Strength Sports & Exploitation

The Washington Post has an exposé today on exploitation of female bodybuilders. Because of the well-known differential in average male and female desires and visual nature of much male desires, these things are always about women being exploited. Gay males do it to males, too, but at a much reduced rate simply because of numbers. Of all the forms of exploitation we regularly encounter, this seems to have been less violent and aggressive than we often find: soft-core rather than otherwise, consensual rather than otherwise, coerced only by offers of money, denial of fair treatment for those who didn't play, or promises of favoritism in treatment if  you did. 

Possibly this is because the women were stronger than the men who sought to coerce them! Physical strength is a virtue in the strict sense, and has the pragmatic consequences of being protective as well as enabling one to do certain practical things that others cannot do.

I would advance the hypothesis, though, that this would not be found to the same degree in the other strength sports that women participate in -- I mean my own sport of Strongman ("Strongwoman") and Power Lifting. Of the three, bodybuilding is intensely focused on perfecting physical appearance rather than performance at lifting or carrying weight. This results in body styles that are less attractive, but more functional. 

These charts are about men, but it's not all that different.

Hollywood loves the bodybuilder physique, the triangular one with the abs and the v-cuts. Conan the Cimmerian tends to be portrayed in movies by bodybuilders like Arnold or Jason Momoa, and also artists who depict Conan usually do so in the bodybuilder physique since Frank Frazetta. They are not, though, as strong as those with the rectangular physique and the thick core muscles. They are just preferred aesthetically. Bodybuilding as a sport focuses on achieving that aesthetic, not on lifting huge weights or carrying them over distances or through obstacles. 

My hypothesis is that people who are erotically motivated by sight of strong people probably gravitate towards bodybuilding in a way that they don't towards the other communities. Women who want to compete in a strength sport without such exploitation thus probably have a live option. Women who want to look good in a bodybuilder way, say like a comic book heroine like Red Sonja, are beginning from a path of looking attractive rather than being strong, and that is going to tend to lead to encounters with men like these. 

That's not a moral judgment; you should do what you want. If you want to look good, though, you're probably going to have to develop stronger "coping skills" as Mr. Hines likes to call it. 

Fire Leaves

 

Sharing is Caring

Do yellow jackets get drunk? A social experiment:

UPDATE: Apparently. This one’s definitely not walking straight anymore, and I’ve had to fish him out twice after he fell in.

More Riding Songs

 

Men of the North

Thomas Doubting happened across a Scottish Highland Games somewhere or other -- he'll have to tell you the story -- and sent me some photos. As is well known, the Viking heritage in Scotland is very strong, and numerous clans either were founded by Vikings (like Clan Gunn, descended from the Norse Jarls of Orkney) or became interlaced with them (like Clan MacDonald, "the Lords of the Isles" for generations).

Bugs Bunny & Nimrod

I mentioned Nimrod here just this week, but apparently not that many people knew the Biblical figure and the meaning got transformed.

Riding Weather

 

The FBI and an American Journalist's Disappearance

A very disturbing tale at Rolling Stone.

[A neighbor] inched closer to get a better vantage, when he saw an olive-green Lenco BearCat G2, an armored tactical vehicle often employed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, among other law-enforcement agencies. A few Arlington County cruisers surrounded the jaw-dropping scene, but all of the other vehicles were unmarked, including the BearCat. Antonelli counted at least 10 heavily armed personnel in the group. None bore anything identifying which agency was conducting the raid....

Meek has been charged with no crime. But independent observers believe the raid is among the first — and quite possibly, the first — to be carried out on a journalist by the Biden administration. A federal magistrate judge in the Virginia Eastern District Court signed off on the search warrant the day before the raid. If the raid was for Meek’s records, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco would have had to give her blessing; a new policy enacted last year prohibits federal prosecutors from seizing journalists’ documents. Any exception requires the deputy AG’s approval. 

So if he was charged with no crime, was he arrested? No one seems to be able to confirm or deny it. He disappeared, though, and has not been seen nor has he posted on Twitter as was his wont. He also 'abruptly resigned' from his job even though his contract was not complete. 

His lawyer declined to comment on accusations that he might have had classified documents, except to state that (a) an investigative journalist just might, if he was looking into government wrongdoing, and (b) the source of that suggestion would have to be an illegal government leak to the press.

This caught my eye:

Even stranger, in the months before he vanished, Meek was finishing up work on a book for Simon & Schuster titled Operation Pineapple Express: The Incredible Story of a Group of Americans Who Undertook One Last Mission and Honored a Promise in Afghanistan, which he co-authored with Lt. Col. Scott Mann, a retired Green Beret. Meek even featured a picture of the soon-to-publish book in his bio on social media and frequently tweeted about his involvement. But post-April 27, the book-jacket photo disappeared from his bio, and Simon & Schuster has scrubbed his name from all press materials. 

Uh-oh.

Is covering up the administration's wrongdoing in the Afghanistan withdrawal -- which entailed abandoning thousands of American citizens to the Taliban as well as strategic planning so awful as to have been malevolent -- such a high priority at DOJ that it could get the Deputy Attorney General to sign off on it? If not that, what did? Where is Mr. Meek, and why are these corporations for whom he worked suddenly scrubbing his name and pretending he never existed? 

This kind of disappearance is well-known in China. It's not supposed to happen here. 

In Defense of Chaucer

It is a fact that both of the two most famous writers of late Medieval/early Modern English have long been suspected of rape. Now it appears that there are good reasons to question both accusations. Chaucer's court case has come under investigation by scholars of medieval England, and it turns out not to be a rape case but a labor dispute -- the Latin word 'raptus' in this case meant something more like 'enrapture' than 'rape.' The charge turns out to be that Chaucer had lured a worker away from her previous employer before she had finished her proper term of service.

There, [scholars] found the original writ in the case, from 1379. It showed that Staundon had brought an action against both Chaucer and Chaumpaigne, under a law known as the Statute of Laborers, which had been enacted after outbreaks of the plague had restricted the labor market. It was intended “to combat rising wages, and to prevent the poaching of servants” with the promise of better terms, the scholars write in their blog post.

Chaucer, the writ stated, had hired her unlawfully, and then declined to return her to Staundon’s service as requested, causing him “grievous loss.”

Those two documents, Sobecki and Roger wrote in a blog post summarizing the discovery, opened up “a radically different reading of ‘raptus.’” Instead of rape, they argue, it can be read as “the physical act of Chaumpaigne leaving Staundon’s service.”

It has long been known that the Great Plague raised the power of laborers to bid for higher wages. The real charge against Chaucer is that he offered her a better deal than she had been getting, and she and he were both sued by her former employer as a result.

