The New Yorker 'splains it all.

This is a much less obnoxious article than many that have recently explained to us how the forces of evil inexplicably took over the polling booths last month.  It's nevertheless very nearly as clueless as the rest.  Here is our President's take on the social justice challenges the country faces as automation proceeds on the same track it's been on for the last several hundred years, if not the last several millennia:

[A]t some point, when the problem is not just Uber but driverless Uber, when radiologists are losing their jobs to A.I., then we’re going to have to figure out how do we maintain a cohesive society and a cohesive democracy in which productivity and wealth generation are not automatically linked to how many hours you put in, where the links between production and distribution are broken, in some sense. Because I can sit in my office, do a bunch of stuff, send it out over the Internet, and suddenly I just made a couple of million bucks, and the person who’s looking after my kid while I’m doing that has no leverage to get paid more than ten bucks an hour.”

In other words, the problem with the distribution of wealth in this country is that the people who receive and pay for services with their own money have a different judgment of their worth than the valuation that the smart and virtuous people would like to impose on the rest of us. How else can you explain why some guy who writes popular material enjoyed by millions of people with disposable income can get paid more than someone who provides a straightforward temporary service to a single family that can be pulled off by almost anyone? Why not pay the childcare worker $10 million and the popular author $10? Surely they'd both keep doing their jobs tomorrow and next week, right?  (Not to mention, Mr. President, that if you feel guilty about accepting the $10 million you could always decline it instead of bragging about it.)

Much of the rest of the article bemoans the fact that voters don't have to agree with the smart people any more, as if they ever did.  The President is appalled that certain things can be said publicly now without the speaker's losing any chance of public support.  He can say something like that without reflecting for a moment on how surprised half the country was to find that a man could win the White House after being exposed as the acolyte of Saul Alinsky or the Rev. Wright.  I'm not sure it will ever occur to him that those parallel situations could ever be more than a "false equivalence."

Daddy Was...

Not my daddy, nor his daddy. But they'd have recognized elements of the story. We all would.

It's a song about all of us, sung through one of us.

The Feast of St. Andrew

Patron Saint of Scotland (which is sort of an oddity, since he never went to Scotland and Scotland has a number of excellent saints of its own), St. Andrew's Day comes as a welcome chance to listen to the pipes instead of Jingle Bells.



It falls during Advent, which is a season of fasting and preparation. In America, it overlaps with what we more usually call "the Christmas Season," when everyone is already singing carols and selling various wares in red and green. We have the habit of feasting in preparation for the feast, which is a bit odd when you think about it.

Still, if you are fasting, a feast day honoring so high a figure as St. Andrew must be welcome. It is a minor relief in a season of preparation for the great relief, which is a fair model of the relationship of human saints and the Incarnations.

Cuba and Israel

Jonah Goldberg on the valentines to a chic dictator recently departed from this life:

As much of the American Left is openly mooting whether or not the American president-elect is a dictator-in-waiting, one has to wonder whether they would take that bargain: No more elections, no more free speech, no more civil liberties of any kind, but socialized medicine and literacy for everyone! American political dissidents, homosexuals, journalists, and the clergy, just like in Cuba, can languish in prison or internal exile, but at least they’ll be able to read the charges against them. To listen to some Castro defenders, you’d think the scales of justice can balance out any load of horrors.

Such un-nuanced arguments always make leftist eyes roll. In a blog post titled “Castro: It’s Complicated!” University of Rhode Island professor Eric Loomis cautioned against thinking “in terms of simplistic moral judgments.” It seems to me that when people want to ban simplistic moral judgments, it’s usually because simple morality is not on their side.

* * *

But among serious leftists, Castro’s radical chic is secondary. For them, Fidel’s revolution provided the slender hope that America was on the wrong side of history. It was a symbol of resistance — intellectual, political, and spiritual — to Western yanqui hegemony. They loved Cuba for many of the reasons they hate Israel (despite its exemplary literacy rate and universal health-care system).

Post-Clinton-Victory Media Coverage As Bad As You Thought

Maybe a little bit worse.

I think we have the potential for a mutually beneficial relationship. But let's be real. I'm not that into you, and you're not that into me. And I know the kind of woman you are. You play hard to get; you're fickle; you say one thing and then do the opposite.... I've seen the way you look at Republicans. The way your face lights up when Henry Kissinger walks into a room. You never look at me that way. To be fair, I don't get that hot and bothered by you... Now, Hillary, you are the president-elect. And as much as a catch as I may be, it would be silly to pretend your being the most powerful person in the entire world doesn't give you a bit of an upper hand.

