Reading "The Room Where It Happened" by John Bolton.
It's Trump porn, appealing to my liberal distrust of Trump and his administration. But that aside, I'm amazed Bolton stayed as long as he did. Either Trump is more charismatic, in the sense of being able to make people lose their common sense when in his presence, or Bolton was very power hungry.
Rachel Laudan has a recent post on the variety of food stores within a 6 mile radius of her Cincinnati home.
I could do a similar post about the Northern Virginia area, centered on Reston. One notable addition: we have Wegmans.
It's a big change since I was a boy. Tyler Cowen did an early book arguing this point, although focused on art, IIRC--i.e., that while the world was becoming more similar, the diversity within many cultures/countries was growing.
"Economist Tyler Cowen argues that the capitalist market economy is a vital but underappreciated institutional framework for supporting a plurality of co-existing artistic visions, providing a steady stream of new and satisfying creations, supporting both high and low culture, helping consumers and artists refine their tastes, and paying homage to the past by capturing, reproducing, and disseminating it. Contemporary culture, Cowen argues, is flourishing in its various manifestations, including the visual arts, literature, music, architecture, and the cinema."
I think this is the book I remember.
Yesterdays failure in the Senate to take up the Jan 6 commission bill has evoked renewed discussion of the filibuster.
My memory of politics in the 1950's and 1960's was that the filibuster became an issue only in connection with a "civil rights bill". There might have been other uses, but civil rights was the key, meaning the liberals were perpetually frustrated. That's very unlike today, where the filibuster becomes a factor in most partisan issues. In the 1950's and early 60's the big obstacle to liberal proposals on issues other than civil rights was Rep. Howard Smith and the House Rules Committee. It took years of work by both JFK and, I think, LBJ to change the House rules to get more liberals added tot he committee.
Back in those days breaking a filibuster required 67 votes, an almost impossible hurdle. But because party ideology was less important, national media in state elections of senators not important at all, LBJ was able to nickel and dime enough members to pass the civil rights bills, one reason why I regard him as a great flawed president.
As a glutton for punishment I'm reading that book. One chapter discusses the Mueller investigation in the context of special prosecutors and the criminalization of oversight. The authors ding Congress for lack of effective oversight, instead ceding oversight to the criminal process of investigations through the special prosecutors.
I wonder if Congress shouldn't delegate its oversight powers to an agency set up like GAO. GAO works for Congress, not the executive, and has a good reputation, I think, unless you're a bureaucrat being critiqued. But GAO focuses on the bureaucracy and on policy, worrying whether the laws Congress passes are being effectively administered by the executive branch. It's my impression they rarely interview the big shots, the presidential appointees, and never those close to the president. I'm not sure why; whether it's historical precedent or their legal charter at work.
The problem I see with my idea is that it seems like the old special prosecutor--giving a body authority to investigate without establishing limits. That problem led to both parties agreeing not to reauthorize the statue which existed for about 20 years.
Maybe we could look to the Congressional ethics committees, which police the members of Congress? Maybe a standing bipartisan committee could work, relying on political forces to restrain it? The problem there might be shown in the Federal Election Commission, which is supposed to be bipartisan but has been deadlocked with vacancies for years.
No answers here.
Elizabeth Hinton (who was on BBC news yesterday) argues for "rebellions" instead of "riots" to describe the events in the inner cities in the mid to late 1960's. Having lived during that period, although I haven't read her book, I think she's wrong.
To me "rebellion" means a degree of central planning and organization, elements which I think were shared through many of the slave "revolts" discussed here. A "riot" usually has an instigating event, a central focus which draws in participants, but there's no central figure like Nat Turner or John Brown.
Hinton has a point that the events from 1964 through 1968 have a continuity and similarity which makes "riots" seem an inadequate terminology.
I blogged previously worrying about the impact of inflation, if it occurs, on people on fixed incomes.
I've a second thought--it may be true that since the inflation of the 1970s that use of inflation-indexing has increased. IIRC it once was true that Congress would pass legislation increasing social security payments (also reducing income tax rates) to compensate for inflation. These days both are indexed, so the impact on the elderly may be less.