The other great writer of that era was Sir Thomas Malory, who was caught up and prosecuted for raping the same woman twice -- but the accusation came not from her, but from her husband. There are reasons to think that the real offense there was that he and she were acting like Lancelot and Guinevere, an affair that might have inspired his lengthy treatment of both that matter and Tristan and Isolde. They come off as some of the most attractive characters in the novel even though both of their long love affairs are technically matters of adultery in cases of arranged marriages. 

The scholarship on the Chaucer matter is really excellent, and the article is enjoyable and detailed. A feminist scholar interviewed on the subject is not ready to give up the grievance, which she views as more important than the actual facts:

[She] called the new documents “very exciting” but said the “exoneration narrative” some saw in them was overplayed.

“I am eager to see how the conversation unfolds,” she wrote in an email, “but I remain insistent that the questions feminists have raised about the intersection of rape culture and women’s labor should shape our collective approach to these documents.”

By all means, let us not change our interpretation because of the facts. 

Death Fixes Everything

In Canada, the health care system has been pushing euthanasia as a cost-cutting solution on patients with expensive care. In Georgia, we have now a similar solution on offer. "Having children is why you’re worried about your price for gas, it’s why you’re concerned about how much food costs.”

It's a Brave New World.

Perhaps it’s all that New World fresh air and pioneering spirit, but Canada is taking to its new euthanasia legislation like a duck to water. It only became legal in June and already about 800 people have received a lethal injection at the hands of a doctor.

Where it is beating the Old World euthanasia regimes is in its frank, open and creative ideas for integrating euthanasia into Canadian life. In December two Quebec bioethicists argued in the Journal of Medical Ethics that combining euthanasia with organ donation would be an excellent idea which could yield top-quality organs for needy patients.

"Frank," "open," "creative," "excellent," "like a duck to water," "fresh air!" 

"Pioneering spirit!"

Heritage Foundation: The US Military is Weak

Not just 'growing weak,' although the WSJ headline frames it that way. Conservative flagship think tank Heritage says that the status of the military has to be appraised as weak.

Heritage rates the U.S. military as “weak” and “at growing risk of not being able to meet the demands of defending America’s vital national interests.” The weak rating, down from “marginal” a year earlier, is the first in the index’s nine-year history....

Heritage says the U.S. military risks being unable to handle even “a single major regional conflict” as it also tries to deter rogues elsewhere.... The Navy has been saying for years it needs to grow to at least 350 ships, plus more unmanned platforms. Yet the Navy has shown a “persistent inability to arrest and reverse the continued diminution of its fleet,” the report says.... the shipbuilding industry has shrunk amid waning demand, and the Navy’s maintenance yards are overwhelmed. Maintenance delays and backlogs are the result of running the fleet too hard: On a typical day in June, roughly one-third of the 298-ship fleet was deployed, double the average of the Cold War.

It’s worse in the Air Force, which gets a “very weak” rating.

The Army remains "marginal." 

The Marine Corps? "Strong," but weakening:

Of the five services, the Corps is the only one that has a compelling story for change, has a credible and practical plan for change, and is effectively implementing its plan to change. However, in the absence of additional funding in FY 2023, the Corps intends to reduce the number of its battalions even further from 22 to 21, and this reduction, if implemented, will limit the extent to which it can conduct distributed operations as it envisions and replace combat losses (thus limiting its ability to sustain operations). 

The whole document would take several hours to read, and more to study carefully, but if you just want the conclusions they are here. 

A Request for Elise

Many years ago, we had a discussion about polygamy here that produced a novel argument from Elise about why it was incompatible with our legal system. AVI is having a discussion now, and I wanted to see if you -- Elise -- could recall how your argument went. I saw a court in New York recently recognized a plural marriage as being 'equally valid,' and as I recall your argument was one about the legal rather than the moral tradition. I want to say it had something to do with how benefits are assigned, but I can't quite remember. 

Shots from Moonshiner 28

A nice little farm in a Carolina valley.

Atop a bridge over a county line.

Above Lake Fontana.

Two Posts on Religion

One from James, on the disciplines of patience; and one from the Orthosphere, reminding us that there were two beasts. 

Now 'beast' as a term is ambiguous. It's not the same, for example, as 'monster.' A monster is always disordered because it violates nature and natural law, the latter of which is derived from the instructions of divine law. A beast is ordinarily natural: Proverbs 12:10 has 'the righteous man has regard for his beast,' meaning whatever animals he might own. There's nothing necessarily disordered about a beast.

So I looked this up in the Sacra Vulgata, which is the oldest language text version of the Bible I can actually read -- Greek and Aramaic are not in my skill set, except for such small things as I've done with Greek in the commentaries here -- and there Proverbs 12:10 has animas rather than bestiam as does Revelations (which in the Sacra Vulgata is called "Apocalypsis"). That suggests to me that the term is intended in its negative connotation, rather than in its natural one.

Nevertheless, the fact that we can find regular and repetitive tokens that instantiate the dynamic described in the prophecy -- the Orthosphere goes from Nimrod to the present Leviathan -- suggests that this sort of creature is produced naturally in the sense of 'ordinarily by the operation of nature.' There's a kind of form involved, in other words: it's a thing that happens 'always or for the most part,' as Aristotle says.

We can distinguish, they usefully note, thusly:

St. Luke tells us that when Jesus first set his face towards Jerusalem, there was a Samaritan village that “did not receive him.”  Indignant at this affront, James and a much younger John asked Jesus, “wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven.”  Jesus, lamb-like in more than appearance, then rebuked them saying,

“ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.  For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them” (Luke 9: 52-56).

The Second Beast calls down fire to destroy anyone who does not worship the First Beast and its “hideous strength.”  And it does this “in the sight of man,” nowadays on television, so that others will think twice before inviting such a rain of fire. 

That is a very helpful discussion in learning to identify this ordinary thing from the genuinely divine thing it seeks to mimic. 

Glorious October Continues

Yesterday we went west to the Stecoah Valley, where there is a cultural center that was holding a harvest festival. The cultural center is there all the time. It is located in an old school and gymnasium, both built out of cinderblocks faced with attractive river stone. Both school and gymnasium are furnished with beautiful wood that was clearly constructed locally by the hands of people who cared about how it was done, perhaps because their own children or grandchildren would be schooled there. One can easily imagine those few generations who lived in that remote valley, working the land between the gorgeous mountains, raising their children in a school they built themselves. It was and still is a long way from anything.

It is on one of the roads to the Tail of the Dragon, though, so you are likely to see some beautiful motorcycles and the occasional sports car on your drive. It is just outside the western frontier of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, too, and though there are no entrances to the park over that way one can hike into the park via several trailheads. It's also not too far from the Fontana village resort, located high in the mountains for the dam builders who crafted the dam on the Little Tennessee River that creates Fontana Lake. 

