for 15.8 cents per tonne.

This way, McLean overcame the first regulatory barrier constraining his containers from controlling the world. By far, this was not the last one. In the introduction, I mention the loaders and unloaders in the docks. These were the workers having one of the most dangerous occupations and generally passed it through generations. In many cities, these workers were having a distinctive social position, and, for example, in New York, not just anyone could reload a truck. This job was exclusive only for the members of a so-called group of “Public Loaders.”

This exclusivity was protected by various trade unions which dictated who could load, for how much, and what could be loaded and unloaded in a port. And this occupation became completely unnecessary with the arrival of containers.

It reminds me of the Milton Friedman story about watching laborers dig holes with shovels. When he asked why they weren't using back-hoes, his hosts explained that back-hoes were expensive but--even worse--they would put workers out of jobs. Friedman answered, "Why not take away their shovels and give them spoons?"

The Feast of the Epiphany

Also known as Three Kings' Day, the feast celebrates the revelation to the Magi that God was before them incarnate. The feast is often taken to be the end of the Christmastide. Some wait to remove decorations, though, until Candlemas.

Here is a famous hymn associated with the feast.



For another, one more time, the Reverend Horton Heat.

Star-splitting

Maggie's Farm puts up good verse:

You know Orion always comes up sideways.
Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains,
And rising on his hands, he looks in on me . . . .

Parris Island and the Bomb Cyclone

Image from an old friend.

UPDATE:

This one is from the Battery in Charleston, South Carolina.

Bedtime

I've read somewhere that a sort of biochemical traffic along the neurons or axons flows backwards during sleep (maybe something like this Scientific American article). This Atlantic article has interesting information about how little we know about what's going on:

If you needed more proof that sleep, with its peculiar many-staged structure and tendency to fill your mind with nonsense, isn’t some passive, energy-saving state, consider that golden hamsters have been observed waking up from bouts of hibernation—in order to nap. Whatever they’re getting from sleep, it’s not available to them while they’re hibernating. Even though they have slowed down nearly every process in their body, sleep pressure still builds up. “What I want to know is, what about this brain activity is so important?” says Kasper Vogt, one of the researchers gathered at the new institute at Tsukuba. He gestures at his screen, showing data on the firing of neurons in sleeping mice. “What is so important that you risk being eaten, not eating yourself, procreation ... you give all that up, for this?”

* * *

Sleep-inducing substances may come from the process of making new connections between neurons. Chiara Cirelli and Giulio Tononi, sleep researchers at the University of Wisconsin, suggest that since making these connections, or synapses, is what our brains do when we are awake, maybe what they do during sleep is scale back the unimportant ones, removing the memories or images that don’t fit with the others, or don’t need to be used to make sense of the world. “Sleep is a way of getting rid of the memories in a way that is good for the brain,” Tononi speculates. Another group has discovered a protein that enters little-used synapses to cause their destruction, and one of the times it can do this is when adenosine levels are high. Maybe sleep is when this cleanup happens.

What a billionaire is like

Devin Foley ruminates on Trump's spat with Steve Bannon:

I don’t know what it is, but there is something about the guys who are billionaires that is very different from everyone else. To you and me, having $500 million is practically the same as being a billionaire. Even having $50 million or just $5 million is a lot of money to me and far more than anything I have. But here’s the thing, the guy with $500 million is just like the guy with $5 million and just like you and me, he will go to his grave scared that he’ll end up destitute in some filthy poorhouse at the mercy of a nurse-maid who hates life.

But not the billionaires. Yes, they care about their wealth, but they’re after something different at the point they have nine zeroes in the bank account. They’re oddly beyond money.

Of the ones I have met, they have been good men and shockingly frugal. They’re very interested in the interplay between ideas, people, and institutions. They’re looking for trends and rely on their gut instinct quite a bit. They have a small group they trust because they know that the vast majority of people around them, no matter all the nice things said, just want some of their money. They must be detached and insulated from the world, while still able to touch and feel it, they need to have their fingers in things just enough to get a sense of the trends and currents.

The most important thing you can be for a billionaire is honest. Flattery and awards work for other men, but the billionaire doesn’t need any of it. The rare gem for him is honesty.