Megan McArdle has a twitter thread going on the rise in homicide rates. (Kevin Drum has pointed out that while homicides have risen, violent crime hasn't.
I'm going to write a longer column on this but I think that the people reassuring each other that the urban crime spike is only homicide, while other violent crime fell last year, should not assume that those trends will keep diverging.
— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) May 25, 2021
I offered two comments in twitter, neither totally serious. One was recalling a past discussion on the impact of medical advances on homicide rates--ER's might save more victims. The other was suggesting that criminal gangs were losing revenue from the effects of the lockdown and the legalization of pot, so they might be fighting over a shrinking pie.
I'm wondering how the trends will evolve.
Bob Somerby today has a post about Godel and Wittgenstein. It seems he got deeply into philosophy in his college days, and he often refers to them, as well as others (like Bertrand Russell just last week). Douglas Hofstadter wrote a famous book in 1979 on Godel, Escher and Bach. I was one of those who bought the book but never finished it.
I'm someone whose identity is tied up in their mind--i.e, all my life (almost) I've been "smart", so I don't like to admit there's stuff I can't understand. Bob is a mix of the esoteric, the cranky, and the right-on, whom I find mostly worthwhile to read, but I do skip paragraphs and occasional posts.
Seeing media stories about the possibility of inflation. Apparently the Biden administration is not worrying, nor is the Fed.
I understand the logic--prices may rise for food and gas, but the underlying trend may not be above the Fed's target for long. And the rise in wages for restaurant and food service workers is good; it helps the lowest paid.
But my cynicism is up today. I'm worried about people on fixed incomes--the retired--will be disproportionately affected by the inflation that occurs. And worried that people vote more on the basis of what they've lost than what they have gained, meaning Democrats in 2022 will lose more elderly votes than they gain from the wage gainers.
I'm intrigued by the idea that some hidden factors account for economic gains:
Wife and I drove to Purcellville today. First time we've ventured out together on a trip for pleasure, even if it was only a brief one.
One thing I got from my reading of "The Light Ages" is the etymology of "profession". The source at the link doesn't say, but I'm guessing that the progression was from a "profession of faith", meaning a solemn vow of belief, which would have been required of Catholics, particularly those entering monasteries and becoming monks. Given the evolution of universities from monastic and church schools where it seems that monks, or aspirants, were the dominant (only?) students and then teachers, the term becomes applied to the legal, medical, and theological professions.
Early in the year we were amazed that West Virginia was leading the way in vaccinating their people. My cousin in Massachusetts was griping about the way the governor was mishandling vaccination there.
Today it seems that West Virginia has fallen back, almost into the lowest tier of states, while Massachusetts is in the top tier.
Dems use the CRA on civil rights. Why use it on this, and not other regulations? The article explains why the EEOC is different.
Seb Falk in "The Light Ages" quotes the fourteenth century poet John Gower"
"For now at this time
men see the world on every side
changed in so many ways
that it well-nigh stands reversed."
I'm just through the first two chapters, and I like it very much. Particularly enjoyed the explanation of math operations using Roman numerals (turns out to be not that hard with the tools and processes which had been invented).
Slate has a long interview with someone studying Black American accents, how they vary from place to place and in time.
Anyone who's seen My Fair Lady is likely to be interested in the subject. Apparently it's harder to nail American accents down to a locality than English English, or maybe the parties to the interview weren't Professor Higgins.
I remember telling an employee back in the 1970's that her occasional use of black English might limit her promotion opportunities. I think it was a true statement at the time, but over the years I've felt guilty about saying it.
Toward the end of the interview they get into a discussion of trials, like George Floyd, in which interpreting the language of the black victim was at issue. There's some skepticism over whether the defense attorneys were honest in their misinterpretation of what was recorded. Perhaps I'm insufficiently cynical but I can accept that in the instant a policeman could interpret what he/she heard as being white English words, rather than black English language. It's problematic, but just an instance of how difficult it is to bridge social and cultural issues.
