Ranting to /dev/null

Never thought I'd say this, but...

...Maureen Dowd actually has a point about something. The link goes to a fascinating article in which Dowd discusses the abject failure of the feminist movement as today's women, especially younger ones, seem to strive for exactly the things their feminist forebears tried to destroy.

All I'd say is that the assumption that equality is always a virtue is flawed, and needs to be reexamined.

Here it comes...

You know that housing bubble? The one that isn't there? The one that isn't bursting? Well... read this.

Umm... head for the hills.

Constitutional evolution

I've been mulling over an idea in my head for about a month now. It's a radical change to the constitution that might restore some semblance of order to what remains of the American political system. I think it's far too late to stave off the coming disaster, but that doesn't mean it's not a good idea.

I short, I think people should be allowed to sell their votes.

Not sell them to politicians: politicans would be prohibited from doing this. But private citizens would be able to pay a predetermined fee to the government, which would in turn forward that fee to an individual citizen that has elected to give up their franchise for that election cycle. The fee would determined with a Dutch auction, with the minimum being set at poverty level plus some percentage (probably something like 15%). All money spent buying votes would be in place of other taxes. Then, the person who bought the votes would vote for the candidate of their choice and have all their purchased votes automatically go there too.

So the rich can buy for themselves a vastly disproportionate voice in the political system, but no one can complain that the underprivelaged aren't cared for, since they're being given a subsistance level income at minimum, and possibly more if enough people are willing to pay that much for the political power.

I'd suggest that this would only be in play for electing the President. The House should still be universal suffrage, and the Senate should go back to the original way of doing things: state appointees.

Benefits to this system: those who govern would no longer have to pander to masses of uneducated, unintelligent, self-interested, short-sighted idiots. People are stupid. A person may be smart, but people, no matter who they are, are stupid. This would, in turn, probably move politics way back from the public view, where it can do the most harm. It's time for politics to be the concern of those who actually have something intelligent to say about it. We could probably do away with the damnable polarization of American politics if we didn't have to mobilize vast quantities of plebians to get anything done.

I don't care if this makes me sound elitist. I am elitist. I'm not elitist like Lenin or Che, in that I'm all about letting a system of rules emerge from a pattern, and am not too keen on imposing rules on a system to achieve a desired end. But I believe that balancing political power with social burdens makes sense, and that our current system is deeply unequal. Those who give nothing have as big a voice - or even bigger, when taken en masse - than those who give 50% of their income. It's time that those who live on the fringes of the largesse of the productive minority started acting the part and showing some deference.

Careening

In Thursday's WSJ, Peggy Noonan argues that America as we know it has gone completely off the tracks, that "in some deep and fundamental way things have broken down and can't be fixed, or won't be fixed any time soon."

I think she's right. And I think she's also correct in her assessment that our elites are "going forward each day with the knowledge, which they hold more securely and with greater reason than nonelites, that the wheels are off the trolley and the trolley's off the tracks, and with a conviction, a certainty, that there is nothing they can do about it."

Why is this? I think it has somehing to do with this damnable sense of egalitarianism and "equality" our country seems to be drunk with. Those who qualify as "elite" - and they tend to know who they are - are the only ones capable of leading a nation. One half of the American elite - the Left - seems to have caught a suicidal case of self-loathing and counter-productive activism. The other half, demonized by the first, consists of business elites who are actually able to get the job done, but have settled into a deep ambivalence and apathy, as they are not permitted to do the jobs they need to do, and hated when they actually do them. Sure, we'll let you lead, but we'll penalize you for doing so.

Why would we want anyone who isn't rich to govern our fiscal policy? Wouldn't they be the ones who know a thing or two about money? But the rich are probably the single most hated group in the country, and on top of that, they pay massively punitive taxes. They're already paying their bit. It's irrational to expect anyone who's already giving way more than their share (1% of the population generates 60% of government revenues) to step forward and demonstrate leadership, especially when the general public refuses to admit that maybe they're not evil selfish bastards.

I'm convinced that the next two or three decades, at least will be a time of massive difficulty for our nation. The economic situation is barely stable at the moment, but all indicators seem to say that it's going to crash and burn pretty quickly. It's going to become necessary for productive citizens to cast of the burden of the "grasping and unproductive needy" if anyone wants to get eat. The trade off used to be "I pay for your life, you do what I say". It'll get that way again. It's only a matter of time.