I'm trying to remember if I've ever met a billionaire. Perhaps not. Many extremely wealthy businessmen, but no one truly over the top in wealth in the way Foley is describing, what I think of as "Bill Gates money."  I have at least worked with a number of wealthy guys who valued honesty more than flattery, and therefore were willing to put up with my egregious tactlessness, something I'd have done well to learn to control much earlier in life.  I shudder to think of the number of enemies I made for no good reason and without even being entirely aware of it at the time.

On the other hand, a lot of people probably benefited from my honesty.  I'm interested to see now whether it will play with local voters, who will have to be deeply concerned about opacity in local government in order to find it attractive in a candidate.

Thomases and Henries

Maggie's Farm pointed to a new website, Idlepost, where I found this rumination on Henry II, Thomas à Becket, Henry VIII, and Sir Thomas More:

Let me be plainer. The Covenant is not a collectivist arrangement. It is actually the opposite of a collectivist arrangement, and was so from the beginning. The true Christian teaching stands in anticipation of, and opposition to, the ideals of that “Reformation,” which worked themselves out as a spiritual as well as contractual relation between the People and the State (exalted in “Americanism”). The Covenant is instead with persons, both vertically in their relations with God, and horizontally in their relations with each other: cor ad cor loquitur. To love God and to love thy neighbour: that is the whole teaching. Everything follows from that.

How Does This Happen?

You'd think the scion of a political family of such influence would know better than to produce a headline like this.

Flyover country in Iran

John Ringo's perspective on the Iranian riots.

Full Service

When I was a child, my grandfather ran a service station in rural Tennessee. He'd retired after a long career: welder, working on the atom bombs at Oak Ridge during WWII, then owning a service station for long-haul trucks in the early days of I-75 near Knoxville. He didn't like retirement very much, so after his retirement he bought a smaller service station within walking distance of his house and ran it mostly to keep himself busy. He did light work, oil changes and tire repair, and sold gasoline.

One of the things he offered was "full service," although even in those days it was an option. If you pulled up to the pump closest to the station, you ran over a pressure device that set off a bell inside. He or one of his employees would come out, pump your gas for you -- as much as you wanted, by dollar or by gallon -- and while they pumped it they'd wash your windows, check your tire pressure, clean your headlights, things like that. Though I was a child, he'd often let me do the parts of it that I could do, which I thought was great fun at the time.

Apparently this kind of thing still exists in Oregon. They're very alarmed that it's becoming optional. I hadn't heard of it in years.

The Year of Breaking Things

Often we have spoken about the dangers of ossification to bureaucracy, following Joseph Schumpeter. The usual way this gets solved is through competition, where new and more agile firms break off pieces of the business of giants like IBM. But it turns out there's another way:

The press is doing a good job of telling us what he accomplished in 2017. But they keep leaving out all the stuff he broke that probably needed to be broken. I’ll fix that for you here.

GOP – Trump broke the GOP and reconstructed it along his terms, successfully it seems.

DNC – The DNC has no charismatic leader, no game plan, and little money.

Clinton Dynasty – Done

Bush Dynasty – Done

Mainstream Media – The public learned that news coverage is based on bias as much as fact.

NFL – Ratings down, attendance down.

FBI (leadership) – The FBI as a whole is still highly credible, but the leadership is not.

Pundits – Nearly all the pundits were wrong about Trump’s nomination, election, and successful (by Republican standards) first year.

Government Regulations – For good or bad, we have fewer regulations now.

Hollywood – Big stars are alienating 40% of their potential audience whenever they take time off from groping.

North Korea – They used to have a pathetic but functioning economy. That situation is changing rapidly.

ISIS – Remember ISIS? They used to be a big deal.

TPP – Pulled out

Paris Climate Accord – Pulled out

That's a good point. What else needs to be broken for the good of us all?

Go, Mighty Bulldogs

If you didn't catch the Rose Bowl tonight, you missed perhaps the finest game of football ever played.

