Uvalde Perspectives

 Megan McArdle tweeted this:

I can't say exactly what happened in Uvalde, but having written a book on failure, I'd bet investigation will not reveal one bad decision, but a string of overlapping failures, most of which occurred individually before with no real incident, but collectively became disastrous

— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) May 27, 2022

Graham Factor had this.

I think both are good perspectives.  I remember Kitty Genovese from the 1960's, where the original story turned out wrong.  It's possible that multiple police forces on the scene and poor communication from the 911 system to the police were factors.  We don't know, and it's too early to say.

Fallows on Guns

This Fallows post expresses my thoughts on Buffalo and Uvalde. 

WEIRD

 

Not the best photo, but this is Joseph Henrich's flowchart summarizing his 450 pp book, starting with Christianity competing with other religions (the cutoff part at the top) leading to Western civilization, which is educated, individualistic, rich, and democratic.

More to come, maybe.

Guns--May 25

 Reading "Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight" which is good, better for anyone who didn't live through the Johnson administration and read her memoir.

Just reached June 4, 1968, when RFK was assassinated, following the killing of MLK in Memphis. The author quotes an excerpt from a speech by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., the next day (who had campaigned for RFK) in which he said: "America is a land of violent people, with a violent history..."  Seems to fit today. 

I tweeted this today: "Is it strange that the NRA's good man with a gun guarding a school or church never requires an AR-15, but John Doe defending his home has an absolute right to an AR-15?"

Not sure that expresses my intent--in other words: shouldn't the good guys have weapons at least as good as possible assailants?  It's obvious to me that an AR-15 or similar weapon is not for self-defense. 

Did the End of the Draft Spur the Big Sort?

 The "big sort" is the label applied to the increasing polarization between Democrats and Republicans, where the differences within the party have diminished over the last 50 years and the differences between the parties have increased.

I've read theories about the sort, most of which I've forgotten by now.  I've likely posted before on it before. A couple speculations:

1. one of the integrating forces in American history has been war. The necessity of mobilizing armed forces to fight Native Americans, the French, the British, the Spanish, the Germans,the Koreans, the Chinese, the Soviets, the Vietnamese, etc. consistently brings together men and now women from different places and different social groups and strata and gives them a common experience with a common foe.  When civilian society supports their sons and daughters in a war it brings people together.  I think this has been especially true in the 20th century when the draft was in effect.  With the ending of the draft that integrating force has weakened.
2. While real estate development is perhaps the most characteristic American occupation, and doing subdivisions which cater to a relatively uniform clientele (in terms of race, salary, life style) has been going on since early days in New England, it seems to be massive developments, the Levittown type projects, really got going in the 1950's.  That geographic separation must have contributed to polarization.

Am I Addicted to Porn, War Porn?

 I'm not addicted to porn, not sexual porn.  I'm trying to avoid being addicted to what I call "war porn", which I consider some of the reporting from war fronts to be.  In some ways it's similar to sportscasters/writers who are "homers". It's seductive to go all in on supporting one party in a conflict, but too often when you look back on them they turn out to be mistakes. 

Watering the Milk and Vegan Milk

Stumbled on a factoid in the footnotes to a book I'm reading: "The Weirdest People in the World"--about which more later.  The footnote ties to a mention of what economists call "credence goods".  Thoreau originated a famous quote, now used by lawyers: "a trout in the milk" which the piece at the link explains. 

The context is that buffalo milk in markets in an Indian city was tested and found to be adulterated by the addition of varying amounts of water, from 3 percent to more than 40 percent. But consumers couldn't distinguish the adulteration by taste (hence a credence good). 

In the US milk, at least cows milk, is tested for quality, such as fat content. Thoreau's observation--that finding a trout in the milk would be sure proof the milk had been watered--shows this wasn't always the case in the U.S.

As far as I can tell, based on an extensive 10 minutes of research, there are no standards for plant-based milk--all the attention seems to be devoted to the issue of whether calling it "milk" is misleading.  

I'd guess that milk testing evolved well before the idea of requiring nutritional labels on food, and as long as plant-based milks have such labels it removes any impetus for a testing regime comparable to that for milk. 

The Last Mile Problem

 I've used this term before, writing about government.  A slightly different focus this time: local government, schools, libraries, etc.

In theory these days there's lots more data available, in that data is mostly digital and most digital data can be accessed.  In the case of Ipswich, MA the 21st century has seen a gap develop:  in the 20th century the town published a "Town Report", a big volume containing a series of annual reports by each individual unit of town government, and there were a lot of them.  In the 20th century there were local newspapers which would run stories on important local issues, interviews with candidates for local office, etc.

Now in the 21st century the Town Report is no more; there's a website.  The newspapers are now online and much slimmed down.  The town has a website and a Facebook page.  Someone curious and adept can search out a lot of information, sometimes by links to reports by Massachusetts agencies, or from what seems to be a outfit providing business services.  But for the average citizen it's all confusing: just a lot of web pages and reports.

In other words there's no human intermediary, no institution which has developed over the ages to interpret the work of government for the average citizen.  Why is that:

• the leadership elite doesn't realize that the gap has resulted as the internet has evolved
• citizens usually don't have a driving interest in local government so aren't motivated to do research nor have they grown up with the internet so are lacking some tools to deal with the gap
• it's easy for bureaucrats to delegate the communication responsibility to others: in the past the news reporters, now the techies who are doing the websites, etc. 
• the result is there's no institution which has evolved over time to torture bureaucrats and make their living by interpreting data for citizens.

Progress in Medicine

 Reading a biography of Lady Bird Johnson.  LBJ had gall bladder surgery, meaning an "enormous scar" which he showed off to the media and almost 2 weeks in the hospital.

My wife had surgery maybe 15 years ago, laparoscopic, and three days in the hospital (one pre-op because it wasn't scheduled), and today apparently it can be out-patient.

Four Feet Eight and One-Half

I saw a reference to this issue last week in connection with moving military supplies into Ukraine.  IIRC there might have been a military rationale for having different track gauges (distance between rails) between countries--making it impossible for an armored train or supply trains to cross borders as part of an invasion.

Here's a quote from a Politico piece on the nominee for NATO command:

He has also thrown himself into more intricate issues such as launching studies of railroad gauges and transportation infrastructure in Eastern Europe, which often still use Warsaw Pact standards, in an effort to smooth the movement of NATO troops and materiel.

Different gauges were a big problem in the early days of railroading, including during the Civil War.