Building
Outlaw Country: A Final Word
Now that I've spoken to the things that seem to me to really matter, I want to just give the singers a chance to relax and have some fun. It wasn't all about a serious movement. Some of it, at least, was about the joy they found in life.
They weren't just Outlaws. They were merry men. Maybe that makes a difference. Maybe it makes all the difference.
Ya'll know the words to "Rocky Top," right?
They weren't just Outlaws. They were merry men. Maybe that makes a difference. Maybe it makes all the difference.
Ya'll know the words to "Rocky Top," right?
Encyclopedia Brown
When I was in the second grade, our teacher offered us special credit if we could learn to spell "encyclopedia." We all did: e-n-c-y-c-l-o-p-e-d-i-a, or -p-e-a-d-i-a. I think at this point the old form is no longer taught even as an option.
One of my favorite series of books as a boy were the Encyclopedia Brown mysteries. I read that the author died today, at the age of 85. The neat thing about them, for an aspiring boy detective, was that they presented all the facts but none of the solutions. The solutions were collected in a separate section in the back, for you to check once you had sorted out what you thought the proper answer might be.
In this the author -- his name was Donald Sobol -- answered the complaint raised by no less than Raymond Chandler in his famous essay, "The Simple Art of Murder."
The poor writer is dishonest without knowing it, and the fairly good one can be dishonest because he doesn’t know what to be honest about. He thinks a complicated murder scheme which baffles the lazy reader, who won’t be bothered itemizing the details, will also baffle the police, whose business is with details. The boys with their feet on the desks know that the easiest murder case in the world to break is the one somebody tried to get very cute with; the one that really bothers them is the murder somebody only thought of two minutes before he pulled it off.Donald Sobol didn't do that: he gave you the cute answer, but he assumed you would figure out the missing piece. Learning to do that was the point of reading his stories; it is why they are still worth reading, for boys of a certain disposition.
But if I am going to quote from the Chandler essay, I ought to quote the parts everyone ought to know. Here they are.
[Hammett] wrote at first (and almost to the end) for people with a sharp, aggressive attitude to life. They were not afraid of the seamy side of things; they lived there. Violence did not dismay them; it was right down their street...
It is not funny that a man should be killed, but it is sometimes funny that he should be killed for so little, and that his death should be the coin of what we call civilization. All this still is not quite enough.
In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. It may be pure tragedy, if it is high tragedy, and it may be pity and irony, and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man. But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this kind of story must be such a man. He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world. I do not care much about his private life; he is neither a eunuch nor a satyr; I think he might seduce a duchess and I am quite sure he would not spoil a virgin; if he is a man of honor in one thing, he is that in all things. He is a relatively poor man, or he would not be a detective at all. He is a common man or he could not go among common people. He has a sense of character, or he would not know his job. He will take no man’s money dishonestly and no man’s insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him. He talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness. The story is his adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. He has a range of awareness that startles you, but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in.
If there were enough like him, I think the world would be a very safe place to live in, and yet not too dull to be worth living in.If you have that, you have enough to write a good mystery; you may even have a great deal more.
Socialize the Loss
Bloomberg is looking more at the Bain Capital issue.
Imagine that the country was a corporation, and its shareholders were those entities rich or powerful enough to arrange major campaign contributions. The workers are those who, well, aren't that rich. What happens when we suffer severe losses as a corporation? We socialize the losses.
When things go well, why that's private profit!
I'm surprised you don't get this. The President's out campaigning on the very point this afternoon. How many times does he have to explain how economic management works?
What’s clear from a review of the public record during his management of the private-equity firm Bain Capital from 1985 to 1999 is that Romney was fabulously successful in generating high returns for its investors. He did so, in large part, through heavy use of tax-deductible debt, usually to finance outsized dividends for the firm’s partners and investors. When some of the investments went bad, workers and creditors felt most of the pain. Romney privatized the gains and socialized the losses.Oh nonsense, man! Nothing could be more relevant to overseeing the U.S. economy.
What’s less clear is how his skills are relevant to the job of overseeing the U.S. economy, strengthening competitiveness and looking out for the welfare of the general public, especially the middle class.
Imagine that the country was a corporation, and its shareholders were those entities rich or powerful enough to arrange major campaign contributions. The workers are those who, well, aren't that rich. What happens when we suffer severe losses as a corporation? We socialize the losses.
When things go well, why that's private profit!
