Manhattan Project, part II
We may not be able to "flatten the curve" fast enough, but we still have time to get serious about expanding the number of beds.
Kill all the lawyers
Okay, we can be nicer about it, let's just eliminate some of their ability to wreak havoc and gum up the works. Part of Congress's emergency legislation eliminates tort liability for N95 masks provided to healthcare workers, thus freeing up manufacturers like 3M to start flooding the market with them.
There are some approaches to an emergency that don't have out-of-pocket costs. Later we can argue over whether the fear of tort liability might have prevented a manufacturer from cutting corners. Right now I just want to see the masks, and without the inevitable explanation that it will require months to grind through to the regulatory approval process. It's time to mow some of these guys down, and that goes equally for the people looking to hit the jackpot if they wore a mask and it wasn't 100% effective in protecting them from every conceivable risk in life.
We're going to need the same approach to vaccines and other treatments.
There are some approaches to an emergency that don't have out-of-pocket costs. Later we can argue over whether the fear of tort liability might have prevented a manufacturer from cutting corners. Right now I just want to see the masks, and without the inevitable explanation that it will require months to grind through to the regulatory approval process. It's time to mow some of these guys down, and that goes equally for the people looking to hit the jackpot if they wore a mask and it wasn't 100% effective in protecting them from every conceivable risk in life.
We're going to need the same approach to vaccines and other treatments.
Astra and dis-astra
Socialized medicine: free, universal, and rationed
I continue to hope our unusual President will slash enough red tape to balloon supplies of things like ventilators in time to do some good. In the meantime, we're getting a crash course in rationing by "triage officers" and in budget trade-offs.
I keep reading that the U.S. has fewer hospital beds per capita than many EU countries, even Italy. The more important metric, however, may be ICU beds, where we're not doing so badly: 3 times as many as Italy, 5 times as many as the UK. Nevertheless, New York is in for a rough ride, though I'm encouraged to see that they're whole-heartedly trying chloroquine and other promising antivirals, supplies of which so far appear to be holding up.
I keep reading that the U.S. has fewer hospital beds per capita than many EU countries, even Italy. The more important metric, however, may be ICU beds, where we're not doing so badly: 3 times as many as Italy, 5 times as many as the UK. Nevertheless, New York is in for a rough ride, though I'm encouraged to see that they're whole-heartedly trying chloroquine and other promising antivirals, supplies of which so far appear to be holding up.
Evidence-based decision-making
This fellow seems to have his head screwed on straight. He advocates concentrating on isolating on those at the highest risk of COVID complications, while letting everyone else go back to school and work. He gets there by looking carefully at what measures have been tried in different countries, and what effect they had on both general spread and, more important, contributing to a crushing load on hospitals. There's also some welcome attention to scary theories about air-borne transmission and likelihood of infection from casual contact, which bears on how effective careful hand-washing and surface-sanitizing can be even if we end the lockdown before we destroy the economy. He also argues that the biggest danger to the economy is fear, not of the virus, but of what the government may do next.
Derangement
My neighborhood Facebook feed is not much nuttier than usual. People are jumpy about groceries, but not too much. There's some of the argument we're seeing nationwide over whether we're over- or under-reacting. Less D-vs.-R quarreling than usual, I'd say.
It's a different story at the sole Project Gutenberg forum devoted to politics, which are ruthlessly repressed elsewhere on the site. It turns out that PG devotees are about 95% hair-on-fire socialists with a terminal case of TDS. For a few weeks I've been conducting an experiment to see whether civil discourse is possible, which wasn't going well even before the virus panic started. In the last few days I've been posting the occasional semi-good-news story about potentially encouraging approaches to treatment regimens or re-tooling production to focus on medical shortages. The response is a nearly unanimous blast of close-minded hostility.
An interesting aspect is the level of proof demanded, depending on the story. The initial reaction to reports that chloroquine studies were surprisingly hopeful was to attack the "right wing" sources. A moderately sane member was kind enough to find palatable French-media sources confirming the essential story, but the dominant message then became that Fake News was a horrifying scourge to be avoided at all costs, and we won't know a single thing about treatments until every bureaucrat on the planet has had time to commission lengthy studies. To say otherwise is to be a science-denier who jumps to ignorant conclusions, like you-know-who.
When news hit about the senators who dumped their stocks before the DOW collapsed, however, a different standard of truth came out. Suddenly suspicion was as good as proof. Even odder, when I posted a link to a Reuter's report about Novartis donating 130MM doses of chloroquine, the responses ranged from an assumption (definitely no proof needed) that Trump had bought stock in the company, which was cynically trying to buy good PR by giving the drug away, to a worried concern about all those poor people who already depended on chloroquine to treat their rheumatoid arthritis, and were immunocompromised so were at greater risk of contracting the virus.
I could point out that all those poor RA patients may find that they've inadvertently been taking an effective virus prophylactic, but why bother? It's clear to me now that this PG crowd are among the people I've recently come to understand as being more wedded to their problems than to their solutions. It's what Eric Fromme used to call the "yes, but" conversation. I decided a couple of years ago that you can only help so many people, and the first ones that need to be triaged to a quiet, dark corner of the ER are the ones who don't really want an improvement, only a subjective validation of their own rage and disappointment.
It's a different story at the sole Project Gutenberg forum devoted to politics, which are ruthlessly repressed elsewhere on the site. It turns out that PG devotees are about 95% hair-on-fire socialists with a terminal case of TDS. For a few weeks I've been conducting an experiment to see whether civil discourse is possible, which wasn't going well even before the virus panic started. In the last few days I've been posting the occasional semi-good-news story about potentially encouraging approaches to treatment regimens or re-tooling production to focus on medical shortages. The response is a nearly unanimous blast of close-minded hostility.
An interesting aspect is the level of proof demanded, depending on the story. The initial reaction to reports that chloroquine studies were surprisingly hopeful was to attack the "right wing" sources. A moderately sane member was kind enough to find palatable French-media sources confirming the essential story, but the dominant message then became that Fake News was a horrifying scourge to be avoided at all costs, and we won't know a single thing about treatments until every bureaucrat on the planet has had time to commission lengthy studies. To say otherwise is to be a science-denier who jumps to ignorant conclusions, like you-know-who.
When news hit about the senators who dumped their stocks before the DOW collapsed, however, a different standard of truth came out. Suddenly suspicion was as good as proof. Even odder, when I posted a link to a Reuter's report about Novartis donating 130MM doses of chloroquine, the responses ranged from an assumption (definitely no proof needed) that Trump had bought stock in the company, which was cynically trying to buy good PR by giving the drug away, to a worried concern about all those poor people who already depended on chloroquine to treat their rheumatoid arthritis, and were immunocompromised so were at greater risk of contracting the virus.
I could point out that all those poor RA patients may find that they've inadvertently been taking an effective virus prophylactic, but why bother? It's clear to me now that this PG crowd are among the people I've recently come to understand as being more wedded to their problems than to their solutions. It's what Eric Fromme used to call the "yes, but" conversation. I decided a couple of years ago that you can only help so many people, and the first ones that need to be triaged to a quiet, dark corner of the ER are the ones who don't really want an improvement, only a subjective validation of their own rage and disappointment.
The Crannogs
H/t Instapundit for this article on Scotland's ancient crannogs.
Artificial islands commonly known as crannogs dot hundreds of Scottish and Irish lakes and waterways. Until now, researchers thought most were built when people in the Iron Age (800-43 B.C.) created stone causeways and dwellings in the middle of bodies of water. But a new paper published today in the journal Antiquity suggests that at least some of Scotland’s nearly 600 crannogs are much, much older—nearly three thousand years older—putting them firmly in the Neolithic era. What’s more, the artifacts that help push back the date of the crannogs into the far deeper past may also point to a kind of behavior not previously suspected in this prehistoric period....
But why were Neolithic people tossing their “good china” off of artificial islets? Without direct accounts from the time period, archaeologists can only speculate as to why the crannogs were built, how they were used, and why they became places for pottery disposal. Garrow and his colleagues surmise they were used for feasting, another unknown set of religious or social rituals, or both.
The Gambler
Rest in peace, Kenny Rogers.
He was one of the fixtures of my youth, which coincided with the height of his career in the place where he was most popular.
UPDATE: I did not realize that he had a career in psychedelic rock, but this famous song was apparently an early hit of his. Some of you 'old rockers' may like it.
He was one of the fixtures of my youth, which coincided with the height of his career in the place where he was most popular.
UPDATE: I did not realize that he had a career in psychedelic rock, but this famous song was apparently an early hit of his. Some of you 'old rockers' may like it.
The Media Has Gone Mad
It turns out that medicines can kill you if you overdose, which I think everyone in the world knew. Tylenol can destroy your liver, but it's for sale over the counter in every drug store, gas station, and grocery store in America.
Manhattan Project-style
A few days ago, the President "invoked" the Defense Production Act, leaving some question in the press whether he has actually "used" it yet. The New York Post is reporting, however, that President Trump took a call from Senator Schumer formally requesting DPA action to spur the manufacture of ventilators and personal protective equipment, and was heard to agree and to instruct a subordinate to make it so.
More good news: Novartis plans to donate up to 130 million doses of chloroquine worldwide by the end of May. A little slow, but a scale that's starting to approximate what we'll need.
PS, I'd hope we could "embrace the power of and" concerning this constant rhetorical battle over whether we should be optimistic about the reports of useful treatments, or focus on obtaining solid data from double-blind tests. I'd like proof as much as the next guy, but we can do more than one thing at a time. It would be unbearably stupid to put off large-scale use of chloroquine while we conduct leisurely double-blind studies and write them up for the journals. We can already be reasonably sure we're not doing violence to the balance of benefit and harm by giving hospitalized SARS sufferers chloroquine, because the risk of suffocation is already known to be extremely high, while the risk of the drug is already known to be extremely low. Neither is 100%, but that's not the point.
More good news: Novartis plans to donate up to 130 million doses of chloroquine worldwide by the end of May. A little slow, but a scale that's starting to approximate what we'll need.
