Not a bad bit for a Friday night.
That old man sitting next to him is Marty Robbins. You might not recognize him because you think he should be dressed like a cowboy. But listen to the voice.
About twenty years earlier, he sounded like this.
What voters care about
It ain't the environment, the economy, or any of the things Pelosi wishes it was. They're worried about lack of leadership in government, and immigration.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz Takes a Stand
She refuses to march with the Washington Women's March this year:
I am not alone. Teresa Shook, who launched the movement with her viral Facebook post, has publicly called for the co-chairs to resign, writing that Bob Bland, Linda Sarsour, Carmen Perez and Tamika Mallory "have allowed anti-Semitism, anti-LBGTQIA sentiment and hateful, racist rhetoric to become a part of the platform” of the march.The Southern Poverty Law Center, EMILY’s List and the Democratic National Committee I once led are among the groups distancing themselves from the national event. The Washington State Women’s March rebuked the national group, noting its leaders’ failure to “apologize for their anti-Semitic stance.”
I applaud Schultz for her stand and am glad to see others on the left doing the same.
The Society of Classical Poets
Ran across this outfit by accident and thought some here might enjoy it. I signed up for email and get one poem a day.
A couple of favorites:
And last year they had a rhyming riddle contest, which sounds like fun. Looks like they have some other kinds of contests as well.
Here's their poetic forms page full of "how to write ..." links, and they have a riddle page as well.
The Society’s mission is to preserve humankind’s artistic traditions; to reestablish poetry as one of the most widely appreciated forms of literature, communication, and entertainment; to increase appreciation of centuries of rhyming or metered poetry; to support poets who apply classical techniques in modern poetry through publication and performance opportunities and awards; and to aid in language arts education that imbues high moral fiber and good character.
A couple of favorites:
And last year they had a rhyming riddle contest, which sounds like fun. Looks like they have some other kinds of contests as well.
Here's their poetic forms page full of "how to write ..." links, and they have a riddle page as well.
Where's That Masculinity When You Need It?
A UK feminist who was sexually assaulted on a train is very angry -- not at her attacker, but at two men who didn't step up to help her out.
Of course, I might also have something to say about a culture that led to assaults like this -- and to a culture that unmanned itself in the face of such assaults. You have to take the bad with the good, ma'am.
Cincik told The Daily Mail she her attacker was not to blame, but two “white middle class” men instead who allegedly failed to help her during the assault.Oh, so it's 'fathers, husbands and sons' who should be shamed as 'cowards' when they don't step up? Well, that's the sort of thing I might say. My philosophical apparatus would support that approach.
The fashion chief executive was attacked by a tall Muslim on a busy Underground train, but blamed two British men who moved to other seats and left her alone to defend herself....
“He was about six foot [2 metres] and around 30 to 35-years-old and he started just screaming. He was screaming and shouting at me and saying things like ‘I am going to f****** kick you’ then he did actually kick me.”
She said she did not blame the migrant but “remained more angry with those white middle class men who left me to it. As fathers, husbands and sons they should be ashamed of themselves”.
She accused them of being “cowards”.
Of course, I might also have something to say about a culture that led to assaults like this -- and to a culture that unmanned itself in the face of such assaults. You have to take the bad with the good, ma'am.
Defy Federal Courts!
There's an argument to be made here. It was Andrew Jackson's argument. Hammer goes farther, asserting that the power to be the final hand on Constitutional questions actually only dates back to the 1950s.
In 1958, in a little-known opinion known as Cooper v. Aaron, the Supreme Court quietly effected its most nakedly self-aggrandizing power grab ever. In Cooper, for the very first time, the Supreme Court pronounced itself to be the sole and final binding arbiter of constitutional disputes. The Cooper Court said:The argument against is that the court systems is serving as a "cooling off" period for Presidential power -- one that, thanks to Trump and McConnell's success in promoting conservative judges, could be more effective against the next progressive President if it is allowed to stand now. Break it today, and it'll definitely be broken tomorrow. Abide by it now, and there's a chance it'll still be in place to restrain the next bad president.In 1803, Chief Justice Marshall, speaking for a unanimous Court, referring to the Constitution as "the fundamental and paramount law of the nation," declared in the notable case of Marbury v. Madison ... that "It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is." This decision declared the basic principle that the federal judiciary is supreme in the exposition of the law of the Constitution, and that principle has ever since been respected by this Court and the Country as a permanent and indispensable feature of our constitutional system.Marbury, of course, stands for nothing even remotely resembling the judicial supremacist sentiment the Cooper Court affixed to it. As Michael Stokes Paulsen has persuasively argued, Marbury instead stands not for judicial supremacy but for constitutional supremacy: That is, each of the three branches has an independent and binding fealty to interpret and abide by the Constitution, as it sees fit, in line with its own carefully delineated constitutional duties and powers. As Josh Blackman noted last year, the Cooper Court's radical claims amounted to "unprecedented assertions of judicial power."
"Retoxify Masculinity!"
There's thinking outside the box, and then there's Col. Kurt.
We need more masculinity, and the more toxic the social justice warriors think it is, the better....
Much as I advocate global warming, I am a strong proponent of toxic masculinity. It’s also known as “masculinity.”
Risk-taking.
Ferociousness.
Independence.
These are the qualities the SJWs want to wring out of us. Why? Because these are the qualities they cannot overcome. They want us weak, passive and obedient. That’s how they get power.... Don’t be fooled by the “toxic” qualifier – all masculinity is toxic to these human weebles. What they call “toxic” is really the essence of freedom. It’s toxic all right, but to their goals, not ours. Masculinity means freedom from them and the puffy, non-binary utopia they dreamed up because that’s the only world in which such losers could be anything more than a sorry punchline....
When some thug who didn’t get the memo about hugging is breaking down the door to get you, do you want some neckbeard sissy with a disposable Gillette standing by your side, or a toxic male with a 12-gauge Mossberg loaded with buckshot racking in a shell?...
Don’t let it happen.
Buy guns.
Drink beer.
And tell the SJWs to go to hell.
Dinosaurs
The only problem with being a dinosaur is there ain't no future in it. But there is one hell of a past. Now what you need to do is act like the mighty Tyrannosaurus and leave deep prints.For anybody feeling that way today, just remember it's the way things always are. Waylon Jennings gave that speech twenty years ago. For Hank Williams, Jr., it was the disco era.
-Ironhead Haynes
Inconceivable!
UPDATE: Related.
"...if there were a permanent cessation of a quarter of federal activity, the result would be trillions worth of extra resources for private actors to put to work."
Redefining the Essential Workers
The Trump administration sure looks like it might be settling in for a long wait. Maybe they really are going to gut the bureaucracy -- now that they know which parts of it they don't really want anyway.
Measurement
Maggie's Farm reported today the death of John Bogle, who started the first index fund in 1976 to test the proposition that money managers could beat throwing darts at a dartboard. Bogle's skeptics at the time adopted the classic "stands to reason" thinking in assuring investors that of course money managers could beat the average consistently. Bogle insisted on checking.
The Sense of the Senate
Sen. Ben Sasse just stole a march on his colleagues Kamala Harris and Mazie Hirono.
Reminding them of their oath was a very nice touch. Well done.
Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that disqualifying a nominee to Federal office on the basis of membership in the Knights of Columbus violates clause 3 of article VI of the Constitution of the United States, which establishes that Senators "shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support th[e] Constitiution," and "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.The resolution passed without objection.
Reminding them of their oath was a very nice touch. Well done.
The Jihadist Threat from... FORSYTH COUNTY, GEORGIA?!?
Hasher Jallal Taheb sounds like the least-competent terrorist ever. He had never fired a gun, but intended to hit the West Wing with a rocket launcher he didn't actually have. He did find a helpful friend who said he'd help him out, naturally a Federal agent. (Anyone who offers to help you buy a rocket launcher, grenades, or a machine-gun without going through the proper licensing procedures is a Federal agent. Take it to the bank.)
He is said to be a man of Cumming, Georgia, which is the county seat of Forsyth County. That's where I grew up.
The place has changed a bit, these last few years.
Here's a story of the old days, when the last thing you'd have ever found in Forsyth County was a jihadi. It wasn't pure: you might have found a Klansman, and you certainly could find the Outlaws Motorcycle Club.
Jihad, though, that's new.
Well, it was getting too crowded for me twenty years ago, what with Atlanta's population expanding into it. I expect that's what brought the jihad, too.
UPDATE: The NYT runs an editorial today called "There's Nothing Wrong With Open Borders." But of course that's nonsense; today's story shows that open borders pose challenges, at least, even when they're between different parts of America. Heck, even when they're between different parts of Georgia. Freedom of movement is a wonderful thing, but let's be honest about the challenges and problems associated with it.
He is said to be a man of Cumming, Georgia, which is the county seat of Forsyth County. That's where I grew up.
