The career not taken

Douglas said something very kind below about my bee-adorned mailbox, which happened to touch on the central crisis of my life.

Though a successful architectural student, I wasn't cut out to be an architect. I have no gift for arranging spaces to be beautiful or surprising. My gift instead lay in working out floor plans in two dimensions, and solving problems, and taking standardized tests. (It's a little-known fact that standardized tests are designed to measure how close the test-takers are to someone exactly like me.) I love the good architecture created by other people. But figuring out that architecture was a blind alley for myself was the most wrenching decision I ever made: dropping out of the graduate school that had awarded a full scholarship. I drifted for a long time afterwards before stumbling onto law school. Then in every single interview for three years, I had to answer the question, "Why did you drop out of architecture to pursue law?" Though I eventually worked out a brief answer that seemed to satisfy people, the choice occasionally bubbles to the surface to this day. There is a haunting line in a Leonard Cohen song: "The skyline is like skin on a drum I'll never mend." For whatever reason, the compulsion was unanswerable.

We were told in architecture school that we'd be shot if they caught us reading "The Fountainhead," but the horse was long out of the barn on that insidious romantic message.

I was meant to be a decorative artist, probably: in an earlier age I'd have made sure that all the handmade items like swords and doorknobs and keyhole plates were properly embellished, like those gorgeous Scythian tools carved with reindeer. My bee, for instance, lit me up on all registers, as something worth doing in its own right. He makes me happy every time I drive up to my gate. In contrast, no building design of my own creation ever once inspired me with a burning desire to see it built. I figured, an architect has to be practically willing to die to see his stuff go up, or it will never happen, it's such a difficult process. In my heart of hearts, I didn't like my designs. How would I persuade a wavering client to buy and build them?

Here's a mosaic that lights me up, in the Houston Intercontinental Airport, designed and executed by Dixie Friend Gay. It took a year's work from four artisans and 1-1/2 million pieces of glass tile. This definitely would be a job worth having. Check out the other views in the link; this work is on a long, undulating wall. I want one.

Never cared that much for law in its own right, but I could make a bazillion bucks and retire early, and a passion for identifying logical flaws makes me a good brief-writer and law review editor if not an all-around good lawyer.

The First Day of Spring, Actual:

The Hound of the Hall

Happy Vernal Equinox!  Subjective Spring started weeks ago here, but today we reach the real event.  As you can see, at least one of us is celebrating.

Fire-fightin'

I believe that T99 is associated with her local VFD, and my father was a long-time Captain of ours.  I expect you'll find this interesting:



The Fire Critic is asking opinions on this one, which it considers quite aggressive (although they note they don't know from the cam if there is a backup line behind the guy).  (H/t:  FARK.)

The End of the First Amendment

News from Chicago:

The officer who handcuffed them is recorded on camera warning members of the media that their First Amendment rights could be terminated.  "Your First Amendment rights can be terminated if you're creating a scene or whatever," the officer said.  When asked how they were creating a scene, the officer said, "Your presence is creating a scene."

From the District of Columbia:

HR 347 was recently signed into law by President Obama. This statute had wide support amongst both parties of Congress. In essence, it criminalizes disruptive behavior upon government grounds, at specially designated national events (Super Bowl, nominating conventions, etc.) and anywhere that Secret Service is protecting “any” person.

Since all of the presidential candidates are now receiving Secret Service protection, that means no "disruptive behavior" anywhere near anywhere that anyone running for president might be speaking.

Thus the freedoms of speech, assembly and the press.  As Elise notes, we're also seeing an end to the freedom of religious expression insofar as it pertains to how one lives one's life, as apart from merely how one prays in private.

The issue is so clearly one of violating the First Amendment that I am unable to find any common ground with anyone who doesn’t see that. We have nothing to say to each other on this topic. And their belief either that this does not violate the First Amendment or that violating the First Amendment is acceptable is so inexplicable that we don’t really have anything to say to each other about anything else related to the Constitution or governance in general. 