PS, I'd hope we could "embrace the power of and" concerning this constant rhetorical battle over whether we should be optimistic about the reports of useful treatments, or focus on obtaining solid data from double-blind tests. I'd like proof as much as the next guy, but we can do more than one thing at a time. It would be unbearably stupid to put off large-scale use of chloroquine while we conduct leisurely double-blind studies and write them up for the journals. We can already be reasonably sure we're not doing violence to the balance of benefit and harm by giving hospitalized SARS sufferers chloroquine, because the risk of suffocation is already known to be extremely high, while the risk of the drug is already known to be extremely low. Neither is 100%, but that's not the point.
Good stat source
"Watts Up With That" now posts this daily worldwide virus summary. Two things to note: the scales are logarithmic, so a hopeful sign is a curve under 45%, but of course any convex curve beats a concave one. Also, this is deaths per million of population, not the case fatality rate. I prefer the former, because we still have no real grasp of the total number of cases, but we can get a pretty good handle (except in countries we suspect of straight-up lying to us) about both the total deaths and the total population. That rate will of course confound two variables: the cases per population (spread), and the death rate for cases (severity/efficacy of medical system/health of population), but that's the breaks.
From the same source, here is a far more informative than usual recap of the prospects for treatment with chloroquine and remdesivir. I believe there are interesting things happening with convalescent serum, too, though those are hard to scale. Most of these treatments have problems with either evolved resistance, cost, or scalability that mean they will be most helpful in buying time while we work on an effective vaccine. Still, my biggest concern at the moment is finding an approach that relieves our fear of crashing the medical system enough to let most of us go back to work supporting the prosperity that enables us to have a first-class medical system in the first place. If we have to give up on the medical system, we might as well let the virus rip, accept the losses, and remember what it was like to live a century ago, because you can't stop producing essential goods for fear of every contagion out there.
From the same source, here is a far more informative than usual recap of the prospects for treatment with chloroquine and remdesivir. I believe there are interesting things happening with convalescent serum, too, though those are hard to scale. Most of these treatments have problems with either evolved resistance, cost, or scalability that mean they will be most helpful in buying time while we work on an effective vaccine. Still, my biggest concern at the moment is finding an approach that relieves our fear of crashing the medical system enough to let most of us go back to work supporting the prosperity that enables us to have a first-class medical system in the first place. If we have to give up on the medical system, we might as well let the virus rip, accept the losses, and remember what it was like to live a century ago, because you can't stop producing essential goods for fear of every contagion out there.
Old Norse Handwashing
Dr. Crawford offers a couple of stanzas from the Havamal that will take about twenty seconds to recite, if you care to learn a bit of the language.
The dog that hasn't barked
This is puzzling. An L.A. writers makes the reasonable case that the city's homeless population is a coronavirus explosion waiting to happen. The question is, why hasn't it exploded already? Is it really taking that long for the disease to spread to L.A.?
If it weren't for Italy's experience, I'd be more skeptical than I am that this thing is spreading as fast as we feared. Washington looked like a special case. New York is disquieting, though.
If it weren't for Italy's experience, I'd be more skeptical than I am that this thing is spreading as fast as we feared. Washington looked like a special case. New York is disquieting, though.
Knock It Off, Lady
Headline: "The Coronovirus is a Disaster for Feminism."
Thesis: Yes, men die at much higher rates from this disease, but the real tragedy is that more women will have to care for their own children instead of pursuing paid employment or great works.
That may not be universal, but it's certainly on the menu. If you've actually got a great work in you, and not that many people do, you can work it out. If you don't, you know, you'll probably appreciate the time you spent with your kids more than the time you spent at work. When you finally get to a place where you can reflect on what really mattered about your life, you'll be glad of that time.
Thesis: Yes, men die at much higher rates from this disease, but the real tragedy is that more women will have to care for their own children instead of pursuing paid employment or great works.
When people try to be cheerful about social distancing and working from home, noting that William Shakespeare and Isaac Newton did some of their best work while England was ravaged by the plague, there is an obvious response: Neither of them had child-care responsibilities.My sister's husband -- a great guy, this guy, who appears to have majored in college in 'being cool' and then built a life around it -- is the one watching their child all day every day. They won't even let my mother do it, though she's just down the street, out of a desire to keep her quarantined.
That may not be universal, but it's certainly on the menu. If you've actually got a great work in you, and not that many people do, you can work it out. If you don't, you know, you'll probably appreciate the time you spent with your kids more than the time you spent at work. When you finally get to a place where you can reflect on what really mattered about your life, you'll be glad of that time.
"Survival Necessities"
An email from Cold Steel.
I suppose I might need a 1917 Naval cutlass. If things get bad enough, piracy is always an option.
I suppose I might need a 1917 Naval cutlass. If things get bad enough, piracy is always an option.
Goodbye, Senator
One of my new Senators -- new to me since I moved here, I mean, he's been in office entirely too long -- is Richard Burr.
(a) The replacement must be of the same party, and,
(b) Must be chosen from a list of three people selected by that party's leadership.
So there's really nothing to lose in pushing him out. It's all upside.
By the way, the other Senator who chose personal profit over warning the public about the dangers was the one that Georgia Governor Brian Kemp appointed instead of Doug Collins. Kemp's a skunk too, as we were just discussing, and here's evidence that skunks run in packs. Fortunately there is an actual election in Georgia,and the Republican primary is right around the corner. If you're a Republican voter and citizen of Georgia, you should definitely pick Collins to run in the general in November. [Correction: the Senate Special Election will not have a primary, but will feature all candidates from all parties on 3 November. --Grim]
Also, get rid of Kemp when you can. That's my advice.
UPDATE: In researching the Senate Special Election, I discovered that one of the candidates is a man I know personally, Richard Dien Winfield. Don't vote for him. He's a nice guy, but the kind of political philosopher who thinks that the Wise should rule over all of you, and assign guaranteed employement jobs that befit your talents as assessed by them, etc. He should continue teaching Hegel, which he is as good at as anyone in the world, and not move to D.C.
UPDATE: Ah. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, the Senator appointed by Kemp, is married to -- wait for it -- the Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. That explains why it seemed plausible to Kemp to appoint a non-native Georgian to a Senate seat. Everybody explained that in terms of 'trying to appeal to the white suburban female demographic' or 'trying to appeal to the large transplant population in Atlanta,' but it still seemed amazing that a recent transplant with no longstanding ties to the state who had never held any other political office would be appointed to the Senate. Now it makes perfect sense.
Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., dumped stock holdings worth millions ahead of the market plunge that began in February after they received briefings on the coronavirus, according to published reports Thursday.If you're worried about the state of the Senate should he resign, you need not be. Under NC law, if there is a vacancy in the Senate unexpectedly the governor does appoint his replacement, but...
Burr, the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, sold the stocks on Feb. 13, ProPublica reported, citing disclosure filings.
Loeffler began dumping shares Jan. 24, after a private briefing for senators from administration officials, including the CDC director and Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institutes of Health, the Daily Beast reported.
Shares of the companies whose stocks she sold are down an average of 33%, since then, according to the report. Loeffler's sales totaled between $1,275,000 and $3,100,000, according to the report.
On Feb. 7, Burr wrote in an op-ed co-authored with Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., that “the United States today is better prepared than ever before to face emerging public health threats, like the coronavirus, in large part due to the work of the Senate Health Committee, Congress, and the Trump Administration.”
Earlier Thursday, NPR reported that Burr offered a far more dire forecast in comments in late February to a private luncheon organized by the Tar Heel Circle.
He warned that travel restrictions, school closures and military involvement could all come to pass, as indeed they have.
(a) The replacement must be of the same party, and,
(b) Must be chosen from a list of three people selected by that party's leadership.
So there's really nothing to lose in pushing him out. It's all upside.
By the way, the other Senator who chose personal profit over warning the public about the dangers was the one that Georgia Governor Brian Kemp appointed instead of Doug Collins. Kemp's a skunk too, as we were just discussing, and here's evidence that skunks run in packs. Fortunately there is an actual election in Georgia,
Also, get rid of Kemp when you can. That's my advice.
UPDATE: In researching the Senate Special Election, I discovered that one of the candidates is a man I know personally, Richard Dien Winfield. Don't vote for him. He's a nice guy, but the kind of political philosopher who thinks that the Wise should rule over all of you, and assign guaranteed employement jobs that befit your talents as assessed by them, etc. He should continue teaching Hegel, which he is as good at as anyone in the world, and not move to D.C.
UPDATE: Ah. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, the Senator appointed by Kemp, is married to -- wait for it -- the Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. That explains why it seemed plausible to Kemp to appoint a non-native Georgian to a Senate seat. Everybody explained that in terms of 'trying to appeal to the white suburban female demographic' or 'trying to appeal to the large transplant population in Atlanta,' but it still seemed amazing that a recent transplant with no longstanding ties to the state who had never held any other political office would be appointed to the Senate. Now it makes perfect sense.
Even more like this
Not only does the old malaria drug chloroquine work surprisingly well against novel coronavirus, but it's generic, cheap, and widely available. The FDA still isn't willing to go out on a limb saying it's a treatment whose benefits clearly outweigh its risks, but President Trump is leaning hard on them not to get in the way. Sure, we need some traditional, slow double-blind studies. In the meantime, doctors are free to prescribe existing approved drugs for off-label uses in their own discretion. This one's results in Asia were so promising that people in influential positions, including NY Gov. Cuomo, are clamoring for it, and manufacturers already have taken the hint.
We should be able to see a pattern where identifiable populations are taking prophylactic malaria treatments.
We should be able to see a pattern where identifiable populations are taking prophylactic malaria treatments.
Equinox
Surprisingly, the spring equinox is earlier this year than it's been in a long time. Today does in fact feel like the first day of spring, too: whereas it's been hinting at spring for a while, today is genuinely warm.
We are burning gathered brush and deadwood today to create a kind of natural charcoal fertilizer for a garden patch. In the next few days we will turn over the earth, and begin planting as the weather indicates.