Some writers use "racism", some use "tribalism", some use "colorism", some use "ageism", some use "ableism"... Here's the first result when I googled "what 'isms' are there?"
The bottom line is, I think, we love to define "us" versus "them", or "others". It's natural to do so, because that's how we think--defining what something is by what it is not. When we do it to people, it's a problem.
This is a 2015 small book by Robert Paarlberg, subtitled "Gluttony and the Dark Side of American Exceptionalism.". Its thesis is that the US stands out for its obesity and its per capita greenhouse gas emissions, both of which are based in America's:
What I'm trying to get at is a phenomena I think I see. Scientific theories, or at least stories, prevail for a time, then get trashed. But years or centuries later the new theory circles back to the old, at least in some respects. Two examples:
Yesterday I wrote on what I see as changes through our/my history of what is "canceled" and what is not.
I've a metaphor:
Think of society in history as being reduced to a map in some way. Then the boundaries of what's included and what's not can be represented by a low resolution magnifying glass help over the map, a glass which brings some aspects to the fore and doesn't recognize other aspects. But over time the glass moves around, adding and subtracting things to look at.
I'm taking "cancel culture" as a generic process of society expressing disapproval of certain things, putting things outside the bounds of what used to be called "polite society". There should be a term for the opposite phenomena; society changing boundaries to bring things inside--in other words inclusion versus exclusion.
In my youth, Carlin's seven words were excluded. Judging by the NYTimes some are excluded because obsolete, some are no longer excluded.
References to certain sex acts (or maybe all acts outside of "missionary position") were excluded. Now all are included, as are all sexual propensities.
Profanity in its original meaning, cursing, particularly when related to Christianity, was excluded. Profanity which might offend religious people of another faith was more borderline. These days offensive words are excluded, though the curses which relate to Christianity (i.e., "god damn" etc.) are included.
I'm not sure whether it's the Colonial Pipeline which runs through Reston, including under my garden plot.
Apparently people are panicking about a potential shortage of gasoline, thereby likely creating the very thing they fear.
Some of us geezers remember the 1970's, and the OPEC oil embargos, and the gas lines. IIRC at one point we were supposed to hit the gas station on alternate days, based on license plate numbers.
Fortunately I:
This GovExec piece discusses the problem of job classification in the government, using the term "grade creep", which brings back old memories. Back in the late 1970's the Personnel Management Division (now HR) did a classification review of the branch I was heading (we had directives and records management responsibilities). They down graded the analyst positions.
As the dust was settling, I was offered a job on the program side of ASCS, which allowed me to maintain my GS-13 grade.
The classification standards for management analysts at the time were, IMHO, developed based on work in the New Deal days. To get the highest grade levels you had to be creating new organizations and new processes. I could see the logic of that. The impact of the people involved in creating the AAA back in the 1930's was more impactful than the work of people making ASCS work reasonably well in the 1970's. That didn't mean I liked the results.
Note: the GovExec piece argues for using computer algorithms for job classification--I have strong doubts about that.
There was a reference in the 1942 book I finished to the impact of the poll tax on white voting. I can't find a simple reference to confirm the statement, but on skimming this old article I found references to the rise in voting participation in Louisiana when Huey Long ended the poll tax.
In the 1930's Huey Long swept into power with the aid of the neo-populist movement in the South. In 1934 he widened his base of power with the repeal of the Louisiana poll tax. The average rate of participation in senatorial primaries increased frrom 31.2 per cent to 46.5 per cent; the increase in gubernatorial primaries was from 40.2 per cent to 60.1 per cent.
