Robin Hood 3

Robin and the Tea Party:

I keep telling you folks, this is the greatest movie ever made. I'm only joking a little bit. Look at the reactions it produces!

Carlo Rotella, director of American Studies at Boston College, writes in the Boston Globe that this Robin Hood is “A big angry baby [who] fights back against taxes” and that the movie is “hamstrung by a shrill political agenda — endless fake-populist harping on the evils of taxation.” You wonder what Professor Rotella teaches his students about America....

At the Village Voice, Karina Longworth dismisses the movie as “a rousing love letter to the Tea Party movement” in which “Instead of robbing from the rich to give to the poor, this Robin Hood preaches about ‘liberty’ and the rights of the individual as he wanders a countryside populated chiefly by Englishpersons bled dry by government greed.” Gotta love those scare quotes around “liberty.”

Uptown at the New York Times, A. O. Scott is sadly disappointed that “this Robin is no socialist bandit practicing freelance wealth redistribution, but rather a manly libertarian rebel striking out against high taxes and a big government scheme to trample the ancient liberties...

Michael O’Sullivan’s Washington Post review: "Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood”... feels like a political attack ad paid for by the tea party movement, circa 1199. Set in an England that has been bankrupted by years of war in the Middle East — in this case, the Crusades — it’s the story of a people who are being taxed to death by a corrupt government, under an upstart ruler who’s running the country into the ground."

...

"Whatever one may think of Scott’s newest incarnation of the Robin Hood legend, it is more than a little troubling to see alleged liberals speak of liberty and individual rights in a tone of sarcastic dismissal. This is especially ironic since the Robin Hood of myth and folklore probably has much more in common with the “libertarian rebel” played by Russell Crowe than with the medieval socialist of the “rob from the rich, give to the poor” cliché. At heart, the noble-outlaw legend that has captured the human imagination for centuries is about freedom, not wealth redistribution….The Sheriff of Nottingham is Robin’s chief opponent; at the time, it was the sheriffs’ role as tax collectors in particular that made them objects of loathing by peasants and commoners. [In other books and movies] Robin Hood is also frequently shown helping men who face barbaric punishments for hunting in the royal forests, a pursuit permitted to nobles and strictly forbidden to the lower classes in medieval England; in other words, he is opposing privilege bestowed by political power, not earned wealth."

I've written occasionally about how artistic visions, visions of beauty, underlie our ethics and our politics. Getting the aesthetics right is the key to getting the ethics and the politics right. You start with a vision, a vision of what it is to live well and nobly.

This vision is exactly right. When it comes out on DVD, buy a copy for everyone you have any occasion to give a gift. Spread the word, as they say.

Zeralda's Ogre, Post II

Idiots

Idiots:

Here is a fellow who speaks kindly of those who have shown little cause to merit the kind words.

But don’t worry about the forcibly displaced, Yglesias admonishes us, because, “[w]e spoke to one retired couple who was given four apartments—they live in one and rent out the other three to families who’ve either moved out to Cha’an from the central city or else moved to the area from less prosperous regions of China. The town’s current party boss said he was given five apartments.” Klein’s coverage on the website of the Washington Post was equally credulous. He informed his audience, “A conversation with some residents revealed that they didn’t just get one free apartment in the new building. They got four free apartments, three of which they were now renting out. And medical coverage. And money for furnishings. And a food stipend. And — I’m not kidding, by the way — birthday cakes on their birthdays. Sweet deal.”...

Lenin famously referred to Western sympathizers of the Soviet Union as “useful idiots.” Anyone familiar with Yglesias or Klein’s oeuvre recognizes that they are hardly “idiots,” however. That’s what makes their credulousness so strange and disturbing.

I lived in China, from 2000-1. In a spirited tour, one might miss the fact that people are being forced from their homes, and their homes being destroyed in the next instant. Perhaps that is unimaginable to them, given their own context. Yet it is the case. (The report errs in suggesting that dao means destruction; what it means is "movement," or "way," in the sense of Daoism, the philosophy of the road, of constant change. Destruction is simply the implication of movement; your home is about to move.)

I saw families huddling beneath tarps strung from the last remaining wall of a toppled home. The PRC is ruthless, whether or not it is wicked. It is amazing that these "progressives" do not see, and cannot know.

La Sarabande

La Sarabande:

A man crawls over himself, mouthing strange words in strange tongues; but close your eyes, and listen.



Madness, or genius? Form your opinion now: we will talk about this again, soon.

