The Silver Apples

2009-04-21T07:59:00.000-07:00

In the dark
Our fire lit the forest
Dimly. So we laughed
Reservedly, gathered up our shadows
Quickly, ate what keeps us quiet,
And spat upon the flames.

2009-04-21T07:55:00.001-07:00

Across the stream
The leaves are silent on the earth.
So brown and dry, they shiver now.

The wind might tempt them,
But they will not live again.
And that is where I'd like to be.

So. Might I take a chair and join them?
I will cross the stream without shoes upon my feet:
Lovely.

God bless a mortal man
Who seeks some silence in the woods.

U.S. Retail Sales Fall Again

2008-12-12T07:45:00.000-08:00

When will menu prices fall, since people are eating out less, grain is down, and we're all poorer?It's a sticky conspiracy! (Link to Mankiw on sticky prices). Worry more though about the fact that apparently deflation isn't enough to get people out and about in the stores, which indicates to me that the fall in prices is still proportionate to the fall in general purchasing power. If there were a disconnect, i.e., prices fell faster than real disposable income, then we'd be in good shape. But they didn't. So we're not.

McMoPain

2008-12-05T07:56:00.000-08:00

This observation from John Nadler should be enough to curdle your blood. "Goldman Sachs Group estimates that FreeportMcMoRan was among the most frequent stocks to appear in lists of top-10 holdings of major hedge funds, as of sept 30." FCX is down 74% since then. FCX is one of the three major base metals producers, and the world's larget public copper miner. The implications of this for the developing world are awful. If you think mining is bad for the environment, imagine what having no national product does to a struggling state. Think about what this does to the mindset of future investors. There will be no investment in this stuff for years.

Beware Deflation

2008-12-05T07:37:00.000-08:00

The rapid strengthening of the dollar against all basic materials means that manufacturers can acquire what they need for less. But it has also taken needed infreastructure investment out of the resource sector. When it comes time to mine nickel, zinc, copper and molybdenum again, many major deposits which were on track to be on-line in this cycle now won't be. We will be hit once again by crippling inflation. My next question is: when will the cost of beer go back down? Of course it won't. It's a menu item, which are notoriously sticky. Now that we've been trained to accept $6 pints, they won't let us go back.

Civil Service

2008-11-02T05:31:00.001-08:00

I believe that the election of Barack H. Obama as president may draw a spirit of civil service out of the electorate, but not only the type of service that expects, wants or may effectively demand. The economic slowdown, exacerbated by his election and likely protectionism, will have stunted the aspirations of many ambitious men and women. These pragmatic, libertarian leaning cosmopolites will ignite a new post-Buckley fire under the local and state levels of the Republican party. There will be firebrands. The know-nothing Pailinites will fight back. But a new generation of practical leadership will begin work on restoring American rights to the American people in oppostion to the mob-mental neo-left.

There will be great fractiousness, and both parties are going to have to work very hard to reign in the anarchists; but it wil be the Dems in power, and the Republican will need only denounce and work for something positive. The Dems will have to deal with the consequences.

Sickness

2008-10-14T15:12:00.000-07:00

Everyone in New York seems to be getting sick. I think it's psychosomatic.

Listen To This

2008-10-13T20:33:00.001-07:00

Mogambo.

A Quaking Of Cemeteries

2008-09-20T12:22:00.000-07:00

Go here. Read Trakl.

Life In The Shadows

2008-09-20T12:07:00.000-07:00

"The hunter has become the butterfly." - Franz Kafka, The Hunter Gracchus

A Welfare State For Putative Libertarians

2008-09-18T14:40:00.001-07:00

Andrew Sullivan furthers my argument that Alaska is essentially a federal territory operated as a welfare state. Palin is Queen Bee. Which places her in opposition to the other half of her ticket. Or rather, McCain means nothing that he says, except apparently for the vile stuff, which he is quite good at topping off.

This Is Your Modern Conservative

2008-09-15T19:42:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I get an e-mail like the one below. I like the guys who write these. Because my experience tells me that they're correct. Lately though, I get these e-mails forwarded from people who laughed at a particular man, who though notable for several faults of un-nuanced thought, was the major political proponent of a basic truth: 0-10 = (10). When you have (10) you have less than naught.

And the ostensible conservatives gave him up for this. A Fraud. Knowing this is the truth.

I know gold bugs inside and out. They're odd.

But a party which ignores principles they once espoused in favor of jingoism and perfidy is odder.

You'll excuse me, but this was my topic a year ago.

-----
Money and Markets 2008 Archive
The Ultimate Wall Street Nightmare
by Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D.

Dear Drury,

[http://images.moneyandmarkets.com/1083/martin-weiss.jpg]

In the wake of Lehman's demise, Fed Chairman Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Paulson will try to put out the word that it's no great trauma.

But it's a bluff and they know it. If they openly admitted that the Lehman collapse will paralyze Wall Street, torpedo the stock market and sink economy, they'd have to pony up $100 billion or more to support it. Instead, their agenda has been to push big banks to put up the money.

Either way, there's no denying that the Lehman debacle is a massive and immediate threat to U.S. and global markets. At the latest reckoning, Lehman had $691 billion in assets. That makes it bigger than Wachovia, twice as big as Washington Mutual, and over sixteen times larger than Schwab.

Lehman's debts? at $668.6 billion? are also enormous. Even if you added together all the debts of TD Ameritrade, E-Trade and Schwab, you'd still have only $108.5 billion, or less than one-sixth the total debts which Lehman reports.

Defaults on Derivatives

We've lost count of how many times the authorities have virtually sworn on a stack of Bibles that "our financial system is fundamentally sound."

But no one could possibly lose count of their recent desperate efforts to prevent the system's collapse -- actions which directly belie their words:

One? the coordinated efforts by central banks to flood the global economy with liquidity in the summer of 2007.

Two? the hasty bailout of Bear Stearns in March of this year.

Three? the giant Fannie and Freddie rescue announced just eight days ago.