Furthermore, it doesn’t matter how this situation comes out. Even if the Administration backs off completely on the contraception mandate for all employers, it’s too late. Even if the Supreme Court rules that the mandate is unconstitutional, it’s too late. That a President of the United States believes it is acceptable to simply ignore the First Amendment is a sea change in our form of government. Perhaps if the Administration had established this mandate and every single person and institution other than President Obama and Secretary Sebelius had screamed bloody murder, I could believe that we had, in a moment of national inattention, elected as President one of the only two people in the United States who consider the Bill of Rights irrelevant. But that wasn’t the case; Obama and Sebelius’ attitude toward the Constitution is clearly so widespread that there is no going back.

We'll have to decide if Elise is right that the First cannot be saved.  If so, we'll have to move on to the Second.  That is not a light matter, not at all:  but consider her argument.  There is very widespread support for simply compelling people to violate their beliefs:  and not merely to fail to do something their faith says is right (which might apply to human sacrifice, in some religions), but positively to do something their faith tells them is wrong.

The only obvious parallel lies in the draft, which compels military service from all citizens.  America's history of support for conscientious objectors is mixed, but has generally found a way to recognize and offer alternatives to most who felt such objections.  It's unclear why war should be an easier place for such objectors than the provision of contraception or abortifacients, the need for which is debatable rather than existential.

Bristol Palin's Got A Spine of Steel

It's no surprise to discover it, but it's impressive all the same.

Ancestry

Here is something unexpected:  a video of the great-grandfather of my own little girl.

A Fairy Tale Wedding

At least, it reminds me of a fairy tale we were recently discussing.

Apparently there is some division in the commentariat as to whether or not this shouldn't be an acceptable form of marriage.

I believe everyone has the right to marry, regardless of sexual preference. For some people being alone is what feels most natural. Shouldn't they too be entitled to tax breaks? 

Sure, why not?  And this way no one will ever interfere with their right to visit their spouse in the hospital.

(I also like the suggestion that this approach to marriage really streamlines the adultery process.)

I guess we've reached the point that the two-parent family has been so completely undercut that no one remembers why married couples were given tax breaks at all.  If mostly we're raising kids with single or divorced parents, what's the point?  In fact, it's downright unfair:  the married couple already has natural advantages.  They shouldn't get a tax break, too:  the tax breaks should go to the ones who are doing it the hard way.  (As, indeed, they already mostly do, since EITC is tied to relative poverty, and poverty correlates strongly with these "hard way" types of families.)

Song of the Working Man

Rick Santorum, though he himself is a wealthy man and a former Senator, shows working-class audiences that he understands them by talking about his grandfather.  His grandfather was a miner, and Santorum's Iowa speech talked about the old man's funeral.  Looking at the corpse, at the funeral, he focused on the hands:  "Those hands," he said, "dug freedom for me."

I feel inclined to tell a few stories this morning, about some men I know.



The first one of these is the father of two kids, both special-needs.  Between their needs and surgeries, he's a million dollars in debt.  To carry that debt he works two jobs.  He's an officer in the US Navy reserves, which means he has to travel out of state for duty on a regular basis.  His full-time job requires him to rise and leave by four AM some mornings every week, and keeps him at work until six or seven at night most nights.  His boss is a miserable human being who can't be bothered to speak civilly to him, even though it's my friend's willingness to come in early that sets the boss up for whatever success he enjoys in the day.  I hear he just took a pay cut.

I once told him I thought what he was doing for his kids was noble.  He laughed, rather darkly, and went on to talk about something else.  Last Christmas he sent me a card with his family's picture on it.

--

Another man I know grew up much as I did, racing fast cars through Appalachia.  As a young man he joined the Army.  He became a sergeant, and then got out; he and his wife had some kids and he went to work for a company.  He tried to move up the ranks, but never got very far, ending up in middle-management.  His wife decided she didn't like being home with the kids, so she went back to work as soon as she could; then she decided she didn't like the job, so she wanted to go back to school.  He supported her through all that, and her failed business venture.  One day she got angry with him over something, some fight, and left for a while.  He later told me that he'd been dressing for work that morning, and happened to see his pistol laying on a shelf.  He told me he thought, "If I shoot myself, I won't have to go to work today."

Fortunately he had an upbringing that steeled him against moments of despair.  Things worked out with her and him.  Still, I don't know if she ever knew, or understood that it was really only ever all for her.  When it didn't look to him like it mattered to her, he'd rather have died than face his job even one more day.