It still remains to be seen if the media can get to a position of "detached professionalism" even now, but at least with Donald Trump we will be spared the media positing their relationship with the new President in terms of a torrid love affair. (And this was one of her would-be critics.)

How To Encourage Tourism to the United Kingdom

...in one map.

Burma?

The OSU attacker claims to be motivated -- according to this FB post, which law enforcement says is his -- by the killing of Muslims in Burma.

I'm going to ignore the claims by this obvious loser to speak for "every single Muslim," which are clearly absurd. What really strikes me is the claim that America is somehow responsible for the killing of Muslims in Burma. We haven't had significant ties with Myanmar for almost twenty years. Our sanctions program aimed at them was precisely in order to object to the government's murder of its own people, and to try to motivate them to stop it. Lest one claim that the sanctions themselves are murderous, we have been working recently to begin lifting them -- just because the government seems to be involved in some reform efforts we want to encourage.

In the wake of 9/11, I thought the lesson was that we could not afford to be disengaged from the world. Afghanistan was somewhere we had also ignored for quite some time, having been on their side against the Soviet invaders. But they came to harbor a poisonous hatred for the West, especially America, and to nurture and protect terrorist movements like al Qaeda.

After 15 years of war in Afghanistan, though, I'm now wondering anew if engagement is the answer. Ultimately, things like this cast doubt upon the claims that the West is hated for its policies. Whether engagement or disengagement is pursued, and even when the disengagement is shaped around trying to encourage positive reforms in the way the people of a country are treated, hatred seems to continue. We are blamed for what we do, and for what we do not do.

If we do disengage, we're in a moment where the Russians and Chinese are likely to step up. If you thought the Pax Americana was bad, wait until you have to deal with Beijing.

OSU Volunteers

Much like the impromptu citizens militia of Flight 93, yesterday's attack on OSU prompted a sudden response.

OSU student, Molly Clarke, recalled the incident, citing, “We have quite a few military men in our class, who are actually all standing by the doors, keeping us safe.” She added, “I’m feeling pretty good about that.”

@CNN It's what we do. What most people take for as a right is truly made by sacrifice. I love my brothers and sisters. Best family ever.

— Disabled War Vet (@WarVet_MarsOne) November 28, 2016

Their training instantly kicked in and the heroic servicemen quickly secured the area, relying on the only weapons the gun-free campus would allow them to use — their own bodies.

Names of the military members have yet to be released but reports indicate that the servicemen moved the class into the middle of the room while they stood watch at the door.

Ultimately the issue was resolved by the good shooting of a young police officer, but these moves are not in vain. This is how a similar attack was stopped on a train in France -- also by US servicemembers. Being of the right mind, and training yourself to do your best physically, is a key part of filling this critical citizen function.

It might help if they weren't completely disarmed, too.

Loss of Citizenship as Time-Out

I like flag-burners about as much as I like cross-burners, but as satisfying as it might be to strip them of their citizenship, what both groups are doing is protected free speech. As long as the cross burning is not explicitly aimed at someone as a terrorist act, it is available as a form of expression. Flag burning is much the same. Odious speech is protected not because it is worthy or interesting, but because protecting even odious speech is the best way of protecting more valuable speech.

What I do find interesting is that Trump considers loss of citizenship a punishment on par with a year or so in jail. That suggests he thinks of citizenship as not being especially valuable. So you lose your citizenship, then what? Presumably, you become a legal resident without voting rights. You go to the back of the line, and in seven years you can re-apply and take the test to prove you're worthy of being taken seriously? It's like a time-out to teach better citizenship, in other words.

Well, maybe. The alternative would be exile, but that's dubiously constitutional even at the state level. On the other hand, if we're obviated First Amendment protections and are stripping citizenships, who knows if the prohibition against exile would hold?

The Red Army Choir Loads Sixteen Tons

A Briton Makes A Point of Cassandra's

A writer notes a rough form of equality.

[T]he point that I think has been missed by Solnit – and by all the women who have written and talked about mansplaining ever since – is: men also talk this way to each other. It’s not that they don’t defer to women. It’s that they don’t defer to anyone....

At the start of this column, I said there had been two recent stories about mansplaining. The first was that the 600,000-strong Unionen has launched a mansplaining hotline.