Each time they intervene, they say "we must not reward CEOs who deceive the public and walk off with multibillion dollar bonus checks." And each time they say it's the "last time we'll make an exception to that rule."

But then they go ahead and do it anyhow, not only breaking their own word ... but also trashing the long tradition of restraint established by their predecessors since the Great Depression. . .

Derivatives are essentially bets on interest rates, foreign currencies, stocks or specific events like the bankruptcy of a particular company. The interest rate-related bets are by far the biggest. But the bets on bankruptcies ? called credit default swaps ? are the fastest growing and the most volatile. . .

Here's the great dilemma: The tangled web of bets and debts linking each of these giant players to the other is so complex and so difficult to unravel, it may be impossible for the Fed to protect the financial system from paralysis if just one major player defaults. And if Lehman is not that player, the next one will be.

To understand why, put yourself in the shoes of a senior derivatives trader at a big firm like Morgan Stanley (which has $7.1 trillion in derivatives on its books and about $10 billion in capital). By itself, that would be a huge risk. But you're not worried because you have a similar bet with Bank B that interest rates will go up. It's like playing roulette, betting on both black and red at the same time. One bet cancels the other, and you figure you can't lose.

Here's what happens next ...

* Interest rates go up, reflecting a 2% decline in bond prices.

* You lose your bet with Bank A.

* But, simultaneously, you win your bet with Bank B.

* So, in normal circumstances, you'd just take the winnings from one to pay off the losses with the other? a non-event.

But here's where the whole scheme blows up and the drama begins: Bank B suffers large mortgage-related losses. It runs out of capital. It can't raise additional capital from investors. So it can't pay off its bet. Suddenly and unexpectedly ...

You're on the hook for your losing bet. But you can't collect on your winning bet.

You grab a calculator to estimate the damage. But you don't need one? 2% of $500 billion is $10 billion. Simple . . .

Chickens Just Back From The Shore

2008-09-12T21:07:00.001-07:00

Give her a medal. Feist has made life better on Earth in one fell swoop. "Ba ba b-Ba, ba ba b-Ba . . ."

That's Right, I Said "McShouldn't."

2008-09-12T20:37:00.001-07:00

I've called him unprincipled, but he and his friends certainly have many of the wrong principles. Perhaps "incoherent" is more accurate.

The modern Republican party is so illiberal, so childishly unfixed and populist and pathetically unhinged that they have chosen to be led by a demented opportunist and a pleasant, ruthless lady who should never have been promoted past the executive of a frontier territory.

What's the answer? And I mean the real answer, not the fun-house mirror image on the other side of the aisle.

"A Quick Look In The Mirror Will Show"

2008-09-08T10:06:00.000-07:00

Is the Governor of Alaska the Billy Collins of the political world? You may ask what that means, to which I can reply, "You are the dew on the morning grass," or any other such banality. He's not bad. He can toss a good line out there every now and then. And he has a perspective . . . on things . . . that exist . . .

Mrs. Smith Gone To Washington?

2008-09-05T17:03:00.000-07:00

Palin: No, I don't believe she will be "Mrs. Smith," the earnest martyr. She's the cynic's pick, an eager pol. But in America Everyman is a politician to some degree. She'll be tactically competent, gapingly ignorant in some spots, and destiny charged.

She's complicated, bright, shrewd and common. Dangerous.

A Girl In Short Shorts likes her.

A primary problem is this: She may be exceptionally common, but is she exceptional among the commoners?

A more important question: Why are we being forced to ask that question in the first place? Politics has become a game of Hearts; the object is to divest yourself of all your cards to win.

I wonder about this this though: isn't Alaska less a state than a Federal welfare corporation for ostensible libertarian-type individualists? And if they're so libertarian, why don't they send those oil check back to the state and go to work for the oil companies.

ADDENDUM (From CATO): She's pragmatic. In a sorta erratic way.

Call The Roller Of Big Cigars: The Ecomomy In Raw Materials

2008-09-05T15:47:00.000-07:00

I've heard that it's a "Jewish curse," but don't see why it should be particularly Jewish: "May you live in interesting times." As a curse though, it cuts deeper than any obscenity I know. On the phone, in the office, on the street, when beaten into baffled incoherence, I hear it leaping up from smoldering piles of incinerated assumptions. How "interesting" things are.

This is a superficially dry subject for my first post after the hiatus, but if you are an old reader, you know I was bearish on the market too early, and paid for it in heartburn. Also that I ran with the gold price up, only to watch my investments in mining companies buckle under the very inflation which was driving up the price of the metals. Extremely "interesting."

Mining companies finance their exploration through issuing stock, and fund their mine development through debt. They can't borrow now because of the credit crisis and they can't issue stock because their share prices have been beaten down by as much as 80% (see below). In order to raise the requisite cash, these operations have to issue so much stock that their current shareholders would be diluted into oblivion. Imagine you once had 10% of a $100 M market cap company. Suddenly you have less of a bigger pie. You don't necessarily get more shares to compensate. Most investors capitulate and move on.

But these are stocks with tight capital structures and which are thinly traded. Liquidating a position gets everyone's attention. They join the rush. But potential buyers have fled and the sell orders are falling into a vacuum. And you get a chart like this:

A "vicious, sick beast," that one, which used to be a really beautiful silver company in Wallace, Idaho. They couldn't make money however when silver was $20/oz, a historic high. Silver is now around $13/oz.

This is a phenomenon that has deep implications for the economy. If is impossible for companies to profitably produce metals, then the price of the metal will have to rise again. But raw materials drive up the price of everything from heavy equipment to labor.

I suspect that we are in for some very ugly shortages which will not be adequately met by the securities markets. Alternatively, the market could be presupposing a tremendous slowdown in the BRIC countries.

In which case we can get on the phone to The Roller of Big Cigars.

A Hiatus

2008-09-05T15:24:00.000-07:00

I was gone for a good two months, and am now at school for a heavy semester, so while I don't anticipate blogging as frequently as I used to, perhaps you'll check back in on maybe a weekly basis.

