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America for the Americans

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Via Jesus General. Stay with it. It sounds like the teabagger crowd never realizes it’s been played.


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Escalation of committment

Sunday, November 15, 2009

As he contemplates trudging off into the Big Muddy, Afghanistan style, Obama might profit from perusing this article in today’s Times:

If a business school professor is running short on cash, there is a sure-fire solution: run a dollar auction game in class.

To start, the professor offers to sell the class a $20 bill. Bidding starts at $1 and goes up in $1 increments. The winner pays the professor whatever the high bid was, and gets the $20. Here’s the catch: the second-highest bidder also has to pay, but gets nothing in return.

Typically, a few brave or stupid students — nearly always male — open the bidding but fairly quickly only two bidders remain and they discover they are in a war of attrition. The bidding slows when someone bids $20, but then resumes with neither wanting to “lose.” If the two students are particularly stubborn, prices can go over $50. (The professor typically gives the money to charity, or claims to.)

The dollar auction game was invented by a pioneer of game theory, Martin Shubik of Yale, and it illustrates the concept of “escalation of commitment.” Once people are trapped into playing, they have a hard time stopping. (Consider Vietnam.) The higher the bidding goes, and the more each bidder has invested, the harder it is to say “uncle.” The best advice you can give anyone invited to play this particular game is to decline.

Further proof that markets are not rational, and neither are governments. Obama should say “uncle” and he should defend his decision vigorously. If he leaves, he’ll be attacked by the right, as always, but the obvious retort is to ask why American men and women should die to prop up a corrupt regime.


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Utopia East-even further East, that is

Sunday, November 15, 2009

There must be something about Hollywood that brings out the dupes in people. In today’s Globe we read that yet another small time Hollywood huckster has deluded yet another small New England town into believing a lot of hype that a little bit of due diligence would have exposed as claptrap. This time it’s Plymouth, the oldest town in New England, and the huckster is a guy named David Kilpatrick. My very local readers will immediately recall a certain Joe Gentile, who was going to bring that old Hollywood magic to Preston, until sad reality caught up to him and the Town.

At least Preston always maintained a certain amount of skepticism. It looks like Plymouth went into the thing with both eyes shut.

When Plymouth’s Town Meeting convened in October 2008 to pass judgment on Plymouth Rock Studios executives’ grand proposal to bring to town what they called “Hollywood East,’’ the results of the vote were a foregone conclusion. But the studio didn’t skimp on pageantry.

“For us at Plymouth Rock Studios this is all about our kids,’’ declared Kirkpatrick. “There is nothing more extraordinary than the wonder of making stories, making pictures.’’

The lights went down and the video rolled. TV personality Leeza Gibbons smiled on the people of Plymouth, reminding them, “You all are so fortunate that you have right in your midst . . . a brand-new Hollywood.’’

Then came a brief review of the plan and a montage of classic film scenes set to soaring music, ending with Judy Garland and her companions skipping down the Yellow Brick Road.

Soon, it was time for Plymouth’s town meeting members to debate tax breaks and re-zoning a golf course for 2 million square feet of sound stages, office space, retail businesses, housing, and a hotel.

Except there was no debate. Members voted to cut off discussion before it started, and hoots and applause filled the hall.

Yet another River City, sans trombones.


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It was 40 years ago today

Sunday, November 15, 2009

On November 15, 1969 half a million people descended on Washington D.C. to protest the Vietnam War, not a single one of them directly or indirectly subsidized by a TV network or an astroturfing group of lobbyists.

I made the trip to DC with some college friends. There were four of us, joined by two girls that we stopped to pick up in New York, all, somehow, crammed into a Camaro (bucket seats in front). I’m not quite sure how we did that, but we did.

We found a place to sleep at the Sigma Nu fraternity at American University. We (the men among us) were members of that fabled society, and our brothers in D.C. had no choice but to put us up, though they didn’t much “like our kind”. Fraternity trumped politics in that instance. The fraternity, we were told, was in the building where Edwin Stanton was shot, and we slept in the very room in which the deed took place.