Anyway, I haven't been thinking of interesting things to discuss here. Go forth and do likewise if you're able; the glorious autumn only comes once a year, and it can be fleeting.

Bee Stings: News You Can Use

 9 Upsides Of A Nuclear Apocalypse

10 Infractions For Which PayPal Will Remove $2,500 From Your Account

Muslim Families Back On No-Fly List After Attending School Board Meeting

Jan 6 Panel Continues To Hold Hearings For Stuffed Animals And Action Figures They Arranged In Chairs

Christians Finding It Easier To Stop Storing Up Treasure On Earth Under Biden

Democrats Accuse Ghostbusters Of Voter Intimidation

Friday Night Concert

 

Clown World

 New tune from Remy

Bigger Idiots than Usual

Two morons from an organization called "Just Stop Oil" attempted to destroy a Van Gogh painting of sunflowers. Well, sunflower oil is a thing, I guess. Destroying an oil painting of an oil-producing plant must have seemed like it was in their lane.

Their minds don't seem to work very well in general:

She went on to say: "The cost of living crisis is part of the cost of oil prices.

"Fuel is unaffordable to millions of cold, hungry families. They can't even afford to heat a tin of soup."

She started to add "meanwhile, crops are failing..." before a gallery security guard arrived and moved onlookers away and the clip comes to an end.....

Ms Holland, from Newcastle, told a reporter: "UK families will be forced to choose between heating or eating this winter, as fossil fuel companies reap record profits. But the cost of oil and gas isn't limited to our bills.

"Somalia is now facing an apocalyptic famine, caused by drought and fuelled by the climate crisis.

"Millions are being forced to move and tens of thousands face starvation.

"This is the future we choose for ourselves if we push for new oil and gas."

Ms Plummer, from London, said: "Is art worth more than life? More than food? More than justice?

"The cost of living crisis is driven by fossil fuels-everyday life has become unaffordable for millions of cold hungry families-they can't even afford to heat a tin of soup.

While it is true that oil prices are part of the cost of living, the relationship is almost inverse from the one she imagines. If you want to help feed more people, or help poor people afford food, reducing the transport costs is one of the best ways you can do it. If you want crops not to fail, fertilizer is part of the answer -- and fertilizer needs to be transported too. On a small farm with a horse, you can do that with a shovel and a wheelbarrow, but there are limits to that production model.

Apparently destroying works of art is their new thing, though:

Cake has previously been smeared across the Mona Lisa in Paris while other activists have glued their hands to masterpieces by Botticelli and Boccioni.

While Two Extinction Rebellion protesters were arrested at the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia last weekend after gluing themselves to the 1951 Picasso painting Massacre in Korea.

Destroying these works of art makes sense for them. Their real target is civilization, after all.

Just Write It Down

I have a phone call in a few minutes so that this woman I work with can 'relay a request' to me. If she had just written down the request in an email, the request would already be relayed and I would have a written record of exactly what its terms are. Instead, I spent more time than it would have taken to read an email on back-and-forth texting to arrange the call she wanted half an hour later, and that call will now take as long as it takes for her to tell me what she didn't write down.

The written word is your friend. You can absorb ten times as much information by reading an article about a topic than by watching a TV news report about it. There are some few people who are so personally important to me that I'd rather talk to them than read what they have to say, and for them I'd rather have the call or the meeting. Everyone else, write it down.

Sixty/Forty: Giving or Taking?

Laughing Wolf is one of the old BLACKFIVE crew; I've had tacos with him. He's putting the odds of nuclear war at 40/60, but the odds of 'a nuclear incident' at 60/40. He expects some escalatory measures first:

Third, I would expect to see MOPP gear show up for Russian/Wagner troops. Open question for any OSINT who read this: is anyone seeing any MOPP gear with any Russian troops anywhere? Heck, is anyone seeing any MOPP gear anywhere?

That's a good point. 

Fall Festival Season

Being a very lucky man, I have two unplanned calendar benefits in my life that keep me from missing important anniversaries. First, my birthday occurs immediately before my wife's, so that even if I happen to forget about both of them completely I am reminded right before my having forgotten could become a problem. Second, our anniversary happens to coincide exactly with our son's birthday and, on many years, Father's Day. That gives us two family festivals, one in October and one in June, in addition to the high festivals such as Christmas.

Usually the fall festival includes a trip to the Stone Mountain Highland Games, but this year we are not able to make the trip. Things should be beautiful up here as well, though, so it should be all right.

These aren't such high holidays that I get off of work for them -- I had five hours of meetings today, for example -- but they do provide a moment of joy.

Starlink and War Fighting

Apparently Elon Musk has begun standing down his early support for Ukraine, on the stated concern that further Russian reverses might lead to nuclear war. I also think that Russia might use nuclear weapons. Partly this is because Soviet Russia never believed in the US doctrine of "Mutually Assured Destruction," but rather in a doctrine called "Nuclear War Fighting." Use of nuclear weapons on a tactical basis was always part of their doctrine. 

More, it's because the collapse of the prestige of the Russian military poses a kind of existential threat to Russia. China, which opened this game pledging support for Russia in order to gain a precedent for its own longed-for seizure of Taiwan, must now be looking west at Russia with a growing appetite. If Russia proves gutless as well as toothless, why not take Siberia or some of the 'stans? Taiwan can wait.

Further, I notice with alarm that American and NATO support for the Ukrainian war continues well beyond what we can plausibly deny. There are aspects of some of this that we can pretend might or might not have been us, but there's no doubt that the US military and intelligence community are outright involved in the war. One can only carry out acts of war, even against an aggressor nation like Russia, for so long without tripping any tripwires that are out there.

Our intelligence community continues to assert in public that they see no signs that Russia's nuclear forces might be readying for action. Perhaps; but they saw no signs that Pakistan nor Libya were developing nuclear weapons at all. Assuredly watching the Russians has been a major focus of theirs, but so too was watching the Taliban -- which they assured us could not hope to advance rapidly on Kabul. 

The Musk proposal conveys everything Russia wants, allowing them -- like the Mouth of Sauron's ask -- to gain at the table what they otherwise might have to fight a long war to obtain. Perhaps they do not have the strength for that war, nuclear weapons or not. Yet we also do not have the strength our leadership seems to believe that we do; we are no longer the power we once were, the one that bestrode the world at the end of Reagan's time. Our military now is far smaller, its equipment exhausted by decades of war, and presently unable to recruit soldiers or sailors or even many Marines. The nation is too divided for a draft, especially for another foreign adventure in a place to which few Americans have personal ties. 