Riding the Mountains

Riding the Mountains:

Yesterday's post from Alaska showed some of our country's most majestic beauty, as it appears in the hard and high mountains of the north. Today I will show you some of the beauty that lies in the lush green mountains of my own home.

We began the day with a hike at Amicalola Falls, the tallest waterfall east of the Mississippi river. This was where I was married, eleven years ago this month, and a place where I spent many happy days as a boy. I have never seen it more lovely than yesterday, verdant and throwing off cool mists. The name seems to come from the Cherokee um-ah-eolola, "Sliding Water."



A story: some years ago when I was more interested in distance running, I used to run up the mountain there. Once while doing so, I met a young man carrying his girlfriend on his shoulders up to the top. As I passed him, I said, "Semper Fi, Marine." He said, "How did you know I was a Marine?" I just waved at the girl on his shoulders, and continued running up the trail.

We finished hiking there by midmorning, and still had many miles to travel before getting home. We took the road through the mountains, US 76, which goes through Hiawassee, a town located around an artificial lake built within a bowl wholly surrounded by mountains. From there the road passes into the federal lands and the national forest, before returning to Georgia in Rabun County (home of Rabun Bald, a mountain said by the Cherokee to be inhabited by fire demons).

From there, we traveled to Tallulah Gorge, a majestic canyon.



It was a good day for a long drive, punctuated by hikes to relieve the exhaustion of riding. Now, alas! Back to work.

Olav Trygvasson

Eric notes that Osprey Publishing is offering a limited edition of Angus McBride's print. Some of you may be interested:

The painting depicts the last moments of the battle aboard the Long Serpent, after the breaking of Einar Tambarskelver's bow, but before the King gives way and leaps overboard to his death. When Einar's bow broke, it made so loud a crack above the din of the fight that the king cried to him, "What burst there so loudly?" Einar answered: "Norway, king, from thy hand." The king broke out fresh swords from his sea chest before the final fight, but as he passed them out his men saw that blood was running down his arm.

Across the aft thwarts,
Olav's men must yield;
The hard-striking prince
Urged on his heated carls.
When warriors had locked
The bold king's ship-ways
The path of weapons
Turned against the Vendslayer.

There are many good poems surviving about Olav (also romanized "Olaf"). Most of them originate in his own court skalds. Here is one that has been anglicized in form -- the Old Norse poems do not rhyme, but alliterate.

Olaf's broad axe of shining steel
For the shy wolf left many a meal.
The ill-shaped Saxon corpses lay
Heaped up, the witch-wife's horses'1 prey.
She rides by night: at pools of blood.
Where Frisland men in daylight stood,
Her horses slake their thirst, and fly
On to the field where Flemings lie.
The raven-friend in Odin's dress --
Olaf, who foes can well repress,
Left Flemish flesh for many a meal
With his broad axe of shining steel.

Not all of them do, however! One of the finest poems in Old English considers him. Olav Trygvasson was the Viking leader of the expedition that led to the Battle of Maldon.

Cordova

Three shots from Cordova, AK -

The harbor:

Cordova is a sometimes-recommended vacation spot on Prince William Sound, the next stop on the ferry after Valdez. Unlike Talkeetna, it isn't really built around tourism at all. It's primarily a commercial fishing town (also had a "boom" phase from copper in the first part of the century, but there's no copper trade here now). We still found a firm that offers sea kayak rentals and tours, and loved the experience (if you're tall and you try it for the first time, get some kind of back support). Our hotel, The Reluctant Fisherman, used to be a cannery, as you might guess from the shape.

The mountains, from behind The Powder House:



Not much of a restaurant, but the views are beautiful. The prices aren't high because of tourism; all the prices are high here. Everything comes in by boat or plane. The restaurants serve surprisingly little seafood, because when the fishermen eat out, that's not what they're after. Or so I'm told.

Then again, you can get views like this all over south and south-central Alaska, and a long drive in this state is simply breathtaking.

The Copper River, evening:


Well past 10 PM. There's no road connecting this place to the rest of the world, but there is a 50-mile road that meanders out of town over several bridges, ending at one of the glaciers. (You can find stock footage of the Sheridan and Sherman glaciers all over the web. Why Alaska glaciers are named after them, I do not know.) It's only the end of May, so only 48 miles of this road are clear of snow, and we couldn't quite reach the glacier at the end. A little swamp, plenty of geese, a few ducks, an eagle or two, and a pair of swans. (We heard them sing. They survived.)

Memorial Day.

Bad Clovis People! Bad! Bad!

Wow. Michael Yon is pissed off.