--

One of the men I like best in the world not only was but is an Army sergeant, at this point a senior NCO.  He was a man who came from a working-man's background, never did well in school.  He had never managed to read a whole book in his life when I met him.  I don't know why the education system didn't figure out how to help him, but it never did, and when he got married and had a few kids there was a long time when he couldn't find work.  This would have been about the time of the economic downturn from the first Bush administration:  the one that caused him not to get re-elected.  My friend was a casualty of that recession.

One day he was at home, waiting for his wife to get off work, having almost given up hope of ever being worth anything to his family.  An Army recruiting commercial came on television, and promised him all the good things those commercials do.  He went right then to a recruiter, who assured him -- being as how he was a husband and father -- that the Army would take care to station him close to home so he could support his family and still be with them.  He signed that very day.  His first duty station was Korea.

He went on to serve in Somalia, Bosnia/Herzegovina, and Iraq.  He had sixty-six kills in OIF 1.  Along the way he was blown up by a mortar round, and had to be retrained for a support position.  The Army picked one for him that required a lot of skill at reading and writing.  When I met him -- in Iraq again, in his new role -- he was gritting his teeth and fighting to make it work.  He finally did, due to nothing but hard work and dedication.  I thought he would like Louis L'amour's Sackett novels, so I gave him one, and it was the first book he ever read all the way through.  He went on to read all of them.  He understood them and they spoke to him, he told me, because "These books are all about guys who are fighting for their family."

It happens he and I share a birthday.  We could almost be brothers, except he has blue eyes.

--

I could tell you about my own family:  about my great-grandfather, who was a farmer in rural Tennessee around the turn of the last century, but who somehow managed to put his eight kids -- all sons -- through trade school.  Or I could tell you about my grandfather, who was a welder, who managed to put his sons through college.

Each of these men is a kind of tragic hero.  They've suffered, greatly, in the service of those they love.  I don't know how many people have taken the time to understand just how much their sacrifices have cost them.

I think I chose the right word when I told my one friend that he was noble.  This kind of sacrifice in the service of the beloved is the mark of a man of the highest honor.  It is the mark of true nobility.

Decorative Arts

I don't have any tattoos. Not that I object to them in principle, but two things stop me: hep C, and my mania for decorative arts, especially those that conform to an irregular three-dimensional surface, like pottery, or the body. Decoration like that has to be just so, or it drives me bats. I need to be able to repaint over it if it doesn't suit me.

Spring-break brings high spirits and the occasional burst of vandalism. Our small neighborhood's mailboxes suffered from a minor outbreak a few nights ago, which inspired me to repaint our mailbox before we re-installed it. Lately I've had an overpowering urge to paint bees; there's one on our front gate, too. This is not a good example of painting on an irregular solid, since the mailbox's shape is so simple, but it is an example of fitting graphics to their context. If I were to be tattooed, I'd agonize for a long time over the design, and finding an artist who could execute it properly.

Here are some I admire.

PS - A neighbor's mailbox disappeared altogether in the outbreak. The next day, the mailman found it in another community a couple of miles away, recognized it just by its number, "23," with no name or street, and brought it back. Small communities are nice.

The Lost Leonardo

National Geographic has a wonderful article on what is believed to be a long-lost Leonardo da Vinci painting.  It is a beautiful piece, with a sorrowful story.

The Re-programmable Tattoo:

I don't come from a tattooing family.  I'm pretty sure that none of my family has or has ever had a tattoo; not even the WWII veterans, as far as I can recall.  It's just not something we do.

Nevertheless I have to say that this is a pretty cool idea.  Apparently it uses e-ink similar to what you find in a Kindle. One of the reasons to avoid tattoos is that you're stuck with it forever; if it seems like a bad idea in ten years, nevertheless, there it is (barring expensive and painful surgery).  This tattoo, though, you can turn off whenever you want; or you can swap it out for something else.

The Age of Arthur

A military historian blogger I discovered on St. Patrick's Day has begun a series of posts on the historical Arthur.  It's easy reading, and a good general introduction for those of you who are interested in a survey; the author tends to elide over points of historical debate, but that's necessary when writing for a general audience.  The discussion on Arthur tends to get way out in the weeds if you follow the intricate aspects of the debate.  (For those interested in that, you should join ARTHURNET; another excellent but more general resource is this online Arthurian encyclopedia.)