The place has changed a bit, these last few years.
Here's a story of the old days, when the last thing you'd have ever found in Forsyth County was a jihadi. It wasn't pure: you might have found a Klansman, and you certainly could find the Outlaws Motorcycle Club.
Jihad, though, that's new.
Well, it was getting too crowded for me twenty years ago, what with Atlanta's population expanding into it. I expect that's what brought the jihad, too.
UPDATE: The NYT runs an editorial today called "There's Nothing Wrong With Open Borders." But of course that's nonsense; today's story shows that open borders pose challenges, at least, even when they're between different parts of America. Heck, even when they're between different parts of Georgia. Freedom of movement is a wonderful thing, but let's be honest about the challenges and problems associated with it.
Dissolve the FBI
I really like the way American Greatness is thinking big.
There may be one solution that preserves the patriotic agents who are protecting the nation while helping drain the Beltway swamp: dissolve the FBI, fire all the senior political operators still in the Hoover Building, and make the 56 FBI field offices across the nation—where the real agents work—the counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and criminal investigations division of the Department of Homeland Security.We are in a time in which significant reforms are needed.
This way we may prevent the next palace coup.
"Cultural Marxism"
As is often the case, much depends on how one defines a phrase.
"Cultural Marxism," as I use the term, means the application of a specific move within Marxist analysis to culture. That specific move is the one Marx makes in asserting that all of human history, culture, society, and so on can be explained by the struggle between oppressor and oppressed. In true Marxism, this division is made between economic classes: those who own the means of production, and those who are forced (in one way or another) to work for those owners. Exactly how that struggle works changes as the mode of production change: Marx's analysis is that feudalism arose from agricultural means of production, with some lords and others serfs. The inadequacy of this explanation even to the historic institution of European serfdom, which is substantially different from the various sorts of outright slavery that existed elsewhere, should be a warning that the model is too simplistic even when applied exactly as intended by its original author.
Cultural Marxists apply the basic model of explaining reality in terms of an oppression struggle to something besides economic class. Usually it has been sex and race; lately it has been "gender." Many of these Cultural Marxists have been teaching in the academy, and their students likewise are trained to believe that you can account for Medieval history in terms of these categories of oppression just as readily as you can modern or contemporary history. The Patriarchy is eternal, and White People are awful even before they know about 'being white.'
As such I don't think it's in any way deterministic. People are taught to be Marxists, cultural or otherwise. They might have been taught better; they might yet learn how foolish their teachers have been.
I do think that it's a problem, indeed a very serious problem, but it's not the problem the deterministic model implies. If it were, the only solution would be to get rid of the people from the wrong groups (or at least exclude them from power). Because the problem is a creation of teaching, however, educational and experiential solutions are possible. There's no reason to think in terms of exclusion, let alone elimination.
Note, however, that the conclusion that we must be thinking in terms of exclusion or elimination does follow from their model for what the phrase means. If you let them define the terms, copping to a concern about the effects of "Cultural Marxism" in society is equivalent to copping to a desire for oppression or even genocide. The fact that they are teaching this may help to explain the hysterical reactions students of Cultural Marxism produce when they are brought face to face with a critic, even for an single evening's lecture at a campus venue.
As a term of art, “cultural Marxism” has been in circulation for some time, and in recent years it has become a staple of outlets like Quillette. An article published there last summer, by the cultural studies graduate student Galen Watts, described it as a “social theory” holding “that culture (ideas, religious beliefs, values, etc.) is in the last instance determined by one’s position in a class or social hierarchy.” In other words, cultural Marxism is the belief that our tastes and preferences—the books we read and the museums we visit—are determined by our racial, gender, and economic positions.That is definitely not what I mean when I use the term.
"Cultural Marxism," as I use the term, means the application of a specific move within Marxist analysis to culture. That specific move is the one Marx makes in asserting that all of human history, culture, society, and so on can be explained by the struggle between oppressor and oppressed. In true Marxism, this division is made between economic classes: those who own the means of production, and those who are forced (in one way or another) to work for those owners. Exactly how that struggle works changes as the mode of production change: Marx's analysis is that feudalism arose from agricultural means of production, with some lords and others serfs. The inadequacy of this explanation even to the historic institution of European serfdom, which is substantially different from the various sorts of outright slavery that existed elsewhere, should be a warning that the model is too simplistic even when applied exactly as intended by its original author.
Cultural Marxists apply the basic model of explaining reality in terms of an oppression struggle to something besides economic class. Usually it has been sex and race; lately it has been "gender." Many of these Cultural Marxists have been teaching in the academy, and their students likewise are trained to believe that you can account for Medieval history in terms of these categories of oppression just as readily as you can modern or contemporary history. The Patriarchy is eternal, and White People are awful even before they know about 'being white.'
As such I don't think it's in any way deterministic. People are taught to be Marxists, cultural or otherwise. They might have been taught better; they might yet learn how foolish their teachers have been.
I do think that it's a problem, indeed a very serious problem, but it's not the problem the deterministic model implies. If it were, the only solution would be to get rid of the people from the wrong groups (or at least exclude them from power). Because the problem is a creation of teaching, however, educational and experiential solutions are possible. There's no reason to think in terms of exclusion, let alone elimination.
Note, however, that the conclusion that we must be thinking in terms of exclusion or elimination does follow from their model for what the phrase means. If you let them define the terms, copping to a concern about the effects of "Cultural Marxism" in society is equivalent to copping to a desire for oppression or even genocide. The fact that they are teaching this may help to explain the hysterical reactions students of Cultural Marxism produce when they are brought face to face with a critic, even for an single evening's lecture at a campus venue.
A Jew Rejects Identity Politics
Are Jews white, white passing, or “people of color” (POC)? Dare Jews claim suffering or must we acknowledge privilege? Are we victims of racism or do we uphold racist systems? Do we support Israel or do we see it as evil? The language is wrong. The dichotomy is forced. It is a test we Jews cannot pass and remain true to ourselves....Good for you. Some of the rest of us can't pass the test either, although that's mostly because the test was drawn up to exclude us.
I reject this attempt to pit Jews against one another, to divide us by color, and force allegiances based on made up values and newfangled language.
I reject all of this.
And I refuse to be told Zionism is racism, that supporting Israel means supporting oppression. I refuse to be saddled with other people’s sins, to let others define our story. We have a history, we have a present and if we want a future, we cannot let it be denied.
Still, how right this is: "I reject this attempt to pit [us] against one another, to divide us by color, and force allegiances based on made up values and newfangled language... to be saddled with other people's sins, to let others define our story... history... present... and if we want a future[.]"
No More Gun Control
Mark Overstreet at The Federalist writes against two bills the Democratic Party is pushing.
What's Best in (Western) Life
A writer asks after the Saudi teenager who defected to Canada and obtained asylum there, after she eats bacon for the first time:
Is eating bacon and drinking Starbucks freedom? Is that what's best about western lifestyle?No, of course not. Bacon is good, of course, but...
Hey...
I wasn't aware of this. The odds of it being a clever trap are, sadly, small; but if the right people become aware of it, it might become so even if it wasn't planned that way.
In only five more days of the already "longest government shutdown in history" (25 days and counting, as of today), a heretofore obscure threshold will be reached, enabling permanent layoffs of bureaucrats furloughed 30 days or more.
Don't believe me that federal bureaucrats can be laid off? Well, in bureaucratese, a layoff is called a RIF – a Reduction in Force – and of course, it comes with a slew of civil service protections. But, if the guidelines are followed, bureaucrats can be laid off – as in no more job.
Wretchard Asks, "What if It's Intentional?"
“He is going to discourage so many people in the next generation from ever going to work in Washington or working as a civil servant. Why in the hell should you go work in this craziness?”You make a good point there. Fewer people should work for the government.
Decluttering
Some advice from an expert.
This decluttering thing must be a real phenomenon since even I've heard of it. My circle includes a number of people who are roundly outraged about the suggestion that you shouldn't have more than thirty books, and only those which 'spark joy.' (The philosophers in particular are put out with the idea that you shouldn't own books that should provoke serious thoughts but not joy, such as histories of totalitarianism or meditations on genocide.) I'm guessing you will all get the popular culture if I do, since I am about as removed from the stuff as it is possible to be without eliminating electricity or the internet.
This decluttering thing must be a real phenomenon since even I've heard of it. My circle includes a number of people who are roundly outraged about the suggestion that you shouldn't have more than thirty books, and only those which 'spark joy.' (The philosophers in particular are put out with the idea that you shouldn't own books that should provoke serious thoughts but not joy, such as histories of totalitarianism or meditations on genocide.) I'm guessing you will all get the popular culture if I do, since I am about as removed from the stuff as it is possible to be without eliminating electricity or the internet.