American Airpower Museum, WASPs

I had some Soldiers' Angels duties yesterday at the American Airpower Museum on Long Island, at Republic Airport, where they made planes used in WWII, and which was the launch site for the planes performing in the Air Show at Jones Beach this Memorial Day Weekend.  Got to see the Blue Angels take off. I've seen them perform before but it always gets the blood racing to see them in action.

They had some great displays, stuff I've never seen, people walking around dressed up like the pin-ups girls in the 40's, old planes that could be toured, booths set up by various soldier support causes, a blood drive going on, old cars and trucks used during various wars. Apparently, Republic Airport even has a restaurant that plays music from the 40's. I recommend visiting the American Airpower Museum, which is housed at the airport, if you are ever on Long Island.

Here's one plane that got my attention:

Of course I thought of all of you. They had one called Glamorous Gal, too, but my shot of that was too dark. I take most of my pics I post here with an uncomplicated cell phone.

Since this Hall is so women-friendly, I knew immediately where I'd be posting the following information, all joking aside.

Do you know what a WASP is? I thought I did, until yesterday.

Take a look; I'm embarrased I don't know enough American History to have previously known about the work of these fine ladies.

It took the United States until 1977 to grant full benefits to these ladies - the Women's Airforce Service Pilots, also known as WASPs. Prior to that, a Long Island Newsday article says, they had to take up collections to fly home their comrades who were killed in training accidents. I find that incredible. Link here: http://www.americanairpowermuseum.com/Images/SalutetoWarFemalePilots.pdf.

Excerpt:

These ladies served an important function, ferrying planes made at Republic to Newark, NJ, where they took off again for use during the war. They didn't serve in combat; our guys were needed abroad and might have had to do this work if it weren't for these women. It was an era, as many here fully understand, of pulling together for the sake of country. I like to think that today's soldier support groups are a pale spin-off of this era.

I had the distinct pleasure and honor of meeting Bernice "Bee" Falk Haydu yesterday, who has a book out chronicling the efforts of the WASPs. She is a WASP and boy, she is a glamorous gal if there ever was one. She took off her sunglasses while she was signing my book and her blue eyes could knock you out.  Young men in uniforms were escorting her wherever she went, and they made a point to shake her hand. The world turns...

Recently, President Obama singed a bill granting the Women Airforce Service Pilots a Congressional Gold Medal, finally and formally recognizing their contribution to our country during its time of need.

So, this weekend, take a moment to silently (or publically!) thank the Women Airforce Service Pilots for their service.

 

This was taken at the National Cemetary, nearby.

Martin Gardner, R.I.P.

Another Icon Passes -

Grim notes one, and each to his own, but this last week we lost a splendid writer and thinker: Martin Gardner.

I couldn't begin to do justice to the man, certainly not with the time I'm going to spend writing this. He was primarily a science writer, whose principal hobby was magic (the old close-up performing kind), who loved all kinds of imaginative and whimsical fiction (and was a dedicated quoter and annotater of G.K. Chesterton). Depending on where you ask, he's best known for a "Mathematical Games" column in Scientific American, or for his work in "fringe-watching" and debunking pseudoscience. His first book in that field is over 50 years old but has much of lasting value. My favorite section: the probing, but sympathetic, chapter on Charles Fort.

In that place, though not in those words, he taught me this: magic is as fun and fascinating as I always thought it was, but it loses its charm when people start pretending it's real, especially when it's far past its time. Gardner once wrote a delightful essay on Conan Doyle for the "Baker Street Irregulars" - a society dedicated to the notion that Sherlock Holmes really existed - but if someone started really believing it, the fun would be gone. To be entertained by an illusionist, or learn a few tricks yourself, adds a bit of spice to life - but what could be drearier than the believers in Uri Geller, pretending his furtive games were something true, and the cutting edge of science? "Quantum Theory and Quack Theory" - a chapter in his The New Age: Notes of a Fringe-Watcher - has an especially good contrast between the real strangeness of quantum theory, and the unimaginative silliness of writers who tried to tie it to spoon-bending.[1]

Or, as I might say to Chesterton, you may like the freedom to believe in fairies - but the fairies lose their magic if you do. And what a shame - because, in their rightful state, how beautiful they are.

Gardner taught many things to many people, and brought much delight. One of John Derbyshire's reviews will give a better flavor of what he was like, and what he did, than I can. But I have said my piece.

[1]He knew enough history to liken it to this poor wretch, who figured a slate-writing magician had to be working in four-dimensional space - just as Doyle himself, in his later spiritualist days, was convinced that Houdini had to be dematerializing himself (because Doyle, himself, couldn't figure out how Houdini was doing it).