A Place Called Papa Joe's
If you didn't happen to know Billy Joe Shaver, well, you probably should. He is one of the great songwriters of the Outlaw Country era. He almost single-handedly wrote Waylon Jenning's best album, "Honky Tonk Heroes." Now this fellow once got into a little trouble in a place called Papa Joe's. This place:
You should probably think twice about messing with anybody when you're in a place like that, but not everybody does. Billy Joe was an old man by then -- heading to his third divorce with the same woman -- and a younger man decided he could bull the old guy. Well, sometimes that works.
Not every time.
Dale Watson wrote a song about it.
Whitey Morgan's version has easier to understand lyrics, although I don't like the instrumentation as well:
Here's Billy Joe explaining what happened, except that nobody but him thinks the other guy had a gun -- all the evidence presented in court had the other guy with a knife. A knife is of course quite as dangerous as a gun in the right hands; at the right range, more dangerous.
Then, once he won the court case, Billy Joe wrote a song about it too. Willie Nelson pitched in.
If you're really seated in the tradition you'll know that Willie's "don't cross him/ don't boss him" language comes from his own best album, 1975's "Red Headed Stranger" about a preacher who killed his wife and her lover in the year of 1901. It's quite a compliment, in its way. In another way, perhaps less so.
You should probably think twice about messing with anybody when you're in a place like that, but not everybody does. Billy Joe was an old man by then -- heading to his third divorce with the same woman -- and a younger man decided he could bull the old guy. Well, sometimes that works.
Not every time.
Dale Watson wrote a song about it.
Whitey Morgan's version has easier to understand lyrics, although I don't like the instrumentation as well:
Here's Billy Joe explaining what happened, except that nobody but him thinks the other guy had a gun -- all the evidence presented in court had the other guy with a knife. A knife is of course quite as dangerous as a gun in the right hands; at the right range, more dangerous.
Then, once he won the court case, Billy Joe wrote a song about it too. Willie Nelson pitched in.
If you're really seated in the tradition you'll know that Willie's "don't cross him/ don't boss him" language comes from his own best album, 1975's "Red Headed Stranger" about a preacher who killed his wife and her lover in the year of 1901. It's quite a compliment, in its way. In another way, perhaps less so.
Per Hypothesis
Scientists claim they have proven Darwin's theory of natural selection. They are still wrestling with a problem that bothered Darwin himself.
If we really applied the same rules, we would cash out our non-scientific notions of 'different races' in terms of subspecies. Then you would have one human species that can interbreed freely amongst itself; but different subspecies whose different traits arose in different ranges (and often just because of Darwinian natural selection, which favored darker skin or eyes in this environment and lighter skin or eyes in that one).
But of course that cannot be done now for the reverse reason that it could not be done then. Now we have a social imperative to pretend that there are no differences at all instead of the social imperative to pretend that the differences were essential and insurmountable. This is called "progress," but in terms of intellectually accepting the consequences of Darwinian theory it leaves us in exactly the same place.
A species is a group of animals that can interbreed freely amongst themselves.Darwin got as far as declaring that the different races were not different species; but he definitely engaged the idea that there were such things as races, and that they must have some sort of biological origin. Just because he was eliminating distinctions between humanity and the rest of the animal kingdom, it only makes sense within his theory to apply the same rules.
Some species contain subspecies – populations within a species that differ from each other with different physical traits and their own breeding ranges.
Northern giraffes have three subspecies that usually live in different locations to each other, while red foxes have the most subspecies – 45 known varieties – spread all over the world.
Humans have no subspecies.
If we really applied the same rules, we would cash out our non-scientific notions of 'different races' in terms of subspecies. Then you would have one human species that can interbreed freely amongst itself; but different subspecies whose different traits arose in different ranges (and often just because of Darwinian natural selection, which favored darker skin or eyes in this environment and lighter skin or eyes in that one).
But of course that cannot be done now for the reverse reason that it could not be done then. Now we have a social imperative to pretend that there are no differences at all instead of the social imperative to pretend that the differences were essential and insurmountable. This is called "progress," but in terms of intellectually accepting the consequences of Darwinian theory it leaves us in exactly the same place.
This is what I like to see
More like this, as Instapundit says: factories shift production to emergency items in short supply.
Anatomy of a Love Song
This is Homer & Jethro, if you don't know them. They were a big influence on Billy Joe Shaver, whom you ought to know.
Xi Hu, Hangzhou
I have climbed the pagoda in this photograph, many years ago when we lived in China. The photo is from Xi Hu, literally "West Lake," near the town of Hangzhou, once capital of the Southern Song Dynasty.
Another Book Recommendation
Mike got me thinking about stretching out and exploring even more chili recipes, so I dug out an old cookbook somebody bought me as a gift some years ago. It's a very good one. I have only minor quibbles with it, and I think I might have gotten my "Deviled Beef" chili from it originally (although the version in the book is quite different from mine as it has evolved, and as I wrote it up here a few days ago).
The book is The Chili Cookbook by Robb Walsh. It contains the oldest surviving chili recipe (a lobster chili encountered by Spanish explorers on the coast of what would come to be known as Latin America). It contains Native American recipes, New Mexican recipes, Texan recipes, and then a whole lot of regional American variations.
I made one last night that I'm just trying today, now that the flavors have melded overnight. It's a classic Texas "Bowl of Red" style recipe, with no peppers in it stronger than ancho, and otherwise just paprika. It was still spicy enough to cause the wife to load it down with sour cream though, because it uses a whole two ounces of ancho in the pot. Of course you can always add more of whatever you want, as I always say when talking about recipes.
The book is The Chili Cookbook by Robb Walsh. It contains the oldest surviving chili recipe (a lobster chili encountered by Spanish explorers on the coast of what would come to be known as Latin America). It contains Native American recipes, New Mexican recipes, Texan recipes, and then a whole lot of regional American variations.
I made one last night that I'm just trying today, now that the flavors have melded overnight. It's a classic Texas "Bowl of Red" style recipe, with no peppers in it stronger than ancho, and otherwise just paprika. It was still spicy enough to cause the wife to load it down with sour cream though, because it uses a whole two ounces of ancho in the pot. Of course you can always add more of whatever you want, as I always say when talking about recipes.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day
In honor of the day, and since many of us are looking for new reading material, how about an introduction to an Irish hero of Robert E. Howard’s? For those of you who prefer Vikings, he sails with a crew of Danish pirates. For those who prefer Arthurian stories, the timeframe is supposed to be during the reign of Arthur.
It’s not Howard’s greatest work all the same; it’s more like the drive-in movie Sword & Sorcery films than like the great ones. It will definitely bother you insofar as you are a stickler for historical accuracy. But they’re fun tales if you have read all the Conan stories and want something Irish for the day.
UPDATE: The Dropkick Murphys are doing a free online concert tonight in place of their annual St. Patrick's Day show. If you're interested, it starts at 1900 Romeo, i.e., 7 PM Boston time.
It’s not Howard’s greatest work all the same; it’s more like the drive-in movie Sword & Sorcery films than like the great ones. It will definitely bother you insofar as you are a stickler for historical accuracy. But they’re fun tales if you have read all the Conan stories and want something Irish for the day.
UPDATE: The Dropkick Murphys are doing a free online concert tonight in place of their annual St. Patrick's Day show. If you're interested, it starts at 1900 Romeo, i.e., 7 PM Boston time.
The End of the Russian Part of the Russian Saga
Prosecutors abandon trying to prove that the Mueller-indicted Russians were guilty of the alleged crimes. The Russians were eager to contest the charges and demanded their day in court rapidly. The US government delayed and delayed, and now has decided to drop the prosecution.
The US has already abandoned the claim in open court that the Russian government had anything to do with the indicted Russians.
The US has already abandoned the claim in open court that the Russian government had anything to do with the indicted Russians.
Universal Basic Income
In the end, it wasn't Andrew Yang or Bernie Sanders, but Mitt Romney who seems most likely to bring UBI to America.
Trial by Jury
Another traditional liberty that is under immediate threat is the right to a speedy trial by jury. A friend in New Orleans sent this order from the courts suspending all jury trials, effective immediately:
Presumably if you're not interested in a jury trial you can ask for a bench trial; otherwise, you're just to sit in jail indefinitely, at increased risk of infection since you can't get away from anyone who might be sick.
In Athens, Georgia, the local sheriff's office is getting calls that follow this script:
Presumably if you're not interested in a jury trial you can ask for a bench trial; otherwise, you're just to sit in jail indefinitely, at increased risk of infection since you can't get away from anyone who might be sick.
In Athens, Georgia, the local sheriff's office is getting calls that follow this script:
"Hi, My name is _____ may I speak to either the Sheriff or Deputy Sheriff? Thank you, I am calling to express my concerns about the jail as a local liability putting us all at increased risk if we do not take necessary precautions in the wake of COVID-19. Please begin the immediate release of all bondable pre-trial inmates and all inmates with less than 60 days remaining in their sentence. Additionally, cease new bookings in order to eliminate the risk of someone carrying the virus from exposing the jail population and your staff to the virus. Lastly, please publicize the jail's COVID-19 Response Plan When can the community plan to see this critical information? Thank you in advance for your swift response during these dangerous times."Indefinite suspension of trial by jury does seem like a clear violation of the 6th Amendment. If I were a lawyer with clients in that jail, I would be protesting that the courts ought to dismiss charges against my clients rather than engage in a systemic violation of basic rights. But again, the courts are likely to try to find a way to read this as constitutional.
Libertarians in foxholes
We're amassing enough data to fuel a decade's worth of research on what kinds of government intervention helps and what kind hurts. It's almost as if we needed to figure out the proper role of government before we decide how big it needs to be in each context.
The incomparable Richard Fernandez
Did you know there was a debate last night? Jonah Goldberg wishes they'd let the two B's carry on while feeding pigeons from park benches.
Even in fabled Atlantis, the night the ocean engulfed itThe last commenter on the thread notes that capitalism in a crisis functions about as well as socialism on a random Tuesday.