Speaking My Language
A senior official writes with advice to the President on the shutdown:
...lock the doors, sell the furniture, and cut them down.Time to shrink the state.
...
Due to the lack of funding, many federal agencies are now operating more effectively from the top down on a fraction of their workforce, with only select essential personnel serving national security tasks. One might think this is how government should function...
Furloughed employees should find other work, never return and not be paid.
Against American Football
American Football [is] a game of collisions and brute force that requires an entire chest of drawers of padding and equipment and a storm trooper helmet. More than a few professional football players will not even let their children participate in it. Everybody hates it.Spoiler: the author is in fact an American. Specifically, he's one of those white American males trying desperately to differentiate himself from the rest of 'them' that VDH was discussing.
Except the race of barbaric persons known collectively as Americans.
Really, it's a classic of the genre.
...And Then I Lie To Myself For A While
It's OK, because it's 'meditation.' From a piece on morning routines:
Then I drink some strong black coffee. I might have a glass of water first, if I'm feeling dry. I go to work usually about the time the wife is starting in on the coffee.
In the summertime, it's just the coffee.
Then I do some meditation, where I might recite some mantras. One of them is "all of my relationships are harmonious and full of love," which is good if you are working with difficult clients.In the wintertime like it is now, I wake up and go downstairs. I put some coffee on, then I split some wood to rekindle the fire. Then I rekindle the fire.
Then I drink some strong black coffee. I might have a glass of water first, if I'm feeling dry. I go to work usually about the time the wife is starting in on the coffee.
In the summertime, it's just the coffee.
What Does 'Authentic' Mean Anyway?
VDH writes:
That song came from "King of the Cowboys," which was a classic example of Roy Rogers' particular approach to the genre. It wasn't an 1880s "Wild West" bit, it was set in its own present day. Are they cowboys? Well, yeah, in a way: "The Old Bar X is a barbecue."
In another way they were quite self-consciously performing an iconic role, for reasons of their own. Roy Rogers was definitely Roy Rogers. He had his own unique style and manner even within the context of the 'cowboy' genre of the 1940s-1960s. How much he was like the cowboy of the open range days was a question that amused even him. How much were any of them "authentic" cowboys?
You might think this is less applicable to whether or not one is 'authentically' a member of an ethnic group or a sexual minority, but I'm not sure. Really people are individuals, like Roy Rogers was. Membership in social groups is to some degree performative, just as playing a cowboy on the screen was. What does it mean to be "black," for example? Barack Obama was from a white family on his mother's side, even a cousin of George Washington's. On his father's side, well, his father was from Kenya in that generation. The whole thing we think of as 'the black experience' -- the Western passage, the heritage of slavery, Jim Crow, the long economic oppression in American cities -- neither side of his family experienced that. His father had some claim on a similar heritage of being oppressed by the British within Africa, and of course he had black skin. But what we normally think of as 'black American' experience had no role in Obama's heritage. Yet he performed as 'the first black American president,' and was accepted as quite authentically so by everyone.
At this point we've started to let people make performative exceptions even to their physical sex, and are treating the performance as more authentic than the genetics. What could authenticity mean in such a context?
It's got to mean that, like Roy Rogers, you're delivering a great performance. Which is to say that the word is a kind of contradiction in terms as we currently use it; to be authentic is to be great at constructing and presenting yourself as something. It's artifice, it's artificial, and yet the word we use for it has exactly the opposite connotation.
One common denominator, however, seems to govern today’s endless search for some sort of authenticity: a careerist effort to separate oneself from the assumed dominate and victimizing majority of white heterosexual and often Christian males.Even before we got to the present moment, I always wondered what the 'authenticity' debate was really about. It seems to be an attempt to define yourself by adopting someone else's categories. A country music singer who wanted to be successful might well say that he was "an authentic cowboy," or in any case present himself as such, as if Roy Rogers hadn't already mocked that concept way back in 1943.
That song came from "King of the Cowboys," which was a classic example of Roy Rogers' particular approach to the genre. It wasn't an 1880s "Wild West" bit, it was set in its own present day. Are they cowboys? Well, yeah, in a way: "The Old Bar X is a barbecue."
In another way they were quite self-consciously performing an iconic role, for reasons of their own. Roy Rogers was definitely Roy Rogers. He had his own unique style and manner even within the context of the 'cowboy' genre of the 1940s-1960s. How much he was like the cowboy of the open range days was a question that amused even him. How much were any of them "authentic" cowboys?
You might think this is less applicable to whether or not one is 'authentically' a member of an ethnic group or a sexual minority, but I'm not sure. Really people are individuals, like Roy Rogers was. Membership in social groups is to some degree performative, just as playing a cowboy on the screen was. What does it mean to be "black," for example? Barack Obama was from a white family on his mother's side, even a cousin of George Washington's. On his father's side, well, his father was from Kenya in that generation. The whole thing we think of as 'the black experience' -- the Western passage, the heritage of slavery, Jim Crow, the long economic oppression in American cities -- neither side of his family experienced that. His father had some claim on a similar heritage of being oppressed by the British within Africa, and of course he had black skin. But what we normally think of as 'black American' experience had no role in Obama's heritage. Yet he performed as 'the first black American president,' and was accepted as quite authentically so by everyone.
At this point we've started to let people make performative exceptions even to their physical sex, and are treating the performance as more authentic than the genetics. What could authenticity mean in such a context?
It's got to mean that, like Roy Rogers, you're delivering a great performance. Which is to say that the word is a kind of contradiction in terms as we currently use it; to be authentic is to be great at constructing and presenting yourself as something. It's artifice, it's artificial, and yet the word we use for it has exactly the opposite connotation.
Tulsi Gabbard to Run for President
If you don't have anything to do during primary season next year, you might give a thought to supporting Tulsi. She'll be running into the winds, between her support for religious liberty and her tangling with more powerful Democratic leaders. She's not likely to win, but she might force a debate among them that would be helpful; and if she did happen to win, her support for Assad aside, she served honorably in the military and has shown at least some deference to historic American principles.
When it comes to Democrats running for President next year, we could do worse.
When it comes to Democrats running for President next year, we could do worse.
What Did You Just Say?
The U.S. approved more than 5,000 requests by men to bring child or adolescent brides into the country over the past decade, enabling forced child marriages....
The requests and their approvals were apparently legal, according to government data obtained by The Associate Press, due to the fact that the Immigration and Nationality Act does not limit the age of spouses. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services also approves or denies requests based on whether the marriage is legal in the home country and the state of the applicant.
Yes, the Connection is Obvious
Bristol banning grilled cheese sandwiches in order to fight the formation of motorcycle clubs.
Nationalizing Elections
Under the traditional system, states run elections under state law even if they are for a Federal office. The Democrats would like to change that. Unsurprisingly, this is a wish-list of everything from "mandatory felon voting" to "mandatory registration to vote of everyone on welfare rolls." (Not everyone on welfare rolls is a citizen, but so what?)
Also, mandatory limits on states trying to make sure that voters aren't registered in two states at the same time. Hey, that sounds like an effort to ban checks on voter fraud. (So does 'mandatory same-day registration').
I'd like to see mandatory voter ID, of a sort that requires establishing citizenship -- a passport, or a certified birth certificate, or fully executed immigration and naturalization documentation.
Also, mandatory limits on states trying to make sure that voters aren't registered in two states at the same time. Hey, that sounds like an effort to ban checks on voter fraud. (So does 'mandatory same-day registration').
I'd like to see mandatory voter ID, of a sort that requires establishing citizenship -- a passport, or a certified birth certificate, or fully executed immigration and naturalization documentation.
Jorvik Viking Festival, Year 35
You still have more than a month to plan a vacation to York, if you'd like to participate this year. I've always wanted to go, but have never managed it so far.
A History of Assassination
"The trouble with many attempted assassinations is that the subject refuses to die."
A Bargain at the Price
The US is currently debating whether or not to spend $5 Billion constructing a partial steel fence along the southern border. The NYT reports that the US has spent $8 Billion on the Afghan Air Force -- which is still "struggling."
Which of these is really more relevant to US national security? Which one is more cost-effective?
Which of these is really more relevant to US national security? Which one is more cost-effective?
Unexpected Finding
Look at the Norway/Sweden split in this poll result.
Now, if I've understood AVI correctly, we should read the Scandinavian results of this poll less as phrased, and more as, 'I believe it is my social duty to answer that our culture is [better/worse].' The very fact that Scandinavians so readily submit to the dictates of their culture proves their faith in it; thus, the honest answer should be similar to the happiness surveys out of Scandinavia, where vast majorities answer that of course they are happy in spite of the long winter darkness.
If that's all correct, Norway's result is the more surprising, because it's only a majority and not a supermajority. Sweden is the expected supermajority, where the people have internalized that they're supposed to proclaim themselves no better than anyone else.