Perhaps the beatitudes are right, and the peacemakers are blessed. 

A Threat to Our Democracy

Tulsi Gabbard leaves the Democratic Party, citing "God-given freedoms." 

More Autumnal Glory

A panoramic view from Sam Knob (6068 ft).

Myself looking at the Devil's Courthouse / Judaculla's Judgment Seat from the opposite direction as last time. This is the view from the northeast; yesterday, from the southwest.

On the way back from this jaunt, we came across a party of Germans near Balsam Lake, one of whom had suffered a traumatic compound fracture of her femur. This was occasioned by slipping and falling down while trying to reach the lake for some tourist purpose. Strongman practice proved very useful in clearing fallen trees off the trail so that the ambulance could deliver a stretcher to within ten (vertical) feet of her location; and then I got to tie one of the knots in the Technical Rescue system we used to move her up those ten feet. After that I assisted in moving the stretcher to the ambulance. 

Very satisfying day.

Happy Ethnic Pandering Festival

Today and tomorrow include three competing holidays. The main one currently is "Indigenous People's Day."

On Indigenous Peoples’ Day, we honor the sovereignty, resilience, and immense contributions that Native Americans have made to the world; and we recommit to upholding our solemn trust and treaty responsibilities to Tribal Nations, strengthening our Nation-to-Nation ties.

For centuries, Indigenous Peoples were forcibly removed from ancestral lands, displaced, assimilated, and banned from worshiping or performing many sacred ceremonies.  Yet today, they remain some of our greatest environmental stewards.  They maintain strong religious beliefs that still feed the soul of our Nation.  And they have chosen to serve in the United States Armed Forces at a higher rate than any other group.  Native peoples challenge us to confront our past and do better, and their contributions to scholarship, law, the arts, public service, and more continue to guide us forward.

Leif Erikson Day, which is today, also drew a presidential proclamation this year.

Over 1,000 years ago, Leif Erikson, son of Iceland and grandson of Norway, embarked on a historic journey across the Atlantic, landing on the shores of North America.  Widely believed to be the first Europeans to set foot on this continent, he and his crew embodied traits that would come to define a uniquely American spirit — restless and bold, brave and optimistic, and in search of a better future.  This same spirit would guide generations of Danes, Finns, Icelanders, Norwegians, and Swedes to immigrate and build new lives in the United States.  It would lead countless families to plant roots in the Great Lakes States, the northern Great Plains, and enclaves across the Nation.  It remains ingrained in the hearts of roughly 11 million Americans who trace their ancestry to Nordic countries today.

On Leif Erikson Day, we celebrate Nordic-Americans and all the ways they strengthen the fabric of our Nation.  They are leaders in business and philanthropy, educators and scholars, artists and inventors, doctors and nurses, first responders, service members, and so much more.  In every field and throughout every community, their contributions help bring us closer to making the promise of America real for every American.

On this day, we also reaffirm our strong partnerships with Nordic nations and their people. 

And the displaced Columbus Day got one too.

In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed from the Spanish port of Palos de la Frontera on behalf of Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand II, but his roots trace back to Genoa, Italy.  The story of his journey remains a source of pride for many Italian Americans whose families also crossed the Atlantic.  His voyage inspired many others to follow and ultimately contributed to the founding of America, which has been a beacon for immigrants across the world.

Many of these immigrants were Italian, and for generations, Italian immigrants have harnessed the courage to leave so much behind, driven by their faith in the American dream — to build a new life of hope and possibility in the United States. Today, Italian Americans are leaders in all fields, including government, health, business, innovation, and culture.

Columbus Day is formally on the 12th of October, but used to get moved around in order to craft a 3-day weekend for government workers. For some reason they're still moving it to Monday even though they no longer consider it a day off -- well, they still take the day off, but not on account of Columbus any more. 

I'm struck by how each of these proclamations is almost identical: mention the historic issue, pander to a particular ethnic group, talk about their contributions to 'all fields' or 'every field' or 'every community.' Your group is so special, just like everyone else's!

"Alleged to be Associated with Groups Connected To..."

A Furman University professor is on leave after having attended a very unpopular political rally back in 2017. (H/t: Instapundit) As noted at the link, his activity appears to be protected by both the Constitution and South Carolina state law as well as Furham's own rules, but he is on leave anyway.

The university president explains:

...one of our faculty members participated in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, and is alleged to be associated with other organizations that are connected with white supremacist groups that promote racism, exclusion and hatred.

Now that is quite a standard, even under the old definition of "white supremacist groups." Say the KKK is your white supremacist group -- and no arguing they are, and that they are evil and undesirable elements in society. So now we are looking at a group that is "connected" to them, which could mean a group from which they occasionally recruit or with which they share certain views -- say the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Barring a faculty member in South Carolina for being a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans would be a remarkable standard.

These days, however, the new definition of 'white supremacism' already embraces the Sons of Confederate Veterans. So now you're looking for people who are 'alleged to be associated' with groups that are connected to SCV -- say, the local historical society in Charleston, SC, which might have speakers occasionally who are SCV members (as they are often amateur historians who have done a lot of research and may have collections of primary sources). 

And this is an allegation of an association with a group connected, etc. 

I don't know the guy; maybe he's an outspoken jerk in real life. It does seem like we're pretty far down the string, though, if we're roping in people who are 'alleged to be associated with those connected with....'

Getting Pretty on High

 The Devil’s Courthouse in autumnal glory. 

Proper Child Rearing

I don't know how to embed twitter videos here, so here's a link to America's youngest Roman legionnaires. (H/t Ace's Overnight Thread on Twitter)

BB: Californians Move to Texas

 

Relaxing Neighbors

The mother was just out of frame. These little fellows are here most evenings. The sign you can barely make out behind them reads, “NO HUNTING,” which may partly explain their comfort on my land. I have enforced that rule since moving here. Even the wildlife may have picked up on it. 

Big guy

This fellow is probably about 11 feet long. A neighbor snapped that picture from the local beach road, probably about 30 feet away. We'd seen him at that location on the same day.

Weaving and Power

Archaeologist Michèle Hayeur Smith at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, has discovered that Viking women weaved a highly standardized cloth valued as a currency in Iceland in the Viking era....

"Textiles and what women made were as critical as hunting, building houses, and power struggles," Hayeur Smith said... Smith has a fashion degree in Paris and has focused on Viking women's cloth during her Ph.D. studies at Glasgow University in the 1990s. 

This is not exactly a groundbreaking discovery, as the role of women in producing woven cloth was hardly shrouded in mystery. Rather, it is documented extensively in sagas, histories, epics, even mythology -- think of the Norns weaving fate.