The drowning still cried out for their gender quotas.
Outlaw Country
Uh-oh. Headline: "Nashville Business Owners Defy Mayor and Remain Open! – Say Order to Close Bars and Restaurants on Broadway Is UNCONSTITUTIONAL."
It probably would have been better to avoid this stress test. The courts are likely to try to find some way to declare it constitutional, given that public health is so neatly concerned with it. But it's done now. Is it constitutional for the US government to deny what are usually ordinary basic liberties, given the presence of a pandemic that is also epidemic? How far do emergency powers go in voiding constitutional liberties?
That's going to be an interesting set of questions. It'll be an interesting set of answers, too.
It probably would have been better to avoid this stress test. The courts are likely to try to find some way to declare it constitutional, given that public health is so neatly concerned with it. But it's done now. Is it constitutional for the US government to deny what are usually ordinary basic liberties, given the presence of a pandemic that is also epidemic? How far do emergency powers go in voiding constitutional liberties?
That's going to be an interesting set of questions. It'll be an interesting set of answers, too.
Crisis Can Cut Through the Propaganda, Sometimes
So we all know people have been stocking up on, of all things, toilet paper in many areas. Of course also many other things, first among them dry goods, OTC meds, and of course soap and cleaning products (including Everclear). Some people, seeing the lack of preparedness among their neighbors, and how easily they are spooked into panic, have suddenly come to see the wisdom of perhaps owning a firearm- just in case.
He's going to be a bit disappointed to discover that there is a 10-day waiting period in California. I suspect gun rights support is going to grow as a result of all this, even here in deep blue Los Angeles. At least, one hopes.
Guns were also a popular item among panic-driven shoppers on Saturday.At Martin B. Retting Gun Shop in Culver City, a line of prospective customers stretched outside the door. Inside, they were shoulder to shoulder, waiting up to five hours for service. A fast-food truck was taking orders at the curb.The managers of the store declined to comment. It was a rare windfall of business for the store, but some people got tired of waiting and left empty handed.Among them was a medical doctor who would give only his first name, Ray. He said he’d come to buy his first gun.“I want to buy a handgun, I think they call it a Glock, but I’m not sure,” he said. “I have a house and a family, and they’ll need protection if things get worse.”“The fear,” he added, “is that civil services will break down.”
He's going to be a bit disappointed to discover that there is a 10-day waiting period in California. I suspect gun rights support is going to grow as a result of all this, even here in deep blue Los Angeles. At least, one hopes.
A Propos Odes and Totalitarianism
Ian Miles Cheong tweeted this tidbit a few hours ago:
Chinese authorities are finally opening the sealed apartments. There are countless dead.
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1239100397597253633
The video is a bit...serious.
Cheong got his stuff from Jennifer Zeng, a New York blogger who seems to be an emigre from the Republic of China.
If this is even remotely typical of those sealed apartments, Zeng's characterization of the CPC as Evil is a gross understatement.
Eric Hines
Chinese authorities are finally opening the sealed apartments. There are countless dead.
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1239100397597253633
The video is a bit...serious.
Cheong got his stuff from Jennifer Zeng, a New York blogger who seems to be an emigre from the Republic of China.
If this is even remotely typical of those sealed apartments, Zeng's characterization of the CPC as Evil is a gross understatement.
Eric Hines
Pandemics and the Vikings
Why not tie two of our current interests together? Here is a brief historic survey of Viking encounters (and near misses) with grand-scale historic disease.
Ode to Totalitarianism
An associate professor of music wants you to know how much safer he felt in China.
In fact the United States has managed, without a central authority -- in spite of the failures of our central government's ossified bureaucracies -- to lock itself down nearly as effectively as China. Schools and universities are canceling classes or shifting to online models for a while; sports leagues are forgoing millions in revenue to shut down their games. Nobody's making us do it, but we've done it anyway.
It does require more of us as citizens. I spent a lot of last week contacting government officials to urge appropriate action. And you can't just call the Federal elected officials: the real decisions are being made at the local and state level right now. Our local school board fought tooth and nail to avoid closing, as did the state department of education. As of yesterday afternoon they reaffirmed their intent to resume classes Monday morning, though the admitted that no one would be required to come given that the governor has declared a state of emergency. Finally, today, they gave in and canceled classes for the rest of the month.
Now we've got other problems, and we'll have to each do our part to get through it. But we are getting through it, and we are doing it ourselves, like free men and women.
Before you decide that a totalitarian central government is the way to make you feel safe, too, you should reflect on what they're doing to the people they don't like.
Maybe you're safer being free, too. Although I suppose an associate professor of music who was willing to speak well of the regime might have a high social credit score, you never can be sure what your masters will decide to dislike. The Cultural Revolution came for all sorts of intellectuals, just as it is now the Muslim minority that is being sent to the chopping block.
In China, the obligation to isolate felt shared and the public changed their habits almost immediately. Sterilization, cleanliness and social distancing were prioritized by everyone at all times. Rightly or wrongly, the Chinese state’s heavy-handed approach seemed to work.What's with the scare quotes around "rights"? Was the intention to suggest that many things we think of as rights aren't really, like the 'right' to go out to eat at a restaurant? Or was the intent to suggest that freedom of movement, independence, protections from having the government seize your property, these sorts of things aren't really rights? The piece is ambiguous.
In contrast, individual liberty is the engine that drives American exceptionalism. There are certainly valid questions about how much of it to sacrifice in the name of the public good, but our laissez-faire attitude, prioritization of personal freedom and utter lack of government leadership have left Americans confused and exposed.
Particularly troubling has been the extent to which it has felt like high-risk residents such as ourselves have had to shoulder the burden for stopping the spread of the disease by being the only ones to go into isolation. There are lessons to be learned from the Chinese people if not its leadership, including that everybody must accept their own responsibility, vulnerability and complicity — sacrificing “rights” for the collective good — or many of us will die.
In fact the United States has managed, without a central authority -- in spite of the failures of our central government's ossified bureaucracies -- to lock itself down nearly as effectively as China. Schools and universities are canceling classes or shifting to online models for a while; sports leagues are forgoing millions in revenue to shut down their games. Nobody's making us do it, but we've done it anyway.
It does require more of us as citizens. I spent a lot of last week contacting government officials to urge appropriate action. And you can't just call the Federal elected officials: the real decisions are being made at the local and state level right now. Our local school board fought tooth and nail to avoid closing, as did the state department of education. As of yesterday afternoon they reaffirmed their intent to resume classes Monday morning, though the admitted that no one would be required to come given that the governor has declared a state of emergency. Finally, today, they gave in and canceled classes for the rest of the month.
Now we've got other problems, and we'll have to each do our part to get through it. But we are getting through it, and we are doing it ourselves, like free men and women.
Before you decide that a totalitarian central government is the way to make you feel safe, too, you should reflect on what they're doing to the people they don't like.
Maybe you're safer being free, too. Although I suppose an associate professor of music who was willing to speak well of the regime might have a high social credit score, you never can be sure what your masters will decide to dislike. The Cultural Revolution came for all sorts of intellectuals, just as it is now the Muslim minority that is being sent to the chopping block.
What was their job again?
As we sort through the simultaneous complaints that the President is an autocratic tyrant who's failing to take personal control of enough important American institutions, I turn again to Doc Zero (a/k/a John Hayward):
I also wouldn't fault Trump too much for being surprised to learn the system actually has roadblocks that make quick and effective epidemic response difficult. Would you think, upon succeeding the president in charge during the H1N1 epidemic, that would be the case?
The fascinating thing about the Democrats' "Trump cut CDC funding" lie is that none of them bothered to actually READ the unimplemented White House budget proposal in question. It talked about CDC getting distracted from its core mission by excessive staff and bureaucratic creep.
Everything I've seen so far buttresses that analysis. There really is no excuse for a gigantic government swimming in money, bursting with personnel, and top-heavy with management to be paralyzed unless the chief executive comes in and micro-manages every agency.
Red Flags in Maryland
A police shooting.
A Maryland man who was shot and killed by a police officer was asleep in his bedroom when police opened fire from outside his house, an attorney for the 21-year-old man’s family said Friday. The man's girlfriend was also wounded....
The warrant that police obtained to search the Potomac home Lemp shared with his parents and 19-year-old brother doesn’t mention any “imminent threat” to law enforcement or the public, Lemp’s relatives said in a statement released Friday by their lawyers. Nobody in the house that morning had a criminal record, the statement adds.
"Exiled for the good of the realm"
I don't know about you guys, but I haven't had that much success getting useful diagnoses out of doctors, other than in really obscure cases requiring specialized tests. No matter how many doctors roll their eyes at "Dr. Google," most diagnoses occur at home. This flow-chart may be helpful:
It might be better to organize it differently, though. The main thing is whether there's fever or not, but evidently fever tends to appear with a suite of other symptoms: cough, fatigue, and prostration (but apparently not sneezing or a runny nose). If you're in this suite, the big difference between novel coronavirus and ordinary flu is said to be a distinct shortness of breath. Presumably this means the subjective feeling that accompanies a low pulse-ox, something I've experienced only once but won't soon forget.
If there's no fever, but you're sneezing and your nose is running, you probably have either allergies (especially if your eyes itch but your chest is OK) or a cold (especially if your chest is "uncomfortable" but your eyes don't itch).
I remain uncertain whether I've ever had the true flu. What do you call it when there's a little fever but not a lot, some weakness but not a huge amount, and a stuffy nose that turns into a moderate cough that goes on for a week or more? Is that what they mean by "mild chest discomfort"? Maybe all I've ever had were common colds. Maybe I don't need to know, since there's no useful way to treat either them or the flu, and my immune system is going to do its thing regardless of the state of my conscious knowledge. You treat the symptoms if possible, rest, and wait it out. This is the first time I can remember particularly needing to care, since putting what may be an ordinary seasonal cold or flu into the "coronavirus" category would mean a lot more urgency about either quarantine or--nightmare scenario--pushing the panic button and heading to an ER or ICU for respiratory support.