I'm surprised you don't get this. The President's out campaigning on the very point this afternoon. How many times does he have to explain how economic management works?
Changing diapers prevents Alzheimer's
. . . Or, what can happen when popular science writers get hold of almost any story about non-human biology. It seems that bees stay vigorous as long as they're tending larvae in the hive, but slide into decrepitude quickly after assuming their mature function of foraging. When researchers removed the young larvae caretakers, some of the older bees were forced to give up foraging and tend the larvae themselves. A protective protein in the brain slowed the decrepitude that afflicted their foraging colleagues. The irrepressible authors cannot restrain themselves from noting:
They found Prx6, a protein also found in humans that can help protect against dementia – including diseases such as Alzheimer’s – and they discovered a second and documented “chaperone” protein that protects other proteins from being damaged when brain or other tissues are exposed to cell-level stress.
In general, researchers are interested in creating a drug that could help people maintain brain function, yet they may be facing up to 30 years of basic research and trials.
“Maybe social interventions – changing how you deal with your surroundings – is something we can do today to help our brains stay younger,” said Amdam. “Since the proteins being researched in people are the same proteins bees have, these proteins may be able to spontaneously respond to specific social experiences.”
France to California: This Means War
Animal-rights activists in California attempted to block not only the in-state production of foie gras but also its importation. The French, never willing to take an act of aggression lying down, responded with a call to boycott California wine.
An interesting side note: California Republicans argue that, while the state can do almost any fool thing it wants within the state, the Interstate Commerce Clause forbids it to regulate what happens outside its borders. It falls to the federal government to make mistakes in that arena.
An interesting side note: California Republicans argue that, while the state can do almost any fool thing it wants within the state, the Interstate Commerce Clause forbids it to regulate what happens outside its borders. It falls to the federal government to make mistakes in that arena.
Love that Thomas Sowell
He's a potent anti-Orwellian force:
Let us begin with the word "spend." Is the government "spending" money on people whenever it does not tax them as much as it can? Such convoluted reasoning would never pass muster if the mainstream media were not so determined to see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil when it comes to Barack Obama.
Ironically, actual spending by the Obama administration for the benefit of its political allies, such as the teachers' unions, is not called spending but "investment." You can say anything if you have your own private language.
An Insight into Information Warfare
Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post suggests a model for thinking about the negative advertising campaigns of the Presidential election that is straight out of US Army doctrine.
It's sort of surprising to see someone like Rubin get that concept so well. It's also surprising to see the Obama campaign's efforts likened to a Confederate barrage.
The extent of [the Obama campaign's] effort is only now becoming clear. The Associated Press reports: “President Barack Obama’s campaign has spent nearly $100 million on television commercials in selected battleground states so far, unleashing a sustained early barrage designed to create lasting, negative impressions of Republican Mitt Romney before he and his allies ramp up for the fall.” Think of it like the Confederacy’s artillery barrage on the third day of Gettysburg before Pickett’s charge — you have to in essence disable the other side before the charge begins or its curtains.This is exactly how the US Army thinks of what it currently calls "information operations." It considers them a kind of strategic effect, a "shaping" effort almost precisely analogous to artillery. You can use a heavy information barrage to deny terrain (as for example by blanketing a neighborhood with wanted posters with a picture and a large reward: you might not catch the guy, but he'll have to feel very shaky about trying to pass through the neighborhood). You can use it to demoralize. You can use it to disrupt the cohesion of an enemy unit.
It's sort of surprising to see someone like Rubin get that concept so well. It's also surprising to see the Obama campaign's efforts likened to a Confederate barrage.
"Always go right at 'em"
Photon Courier on why Admiral Nelson could beat the tar out of his opponents, and on the disquieting trend in the U.S. to follow rules and regulations rather than do what makes sense. He quotes a 1797 Spanish naval official about why he always got his butt kicked:
An Englishman enters a naval action with the firm conviction that his duty is to hurt his enemies and help his friends and allies without looking out for directions in the midst of the fight; and while he thus clears his mind of all subsidiary distractions, he rests in confidence on the certainty that his comrades, actuated by the same principles as himself, will be bound by the sacred and priceless principle of mutual support. . . . Experience shows, on the contrary, that a Frenchman or a Spaniard, working under a system which leans to formality and strict order being maintained in battle, has no feeling for mutual support, and goes into battle with hesitation, preoccupied with the anxiety of seeing or hearing the commander-in-chief’s signals for such and such manoeuvres.Following the links at Photon Courier takes us to this 2005 article at WaPo bemoaning the lack of "insurbordination and freelancing" witnessed in the stumbling aftermath of Katrina: "Everyone coloring inside the lines -- it's a great system until the wind starts blowing really, really hard."
