Timaeus

The Timaeus:

Plato's Timaeus is a story about the creation of the universe. Some of it is very resonant today, and some other parts are very difficult to grasp (why, for example, does he envision elemental theory in terms of triangles of a particular ratio?).

Right at the beginning, it offers a remarkable mixture of the two. Some of what Socrates suggests here sounds like excellent good sense; other things, like genuinely terrible ideas.

Soc. To be sure I will: the chief theme of my yesterday's discourse was the State-how constituted and of what citizens composed it would seem likely to be most perfect.

Tim. Yes, Socrates; and what you said of it was very much to our mind.

Soc. Did we not begin by separating the husbandmen and the artisans from the class of defenders of the State?

Tim. Yes.

Soc. And when we had given to each one that single employment and particular art which was suited to his nature, we spoke of those who were intended to be our warriors, and said that they were to be guardians of the city against attacks from within as well as from without, and to have no other employment; they were to be merciful in judging their subjects, of whom they were by nature friends, but fierce to their enemies, when they came across them in battle.

Tim. Exactly.

Soc. We said, if I am not mistaken, that the guardians should be gifted with a temperament in a high degree both passionate and philosophical; and that then they would be as they ought to be, gentle to their friends and fierce with their enemies.

Tim. Certainly.

Soc. And what did we say of their education? Were they not to be trained in gymnastic, and music, and all other sorts of knowledge which were proper for them?

Tim. Very true.

Soc. And being thus trained they were not to consider gold or silver or anything else to be their own private property; they were to be like hired troops, receiving pay for keeping guard from those who were protected by them-the pay was to be no more than would suffice for men of simple life; and they were to spend in common, and to live together in the continual practice of virtue, which was to be their sole pursuit.

Tim. That was also said.

Soc. Neither did we forget the women; of whom we declared, that their natures should be assimilated and brought into harmony with those of the men, and that common pursuits should be assigned to them both in time of war and in their ordinary life.

Tim. That, again, was as you say.

So far, this is mostly good -- the only thing that has reared up so far is the idea that the warrior/guardian class should not have private property. In this, and in the much stranger ideas to follow, Socrates is partially following the Spartans. It is worth remembering that Athens had come off badly against Sparta in recent history, making these radical ideas somewhat more conceivable. After all, if this is what is necessary to keep your city free, then it's not as outrageous to do some of what he is about to suggest.

Soc. And what about the procreation of children? Or rather not the proposal too singular to be forgotten? for all wives and children were to be in common, to the intent that no one should ever know his own child, but they were to imagine that they were all one family; those who were within a suitable limit of age were to be brothers and sisters, those who were of an elder generation parents and grandparents, and those of a younger children and grandchildren.

Tim. Yes, and the proposal is easy to remember, as you say.

Soc. And do you also remember how, with a view of securing as far as we could the best breed, we said that the chief magistrates, male and female, should contrive secretly, by the use of certain lots, so to arrange the nuptial meeting, that the bad of either sex and the good of either sex might pair with their like; and there was to be no quarrelling on this account, for they would imagine that the union was a mere accident, and was to be attributed to the lot?

Tim. I remember.

Soc. And you remember how we said that the children of the good parents were to be educated, and the children of the bad secretly dispersed among the inferior citizens; and while they were all growing up the rulers were to be on the look-out, and to bring up from below in their turn those who were worthy, and those among themselves who were unworthy were to take the places of those who came up?

Tim. True.

Soc. Then have I now given you all the heads of our yesterday's discussion? Or is there anything more, my dear Timaeus, which has been omitted?

Tim. Nothing, Socrates; it was just as you have said.