UPDATE: And could it really be true that only 36% of Frenchmen believe their culture is superior to others'? France should look like Greece if people were being honest.
Now, if I've understood AVI correctly, we should read the Scandinavian results of this poll less as phrased, and more as, 'I believe it is my social duty to answer that our culture is [better/worse].' The very fact that Scandinavians so readily submit to the dictates of their culture proves their faith in it; thus, the honest answer should be similar to the happiness surveys out of Scandinavia, where vast majorities answer that of course they are happy in spite of the long winter darkness.
If that's all correct, Norway's result is the more surprising, because it's only a majority and not a supermajority. Sweden is the expected supermajority, where the people have internalized that they're supposed to proclaim themselves no better than anyone else.
UPDATE: And could it really be true that only 36% of Frenchmen believe their culture is superior to others'? France should look like Greece if people were being honest.
Indian Science Congress: Ancient Demon Kings Had Planes
Surely, in this age of multicultural respect, we should all take these claims just as seriously as any others.
Nageswara Rao, a vice chancellor at Andhra University in South India, said that Ravana, a demon god with 10 heads, had 24 kinds of aircraft of varying sizes and capacities — and that India was making test-tube babies thousands of years ago.Sadly, some haters have been making noise about this, much to the surprise of the organizers.
Dinosaurs were created by the Hindu god Brahma, said Ashu Khosla, a scientist with expertise in paleontology at Panjab University in the North Indian city of Chandigarh....
The organizers of the conference were taken aback. "This is the 106th edition of the Science Congress," said the group's general secretary Premendu P. Mathur in an interview with NPR. "Since 1914, we've had so many meaningful conversations with children on science. We've hosted Nobel laureates from around the world..."Why can't we all be devoted to the norms of inclusivity and acceptance?
About 15,000 scientists from India and around the world attend the conference every year, said Ashok Saxena, a zoologist and a former president of the congress, in an interview with NPR. They are a part of the 50,000-strong Indian Science Congress....
Among the famous attendees this year were three Nobel laureates: Hungarian-born Israeli biochemist Avram Hershko, who won the prize for chemistry in 2004; British-born physicist Duncan M. Haldane, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2016; and German-born American Nobel laureate for medicine in 2013, Thomas Christian Südho[.]
Religious Tests
Out in Texas, Republican donors are getting nervous.
Republicans in one of the most populous counties in Texas will decide this week if they should remove a party vice chairman who is Muslim following allegations he has denied that suggest he prefers Islamic over U.S. law and opposes the GOP's pro-Israel stance.... Some have even speculated that the ouster of Shafi could drain fundraising efforts and jeopardize the party's 2020 campaign.... William Busby, a former precinct chairman and leader for the Tarrant County Republican Party [said], "Corporate donors, the big donors, don't want to be associated with a party that's going in the direction of excluding people based upon their religious beliefs."So that's both parties, then.
Some Analysis of the Green New Deal
I apologize for linking to Twitchy, whose tone and format I neither enjoy, but it's a good single link to a series of posts.
UPDATE: "Growing number" of Dem 2020 hopefuls signing on to Green New Deal.
UPDATE: "Growing number" of Dem 2020 hopefuls signing on to Green New Deal.
France to Ban "Unsanctioned Protests"
Guess who makes the decision on whether or not your protest is sanctioned?
All this started over an attempt to impose climate-change policies including new taxes.
All this started over an attempt to impose climate-change policies including new taxes.
Update on Angela Davis Story
The issue, she claims, was her criticism of Israel or, as she puts it, 'the indivisibility of justice.' The facts seem to support this:
In a statement expressing dismay at the controversy, Mayor Randall Woodfin of Birmingham said the decision had come amid “protests from our local Jewish community and some of its allies.”If true, it wasn't the communism or the violence and murder after all.
The institute did say in its statement announcing the revocation that it had begun hearing from “concerned individuals and organizations” in late December, around the time the magazine Southern Jewish Life published a piece about the award by its editor, Larry Brook.
Russian Tactics Suppress Voter Turnout, May Have Swayed Close Election
Russian tactics, mind you. Democratic operatives.
Originally they used these in the Senate race against Roy Moore, who was admittedly a lousy guy and deserved to lose. That success brought them more funding, apparently, because they pushed this campaign through the 2018 midterms, suppressing Republican turnout and targeting close districts.
I suppose this will be a huge story, right?
Originally they used these in the Senate race against Roy Moore, who was admittedly a lousy guy and deserved to lose. That success brought them more funding, apparently, because they pushed this campaign through the 2018 midterms, suppressing Republican turnout and targeting close districts.
I suppose this will be a huge story, right?
Nothing Says "Right Wing Extremist" Like A Nose Ring
A video making the rounds purports to be of a young German lady who was stopped by the police and questioned about her political opinions 'for wearing braids.'
I'm not sure of the truth of the facts, but it's something to watch out for as the elite begins to worry more and more about 'the right.' Ironically for all that he's painted as a fascist/Nazi/Hitler, President Trump is a bulwark against this kind of thing happening in America. It was President Obama's crew who engaged in targeting exercises like the IRS scandal, or Operation Choke Point. No similar things are likely to happen under Trump, whose relations with DOJ are spectacularly bad.
I'm not sure of the truth of the facts, but it's something to watch out for as the elite begins to worry more and more about 'the right.' Ironically for all that he's painted as a fascist/Nazi/Hitler, President Trump is a bulwark against this kind of thing happening in America. It was President Obama's crew who engaged in targeting exercises like the IRS scandal, or Operation Choke Point. No similar things are likely to happen under Trump, whose relations with DOJ are spectacularly bad.
Tulsi Gabbard vs. Anti-Catholic Bigots
For reasons best known to her, Rep. Gabbard -- a veteran of honorable service -- decided to support Syria's tyrant, Bashar al-Assad. I was sorry about that, as it was a significant error in judgment. It's nice to see her getting this one right.
In the process, she's taking on two more powerful Democratic legislators, Sens. Kamala Harris and Mazie Hirono, as well as Diane Feinstein by name. I hope it will prove a useful corrective.
In the process, she's taking on two more powerful Democratic legislators, Sens. Kamala Harris and Mazie Hirono, as well as Diane Feinstein by name. I hope it will prove a useful corrective.
Universal Goods
California's new governor promises "Sanctuary to all that shall seek it." New York City promises "comprehensive health care for all."
Leaving apart the problem of building any kind of community with a constantly shifting population who shares neither common values nor history nor even a common tongue, did I sleep through the part where economic scarcity was finally overcome?
Leaving apart the problem of building any kind of community with a constantly shifting population who shares neither common values nor history nor even a common tongue, did I sleep through the part where economic scarcity was finally overcome?
BB: With Gov't Shut Down, Citizens Must Interfere in Own Lives
One of the primary functions of the government is to ignorantly muck around in the business of others, but the shutdown has hampered that. Thus citizens have been forced to try to fill that void themselves. “Today I just suddenly decided large sodas weren’t allowed,” said Morgan. “It was an annoying, pointless obstacle the whole day—it was like the government was still around.”I've imposed Prohibition on myself for the month of January, rather than waiting for Lent like usual. So far I haven't started a criminal organization to smuggle booze, but I suppose there's still time.
“I arbitrarily decided I couldn’t use plastic bags in school lunches,” said Arlene Williams, mother of three. “It was really irritating to deal with. It really made me feel like there was still some bureaucrat out there not caring about me.”
Broadcasting In the Clear
For a fairly long time now, those of us concerned about criticisms of 'toxic' masculinity have wondered if it wasn't really just a criticism of masculinity. The APA has finally dropped the mask.
You can't unring a bell, and bad philosophy can poison a culture as thoroughly as Romans salting the earth of Carthage.
APA has issued its first-ever guidelines for practice with men and boys. They draw on more than 40 years of research showing that traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful and that socializing boys to suppress their emotions causes damage[.]More and more I think that psychology/psychiatry is chiefly just bad philosophy -- but dressed up as medicine, so people act as if it were a technologically secure basis for decision-making. Freud did more damage to our society perhaps even than Marx, though we rarely talk about how badly he's damaged us by convincing us that people are largely unconscious machines in need of programming and shaping rather than convincing and persuading. That convinced our governing elites that the people were a dangerous mob in need of systems of control, and our fellow citizens that the half who disagreed with them were monsters persuaded only by the Id.
You can't unring a bell, and bad philosophy can poison a culture as thoroughly as Romans salting the earth of Carthage.
Conservatives Against... Conservatives
The Bulwark is the title of a new online magazine designed to oppose Trump. From the right, allegedly, but 'opposing Trump' is what it's all about.
Going Both Ways
Angela Davis -- heroine of the Civil Rights Movement, Black Panther, once honored by the Rolling Stones while facing murder charges, also a member of the Communist Party USA -- has been denied a high honor by the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.