Conflicting arguments

Figured out something that's been bugging me for a while. Your standard progressive critique tends to include two critiques of the perceived status quo. One is that the West engages in punitive trade practices with the Third World. I'm going to focus on agricultural subsidies and tarriffs for the purposes of this argument. But on the other hand, the criticism is that small, private farmers in this country are going under.

I figured out why these two interests tend to conflict. And why the end result makes progressive critics look and sound like this.

So on one hand the criticism is that we're exploiting Third World countries by not letting them export their goods. On the other hand, the criticism is that old farming families aren't able to continue their way of life through small-scale farming. The solution to this would seem to be agricultural tariffs and farm subsidies to prop up what is otherwise a non-viable business.

You can't have it both ways. If you drop the farm subsidies and treat everyone justly, small American farmers will go out of business. If you maintain the subsidies and tariffs, you will screw over foreigners. And as the vast majority of people not living in North America or Europe are engaged in agriculture, this seems particularly selfish. But you don't get to pick survivability for individual American farmers and treating the rest of the world justly. Take your pick.

The same applies to every other industry. You get to pick either high wages for American workers or an equitable economic foreign policy, but not both. The fact is that it's only ever been just barely possible to make it by as a laborer or farmer, and the fact that it was possible earlier is a fluke, not a new norm.

And before anyone accuses me of being having a well-educated, well-paid job, I'll have you know my full-time job pays $8.00/hr.

Getting good responses

Law schools that have offered to waive their application fee so far:

University of Pittsburgh
William and Mary
Case Western Reserve
Washington University (St. Louis)

Is anyone surprised?

Turns out the leading British opponent of the war in Iraq, MP George Galloway, was... in Saddam's pocket. The guy embezzled $150,000 in oil revenues through his now-estranged wife's company.

Does anyone wonder why he might have opposed the invasion? Now who's talking about blood for oil?

Conclusions

So then, let's draw some conclusions from what's passed. I spoke briefly about what I think about innovation in worship in the comments to Wednesday's post, but I'll spell them out more clearly here.

I don't think there's anything wrong with writing new songs to sing. "How Deep the Father's Love for Us" is a wonderful hymn. But why even bother to write something new if you haven't even started to scratch the surface of what's gone before?

What about "Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending"?
"Lo! He comes with clouds descending,
Once for favored sinners slain;
Thousand thousand saints attending,
Swell the triumph of His train:
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
God appears on earth to reign."

Or "Of the Father's Love Begotten" (which was first written in the 5th century AD!)
"O ye heights of heaven adore Him; angel hosts, His praises sing;
Powers, dominions, bow before Him, and extol our God and King!
Let no tongue on earth be silent,
Every voice in concert sing, evermore and evermore!"

Perhaps "Jesu, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts"? (Bernard of Clairvaux, 12th cent.)
"Our restless spirits yearn for Thee,
Wherever our changeful lot is cast;
Glad when Thy gracious smile we see,
Blessed when our faith can hold Thee fast."

"Thou Hidden Source of Calm Repose" (Charles Wesley, 18th cent.)
"Jesus, my all in all Thou art,
My rest in toil, my ease in pain,
The healing of my broken heart,
In war my peace, in loss my gain,
My smile beneath the tyrant’s frown,
In shame my glory and my crown."

This, then, is my central criticism of the emergent church: it abandons the richness that is before us for... not a whole lot. The line of argument seems to be "The church seems to have been missing something for the past few days. Therefore, we need to start from scratch, learning from the culture to figure out what people want, and go from there." This is a gigantic non sequitur.

And I'm not just looking for the odd old hymn thrown in with what is an essentially newly-fabricated order of worship. Worship isn't done a la carte, and mere diversity of epoch isn't what we're going for here. Observance of the old liturgy is more than just a way to truly worship, it's living in solidarity with the saints of time gone by. I want to participate in the Great Thanksgiving and Holy Eucharist that the saints of God have been saying for centuries.

Literary analysis II

The question I'm asking myself right now is this: "Do I even bother with Chris Tomlin?" He's written a lot of very popular praise songs, including:

"Here I Am"
"God of Wonders"
"The Famous One"
"Shout to the Lord"
"In the Secret"

He continues to be an exceptionally popular CCM artist and his songs are sung in thousands of churches across the English speaking world.