Outlaw Country, Part 4: Raven's Requests
Raven asked toward the beginning of this series for some "libertarian country." I don't think they were thinking in exactly those terms, but they often did sing about the independent capabilities of the country-born man.
They didn't much care for welfare:
...or affirmative action...
...or government regulations imposed on their business activities.
Some of that's libertarian, but a lot of it's just outlaw.
They didn't much care for welfare:
...or affirmative action...
...or government regulations imposed on their business activities.
Some of that's libertarian, but a lot of it's just outlaw.
The LIBOR Scandal
A surprising unity of right and left seems to be forming around the news that American regulators were fully informed of fraudulent LIBOR rates as early as 2007, and chose to do nothing to protect American borrowers, states or localities. The cost to the American people is unknowable; the additional instability brought on by added mistrust of the banking system, and suspicion that the "regulators" are complicit in ongoing fraud and thievery, could produce additional unknowable costs.
The usual response from the left on this kind of issue is for greater regulation, but here the regulation has demonstrably done nothing to fix the problem. It's not that they weren't aware, it's that they knew and gave a pass to their buddies.
The guy who was the head of the NY Fed at that time, by the way, is now our Secretary of the Treasury, one Timothy Geithner: the same Timothy Geithner who became Secretary of the Treasury even though he had massive unpaid taxes; indeed, the same Timothy Geithner who was allowed to pay back the money without penalties by the IRS (try that if you own a small business like, say, the Dawsonville Pool Room). In other words, when he was caught, he was extended the same kind of look-the-other-way courtesy that he extended to the London bankers.
In both cases, the loser was the American people. Who were the winners? What can we say about them, and what ought we to do about them?
The usual response from the left on this kind of issue is for greater regulation, but here the regulation has demonstrably done nothing to fix the problem. It's not that they weren't aware, it's that they knew and gave a pass to their buddies.
The guy who was the head of the NY Fed at that time, by the way, is now our Secretary of the Treasury, one Timothy Geithner: the same Timothy Geithner who became Secretary of the Treasury even though he had massive unpaid taxes; indeed, the same Timothy Geithner who was allowed to pay back the money without penalties by the IRS (try that if you own a small business like, say, the Dawsonville Pool Room). In other words, when he was caught, he was extended the same kind of look-the-other-way courtesy that he extended to the London bankers.
In both cases, the loser was the American people. Who were the winners? What can we say about them, and what ought we to do about them?
Women and Bikes
Via Instapundit, "Women and motorcycles: ridership is on the rise." (Alternative title by Arlo Guthrie.)
There still aren't a lot of women bikers, but my wife has taken up riding. The persistent high gas prices of the last several years finally broke down her sense that they were too scary and dangerous. Now, she rides everywhere -- rain or shine, city or mountains -- and she's getting pretty good. She tells me that, for her, it's almost everything she loves about horses, and that she's really come to enjoy just getting on her bike and riding with me.
So if any of you female readers have been thinking about it -- or if you haven't, but reading this is making you think about it -- you might give it a try. You'll save on gasoline, and you might find a new source of joy in your life to boot.
There still aren't a lot of women bikers, but my wife has taken up riding. The persistent high gas prices of the last several years finally broke down her sense that they were too scary and dangerous. Now, she rides everywhere -- rain or shine, city or mountains -- and she's getting pretty good. She tells me that, for her, it's almost everything she loves about horses, and that she's really come to enjoy just getting on her bike and riding with me.
So if any of you female readers have been thinking about it -- or if you haven't, but reading this is making you think about it -- you might give it a try. You'll save on gasoline, and you might find a new source of joy in your life to boot.
Actually, This Makes Perfect Sense:
Hot Air is giving him a hard time about it, but really, this is a perfectly accurate description of the President's experience.
He didn't publish at Harvard, didn't do much at U. Chicago, was a failure as a community organizer, didn't succeed in his first push to get elected to public office... but there was always somebody there to dust him off, and push him up to the next rung.
Somebody else made all that happen -- a whole system of somebodies else. Naturally he feels loyal to the system that raised him so high. That system includes unions, especially teacher's unions; the academic system, especially affirmative action; and the Democratic Party, especially the Chicago machine and, more recently, the DNC. At the international level, the community of saints at the UN and the Nobel committee are likewise contributors to his success. All these people had to work very hard to pull him through to the pinnacle of human achievement.