She is putting the cart before the horse, though, in claiming that weaving gave women power in Viking society. Women in ancient Greece were extremely talented weavers too. They didn't parlay that into power in their society; in fact, it was one of the qualities that made even aristocratic women sought-after slaves. The fear of the Trojan women in the Iliad is that their husbands and sons will be killed, but that they will spend the rest of their lives weaving for a Greek master. 

Why didn't they just go on strike? The idea of women striking in other ways occurred to the Greeks. Their skills were highly valuable: arguably quality cloth was one of the main forms of wealth produced in the ancient and medieval worlds. 

Fear of violence, I suppose. So why were free Viking women also free of violence? The laws of the North punished any transgression against them especially harshly -- as did the culture. In Njals Saga, Gunnar's wife Hallgerður rebukes her husband's having struck her by refusing to braid some of her hair into a bowstring that might have saved him from an attack. He accepted this even though it meant his death. 

No, the cart goes after the horse. Women in the North were treated with a kind of rough equality and much greater respect than in the south, even though they both could perform excellent weaving. The mastery of the craft did not drive the respect and equality: the respect and equality came first.

Yeah, Us Too, Kids

The Intercept has an investigative journalism piece about the CIA's, and Russia's, failures in Ukraine. I was struck by this explanation for Russian combat inefficiency: 

Additionally, Putin imposed an invasion plan on the Russian military that was impossible to achieve, one current U.S. official argued. “You can’t really separate out the issue of Russian military competency from the fact that they were shackled to an impossible plan, which led to poor military preparation,” the official said.

Let's make some slight substitutions to that.

Additionally, [the Biden administration] imposed an [Afghanistan withdrawal] plan on the [American] military that was impossible to achieve... “You can’t really separate out the issue of [American] military competency from the fact that they were shackled to an impossible plan, which led to poor military preparation[.]"

Ultimately the military leadership in both places is corrupted by their proximity to power, and their refusal to take the professional hit that would come from resigning in protest rather than executing terrible orders. I don't know that the VDV is nearly as good as the 82nd Airborne, but neither of them can execute until the corruption problem is fixed, because the corruption problem handcuffs the military to an incompetence problem. Elected leadership controlling the military's policy may make good sense, but strategy, operations, and tactics should be left to the professionals. 

Some 2nd Amendment Links

The law in NY that was allowed to go into effect even though it was unconstitutional has now been partly halted, for being unconstitutional.

Support for red flag laws turns into opposition to red flags once people are told what red flag laws actually entail.

FBI data on active shooters is massively flawed, argues John Lott's newest research: in non-gun-free zones, 50% of active shootings are stopped by lawfully armed citizens. Including all of America, the number is 34%. The FBI put it at four percent.

Wonderful

Forbes has taken up with something called the "National Voter Education Week Steering Committee." Nothing called a "steering committee" steers otherwise than to the left.

In a poll taken last November, 77% of Americans said they consider their employer the most trusted institution in their lives - ahead of the government and media sources. Consumers are prioritizing socially responsible businesses. The upshot: Corporate America has an unprecedented opportunity to support civic engagement in the United States. Voter education specifically provides a unique space for businesses to support their communities’ civic health, and strengthen their relationships with customers and employees in the process.

If I am reading that right the idea this: having destroyed faith in government and media institutions, the 'steering committee' would like to capture another institution in which you still might have some faith and use that to try to 'steer' you instead. Towards 'socially responsible' things, of course.

Of course, voter education isn’t the only avenue through which businesses can demonstrate values that align with younger voters. America’s youngest generations are the most diverse in the country’s history and care deeply about racial justice. Businesses can also stand more broadly for civic values and practices - specifically in defense against rising threats to democracy.

Great, just what we needed. Thanks Forbes -- and the long list of activist organizations, printed at the bottom of the article -- for trying to bring coerced conformity with your politics into one more area of our lives.

Finding Academic Papers

The old cyberpunk motto from the late 70s/early 80s was 'information wants to be free.' The internet's promise was that it would bring much of human knowledge to everyone. In some ways that promise has been fulfilled -- Project Gutenberg, for example. Yet the twin problems of political/tribal censorship and gatekeeping prevent a lot of knowledge from being accessible.

The problem in academia is that publishing is necessary for a successful career, and the journals with the most prestigious names are not open-source. Academics will generally be more than happy to share their work with you if you can find them and ask for a copy. However, if they want to be successful they have no choice but to try to publish it in a journal that is very likely to be behind gates. This system is terribly corrupt, to my way of thinking: young scholars toil for free, are paid nothing even once they get accepted, and the journals profit off their work by selling it at exorbitant prices to academic universities, where the people cannot read it. My own work is nearly always published in the open sources, which means that I will never be hired by an academic department; but it also means that anyone, anywhere can read it for free.

Here is a list of several ways of getting at academic papers you may be interested in, with a summary of just how legal each method is for anyone concerned about that. To summarize:

How to access papers for free 

1. Sci-Hub

2. Unpaywall

3. Open Access Button

4. Paper Panda

5. 12ft ladder

If you are like me, and occasionally see a story about a paper you'd like to examine for yourself, this may be useful to you. 

The Glories of October

October is my favorite month of the year. The color has only just begun to appear here, and is very far from its eventual glory. The riding weather remains excellent in spite of the sudden drop in temperature following the equinox. My motorcycle is currently in need of a new rear tire -- I noticed cloth showing through on Monday -- but I hope to have it back up and running by Saturday once the new tire is delivered. 

This month contains the nicest weather of the year except for arguably a similar period in the spring. It has the glorious color absent in the spring. It has my birthday and my wife's, Halloween, and all the pleasures of fall. If I'm posting a little less often, it is chiefly because I am out in the weather as much as I can get away from my desk.

In the smoker: Chuck Roast for Carne Asada, Beef Ribs, and some last summer Poblanos being Converted into Anchos

Goodbye, Loretta Lynn

Another gone home. 

UPDATE: Any Loretta Lynn fans might find my choice of songs surprising. She had 14 songs banned from the radio, often for raising feminist perspectives in 1960s country music; and she was the artist of the year in 1972, the first time a woman ever was. 

This song, by contrast, is just as she describes it, laughing: "a silly song." I've always liked it, though. It is both playful and illuminating. I'm struck by the way the female she is playing keeps saying things like, "Do what you want, I don't care," though in fact she obviously does care; indeed, she is the one who wants it. It proves that the boy 'doesn't know why we're here,' and is still trying to play Tom-Sawyer tricks to get the attention of a young woman whose attention he already has.

You rarely see those aspects of romance successfully portrayed in a song, and here in a way in which the inevitable miscommunication leaves them still friendly and romantic. I think it's a nice piece, and she and Conway Twitty are clearly having fun with each other singing it.

