My Dilemma With Game of Thrones

I follow a lot of blog feeds.  Have done since the days of Google Reader.  Many of my feeds include good pieces on Game of Thrones.  For example, here's a New Yorker piece.

Now since I'm getting a little deaf, not quite as deaf as my wife thinks but a little, I often like to follow British shows through DVD's, because that way I can get the subtitles.  (I know, there's probably a way to get subtitles on cable, but I'm too lazy to explore it.)  And because I'm getting a little senile, there's another benefit: I can watch episodes back to back, without straining my memory to track from one week to another what happened.  And a third benefit: I can go to bed earlier, without having to watch from 10 pm to 11 or whatever.

All of this means a dilemma: if I read the blog posts on the episodes as they come out, I inevitably get a lot of spoilers.  If I don't, there's no way, no easy way, to go back and pick them up when the DVD's are released and I'm watching them.  Life's not fair, sometimes.

Changes in Culture: Swearing

This New REpublic piece discusses research into the frequency of swearing in America, specifically the use of the seven words in American books.  The research found a vast increase (28 times) between the early 50's and the late oughts.

The article is dismissive of the research, claiming it's not good social science.  That may be, but as  someone has lived over those years, the prevalence of swearing is to me just a sign of the changing culture.

I'm tempted to say "standards are falling" but I'll just say changing.

Virginia as Multi-Cutural

Tyler Cowen has a post on that theme at Bloomberg.

An anecdote: a relative recently attended the high school graduation of a grandson in North Andover, MA.  She commented to me she was surprised by how diverse the area had become (she was a girl in Andover during the 1940's).  I looked up on wikipedia and found North Andover was, in 2010, about 6 percent minority.  Currently the  school's site says 18+ percent are minority.

According to Cowen Charlottesville is 9 percent minority.   Fairfax county is about 50 percent.

I'm the sort of soft-headed bleeding heart liberal who enjoys this.  

Death Panels Exist: For Strawberries

A NewYorker article: (Varieties are made obsolete based on the decisions of an internal group called the Dead Variety Society.)

Bad Logic in the Fifth Circuit

For some reason, this decision voiding a fine on Exxon-Mobil for a pipeline spill gets my goat.

Imagine a similar decision on airline accidents:

"“The fact that the [accident] occurred, while regrettable, does not necessarily mean that [Boeing/United Airlines/the pilot] failed to abide by the [rules for building and operating airplanes] pipeline integrity regulations in considering the appropriate risk factors,” the court wrote. “The unfortunate fact of the matter is that, despite adherence to safety guidelines and regulations, [airplanes] still do occur.” [brackets indicate where I've changed the terms]

Because we have a zero tolerance for planes falling out of the sky they don't.  Why not the same zero tolerance for pipeline spills?

The Good Old Days

Am I a total reactionary by mourning the good old days of the early civil rights movement, where non-violence was a successful tactic and there weren't competing marches? 

I don't like what seems to be the anti-fa tactic of counter-marching on the same day.  To me it would be a better appeal to public opinion to allow the alt-right marches to occur without an opponent, mocking them with a next-day march that is bigger and more orderly. 

It's interesting, though, that wikipedia is struggling to deal with anti-fa, calling it
"antifa".

Blast from the Past: Guadalcanal Diary

Guadalcanal Diary was one of the books on my family's shelves,

Mention it because the invasion occurred this month, as noted at the AmericanStudies blog.

My Hypocrisy: Coal Versus Corn

There are reports that the Republican governor of WV is looking for government subsidies for coal production.  My gut reaction is to immediately oppose them.

However, what's my logical basis? Am I being a hypocrite?  I assume the idea is to keep coal mines going through a bad spell, perhaps a bad century, providing jobs for coal miners, at worse easing the transition to a non-coal future.  (Actually Gov. Justice has a "national security" rationale, perhaps somewhat like the old subsidies for wool and mohair.) Compare that with my rationale for some farm programs: keeping farms going to ease the transition to a future with fewer farmers.  (Full disclosure: that's one of two rationales I mostly buy, at least with respect to historical farm programs, the other rationale being the production adjustment one.)

So can I come up with a way to distinguish between farmers and coal miners as worthy recipients of government subsidies?

One difference is clear: farm subsidies go to farmers, coal subsidies would go to coal mining companies. Is that sufficient?

How Bureaucracy Works

Jonathan Bernstein has good observations on the bureaucracy:

Or, to put it another way: Normal presidencies have a process in place in which important policy questions are brought to the president -- not just security briefings, but domestic problems as well. Just the need to present the president with serious briefings forces the White House staff and various agencies and departments to figure out what's important and what's not, to find potentially viable courses of action for the president to consider, and to be prepared in case the president asks tough questions in either an initial briefing or down the road. Good presidents won't just passively absorb briefings; they'll challenge the information and the options they're being presented with, reinforcing the need for everyone up and down the line to do their best work.

Sometimes the stimulus for action is from the top, sometimes it comes up from the bottom.  Either way the bureaucracy can't be much better than the person at the top.

Detroit

Just saw Ms. Bigelow's new movie: Detroit.

It's similar to her previous three movies: K-19, the Widowmaker, Hurt Locker, and Zero Dark Thirty, in that it's based on facts and avoids many movie cliches.  Our verdict on it: "interesting".  I think that means, it's worth seeing, just as it's worth seeing your dentist, assuming your dentist is very capable and you've got some dental problems.