These may also be of interest to those of you who undertook reading the novel I sent out to volunteers a few weeks ago.  The encyclopedia is thorough enough to mention Moren, who before the book appears only in one line of one story, the Welsh Culwhch and Owen.

St. Patrick's Day

In deference to Lars Walker's report from Beyond, let us start with something appropriate.  "St. Patrick's Breastplate" is a famous hymn that survives to us from the Old Irish.

And then something else genuinely Irish:

Can't be anything more Irish than this:

By this point, most Americans will have exhausted their ability to tell the Irish from anything generally Celtic.

'Hey, I think I remember this song is Irish...'

...after which they'll stumble on this one, and be disappointed to realize that it's about an actual brigade.  It's Irish, though!  And American!

(The "Fighting 69th" went on to serve in World War I as part of the "Rainbow Division."  Yes, really.)

Right... so, Australian is kind of Irish, yeah?  And there's bagpipes, which are totally Irish.



What could be more Irish than a song about an Irish ship?

Perhaps even that isn't as wholly Irish as it could be:  here's the greatest of Irish bands singing a song by a Scot named Ewan MacColl.  It's a fine song, all the same.

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

"America's Real War On Women"

Peggy Noonan has an excellent column today.  As you know, I refuse to give attention to those who behave in this way, because it is such attention that has generally allowed such people to thrive and to rise to public notice.  These days, notorious and famous are no longer obviously distinct categories:  the coin of the realm is attention.

This should not be surprising.  Some years ago the Defense Science Board -- since we are speaking of these things as a "war" -- conducted a study of military strategic communication.  I take its key findings to be these:

Information saturation means attention, not information, becomes a scarce resource.

Power flows to credible messengers. 

Asymmetrical credibility matters.

The first point is independent; the second two are related.  Attention is the scarce resource:  thus, the speaker who can command attention is the minter of the coin of the realm.

Now take the second and third points together.  What this means is that credible voices are more likely to be powerful and effective, but that what makes someone credible isn't an even game.  In the case of these bad actors, what makes them credible is that they are voicing deeply felt feelings that echo in many people's hearts.  Thus, even when they make the most incredible statements as points of fact, they are asymmetrically quite highly credible.  Thus, insofar as their message gains attention, they will gain power.

The current disruption of Mr. Limbaugh's revenue stream may be an exception to this general rule; but it also may not.  He is quite wealthy enough to survive a temporary disruption of revenue stream, and appears to have settled on a strategy (and a very wise one) of using the opportunity to retrench his financial support among groups who will not be susceptible to future disruptions of this sort.  He is punishing those who abandoned him, and helping those who are willing to stand by him:  this will strengthen his position.  It is the general approach of the USMC, when it advises, "No better friend; no worse enemy."

A strategy to defeat these messengers -- right or left -- must be based around denying them the attention that they command.  Their credibility probably cannot be undermined, because it is not based on the factual accuracy of their remarks.  It is asymmetric credibility.

What is needed is to forward the idea of a general principle of shunning anyone who speaks this way of women.  It needs to be applied even-handedly, but it also needs to avoid the error of demanding that political allies of the speaker condemn their remarks after the fact.  To condemn the remark is to rebroadcast it, which brings it to new attention among those whose hearts agree with it.

For those who happen to be actually present at the time, of course, it is proper to condemn the remarks and the man making them, if he does not apologize and reform himself.  Any gentleman who happens to be present ought to insist upon such an apology with all appropriate force.

The Market is All

A few days ago we had a long conversation about the problems of assuming that markets (and contracts) were good models for handing other social forms (like marriage).  I found this piece from the Atlantic to be an interesting meditation on some of the problems that arise.

The author begins by listing some of the things that are now for sale:

• A prison-cell upgrade: $90 a night. In Santa Ana, California, and some other cities, nonviolent offenders can pay for a clean, quiet jail cell, without any non-paying prisoners to disturb them.
...
• The right to immigrate to the United States: $500,000. Foreigners who invest $500,000 and create at least 10 full-time jobs in an area of high unemployment are eligible for a green card that entitles them to permanent residency.

Why not other things?

