McArdle's Question--Drawing the Line

Megan McArdle has a post which raises the question of drawing lines on statues.

It's interesting.  I'd add a question: when you evaluate a statue do you consider the intent of those who originally funded and created the statue, do you look at the current meaning of the life of the subject (if only one), or do you use the popular understanding of the subject?  How about artistic worth--is that a consideration?

Who decides--is it majority rule or what's offensive to a minority?

Are all statues fair game, or are some excluded?  For example, religious statues; statues from antiquity?

Another issue is how?  Must representatives of the original erecting body agree to removal, whoever currently has jurisdiction over the land on which it is erected? Or can an informal group, of protesters or a mob, depending on your affinity for the members, tear it down?  How about a symbolic defacing, temporary or permanent?

Did we have a problem in the Iraq War when Baghdad's residents first attacked the statue of Sadam Hussein, later to be assisted by a Marine.?  Do we have a problem with those members of the Revolution who tore down George IIi?

How about memorials--those which comprise multiple statues plus additional elements, particularly ones which commemorate events over persons? 

Personally, statues don't do much for me,

In Partial Defense of Andy Jackson

Protesters tried to take down the statue of Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Park last night.

Jackson's reputation has suffered a great decline since his salad days.  Even as late as 2007 Iowa Democrats were holding Jefferson-Jackson day dinners, and Obama made the speech which was key to winning the primary in 2008.

Let me quote a paragraph from near the closing of the speech--why is Obama running?

Because I will never forget that the only reason that I’m standing here today is because somebody, somewhere stood up for me when it was risky. Stood up when it was hard. Stood up when it wasn’t popular. And because that somebody stood up, a few more stood up. And then a few thousand stood up. And then a few million stood up. And standing up, with courage and clear purpose, they somehow managed to change the world.

 Implicitly this ties back to his acknowledgement of the occasion near the beginning of the speech:

This party -- the party of Jefferson and Jackson, of Roosevelt and Kennedy -- has always made the biggest difference in the lives of the American people when we led, not by polls, but by principle; not by calculation, but by conviction; when we summoned the entire nation to a common purpose -- a higher purpose. And I run for the Presidency of the United States of America because that’s the party America needs us to be right now.

That's my partial defense of Andrew Jackson. According to the way I was taught, the progression of America has been from:

"all men are created equal" where the definition of "men" is implicitly:

•  white men owning property, 
• almost all white men (except felons and Native Americans?)
• almost all men (except felons and Native Americans?)
• almost all adults (except felons)

Jefferson represents the first step, Jackson the second step, Lincoln the third.

Yes, I know Jackson was a slaveowner, a mean man, a bigot. Worst of all, he's the embodiment of America's first original sin (first in my mind if not in popular usage)--its mistreatment of Native Americans.

I don't mind taking down statues of whomever, but it shouldn't cloud our view of history, with all its complexities.

[Updated:  the discussions of Jackson I've seen have focused on the Trail of Tears and his populism/democratic stands, as I did above.  What we all miss is his preservation of the Union, resisting Calhoun and South Carolina over the nullification issue.. Had Jackson allowed SC to prevail, the union might have dissolved.  Definitely the advantages over the South the North had in population and industry in 1860 which allowed it to prevailed in the Civil War were not there.]

How Easily We Panic

I should say, how easily I panic,though I suspect it's true of most humans

Woke during the night with a fever, convinced myself I had covid-19,and panicked over the steps to take next--how to self-quarantine in the house, etc.

In light of day I'm 99 percent convinced it was false alarm--no other symptoms, fever possibly linked to a bit of gastritis (thank you Dr. Google) which happens now and again. 

But it dented my self-image as thoughtful, etc. 

I'm sure I'll forget/deny this episode in a few days.

Loren Becker Is Happy

As I've said, I've been lurking in the FSA Facebook group, watching the exchanges of hints, encouragements, etc. as the field offices struggle through CFAP (along with their regular work, all working from home or with restricted access to the offices].

One facet of the implementation effort is the use of Excel worksheets.  Back in the day, Loren Becker worked in KCMO. He became very proficient in Lotus 1-2-3, the dominant spreadsheet software of the day, and strongly urged us to use Lotus to develop test data, modeling what the results of System/36 software programs should be.  FSA isn't doing exactly that, but Loren would be happy, maybe is happy but I don't know, to see the extensive use of spreadsheets.

The Statue of King George III

I'm reminded that the American revolutionaries pulled down the statue of King George III in New York City and, I believe, turned it into bullets.

See this article.

The Tale of Two Graphs?

What's going on with the pandemic in the US?

From the NYTimes page, the graph of the new cases has been reasonably steady for a while, before taking an upturn in the last days.  (Might be the effect of protests, or the effect of reopenings.)

But the graph of deaths has been trending down steadily, and that continues.  So either more testing is finding more of the less serious cases, or the virus is becoming less virulent, or something else.

I'd guess the first,

{Update:I've seen a discussion that the increased testing is more and more of younger people, who aren't as susceptible to covid-19.  It makes sense that generally we focused our limited tests on the worse cases--i.e., assisted living/nursing homes, etc. and now the drive-through testing spots are getting active adults.]

What Should We Have Done?

Based on what we know about the pandemic and Covid-19 now, what should we have done back in time, say on Mar. 1.  Obviously, I think, we should have been ordering supplies, PPE, ventilators, whatever.  But given that we lacked sufficient tests, supplies, and contact tracers, what should we have done?

To me the answer is we should have focused on the areas and facilities which resulted in the most human contact--the dense areas of NY, NJ, MA, etc., the assisted living facilities, the prisons, the meat packing facilities.  For those areas we might have been stuck with the tactics we ended up using, social distancing, lockdowns, quarantines.

For the other areas I think we should have tried to leap to our current Phase II/III strategies, more distancing and lots of contact tracing. 

This two-part strategy might have been a tough sell; in an emergency we like to think everyone is treated the same.  But we've seen the problems in maintaining a uniform strategy across states, and the nation.

Scalia Says a Strong Economy--Not So

The Secretary of Labor, Mr. Scalia, says we have a strong economy. 

He's wrong.  We had a strong economy in January 2020; one which well by many of the usual criteria and under the conditions existing at the beginning of the year.  But those conditions changed; covid-19 emerged and suddenly our economic activity had to deal with a new world, one to which it was poorly adapted. 

We won't have a strong economy until we can adjust to these new conditions.

A Bit of Cynicism

I think a portion, very small perhaps, of the attendance at the protest rallies currently going on is affected by pervasive "cabin fever".  People who have been shutdown because of the pandemic are antsy, and the rallies provide a socially acceptable reason to go out and mingle.

What Will Change After Pandemic and BLM and Election?

I think we may err in expecting a lot of change after 2020 ends. My sketchy thoughts:

• yes, if Biden wins  there will be a lot of change in government, but mostly it will be reversion to the norm.  Even if Biden carries in a solid majority in the Senate, I don't expect changes on order of LBJ's Great Society in 1965-68.  Or even Reagan's changes.  I'd add a qualifier--there may be a lot of changes on the international front, which will force more changes than we can see now.
• full recovery from the pandemic will take years. I'd expect the major changes to be the result of people getting more used to online everything. But otherwise I'd expect reversion to the norm generally.
• the current BLM protests will result in some moderately important changes in law, justice, and policing, but not much more.

The theme here is, I think, the power of old habits and the past.  I hope to live long enough to see how wrong I am.