Coming from Maine, I assumed the weather would be comparatively mild so far South. It was, in fact, biting cold, and all I had between me and that cold air was a CPO. I froze all day and into the night. My future spouse was somewhere in the crowd, presumably more warmly dressed than me.

One event of that day has stuck in my memory. We were wandering the streets of D.C. early the morning of the 15th (or was it the next day?) when we were approached by a young woman who asked us if we were hungry. She got an affirmative answer and she told us to follow her. She took us to a restaurant and paid for our breakfast. We took up two tables, and since she sat at one and I at another, I never said a word to her. It was a much appreciated act of pure benevolence, and ever since I have felt that I owe a sort of inverse karmic debt.

Back in those days, the media actually paid attention when people on the left took to the streets. At least in terms of numbers, the moratorium was pretty much replicated when the Iraq war was in the planning stage, but those demonstrations were rendered meaningless by the simple expedient of ignoring them. Conversely, a few teabaggers who can’t even articulate their grievances get a respectful hearing with Republican Congresspeople bellowing (without a hint of irony) that so many voices raised in tandem simply cannot be ignored. Whatever else you might say about them, those 60s protests were real. We now live in an age of “reality” television, in which fake reality has replaced the real thing, both as entertainment and as politics. Those 60s protests were instrumental in ending that war, though the proper lessons were never drawn from that experience. It remains to be seen whether faux demonstrations will have as much of, or more of an impact. Given the disconnect between the Beltway and the rest of us, the odds are better than even that enough Democrats will follow the money and bow to the manufactured “will of the people” as they were never willing to do when the outrage was real and the cause was just.


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Friday Night Music-James Brown

Friday, November 13, 2009

Fairly sure I haven’t done James Brown yet.

I’m starting with this clip as much in tribute to Ed Sullivan as James Brown. Everyone loved making fun of Ed Sullivan, but the truth was that he was great at spotting talent. Even more important, he was an equal opportunity employer before it was either hip or mandatory. Who else in that era would have let James Brown on stage. I can recall, from the dim recesses of my memory, a public service ad in which Sullivan made a plea for racial tolerance and justice. Mild stuff now, but not so much back then.

James Brown singing I Feel Good in his latter years. Good audio and video.

Finally, yet another odd pairing with Luciano Pavarotti At some point in the past I posted a video of Lou Reed and Pavarotti (you can see that video here). This pairing may be even odder.


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Drawing lines

Friday, November 13, 2009

The Catholic Church would have us believe that it simply cannot support any health care bill that might result in a single person getting an abortion, no matter how removed the cause might be from the effect. It’s a matter of principle, don’t you see. Just as millions of Africans must die for lack of a condom, thousands of Americans must die for lack of health care, rather than risk the immortal soul of the dying African, the dying American, or aborted embryo. It just won’t do to have flexible principles, at least it won’t do if you think you have a chance of “winning” by achieving the greater good for the lesser number.

But if you don’t? Well, apparently that’s when you can afford to be flexible. In fact, that’s when you keep your mouth shut. The last I looked, birth control was as much of a sin as abortion, (mortal, both. See some of my previous writings in which I expound on the level of sin) It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that the church should be insisting that any health plan that provides birth control coverage should also be expelled from the government exchanges. Yet we’ve heard nothing about that, since that’s a bridge too far. Holy Mother is perfectly willing to look the other way if another of its infallible pronouncements is transgressed, since outlawing birth control pills strikes a little too close to the center of middle America, not to mention the center of the homes of most cafeteria Catholics. Better to maintain a discrete silence on that issue.

This is nothing new for the Church, of course. Here’s an interesting bit of trivia: Did you know that the Catholic Church opposes the death penalty? When was the last time you heard about a Catholic Bishop denying communion to a pro-death politician? The Church also opposed the Iraq War, believe it or not, but we don’t see them lobbing grenades at the war mongers that brought us that war. Seems that the farther “life” is from being truly human, the more the Church cares about it.