But there's a problem, and that problem is this: Chris Tomlin is an atrocious poet. In fact, he's just so bad that I'm reluctant to post a take-down of his lyrics, because any such activity on my part would almost certainly be received with dismay and reflexive, irrational criticism. But I love sticking forks in sacred cows, so I'll go for it, and let the stones fall where they may.

In order to keep this at least interesting, I'm going to eschew such steamers as "In the Secret" and try to do one that actually manages to seriously predicate. Like "Come Let us Worship"

--
Come, let us worship and bow down
Before the Lord Most Holy
Before the King of Glory

Come and lay your burdens down
Before the Friend who's faithful
Before the One who's able

For He is our God
And we are His people
[Yes] He is our God
And we will never be forsaken

Come, let us lift our voice in praise
Unto the Rock of Ages
Unto the God who saves us

Come and glorify His name
All the earth together
All the saints forever

You are our God
And we are Your people
You are our God
And we will be with You Forever
--

Okay, unlike most of Tomlin's songs, this one actually has recognizable subjects and verbs. Which is a good thing. But not enough to make it an even halfway decent poem. We've still got no meter or rhyme, no real progression of thought. It seems to me like a series of spiritual-sounding phrases thrown together in basically random order.

The following is "Lord, With Glowing Heart I'd Praise Thee" by one Francis Scott Key, generally better known for penning the Star-Spangled Banner (hey, it's not his fault the tune is unsingable!)

--
Lord, with glowing heart I’d praise Thee,
For the bliss Thy love bestows,
For the pardoning grace that saves me,
And the peace that from it flows:
Help, O God, my weak endeavor;
This dull soul to rapture raise:
Thou must light the flame, or never
Can my love be warmed to praise.

Praise, my soul, the God that sought thee,
Wretched wanderer, far astray;
Found thee lost, and kindly brought thee
From the paths of death away;
Praise, with love’s devoutest feeling,
Him Who saw thy guilt-born fear,
And the light of hope revealing,
Bade the blood-stained cross appear.

Praise thy Savior God that drew thee
To that cross, new life to give,
Held a blood sealed pardon to thee,
Bade thee look to Him and live.
Praise the grace whose threats alarmed thee,
Roused thee from thy fatal ease;
Praise the grace whose promise warmed thee,
Praise the grace that whispered peace.

Lord, this bosom’s ardent feeling
Vainly would my lips express.
Low before Thy footstool kneeling,
Deign Thy suppliant’s prayer to bless:
Let Thy grace, my soul’s chief treasure,
Love’s pure flame within me raise;
And, since words can never measure,
Let my life show forth Thy praise.
--

That's just a really good poem, music or no. I'm going to offer forth an axiom for evaluating songs used in worship: if the lyrics aren't worth anything without music, they aren't worth anything with music. None of Tomlin's lyrics I've been able to uncover have any value at all, they all depend on the music they're set to to deliver some kind of emotional punch. This, my friends, does not constitute worship in any way that I'm able to define it. But "Let Thy grace, my soul's chief treasure, Love's pure flame within me raise" certainly does.

Literary analysis

This came up in the conversation that followed from my post on Wednesday, but let's actually do some comparisons of popular worship songs for their literary content. We're working under the assumption here - or at least I am - that if we're singing it in church, it should be at least as good as the lyric poetry we consume on a regular basis. So I'm going to post and discuss some lyrics below. Copyright-mongers can go hang.

"Your Mercy and Kindness" by Mark Altrogge
O Lord You are my Shepherd
In You I have no needs
You make me rest in green fields
And walk by quiet streams
O Lord You are my Shepherd
Your love restores my soul
And for Your name and glory
You show me the way to go

Chorus
Your mercy and kindness
Pursue me forever
My cup runs over with Your grace
Your mercy and kindness
Pursue me forever
And I’'ll be with You all my days

-- Verse Two
O Lord You are my Shepherd
Though I walk through death’s dark shade
Your rod and staff give comfort
I will not be afraid
O Lord You are my Shepherd
A table You have spread
In sight of all my foes Lord
And You anoint my head

We're going to assume for the sake of discussion and in order to avoid rhetorical cheap shots that the chorus won't be repeated seventeen times. Because in most churches it probably would be.