We're self-quarantining anyway, or at least socially isolating. It's the only useful way I know to do my part to keep the spread down, either to "flatten curve" in order to lessen the acute strain on medical facilities, or if possible to bring R0 under 1.0 so as to contain the spread completely.
My husband has just brought my attention to a much-needed distinction made by someone called "Ciaran's Artisanal ****posting": self-isolation is boring and clinical, suggesting that you're following the orders of a government, and a sure way for no one to notice your effort. Being "exiled for the good of the realm," however, is mysterious and sexy and will lead everyone to wonder what you did to deserve it.
It might be better to organize it differently, though. The main thing is whether there's fever or not, but evidently fever tends to appear with a suite of other symptoms: cough, fatigue, and prostration (but apparently not sneezing or a runny nose). If you're in this suite, the big difference between novel coronavirus and ordinary flu is said to be a distinct shortness of breath. Presumably this means the subjective feeling that accompanies a low pulse-ox, something I've experienced only once but won't soon forget.
If there's no fever, but you're sneezing and your nose is running, you probably have either allergies (especially if your eyes itch but your chest is OK) or a cold (especially if your chest is "uncomfortable" but your eyes don't itch).
I remain uncertain whether I've ever had the true flu. What do you call it when there's a little fever but not a lot, some weakness but not a huge amount, and a stuffy nose that turns into a moderate cough that goes on for a week or more? Is that what they mean by "mild chest discomfort"? Maybe all I've ever had were common colds. Maybe I don't need to know, since there's no useful way to treat either them or the flu, and my immune system is going to do its thing regardless of the state of my conscious knowledge. You treat the symptoms if possible, rest, and wait it out. This is the first time I can remember particularly needing to care, since putting what may be an ordinary seasonal cold or flu into the "coronavirus" category would mean a lot more urgency about either quarantine or--nightmare scenario--pushing the panic button and heading to an ER or ICU for respiratory support.
We're self-quarantining anyway, or at least socially isolating. It's the only useful way I know to do my part to keep the spread down, either to "flatten curve" in order to lessen the acute strain on medical facilities, or if possible to bring R0 under 1.0 so as to contain the spread completely.
My husband has just brought my attention to a much-needed distinction made by someone called "Ciaran's Artisanal ****posting": self-isolation is boring and clinical, suggesting that you're following the orders of a government, and a sure way for no one to notice your effort. Being "exiled for the good of the realm," however, is mysterious and sexy and will lead everyone to wonder what you did to deserve it.
Isolation Diary 2
So far I'm only doing these on the days when I break isolation. Today I went down to town for what I think will be the last time for a very long time. I've managed to arrange for everyone else on the property to stop having reasons to leave, but for one more trip, until the state of emergency is lifted or we run out of food. We have lots of food. Tomorrow I'll bottle up a few gallons of mead and get another batch started, so alcohol won't be a problem for a long time either.
In principle we could ride out two months here. In practice, I'll probably ride out when the weather is nice. One can hardly get sick on a motorcycle, as long as riding in the clean air is all one does. If we run short of anything I can make limited stops to pick up what we need and put it in the saddlebags, washing my hands immediately after leaving any stores with soap and bottled water.
The novel I'm editing is better than I remembered. It's really pretty good. I am removing a lot of commas, and smoothing some dialogue -- it wasn't bad before, but it sounded like the Medieval sources rather than like anything anyone would know how to hear today. Still, I'm pretty happy with it. I'll never write anything this good again; academic training has killed the instinct for beauty that I once possessed.
Ah, well. Perhaps 'killed' is too strong. There will be a lot of time for meditation in the coming weeks. Maybe I can recover something of what I once had.
In principle we could ride out two months here. In practice, I'll probably ride out when the weather is nice. One can hardly get sick on a motorcycle, as long as riding in the clean air is all one does. If we run short of anything I can make limited stops to pick up what we need and put it in the saddlebags, washing my hands immediately after leaving any stores with soap and bottled water.
The novel I'm editing is better than I remembered. It's really pretty good. I am removing a lot of commas, and smoothing some dialogue -- it wasn't bad before, but it sounded like the Medieval sources rather than like anything anyone would know how to hear today. Still, I'm pretty happy with it. I'll never write anything this good again; academic training has killed the instinct for beauty that I once possessed.
Ah, well. Perhaps 'killed' is too strong. There will be a lot of time for meditation in the coming weeks. Maybe I can recover something of what I once had.
A Series of Implausible Arguments
Robert Fisk is still around, it turns out.
"The Saudi royal family appear unaware of the dangers of settling scores among themselves."
I would guess there are no better experts in the world on the subject than the Saudi royal family, but carry on dude.
"The Saudi royal family appear unaware of the dangers of settling scores among themselves."
I would guess there are no better experts in the world on the subject than the Saudi royal family, but carry on dude.
Daytona Bike Week Canceled
Really everything is likely to be canceled that can be, but you know it's serious when Daytona cancels.
Some appropriate music.
Some appropriate music.
Killing An Admiral From Time to Time
Apropos of the last post, and because it happens to be the anniversary, a sea story.
ON MARCH 14, 1757, Royal Navy Vice Admiral John Byng boarded his flagship HMS Monarch for what would be the last time.We live in a softer age, for now.
As the 52-year-old officer waited on the quarterdeck in the company of nine marine guards, instructions were passed to all the men-of-war at anchor nearby in Spithead to dispatch their officers to the 74-gun ship of the line to witness the spectacle that had been planned.
As the clock struck twelve, a captain by the name of John Montagu stepped forward from the small crowd that had assembled on the Monarch to inform Byng that it was time — the admiral’s execution was at hand....
Upon learning of the execution, the French writer, philosopher and playwright Voltaire satirically wrote that the British needed to occasionally execute an admiral from time to time, “in order to encourage the others.”
Although his comments were written as a form of mockery, surprisingly, the observation was entirely accurate. Byng’s role in the Minorca fiasco led to what was darkly termed in the Royal Navy the “Byng Principle,” which meant that “nothing is to be undertaken where there is risk or danger.”
This sardonic term served as a cautionary reminder to naval officers of the sort of conduct that should be avoided in battle. And just or not, Byng’s death was to instill in them an aggressive fighting spirit that would succeed in turning the war in favour of Britain.
When This Is Over, We Hang the Bureaucrats
After problems arose with the C.D.C.’s test, officials could have switched to using successful tests that other countries were already using. But the officials refused to do so, essentially because it would have required changing bureaucratic procedures.So what can we replace the CDC with that is not a bureaucracy, or at least not a government bureaucracy?
The federal government could also have eased regulations on American hospitals and laboratories, to allow them to create and manufacture their own tests, as Melissa Miller of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine told The Washington Post. But federal officials did not do so for weeks. The Times’s Sheri Fink and Mike Baker reported this week about a Seattle lab with a promising test that was blocked by “existing regulations and red tape” while “other countries ramped up much earlier and faster.”
Virus Threat? Ban Guns!
You can tell when people aren’t taking a crisis seriously when they try to shoehorn irrelevant policy preferences into their so-called “disaster” planning. I hear Pelosi tried to slip abortion funding into the Federal plan, and this mayor has decided to assume executive authority to void the Second Amendment.
UPDATE: California governor to "commandeer property" to fight the virus.
UPDATE: NYC mayor says this is the time to nationalize factories and industries.
UPDATE: California governor to "commandeer property" to fight the virus.
UPDATE: NYC mayor says this is the time to nationalize factories and industries.
Texans don't get it
The "NewNeo" blog continues to amuse, particularly the comments section. Commenter OldTexan weighs in on the host's thoughts about the loss of meaning of terms like exponential and existential:
My feeling about the existential stuff can best be summed up with [an] experience I had in the Army when about the only General I ever saw was touring our top secret facility in Germany where we did electronic eavesdropping on the various Commie Countries to the East. He stopped to talk to once of our men working a multiple radio intercept position inside a room tucked into the back of a building, free standing inside and old Luftwaffe hanger. He said, "Son, where are you from?" and the reply was, "Texas, Sir!" and then the General said, "Anything I can do to help you?" At that time the Texan took off his headset, we did not have to come to attention because we were supposed to keep working, the Texan stood up and said very clearly and kind of loud, "Sir, Existentialism, Sir I just don’t get it!"
Fix it so I can go back to sleep
John Hayward nails the irritable irrationality of someone woken from a sound sleep to a threat demanding immediate inconvenient action:
Focused intently on the suddenly urgent, all-consuming crisis thrust before our bleary eyes, we lose our senses of time and proportion. We want an immediate solution to the danger that jolted us awake. We eagerly signal to each other that we're fully awake and engaged now.
But we suspect maybe OTHERS are still asleep, still numb to the real danger, foolishly taking risks and making mistakes that could jeopardize everyone else. Our instinct to raise the general alarm level makes us amplify bad news and get angry at anyone who isn't at Defcon 1.
Few want to discuss proportionality during the fearful days after we are jolted awake. We want to spread the alarm and focus on this new terrible thing to the exclusion of all else. We want it to be over fast. We want to go back to sleep.
* * *
We should learn not to sleep so deeply between red-alert crises. We should demand more focus and less mission creep from the agencies that are supposed to be prepared for them. We should begin reacting judiciously to threats before they cross the horizon.
Most of all, we should learn there are costs and benefits to every action, and to inaction. Rationally balancing them against each other is difficult both in times of apathy and white-hot panic. If we learn to do it better when we're not panicking, we'll panic less often.
The Return of Legends
As the stable world seems less stable, remember that it has happened before.
We should be startled if we were quietly reading a prosaic modern novel, and somewhere in the middle it turned without warning into a fairy tale. We should be surprised if one of the spinsters in Cranford, after tidily sweeping the room with a broom, were to fly away on a broomstick. Our attention would be arrested if one of Jane Austen's young ladies who had just met a dragoon were to walk a little further and meet a dragon.According to the legends, those were the great times.