Soc. I should like, before proceeding further, to tell you how I feel about the State which we have described. I might compare myself to a person who, on beholding beautiful animals either created by the painter's art, or, better still, alive but at rest, is seized with a desire of seeing them in motion or engaged in some struggle or conflict to which their forms appear suited; this is my feeling about the State which we have been describing. There are conflicts which all cities undergo, and I should like to hear some one tell of our own city carrying on a struggle against her neighbours, and how she went out to war in a becoming manner, and when at war showed by the greatness of her actions and the magnanimity of her words in dealing with other cities a result worthy of her training and education. Now I, Critias and Hermocrates, am conscious that I myself should never be able to celebrate the city and her citizens in a befitting manner, and I am not surprised at my own incapacity; to me the wonder is rather that the poets present as well as past are no better-not that I mean to depreciate them; but every one can see that they are a tribe of imitators, and will imitate best and most easily the life in which they have been brought up; while that which is beyond the range of a man's education he finds hard to carry out in action, and still harder adequately to represent in language. I am aware that the Sophists have plenty of brave words and fair conceits, but I am afraid that being only wanderers from one city to another, and having never had habitations of their own, they may fail in their conception of philosophers and statesmen, and may not know what they do and say in time of war, when they are fighting or holding parley with their enemies. And thus people of your class are the only ones remaining who are fitted by nature and education to take part at once both in politics and philosophy.

What follows after this is a description of the universe that was highly influential in forming Christian theory. Plato's ideas about the Craftsman were readily received by early Christian thinkers, and this is one of the few of Plato's works that remained available throughout the Middle Ages. If you're curious how much Greek thought influenced the picture from the Old Testament, read on! Yet notice, too, that the Christians completely abandoned the idea of deforming the family to defend the state: that much, at least, they rejected as a defiance of nature. And why not? A God that is conceived of as father and son, and father to all his children, is not quite the same thing as a a god conceived as a Statesman, ordering chaos to defend an ideal cosmic state. The family lies at the core of one idea, and is dispensable to the other.

Etruscan spearheads

Horse Vest

The Airbag for Horses?

You know, I have a certain sympathy for this fellow...

Spectators gasped and expected the worst when the horse ridden by Karim Florent Laghouag somersaulted over a fence and fell on top of him at a prestigious equestrian competition last September in France.

Laghouag had taken a so-called rotational fall, a dreaded spill in the Olympic sport of eventing. At least 13 riders in the past four years were killed and several others were seriously injured in such tumbles.

No problem, though. He had an airbag -- an inflatable vest that is apparently the newest sort of "armor" for horseback riding.

“It’s certainly the biggest step forward in the safety of our sport, ever,” said Oliver Townend, a British rider who was wearing a vest in April when his horse tumbled on top of him at the Kentucky Three-Day Event in Lexington. Townend broke his sternum, four ribs, his collarbone and the tips of his shoulder bones — but he says he still believes in the vest.

“I walked out of hospital the next day, where otherwise I would be in a box or in America for a month,” Townend said in a recent phone interview.

I think people who don't ride horses may not appreciate just how dangerous it really is. Speaking of which, what do you folks think of this little filly?



Her name is Avalon; we're thinking of buying her for eventual use as a brood mare. She's a purebred Friesian, and her sire is the most extraordinary example of the breed I've ever seen.

Bare Knuckles

Bare Knuckle:

A new book on prize fighting:

The fight was held on turf, in a ring created for the occasion on the rural Mississippi Coast property of a sawdust proprietor named Charles Rich. Under the London Prize Ring rules, rounds lasted as long as both men stood, which meant they could “steal a few minutes to glare at each other, tacitly agreeing to slow down, return to their corners for a drink, and regain their strength,” Elliott J. Gorn tells us is his classic account, The Manly Art: Bare-Knuckle Prize Fighting in America, which appeared in 1986 and has just been republished in an updated edition by Cornell University Press with a new afterward by the author.

Since the Mississippi governor had placed a $1,000 bounty for Sullivan’s arrest, the champion fled Mr. Rich’s land soon after dispatching Kilrain in seventy-five rounds.

Polls and Parties

Polls and Parties

Several years ago it seemed that every time I picked up a poll, it revealed Americans divided 50/50. In election after election, the results were too close to call. I began to wonder whether the issues were so confusing that everyone was, in effect, flipping a coin.