But again, leaving that be, what have we got here. Quite clearly, a setting of Psalm 23. It's not the worst I've seen, but it's nothing all that spectacular. Not much in the way of meter, a bit of rhyme, but nothing too complex. Though it's certainly possible to write a good poem without either of those, poetry without either is both easier to write but harder to write well. The grammatical structure is pretty simple, and little in the way of sentence inversion is present. It's pretty basic, and pretty prosaic. There doesn't seem to be any particular reason to divide the lines as has been done, as the rhyme and meter schemes are largely absent. This isn't an inherently bad thing, but when you put that to music it can lend itself to extended periods of no singing, which kind of defeats the purpose. But compare with the following:

The King of love my Shepherd is,
Whose goodness faileth never,
I nothing lack if I am His
And He is mine forever.

Where streams of living water flow
My ransomed soul He leadeth,
And where the verdant pastures grow,
With food celestial feedeth.

Perverse and foolish oft I strayed,
But yet in love He sought me,
And on His shoulder gently laid,
And home, rejoicing, brought me.

In death’s dark vale I fear no ill
With Thee, dear Lord, beside me;
Thy rod and staff my comfort still,
Thy cross before to guide me.

Thou spread’st a table in my sight;
Thy unction grace bestoweth;
And O what transport of delight
From Thy pure chalice floweth!

And so through all the length of days
Thy goodness faileth never;
Good Shepherd, may I sing Thy praise
Within Thy house forever.

I'd like to argue that poetically, this is just better. It's certainly more complex, and contains no repetition, which in my book is no bad thing. It's metrical. It's got a rhyme scheme. There's actually a reason to divide the verses this way, so you aren't left with long silences between phrases. It's got a nicely varied sentence structure, not to mention compound sentences and dependent/subordinate clauses. Furthermore, in an effort to distill the Psalm into what is probably a 7th grade reading level (tops), the previous song leeches out some really significant things out of the lyrics. "I'll be with you all my days" leaves out the aspect of the house of God, something which actually matters here. And somehow "you show me the way to go" doesn't have the same ring to it as "and on His shoulder gently laid, and home, rejoicing, brought me."

Let's do another one. Look for another post.

Moving forward

Got my LSAT scores back last night. I got in the 97th percentile, which is good, but not quite as good as I'd hoped. Given my GPA, I'd be a long shot at the Harvard/Stanford/Yale trifecta, middle of the road at places like NYU, Penn, Columbia, etc., and quite competative just about everywhere else. So now we start looking at law schools.

I want to stay in the Northeast, I'm pretty sure. Which isn't a bad thing for law schools, as of the top 25 or so, half of them are located here. I'd go as far south as Virginia, but I'm not too excited about going farther south than that. So Pitt, Temple, UMD, etc.

"Emerge" this!

I've been doing some reading on the so-called "emergent church" movement that seems to be attracting more and more attention these days. Those who don't know what I'm talking about can find more information here (Wikipedia) and here (transcript of a PBS piece with some good info).

My take on it? It doesn't matter how many times you try and reinvent the wheel, they still got it right the first time. Steel-belted radials may be an improvement over chiseled stone, but the whole round-thing-with-an-axle is still where it's at. There hasn't been a change in the basic design since it was first conceived.

And no matter what you think is screwed up with the church today, it's just the same here. The only thing new "emerging" from the church is a brand new way of indulging our own desires at the expense of the long-standing and perfectly functional Kingdom of Heaven.

Why is it that every time people think there's something wrong with the church they decide to look anywhere but the church for the solution to the problem? Why do we need new songs to sing? It isn't like you even know what the church has historically sung, much less exhausted two millennia of hymnody. Why do we need to think up our own liturgy? Might it be possible that someone has already come up with something that has worked for the last two thousand years? And is it the church's fault that you don't know what that is? Do you really think that the struggles you face are new to the church? That relativism and ambivalence towards truth are something the church hasn't experienced? That our culture has anything on pagan Rome in terms of opposition to the work of the church? That today's demonized forms of entertainment can hold a candle to public death-matches, executions, and orgies? Because the church has dealt with all of those things before.

I don't want anything new from the church. I don't want it to come up with new and "creative" (read "we made this up this morning, ain't it cool?") forms of worship. I want bread and wine and blood and confession and absolution and benediction and water and ashes and...

Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Christ has died.
Christ has risen.
Christ will come again

It just doesn't get any better than this. There isn't any better way of saying that, and there isn't anything better to say. If there's a reason young people today aren't satisfied with the church, it has less to do with a failing in the church's substance or composition, and everything to do with the fact that most young people haven't any idea how the church is supposed to be.