When we decide that certain goods may be bought and sold, we decide, at least implicitly, that it is appropriate to treat them as commodities, as instruments of profit and use. But not all goods are properly valued in this way. The most obvious example is human beings. Slavery was appalling because it treated human beings as a commodity, to be bought and sold at auction. Such treatment fails to value human beings as persons, worthy of dignity and respect; it sees them as instruments of gain and objects of use. 

There are some weak points in the overall argument, and some examples that don't strike me as being a strong as the author suggests.  However, his summation seems quite right to me.

In hopes of avoiding sectarian strife, we often insist that citizens leave their moral and spiritual convictions behind when they enter the public square. But the reluctance to admit arguments about the good life into politics has had an unanticipated consequence....  [Market reasoning] empties public life of moral argument. Part of the appeal of markets is that they don’t pass judgment on the preferences they satisfy...  

This nonjudgmental stance toward values lies at the heart of market reasoning, and explains much of its appeal. But our reluctance to engage in moral and spiritual argument, together with our embrace of markets, has exacted a heavy price: it has drained public discourse of moral and civic energy, and contributed to the technocratic, managerial politics afflicting many societies today. 

A debate about the moral limits of markets would enable us to decide, as a society, where markets serve the public good and where they do not belong. 

This could be seen as anti-conservative, insofar as support for market-based models is a core feature of current conservative thinking.  Or, it could be seen as profoundly conservative, insofar as support for traditional and religious insight into deeper issues of the human condition is a bedrock feature of conservatism.

However we resolve the question of labels for the position, though, the position strikes me as correct.

UPDATE:

A related concern:  when we say that the market decides, what we really mean is that the buyer decides.

For centuries, my predecessors and I have been inculcated with what has come to be called the “Hippocratic Ethic.” This tradition holds that I am ethically required to use the best of my knowledge to recommend to my patient what I consider to be in my patient’s best interests—without regard to the interests of the third-party payer, or the government, or anyone else. 

But gradually the medical profession has been forced to give up this approach for what I like to call a “veterinary ethic,” one that places the interests of the payer (or owner) ahead of the patient. For example, when a pet owner is told by a veterinarian that the pet has a very serious medical condition requiring extremely costly surgery or other therapy, the veterinarian presents the pet’s owner with one or more options—from attempt at cure, to palliation, to euthanasia—with the associated costs, and then follows the wishes of the owner.

A General Principle:

When a man with a long grey beard tells you that he's going to teach you a secret about shotguns that he had from his father, it's always worth taking time to listen to what he has to say.



Via LawDog, who has an interesting story to tell about the history of this approach:  it dates to poachers, African safaris and the British Home Guard.

On The Importance of Picking One's Battles

There may be principled objections to the idea behind the Violence Against Women Act -- for example, the assumption it makes that women need to be under the special protection of the Federal government.  It's clear that Maid Marian benefited from her status as a royal ward, but it's not equally clear that all women ought therefore to aspire to an equivalent status.  Nevertheless, in politics as in war, there are times for digging in and dying in place if necessary; and there are times to recognize that you've been outmaneuvered, and preserve your forces for another day.

In this case, though, the Republicans seem to be doing neither the principled thing nor the smart thing.  This is largely a re-approval of a bill that passed with broad bipartisan support before, so it's not clear that the Republicans do have any strong principle at work as a party here.  This isn't a TEA Party stand against the idea of women as wards of the state; the party leadership is wholly OK with the VAWA, except for a couple of changes in the re-approval.

So, it isn't principle; and as for smarts, those changes (as Mother Jones points out) were made last year.  Good job picking your moment.

Those changes do touch on hot-button issues.  Nevertheless, one of these policies is totally reasonable if you buy the VAWA as a general principle:  while there are very good reasons to oppose the idea that lesbian relationships can constitute a marriage, there are no reasons to oppose the factually obvious reality that they can be violent.  If you believe that VAWA is an appropriate solution to violence against women, then there's no reason it shouldn't hold for lesbian women as for unmarried girlfriends of bad men.

One certainly could oppose the immigration-visa change, but by itself it's not worth the price of the fight.  It would be wiser to let this one go; there will be better ground for re-fighting that issue on another day.

Rules To Waste The Land:

Three little rules today -- two of them from Health and Human Services, a foreshadowing of the increased importance it will take on in every little aspect of your life from now on.