Lately the results are more lopsided. Not always in the direction I'd prefer, but at least we seem to be developing a consensus on some issues, which (oddly) reassures me that people are attempting to apply judgment, even if mistaken, rather than random chance. Even so, it's not always possible to guess how people are going to approach an issue merely by finding out whether they self-identify as Democrat, Republican, or Independent.

Pollster Scott Rasmussen seems to have hit on a categorization that's a better predictor. He divides the public into the "Political Class" and "Mainstream Voters," a division that corresponds roughly with big-government and small-government sympathies. Rasmussen explains:

The Political Class Index is based on three questions. All three clearly address populist tendencies and perspectives, all three have strong public support, and, for all three questions, the populist perspective is generally shared by Democrats, Republicans and those not affiliated with either of the major parties. We have asked the questions before, and the results change little whether Republicans or Democrats are in charge of the government. . . .

The questions used to calculate the Index are:

• Generally speaking, when it comes to important national issues, whose judgment do you trust more - the American people or America’s political leaders?
• Some people believe that the federal government has become a special interest group that looks out primarily for its own interests. Has the federal government become a special interest group?
• Do government and big business often work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors?

The categorization is not a strong predictor of political party. When Rasmussen introduced it in March 2009, 37% of "Mainstream Voters" were Republicans, 36% were Democrats, and 27% were Independent. Though more Republican and Independents were Mainstream than were Democrats, a bare majority even of Democrats were Mainstream. The Mainstream/Political split was a better predictor of the source of paychecks: 22% of government employees were aligned with the Political Class, while only 4% of private sector workers were.

The Mainstream/Political split is a strong predictor of views on many of the hot topics of recent years:

(Now to experiment with my new tool:)

A Bad Scottish Poet

On A Particularly Bad Scottish Poet:

Anthony Daniels writes:

Anyone who would demonstrate the superlative badness of McGonagall to those still unacquainted with his work is so spoilt for choice that he is likely, if he is not careful, to end up like Buridan’s ass, quite unable to make up his mind between delectations. I shall therefore, without further reflection, quote from two of his best-known works, “Address to the New Tay Bridge” and “The Tay Bridge Disaster.” The former apostrophizes the new bridge:

Beautiful new railway bridge of the Silvery Tay,
With thy beautiful side-screens along your railway,
Which will be a great protection on a windy day,
So as the railway carriages won’t be blown away,
And ought to cheer the hearts of the
passengers night and day
As they are conveyed along thy beautiful railway.

He then praises the designers of the bridge:

Thy structure to my eye seems strong and grand,
And I hope the designers, Messrs Barlow and
Arrol, will prosper for many a day
For erecting thee across the beautiful Tay.
And I think nobody need have the least dismay
To cross o’er thee by night or by day.

Unfortunately, this last thought proved mistaken, as we learn in the next poem:

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.

The bridge had collapsed and a train had plunged into the river below. McGonagall concludes his dramatic poem with some reflections on engineering:

your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side by buttresses
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.

Mr. Daniels expresses a sense that we are to pity the man for his self-destructive delusion, 'like a stroke,' that he was a great poet. It did, after all, cause him to abandon a productive career and end in poverty.

Is it true, though, that poetry lies in pity? That may prove true, in a close reading of Homer or the Beowulf, or the Wanderer; and if it is true, then the pitiful delusion of the poet is surely as fit a subject of poetry as anything else. Too, given that the matter of the Tay bridge fooled the engineers of the day, it seems unfair to mock the poet. Yet many have; and indeed, he had responded to an earlier collapse of one of the ill-designed bridges by just writing another praise-poem.

So let us consider the question. Just how bad was he? We may wish to consider other famous lines of his:

Alas! Lord and Lady Dalhousie are dead, and buried at last,
Which causes many people to feel a little downcast.

Or this:

He was a public benefactor in many ways,
Especially in erecting an asylum for imbecile children to spend their days.

Or this:

He told me at once what was ailing me;
He said I had been writing too much poetry,
And from writing poetry I would have to refrain,
Because I was suffering from inflammation on the brain.