In 1936 Florida repealed its poll tax, and as noted earlier, there was a voter turnout increase corresponding to the increase in Louisiana. In four years there was an increase of 152,688 votes in the democratic primary elections or approximately 28 per cent. At this time Florida still had a white primary. The Negro registration, however, hovered around the 20,000 mark it had been before repeal until well into the 1940's.31
Ran across a statistic about the Forbes 400 billionaires so did a search with this result:
"When we first created the self-made score [see the article for an explanation of how they scored], we went back and assigned scores for the members of the 1984 list. Less than half of them were self-made. By 2014, 69% of the list was deemed self-made. Fast forward to the present list, and that figure has inched up to 69.5%. All but one of the 18 newcomers this year are self-made. [Oprah Winfrey is an example of someone who's entirely self made]
I don't know how this compares to other nations. But China is an easy case:
The pandemic has proved no match for China’s wealth juggernaut. The total wealth of the China’s 400 Richest soared to $2.11 trillion, from $1.29 trillion a year earlier. The 64% gain was due to the easing of capital-market rules and an economic rebound that enabled China to pull ahead of the world’s other large economies in recovering from the pandemic. Nearly two-thirds of the listees saw their fortunes climb in the past year. The minimum net worth needed to make the list rose to $1.55 billion, compared with $1 billion a year ago.
While not everyone on this list is also on the overall Forbes list, we can, I think, assume that many (almost all?) of the Chinese billionaires (I still have trouble comprehending the concept when typing it) are "self-made". Some proportion of them are likely children or grandchildren of the bigwigs of the original Chinese communist party.
I keep seeing references to authenticity, most recently in this post at Prof. Fea's new website.
I bought a book on children and essentialism, The Essential Child, a few weeks ago. The thesis intrigued me, so I went for a used copy (it's older). As I understand the book, which I've yet to read, a stage in children's thinking is the idea that there's an essential quality to some categories, that it's part of how children learn.
Seems there might be a relationship to the idea of "authenticity", that there's some essential "you" which you have to find and express. That might also tie to the recent emphasis on "identity", particularly in the LGBT realm.
At least today IMHO this is all overdone. What I've learned from my life is that human's are more flexible and adaptable than we often think. Even people as rigid and order-loving as me can and do adapt. Who we are is a combination of our heredity, as contained in our genes; our environment; and our experiences. It's mistake to overemphasize one of the three.
The Times had this feature on how Pfizer makes its covid vaccine.
It's fascinating, What struck me most strongly was the amount of testing and retesting which was done all through the process.
I recommend it for anyone on the fence about getting their shots.
When I was growing up New York City had three teams: the Giants with Willie Mays as center fielder, the Dodgers with Duke Snider, and the Yankees with Mickey Mantle. Snider got to the majors at 20, but became a regular in 1949 at 22. Mantle got to the majors at 19, becoming a regular in 1952 at 20. Mays got to the majors at 20 and became a regular in the same year, 1951. (His career was interrupted by military service.)
There was debate over who was better. My sister was a Dodger fan, so favored Snider. I was a Yankee fan, so favored Mantle (even had a baseball card for him). No one in the house was a Giant fan, so Mays didn't get equal time.
It seems clear now, on Mays' 90th birthday, that he had the best career and likely was the best player. The link has a good discussions of him.
The Volokh Conspiracy had a series of posts on a book: The Hidden Rule of Ownership.
The posts tempted me but so far I've not gotten the book either from the library or Amazon. It describes six bases for "ownership":
Politico has a piece on the Democrats use of the CRA, finally, with a discussion of why they're using it less than the Trump administration did. If you can get the courts to kill the Trump rules, you don't need the CRA, and you don't run the risk involved in applying it--the provision that prohibits the agency from future rules to the same effect.
Rubber was in short supply in the early days of WWII for America, because the Japanese took control of the major producing areas.
It's not mentioned in the book I'm reading but I remembered "retreads". No one born in the last 50's years is likely to be familiar with them, at least according to this website.
Started reading "The Year of Peril: America in 1942". It's okay though I'm not enthusiastic--read too much on the period, But it does remind me of how people panic when things happen, things like Pearl Harbor. It's not a pretty story, with the mishandling of Japanese-American residents, and Italian-Americans, though not to the same extent. Add the panics over potential or preceived Japanese attacks on the West Coast and German air attacks on the East.
I'd like to think we're more mature these days, but my memory of our reaction to the anthrax attacks which shortly followed 9/11 or to covid-19 persuades me otherwise. And remember the scare about child-abuse in day-care centers in, I think, the 1990's.
Sad.