And the second, which followed soon after, is that the majority of calls to the hotline have been from men: anxious, self-doubting men, asking exactly what mansplaining is and how to avoid doing it.

Beware of throwing your ire at the wrong target.

Her contention that the biggest issue facing society is a lack of kindness is a point worth considering.

More "Just In Time for Christmas" History

Gadsden & Culpepper are having a 50% off sale on a "pick four" pack of historic American flags. The Veterans Exempt flag they have has a pretty silly looking skull-and-crossbones, but the others are solid.

I have a love for historic flags, both American and earlier insofar as they represent worthy things. Perhaps someone else you know does too.

The Russian Red Army Choir and the Leningrad Cowboys

From Sippican Cottage, via Ace:

This is the greatest concert I've ever heard of. It makes Woodstock look like Monday night in a Chinese restaurant lounge in Milford, Mass. Don't ask me how I know what that's like.

This video gets pulled from YouTube faster than I can keep up with it. The video quality in this one is set on Etch-A-Sketch through a periscope, but you get the idea. The whole thing is sublime.

The main performers are a spoof. More to the point, they are a metaspoof. There's layers to it. They are pretending to be Russians who are pretending to be American. They're actually Finnish. If you know anything about Finland, you know how extraordinary this performance is. The concert in the video is from 1993....

UPDATE: In the comments, Stone Soup offers this link to Sweet Home Alabama.

The Fins. Remember Steve 'n' Seagulls?

I'll have to go there someday just to check out the music scene. And hey, apparently, Steve 'n' Seagulls has a new album out:

Still at room temperature

H/t Ace:

 

Also In Time For Christmas

Thirty just-translated Medieval texts. Some of these would make for great reading. Others would be highly informative. Others, of course, are arcane -- but that has its own pleasures.

Flaming Turkey Wings!

This was one of my father's favorite commercials, and one that he would always quote about this time of year (although referring to Thanksgiving, and not Christmas).

Along the lines of Cassandra's comments about being frugal, naturally we do something similar with the leftover turkey. By this point, now three days into leftovers, we have gotten as far as "chiles poblanos, stuffed partially with leftover turkey."

Turkey chili and sausage is also good, although I get better results with the sausage if I make it with raw turkey.

What do you folks do with yours?

Last Two Reactions for the Night: Jill Stein and Harvard Prof. George J. Borjas

Erstwhile presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein:

Fidel Castro was a symbol of the struggle for justice in the shadow of empire. Presente!

Harvard Kennedy School Professor George J. Borjas:

Fidel Castro died last night at age 90. My first reaction upon reading the news this morning was “Good riddance!”

As I recount in We Wanted Workers, I have many not-so-wonderful memories of growing up in the very early years of Castro’s Cuba. It has always pained me to see Americans who are so ignorant of what a communist dictatorship is about singing praises to the Castro regime. It pains me even more to see people who should know better, like Pope Francis, saying that the “death of Cuba’s revolutionary leader Fidel Castro was ‘sad news’ and that he was grieving and praying for his repose.”

My family owned a small clothing factory prior to the revolution, and that factory was quickly confiscated after Castro’s takeover. Here are some personal and random vignettes of what it was like to live in a revolutionary utopia from the perspective of someone who was 10 or 11 years old at the time ...

Click over to read the rest.

Andy Garcia Reacts

Garcia, the actor and director known for such films as “The Godfather: Part III” and “The Untouchables,” was born in Havana, Cuba.

“It is necessary for me to express the deep sorrow that I feel for all the Cuban people both inside and outside of Cuba that have suffered the atrocities and repression caused by Fidel Castro and his totalitarian regime,” Garcia wrote. “The promises of his so-called revolution of pluralism and democracy, were and continue to be a false promise and a betrayal of all basic human rights.”

...

I think we're going to be subjected to all of Hollywood and the allegedly anti-authoritarian left wailing and rending their garments for poor Fidel, so I thought I'd get some sane reactions as well.

Babalú Blog Reacts

Babalú Blog used to be one of my hangouts. It is a group blog run by a man whose parents fled Castro's Cuba. Here is a roundup of some of their reactions (although it's worth just clicking over and reading down the page):

fidel castro Dead at Age 90:

The news is still trickling in, but it’s confirmed this time: fidel castro is dead. May he rot in hell for all eternity.