In Praise of Librarians

In Praise of Librarians:

Christopher Bruce, in his acknowledgements, says this:

First mention goes to my wife, Terri... Second are the men and women of the Interlibrary Loan Office at Northeastern University, Boston. I have never seen a more efficient, more productive group of people in my life. I put in request forms for dozens of books at a time, but the Interlibrary Loan Office never failed to find a single text. Some of the volumes they turned up should have been in museums. I was continually having conversations with them like this:

Me: “I need an 1560 edition of The Book of Taliesin written in Welsh, in the original manuscript, with none of the pages missing. There are only four in the world. I’d like the one that was owned by Lady Charlotte Guest and has an inscription by Queen Victoria inside the front cover.”

The volumes would do less good in museums, than in the hands of men of vision. The librarians who make that happen are the good and worthy servants of humanity.

More on Immigration and Europe

More on Immigration and Europe:

The National Interest has a piece that suggests that Europe is necessarily becoming more Islamic... but, as a tradeoff, the near Islamic world is becoming more like Europe. (H/t: Arts & Letters Daily).

That is the conclusion; but the argument looks at differences in how the various parts of Europe, especially Britain and France, got where they are today. Here is an interesting passage.

THE IMPERIAL experience serves as a backdrop to the markedly contrasting ways that London and Paris have approached the immigration dilemma. France has created an intermingled culture, which is being forged on a daily basis between the native Gaul and the immigrant Arab and Berber. It revolves around two French obsessions: the bed and the dinner table. Your average young Muslim girl is interested in living and having children with a French gouer, a North-African colloquial term meaning “infidel”—i.e., non-Muslim. (Gouer is itself a corruption of the classical Arabic kuffar, used in immigrant slang to designate a French native. They are also known as fromage, or “cheese”—ironically the same synecdoche that was used in the neocon-coined “cheese-eating surrender monkeys.”) These women would loathe the very idea of an arranged marriage to a fellah (peasant) cousin from the far away bled (North Africa) with his unrefined manners and pedestrian French. By the same token, the most popular national dish of France—the country of gastronomy par excellence—regularly confirmed by opinion polls, is couscous, the semolina-based traditional dish of North Africa, now fully assimilated by French palates.

There's something of the same thing going on with us and Mexico, although that is more to our advantage than this may be to Europe's. Salsa has surpassed ketchup as our favorite condiment. How much does that show that we are becoming more like Mexico? Does it go any distance at all to showing that Mexico is becoming more like us?

Yet read on; there are some interesting arguments about the history of British and French colonialism, and their consequences for how modern Islamic immigration interacts with those states.

Merry Men

Merry Men:

So, did you see it?



There's probably still time to find a theater where it is playing.

RIP Coleman

An Icon Passes:

It would probably be difficult to explain to someone, even a few years younger than I am myself, why Gary Coleman was important. It just happened to be the right moment for someone like him; and he filled it with grace.



Of course, being accompanied by Ms. Erin Gray could only help a man to appear in his best light.

Money Comes From Where?

Where Does the Money Come From?

Say, who's paying for all this stuff that drives up the National Debt?

By the way, where does the government get the money to fund all these immensely useful programs? According to a Fox News poll earlier this year, 65 per cent of Americans understand that the government gets its money from taxpayers, but 24 per cent think the government has “plenty of its own money without using taxpayer dollars.” You can hardly blame them for getting that impression in an age in which there is almost nothing the state won’t pay for.

Thus, it turns out that the answer to this riddle is even more obscure than it seems.

A pocket-hole that grew so large,

A giant couldn't eat it.

A cache of gold that never was,

But nonetheless depleted.

I thought that last line was a well-formed riddle.

Immigration

Immigration:

What constitutes a wise immigration policy? We normally speak of the issue in terms of illegal immigration, but we also do have the right to choose to admit people lawfully. Every year we do so, and often gain by it.

Today Victor Davis Hanson writes that Europe is hungry for the chance.

If we revised immigration policy and predicated legal entry on education and skill, ten million Europeans would arrive tomorrow, replete with degrees, expertise, and capital. There is a great unease over here, mostly in worry that no one knows the extent of aggregate debt, only that it is larger than let on and will result in higher taxes and fewer benefits without resulting in budget surpluses. It is always difficult for a government to ask its citizens to pay more than ever, receive less than ever, and end up nevertheless with greater debt than ever. We’re next.