Converted?

So I'm debating about whether to spring for an Xbox 360 or just throw a few hundred at my current desktop. See, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion comes out next month, and I figure that's a good a reason as any to go through with the yearly upgrade. A new, fully-loaded Xbox 360 will run you $400 MSRP. You can get a pretty decent video card for less than that.

I've been a pretty devoted Nvidia fan since they introduced the original TNT card back in the day. I'm currently running a 128MB Geforce4, and I've been pleased with it. It's worked well since I bought it, oh, must have been three years ago. But it's starting to show its age, and since I upgraded my MB and CPU last year, I figure it's time for graphics this year.

I've been browsing through various tech sites, and discovered that - lo and behold - ATi makes a damn fine card for less than a comparable Nvidia card (the Radeon X800 XT will set you back about $325 whilst the Nvidia 6800 Ultra costs at least $400).

Maybe it's time to switch brands.

Don't like working the weekends

First off, it's just annoying. Especially working Sunday morning, which I haven't done before, and shouldn't do again. My boss knows better.

But the other thing is that news sites and blogs tend to be pretty quiet over the weekend, so I'm left reading Wikipedia. Which is okay, but not as much fun.

Wouldn't have guessed that in a million years

Today's neo-Nazi-lead riot against predominantly black gangs is brought to you by...

...wait for it...

...Toledo, OH.

Huh.

No free lunch, part 3

So San Diego, as a city, is about to go under. It's $1.4 billion behind on its pension payments.

I've always thought that depending on a third party for your retirement security is a foolish idea. Your retirement will only be as safe as the institution in question is secure. Sure, your company may be in good shape for now, but what's it going to be like in 40 or 50 years? Heck, even gigantic companies like GM and Ford are in big trouble - though with their crippling UAW contracts that's no surprise.

Depending on the kindness of strangers is a nicely romantic idea, but in the economic real world that we all live it, it's utterly inexcusable. America has been doing that for decades now: we've been depending on the willingness of foreign governments to buy our bonds to finance half a century of deficit spending. It's time to pay the piper.

Thanks Boomers. Thanks a lot. I'm all in favor of dismantling Social Security in its entirety as punishment on a generation for arrogantly assuming that they can borrow from future generations with impunity. You know that implied social contract? That they take care of us when we're young so we can take care of them when they're old? After being screwed both relationally (a 50% divorce rate is just criminal) and now financially (none of them are going to leave us one red cent, thanks to a combination of nursing care and death taxes), the deal is freaking off.

No free lunch, part 2

Some genius has "deciphered" crop circles and "discovered" that they are a description of a way of generating electricity with a magnetron to "shake apart" water molecules and collect the energy generated when oxygen and hydrogen recombine into another water molecule.

He's right about one thing: burning hydrogen does indeed produce electricity. But he's missed something pretty important. Pretty obvious. Pretty telling. Namely, magnetrons consume ridiculous amounts of energy. The energy released by burning hydrogen is less than the energy needed to separate water into oxygen and hydrogen.

This is like the "gas free" fireplaces described awhile back. Utterly useless.

No free lunch

Environmentalist are opposing wind power farms and attempting to block the construction of new ones.

These people just can't be satisfied. They don't like oil or coal plants, they don't like nuke plants, and they don't like high energy costs. Earth to eco-freaks: unless you want us all to go to bed when the sun goes down (which they might, come to think of it), you've got to get your power from somewhere. And you do, contrary to popular belief, actually have to pay for it.

Note to self #41

If anyone offers you the opportunity to work until after midnight and then again at 8:00 the next morning, politely turn them down. It's no fun at all.

This may make me an irredeemable nerd, but...

...I find the commentary on SCOTUS proceedings - not to mention the proceedings themselves - to be endlessly entertaining.

That's what I've been saying

Slate is running a piece entitled "The Oracle of Delphi", referring to CEO Steve Miller of Delphi Corp., the large auto-parts manufacturer that recently filed for Chapter 11. Mr. Miller recently offered the UAW workforce a choice: termination of pension plans or a 2/3 pay cut.

Before you get all bothered by that, realize that Delphi was paying its unionized workforce the equivalent of $65 an hour. $65 an hour. There isn't any way in or out of hell that a factory worker is worth that much. You can do anything you need to do on that job after a week's training, tops. $20 an hour is still too much.