It's less likely to be true of the small businessman, for whom there may be 'that special teacher,' or a friend or family member who helped them build an initial stake. On the other hand, there really may not be. A great deal more comes from individual effort in these cases.
Still, even for those who lack access to the networks and alliances that make it easy for the well-connected to move upwards and onwards with little effort, it surely would be nice to have such access. And you can get some, if you want, by purchasing dinner with Barack tonight at one of his spectacular fundraising efforts.
Why wouldn't he believe this? You can't argue with success, and by many measures he is the most successful man in the world.
There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. (Applause.)That's just how it really happened for him: it's not that he was smarter than everyone else, or harder working, but he rose from success to success -- from Columbia to Harvard, from Harvard to the University of Chicago, two published autobiographies, two Grammy awards for the audio recordings of those same autobiographies, the Senate, even the Presidency and the Nobel Prize.
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.
He didn't publish at Harvard, didn't do much at U. Chicago, was a failure as a community organizer, didn't succeed in his first push to get elected to public office... but there was always somebody there to dust him off, and push him up to the next rung.
Somebody else made all that happen -- a whole system of somebodies else. Naturally he feels loyal to the system that raised him so high. That system includes unions, especially teacher's unions; the academic system, especially affirmative action; and the Democratic Party, especially the Chicago machine and, more recently, the DNC. At the international level, the community of saints at the UN and the Nobel committee are likewise contributors to his success. All these people had to work very hard to pull him through to the pinnacle of human achievement.
It's less likely to be true of the small businessman, for whom there may be 'that special teacher,' or a friend or family member who helped them build an initial stake. On the other hand, there really may not be. A great deal more comes from individual effort in these cases.
Still, even for those who lack access to the networks and alliances that make it easy for the well-connected to move upwards and onwards with little effort, it surely would be nice to have such access. And you can get some, if you want, by purchasing dinner with Barack tonight at one of his spectacular fundraising efforts.
Why wouldn't he believe this? You can't argue with success, and by many measures he is the most successful man in the world.
Outlaw Country, Part 3: Songs of the New Frontier
We've talked about the way that the drug culture of the 1960s and 1970s was involved in bringing the Outlaw movement to endorse a fair amount of the cultural rebellion of that era.
But there was a tension within the music, which was more likely than rock-and-roll to see the value of the era that was passing. Above is Willie Nelson and Ray Charles singing a Western-style ballad linked to the earlier time.
There were a lot of songs like that, where the old icons are given again in the terms of the new generation. The old cowboy movies sometimes featured 'girls of the night,' as for example the spirited young lady who played opposite John Wayne in Stagecoach. Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson picked this up and put it into one of the more famous songs of this type.
Waylon Jennings was an outspoken advocate of moving on to new ways of doing things. Too many people were trying to re-live the life of Hank Williams, Sr., and he wanted them to know that he wasn't going to play that game.
But, as Gringo pointed out, it was the same Waylon Jennings who took time to pen this tribute to Bob Wills and the Western Swing movement.
So maybe that's three ways in which the changes that came over country music starting in the late 1960s were different from otherwise similar changes in rock-and-roll. They remained tied to the gospel tradition They remained faithful to the American serviceman. Finally, they retained that supernatural loyalty to the American project -- including icons like the cowboy, the flag, and the ideal of riding free on the new frontier.
On the Blessings of Daughters
It was not my fate to have a daughter, but apparently Timothy Dalrymple did.
Your daughter is waiting for you. She will expand and soften your heart. She will make you a better man. A daughter too is a blessing beyond measure. Give yourself to this, and she will make you into a protector and provider.... I have never recovered. After years of scarcely feeling anything, suddenly I found myself broken by grace, shattered with gratitude into a thousand happy pieces....
Every man should have a daughter, if only for his own sanctification. If a daughter comes your way, know the truth that she will love you with all her heart if you let her. Cherish her, and she will be a daddy’s girl. Love her, and your heart will expand to encompass the immensity of her soul. Sacrifice yourself for her, and soon you will discover that you will do just about anything to make her happy.
Cost of Government Day
The year is half over, but we're still not quite to Cost of Government Day this year!