N.C. has withdrawn. Thanks to her, this page was more diverse and strange than I could have hoped. I'd like to thank her for measurably enriching the page while she was here.

Cheers,

Brian

Dripping in the Brit-Pop

2008-07-10T12:21:00.000-07:00

I am undecided if this is too Brit pop for me, but it is fun and catchy and nice for summertime:

Oh jeez, that is the dude from the Arctic Monkeys, isn't it. Not sure I'll be able to get over that.

*Echo*

Uh, hmm. I can't see comments to approve them, so if you've tried to post your comments here in the past two weeks or so that B. has been away, then I am sorry. Come Saturday I will be going off to the moon, for awhile, so it might get even lonelier.

The Real Adbusters

2008-07-04T12:32:00.000-07:00

I am not sure why, but I think that this idea is very interesting. Living within close proximity to a gigantic intersection of two major Toronto streets, I never even thought that the big vinyl signs pasted on the Holiday Inn or above the 7 Eleven advertising H+M or The Dark Knight were illegal. What an interesting way to combat the magazination (I just made that word up) of our cities, and preserve our head space for more important things.

But you know what I mean. Taking advantage of the rampant negligence of cities in tracking down and fighting billboard fraud is really cool. And it will undoubtedly restore the urban aesthetic. It's so subtle, but so scary, when you ignore all of these signs and ads to the point of becoming Tom Cruise at the beginning of Minority Report (which in my opinion was a terrible movie). Now here is a movement that might actually be worth believing in.

Here is an example of what an illegal sign might look like, now go outside and see the frightening number of these things decorating your eyes at every step. NYC lovers: this movement is coming from Toronto to save you all too, thank goodness.

Technology = Slavery

2008-06-26T14:51:00.000-07:00

About 3 weeks ago, my dear little 19" Toshiba tube TV of 12 years died in spectacular fashion: snapped, crackled, emitted a strange smell, and died--I ran to the power strip and switched it off and unplugged everything lest my townhouse apartment burn down. That is what I get for watching Larry King Live like a geriatric person, or whatever. I think little M. V. Taylor's fingers pushing on and off the power button 8,000,000 times with a hope of yielding the Treehouse channel might have had something to do with the fantastic cathode ray tube explosion that ceased its functional life.

I pulled out the 13" Toshiba tube TV from hubby's studio apartment Ph.D. candidate days as a stop-gap to feed my cable news habit, but this was not going to tide me over for very long, as our living room is pretty large and I have developed microscope-induced myopia in my old age. B., can we make the font bigger again, BTW, this blog is hurting my eyes to write, KTHXBAI.

Mr. Through-good-times-and-in-bad is one of those anti-TV elitists. You know the type (or might even be one yourself). People who claim to be too intelligent/ productive/ busy/ social/ cool/ interesting/educated/ physically fit/ [fill in the pretentious adjective here] to watch TV. In a way, I sort of despise this sentiment, as it isn't realistic. I personally watch about 1 hour of TV per day. I enjoy it. I eat my milk and cookies (I'm not kidding), and passively sit/ lie there like a lazy slob every night, oh-so mildly entertained, instead of staring out into space or going to yoga class or whatever anti-TV elitists do to have their daily disengagement from reality which is so important for maintaining a healthy psyche in the modern world. I like watching cable news networks, documentaries on PBS or TVO, or stuff on TLC (note: only What not to Wear and Jon & Kate + 8). And Lost. And The Office. And sometimes Gordon Ramsay's various kitchen shows, because I love and envy his highly effective managerial style. BUT ONLY 1 HOUR PER NIGHT, ANTI-TV ELITIST HATERS.

So after doing approximately 0 minutes of research on currently available new TV options, I impulsively took off down the Gardiner Expressway to find the Futureshop on the Queensway (where I'd be able to park for free). I'm not really sure when was the last time I walked inside a big-box electronics store, but it wasn't recently. After adjusting to the awesomely loud reggae music blaring from the personal stereo department, I walked quickly to the "home theatre" section. I had no interest in a "home theatre," but I knew that this is where the new TVs were located. My good friend, who is somewhat obsessed with technology (friends like this are invaluable, btw) cautioned me that big box electronics stores no longer carry tube TVs, and because this is all that is left of the tube TV world anyways...*disgusted dramatic sigh*...

I realized at that moment that I had been more or less robbed of the freedom and convenience of walking into an electronics store and buying a tube TV that was a brand I recognized. So I had no other options, really, than to lay down 600 dollars (plus like 100 dollars of provincial and federal taxes which pays for my healthcare) for a modest LCD HDTV. Because HDTVs are all that The Man sells now. And yeah, I got the sales guy to take $50 dollars off the price by suggesting that I wanted to comparison shop at Best Buy before committing. Yay, Canada, land of being able to bargain at Canadian chains desperate to compete with American ones.

So I took home my HDTV. I quickly learned that a coaxial cable was not an option for HDTVs, even for non-videophiles. A coaxial cable delivers an analog signal appropriate for a standard definition tube TV, but if you plug it into an HDTV, it looks like total crap because an HDTV has way too high of a resolution (in my TV's case, it is 720p, which means 720 lines of vertical resolution with progressive scanning, whatever the F that means) and will unfortunately show you, in detail, EVERYTHING that is wrong with this type of signal, because it is an HDTV. It needs and wants a digital high-definition signal.

Happily, with my new TV's purchase I got an upgrade to get my free HD box from Rogers Cable (basically the only cable company in Canada). The HD box can take what is coming out of your coaxial cable and magically make it into a digital (sort of, but this is way too complicated to go into) high-definition signal that your new TV needs to look remotely normal. So they courier my new cable box to me, and I open it up. OK, now I'm done, you say. No. Not done.