A Wedding

A Wedding:

I have just returned from the wedding of my favorite cousin, who is twelve years younger than me and is thus also a child of the Year of the Tiger. For that cause, I am not prepared to discuss the next chapter of Njal's Saga today; but I will try to write something on the subject tomorrow.

In the meanwhile enjoy this, which is very much in the spirit of the Hall.

Collin Thomas

When I took these pics I knew at some point I would use them to honor the death of one of our people. I was pensive when I took them. I did not know the man's name would be Collin Thomas.

http://www.navytimes.com/news/2010/08/navy-seal-killed-in-afghanistan-082010w/

Rest in peace, Brave Warrior.

How to Catch a Foul Ball

How to Catch a Foul Ball

Grim must be rubbing off on me. If I'd seen video a few years ago of the guy who recently ducked and let a foul ball hit his girlfriend, I think my reaction might have been less harsh. She should look out for herself, right?

Sorry about the rude subtitles in this version, but the other versions have been yanked or disabled; I guess this one has been altered enough to pass copyright muster. Anyway, at a family gathering last weekend, my niece's husband made a casual joke about needing to know how long the guy had been dating her before he could judge -- and I found myself wanting to scold him for his failure in chivalry. I also hoped, for my niece's sake, that he was mostly joking.

I was much happier with this performance:

Night at the Museum and The Chariot

Night at the Museum?

 (Roman men, Hellenistic ladies, and little blue dudes from Egypt -- could be fun!)

And how about taking this baby for a spin?

Explanations for "The Chariot" - as it's known by museum goers, after the jump.

Conflict

Conflict

I love Assistant Village Idiot's site. Possibly the explanation for my pleasure lies in the subject of a couple of his recent links to Orin Kerr at Volokh: Brilliant People Agree with Me and People Who Disagree with Me Are Just Arguing in Bad Faith. AVI often puts things in just the way I might have done if I knew more about them and had thought them through more carefully -- so he must be awfully smart! His links to the Orin Kerr articles actually aren't a perfect example of the brilliance of people who agree with me. They're on right subject -- confirmation bias -- but the articles and their accompanying comments are a little frustrating, presenting as they do the age-old sterile conflict between people who are confident there is such a thing as the right view (and that they have it) and people who suspect that all viewpoints may be equally correct/incorrect. Chalk me up in the "it's possible to be right" column, even if I also believe we're obligated at all times to subject ourselves to the correction of better evidence and reason from any source.

I did appreciate an article on conflict resolution that one of Kerr's commenters linked to. A good part of it was the sort of "everyone has an equally incorrect viewpoint" attitude that gets right up my nose, but there was a sensible piece of practical advice towards the end:

Ross’s suggested solution to this problem is to have members of a group discussion each give one point of the other side’s argument that they think has some legitimacy. The study that Ross has done on this potential solution to conflict had the impressive result of 100% agreement being reached using this method.

My husband has learned to his great cost over the years that when I don't feel I'm being heard, I become Very Difficult to Live With. I may be an extreme example, but I imagine many people respond well to defusing a very tense argument by finding some common ground and focusing on it for a moment. It has to be a real point of agreement; condescension or cheesy moral relativism won't work.

Maybe some of us are so constituted that, as long as our listener doesn't acknowledge the obvious truth and justice of the point we feel so strongly convinced of, we become sure he simply is not listening. Knowing that he's heard and understood some subsidiary point allows me to calm down and realize that communication is possible, even if we won't entirely be able to agree. In a calmer state, I may realize that I don't mind negotiating a compromise, or even adopting another plan altogether. I know I find it easier to give something up to please someone who shows that he knows and cares that it's important to me.

"Millin, Black Bear."

LONDON — Bill Millin, a Scottish bagpiper who played highland tunes as his fellow commandos landed on a Normandy beach on D-Day and lived to see his bravado immortalized in the 1962 film “The Longest Day,” died on Wednesday in a hospital in the western England county of Devon. He was 88.