Meanwhile, the Church is threatening to pull its charitable organizations out of D.C. if the District sanctions gay marriages. The pretext is that the church is frightened to death that it will have to extend benefits to same sex couples. Looks like the New Testament needs a re-write. How about:

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me, unless of course, you would have had to grant benefits to same sex couples, in which case, you took a pass.

Just wondering, but how many openly gay people does the Church employ? I’m not talking about the priests of course.


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The Supreme Challenge

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Via Think Progress:

Business groups are worried by the potential effects of provisions banning the import of all goods made with convict labor, forced labor, or forced or indentured child labor that were included in a customs bill sponsored by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and Ranking Member Charles Grassley (R-IA)

Business sources say this reporting requirement could cause DHS to more actively seek out imported products made with child labor, forced labor or convict labor. […]

Sources conceded that this was a sensitive issue because industry groups do not want to be seen as opposing strict measures guarding against human rights abuses. However, one source did expect a push from lobbyists closer to the finance committee mark-up of the bill, and speculated that U.S. industry groups and foreign governments could form ad hoc coalitions to help send a united message.

As professionals, the lobbyists must relish a task like this. Compared to selling child labor and slavery, stopping health care is a walk in the park, a mere bagatelle in the trophy case of a true lobbyist.

Imagine the brainstorming session among those lobbyists as they craft their talking points. True, it’s money that matters, but it’s still necessary to burnish the lucre with an attractive veneer of hypocrisy. Here’s just a few possibilities:

1. Banning goods made by non-traditional laborers would increase prices for the American consumer.

2. We have no right to restrict the freedom of non-traditional laborers to get near-gainful employment.

3. The United States should not interfere with the cultures of other countries (unless we intend to bomb them, of course).

I’m sure these are Bush League suggestions. No doubt the lobbyists will be far more creative. But talking points are just the start. For the real lobbyist-they man or woman with absolutely no conscience whatsoever, there is the Holy Grail. Having turned out thousands of brain dead Glenn Beck fans to oppose health care for themselves, shouldn’t it be possible for the lobbyists (with a little moola to Beck on the side of course) to turn out the tea partiers to demand cheap goods made by slaves and children?

There must be award ceremonies for lobbyists, and the guy or gal who can pull that one off surely deserves a special award, along with that special place in hell.


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Scalia, a hypocrite for all seasons

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Antonin Scalia has a problem. His intellectual dishonesty is showing:

If there is a topic Justice Antonin Scalia does not relish discussing, it is how he would have voted in Brown v. Board of Education had he been on the Supreme Court when it was decided in 1954.
…

The Brown decision, which said the 14th Amendment prohibited segregation in public schools, is hard to square with Justice Scalia’s commitment to originalism, the theory of constitutional interpretation that says judges must apply the original understanding of the constitutional text.

Brown presents originalists with a problem. The weight of the historical evidence is that the people who drafted, proposed and ratified the 14th Amendment from 1866 to 1868 did not believe themselves to be doing away with segregated schools.

What’s a hypocrite to do?

The dead have a problem. They are defenseless. Even when they have spoken for themselves they are ignored, and people like Scalia presume to speak for them. The “originalists” pretend to believe they can channel the Founders, conveniently ignoring the wide range of views held by that disparate bunch. In fact, it’s truly amazing how often the original intent of the Framers seems to coincide perfectly with the predilections of the originalists themselves. For instance, in a few weeks or months, Scalia will probably be explaining how Jamie Madison would have been all in favor of erecting crosses on public land, despite the fact that he and Jefferson did all they could to keep a divinity school out of the University of Virginia (and succeeded). What would Little Jamie think? No one can say for sure, but my own guess is that he would have opposed that cross, if he thought he could get away with it.

The real problem with originalism is that it is an insult to the Framers. For the most part they were men (sorry, no women) of the Enlightenment. They would have cringed at the idea that they were putting the future into a conceptual strait jacket or that they were writing holy writ. They were acutely aware of the fact that they lived in an age in which they had just recently managed to shake off the “dead hand of the past“. It’s hard to believe they would have wanted their own dead hands to hold down a world they could neither predict nor understand.