Yet something very like this extraordinary transition takes place in British history at the end of the purely Roman period. We have to do with rational and almost mechanical accounts of encampment and engineering, of a busy bureaucracy and occasional frontier wars, quite modern in their efficiency and inefficiency; and then all of a sudden we are reading of wandering bells and wizard lances, of wars against men as tall as trees or as short as toadstools. The soldier of civilization is no longer fighting with Goths but with goblins; the land becomes a labyrinth of faerie towns unknown to history; and scholars can suggest but cannot explain how a Roman ruler or a Welsh chieftain towers up in the twilight as the awful and unbegotten Arthur.
The Liberation of Sarah Palin
If I were to guess, I'd say that Ms. Palin was always a Sir Mixalot fan but long felt she had to keep that aspect of her personality private. Now that her political career is over, well, she's free at last.
That looks like a completely ridiculous TV show, but I have gotten the impression that such things are common now.
That looks like a completely ridiculous TV show, but I have gotten the impression that such things are common now.
Grand Bargains
In general I'm opposed to involving the Federal government in anything, or for Congress legislating outside of its very clear Article I Section 8 duties. That said, a global pandemic is the best argument for a coherent approach across many normally divergent sectors. Since you go to war with the government you have, and ours is hyper-partisan and nearly nonfunctional, a bargain may be the only way to obtain the goods we need.
Strong high borders, closed schools, ways to keep people from losing their homes or places of living during times when we ask everyone to stay home; lots is going to have to happen quickly, and for a month at least (though likely not forever). We can get this under control, but time is of the essence.
Strong high borders, closed schools, ways to keep people from losing their homes or places of living during times when we ask everyone to stay home; lots is going to have to happen quickly, and for a month at least (though likely not forever). We can get this under control, but time is of the essence.
Free Spirits
Part one and two of a study urging free market reforms for North Carolina's hard liquor industry. North Carolina has one of the most vibrant microbrewery and winery markets going, but hard liquor here is still controlled by "Alcoholic Beverage Control" councils operated not by the state but by 140 local governments. As you might expect, that leads to non-optimal results.
Did you know that North Carolina used to be the nation’s leader in locally owned and operated distilleries? It’s true. In 1904 the state had 745 registered distilleries, 540 of which were operating. And they were all outlawed, an entire industry destroyed, by a series of laws culminating in voters passing the first statewide prohibition in the South in 1908.It won't be the last industry destroyed in the name of "progress," if certain people get their way.
The Eagles Come Home
SECDEF issues major travel restrictions, at the same time as our withdrawal from Afghanistan begins. I think these are 150th Cavalry Regiment soldiers, from the West Virginia National Guard but assigned to the 30th Armored Brigade that is mostly built around North Carolina National Guard units. If so, I was with this unit for a while during their deployment in Operation Iraqi Freedom IV in 2009.
Isolation Diary
I'm inclined to isolation on most occasions, so it wasn't too shocking to realize I had been an early adopter of the 'social distancing' method being recommended these days. I left my property today for the first time since Saturday, to go down to the county dump to clear the ordinary household trash out of my place. I intended also to check the post office box in the 'town' nearest the house, which chiefly consists of that post office and a gas station. So I expected no social interactions at all. In fact I had two: I ran into my Mexican friend (born in Guadalajara, married these days to a Cherokee wife -- a real one from the nearby reservation, not the Warren type). I also ran into the guy who owns the gas station, who is a friend of mine because he and I both own off-roading Jeeps and enjoy that culture.
Therefore I shook two hands in spite of the elevated risk of doing so; but I still have plenty of hand sanitizer. The wife did her prepping a month and a half ago when the craziness was just on display in China, figuring it would get out this way sooner or later. After that I came home.
In many ways I'm ideally placed for a long isolation. I have a great number of books, plenty of supplies, still lots of firewood even though winter is just ending. There are springs on the property, and not many people around in any case. If it weren't for the need to make money to pay all those bills I could stay up here a very long time without coming down.
Of course my wife and another relative still have business in town, so they may bring the thing home in spite of however much I'm prepared to sit up here. Like Willie Nelson, 'taking it home to Connie and the kids.'
I'm editing a novel I wrote some years ago in my spare time. Maybe if it turns out all right I'll try to publish it when this is all over.
Therefore I shook two hands in spite of the elevated risk of doing so; but I still have plenty of hand sanitizer. The wife did her prepping a month and a half ago when the craziness was just on display in China, figuring it would get out this way sooner or later. After that I came home.
In many ways I'm ideally placed for a long isolation. I have a great number of books, plenty of supplies, still lots of firewood even though winter is just ending. There are springs on the property, and not many people around in any case. If it weren't for the need to make money to pay all those bills I could stay up here a very long time without coming down.
Of course my wife and another relative still have business in town, so they may bring the thing home in spite of however much I'm prepared to sit up here. Like Willie Nelson, 'taking it home to Connie and the kids.'
I'm editing a novel I wrote some years ago in my spare time. Maybe if it turns out all right I'll try to publish it when this is all over.
Feel the Bern
In spite of sequential drubbings by the Democratic machine, Bernie will stay in and force Biden to debate.
Ready for anything
I guess this quantum mechanics prof had gotten one too many anguished calls from nervous students:
Well, shoot, I can't seem to embed a legible version, but you can read it here.
Well, shoot, I can't seem to embed a legible version, but you can read it here.
Hazard is the spice of life
More and more of my daily diet of online perspectives consists of the panic/don't-panic debate. I enjoyed this lengthy excerpt from the comments section at thenewneo.com:
Arthur Koestler wrote about what he called the Tragic and the Trivial planes of life. As explained by his friend, the writer and fighter pilot Richard Hillary:
“K has a theory for this. He believes there are two planes of existence which he calls vie tragique and vie triviale. Usually we move on the trivial plane, but occasionally in moments of elation or danger, we find ourselves transferred to the plane of the vie tragique, with its non-commonsense, cosmic perspective. When we are on the trivial plane, the realities of the other appear as nonsense–as overstrung nerves and so on. When we live on the tragic plane, the realities of the other are shallow, frivolous, frivolous, trifling. But in exceptional circumstances, for instance if someone has to live through a long stretch of time in physical danger, one is placed, as it were, on the intersection line of the two planes; a curious situation which is a kind of tightrope-walking on one’s nerves…I think he is right.”I think the attraction to ultimate catastrophes…whether the assumed flooding due to Climate Change, or the danger of America being taken over by the Ku Klux Klan, or the exaggeration of the very real dangers of coronavirus…is related to this. People who live entirely on Koestler’s Trivial Plane, looking for a little connection to Ultimate Things.
Restoring Civility to Office
A transcript of the genteel discussion Joe Biden had with a voter today. It's going to be a great election season, isn't it?
A Suspense of Mortgage
Italy, having placed sixty million under quarantine, takes a step to help make sure they don't thereby become homeless.
Class and Aristotle
Aristotle's view only gets mentioned in passing here, so I wanted to elaborate a bit on it along the way to illuminating the rest of the argument.
But what Aristotle is calling oligarchs are also both right and wrong. They are right that they ought to be secure in their property, and not just have the mob empowered to vote themselves the right to take it away. They are wrong, though, in thinking that their superior wealth entails also a superior fitness to lead. Mike Bloomberg is the clearest exemplar of this mistake, and though defeated himself, he is employing his wealth to try to buy armies (of political activists, lawyers, etc) to ensure that his vision is secured by the powers of government. They also buy private security armies, even as they move to disarm the people; in Aristotle's day, sometimes those mercenary forces actually took over the state. For now, the movement simply creates a private right of self defense available only to the rich, while leaving the people disarmed and defenseless against both the power of the state and the criminals (from whom the state offers protection, perhaps, in return for deepened submission). Joe Biden is at this point merely a figurehead for the oligarchs.
Once you understand the sides, we can proceed to the causes of revolution:
Aristotle ponders a third type of government, which he calls aristocracy -- government by the virtuous, he means, rather than by the well-born -- but we are so far away from that form that we need not consider it here.
So let us return to the article about the war between the democrats and the oligarchs, as it is playing out today.
Nevertheless they and their fortunes will survive him, even if he succeeds in rebuilding American advantages.
Aristotle, Niccolò Machiavelli, Alexis de Tocqueville, Adam Smith and Karl Marx grounded their philosophies in the understanding that there is a natural antagonism between the rich and the rest of us. The interests of the rich are not our interests. The truths of the rich are not our truths. The lives of the rich are not our lives. Great wealth not only breeds contempt for those who do not have it but it empowers oligarchs to pay armies of lawyers, publicists, politicians, judges, academics and journalists to censure and control public debate and stifle dissent.Aristotle worries that the rich will hire actual armies, as a matter of fact. But he also thinks that both democracy and oligarchy are based on errors. From Politics 5:
Democracy, for example, arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal. Oligarchy is based on the notion that those who are unequal in one respect are in all respects unequal; being unequal, that is, in property, they suppose themselves to be unequal absolutely. The democrats think that as they are equal they ought to be equal in all things; while the oligarchs, under the idea that they are unequal, claim too much, which is one form of inequality. All these forms of government have a kind of justice, but, tried by an absolute standard, they are faulty; and, therefore, both parties, whenever their share in the government does not accord with their preconceived ideas, stir up revolution.So what Aristotle is calling (small-d) democrats are right about one thing, but wrong about something else; and being wrong, they try to overthrow the government in order to establish an equality of property to go with the equality of rights. This is the kind of movement that Bernie Sanders is leading; we currently are calling this "democratic socialism."
But what Aristotle is calling oligarchs are also both right and wrong. They are right that they ought to be secure in their property, and not just have the mob empowered to vote themselves the right to take it away. They are wrong, though, in thinking that their superior wealth entails also a superior fitness to lead. Mike Bloomberg is the clearest exemplar of this mistake, and though defeated himself, he is employing his wealth to try to buy armies (of political activists, lawyers, etc) to ensure that his vision is secured by the powers of government. They also buy private security armies, even as they move to disarm the people; in Aristotle's day, sometimes those mercenary forces actually took over the state. For now, the movement simply creates a private right of self defense available only to the rich, while leaving the people disarmed and defenseless against both the power of the state and the criminals (from whom the state offers protection, perhaps, in return for deepened submission). Joe Biden is at this point merely a figurehead for the oligarchs.