There were giants in those days.

For T99

Wasps and T99 Both Hate Fakers:

From New Scientist, an article about female paper wasps. We don't usually think of wasps as being all that gentle and friendly, but apparently what really makes them aggressive is faking.

The article ends by noting that this is why 'they haven't evolved a strategy of lying and cheating.' We need to think about how we might import this lesson into our own species.

Songs for a Friday

Songs for a Friday:

Cassandra is running a horrible song contest. Most anything a 20-year-old would know well enough to sing probably qualifies.

However, htom submits this:



That's a ram among sheep, as Homer said of mighty Odysseus: setting the standard, holding the line.

A Murder of Crows

A Parliament of Rooks, A Murder of Crows, and Seven Drunken Nights:

One of the more interesting terms to emerge from Mrs. Palin's writing is her description of those who 'hijacked the feminist movement,' a subject that I know is dear to the heart of several of you. (I'm looking directly at you, Elise.) She apparently described them as "a cackle of rads."

"Rads" is obviously "radicals," but "cackle" is new. I wonder if she was aiming at "gaggle" (as in geese), or if she was thinking of things that actually cackle (as do hyenas, chickens, or the Wicked Witches of various cardinal directions).

Either way, it's remarkably descriptive, and nicely captures her idea of the sort of person who 'hijacked feminism.'

By the way, this is an opportune moment to address Elise's argument that men who joke about depriving women of the vote are necessarily unprincipled. (Cassandra also took umbrage at the post at National Review.)

I once wrote a piece on a similar topic. It happens to touch on the very point that they raise, which is that "women" couldn't be replaced by "Jews" or "African Americans." That was the argument raised then, too, except that time it was men who were the butt of the joke:

Lucas says that you couldn't replace "men" in the insults with any other group of people without raising an uproar. That's not quite true, though: there is one other group that could fit in the space, which is women. I can't count the number of bumperstickers I've seen for sale that said something to the effect of: "I miss my ex-wife; but my aim is getting better," or "My wife said to give up fishing or she'd leave; I sure will miss her." (There was a successful country music song about the last one.)

Could you raise a joke about the importance to the country of disenfranchising men without raising an uproar? I think so; in fact, jokes about the relative stupidity of men are so common in sitcoms, etc., that the only bar against anyone making such a joke is that it is probably too obvious to be funny.

The earlier movements accomplished this: they moved the culture from a place where the idea of "women's suffrage" was a joke, to a place where the idea of "ending women's suffrage" is the joke. That is a remarkable thing; and if it takes the telling of the joke to make that clear, so be it!

In the meanwhile, the best antidote to this -- as on the last occasion -- is more jokes, bawdy songs, and the like. Comments are open!



UPDATE: Another piece I wrote on humor, in this case humor and religion, may be relevant. Also, the jokes in the comments were better.

The point here is Chesterton's point about the pessimist. Marcotte doesn't get into trouble for criticizing religion; she gets in trouble because she doesn't love the thing she criticizes.

UPDATE: Since I'm telling jokes tonight, how about one at my own expense?

The university professor called in the head of the physics department, and read him the riot act. "How can you ask for this expensive lab equipment? You know how much our budget is being cut with this bad economy!" he shouted. "We're having to let professors go, not hire new ones, cut scholarships, the works. And all I hear from you is how you can't do your work without all this lab equipment."

"Physics research often requires this kind of laboratory," the department head ventured.

"Nonsense!" the president shouted. "You should be more like the Mathematics department. They could be using expensive computers, but all they ever ask for is paper, pencils, erasers and calculators.

"Or better still," he added thoughtfully, "you could be like the Philosophy Department. They don't even ask for erasers."

You could substitute "the journalism school," and it would still be pretty funny.

Luxuries

Luxuries:

An interesting chart from young Mr. Klein. He isn't that impressed, but mostly it looks to me like the American people are judging correctly according to their lives. A home computer really isn't a necessity for many Americans -- if you work at a more-or-less traditional job, and buy what you need from local stores, you can live without one. There are a vast number of Americans for whom the 'evolving nature of the economy' he mentions is both invisible and irrelevant.