A Friend Indeed

An actual amicus brief before the Supreme Court, by The Onion.

A Lonely Life

The [University of Georgia's] comparative literature, English, history, religion and sociology departments do not have any Republicans teaching their students. The classics, geography and philosophy departments each have one Republican professor...

Actually I know that guy, and he isn't lonely:  he is one of the few -- only? -- professors in that department to have a complete and flourishing family life, a religious community, as well as many professional friends and relationships. He is universally beloved even eventually by his students, to whom he is a terrifying master during doctoral research. 

Artist's Representation of UGA's Sole Republican Philosopher

So Why Haven't You?

Whoever writes these things for Joe has a great opening line.

My dad used to say, “Joey, don’t compare me to the Almighty. Compare me to the alternative.”

And here’s the deal: Democrats want to codify Roe. Republicans want a national ban on abortion. The choice is clear.

I don't know that it's clear that "Republicans" want a national ban on abortion, although Lindsey Graham claims that he does -- claims, I say, since he proposed it knowing that he had nowhere near the votes to effectuate it. I have noticed that Republican politicians frequently propose doing things right up until they have the votes to do them, at which point they suddenly don't manage it -- repealing Obamacare, say, which they ran on for years and years until they had to have McCain defect at the last minute to avoid actually doing it.

But isn't that also true now of Democrats? If "Democrats want to codify Roe," what's stopping it from happening? Democratic politicians have 51 votes in the Senate, a majority in the House, and the Presidency. Republicans in the Senate, if anything, seem to be hedging in favor of at least a federalist approach to abortion rather than daring to support anything like a ban. Maybe one could get a few of them to overcome a filibuster; or otherwise, set the filibuster aside on abortion issues. 

They aren't any of them serious about this stuff, I begin to think. It's just a way of keeping people divided and fired up, and keeping the donations rolling in.

Permanent National Interests

George Washington's Farewell Address is increasingly relevant today. One of its three lessons was that faction must not come to dominate American political life lest the "alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension" should destroy the institutions of liberty. This would, he argued, incline people to prefer the dominion of one powerful enough never to lose power again, so that the hated other could be suppressed forever; this is the very issue at play in yesterday's discussion of the suppression of protected political speech for factional reasons.

Truly, there are many matters here worthy of discussion. Just one: "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens."

Another: "As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible... avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertion in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear."

Most famously, though, Washington warned against entangling alliances and permanent animosities or friendships with foreign nations. Rather, he advocated a commercial approach to foreign affairs, guided by commerce, seeking peace when possible wherever in the world American merchants could do business. "Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing[.]"

Within a few years, we had a Navy in practice as well as in name, and were at war with the Barbary Pirates.

Partly this was due to the change of administrations, and indeed of factions: Washington was roughly aligned with the Federalists, and the war was led by Jefferson (founder of what was then called the Republican faction, but which later became the Democratic Party). Yet partly it was a fulfillment of Washington's vision: a permanent American interest, just because it aimed to be a nation of international commerce, was the freedom of shipping. This was especially true for American ships, but also for any ships of any nation that were involved in trade with the United States.

The United States had tried Washington's approach, and had treaties with all four of the Barbary States. Indeed Jefferson had himself helped negotiate those treaties, and later -- as Secretary of State -- had reported to Congress on their violation. It was not Jefferson, but the pasha, who declared the war and initiated hostilities. Yet Jefferson had long ago realized that it would be necessary to use force to secure the freedom of the seas. 

This is an interest of a nation like America that is so permanent that I cannot see how it can ever be surrendered except with nationality itself; even then, whatever succeeds the nation will retain the interest and will have to find ways to pursue it. Thus the Constitution establishes a permanent Navy, even as it warns against a standing Army. One way or another, commerce must flow if a nation founded on peaceful commerce is to flourish, or even to survive. Washington's gentle vision may be coupled to an isolationist bent in terms of involvement in foreign wars, but the capacity to defend our shipping and secure the sea lanes is something we cannot lay down.

In Honor of the Late Hurricane

What Political Speech is Protected?

Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH) says that he is being told by FBI insiders that there is a purge against whistleblowers criticizing the FBI's pursuit of politicized "law enforcement." 

The FBI is allegedly engaging in a "purge" of employees with conservative viewpoints and retaliating against whistleblowers who have made protected disclosures to Congress by revoking security clearances, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee Rep. Jim Jordan told Fox News Digital.

Generally one might doubt a partisan's word in a partisan debate, but on this occasion there is good reason to believe him: Attorney General Merrick Garland explicitly said that he would go after anyone in DOJ who spoke to Congress about their concerns. He claims it is illegal to talk to your Congressman about your concerns.

Mr. Garland wrote that all communication with Congress must be conducted through the department’s office of legislative affairs.

The policy is “to protect our criminal and civil law enforcement decisions, and our legal judgment from partisans or other inappropriate influences, whether real or perceived or indirect,” he said in the memo, sent late Tuesday.

He stressed that the new policies “are not intended to conflict with or limit whistleblower protections” and that “Congress may carry out its legislative oversight functions.”

Kurt Siuzdak, a former FBI agent and a lawyer who represents bureau whistleblowers, said the memo is targeting employees who want to speak out against misconduct.

“There’s no whistleblower status, per se. If you make a protected disclosure of criminal wrongdoing or serious misconduct, and then they retaliate, you go to the office of attorney recruitment and management and they basically will remove any personnel actions after two to five years, and people know it’s two to five years. And they know the office of general counsel is going to fight and cause [sic] them lots of money,” he said.

“‘So if it’s not a whistleblower, then we’re coming after you’ is what they would say,’” he said. “‘If we determine you’re not a whistleblower, then we’re going to retaliate. … Because if you’re going to report misconduct to the Congress, and that doesn’t rise to the level of misconduct, then we’re going to take action.’’’

The First Amendment clearly intends to protect political speech above all forms of speech; and the right to appeal to Congress, which is the branch the Founders addressed in Article I of the Constitution before they gave a thought to the executive or judicial, is surely the most important subset of this kind of political speech. The representative branch is the first branch, and the right to petition it for redress of grievances is part of the first freedom.

It seems to me Congress ought to impeach any executive branch official who bars employees from talking with their elected legislator about concerns of executive branch misconduct. That ought to be a bipartisan, nonpartisan front that Congress cared about as a defense of its own prerogatives as a co-equal Constitutional branch (or even, one could readily argue from the Founding commentary and very organization of the Constitution, the primus inter pares of the three Constitutional branches).

