Good News Today: Multiple Myeloma

The NYTimes has column today on good news this week.  I'll add to it:  

Kevin Drum reports on the progress being made on multiple myeloma--the disease he's been fighting for years.  He's hopeful, which is great news for many, but especially for devoted readers of him, which I am.

Bipartisanship in the Senate

Despite the acrimony, in the right circumstances the Senate can pass bills on a bipartisan basis.

They did so this week with the farm bill.  And a Senate committee  passed a bill restructuring the way musicians are paid.

Neither issue is terribly partisan, at least for the Senate.  The right wingers in the House force a split on the issue of work requirements for SNAP, but they finally got a version passed there.   It will be interesting to see how well the two houses work to reconcile differences and pass final legislation.

Our Socially-Isolated Citizens: Really?

The NYtimes reported that 12 percent of people report using their cellphones in the shower.

The Benefits of Moderates

Who is appointed and confirmed to the Supreme Court is very significant.  My spouse is very concerned.  The senators who seem to be key are Collins and Murkowski on the Republican side, who presumably would not want an appointee certain to overturn Roe.  And on the Democratic side, the WV, ND, MO, and IN senators who might want to polish their non-partisan credentials by voting for a Trump appointee.

Ideologues on both sides want to oust the RINOs and DINOs in their party.  The more they do so (no Jacob Javits or Hugh Scott in today's Republican party) the more power the remaining individuals have. 

It's similar to the maneuvering within the Court itself.  Back in the old days, Sandra Day O'Connor was the swing vote, and Kennedy was just a slightly less conservative than his fellows on the right.  O'Connor retires, promoting Kennedy into the swing position.  Kennedy retires, and the conventional wisdom is that Chief Justice Roberts becomes the swing. 

Unions and Marketing Agreements

The Supreme Court struck down the ability of unions to charge fees to non-members for service rendered in representing them to management. 

A couple comments:

1. FSA in DC became unionized before I retired.  As a manager, it was another pain, another hoop to work through.  But it wasn't really that big of a deal, as I remember it.  My suspicion is that the union has become less effective over the years because of turnover in its members, meaning the original members who pushed to get the vote have retired and/or got tired.  That's the way humans do.  (Might be wrong, particularly as issues like Trump's attitude towards civil servants and more importantly Perdue's proposals for reorganization have come to the fore.)
2. As I've been distracted by working on a book for a relative I've not read the decision or evern detailed discussion of it.  But, not allowing that to stop me, I'd think the principles of the decision spell trouble for the agricultural marketing order/promotion system.  I'd think the argument is the same: being required to pay fees to a union or promotion fees to a promotion organization is a violation of free speech and free association.

That's not to say I like the fact.  While sometimes I lean libertarian I do think the government can appropriately encourage the formation of groups, like unions and marketing groups.

Chang and Eng or the Bonds of Affection

What's the more appropriate reference for today's political situation?

Is it Change and Eng, the original Siamese twins, forced to accommodate each other by their bond of flesh, or is it Lincoln's "bonds of affection", as he pleaded in his first inaugural address?

IMHO we're stuck with each other, and we just have to get along (with each other).

Chimps Jumping Up and Down

Lots of discussion on social media about Red Hen: pro or con civility. 

Personally I'm pro, partly because I prejudiced against conflict and partly because of a viewpoint Megan McArdle voiced in a series of tweets: the most important thing is to take back the House in 2018 and the presidency in 2020 and everything should be judged by the measure of whether it helps or hurts achieving those goals.  IMHO the current dispute is a distraction.

Drawing back a bit to gain more perspective, I'm reminded of descriptions, perhaps video, of two groups of chimpanzees facing off against each other, each jumping up and down and trying to intimidate the other.  That seems to me to be the underlying dynamic of the current conflict: some on the left like Maxine Waters want to be nasty to all Trump supporters, some on the right claim the mantle of innocence. 

Changing Standards: 10K for Bar Mitzvah

Carolyn Hax does an advice column in the Post, which I read.  (What can I say, I used to read Ann Landers and Dear Abby.)

She answered a letter from someone worrying about the cost of a bar mitzvah.  They'd budgeted $10,000 for it, but the husband's parents wanted to go higher--$40K IIRC.  The in-laws threatened to boycott if they didn't get their way.  Husband told his parents that was their choice.

Hax applauded the answer.

As a (former) country boy I was stunned.  Who is willing to pay $10K for what I understand to be an elaborate birthday party/baptism celebration?  Better to invest the money for college.

Then, I'm a geezer.

Like Marrying Like: Petri and Stromberg

Ms. Petri usually does well in her humor columns, but Saturday's was very good.  Then I see this notice in the NYTimes, explaining the marriage.

In the old days Mr. Stromberg would have married his secretary, who would have been his better half.  Now he marries a columnist, who's still his better half.  I can't complain, since the marriage produces the column, but it's assortative mating.  Unfortunately it reduces social mobility. 

But read Petri's piece.

How To Forget Occam's Razor: a Conservative Example

Scott Johnson at Powerline has a nice example of logic discussing an Andy McCarthy piece (which I did not read).  He believes the "fix" was in from the beginning for the investigation into the Clinton emails (yes, the conservatives are still digging over that--pretty soon they'll be tying it into the Clinton Filegate  scandal).  His reasoning: Obama said Clinton didn't have any bad intent in using a private email server.  Comey listened to Obama and said the same thing.

That's convincing, isn't it?

But apply Occam's Razor.  Which is simpler:

1. There was no evidence of evil intent and two men of different political parties came independently to that conclusion.
2. There was evidence of evil intent, Obama corruptly said there wasn't, Comey ran an investigation using FBI agents, usually considered conservative which was really just for show, made sure he didn't find any smoking gun evidence, and agreed with Obama. 

The second alternative is simpler only if you believe in Clinton's guilt from the beginning.