Why? Because America has been living the past century under the grand delusion that it makes economic sense to pay middle-class wages for lower-class jobs. And the reason we're seeing so much outsourcing and exportation of manufacturing jobs is that the Third World is under no such delusion.

Think about this: it costs a lot to move things from China to here, both in transport and import/export tariffs. We're paying our people so much that it makes more sense to build it 14000 miles away and fly/ship/drive it here. My wild-guesswork, back-of-the-napkin calculations say (and feel free to provide actual data if you've got the know-how and time) that making a product in China adds between 10 and 50% to the cost of the item if we exclude labor costs. But if labor costs are only 10% of what they are here... you still save a bundle.

Let me just say this slowly and clearly: unskilled jobs should not be able to support a middle-class lifestyle. The fact that they have for the past hundred years is an abberation, nothing more, and it makes perfect sense that this should come to an end. If you don't have a marketable skill or some kind of specialized knowledge you are, in economic terms, a replacable part.

Back at it

...I have of late--but
wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all
custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily
with my disposition that this goodly frame, the
earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most
excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave
o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted
with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to
me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the
world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me,
what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not
me: no, nor woman neither...

Thank you, Captain Obvious

Sometimes, like in the study I mentioned yesterday, statistical analysis leads to conclusions that you might not expect, or suggests interesting directions for further research. Other times, like here, it tells us what we already know. In this case, that women who have children out of wedlock are less likely to be married than non-mothers, and that if they do marry, they are unlikely to marry well.

Couldn't have told you that. Nosiree.

Now they're playing Nebraska

What we've heard so far

Since they've changed the music at work, I've heard the following bands/artists:

Coldplay
Bob Dylan
REM
Ryan Adams
U2
Bruce Springsteen
The Rolling Stones
Frou Frou
The Shins
Damien Rice
Alanis Morissette
Numerous tracks from the I Am Sam soundtrack
Pearl Jam
Hootie and the Blowfish

Right now I'm listening to "All Along the Watchtower". It's some kind of singer/songwriter channel.

One more for the night

Lowell Monke has a very insightful essay on the role that computers can play in education. In short, the computer is the single most powerful informational tool ever invented, and Monke's thesis is that by giving children tools of such power before they are able to responsibly deal with that power, we stunt their opportunities for internal growth that would normally be gained by things like, oh, recess.

I'd vote for 'em

So Kos has posted an essay entitled "Tone, Truth, and the Democratic Party" (link goes to Obama's blog instead of Kos, because I'd rather send the former what little traffic this post will generate).

Dang it's good. If Obama is genuine about his sentiments here - though his vote against Roberts doesn't bode well - I'd vote for him immediately.

Teaching is great, but...

...failing students is not. This week I handed out my first two failing grades. So we've got the notes in students' communication books, and the requests for parental signatures on the tests in question, etc.

We've finished the Epic of Gilgamesh in 7th grade, and are about a week away from finishing Hamlet in 9th/10th. Fall break is this next Monday and Tuesday, so I'm filling in the days left in 7th with a few Rudyard Kipling poems ("Gunga Din" and "The Ballad of East and West"), while we're watching both Kenneth Branagh's and Derek Jacobi's versions of Hamlet. 5th grade is math, and math is, well, math. Arithmatic mostly at this age.

One possibility

I just finished a well-written story by the estimable Bruce Sterling, entitled "We See Things Differently". It's a 1989 vision of one possible future, a future which turns out not to have occurred. I'll post my comments on the story in the continuation, so as not to spoil the ending.

Sterling has visions of a soulful Arabic culture overcoming decades of Western oppression, uniting under a benevolant Caliph, and conspiring with Europe and Japan to suck the soulless Americans dry in order to reconquer Asia. Hasn't quite happened this way.

Why? I'd argue that for all the Muslim world talks about the richness of its culture and vibrancy of its traditional life, it's still a deeply misogynistic culture - our culture may be patriarchal [not that there's anything wrong with that {just kidding! (sort of)}] but it isn't actively misogynistic either - rife with an overinflated sense of personal honor and an underdeveloped sense of humanity. No civilized society holds suicide attacks on civilian targets as being useful and appropriate tools of warfare.