Unfortunately, partisanship is now stronger than the interests of the different branches in protecting their part of the division of powers. This indicates a serious disease in the bone structure of the republic; that the courts increasingly appear to be dividing on the partisan lines of judges' personal politics is another symptom.

Sunset on the far Wall

The rain was still in Savannah at sunset, but the farthest cloud wall was visible in the south. Rain originally was predicted to start tonight, but now it sounds like the afternoon or evening of Friday. We should be perfectly ready. 

Bank Robbery by the FBI

Legal Insurrection cites the LA Times: In asking for a warrant to search private safe deposit boxes, FBI did not disclose its intention to steal everything it found worth more than $5,000.

The language in the two versions differs, as one would expect, but it is pretty strong even in the LAT version which can be expected to have no right-wing sympathies (but, probably, connections to aggrieved rich LA people who lost property in the raid). I'll quote from that one.

FBI misled judge who signed warrant for Beverly Hills seizure of $86 million in cash

The privacy invasion was vast when FBI agents drilled and pried their way into 1,400 safe-deposit boxes at the U.S. Private Vaults store in Beverly Hills.

They rummaged through personal belongings of a jazz saxophone player, an interior designer, a retired doctor, a flooring contractor, two Century City lawyers and hundreds of others....

Eighteen months later, newly unsealed court documents show that the FBI and U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles got their warrant for that raid by misleading the judge who approved it.

They omitted from their warrant request a central part of the FBI’s plan: Permanent confiscation of everything inside every box containing at least $5,000 in cash or goods, a senior FBI agent recently testified.

The FBI’s justification for the dragnet forfeiture was its presumption that hundreds of unknown box holders were all storing assets somehow tied to unknown crimes, court records show.

Now, I'm not a lawyer, but that looks like a prima facie, plain language violation of the 4th Amendment. 

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

No warrants shall issue except on probable cause of a crime, not a presumption that unknown crimes may have occurred; and property to be seized is to be particularly described, not just generally entailed by a broad warrant. 

That police are not supposed to keep from the judge that the purpose of the raid is to collect vast wealth and then keep it didn't make it into the text, probably because the Founders thought you'd need a letter of marque and reprisal for that kind of wholesale privateering and seizure. That was already covered in Article I, Sec. 8:

"To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water[.]"

This should have required issuance of such a letter by Congress, following a declaration of war on the people (citizens of Los Angeles, I suppose) who were to be subject to such piratical predations by armed agents of the state. 

Massive Hells Angel Funeral Addressed by... Tucker Carlson

D29 wrote to ask if I'd known about this. I knew about Sonny Barger's death, which was memorialized here, and about the massive funeral being planned for it. I did not know, and would not have imagined, that Tucker Carlson would be invited (or even allowed) to speak there. Maybe they didn't know who he was. 

I'm amused that he thought he needed to explain to bikers that Maine was "at the other end of the country," as if they didn't know the physical layout of America better than anyone except perhaps truckers. 

UPDATE: There is surprisingly minimal coverage of this event, because the press generally wasn't welcome. Video of the event was controlled by the biker community, available online on a pay-per-view basis; I haven't seen any pirated clips floating around, which is indicative of how self-supporting the community is. Nobody seems to be giving interviews.

Here's a local TV station who found a vendor from inside the event who was willing to talk to them; and the police, who of course spent "millions of dollars" on whatever it was they did to 'secure' a perfectly peaceful memorial gathering.

  

One Would Need A Heart of Stone

It’s not nice to laugh at the sincere and earnest youth, but sometimes it can’t be helped. 

The General’s Hot Sauce

Even by the standard of veteran-owned companies with a veteran-owned theme, the packaging here is super kitschy. Nevertheless I am going to recommend it because the product is high-quality.  

My sister sent me these, which is lucky because I probably would not have bought them for myself. However, I'm really impressed. The pepper sauce is 86% ripe peppers, the rest being small amounts of garlic, vinegar, and salt. Even though this is their hottest version, it is not super hot because they are using natural peppers -- from left to right, cayenne, a mixture of cayenne and habanero, and pure habanero. 

Many commercial sauces use only around twenty percent pepper matter, and make up the heat with refined capsaicin oil so the sauce is thinner and hotter but not as thick and delicious. Others use engineered peppers like Carolina Reapers that are not as flavorful as the natural peppers. This one is more expensive than a bottle of big-brand sauce from the store, but it's pretty great.

Perfecting Nature through Reason

This came up at D29's place a couple of weeks ago, and I was reminded this morning when briefly noticing an article about Democrats making fun of Republicans for being gay. Both of the issues that raised this matter are small by comparison to the matter itself, which is a titanic thread of philosophical history that is in grave danger of being washed away by opposition to some of its conclusions. 

In a country as divided as our own has become, even to describe the position as 'the right's position' is to immediately set much of the world against it before they've heard it, so they will spend their time looking for things to object to about it rather than first understanding it. But it is also being described as 'the left's position' -- the concern about mRNA being raised at D29's place is that it aims to perfect nature rather than accepting the consequences of living in a fallen world, and that this is a sort of Gnosticism. Both sides end up primed to reject a really important idea without thinking it through.

The idea is at least as old as Aristotle and Plato, was argued for by St. Thomas Aquinas, and in the Enlightenment by Immanuel Kant. It could still be wrong, but the best minds of human history have found it persuasive. In its basic form I can see nothing wrong with it. You may object to some of the outlying conclusions without rejecting the foundational idea; it is more likely, I think, that someone went wrong along the way to one of those outlying conclusions than that the heart of the idea is wrong. 

So, the idea is that human beings have a nature; that nature includes access to reason, as well as parts that are not rational; and that the correct approach is to apply the rational part to trying to understand the irrational parts and correct them where they aren't quite right. 

You can state this idea in ancient terms, Medieval terms, Enlightenment terms, and contemporary terms. There are important differences in how you frame it: for example, Aristotle would say that the parts of our nature each aim at some good, for example eyes aim at sight and the goods that come of seeing. A contemporary would want to say that nature doesn't properly "aim" at anything; yet even here, there is some good that explains why the random mutation that supposedly gives rise to sighted beings is a quality that persists and becomes a normal part of that kind of beings' nature via natural selection. The contemporary position is differently stated, but it is mostly so in terms of applying a technical layer of clarification to eliminate anthropomorphism. 

It's not really harmful to understanding the point to say it just like Aristotle did, so long as you have the mental capacity to apply the various filters as necessary. Indeed, the best thing of all is to be able to phrase it in all four of these ways, appreciate why they are preserving the same idea, and entertain that each of them makes sense of the facts in ways that are compatible even though they differ on metaphysical conceptions of reality. It's just as likely as not that the contemporary way will be rephrased in the future, but I think this core idea will survive.