Here and there a few Germans seem to wonder what Obama is doing, but they are torn: “We are flattered the U.S. wants to emulate our system” versus “Why would you wish to get yourself into the jam we are in?”

If we revised immigration policy in that way, what would be the benefits and disadvantages? What would we gain, and what would we lose?

Zereldas Ogre

This childhood book of mine probably explains a lot about about my enjoying Grim's Hall so. I was reminded of the book by the photo of Coq au Vin and Grim's sister.  Every couple of days we will have story time. It will not compete with Eric's more erudite selections, but I hope it will hold your attention nonetheless.

Ev & Creativity

"Evolution & Creativity"

An interesting article, which T99 cited over at Cassandra's place, is this one from the Wall Street Journal. Piercello will like it, with its notion that the quality of mental evolution is emergent. Joe will like it, with its positive view of the future! What I find so interesting, though, is this:

Human evolution presents a puzzle. Nothing seems to explain the sudden takeoff of the last 45,000 years—the conversion of just another rare predatory ape into a planet dominator with rapidly progressing technologies. Once "progress" started to produce new tools, different ways of life and burgeoning populations, it accelerated all over the world, culminating in agriculture, cities, literacy and all the rest. Yet all the ingredients of human success—tool making, big brains, culture, fire, even language—seem to have been in place half a million years before and nothing happened. Tools were made to the same monotonous design for hundreds of thousands of years and the ecological impact of people was minimal. Then suddenly—bang!—culture exploded, starting in Africa. Why then, why there?

The answer lies in a new idea, borrowed from economics, known as collective intelligence: the notion that what determines the inventiveness and rate of cultural change of a population is the amount of interaction between individuals.

Yes! And yet, no.

I don't want to downplay the fascinating quality of the idea, which doubtless has a great deal of merit. It is surely right for a vast number of cases. What it isn't is a unified field theory. I'll give you two reasons.

First, it doesn't explain cases like the Black Death. The extraordinary progress that followed the Black Death occurred even though the number of interactions between individuals was sharply reduced -- as, indeed, was the number of individuals. These population cutbacks are not always a disaster for the rate of creativity or inventiveness: it is necessity, not trade, that has normally be called the Mother of Invention. Too, because the Black Death disrupted social structures and allowed for social mobility and better competition among workmen, it opened avenues of creativity that were not available before.

Second, the theory fails to account for the thing it set out to account for: the mystery of human evolution. Taking the theory at its best face, it offers a useful way of thinking about one factor in the rate of human creativity. It doesn't, however, explain why this "warlike ape" experienced evolution and creativity so differently from any other creature -- regardless of that other species' population size, or the length of its generations. "Trade" isn't adequate; other primates, at least, trade both goods and services (or goods for services, as for example food for sex). Why didn't they jump on the exponential ramp to Beethoven's 9th Symphony?

Indeed, the problem with this explanation is that it doesn't explain. It may help to understand why the last 45,000 years went differently than the previous millions, but it doesn't explain why it happened to be the case that trading goods and services suddenly kicked into an entirely different mode at some moment about 45,000 years ago. It also doesn't explain why it did so only for one species.

Finally, it doesn't explain the categorical difference in creativity that was already extant.

Recently at Pinnacle Point in South Africa, Curtis Marean of Arizona State University found evidence of seafood-eating people who made sophisticated "bladelet" stone tools, with small blades less than 10 millimeters wide, and who used ochre pigments to decorate themselves (implying symbolic behavior) as long as 164,000 years ago. They disappeared, but a similar complex culture re-emerged around 80,000 years ago at Blombos cave nearby. Adam Powell of University College, London, and his colleagues have recently modeled human populations and concluded that these flowerings are caused by transiently dense populations: "Variation in regional subpopulation density and/or migratory activity results in spatial structuring of cultural skill accumulation."

What other species engages in "symbolic behavior"? Mankind creates art wherever it goes; if there is a single quality that defines us, it is creativity, that artistic nature. No other species does this. A crow decorates its nest with shiny things it finds, but it does not fashion shiny things in pursuit of some artistic vision. A chimp strips bark from a branch to make a better ant-catching tool, but it doesn't develop pigments meant to paint itself for rituals.

That is the real thing that needs explaining, and we are no closer with "trade" than we were before. That's not to say it's useless; I suspect this adds quite a bit to our understanding of the mechanism. What it doesn't explain is the cause. Telling me that we grew great because we learned to trade goods doesn't explain those species that trade goods without growing great; and telling me it was because we learned to trade art doesn't explain how we ever came to make, or to value, art. When we know that, we'll have learned something.