Statistical exercise

Today's WSJ has an article which announces the findings of a group of researches at the Rand group doing an FDA funded study (subscription only, so no link). The researchers conclude that obesity rates in children are directly proportional with the price of fresh fruit and produce. They tracked weight gain in young children (K-3) in 59 metropolitan areas and discovered that as the price of fresh produce went up, the rate of obesity went up as well. In Mobile, AL, the area with the highest relative price for such goods, children were 50% more likely than the norm to be obese, whereas in a California community (the name of which escapes me at the moment) with very low prices, children were less likely to be obese.

So, our conclusions are that 1) obese children don't eat enough fresh fruit and vegetables, 2) not eating enough fresh fruit and vegetables is the result of not being to afford them, and 3) we need to adjust our public support for low-income families to enable better access to these goods. Right? Right?

Wrong. Those are things we may not conclude from the study. The reasons for this follow.

First, and most importantly, the study makes no correlation between the price of produce and the consumption of produce. Thus there is no statistical reason to believe that people who live in areas in which produce is more expensive than the norm consume any less than people who live in areas with lower prices. While such a correlation may exist, this study does not make it, and further research would be needed to forge such a connection. Furthermore, the study does not comment on whether areas with high produce prices are also areas of high income. You would need to compare their data with mean and median income levels to adjust for that. E.g. lower Manhattan has disgustingly high produce prices, but mean/median income is in the high-five/low-six figure range, so access to fresh produce is pretty unrestricted (heck, they even deliver, if that's your thing). Finally, the FDA officer who commented on the study advised that even in high-price areas, it is still possible to buy six or seven servings of fresh fruit and produce for around a dollar.

One thing the study did disprove is the theory that an excess of fast-food restaurants and a dearth of supermarkets in low income areas are responsible for an increase in obesity in low-income areas. The study found this not to be the case, as obesity patterns showed no relationship with proximity to fast-food and supermarkets.

"Tommy" and entry 750

I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!

-- Rudyard Kipling

Nota bene: "Tommy Atkins" was the generic reference to a British soldier, much as GI Joe refers to the generic American soldier.

Note to self #37

Don't read anything by Jack Beatty, a senior editor at The Atlantic. It's not worth the frustration.

"Living Memento"

I would call your attention to a review on Slate with the above title. It's quite interesting, dealing with the pros and cons of short term memory loss and retrograde amnesia.

From "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" to "Tangled Up in Blue" in two easy steps

For reasons that are not clear to me at this time, the music playing in the lobby has switched from the muzak channel to some kind of soft/folk rock channel. When I started my shift, the last half of "O" by Damien Rice was playing, and now we've got "Tangled Up in Blue" by Bob Dylan.

My life has just improved immensely.

What's wrong with Miers

Doesn't have anything to do with her legal or judicial qualifications. Nor because she's supposed to be some kind of weak choice by the administration. I've long since given up assumming that anything the Bushies do makes any kind of coherent sense.

No, the reason Harriet Miers is the wrong woman for the SCOTUS is because she looks really, really creepy.

What we owe

In practice, you are owed what you have earned. If you work, you deserve to be paid the wages for which you agreed to work. If you pay for something, you deserve to have it delivered to you as agreed to when you purchased it. Other than that, I don't think anyone is owed anything. As such, what do we owe the "grasping and unproductive needy"? Nothing that they have not contracted with you to provide.

Mesh: I may have worded the question differently had I written it, but I didn't, so it's as it stands.

I think that the rather lengthy response posed by "angela" doesn't actually argue anything other than the fact that she felt bad about not giving money to the beggars and that the Bible says something about taking care of the poor. I'm not willing to dispute either of those things, but it does not constitute an answer to the question I posed. Neither does Evan's response, for while I do believe it has some merit, he basically refused to answer the question. This winds up being logically identical to angela's response, for they both basically affirm their care for the poor on aesthetic grounds. That's all well and good, but it isn't persuasive at all. You may as well stick your fingers in your ears and say "I can't hear you" for all the difference it makes.

I don't think Scripture teaches that being poor confers any special kind of moral status. Anything you are or are not owed by your neighbors is utterly unaffected by your financial status. Your being hungry does not affect whether or not I owe you my sandwich. Need does not beget desert. If a beggar comes up to you and asks you for a dollar, do you owe him that dollar? No. No you do not. He has absolutely no claim on money that you have earned that he has not.