#1:  The first rule has to do with ensuring that abortions are paid for by, well, you.

The Department of Health and Human Services this month issued a final rule regarding the exchanges required under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The rule provides for taxpayer funding of insurance coverage that includes elective abortion through a direct abortion subsidy.   

To comply with the accounting requirement, plans will collect a separate $1 abortion surcharge from each premium payer. As described in the rule, the surcharge can only be disclosed to the enrollee at the time of enrollment, and insurance plans may only advertise the total cost of the premiums without disclosing the abortion surcharge.

H/t D29, who also links the actual rule.  My favorite part of it is the part where HHS asked for public comments:

A large number of commenters offered feedback on proposed §156.280... We considered the comments received on this section, and are finalizing the provisions of proposed §156.280 without modification....

Well, naturally.

#2:  'You know what would be really neat?  It'd be neat if we could take your Federal tax dollars, and use them to lobby state and local governments to raise your taxes.  It's like a feedback loop!

'Too bad it appears to be illegal... but that's a temporary problem we will ignore for now.  Perhaps we'll ask some future, compliant Congress to fix the law later... but we may not bother, since we are the ones who decide when to enforce the laws.'

#3:  Remember how, when you were a kid, you used to love to go swimming at the public pool on hot summer days?

On Jan. 31 of this year, DOJ granted the industry's call for a clarification: But it was not the answer they wanted. All 300,000 public pools in the United States must install a permanent fixed lift. The deadline for compliance is tomorrow, March 15....

There is no way all 300,000 pools can install permanent lifts by Thursday. There simply are not enough lifts in existence or enough people who know how to install them, according to industry spokesmen. Plus, each lift costs between $3,000 and $10,000 and installation can add $5,000 to $10,000 to the total. 

So what happens tomorrow when a disabled individual checks into a Holiday Inn and finds no lift at the pool? The Obama DOJ has said it will not be enforcing the new guidelines right away. That means no fines from the government, for now. 

But the ADA also empowered citizens to sue businesses that are not in compliance with DOJ guidelines. The result will be a huge payday for enterprising trial lawyers everywhere.

Officially, the Constitution empowers Congress to issue letters of marque and reprisal.  Maybe we're now issuing them to trial lawyers, for use against American citizens.

Home Work

If you'd like to see how my friend's home-schooled young son is coming along on that great big piano I posted about a while back, here he is playing Chopin's Prelude No. 17 in A-flat major and looking very grown-up in his grandfather's tie. If he can't pick up girls with this kind of performance, he's not half trying.

Fiber-minded women gathered at my friend's house today from all over Texas. The house and various outbuildings are fairly stuffed from one end to the other with spinning wheels and looms, at least ten of each. It's like something out of Hansel and Gretel: everywhere you look there are skeins of homespun hand-dyed yarn, home-woven rugs, drawings, paintings, and carvings. Outside there are cisterns, barns, chickens, bathtubs full of Louisiana irises and lily pads, handmade concrete paving stones set with old pieces of china or license plates, fruit trees, vegetable patches, roses, wildflowers, and a lot of cats and dogs.

We dyed some cotton, wool, and silk fibers and fabrics with indigo. One of our company tried to figure out how to make an old fiber-carding machine work that someone had found. The newbies among us practiced spinning; I discovered the problem I was having on my own wheel (aside from the difficulty in keeping the newest dog from eating it) is that the treadle doesn't function smoothly. Having used my friend's better wheel, I'm inspired to fiddle with mine and improve it. I'm not quite ready to bring a loom into my home, though, a fact that should comfort my husband.

Revolution and Generation

A rather dire warning from a woman who was once an Iranian judge... until the revolution of 1979, after which she found herself promoted to "secretary."

There's no doubt that the Arab Spring movements have much to concern us.  There's also no doubt that, when the existing social contract expires, "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun," as Mao Zedong rather rightly noted.

What that means is that we have to sort out who is going to have the guns and convince them that female political power is in their interests.  How to do that?  If it cannot be done, then there will be no rights for women in these societies for a long time to come -- until the new "social treaty" stabilizes, enough for a gentler kind of evolution of thought to take place.  That is the kind of thing that takes generations, not revolutions:  think how many generations were needed here.