But the originalist are endlessly creative. Brown v. Board of Ed is a problem. It is simply politically incorrect (give them 10 years, and maybe that will change) to say out loud what they really think: that it was incorrectly decided. So, if history is against you, there’s only one solution: change history:

The other main way originalists justify Brown is by gathering historical evidence to show that the people who adopted the 14th Amendment did indeed mean to ban segregated schools. Justice Scalia nodded in the direction of that argument in Arizona, saying that “although some states continued to have schools like that, some abolished segregated schools after it was passed.”

And indeed, it’s not impossible to find examples of Congressmen (Thaddeus Stevens, for example) who would have opposed school segregation. That doesn’t change the fact, however, that Brown represented a departure from majority sentiment at the time of the adoption of the 14th Amendment.

One must wonder, too, how Scalia manages to fit women’s rights within the ambit of the 14th Amendment. It’s a sure bet that virtually none of the Framers of that Amendment had women in mind when they wrote it.

But for those of us with memories that go back 9 years or so, this really hits the spot:

In Arizona last month, Justice Scalia chose his words carefully. He seemed to suggest that Brown reached the right result as a policy matter but that it was not compelled by the Constitution. Still, Justice Scalia said, that is no reason to favor Justice Breyer’s more flexible view of how to determine the meaning of the Constitution.

“Don’t make up your mind on this significant question between originalism and playing it by ear on the basis of whether, now and then, the latter approach might give you a result you like,” Justice Scalia said.

“Hitler developed a wonderful automobile,” he went on. “What does that prove? I’ll stipulate that you can reach some results you like with the other system. But that’s not the test.

“The test is over the long run does it require the society to adhere to those principles contained in the Constitution or does it lead to a society that is essentially governed by nine justices’ version of what equal protection ought to mean?”

Think Bush v. Gore. It was decided on equal protection grounds. How many of the Framers of the 14th Amendment expected that they were giving 4 men and a woman license to steal a presidential election, yet apparently, according to Scalia, they did.


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Comments

Monday, November 9, 2009

I get very few comments, and my basic philosophy has been to approve any comment I get, provided it’s not spam. I believe in free speech and I also think that I should be able to take my lumps if the comments are critical.

Today, for the first time, I got a comment that crossed the line. In some respects it’s indecipherable-it’s a comment to a post I put up months ago about the Hygienic Art Show. I have no idea what the commentor is talking about-apparently there was some sort of controversy in which he played a part.

None of that would have bothered me. It was the anti-Semitism that turned me off. I’m not sure what it even had to do with the substance of the post, but there it was.

So, if the person who penned that comment happens to drop by: it won’t be going up. There are limits to everything.


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Rell chooses not to run

Monday, November 9, 2009

Some time ago Jim Amann stopped by our Town Committee. He received a lukewarm to frosty reception. In the course of his presentation he opined that Jodi Rell would not run again, and that the Republicans will nominate Lieutenant Governor Mike (who?) Fedele. Well, Jodi has dropped out and Fedele is running, though whether he’ll get the nomination is another question. The crazy thing is that although no one knows who he is, he’s at least as well known as anyone else who might care to run.

As for Amann, well even a broken clock is right twice a day, and today’s developments don’t increase his chances any.

Which brings us to the obvious question. How will the Democrats manage to blow it this time? We have a raft of candidates with high name recognition and generally high approval. There are no Republicans out there with proven state wide vote getting abilities. Let’s face it, even St. Jodi would have had a tough time winning the office if it hadn’t been handed to her; she hadn’t gotten cancer; and the state media hadn’t fallen all over her.

I have faith in the Democrats. Somehow, we will lose. In the meantime, let us pause for a moment of silence to remember Jodi Rell, a governor who never made a move unless she thought she could better position herself with the voters. Oddly enough, it was in part that obsession with shadow over substance that helped bring her to this point, though judging by her fundraising, she’s known for a while that she wouldn’t run again.

Jodi leaves a deeply dysfunctional state behind; a state that has done little to nothing to position itself for the future. A crumbling infrastructure, a backward system of taxation; a failed transportation system; a faltering educational system-all left unaddressed by Jodi and her puppet masters. She won’t be missed.


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