Scripture does, however, teach that we have a duty to God to use well those gifts and resources he has given us, which entails making certain provisions for the poor where possible. But this does not mean that they deserve anything because of their status, only that others have a responsibility because of theirs. This responsibility derives entirely from God's relationship with us, as mentioned in part by Evan. God has blessed us richly, and thus we should bless richly in return. Remember the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18. Why was he punished? Not because the debtor deserved to have his debt erased, but because the servant had an obligation to the king to be as merciful has the king had been to him. This, and nothing else, is the foundation of Christian charity, which is in its very essence an extension of the grace of God. Without that, I can't think of any reason to care for the poor, and was hoping someone else could come up with a good reason.

This being the case, I take much issue with the arguments of some that Christians have an obligation to the poor and this obligation is and ought to be carried out by the state of all things. Since when has the state ever been a means of conveying the grace of God to anyone? The state bears the sword, and our government in particular is conceived as a godless entity. All human governments, while useful to God's purposes, are ultimately on the wrong side of the battle and work for the Dragon, not the Lamb. May we, from time to time, find the actions of the state useful to us? Certainly. Do we attempt to create a good environment for our churches and familes through the state? Of course. Is the state an appropriate means for proclaiming the grace of God? Absolutely not.

If you want to argue that the state needs to be involved in care for the poor, I'll want to see an argument that doesn't depend on the basis of God's gracious activity to us. Good luck with that one.

Pleasing results

Here's my results from the recent quiz that's been going around:

You are a Social Moderate (41% permissive) and an... Economic Conservative (78% permissive) You are best described as a: Capitalist Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid Free Online Dating Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Ending the shift

Yeah, so I finish my shift in half an hour. One post should do the trick.

First, this is why we're not finding enough jobs for people. If 1 in 5 high school seniors are essentially not capable of even a basic level of eduation, it's no wonder they're unemployed.

Second, I see no one has taken a stab at answering my challenge earlier today. I will restate it here:

"Why do law-aviding and productive human beings owe anything to those who neither produce very much nor abide by just laws?"

Beggars in Spain

That's the title of a book I'm rereading. Here's a key conversation, excerpted:

"Fine, now what about the beggars in Spain?"

"The what?"

"You walk down the street in a poor country like Spain and you see a beggar. Do you give him a dollar?"

"Probably."

"Why? He's trading nothing with you. He has nothing to trade."

"I know. Out of kindness. Compassion."

"You see six beggars. Do you give them all a dollar?"

"Probably."

"You would. You see a hundred beggars, and you haven't got your kind of money. Do you give them each a dollar?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Too draining on my own resources. My life has first claim on the resources I earn."

"What if you walk down the street in Spain and a hundred beggars each want a dollar and if you say no and they have nothing to trade you but they're so rotten with anger about what you have that they knock you down and grab it and then beat you out of sheer envy and anger. Are you going to say it's not a human scenario? That it never happens?"

"It happens, but not all that often."

"Bullshit. Read more history. Read more newspapers. But the point is: what do you owe the beggars then? What does a good [libertarian]* who believes in mutually beneficial contracts do with people who have nothing to give and can only take?"

"You're not-"

"What? In the most objective terms you can manage, what do we owe the grasping and nonproductive needy?"

"What I said originally. Kindness. Compassion."

"Even if they don't trade it back? Why?"

"Because..."

"Why? Why do law-aviding and productive human beings owe anything to those who neither produce very much nor abide by just laws? What philosophical or economic or spiritual justification is there for owing them anything?" [emphasis mine]

Go ahead and respond. But if all you've got to say is that this is unpleasant, don't bother. We already know that. If you've got a well-reasoned argument for why "law abiding and productive" citizens owe anything to those who "neither produce very much nor abide by just laws" then I'd like to hear it. And a simple "The Bible says we do" is not sufficient. You've got to be able to tell me where and how. Give it a shot.

*This term is my own, as the one in the book refers to an invented economic philosophy that doesn't make sense out of context. "Libertarian" is about as close as actual political-philosophies come to approximating the fictional one, though "liberal" - in the classic, Thomas Jefferson sense of the word, in the way that I am liberal - isn't drastically off the mark.

"I never..."

Kontraband has a great clip of a recent Family Guy skit.

This isn't even remotely "safe for work", so don't click if you're either 1) easily offended, or 2) on dialup.