Crucial to this core idea is that the rational part of our nature can identify and correct the irrational parts. Our eyes are not, themselves, rational. It is reason that helps us grasp what the good is at which they 'aim' (or at which they were accidentally aimed by mutation and yet which has survived because the good they ended up 'aiming' at was a real good). Once we do that, we can use reason, and therefore technology, to improve the acquisition of the good.

Eyes as we all know see well or badly, some of them better than others; and typically they worsen as we get older. We are able to correct for many of these things with technology, restoring or improving the sight of our eyes to a high degree. This is a positive good. You can say that the Medieval way: because it is a natural good, recognized by natural reason and brought into alignment with the purpose of nature. You can say it the contemporary way: because sight is useful and why should anyone suffer who could be made to see better? 

This gives us then a standard by which to judge the whole process of applying technology to people. This is where people come apart currently, especially on sexuality: the older view holds that you can recognize the good of the natural process by reason, and with sex there are multiple goods (Aquinas names three). Some people think that reproduction is the obvious choice, and object to technological meddling that interferes with or outright destroys the natural capacity to reproduce -- especially in the young, who may not be fully in possession of their reason yet and might not therefore be clear on what their own good really entails. 

Other people think that reproduction is not, at least not currently, a good: the climate scare especially has many people thinking that virtue lies in not reproducing, but pursuing the pleasures that are another good of sex as if those were the primary good, and then passing peacefully into extinction with their whole family line. Even if it is not climate that motivates, a young person might decide they prefer pleasure to the long labors of parenthood; and not just in matters of sex. 'I want my life to be about me, not someone else,' means taking the pleasures and personal accomplishments of life as the primary good, and applying your reason to the question of how to obtain those. 

In the long term the right will end up winning that debate because they will disproportionately survive into future generations. This process has been underway in Israel, for example, for generations now. It was founded by secular Jews, many of them socialists or Communists; it has trended ever rightward as they died off and were not replaced at the same rates as the Orthodox. Ironically this process proves which good is the 'real' good aimed at by nature on natural selection grounds especially; it is those who prefer the contemporary account who ought to be most inclined to recognize that the matter is settled on their own terms. 

In any case, one should not walk away from the idea of reasoning from nature, in order to improve our lives through rational activity and thus technology. It is reasonable to be skeptical of new technology; it is reasonable to take time with it, to see how its long term effects play out before making a final decision about whether it is really rational to incorporate it into your life. It is not merely Gnosticism to do so, however; and it is not irrational to prefer the version of this account on which reproduction and future life are primary goods to guard.  

New Appalachian Country Music

Outlaw rag Whiskyriff  has a collection of some of the younger artists working today. I don't like all of it, I do like some of it, and I'll let you decide for yourselves if any of it appeals to you. 

Heck of a Speech, Ma'am

Now you're talking. Her name is Giorgia Meloni.

I expect her references to 'speculators' will be said to be anti-Semitic, especially since she is openly Catholic and Christian. That was likely enough a hundred years ago when Europeans spoke of speculators, bankers, or even capitalists; these days it's not a code word for a race or a religious group, because there are speculators from all over the world. The objection to them undoing sources of human dignity as a way of making us rootless and helpless before wealth and power is reasonable. 

She mentions how she is no longer allowed to be a mother, just 'Parent 1' or 'Parent 2.' I actually just filled out a Federal form today that insisted on using that exact formula for me and my wife. 

UPDATE: A report from the opposition on their interpretation of your interpretation of this person many of you, like me, hadn't heard of before yesterday.

In the way of such things, I gather that 'most far-right leader since Mussolini' must have gone out in a distribution list as the approved way to describe her: the line appears here also, as well as 'first fascist PM since Mussolini.' So must have 'anti-LGBTQ' rather than 'pro-traditional family.' I didn't hear in the clip anything about gay rights, either for or against them; I did hear her talk emphatically about being a mother and not just a number.

Of perhaps greater interest, she's a big Tolkien fan. That piece of writing is around twenty-five years old, when she was quite young, so don't judge it too harshly. If she found her way from a youthful embrace of Tolkien and his fantasy to full-fledged Catholicism, she followed a well-worn path that was exactly what he'd hoped people would find in his work.

Halfway There

 An essay called 'On the Idea of Equality' makes some important points. Equality is badly understood.

When I say, “One should not confuse equality with sameness,” my interlocutor frequently responds that such a banal truism is unworthy of articulation. I wish this were true, and that this moral principle were self-evident. But it is not.

Just a few days ago, the Atlantic published an essay skeptical of sex segregation in sports which concluded with the assertion that, “…as long as laws and general practice of youth sports remain rooted in the idea that one sex is inherently inferior, young athletes will continue to learn and internalize that harmful lesson.” The unstated premise of this argument is that empirical claims about differences between men and women are also moral claims about the relative value (inferior vs superior) of men and women.

Equality is said in many ways, and as he points out two people may be equally valuable as moral beings without being equally good at basketball. That points up the fact that equality of moral value requires someone who has the right standing to value someone: in the Declaration's formula, the Creator stands in that relationship. God values everyone equally, and bestows dignity and rights in one motion and in the same way for everyone. That kind of equality is true equality.

In the absence of God, the majestic State or the Law has to do this work. But the law does not, empirically, value everyone equally. The Law exists to discriminate between the honest man and the thief, the murderer and the victim. Justice such as laws and states are even capable of are not forms of equality, but forms of balancing: taking life or freedom or property from one, and bestowing it on another. Even when this is done as justly as possible, it is an act of discrimination and differently-valuing. It can of course be done quite unjustly.

The author is not concerned about that.

At one time, many believed that humans were equal because they were equal “in the eyes of God.” Then Darwin and secularism arrived, and today many people no longer believe in a literal human creator. But that does not vitiate the force of the moral claim that humans are equal. In fact, most of us would be appalled by the assertion that, “Since we know that humans are just evolved creatures, they do not deserve equal moral consideration.” Our endorsement of metaphysical equality is not tethered to belief in a benign creator. This is why we can continue to celebrate the eloquent defense of human equality expressed in the US Declaration of Independence while embracing evolution.

It's a bigger problem than he admits. Evolution is what has given rise to all these inequalities, especially the heritable ones he mentions as central. If people who are mathematically and empirically un-alike are to be truly equals, the equality has to be a bestowal. There aren't many metaphysical candidates who stand in the right relationship to us all to be positioned to make such a bestowal, to have both the power and the right.

Shape Note Singing

This is one of Tex’s things, and she can doubtless speak more intelligently about it than I can. All the same, here is a photo from today’s Mountain Heritage Festival at Western Carolina University. I tried to upload a video but it didn’t work.