Auld lang syne

I've finished a batch of black-eyed peas and greens for tomorrow, as well as a spinach-orange-olive-pecan salad and a radish-jicama-queso-fresco-pine-nut salad for our neighbor's shindig tonight. There's a roaring fire in the fireplace. We've covered a few plants in preparation for a freeze tonight and tomorrow night--not an extreme freeze like you're getting in the rest of the country, but more of a freeze than we normally get here. We even have a few overnight guests, also unusual for us. I'm looking forward to the party tonight, which includes my annual dose of playing and singing, my heart's delight.

A king without free subjects is nothing worth

At Gutenberg this week, I'm formatting a biography of Alfred the Great by Charles Plummer (1902).  In the war-torn and squalid late 9th century of England, Alfred stood out for the noble and energetic qualities of his mind and character.  After preserving Wessex from the Viking menace, Alfred translated a number of Latin works into the vernacular, including Boethius on the Consolation of Philosophy, though the loose editorial standards of the day leave some doubt how much of his translation is faithful and how much expresses his own fine instincts.  Here are some maxims from one of his translations:

[that] reward should not be looked for in this world, but should be sought from God alone; that a good name is better than any wealth; that true nobility is of the mind, not of the body; that an honest purpose is accepted, even though its accomplishment be frustrated; that a king without free subjects is nothing worth; that no one should be idle, or wish to live a soft life.

Alfred traveled to Rome as a child. As king, he sent emissaries at least to the Holy Land, as perhaps as far as India, no small achievement for his time.

Math = Privilege

Gutierrez says evaluations of math skills can perpetuate discrimination against minorities, especially if they do worse than their white counterparts, Campus Reform reported.

“If one is not viewed as mathematical, there will always be a sense of inferiority that can be summoned” because the average person won't necessarily question the role of mathematics in society, she writes.

According to the website, Gutierrez adds that there are so many people who “have experienced microaggressions from participating in math classrooms… [where people are] judged by whether they can reason abstractly.”

Here's one truth about math skills: if you don't start developing the best ones you can early, many fields of study will be closed to you in college if you follow the traditional path of starting college shortly after High School. These include well-remunerated fields such as engineering, and cutting edge fields like physics.

You could always go do something else for a while, and develop the skills you need during your time away. But if you want the privileges that come from being a successful engineer, say, you're going to have to do the work. Teachers telling you something else to make you feel better about yourself isn't helping you. Since wealth is inheritable, it isn't helping your children either. A teacher who helps you feel good about not overcoming shortcomings in mathematics may be putting generations of your descendants at a disadvantage.

Economists hardest hit

Remember Paul Krugman after Trump's election?

Something similar is shaking out of Brexit, which failed to result in the Brexodus of capital from Great Britain. 

'As we know from Project Fear, the main function of economists is explaining why their last forecast was wrong.'

Dollarization

Is this a peaceful path out of Venezuela's failed experiment?  Or will Maduro start massacres to prevent the humiliation?

Never underestimate the power and value of functioning price signals.  Lies win for a time, but they can't last. As Oskar Matzerath said, "All's lost, but not forever. Poland's not lost forever."

The Feast of St. Thomas of Beckett

He is also known of St. Thomas of Kent, where he died, as memorialized in Ivanhoe.

“By my troth,” said the knight, “thou hast sung well and lustily, and in high praise of thine order. And, talking of the devil, Holy Clerk, are you not afraid that he may pay you a visit during some of your uncanonical pastimes?”

“I uncanonical!” answered the hermit; “I scorn the charge—I scorn it with my heels!—I serve the duty of my chapel duly and truly—Two masses daily, morning and evening, primes, noons, and vespers, ‘aves, credos, paters’—-”

“Excepting moonlight nights, when the venison is in season,” said his guest.

“‘Exceptis excipiendis’” replied the hermit, “as our old abbot taught me to say, when impertinent laymen should ask me if I kept every punctilio of mine order.”

“True, holy father,” said the knight; “but the devil is apt to keep an eye on such exceptions; he goes about, thou knowest, like a roaring lion.”