She was originally approved, and then the offer was withdrawn after public comment. They didn't explain exactly what it was that caused them to change their mind. I'd be interested to know.
She was originally approved, and then the offer was withdrawn after public comment. They didn't explain exactly what it was that caused them to change their mind. I'd be interested to know.
Hymn of the Northmen
Ok, it's advertising, so I apologize for that, but- wow! It's perhaps the best 'commercial' I've ever watched, and the advertising is of things I'd very much like (though can't afford, alas)- things made with the wisdom of tradition and the care of the fine craftsman. I actually got led to this through a video on timber framing (and I think my dream vacation just changed because of it). It happens rarely, but sometimes the algorithms get one or two right.
Belated good luck and prosperity
A neighbor brought this cabbage-slaw-blackeyed-pea dish to a next-door New Year's Eve Party, to fulfill the traditional requirement for greens and peas. I tried to reproduce it last night from a general description, and it was as good as I remembered, though I see now I left out the green onions. It doesn't sound like it would be that great, does it?--but it was a big hit at the party. Just be sure to salt the peas appropriately and don't overcook them.
9/8
Johnny Cash and Bruce Springsteen both covered this 1996 Sting song, but unaccountably changed its interesting 9/8 time signature to a standard 4/4. The beat is odd, one-two-THREE-four/one-two-three-FOUR-five with some other variations like ONE-two-three/ONE-two-THREE-four-FIVE-six, and the tune is syncopated on top of that. The lyrics, in contrast, are a simple old-fashioned cowboy morality play, along the lines of "Long Black Veil."
Now You're Talking
Schumper: Trump threatened to keep government shut down for 'years.'
The jobs numbers are amazing. What better time for former government employees to find work in the productive part of the economy instead? Congress might have to eventually compromise, but even if we could keep it going for six or eight months, a lot of people would be forced by the long furlough to go find a job in the private sector. But we've got two years to play with, minimum.
OK, there are problems with that -- especially an inability to pay people like soldiers and Border Patrol agents. The biggest problem is that we've classified as 'essential' or 'entitlement' all the things that are really dispensable, while things that are actually essential -- protecting the country from invasion, say -- are classified as dispensable. All the same, think about it. Maybe a long, long shutdown is just what we need to get some priorities straight.
The jobs numbers are amazing. What better time for former government employees to find work in the productive part of the economy instead? Congress might have to eventually compromise, but even if we could keep it going for six or eight months, a lot of people would be forced by the long furlough to go find a job in the private sector. But we've got two years to play with, minimum.
OK, there are problems with that -- especially an inability to pay people like soldiers and Border Patrol agents. The biggest problem is that we've classified as 'essential' or 'entitlement' all the things that are really dispensable, while things that are actually essential -- protecting the country from invasion, say -- are classified as dispensable. All the same, think about it. Maybe a long, long shutdown is just what we need to get some priorities straight.
Letter of Recommendation: Old English
On the same topic as Pidgin BBC news, here's a letter recommending that you try Old English.
And once you have Middle English, you're almost a thousand years closer to Old English. It's a major change -- the biggest one ever in the English language -- but you'll be as well-placed as possible to leap backwards over the Norman Conquest with its introduction of the French and Latin roots.
It’s written in a slightly different alphabet to the one we have now, with the extra characters æ (said like the a in “cat”), þ (like the th in “thorn”), ð (interchangeable with þ) and ƿ (which sounds like w). It sounds musical, guttural, dark and rich, the aural equivalent of a peaty Scotch or a towering cumulonimbus cloud.If it still seems daunting, Middle English is even easier: if you can read Shakespeare, Middle English will only require a modicum of work. I recommend the Norton Critical Edition of Le Morte Darthur, which provides plenty of footnotes to help you work through the relatively few words that don't have cognates in Modern English. One of the delights, though, is being able to read it just as Malory wrote it with increasing smoothness and ease.
Old English became my favorite thing about college. The grammar is easy, so it’s not difficult to learn. And enough early medieval words survived into modern English that the vocabulary seems to unlock as you learn it — the Old English word is unlucan — like a long-stuck door to a hidden room in your own house. It feels like receiving a message that has looped around the entire intervening mess of modernity to find you.
And once you have Middle English, you're almost a thousand years closer to Old English. It's a major change -- the biggest one ever in the English language -- but you'll be as well-placed as possible to leap backwards over the Norman Conquest with its introduction of the French and Latin roots.
Progress!
A new Justice Ministry regulation taking effect Sunday will make it mandatory for women to be notified by text message when a court issues their husbands divorce decrees, Saudi lawyer Nisreen al-Ghamdi said.
Currently, some men register divorce deeds at the courts without even telling their wives, al-Ghamdi said by phone from Jeddah.
"The new measure ensures women get their rights when they’re divorced,” she said, referring to alimony. “It also ensures that any powers of attorney issued before the divorce are not misused."
The Wisdom of the Ancients
Well, pre-Columbians, anyway. They were originally contemporaneous with the Viking Age, but still being practiced as the Renaissance was well under way.
How Long to Live Somewhere?
It's a worthy question, actually. We make foreigners reside in America for at least seven years before pursuing citizenship. Should states be required to grant it at once?
The case touches on liquor laws in Tennessee, but there's a similar issue with pistol permits in North Carolina. If you move to North Carolina from another state, even though you may have had a license to carry firearms in that state that North Carolina would recognize as valid, your permit to carry is immediately invalidated by the move. But your right to purchase a pistol in North Carolina is subject to a year's delay: North Carolina insists on a pistol purchase permit for every such firearm, issued by the sheriff, and these permits may not be issued to someone who has been resident for less than a year.
There's a loophole in the latter case, as you can apply for a NC concealed carry permit and, if granted it, purchase pistols using it instead of having to apply for a permit to purchase a pistol. However, this doesn't obviate the issue, since concealed carry permits take a while to obtain too: they're shall-issue with a mandatory 45 day window, except that NC interprets that as meaning "45 days from the completion of all relevant background checks and paperwork," so it might be 3-4 months. In other words, you lose your rights from your old state citizenship immediately on moving, but you don't obtain new rights (or privileges) pertaining to new citizenship for some time.
I imagine there are a number of similar examples, especially as pertain to goods such as alcohol and firearms that our betters have wanted to ban us from owning. It would be nice to have limits set on the power of government to do that, especially in 2A cases.
The case touches on liquor laws in Tennessee, but there's a similar issue with pistol permits in North Carolina. If you move to North Carolina from another state, even though you may have had a license to carry firearms in that state that North Carolina would recognize as valid, your permit to carry is immediately invalidated by the move. But your right to purchase a pistol in North Carolina is subject to a year's delay: North Carolina insists on a pistol purchase permit for every such firearm, issued by the sheriff, and these permits may not be issued to someone who has been resident for less than a year.
There's a loophole in the latter case, as you can apply for a NC concealed carry permit and, if granted it, purchase pistols using it instead of having to apply for a permit to purchase a pistol. However, this doesn't obviate the issue, since concealed carry permits take a while to obtain too: they're shall-issue with a mandatory 45 day window, except that NC interprets that as meaning "45 days from the completion of all relevant background checks and paperwork," so it might be 3-4 months. In other words, you lose your rights from your old state citizenship immediately on moving, but you don't obtain new rights (or privileges) pertaining to new citizenship for some time.
I imagine there are a number of similar examples, especially as pertain to goods such as alcohol and firearms that our betters have wanted to ban us from owning. It would be nice to have limits set on the power of government to do that, especially in 2A cases.
Why Not Totalitarianism?
As China rises, with its 'social credit' monitoring of every aspect of human life, we see a new kind of totalitarianism: not one pointed at an ideology, such as Communism, but totalitarianism for its own sake.
It has all the downsides for human expressions of religion as the liberalism ascendant in America, coupled with the state actually inserting agents into your home to monitor religious expression, and sending you to concentration camps for reeducation if they don't like what they see.
Should we believe that this will remain confined to China, or at least to its sphere of influence once it is done with its intended expansion? Perhaps not, since the Chinese have made use of the American tech elite as partners in effecting their totalitarianism. Coincidentally, perhaps, these same giants -- Google, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube among them -- have all decided to suppress American conservative speech.
Nor is it only China that is interested in this project. The European Union has enlisted these same tech giants to suppress what they call 'extremist' speech. And, of course, our own IRS has admitted to targeting conservative nonprofits for extra scrutiny under the Obama administration, a clear attempt to prevent political organization on the right.
The cultural power being wielded against our traditions is immense. I wonder what limits, if any, our opponents are prepared to accept on their accumulation of power over us?
It has all the downsides for human expressions of religion as the liberalism ascendant in America, coupled with the state actually inserting agents into your home to monitor religious expression, and sending you to concentration camps for reeducation if they don't like what they see.