Once you understand the sides, we can proceed to the causes of revolution:
Revolutions in democracies are generally caused by the intemperance of demagogues, who either in their private capacity lay information against rich men until they compel them to combine (for a common danger unites even the bitterest enemies), or coming forward in public stir up the people against them....We can consider whether Sanders is a demagogue of the democratic type, of a demagogue who is a member of the oligarchy of the 2(b) type. In either case, as Aristotle warned, the rest of the oligarchy has firmly united against him. It was clear since before Super Tuesday that defeating Sanders was at least as important to the oligarchy as defeating Trump; probably much more important, since they know they can survive Trump but may not survive Sanders.
There are two patent causes of revolutions in oligarchies: (1) First, when the oligarchs oppress the people, for then anybody is good enough to be their champion, especially if he be himself a member of the oligarchy...
(2) Of internal causes of revolutions in oligarchies one is the personal rivalry of the oligarchs, which leads them to play the demagogue. Now, the oligarchical demagogue is of two sorts: either (a) he practices upon the oligarchs themselves (for, although the oligarchy are quite a small number, there may be a demagogue among them, as at Athens Charicles' party won power by courting the Thirty, that of Phrynichus by courting the Four Hundred); or (b) the oligarchs may play the demagogue with the people.
Aristotle ponders a third type of government, which he calls aristocracy -- government by the virtuous, he means, rather than by the well-born -- but we are so far away from that form that we need not consider it here.
So let us return to the article about the war between the democrats and the oligarchs, as it is playing out today.
The oligarchs are happy to talk about race. They are happy to talk about sexual identity and gender. They are happy to talk about patriotism. They are happy to talk about religion. They are happy to talk about immigration. They are happy to talk about abortion. They are happy to talk about gun control. They are happy to talk about cultural degeneracy or cultural freedom. They are not happy to talk about class. Race, gender, religion, abortion, immigration, gun control, culture and patriotism are issues used to divide the public, to turn neighbor against neighbor, to fuel virulent hatreds and antagonisms. The culture wars give the oligarchs, both Democrats and Republicans, the cover to continue the pillage. There are few substantial differences between the two ruling political parties in the United States. This is why oligarchs like Donald Trump and Michael Bloomberg can switch effortlessly from one party to the other.It isn't clear to me that Trump qualifies as a member of the oligarchy in good standing. He is perhaps a 2a type: a demagogue who is practicing on the other oligarchs. But he is so firmly opposed by the members of the so-called Deep State, as well as the rich, that I wonder if he isn't a kind of democrat himself. The objections to his crassness, vulgarity, ugliness of the design of his buildings and his products, these sound like class-based objections: the wealthy and established class sneering at the 'Nouveau riche,' whose manners are unrefined and whose wealth was too recently earned to be respectable. Certainly he is a demagogue, but like Sanders it is debatable which sort he is. In any case, he is an enemy of the established oligarchy, which draws its wealth especially from selling America's advantages for their personal profit. They seek cheap labor through globalization, or through heavy immigration, and through trade deals that benefit their corporations at the expense of the American people. Trump is preying on them, though whether as a democrat or as a 2(a) oligarch is debatable.
Nevertheless they and their fortunes will survive him, even if he succeeds in rebuilding American advantages.
Donald Trump may be a narcissist and a con artist, but he savages the oligarchic elite in his long-winded speeches to the delight of his crowds. He, like Bernie Sanders, speaks about the forbidden topic — class. But Trump, though an embarrassment to the oligarchs, does not, like Sanders, pose a genuine threat to them. Trump will, like all demagogues, incite violence against the vulnerable, widen the cultural and social divides and consolidate tyranny, but he will leave the rich alone. It is Sanders whom the oligarchs fear and hate.There is a great deal more, which you can read if you are interested in the argument as it has developed so far. These are the choices before us; although after today's primaries, it may well be that we are left with a simpler choice. The oligarchs want to recapture all the levers of power; they are sure their superiority in wealth and power implies their superiority, and their fitness to rule over us and tell us how to live our lives. There are no better options on the table, not at least without the kind of revolution that Aristotle warns is likely to come out of this dynamic.
In Praise of Tulsi Gabbard
Acknowledging her flaws, there remains a lot to like about her. Most of what impresses this author will probably strike most of you as reasons not to support her, but read this argument on her alleged support for Assad.
The Assad smear is particularly difficult to unravel. Nothing about our involvement in the Middle East is simple. If we research the Syria trip, we find Gabbard had official permission to travel to Syria, she funded this herself, she traveled with a group that included fellow peace advocate Dennis Kucinich, she met not just with Assad, but with his opponents, community leaders and with citizens. She sought a full picture of events there in an attempt to verify facts to keep us from being lied into another war as we had been with Iraq. The US involvement in Syria is complex. It’s essential to look at the ways our actions have contributed to the problems Syria faces. It’s important to understand not every US action is a help to the people of a given nation. Gabbard understands this as no other candidate. She knows enough to realize we must seek facts before taking action. She consistently points to our constitution and the President’s need to go through Congress when it comes to war.For some reason Tulsi was the designated villain (as SNL named her in one of its skits), perhaps because of her support for Bernie over Hillary in 2016; perhaps because she gutted the Kamala Harris candidacy last year. Perhaps it is for some other reason. The backstab by Pelosi is just part and parcel of how she's been mistreated by her own party. Just last week the DNC changed the rules to keep her out of the debates again, after having changed the rules to ensure that Mike Bloomberg got a chance to debate. He'd have been better off if they hadn't, but Tulsi has been strong when she's made the stage. With only Bernie and Biden left -- and Biden slipping into hostile incoherence -- perhaps they fear to let her back onstage again.
It’s interesting to note Nancy Pelosi met with Assad during the Bush administration and took a great deal of criticism for having met with him. Pelosi responded that all should meet with Assad and any dictator in the interest of diplomacy. Pelosi’s voice was noticeably absent when Gabbard was being smeared for her courageous effort to broker peace. Pelosi remained silent when Harris, Buttigieg and numerous media outlets used the Assad smear to attack Gabbard.
Rest in Peace, Max von Sydow
Swedish actor Max von Sydow has passed on. As the article mentions he had many more famous roles, but he also appeared in the Hall's favorite:
Sword & Sorcery Movie Posters
A blog I'd never heard of before today has a two-part series (one and two) on 1980s Sword & Sorcery movie posters. The artists involved are sometimes good, sometimes bad, as are the movies.
I have seen many of these, partly because I love sword and sorcery as a literary genre and always hope to find a movie that isn't terrible to go with the stories that are often great; but also because I grew up watching Joe Bobb Briggs Drive-In Theater, and developed a taste for quite bad movies of that sort.
After the jump, brief reviews of the ones I have seen.
I have seen many of these, partly because I love sword and sorcery as a literary genre and always hope to find a movie that isn't terrible to go with the stories that are often great; but also because I grew up watching Joe Bobb Briggs Drive-In Theater, and developed a taste for quite bad movies of that sort.
After the jump, brief reviews of the ones I have seen.
Totem or pipe dream?
I've been reading good reviews of a new memoir by Emma Sky about occupied Iraq under the Bush and Obama administrations. It's said to be personally generous and even-handed, so I was interested to read this summing up:
In the 2010 election, with both Sunni and Shia support, the non‑sectarian, nationalist Iraqiya bloc won two seats more than Nouri al‑Maliki’s State of Law coalition. But many MPs were disqualified by the de‑Ba’athification committees, while Maliki demanded a recount and then manoeuvred to stay on as prime minister. To his military’s disgust, Obama ignored the deadlock for two months. Chris Hill, the new US ambassador, told Odierno that Iraq wasn’t ready for democracy and needed a Shia strongman. An opinion poll disagreed: only 14% of Iraqis thought Maliki should stay in power. But the Iranians lobbied hard to preserve him and thus to alienate Iraq from the rest of the Arab world. Obama’s acquiescence led one of Sky’s Iraqi informants to complain: “Either the Americans are stupid or there is a secret deal with Iran” – a view that is still more widespread today. Where Bush made democracy a totem, and thought it could be delivered via occupation, Obama gave up on it entirely. The results of this equally misguided (and orientalist) approach are painfully evident today.Well, where does that leave us? You can't give up on democracy, but you also can't deliver it by occupation. That leaves, perhaps, nation-building without occupation. I'm not asking rhetorically. I genuinely don't understand why some nations, at some times, manage to crawl out of tyranny, or how they stay out of it for a time. The only glimmer of an idea I have is economic and intellectual/religious freedom combined with vigorous communal opposition to theft and violence.
The Wheel of Pain
You will of course recognize this event from the 1982 Conan the Barbarian.
Rogue Fitness paid for a pretty close replica for the Arnold event.
One minute events are very common in Strongman sports. It's often enough that you'll compete in an event that lasts all day, with only 6-10 minutes of actual work all day long. If you're not whipped the next day in spite of having only worked six or ten minutes the previous day, they didn't make the six minutes of work tough enough.
Rogue Fitness paid for a pretty close replica for the Arnold event.
One minute events are very common in Strongman sports. It's often enough that you'll compete in an event that lasts all day, with only 6-10 minutes of actual work all day long. If you're not whipped the next day in spite of having only worked six or ten minutes the previous day, they didn't make the six minutes of work tough enough.
A Strongman Moment
This guy may have more in the tank, but we can’t test it because no bigger Atlas stone actually exists.
The fellow is from Scotland, the heritage home of many (though not all) of the great stone-lifting strength sports. He is a Cimmerian, as you can see.
The fellow is from Scotland, the heritage home of many (though not all) of the great stone-lifting strength sports. He is a Cimmerian, as you can see.
Chili recipes?