So, anti-TV elitists reading this now will be like, "Nah-nah, you're dumb, we told you so, we are so smart and cool that we will rub it in your face, lets all have deep conversations now containing large vocabulary words and references to things that you won't understand, and work at our high-paying hard-working jobs, drive around in our Smart cars and then come home to smoke opium or read McSweeney's Quarterly Concern or listen to Portuguese jazz music, instead of watching TV, an activity for the ignorant and uneducated majority," etc., but these individuals are correct that HDTV as it is today is a total F-ing rip-off scam conspiracy orchestrated by TV manufacturers and cable conglomerates alike. Unless you want to plop a satellite dish on top of your house (granted you have the ability to face it south west and drill a hole through your wall), cable companies only carry about 10 or so free "HDTV" channels. For about $10 more monthly, you could get the National Geographic HD channel or the Discovery HD channel or the TSN HD channel. But I don't watch enough TV to spend more money than I already have on this tragic ill-fated enterprise.

Note I put "HDTV" in quotes in my last paragraph. This is because even if a channel is called high-definition, it will not be high-definition unless the broadcaster is broadcasting a show in a high-definition resolution, and your cable box is outputting a purely digital high-definition signal appropriate for your TVs resolution, and you can afford the expensive cables to tap into this purely non-converted hopefully uncompressed high-definition digital signal. Guess what: 1) Most cable companies don't even rent out or use HD cable boxes with the correct HDMI output needed achieve a digital unconverted high-definition signal (unless you want to pay 100 more dollars a month to get an HD personal digital recorder, which I neither want or need). 2) Cable companies don't have the infrastructure to carry the bandwidth necessary to provide all of the high-definition channels that are now available in the world (there are a lot of them, but you can't watch them), without compressing the crap out of them, and rendering them not really high-definition at all. And they sell these channels and their service as "high-definition," charge you more for it, and it is not even technically high-definition. I guess this doesn't matter to me, but it will matter to the rich (dumb?) videophile who just spent $1600 on a 42" 1080p so-called full HDTV (1080p is the highest of high-definitions currently known to mankind). It is effectively false advertising.

Conclusion(s): If you only watch 1 hour of TV per day, and you like watching CNN, and your toddler breaks your old cathode ray tube TV, and you don't appreciate the feeling of spending 600 dollars just so that standard definition cable channels look worse than they did on your cathode ray tube TV, and you don't want to get a PVR, or a satellite dish, or a new upconverting or HD DVD player, then now you only get crappy Canadian networks to look decent on your new flat-screen HDTV (and HDCNN, thank God, because you love looking at Anderson Cooper's zits, and being able to see just how bad Lou Dobbs' and Larry King's dye jobs really are). And when the commercials come on, or if it is a show that isn't being broadcast in high-definition, expect various-sized black borders to appear around the actual picture. So now you get to wait 15 or so years until the cable companies upgrade their infrastructure to actually give you the signal quality your HDTV needs to look normal. And you spent all of this extra money, not to mention countless hours reading about cables, HD cable boxes, cable companies, DVD players, and how the cables (wires) that run high-definition digital signals are a conspiracy designed to rip-off the consumer anyway.

So OK, we're done, right? Nope. Because after you spend all of this time and effort hooking up your HDTV with the best cables and cable box situation physically and financially possible, Now you need to adjust the picture settings on the TV itself. Think this is just contrast and tint and sharpness and brightness, right? Wrong, it is 800 times more complicated than that. If you don't bother with these so-called "Advanced Picture Settings," Larry King's suspenders will look like Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and your TV won't live for very long. Oh and getting flesh tones to look remotely human? Good luck with that too.

Here is a cute little quote from that last Popular Mechanics link: "If you haven't bought an HD set yet, here's a reason to wait: Future sets will be better at upconverting [standard definition] images to HD." Great, but what if your tube TV breaks before then because you have a two year-old? You really have no choice except between the last of the tube TVs from Walmart made by some generic Chinese company you've never ever heard of, and a flat screen HDTV. Which has rendered you, the consumer, powerless.

"Ha-ha, stupid TV-watcher-commoners," say the anti-TV elitists. Perhaps they are right after all.

Notes about the author written in the third person singular: N. C. does not own a blackberry (and therefore doesn't sleep with a blackberry under her pillow or bring it on family vacations), an iPhone, an iPod, or an electric hybrid car. She actually doesn't even own a cell phone, she can be reached by land-line only. On the unfrequent day trips into Laguardia, she brings her husband's cell phone, which is usually left uncharged and silent under a pile of journal articles in his office, so don't even think of trying to call him, ever, because he will not answer it. In short: she is not a technology-slave, she just likes cable news, a lot, apparently enough to drop hundreds of dollars on being able to watch it.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

2008-06-26T07:33:00.000-07:00

A skeptical epicure's answer to everything.

"The Revelations of Devout and Learn'd
Who rose before us, and as Prophets burn'd,
Are all but Stories, which, awoke from Sleep,
They told their comrades, and to Sleep return'd."

In Case You Had Doubts About Mugabe

2008-06-26T06:46:00.000-07:00

From capricious mismanagement to incredible outrages. The only trouble with Africa is that everywhere you turn, there's something else to make you weep.

Mission Accomplished?

2008-06-26T06:12:00.000-07:00

Modern world diplomacy has accomplished a great goal if North Korea becomes truly transparent regarding its nuclear capabilities, and agrees to dismantle its refining infrastructure. However, the U.S.'s relationship with them remains extremely complicated. North Korea is an arms exporter, and regardless of some mitigation of that state's open hostility to us and to the rest of the world, it's a dodgy situation when a totalitarian regime makes export bucks off of arms dealing and we turn the other cheek. I don't like the contradiction.

Doubtless there's an argument for allowing the Ethiopians to acquire arms somewhere. In the ongoing Somalian civil war, Ehtiopia has played an accepted role. Besides, those arms don't stay with the established military. They're like litter. They blow the streets and end up in the wrong hands.

However, continuing to allow or even encourage the military participation of one-party ruled Asian nations in East African conflicts seems dangerous to me. Chinese firms are in the DRC for its natural resources, including cobalt, and have attempted to ship arms to Zimbabwe, which speaks very poorly for the Chinese.