Should we believe that this will remain confined to China, or at least to its sphere of influence once it is done with its intended expansion? Perhaps not, since the Chinese have made use of the American tech elite as partners in effecting their totalitarianism. Coincidentally, perhaps, these same giants -- Google, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube among them -- have all decided to suppress American conservative speech.
Nor is it only China that is interested in this project. The European Union has enlisted these same tech giants to suppress what they call 'extremist' speech. And, of course, our own IRS has admitted to targeting conservative nonprofits for extra scrutiny under the Obama administration, a clear attempt to prevent political organization on the right.
The cultural power being wielded against our traditions is immense. I wonder what limits, if any, our opponents are prepared to accept on their accumulation of power over us?
A Least-Sexist Industry
Would you be surprised to hear that a major American industry is now primarily led by women? Would you be more surprised to learn that it was the military-industrial complex?
The interview does end on a sour note.
From the executive leadership of top weapons-makers, to the senior government officials designing and purchasing the nation’s military arsenal, the United States’ national defense hierarchy is, for the first time, largely run by women.The women interviewed have mostly positive things to say about their experience working in what one might have thought of as the epitome of male-dominated fields, that of weapons and war. So the question the article gets to, which is the most interesting question, is: do women do weapons and war differently? In other words, have we gained or lost anything by the transition?
As of Jan. 1, the CEOs of four of the nation's five biggest defense contractors — Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and the defense arm of Boeing — are now women. And across the negotiating table, the Pentagon's top weapons buyer and the chief overseer of the nation's nuclear stockpile now join other women in some of the most influential national security posts, such as the nation's top arms control negotiator and the secretary of the Air Force.
How is their approach to leadership different than men's? In many ways, both subtle and not so subtle, whether in solving problems or questioning deeply held assumptions, they say.That's a pretty unimpressive set of arguments, I think, but perhaps that's to the good. It indicates that there hasn't been radical change in how things are done, because the clearest paradigm isn't 'We decided this-or-that category of weapons was inhumane and stopped building them' but 'we started using pantyhose as a filter, which shows how radically different our perspective is.' Maybe women are better at understanding people's priorities, but maybe that's just another stereotype. Certainly being underestimated can be an advantage in negotiations, but not necessarily so; if a committee is united in underestimating you, they may simply steamroller your objections because they don't take you seriously. (Nor, for that matter, is it true that women are universally underestimated anyway: some of them are overestimated, and others are quite forceful enough to prevent underestimation.)
Panetta, who says she is often asked about the benefits of women in leadership, tells the story of soldiers in the desert using pantyhose to keep sand out of sensitive equipment. “Do you think a guy thought of that?” she asked. “For the longest time, these male-dominated organizations missed half of the population’s perspective on an issue or on an approach.”
McCaffrey also said women are less "wedded to ‘we’ve always done it this way.' Sometimes women are a little more willing to question that.”
She ticked off several other ways defense companies and national security agencies can operate more effectively with women leading the way.
For one, women are shrewd negotiators. “I’ve known women who were good negotiators because they were underestimated,” McCaffrey said. “The key to negotiating is making sure you know what other peoples’ priorities are. Women tend to do that really, really well.”
Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson — the third woman to hold the job since the 1990s — told lawmakers last year she believes it's perfectly natural for women to play a greater role in defending the country.
“If I ask everyone in this room to think about the most protective person you know in your life, someone who would do anything to keep you safe, half the people in this room would think about their moms,” she told the House Armed Services Committee. “We are the protectors; that’s what the military does. We serve to protect the rest of you, and that’s a very natural place for a woman to be.”
The interview does end on a sour note.
“I think this is great," added McCaffrey, "but not if 10 years from now, these women are gone and we’re back to having all white men in these positions."That's disappointing, as it undercuts all the earlier talk about how 'finding the best person for the job' was what this was all about. The sex and class resentments, which white men must have been at the forefront of yielding up since they're the ones who had all the power not long ago, are roadblocks to attaining the goal of promotion by merit alone. I don't know if that goal is attainable, but the persistence of the resentments is not encouraging.
Virtue Ethics vs. Character?
Mitt Romney published an editorial claiming that Donald Trump lacks the character to be President. Will Chamberlain offers a kind of opposing argument, although one based on far too few examples to be decisive, that "character" in Romney's sense is at least unrelated to successful performance as a President.
That, I think, is what Trump tends to get wrong: he shows respect or disrespect transactionally rather than out of a grasp of what is worthy of respect. If you show the President respect, he responds with respect. If you show him disrespect, he reflexively shows disrespect back. There's a kind of game theory justice to that, especially since he offers occasional forgiveness if you come back: 'tit for tat plus forgiveness' is one of the best game theory strategies.
However, it's how he gets sideways in cases like McChrystal and Mattis, and even the Khan family back during the campaign. Once you understand what is worthy of respect per se, it is unjust to assign disrespect in those cases. The negative reactions he gets from the broad American culture when he does this are healthy rejections of this basic injustice. Of great interest to me is that this shows an American sense of honor that is broad and deep, and crosses party lines: for the most part, even committed Republicans hate when Trump speaks disrespectfully in these cases.
This understanding of what is worthy of honor, and the actions to show proper honor in proper cases, is fundamental to Aristotle's capstone virtue of magnanimity. Ultimately the magnanimous does what is most worthy of honor in every case, to include showing proper honor to others according to their virtues. Getting it right gets everything right, Aristotle argues. But it requires complete virtue to do this, as virtue is what is most worthy of honor and you must have it to 'know' it well enough to recognize it. Note that this adequately solves for 'polite, decent' qualities -- those are both about showing respect. The only one it doesn't solve for is 'empathetic,' which I suspect is not really a virtue; that kind of emotional attachment warps one's fairness of mind in the manner that Aristotle describes as 'distorting the ruler before you use it to measure.' It makes it harder to understand what is justly worthy of honor, in favor of honoring that which or those to whom one is emotionally attached.
Magnanimity and honor, then, are where I think Donald Trump goes wrong, but the point about LBJ or Clinton stands. There are effective approaches that are not respectful and not honorable. Sometimes you can get a long way with low cunning and a two-by-four approach to disagreements.
The two most decent, polite, cooperative, and empathetic Presidents I can think of (from the last fifty years) are George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter.Trump isn't strong, and his mastery is somewhat open to question. I would have argued, however, that his most significant problem was with "honor." However, this is one of those occasions when the issue turns out to be that the writer has stipulated a definition of the term that is at variance from the usual one.
They were also arguably the worst two presidents of that time period.
No - who were the Presidents with the worst "character" of that time period?
I'd say - Kennedy, LBJ, Clinton.
All three were adulterers, liars, narcissists. Kennedy and Clinton were more well-liked, while LBJ was just a raging narcissistic asshole.
Did that translate into making their presidencies "failures"? Hardly.
Kennedy and Clinton are both lauded - and LBJ is a Dem hero for his legislative accomplishments. They all had relatively successful presidencies compared to Carter and
At a minimum, it's pretty clear that "character," in the "are you a polite, decent, empathetic human" sense is just not that useful a way to predict the success of.a President.
What is, then?
A few years back Jack Donovan wrote a fascinating book - The Way of Men.
In it, he outlined what he called the "tactical virtues" - strength, courage, mastery, and honor. He argued that these virtues made one "good at being a man."
Donovan used honor in a narrower sense than you might anticipate - it loosely translates to "in-group loyalty," as the context for all these virtues is the ethos of the gang.So really, what is meant by honor here is 'can we count on you?' It isn't the issue of understanding what is worthy of respect, and acting so as to show proper amounts of respect to the worthy and to the unworthy.
Trump had an advantage on every GOP politician by aligning himself HARD with the base.
That, I think, is what Trump tends to get wrong: he shows respect or disrespect transactionally rather than out of a grasp of what is worthy of respect. If you show the President respect, he responds with respect. If you show him disrespect, he reflexively shows disrespect back. There's a kind of game theory justice to that, especially since he offers occasional forgiveness if you come back: 'tit for tat plus forgiveness' is one of the best game theory strategies.
However, it's how he gets sideways in cases like McChrystal and Mattis, and even the Khan family back during the campaign. Once you understand what is worthy of respect per se, it is unjust to assign disrespect in those cases. The negative reactions he gets from the broad American culture when he does this are healthy rejections of this basic injustice. Of great interest to me is that this shows an American sense of honor that is broad and deep, and crosses party lines: for the most part, even committed Republicans hate when Trump speaks disrespectfully in these cases.