So as I've said before, I'm still reading through the old VC archives (working backwards in time) and I came across this comment in one thread:
Chili -- although what I find to be a "comfort food" might put some of our readers into the hospital. :)And I suddenly was very interested to know what Grim's chili contains as I am a committed "hot head" when it comes to spicy food (or I need to be committed, one of the two).
Posted by: Grim at September 16, 2008 04:50 PM
Living History
During the Cobra Gold exercise -- apparently going on in spite of the Coronavirus, unlike exercises with South Korea -- American pilots are donning historic headgear. In the photo of one of the examples they're replicating, Will Koenitzer is wearing not only the "Saigon Cowboy" hat but tiger stripe camo and sporting what looks to me like a Smith & Wesson N-Frame revolver on his hip.
The contemporary Special Forces dudes are also wearing a form of tiger stripe camo, which I have been seeing them do lately. That was another thing that dates to the Vietnam era. In movies as well; in addition to John Wayne in The Green Berets, in Apocalypse Now the Army officer sent on the special mission wears it.
The contemporary Special Forces dudes are also wearing a form of tiger stripe camo, which I have been seeing them do lately. That was another thing that dates to the Vietnam era. In movies as well; in addition to John Wayne in The Green Berets, in Apocalypse Now the Army officer sent on the special mission wears it.
But That's Just When You Need Guns the Most!
Reason Magazine: "She Said He Said He Saw Demons. Then He Had to Give Up His Guns."
[A judge issued orders]...which authorizes the suspension of a person's Second Amendment rights when he is deemed a threat to himself or others. All three were ex parte orders, meaning they were issued without giving Kevin Morgan a chance to rebut the allegations against him.That's all very well, but what happens when the police roll up, armed and in numbers, to disarm someone they've been told is a madman seeing demons? He gets his day in court eventually, if he's still alive.
But when it was time for a judge to decide whether the initial gun confiscation order, which was limited to 14 days, should be extended for a year, Morgan got a hearing, and the lurid picture painted by his wife disintegrated. By the end of the hearing, in an extraordinary turn of events unlike anything you are likely to see in a courtroom drama, the lawyer representing the Citrus County Sheriff's Office, which was seeking the final order, conceded that he had not met the law's evidentiary standard, and the judge agreed.
This bizarre case vividly illustrates why legal representation and meaningful judicial review are necessary to protect gun owners from unsubstantiated complaints under red flag laws, which 17 states and the District of Columbia have enacted. But it also shows that police and prosecutors, who in Florida are the only parties authorized to file red flag petitions, are not necessarily diligent about investigating allegations by people who may have an ax to grind.
Goodbye, Mike
I spent a lot of 'ink' on Warren, but by far my least favorite of the candidates was Mike Bloomberg. I'm not sure how much of my attention he deserves, but I'm greatly pleased to see his departure from the pursuit of even more power than his endless billions give him.
The Failing New York Times
With the collapse of the Warren campaign, both of the candidates the NYT endorsed are now out of the Democratic primary.
If Times readers still want to vote for a woman to run against Trump, it's ok: Tulsi Gabbard is still standing tall. She also won a delegate in American Samoa, so she might make the debate stage next time!
UPDATE: The Atlantic publishes a piece by Elaine Godfrey with five theories for Warren's fall. Sexism is theory number five.
That said, I do think sexism played the crucial role in her downfall. Specifically, I think it was her campaign's collusion with CNN to forward an unsupported accusation of sexism against Bernie Sanders. Her numbers began to crash as people on the Left experienced the kind of astonishment that so many of us on the right experienced during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. They didn't notice then because they were prepared to believe any kind of slander against a right-leaning SCOTUS nominee, but this time they saw through to the nastiness, the dishonesty, and the unfairness of trying to destroy the career of a man they admired via accusations of sexism fielded without any evidence whatsoever.
The very people she needed to vote for her didn't believe her -- perhaps in part because she has a long legacy of proven false statements about her own biography -- and they couldn't believe she'd try to destroy the reputation of a man who -- by their lights -- has lived with moral clarity and distinction for many decades. Bernie was arrested with the civil rights marchers; Bernie was always on the forefront of every issue they cared about. He's been a loyal husband to a loyal wife, advanced the causes of many women in politics, and she was prepared to destroy him anyway in pursuit of power.
If that was their judgment, they were right to drive her out of the path of power. If they were right about her, she's the kind of person who shouldn't have power.
UPDATE: Jeff Jacoby points out that 76% of women in Massachusetts voted against Warren. Democratic women voters, even, as Mike D points out in the comments.
If Times readers still want to vote for a woman to run against Trump, it's ok: Tulsi Gabbard is still standing tall. She also won a delegate in American Samoa, so she might make the debate stage next time!
UPDATE: The Atlantic publishes a piece by Elaine Godfrey with five theories for Warren's fall. Sexism is theory number five.
Sexism in politics is like Whack-a-Mole, right? Every cycle, it shows up in a new way. We dealt with the “likability” issue [with Warren] pretty quickly. Now it’s “electability.” Every data point that we have says women can win—in 2018, women won all over the country—and yet we keep asking this question. The conversation becomes really problematic for a candidate who’s trying to make [the] case about what kind of agenda she wants to set, what kind of policies she wants to have.I cannot imagine that a deep dive into the news coverage the Warren campaign got will show that it was less than glowing. I mean, she was endorsed by the NYT! She was treated as brilliant and intellectual and the one candidate who really could formulate solutions to the nation's great problems by journalists from the left to what passes for the middle. Unlike Joe Biden, she had many passionate supporters including among journalists who provided in-kind donations with positive coverage. Joltin' Joe seems to have mostly machine support -- but having a machine behind you, whether the Clinton machine or Obama's Chicago machine, is the real route to power in the national-level Democratic party, and they're united behind Joe.
The biggest issue this year is the double standard, where we hold women candidates to different standards than we hold the men. It’s very clear from the Medicare for All conversation that we expected and demanded more of [Warren] than we did the male candidates, and it hurt her. That was happening right as she was rising. As late as [last] week, Bernie Sanders [was] saying, I still can’t tell you every nickel and dime [about how to pay for his Medicare for All plan], and everybody’s like, All right. Well, you know, it’s about priorities. I’m not saying we should treat Bernie Sanders differently. I’m saying we should treat Elizabeth Warren the same.
She either outright won all [the debates] or performed really well. But you didn’t see wall-to-wall coverage the next day of what that would mean for her campaign and whether the momentum was going to come in. Where she had victories, they were not celebrated as loudly as the men[’s] were, and where she had defeats, it was seen as an inevitable character flaw as opposed to a bump in the road.
There were three tickets out of Iowa until a woman got the third one. I am very interested to see a deep dive into [news-coverage] quantity and quality once this is all over, and it’s pretty obvious that the women just didn’t get the same.
That said, I do think sexism played the crucial role in her downfall. Specifically, I think it was her campaign's collusion with CNN to forward an unsupported accusation of sexism against Bernie Sanders. Her numbers began to crash as people on the Left experienced the kind of astonishment that so many of us on the right experienced during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. They didn't notice then because they were prepared to believe any kind of slander against a right-leaning SCOTUS nominee, but this time they saw through to the nastiness, the dishonesty, and the unfairness of trying to destroy the career of a man they admired via accusations of sexism fielded without any evidence whatsoever.
The very people she needed to vote for her didn't believe her -- perhaps in part because she has a long legacy of proven false statements about her own biography -- and they couldn't believe she'd try to destroy the reputation of a man who -- by their lights -- has lived with moral clarity and distinction for many decades. Bernie was arrested with the civil rights marchers; Bernie was always on the forefront of every issue they cared about. He's been a loyal husband to a loyal wife, advanced the causes of many women in politics, and she was prepared to destroy him anyway in pursuit of power.
If that was their judgment, they were right to drive her out of the path of power. If they were right about her, she's the kind of person who shouldn't have power.
UPDATE: Jeff Jacoby points out that 76% of women in Massachusetts voted against Warren. Democratic women voters, even, as Mike D points out in the comments.
An Advertisement for a Friend in Need
I don't do commercials here as a rule, but I'm making an exception for a friend whose small business had a misfortune not at all his fault.
As I've mentioned, one of the things I do for fun is Strongman competitions in a fully amateur, very minor way (and in the Masters Division, where 'Master' is a courteous euphemism for "too old" rather than meaning "great"). One of the places that hosts great competitions is Norse Fitness in Charlotte, NC. The host, Andy, is a great guy and has built a business around strength training and gear that supports his family (including a beautiful young daughter). Andy was going to go to the Arnold this year, one of the three biggest events in strength sports, but the trade show there was canceled due to the Coronavirus, and spectators forbidden.
Unfortunately, Andy bought a bunch of merchandise to take to sell; the Arnold organizers made the decision so late that he, and many others, are also too late to get refunds on their plane tickets, Air B&B reservations, and so on. So he's having a big 30% off sale on everything in his store.
The sale code is CORONA30. I've bought plenty of his gear in the past, and it's all of excellent quality. In addition, he has lots of Norse- and Viking-themed t-shirts and such, of the sort appropriate for Strongman competitors to wear while lifting giant objects Conan-style.
As I've mentioned, one of the things I do for fun is Strongman competitions in a fully amateur, very minor way (and in the Masters Division, where 'Master' is a courteous euphemism for "too old" rather than meaning "great"). One of the places that hosts great competitions is Norse Fitness in Charlotte, NC. The host, Andy, is a great guy and has built a business around strength training and gear that supports his family (including a beautiful young daughter). Andy was going to go to the Arnold this year, one of the three biggest events in strength sports, but the trade show there was canceled due to the Coronavirus, and spectators forbidden.
Unfortunately, Andy bought a bunch of merchandise to take to sell; the Arnold organizers made the decision so late that he, and many others, are also too late to get refunds on their plane tickets, Air B&B reservations, and so on. So he's having a big 30% off sale on everything in his store.
The sale code is CORONA30. I've bought plenty of his gear in the past, and it's all of excellent quality. In addition, he has lots of Norse- and Viking-themed t-shirts and such, of the sort appropriate for Strongman competitors to wear while lifting giant objects Conan-style.
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