So I'm pleased that the North Korean regime has been somewhat emasculated, although we know they'll get boku bucks in return. Money does not help the captive residents of that country, but a quieter N. Korea makes our lives easier. Now, let's get the Asian arms out of there.

The Politics of Skepticism: Big Ideas And Guns

2008-06-25T18:00:00.000-07:00

I'll posit this in the name of debate: Green, not-green . . . whatever side you take in the climate change debate, it is ultimately not about climate change or science, but about the state and its power to enforce a massive cultural revolution, and there is one thing to remember: things are seldom as simple as they appear.

The green movement is a great putsch that has been emerging from the archaic left, and has now found common ground with many in the statist right as corporations seek to align themselves with a new monochrome dynamic, not conservation but megalithic cultural redefining, business blackmailing , child indoctrinating, rant inciting. But we will push on! Because the cause is just! And the consequences . . . are almost certainly poorly defined, on purpose, because every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and the desired reaction, the true goal, if vocalized, would cripple the cause.

Maybe you've noted the link between militaristic statism and the green "revolution." I'm going to play this argument out over a couple of days. Start preparing your objections.

Who Are You And What Am I

2008-06-25T17:06:00.000-07:00

Existential doubts from my partner aside, here's some thoughts, based in large part on what we are not. If you are one of our 200 regular readers, I hope you will have been pleased on occasion to come across eclectic opinions and asides that are well founded and clearly and entertainingly expressed. In a world of endless variety, I, speaking for myself, hope to contribute by crafting the occasional polemic on behalf of personal liberty and a moderate but unrestricted social order. But I like a wide a net, so having N.C. along for the past several months has been great.

That said, this is an opinion site, and an ongoing, distracted discussion with oursleves and hopefully with you. Please comment when you have something to contradict or challenge. News is a crutch, a passing reference, or a goad, but not our product.

We work during the day and travel, so frequently we have to write in emphatic spurts. We can't all be Andrew Sullivan or the "giddy children" at Wonkette. But as a personal exercise, I think the act of keeping our thoughts short and clear is healthy, and a little bit of vainglory can be off-set with a nod to the goal of trying to be better thinkers.

That's why I'm here. So enough of this. Let's go dunk our heads in a cold lake and get this self-referencing out of the way.

Symptoms of Blog Death

2008-06-25T09:20:00.000-07:00

Andrew Sullivan's blog actually pointed out this link explaining the two signs of impending blog death. Apparently the first obvious sign is when posting becomes less frequent, and the second is when a blog starts to just blog itself--i.e., referring to/commenting on/building on its own posts too much.

Most of my friends that have blogged with abandon over periods of years and years have highly personal blogs, which they use to vent, or for poetry or prose, sort of like a diary you'd keep as an adolescent. This personal content is then mixed with some comment on current goings-on where they live and around the world. Some of my friends (myself included, sort of) will even have two blogs: one for highly personal stuff that is locked in such a way that only one or two close friends can access it, and one for social commentary.

I am not at the helm of The Silver Apples so I have absolutely no idea who, if anyone, actually reads what we write here. I know we only have one or two people leaving regular comments here, besides ourselves. I suppose its been a little longer than six months now in lifespan. Are we a "valuable public mouthpiece?" I personally don't claim to be. I know I write for myself, because for me, writing is an educational process, forcing me to go out and quickly (sometimes too quickly) become an expert on something I'd otherwise know nothing about. So writing makes my simple life richer, as I don't have the means to bicycle across the desert, go skydiving, climb Mount Everest, etc. I can't even remember the last time I went on a vacation that didn't involve family somehow. I digress. The bottom line: No, I have no life, besides trying to be a good mommy and meet my deadlines so that the company I used to work for in Boston continues to assign me full-time contracting projects.

I'll continue posting here, because I don't really care if anyone is listening. I am not really self-confident enough to assume that people will want to regularly read what I write.

Frightened Rabbit!

2008-06-19T08:53:00.001-07:00

Are an awesome band. Their new album is fantastic. Pitchfork, go to hell (in this particular case). It's at least a 9.

And yay! Kindergarteners love it too!!

Canada Corner--June 19, 2007

2008-06-19T06:59:00.000-07:00

Now... 2 severed feet in one week! And I misspoke in my June 17th entry, the foot found on Monday was a left foot. So it looks like all feet are at risk in B.C... not just right feet.

Update: Oh, well. It looks like it was a doggy foot that some hippie threw in the water after smoking too much of the Northern Lights they grow up there. Ha ha. So much for my intriguing Canadian news story.

A Shearsman Of Sorts

2008-06-18T11:33:00.000-07:00

John McCain appears to have a visceral dislike for things he cannot understand. He particularly rages over those issues that draw a portion of the zeitgeist fabric away from his fuzzy egalitarianism. So we end up with screwy laws like McCain-Feingold and statements like this:

"Investigation is underway to root out this kind of reckless wagering, unrelated to any kind of productive commerce, because it can distort the market, drive prices beyond rational limits, and put the investments and pensions of millions of Americans at risk."

1) Just what kind of investigation is underway? The kind of investigation that would have led him to discover widely-read and taught books like Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds and A Short History of Financial Euphoria? Someone should point out to him that speculation is neither new nor eradicable. As he's maybe found in his other attempts at regulation, restrictions lead to end runs that only further pervert the very situation that had supposedly cried for remedy.

2) What does "distort the market" mean? The market reacts to forces from within and from without. How does he propose to define the distorting influences? Where does a distortion begin and end? What then is a natural state?

3) Does John McCain have an alternative valuation for the price of a barrel of oil? How would he construct his model? How would he enforce that price?

4) Has he considered the beneficent effects of commodity shocks? Is he familiar with the phrase "necessity is the mother of invention?"

5) Where does this man get his positions?

UPDATE: Robert Samuelson lends more weight.

So I Said I Didn't Like Horse Races . . .