“Let him roar here if he dares,” said the friar; “a touch of my cord will make him roar as loud as the tongs of St Dunstan himself did. I never feared man, and I as little fear the devil and his imps. Saint Dunstan, Saint Dubric, Saint Winibald, Saint Winifred, Saint Swibert, Saint Willick, not forgetting Saint Thomas a Kent, and my own poor merits to speed, I defy every devil of them, come cut and long tail.—But to let you into a secret, I never speak upon such subjects, my friend, until after morning vespers.”

He changed the conversation; fast and furious grew the mirth of the parties, and many a song was exchanged betwixt them, when their revels were interrupted by a loud knocking at the door of the hermitage.

Did Historical Jesus Really Exist?

On December 18th, the WaPo published an article challenging the historical evidence for the existence of Jesus by Raphael Lataster, a historian who claims Jesus didn't exist. It seems an interesting topic for discussion.

Lataster's main claims about the historical documents are:

The first problem we encounter when trying to discover more about the Historical Jesus is the lack of early sources. The earliest sources only reference the clearly fictional Christ of Faith. These early sources, compiled decades after the alleged events, all stem from Christian authors eager to promote Christianity – which gives us reason to question them. The authors of the Gospels fail to name themselves, describe their qualifications, or show any criticism with their foundational sources – which they also fail to identify. Filled with mythical and non-historical information, and heavily edited over time, the Gospels certainly should not convince critics to trust even the more mundane claims made therein.

The methods traditionally used to tease out rare nuggets of truth from the Gospels are dubious. The criterion of embarrassment says that if a section would be embarrassing for the author, it is more likely authentic. Unfortunately, given the diverse nature of Christianity and Judaism back then (things have not changed all that much), and the anonymity of the authors, it is impossible to determine what truly would be embarrassing or counter-intuitive, let alone if that might not serve some evangelistic purpose. 

The criterion of Aramaic context is similarly unhelpful. Jesus and his closest followers were surely not the only Aramaic-speakers in first-century Judea. The criterion of multiple independent attestation can also hardly be used properly here, given that the sources clearly are not independent. 

Paul’s Epistles, written earlier than the Gospels, give us no reason to dogmatically declare Jesus must have existed. Avoiding Jesus’ earthly events and teachings, even when the latter could have bolstered his own claims, Paul only describes his “Heavenly Jesus.” Even when discussing what appear to be the resurrection and the last supper, his only stated sources are his direct revelations from the Lord, and his indirect revelations from the Old Testament. In fact, Paul actually rules out human sources (see Galatians 1:11-12). 

Also important are the sources we don’t have. There are no existing eyewitness or contemporary accounts of Jesus. All we have are later descriptions of Jesus’ life events by non-eyewitnesses, most of whom are obviously biased. Little can be gleaned from the few non-Biblical and non-Christian sources, with only Roman scholar Josephus and historian Tacitus having any reasonable claim to be writing about Jesus within 100 years of his life. And even those sparse accounts are shrouded in controversy, with disagreements over what parts have obviously been changed by Christian scribes (the manuscripts were preserved by Christians), the fact that both these authors were born after Jesus died (they would thus have probably received this information from Christians), and the oddity that centuries go by before Christian apologists start referencing them.

He has some other things to say, and a number of links within the above text as well to other authors, but that's the gist of it. This is a new argument to me, though I've heard rumblings of it before. I've heard Christian apologists make the opposite claim that, while clearly the miracles and any supernatural parts can be disbelieved, that the case that Jesus was a historical figure is clear for all to see. I actually haven't looked that much into it, though. Any have any good sources on this? Any thoughts about it?

The Penny Post

In 1836, Rowland Hill was tasked by a Member of Parliament to propose a reform of England's cumbersome and expensive postal system.  He examined it systematically and concluded that postal customers were overpaying for useless aspects of the post.  For one thing, most of the resources of the system were eaten up by armies of clerks engaged in a finicky counting of pages; Rowland proposed to substitute a simple weighing of each missive.  Rowland also concluded that the differences in distance of travel were such a trivial part of the cost of each letter that they didn't justify the time spent calculating differential charges.  Finally, he advocated getting the Post Office completely out of the business of collecting a fee for postal services after the fact, by the simple expedient of charging up front.  Up to this time, the cost of postage traditionally had been borne by the recipient, who sometimes would refuse delivery rather than pay.  What's more, over 12% of mail traffic was delivered cost-free to customers with "franking" privileges, particularly members of government.  The result of Hill's improvements, enacted by Parliament over howls of protest, was to permit a wholesale revamping of the Post Office in which a standard letter could be sent anywhere in the country for a penny.