This understanding of what is worthy of honor, and the actions to show proper honor in proper cases, is fundamental to Aristotle's capstone virtue of magnanimity. Ultimately the magnanimous does what is most worthy of honor in every case, to include showing proper honor to others according to their virtues. Getting it right gets everything right, Aristotle argues. But it requires complete virtue to do this, as virtue is what is most worthy of honor and you must have it to 'know' it well enough to recognize it. Note that this adequately solves for 'polite, decent' qualities -- those are both about showing respect. The only one it doesn't solve for is 'empathetic,' which I suspect is not really a virtue; that kind of emotional attachment warps one's fairness of mind in the manner that Aristotle describes as 'distorting the ruler before you use it to measure.' It makes it harder to understand what is justly worthy of honor, in favor of honoring that which or those to whom one is emotionally attached.
Magnanimity and honor, then, are where I think Donald Trump goes wrong, but the point about LBJ or Clinton stands. There are effective approaches that are not respectful and not honorable. Sometimes you can get a long way with low cunning and a two-by-four approach to disagreements.
"Conservative Democracy"
I found this argument at First Things fairly persuasive. It may be slightly too strong on the Biblical aspects -- Jefferson would have thought so, certainly -- but it's not too strong in most respects.
Given the strenuous objections I feel myself, too, how much stronger must those objections be among those against whom force has been used to effect this agenda. These people are completely convinced of the rightness of their cause, and that their opponents are motivated by simple racism or xenophobia or hatred of some similar sort. They do not see, and do not understand, how their project is experienced by those who are experiencing this project as finding their faith, traditions, and nations under assault.
I find it difficult not to see the Western nations disintegrating before our eyes. The most significant institutions that have characterized America and Britain for the last five centuries, giving these countries their internal coherence and stability—the Bible, public religion, the independent national state, and the traditional family—are not merely under assault. They have been, at least since World War II, in precipitous decline.As strongly worded as that is on first face, I think it's appropriate. When I reflect on the 'bake the cake' court cases, or the lawsuits brought against groups like The Little Sisters of the Poor, or the Senate confirmation hearings in which membership in the Knights of Columbus is treated as a problem -- well, "anti-religious, anti-traditionalist, universalist" sounds more or less correct.
In the United States, for example, some 40 percent of children are today born outside of marriage. The overall fertility rate has fallen to 1.76 children per woman. American children for the most part receive twelve years of public schooling that is scrubbed clean of God and Scripture. And it is now possible to lose one’s livelihood or even to be prosecuted for maintaining traditional Christian or Jewish views on various subjects.
Add to this the fact that the principal project of European and American political elites for decades now has been the establishment of a “liberal international order” whose aim is to export American norms and values to other nations, and you have a stunning picture of what the United States has become—a picture that in certain respects resembles that of Napoleonic France: an ideologically anti-religious, anti-traditionalist universalist power seeking to bring its version of the Enlightenment to the nations of the world, if necessary by force.
Given the strenuous objections I feel myself, too, how much stronger must those objections be among those against whom force has been used to effect this agenda. These people are completely convinced of the rightness of their cause, and that their opponents are motivated by simple racism or xenophobia or hatred of some similar sort. They do not see, and do not understand, how their project is experienced by those who are experiencing this project as finding their faith, traditions, and nations under assault.
An Exception to AVI's Title Rule
AVI has stated a general principle that the titles of satirical articles generally are much funnier than the actual articles. Not so this time: the title is simply, "Opinion: We were winning when we left."
Pope To Tear Down Vatican City Wall
Well, no. Not really. Just everyone else's, if he can.
Well, no. It turns out that national security implies a greater degree of personal security than otherwise. The reason to have a nation is that it protects -- it protects citizens and their rights. If the nation fails, the rights are endangered and the citizens are in danger. They might be oppressed by anyone who comes over the horizon with a strong force and/or bigger guns.
The nation provides this security, and in it a kind of human flourishing becomes possible that is not possible without that security. That's why, Aristotle argues, the state has a kind of priority even over the family (let alone the individual). It is why nations were long thought, and in many places are still thought, to have a right to draft citizens to serve or even die in defense of the whole if necessary.
A more sophisticated solution is needed here. The principle of the centrality of the human person isn't a bad principle; it really is individuals who suffer, not collectives. But the other problems don't go away just because we recognize that fact; and a lot more individuals may end up suffering, for that matter, if their nations are allowed to fail.
Pope Francis urged political leaders on Monday to defend migrants, saying their safety should take precedence over national security concerns and that they should not be subjected to collective deportations....That's a principled argument against armies, too: nobody should put themselves in a position of being personally harmed to protect an unfeeling thing like 'a nation.' Right?
Calling for “broader options for migrants and refugees to enter destination countries safely and legally,” he said the human rights and dignity of all migrants had to be respected regardless of their legal status.
“The principle of the centrality of the human person ... obliges us to always prioritize personal safety over national security,” he said.
Well, no. It turns out that national security implies a greater degree of personal security than otherwise. The reason to have a nation is that it protects -- it protects citizens and their rights. If the nation fails, the rights are endangered and the citizens are in danger. They might be oppressed by anyone who comes over the horizon with a strong force and/or bigger guns.
The nation provides this security, and in it a kind of human flourishing becomes possible that is not possible without that security. That's why, Aristotle argues, the state has a kind of priority even over the family (let alone the individual). It is why nations were long thought, and in many places are still thought, to have a right to draft citizens to serve or even die in defense of the whole if necessary.
A more sophisticated solution is needed here. The principle of the centrality of the human person isn't a bad principle; it really is individuals who suffer, not collectives. But the other problems don't go away just because we recognize that fact; and a lot more individuals may end up suffering, for that matter, if their nations are allowed to fail.
Government Somewhat Less Unconstitutional Than Previously
Thanks, against everything you'd expect from the normal news sources, to the Trump administration.
Perspective
As the year draws to a close, and with the new year looming before us, it's a time to try to gain a little perspective on ourselves and our place in the world. I've always been interested in issues of scale and how to better understand (and communicate) these ideas. Things like the classic Charles and Ray Eames movie "Powers of Ten" which portrayed the sense of scale from human to the universe and then back down to the microscopic in jumps of powers of ten (at 10 to the 24th meters- 100 million light years across- "this emptiness is normal, the richness of our own neighborhood is the exception"), and "The Paper Clips Project" which was a middle school project which sought to collect six million paper clips to give a sense of the scale of what it meant when one said the abstract words "six million Jews died in the Holocaust", have fascinated me. Of course, I was one of those kids who believed that when you rode "Adventure Through Inner Space" in Tomorrowland at Disneyland, you really shrank! - well, at least until my brother reached out and touched the giant "snowflake" and said "It's not even cold!".
I found a couple of things more recently that give some interesting bases for scale that might offer some slightly different perspectives than we usually consider around this time.
"If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel" is a fascinating webpage that has the solar system to a "tediously accurate scale" with the Moon being = 1 pixel. Worth remembering that our solar system is actually a fairly dense space relative to interstellar space (which is the majority of the universe). Don't cheat and use the planet shortcut at the top of the page- scroll manually or you'll miss some amusing commentary and more importantly, the fuller experience of scrolling your way through the vast spaces between the brief encounters with something in our solar system.
"10,000 Year Clock" is the website for an interesting Earth art project that has set out to reframe time a bit to something outside the normal human scale. I think this project is fascinating, and not least because I think if we had a better feel for the length of time it really takes for things to change, we'd learn to not worry so much about radical change in the short term, and focus on the smaller changes we can more effectively do ourselves in the time and space local to our lives.
So here's to a year past, hopefully one of growth- and to a year ahead- one of promise and opportunity. May we see our place and make the most of it while we are there.
I found a couple of things more recently that give some interesting bases for scale that might offer some slightly different perspectives than we usually consider around this time.
"If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel" is a fascinating webpage that has the solar system to a "tediously accurate scale" with the Moon being = 1 pixel. Worth remembering that our solar system is actually a fairly dense space relative to interstellar space (which is the majority of the universe). Don't cheat and use the planet shortcut at the top of the page- scroll manually or you'll miss some amusing commentary and more importantly, the fuller experience of scrolling your way through the vast spaces between the brief encounters with something in our solar system.
"10,000 Year Clock" is the website for an interesting Earth art project that has set out to reframe time a bit to something outside the normal human scale. I think this project is fascinating, and not least because I think if we had a better feel for the length of time it really takes for things to change, we'd learn to not worry so much about radical change in the short term, and focus on the smaller changes we can more effectively do ourselves in the time and space local to our lives.
So here's to a year past, hopefully one of growth- and to a year ahead- one of promise and opportunity. May we see our place and make the most of it while we are there.
Songs for New Year's Eve
May God keep you for the next year to come. Not that there are any guarantees on this night, or any night.
But if you're a good drinking man, well, it's a fine night. Let's have some music from when I was... well, very young indeed.
It was 1973 when Waylon Jennings grew his beard; he'd been clean-shaven before that. Everyone was, who was of any account. 1973 was when it started to shift from the consensus. There still hasn't been a President with a beard, not since Benjamin Harrison.