2008-06-18T07:18:00.000-07:00

I first wrote here with the aim of chasing down benevolent spheres of atmospheric jubilation and have since ended up gasping in the quick sand of the political zeitgeist. Mercy! I do not necessarily become a regular at the Off Track Betting parlor if I take the time to dig into the principles of a conservative candidate for POTUS, but I am still sort of wandering around outside, looking in the windows. Note: fear the leadership of an opportunistic fraud. As does George Will:

"Did McCain's extravagant condemnation of the court's habeas corpus ruling result from his reading the 126 pages of opinions and dissents? More likely, some clever ignoramus convinced him that this decision could make the Supreme Court . . . a campaign issue."

I do not read Supreme Court rulings, but I am not a candidate for POTUS declaiming from the pulpit. As McCain is an active senator on the road seeking votes, Will's assessment and condemnation seem unavoidable: you give me the time to read the ruling, and place it in legal and historical context, and I'll show you John McCain using that time to shake a geriatric's hand in FLA. Sometimes, as Will demonstrates, it merely takes the right questions to reveal a flickering shade. McCain continues to reveal contempt for our laws and for principles of liberty which protect us from the capricious predation of the state.

I'm going to go find some time to read some SCOTUS rulings.

The Political Cycle

2008-06-17T14:32:00.000-07:00

So. At least Jack Schafer agrees with me on the Tim Russert coverage. T.V. political journalists are generally classifiable with politicians as skilled mutual onanists. Maybe Moveon.org can introduce a new catchphrase: "Eulogize and move on."

Canada Corner--June 17th, 2008

2008-06-17T12:11:00.000-07:00

Canadian news is generally pretty boring and consists of which MP shouted at the other MP about his wife being affiliated with the Hell's Angels during something in Parliament called "Question Period." Or something. It stinks.

So I've decided to do a little re-cap of some interesting recent news items from the Great White North in the past week (sorry if I am polluting your head space):

1) 5 severed right feet have now washed up on the south coast of British Columbia since August of 2007. This is pretty creative, I'll be the first to admit.

2) CBC didn't feel like forking over $3 million to preserve its rights to use "The Hockey Theme" for CBC's Hockey Night in Canada, so now Canada's real national anthem belongs to CTV instead. Now it will only be played on CTV's dumb ESPN rip-off channels, and when Canadians win gold medals at the Olympics. This is a really big deal.

3) Wow, even though liberals frequently threaten to move to Canada every time they are ashamed to be American, Canada has some sketchy terrible points in its history as well, but the PM said that he was "soar-ey," so everything is OK now.

Andrew Sullivan Is Angry at "Random, Brutal Injustice"

2008-06-17T10:31:00.000-07:00

And rightfully so. We need consistent application of the law, not a justice system of pedagogued invective cloaked in secrecy.

Otherwise folks: it's summer. Blogging will probably be light but do check in periodically! The world continues to turn.

The Buffalo Bills

2008-06-14T11:14:00.000-07:00

The internets of course are now chock-a-block full of tributes to Tim Russert, who died suddenly yesterday afternoon of what, to me, would be the most merciful and ideal method of exiting this plane of existence. If I got the chance to cherry-pick my expiration it would definitely be a sudden and severe cardiovascular event.

I liked MSNBC's report the best because of the nice photos of our home city of Buffalo. Tim Russert was also born the same year as my mom and dad, and this weirded my parents out a great deal. I guess if I remember one thing the most about his work at NBC, it would be when he interviewed George W. Bush, his arch-nemesis. I'm not sure how, but he could ask scathing questions and yet seem so respectful, at the same time.

Here is the song that popped into my head when I heard the news, from my Wonkette of all of the God-forsaken internet places:

This is one for the good days
and I have it all here in red blue green
red blue green.

Mental Health: The Johnson Family Blogs

2008-06-10T17:29:00.000-07:00

If I try to tell you things aren't good, well, fix me. Things are good. The Johnson family is good. Their kids are good. They're relaxed and clearly happy and clearly what is needed is for people to be more like the Johnsons.

They wore me out.

I want a lawn but all I have is this lousy park.

Truly Independent Journalism

2008-06-10T11:46:00.000-07:00

Michael J. Totten, in a miner's helmet but with a jewelers loupe, reports from the darker corners of the Earth and reveals much that is good. He has a tip jar, because he's actually working and contributing something substantive. His latest dispatch is from the former Yugoslavia. Pack my bags for Belgrade, Jeeves, and if I may say one thing: all those maligned, soviel-bloc apartment buildings clean up much better than our own Co-Op City ever can.

Frozen Offal

2008-06-10T08:01:00.000-07:00

Manhattanites, middle class and up, singles and couples both, eat out a lot. With the size of most of our kitchens, and the inclination many of us have constantly to be with other people, schmoozing, laughing, and getting drunk, we have a healthy restaurant industry that serves as a constantly rotating dining room. Competition has kept restaurant prices down too, even as they've gone up in supermarkets. I can get a decent steak at menu cost for very little more than what I would pay at the meat counter of a good butcher. Tack on a tip and tax and the $7 beer, and it's still a rare treat for me. But toss a couple more grand on the ol' net income, and it would be easy to slip into a bad and lazy habit: I don't think I'm alone in feeling the pull to fit myself to my surroundings. And my surroundings are a healthy, wealthy bunch.

I could stay at home and eat ramen and save money, but so far I've chosen not to, regularly substitituing an expansive, cheerful pub for my small, stuffy home. This will change. At New York Magazine they observe that energy and commodity inflation may finally be forcing chefs to make some choices that will impact the Manhattan lifestyle. Such as trying to get people to eat intestines. This may sound like the spoiled kid's rant, but it is worth noting: when luxury brands, (not my pub, but you know what I mean) begin to see a sea change, things are really tough. It may be relativly easy for the rich to shift course, but that doesn't mean they'll like it. This will effect the lifestyles of many others. For example, what used to go towards tips, might start going somewhere else. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Clothes

2008-06-06T12:30:00.000-07:00

These are terrific t-shirts.