Outside of certain cities, however, you mostly can't live without a car. There are a few cities where you can do so, and there are a few remaining farms that are genuinely self-sufficient (or have small towns or general stores within walking distance). Otherwise, if you don't have a car, someone else has to have a car for you -- for example, a senior citizen whose children or grandchildren will go to the store for them, and bring back the groceries.

The ones that are dispensable are: air conditioning, clothes dryer (or any major appliance), and microwave. I've lived without all of those at various times. We did the clothesline thing for quite a while, I've never liked microwaves, and obviously in China there was no air conditioning.

However, in the American South, if you are going to do without air conditioning during the summer it has to be because you don't really have to accomplish anything much. When Cotton was King, this was the growing season -- the hard work of planting and harvesting lay in the other parts of the year. It was possible to go to church meetings (this is famously 'revival' season in the South), or lay by the creek with your feet in it to keep cool. If you're free to do that, yeah: you can live without air conditioning.

Of the others, the clothes dryer really does limit the amount of physical labor most of the several major appliances. Having done without every major appliance at one time or another, the clothes dryer is the one that really proves to save time v. doing it the old fashioned way. Americans justly consider it more important than the other things.

Notice, though, that only 59% consider it a 'necessity.' 41% think they could do without one, if indeed they don't already do without it. The only thing that really is rated a "necessity" by almost all Americans is the car.

Fallacies and Argument

The Informal Fallacies:

Here is an article called On the Fallacy of Proclaiming Fallacies. H/t to the Normblog. I don't read the Normblog as often as I should, but it's on the sidebar (under Eric's Favorites), and once in a while I remember to click through. Today he's talking about the misuse of logic in argument. He's making a point that I was just making ref: gay marriage over at Winds of Change.

Normblog says:

For my own part, I have no idea whether charges of fallacious reasoning are more commonly on target or not on target. I wouldn't know how to start quantifying it. But, to focus merely on this one example, there's a simple and basic point. Sometimes it's appropriate, and involves no fallacy, to point to the personal interests of an opponent in argument; and other times it isn't appropriate and is fallacious.

We can go further than "sometimes." There's a particular quality that makes an argument a fallacy: it is when you are using that argument as the guarantor of the truth of a logical claim.

Here are two uses, one fallacious, and one not.

Fallacy:

"Senator X has a conflict of interest, and therefore should not be trusted on this issue."

Not a fallacy:

"Senator X has a conflict of interest in this matter. Further, she does not appear to have accounted for it in public. Finally, the unspoken interest appears to drive her in the direction of the policy she is proposing. Therefore, we should not trust her on this issue."

The first is a fallacy because it is an error in logic. "An error in logic" is, actually, what the word fallacy means. The fact that a conflict of interest may exist does not entail that someone cannot be trusted. A given person may have that conflict, be honest about it with themselves and with you, and do his or her best to ensure a just and fair conclusion.

However, it's perfectly fair to mention the fact of the conflict as part of a chain of reasoning. It's only a fallacy if you are using it fallaciously: as if it were sufficient to entail your conclusion, when the fact by itself is not.

It's possible for both sides to misuse fallacies: "Robert Byrd is a former Klansman, and therefore we should not listen to him on this [unrelated] subject" is a logical error because it is a fallacy (argumentum ad hominem). It is being used as if it entailed a conclusion that it does not.

"Any attempt to mention Byrd's past with the Klan is to be dismissed as a fallacy," however, is a more serious error in logic. It is a category error, one of the most serious types of logical errors. In this case, you are putting any mention of a true-but-negative fact about someone into the category of "things not to be considered." You can see why this is a serious error: it leaves you in the position of believing that you simply may not consider issues of character when making decisions. All negative information about a man's character ends up placed in the category of "inadmissible evidence." Logic does not suggest that to be a wise course, let alone a necessary one.