From the same year, Johnny Cash sang a piece about the family coming together after death is transgressed:
AVI's recent post on a song of a similar age reminded me of how much better -- demonstrably, positively better -- the old music used to be. Even the stuff I don't especially like is head and shoulders above what is popular today. Not as a matter of opinion, but one of fact: for the people who did things I don't like in the 1970s nevertheless knew how to do them. They didn't just show up at a studio without talent or skill, trusting the computers and the engineers to clean up their ignorance.
Old Willie Nelson, for example:
The recently deceased Roy Clark:
But a completely different song, on the same thing, from the noble Clancy Brothers:
Drinc Hael. Waes Hael. Happy New Year, brothers and sisters.
But if you're a good drinking man, well, it's a fine night. Let's have some music from when I was... well, very young indeed.
It was 1973 when Waylon Jennings grew his beard; he'd been clean-shaven before that. Everyone was, who was of any account. 1973 was when it started to shift from the consensus. There still hasn't been a President with a beard, not since Benjamin Harrison.
From the same year, Johnny Cash sang a piece about the family coming together after death is transgressed:
AVI's recent post on a song of a similar age reminded me of how much better -- demonstrably, positively better -- the old music used to be. Even the stuff I don't especially like is head and shoulders above what is popular today. Not as a matter of opinion, but one of fact: for the people who did things I don't like in the 1970s nevertheless knew how to do them. They didn't just show up at a studio without talent or skill, trusting the computers and the engineers to clean up their ignorance.
Old Willie Nelson, for example:
The recently deceased Roy Clark:
But a completely different song, on the same thing, from the noble Clancy Brothers:
Drinc Hael. Waes Hael. Happy New Year, brothers and sisters.
BBC Pidgin
Did you know that the BBC has a pidgin-language website? It turns out that this year's Miss Africa pageant was quite exciting.
So add Pidgin to the list. It's fun.
Miss Africa 2018: Miss Congo hair catch fire plus oda tins wey happun for dis year eventI always love it when I realize I can read another language. They are of course close variants of languages I know: I can read English, so with some practice at sounding it out I realized I could read Middle English with very little work. I can read French, so it wasn't too hard to learn to get the sense of Spanish -- but I was really pleased to realize that I could kind of work out some Romanian, which is a Romance language in spite of the relatively large distance. (Portuguese was harder than Spanish, easier than Romanian. Of course idiomatic expressions will catch you in all of these cases.)
...Di event almost turn sometin else wen di new queen her hair catch fire as she bin dey do her celebration waka but some organizers behind di scene don come out say na wig she bin dey wear.
Di fire start afta fire works wey dem no do well fall for her hair.
So add Pidgin to the list. It's fun.
Hogmanay Rising
In Shetland, where the Viking influence remains strongest, New Year is still called Yules, deriving from the Scandinavian word for the midwinter festival of Yule.I wonder if the lack of Christmas is less compatible with America, or the idea of annually clearing all one's debts. The latter, I suppose.
It may surprise many people to note that Christmas was not celebrated as a festival and virtually banned in Scotland for around 400 years, from the end of the 17th century to the 1950s. The reason for this dates back to the years of Protestant Reformation, when the straight-laced Kirk proclaimed Christmas as a Popish or Catholic feast, and as such needed banning.
And so it was, right up until the 1950s that many Scots worked over Christmas and celebrated their winter solstice holiday at New Year when family and friends would gather for a party and to exchange presents which came to be known as hogmanays.
There are several traditions and superstitions that should be taken care of before midnight on the 31st December: these include cleaning the house and taking out the ashes from the fire, there is also the requirement to clear all your debts before “the bells” sound midnight, the underlying message being to clear out the remains of the old year, have a clean break and welcome in a young, New Year on a happy note.
Holiday Travels
I have just returned from the ancestral homeland in east Tennessee, where I visited with both my father's and mother's people. The Newfound Gap was open on the way over, and we stopped to have a snowball fight. However, the park service decided to close it before my return trip, which added a very substantial detour in the pouring rain. I was grateful to finally return home late last night.
Visiting family more-or-less annually over decades, you begin to think you notice patterns in lives that begin in the same place but show marked divergence. I think religious observance must be quite important to holding one's life together, as even the more annoyingly evangelical of my relatives have flourished markedly over the less-religious ones. The most intellectually sophisticated have not flourished, not even relatively speaking; but the ones who go to church do, for whatever reason or set of reasons. Education correlates with success only somewhat. Hard work does not; laziness is often rewarded by luck, or simply by the virtue of being happy with less. Although I should add that those who have pursued higher education and self-disciplined hard work to the greatest degree of success are also religiously observant, so perhaps I don't have a large enough set to tease out the details.
Perhaps you have similar observations, or divergent ones.
Visiting family more-or-less annually over decades, you begin to think you notice patterns in lives that begin in the same place but show marked divergence. I think religious observance must be quite important to holding one's life together, as even the more annoyingly evangelical of my relatives have flourished markedly over the less-religious ones. The most intellectually sophisticated have not flourished, not even relatively speaking; but the ones who go to church do, for whatever reason or set of reasons. Education correlates with success only somewhat. Hard work does not; laziness is often rewarded by luck, or simply by the virtue of being happy with less. Although I should add that those who have pursued higher education and self-disciplined hard work to the greatest degree of success are also religiously observant, so perhaps I don't have a large enough set to tease out the details.
Perhaps you have similar observations, or divergent ones.
White papers with teeth
Why do right-wing intellectuals hate Trump, and by extension capitalism?
In the case of the anti-Trump right-wing intellectual, however, the genealogy of their disgust is slightly different. Rather than being possessed of the silly notion that the world will be just like school, they are possessed of a different, but no less silly, notion: that politics is just their insular conferences played out in public and backed by law, or their white papers given teeth—but that, in the final analysis, there’s no substantive difference between statesmanship and academia.
The Wren Song: With Liza Minnelli
Poor lass, she's hardly mentioned. But she's there, featured a moment among minor deities of the Celtic pantheon.
There's some bad songs woven in there, for those who know the history.
"As I was goin' to kill, and all..."
Happy St. Steven's Day.
UPDATE: If you're wanting a start on the bad songs, you can begin here.
Scenes of Christmas
Pastries, Croissant and Danish.
Closeup of the Danish pastries.
The hound of the hall sleeping near the fire.
The Feast of Christmas
Old comrade Joseph W. once said this was the carol he most associated with the Hall. It's a fine one.
But I like this song too, though it is perhaps more festive than observant.
And a couple more, one by Bach:
And another by the Baltimore Consort, this last done a few years ago at Trinity Church, London.
The peace of the Hall to all people of good will. Merry Christmas to you all.
But I like this song too, though it is perhaps more festive than observant.
And a couple more, one by Bach:
And another by the Baltimore Consort, this last done a few years ago at Trinity Church, London.
The peace of the Hall to all people of good will. Merry Christmas to you all.
Holiday mania tightens its steely grip
If I'd been getting some of this clickbait email a few weeks ago, I might be in even more crafty trouble than I already am. This morning I am completely lost in ideas for dyeing plain paper in tea baths and producing cunning paper bows with sprigs of this and that from the back yard. (Also, fringe scissors. But I already have some of those.) Luckily, I have no more presents to wrap and only two days remain before Christmas. But oh, my goodness, who could resist trying to make these woven stars? Especially, who could resist who actually has vast great quantities of long paper strips in stock just at the moment?
Last night neighbors joined us for a holiday dinner of oysters Rockefeller, standing rib roast, Yorkshire pudding, pureed peas with mint and cilantro, and a salad with grapefruit, pomegranate seeds, and Stilton cheese. Our guests arrived with a fresh loaf of sourdough bread, a grapefruit pie, and killer wines. I was particularly taken with my husband's Yorkshire pudding, which is something like a croissant and dangerously easy to make, judging as a spectator:
I see this as a future breakfast food, a worthy competitor to biscuits.
We're bang on trend this year with "foraged" holiday decor. (To be truly on-trend, we'd have to work "bespoke" in there.) I found last week that greenbriar makes a good wreath or garland late in the season after its leaves have turned red, but its stems are still flexible:
Last night neighbors joined us for a holiday dinner of oysters Rockefeller, standing rib roast, Yorkshire pudding, pureed peas with mint and cilantro, and a salad with grapefruit, pomegranate seeds, and Stilton cheese. Our guests arrived with a fresh loaf of sourdough bread, a grapefruit pie, and killer wines. I was particularly taken with my husband's Yorkshire pudding, which is something like a croissant and dangerously easy to make, judging as a spectator:
I see this as a future breakfast food, a worthy competitor to biscuits.
We're bang on trend this year with "foraged" holiday decor. (To be truly on-trend, we'd have to work "bespoke" in there.) I found last week that greenbriar makes a good wreath or garland late in the season after its leaves have turned red, but its stems are still flexible:
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