The Casual Sadism of Modern Architecture (b)

2008-06-06T10:22:00.000-07:00

I think Ed Glaeser is too kind on Boston City Hall. Actually, he shouldn't be kind at all. Intellectual detachment is the wrong way to look at public spaces. Fortunately, the dismissive attitude that modernists took to the city and it's underlying structure, the result of gradual development, is becoming more widely recognized. In Boston, for instance, there's the intense alienation of the neighborhoods from each other. It's a visual shock to move from residential to commercial. A terrific article in the Times shows concern for the rapid growth of modern cities in Asia and the Middle East. The architecture is more pleasing than the old brutality of the mid-century, but the alienation of newness is, according to the author, looming. Will these cities be inhabitable?

Calling A Bottom

2008-06-06T07:55:00.000-07:00

Someone was calling a bottom around DOW 12,900. We're down 6% from the past month's high of 13,200. If you know of economic movers that will provide for steadily increasing growth over the next year, please tell me.

That said, economic movers seem to have only a tenuous relationship with activity in the markets. It's a lot more abstract.

Still A Pessimist

2008-06-06T07:44:00.000-07:00

I'm just saying. Same increasing energy costs. Same obscure finances. Same arrogance. Same consumer inflation. Same uncertainty. Which raises the question: "Which inflation rate should central bankers focus on?" And that is addressed by Mankiw.

"Somebody Needs To Start Suing These People"

2008-06-06T07:17:00.000-07:00

Always worth asking, especially with the absurd B.S. that gets thrown at the American populace, is the question: "O yeah? Says who?" Orin Kerr points out that the recent proposal to cordon off certain blocks in D.C. may be unconstitutional. And Instapundit continues to hammer on about the really stupid and insulting (and arbitrary) ban on photography in many public places.

One mistake is made in many arguments though, and that's one of context. Because these photography bans sprang up as security measure after 9/11, it's assumed that they're a silly and indefensible response to those attacks. So the weak argument follows the line that the 9/11 hijackers weren't taking pictures in the first place. Which is a non-issue. Even if terrorists take extensive pictures of a public space before blowing it up, it does not follow that the public should be banned from taking pictures. If I drink ten pints of beer before peeing on the mayor's car, the public should not be banned from drinking ten pints of beer.

But Instapundit's main point is right. There's no law against taking photos, and the security thugs who enforce "regulations" are "acting way beyond (their) authority."

The Big, The Small, the Indifferent

2008-06-04T22:00:00.000-07:00

The Durants write:

"If we find that the type of genius prevalent in young countries like America and Australia tends to the practical, inventive, scientific, executive kinds rather than to the painter of pictures ir poem, the carver of statues or words, we must understand that each age and place needs and elicits some types of ability rather than others in its pursuit of environmental control. We should not compare the work of one land and time with the winnowed best of all the collected past. Our problem is whether the average man has increased his ability to control the conditions of his life."

On the subject of specialization, assuming that there is actually a national story line as the Durants suggest, does that mean we should accept the decline of the sort of liberal free-thinking that comes with the trends they attribute to "young countries?"

Hardly. But our national conversation increasingly stresses the fear that our elevated need for personal specialization and an explicit economic contribution (with the decline of the great fortunes and the trend towards inter-generational wealth redistribution) chases the arts out of the competition. Which debases the culture. Yadda yadda.

Yet technology empowers. Increases individualization. Allows, against the accepted assumptions, for more free time in which to gain talents outside our usual grind. As America has de-centralized the arts, have we just not gotten around to realizing what else we can teach ourselves? And instead sit around and watch the Mediocracy on the tube?

If so, many of us lack discipline, not educational opportunities. But that might have come with technology and leisure as well.

As with most things, it's a mixed bag. There's some wonderful stuff being made out there, but you'll likely go broke trying to make it, education and all. Which is why I think we need more discipline to increase the richness of our lives. Wallace Stevens was an insurance underwriter. William Carlos Williams a doctor. John Donne a clergy man. Specialize to live. Diversify to progress and enrich. And no, it's not simple. But nothing is, and it comes down to what you want out of life for you, your family, your nation and the world.

The Sicko/Psycho Freudian Slip

2008-06-04T21:00:00.000-07:00

Last night, I found myself in the uncomfortable position of defending privatized healthcare to 3 English-speaking Canadians and 1 French Canadian. I hate these conversations, when I am the only American in the room. I tend to just sit there and bite my tongue as the Canadians claim to understand the deteriorating U.S. healthcare situation better than I. What made this conversation even more uncomfortable was that 2 of the Canadians took Michael Moore's Sicko as being totally 100% indicative of what it is really like in the U.S., where if you have healthcare, then you have elite access to the best healthcare in all of the world; and if you don't, then you have to choose which finger you want re-attached (the less expensive one, of course) and then declare bankruptcy. There is also the fact that the country-to-country problems with healthcare, whether it be privatized, nationalized, or socialized, are so convoluted and complex that I am not going to even pretend to understand them. And I didn't see Sicko, because Michael Moore is a ridiculous sensationalist (i.e., Canadians lock their doors, and healthcare here is riddled with its own unique but equally as troubling problems). Funny, my soon-to-be sister-in-law slipped and said "Psycho" instead of "Sicko" when referring to Moore's movie, because English is not her first language and she was jet-lagged.

So I didn't speak up during this conversation at all, because I simply do not claim to know even where to start, and it is always best to avoid these arguments with your communist artsy relatives. However, this conversation led me to reflect on my own personal experience with the privatized system in the United States versus the publicly-funded system of Canada (that Hillary Clinton may think is totally awesome, but I assure you, it is not).