I’d always imagined this moment much differently. I’d always imagined myself in sheer joy, ecstatic, triumphant. But, alas, that is not the case. Sure, make no bones about it, I’m glad the bastard is dead. I’m glad the pots and pans are blaring in the streets of Miami tonight. And some day, if his legacy of hate and injustice ever ends, I will piss on his grave.

But the damage is done. The real Cuba is gone. A memory. A faded sepia image.

Brace yourselves, folks. The next few days will be heartbreaking as we will be assaulted by the accolades from the media. Tears will rain down from celebrities and world leaders will pay endless tributes to the bearded devil. It will be nauseating.

But please do take a few moments to revel in this news. fidel castro is dead. Roll the words around in your mouth like a fine wine. Take it in and let it soothe you and warm you and embrace you like a favorite blanket: fidel castro is dead. ...

Image of the Day: Poetic Justice

This next article is rough. It includes film footage of executions carried out under Castro, as well as some details about the slaughter he is responsible for.

Mass-Murderer/Mass-Torturer/War-Monger/Terror-Sponsor Fidel Castro Dies–Media Continues Spreading Romantic Fairy Tale About HIM!

And the inevitable crackdown ...

Breaking News: Cuban dissidents rounded up in the wake of the monster's death

There's more, and they will almost certainly keep covering it from the Cuban refugee / emigrant angle in the days to come.

#TrudeauEulogies

The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today issued the following statement on the death of former Cuban President Fidel Castro:

“It is with deep sorrow that I learned today of the death of Cuba’s longest serving President.

“Fidel Castro was a larger than life leader who served his people for almost half a century. A legendary revolutionary and orator, Mr. Castro made significant improvements to the education and healthcare of his island nation.

“While a controversial figure, both Mr. Castro’s supporters and detractors recognized his tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people who had a deep and lasting affection for “el Comandante”.

“I know my father was very proud to call him a friend and I had the opportunity to meet Fidel when my father passed away. It was also a real honour to meet his three sons and his brother President Raúl Castro during my recent visit to Cuba.

“On behalf of all Canadians, Sophie and I offer our deepest condolences to the family, friends and many, many supporters of Mr. Castro. We join the people of Cuba today in mourning the loss of this remarkable leader.”

And in response Twitter lit up with #TrudeauEulogies. The National Post and USA Today both covered it, and here are some samples:

John Barnes ‏@WesternSkies 8m 8 minutes ago

The world mourns the passing of Uncle Joe Stalin, an innovative pioneer who taught us so much about Photoshop. #TrudeauEulogies

Toastmaster General ‏@Vosnicos 9m 9 minutes ago

Today we mourn the passing of Osama Bin Laden a revolutionary in the aviation and demolition fields. #trudeaueulogies

 

magda_83 ‏@magda_83 13m 13 minutes ago

Best known as a style icon for many, Cruella De Vil shall also be remembered as an untiring advocate for animal rights. #trudeaueulogies

 

James Robinson ‏@JRobinson8899 14m 14 minutes ago

Today we mourn Dr. Josef Mengele, who's controversial experiments helped pave the way for modern medicine #trudeaueulogies

 

Hammersmith ‏@Czernobog 18m 18 minutes ago

"An accomplished painter and cinemaphile, Adolf Hitler united a troubled nation using his trademark wit and passion." #TrudeauEulogies

 

Derek Cook ‏@ARTofHope 19m 19 minutes ago

Today we mourn the passing of Judas Iscariot who, with a mere $30, successfully launched a brand new religion. #trudeaueulogies

 

Kevin Sheehan ‏@windkbba 51m 51 minutes ago

It saddens us that we lost Jack The Ripper today. He was responsible for helping prostitutes get off the streets. #trudeaueulogies

 

Bingo Bango Bongo ‏@SumOfChoices 59m 59 minutes ago Virginia, USA

Though a divisive figure, Fidel Castro brought us Justin Trudeau's #trudeaueulogies & Jill Stein's serious mental breakdown on Twitter.

 

J.J. McCullough ‏@JJ_McCullough 7h 7 hours ago

As we mourn Emperor Caligula, let us always remember his steadfast devotion to Senate reform. #trudeaueulogies

 

Jason Markusoff Verified account ‏@markusoff 9h 9 hours ago

"While controversial, Darth Vader achieved great heights in space construction & played a formative role in his son's life" #trudeaueulogies