About time we took another fresh look at a creaky old system.  When systems go on long enough without the discipline of competition, they take on barnacles:  good, government jobs that are doing no earthly good for anyone except the clerks receiving the benefits package.

Anyone can play

Newsweek establishes a winning formula:

Trump’s rhetoric differs from that of Nazi Germany’s, most notably because he has never advocated genocide. But Trump’s talk about Christmas coexists with re-emerging white identity politics. . . .

This has broad usefulness.  [INSERT A]'s rhetoric differs from that of [INSERT B], most notably because he has never advocated [INSERT C]. But [INSERT A]’s talk about [INSERT D] coexists with re-emerging [INSERT E] politics.

• INSERT A
1. Nancy Pelosi
2. Rosie O'Donnell
3. George Soros
4. Paul Krugman


• INSERT B
1. the Khmer Rouge
2. the New York Times
3. the Southern Poverty Law Center
4. the Man-Boy Love Association


• INSERT C
1. income inequality
2. diversity
3. cultural appropriation
4. spelling reform


• INSERT D
1. child pornography
2. mandatory sensitivity training for bakers
3. forcible gender reassignment
4. book burning


• INSERT E
1. "woke"
2. New New Left
3. deficit-hawk
4. intellectual malfeasance

Ancient Greek with Joe Bob Briggs

No, really. When he drops the act, he proves to be a man of great intellect and education. No wonder he covers that up! It must make people terribly uncomfortable.

The article is a meditation on the meaning of Christmas, with a substantial bit of history in addition to the textual analysis.

The Feast of Holy Innocents

Today we are reaching back to 2014 for my favorite memorial post, with an Arthurian connection.

Some Merry Music

The Feast of St. John the Divine

How we kept this feast last year seems worthy to me still.

The Feast of Stephen

The Feast of Christmas

It was less merry with my father gone and my mother moved away to be with my niece and my sister, but we did our best. I can tell that my people here around me understand me, as they arranged for me a feast of elk steaks and a local award-winning mead.

May you all be merry and warm.

In the Last Hours of Anticipating a Birth

G. K. Chesterton:

“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”

This is part of a chapter of Orthodoxy called "The Ethics of Elfland." It reminds me of how much we still live in the morning of the world, although it is no longer morning for me. Christmas is the morning, and joy cometh in the morning.

Some Gregorian Chant for the Season

You've All Been Very Bad

Headline: "Santa Claus Converts to Calvinism, Puts Everyone on Naughty List."

The undue importance of Senate elections

If the election is that momentous, the government is too powerful.  Jeffrey Tucker laments the early 20th-century triumph of Progressivism that put the choice of U.S. Senators in the hands of voters rather than state legislators:

. . . In 1913, the 17th amendment of the US Constitution was ratified. The stated intention was to eliminate perceived corruption and legislative deadlocks.

Sure enough, it did end some deadlocks, enabling an expansion of government power that would not have otherwise been possible. It also fundamentally changed the structure and political dynamic of Congress itself. The devolved structure of American government was upended and political rights of the states declined. The Senate became another version of the House, directly elected and thereby subject to the same demagoguery, factionalism, and demographic recrimination that characterized elections for the House.

The Hezbollah/Obama Report is a Bombshell

But, as Rebeccah L. Heinrichs explains, it's not really a surprising one if you followed the Iran Deal closely.

I've met Ms. Heinrichs. She isn't a political operative, if you're thinking that from the fact that she's slamming the Obama administration after the fact. Rather, she's a legitimate expert on ballistic missiles.

A Rockabilly Christmas

The Reverend Horton Heat did a whole Christmas album. If you have Amazon Prime, you can stream it for free; also on Spotify.

A Kung Pao Buckaroo Holiday

The Yuletide

Today is the Winter Solstice, the traditional beginning of the Yuletide. The Christmastide does not begin for a few days (traditionally Vespers on Christmas Eve).