Actually, it turns out that we are if you live in the Great State of Georgia. The overall number provides an average for state-imposed costs, but you can dig into the by-state numbers later in the report. It looks like three states -- Louisiana, Tennessee and Mississippi -- actually managed to hold down costs so that their citizens need only work six months of the year to pay for the cost of government.
Actually, it turns out that we are if you live in the Great State of Georgia. The overall number provides an average for state-imposed costs, but you can dig into the by-state numbers later in the report. It looks like three states -- Louisiana, Tennessee and Mississippi -- actually managed to hold down costs so that their citizens need only work six months of the year to pay for the cost of government.
Outlaw Country, Part 2: Outlaw Songs
Johnny Cash at San Quentin
That song really seems to capture what was going on in the Outlaw movement of the late 1960s through the early 1980s. You can see the roots in Hank Williams, Sr., who focused on honky tonks and hard living. When the elder country music community complained that the Outlaws were taking this all too far, Hank Williams, Jr., had an easy reply.
They weren't hippies, but they had some links with the longhaired movement. I just put David Allen Coe's "Longhaired Redneck" up a couple of posts down, so we'll do Charlie Daniels this time.
The "Outlaw" thing wasn't just a nickname. Johnny Cash played San Quentin and other prisons, and declared his friendship to all those locked down or suffering from the wrongs of society. David Allen Coe was a patched member of the Outlaws motorcycle club during the period. Most of the others preferred to associate with the Hells Angels. For example, here's Johnny Paycheck singing about being an angel of the highway; and again, in tribute to Hells Angels president Sonny Barger; and Willie Nelson, singing a song he wrote to honor the Hells Angels; and Merle Haggard and Johnny Paycheck talking about a time when Merle bought Johnny a bunch of cocaine from the Hells Angels they had hanging around during a session. (This was another way in which the Outlaws were similar to the rock-and-roll movement: here's Jerry Garcia singing to and talking about the Angels, and of course, Altramont.)
Their alignment with outlaw bikers and outlaw truckers was partially rebellion, and partially righteous response to the corruption of the age. It was also partially an old loyalty: Red Sovine had been a bard for truckers long before Jerry Reed. They were big on old loyalties, which to me says a great deal in their favor. The Outlaws never broke faith with their God, nor -- in spite of the Vietnam war -- did they break faith with the American warrior.
Even so the excesses of the age were a great test. Johnny Cash himself gave into despair and went to die in Nickajack Cave. Instead he found in its depths a wish for life, and a soft breath of air that led him back out under the light. His friend, and fellow outlaw, wrote this song in memory of that hard time.
The Victory of the Elites
Anne Applebaum notes that both of the candidates for President this year are members of the elite... two different elites, she posits.
UPDATE: Another elite, David Brooks, writes that the problem is really that the elite aren't as elite as they used to be. Now that it is at least possible to rise into the ranks via test scores or performance (and therefore possible to fall out through poor performance), those within the elite have become more corrupt in order to ensure that they remain in the upper ranks:
Were they better, though, because their power was more firmly seated? That seems an unlikely effect, given what I think I know about human nature.
Which is just as well, because the political success of both Obama and Romney proves that radical populism in the United States has failed spectacularly. For all of the attention they got, neither Occupy Wall Street nor the tea party has a candidate in this race. Neither found a way to channel inchoate, ill-defined public anger — at the deficit, at the banks — into electoral politics or clear alternatives. Whoever wins in November, we’ll therefore get the elite we deserve.She's a member of the elite herself, of course: the one she identifies for Obama. Like many members of the elite(s), she is clearly happy to see that money can still buy power. And for now, it clearly can.
UPDATE: Another elite, David Brooks, writes that the problem is really that the elite aren't as elite as they used to be. Now that it is at least possible to rise into the ranks via test scores or performance (and therefore possible to fall out through poor performance), those within the elite have become more corrupt in order to ensure that they remain in the upper ranks:
The language of meritocracy (how to succeed) has eclipsed the language of morality (how to be virtuous). Wall Street firms, for example, now hire on the basis of youth and brains, not experience and character. Most of their problems can be traced to this.Brooks' vision of an elite born to privilege but educated like Spartans is an old one: that is how the higher ranks of the continental nobility used to view itself, before the revolution. I wonder if it's really true, though, that they were any better. Their interests were more perfectly aligned, which meant that there was less likelihood of their misdeeds becoming publicized in the press that they owned, and which was also aligned with their interests.
Were they better, though, because their power was more firmly seated? That seems an unlikely effect, given what I think I know about human nature.
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