At WoC, the alleged fallacy was 'argumentum ad antiquitatem,' the appeal to tradition. It's a fallacy to say, "We have always done it this way, so we should do it this way." It's not a fallacy to point out the facts of history, however; and any category building that dismisses tradition and history as possible sources for information on future decisions is a serious error indeed. Logic is meant to be a torch, not a blindfold.

Externality

Externalities:

A mother explains some things to a Senator.

Lies and Courtesy

Lies and Courtesy:

I have told the story of getting paid in China. Apparently, it's much the same in Turkey.

As the First General Law of Travel tells us, every nation is its stereotype. Americans are indeed fat and overbearing, Mexicans lazy and pilfering, Germans disciplined and perverted. The Turks, as everyone knows, are insane and deceitful. I say this affectionately. I live in Turkey. On good days, I love Turkey. But I have long since learned that its people are apt to go berserk on you for no reason whatsoever, and you just can’t trust a word they say. As one Turkish friend put it (a man who has spent many years in America, and thus grasps the depth of the cultural chasm), “It’s not that they’re bad. They don’t even know they’re lying.”

...

Take, for instance, my former landlord. Last year, my apartment was burgled. Under Turkish law, if your apartment is burgled, you have the right to insist that your landlord install bars on your windows. When I put this to my landlord, he objected, screaming violently, as so often people here do for no reason any American would accept as legitimate. First, my landlord screamed, there was no risk of burglary: there had never before been a burglary in our neighborhood. (Actually, our neighborhood was notorious for it.) Second, he screamed, to install bars would create a hazard: burglars would use them to climb up to the second floor. He offered both arguments in the same sentence. He was unperturbed by the obvious problem with his line of reasoning.

Later, when I discussed the matter with Turkish friends, they explained to me that I had made a critical negotiating mistake: I had insulted his honor by telling him I would have bars installed rather than asking him. The argument, they explained, had nothing to do with the real risk of burglary, and certainly nothing to do with my rights under Turkish rental law. It was about my failure to show the man the proper respect.

Honestly, it's amazing we manage to have peace between the nations for two or three years at a stretch.

Truck Envy

Truck Envy

This isn't a picture of one of our fire brush trucks. Ours is even older and funkier than this 1967 model -- and much less shiny -- but it is roughly similar in configuration. Like all of the shoestring volunteer operations in this part of the country, it's a military surplus 2-1/2 or 5-ton truck with a bunch of stuff welded onto it.

But, now, this is a brush truck. Or at least a pre-production conception of one that some Australian has dreamed up. We don't assign our trucks to particular drivers; it's first-come first-served, which has a lot to do with who lives closest to the station and is most motivated to get there fast. I can see fistfights breaking out over who got to a truck like this first. We'd never get the guys to quit training with it.

This is a beauty!

The truck operates with a crew of two instead of our usual five or six, employing remote-controlled water cannon. From the website, these are specs to make you emit those pig-noises Tim Allen used to make when describing his latest power-tool purchase:

The purpose-built monocoque design means the the shell takes most of the stresses and gull wing doors provide the most effective access to its unconventional form. Bodywork is protected by military-grade sacrificial thermo-ceramic intumescent paints (swelling, heat-resistant paint to you and me), and windows and bodywork are further insulated by advanced aerogel laminated insulation.

An auxiliary water store supplies an intelligent temperature-controlled spray-down system which allows the vehicle to stay fully operational and mobile while in use. It maintains current 4WD capability with generous approach, departure and over-ramp angles, suspension travel, ground clearance and minimized turn circle, and additionally employs central tire inflation (CTI) and run flat tire (RFT) technology coupled with beadlock tires that allow an extensive band of dynamic pressure control to aid in traversing complex terrain. It has a mechanically injected large displacement diesel engine designed with fire ground conditions in mind.

I can't even imagine what a beast like this would cost. Alas, the fabulous shower of Stimubucks it would take to enable us to buy it is something that never will happen in this truculent red state. We'll just have to wait 50 years.