One of Canada's major universal healthcare problems: A lack of primary care physicians (PCPs). Here, there are only about 2.2 doctors per 1,000 individuals, which is well below the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development average of 3.0 in the western nations (in the U.S. nationwide, it is currently about 2.4, which isn't that great either). In Canada today, there nearly 3.7 million people without a PCP, constituting approximately 14% of the country's population. Michael Moore, that's the same percentage of Americans without health insurance. Not a fair comparison? I beg to differ. Because sure, you could go into any walk-in clinic whenever you want with your OHIP card, but inside you will find a complete lack of laboratory resources, and doctors without the tools to treat you properly. If it is something urgent, or something they do not have the resources to treat, these doctors will have to refer you to an ER where you will wait for 12-16 hours to see a triage nurse. We could also talk about patient stacking (look this neat trick up), doctor unions like the Ontario Medical Association (protecting doctor's salaries when the government pays for them means unions locking out new doctors to prevent their salaries from falling), wait times (like waiting 4 months for an MRI when you have a malignant brain tumor that will kill you in 6), the brain drain, how hard it is to get licensed in Canada to practice medicine if you are a doctor moving from abroad (even the U.S.), provinces keeping enrollment in medical schools down to save money, etc., but we would be here all night.

When I came to Toronto I could not find a doctor. I spent days calling doctors listed on the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario web page that were listed as taking new patients, but they weren't. I called over 50 doctors offices. Frustrated (and frankly scared, as I've had some health issues in the past that I wanted to keep an eye on), I called U of T's family care office (my husband is a prof). Someone here gave me three names of doctors who supposedly would agree to take me as a new patient if I told them I was affiliated with the university. Out of these three, only one of the offices could help me. I begged this receptionist to e-mail the doctor, and tell them about the U of T referral, and see if she knew what I was talking about. The next day, I called back, and suddenly I was on their patient list. So: you can only get a PCP in Canada if you know the right people. Ethical, eh?

I'm not sure I can say that not having health insurance at all is preferable to not being able to access public health care, but I never had any problems finding a PCP in the United States, in either the big cities or teeny weeny towns I've happened to find myself in. If I had no health insurance, and had a malignant brain tumor, I'd still rather be in the U.S. than in Canada, because there I could at least go bankrupt and be treated promptly and have my life saved. Here, the government outlaws privately-financed purchases of medical services. Therefore, you have to wait 9 agonizingly painful anorexic months to have your gallbladder removed, because it is not life-threatening; and in the U.S., this surgery could be scheduled for next week.

The good news is, that Canada is slowly increasing enrollment in its medical schools. Meanwhile, I pray that my PCP doesn't decide to do plastic surgery instead (because its fewer hours and she'd make more money); or move to the U.S. (where she'd also make more money).

A Gillian Welch Album

2008-06-04T12:38:00.000-07:00

Soul Journey. I'm there. Her dystopian dreams were hypnotic on Time (The Revelator), and I love the outstretched hand that her backwoods revivalism thrusts out to rockers. "I already have your balls in a cold steel vice. I'm more rock n' roll than you without even beng rock n' roll." It's her nerve and her dreaming. And her rhthyms. And her selective precision. Pitchfork had an amusing discussion of the album and its context here. She's produced by T-Bone Burnett, which would account for that feeling in even her more fluttery songs that someone hung a lead slug from the bottom of every note. Which would account for a bit of how she transcends the southern femal vocalist cliche; that sullen touch of man.

The Political Cycle Is Reconstituted Vomit

2008-06-04T08:10:00.001-07:00

Which I why I don't want to add to the daily churning, bile-flecked, back and forward wash of the Mediocracy. Or Incompetencia. Or whatever you want to call the political "class" and its sub-contractors. So, please consider a hearty "aye" to John Hood's article at National Review, including this:

"Gasoline is about to exceed $4 a gallon in most of the country. Anyone who believes that isn't the single most important number in American politics is fooling himself."

Political Derivatives

2008-06-03T10:26:00.001-07:00

This makes an interesting topic: auction sale prices of Obama and McCain Senate race pins. As there is a political futures market, are swag auctions analogous to even more complicated derivatives? As in, are they so opaque as to be meaningless?

I'm left behind. All I collect are bottle caps and beer mats. And I do have 5,000 baseball cards, which are completely archaic.

A Brief Nod To Becky C.

2008-06-03T10:08:00.000-07:00

Among the libertarian blogs I know, I like Just A Girl In Short Shorts the best. She's at her finest here on faith and here on immigration and the Drug War.

The Financial Press

2008-06-03T08:43:00.000-07:00

Barron's: Buy GM.
GM: We're closing 4 plants.

When does GM become a deep value play? Is that shortly before or after it ceases to exist as a North American manufacturing giant? Seems to me Barron's is a bit premature. If I buy a blue-chip auto manufacturer, I want consistent growth, a stable base of operations, and cost efficiency from economies of scale and a near monopolistic control of it's supply chain and capital. So what then, is GM? Will it go the way of Ford which has now sold the Jaguar brand to Tata?

But the article did give the stock a nice bounce. Consider that as a trading strategy: Take Barron's cover page, and make short term bets based on its recommendations.

Or do the opposite. Or don't buy individual stocks. Or take an anarchist approach. Or give your money to a pro and watch it evaporate.

New Reads

2008-06-03T08:09:00.001-07:00

Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why It Should, Like, Matter by John McWhorter. Good thesis, but the book is all mucked up structurally. You know it all already. We write like we speak, and we speak like we think, and we don't think clearly, sooooo . . .

Wish list: The Return of History and the End of Dreams, a look-back rebuttal of Fukuyama's T he End of History and the Last Man. Funny, I never finished that Fukuyama book . . . Also, once my micro economics course is done this summer it's on to Mises' Theory of Money and Credit. Which is about why we are doomed in decadence.

An Orderly Patriotic Parade

2008-06-03T06:16:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I went to Central Park's Cedar Hill, at the East 79th St. gate, to read. The sun shone, the breeze blew, "the day was green." From half way up Cedar Hill with the sunbathers and picnic folk and others like me, I looked down on a slight gully where families fly kites and chase balloons and cheerful yuppy parents drink cold wine with their nannies. It was clean and pure and the smiles seemed honest. Something of an ideal. Except for the several hovering police helicopters. And police in golf carts. Because it was the Israel Day Parade on Fifth Ave.

So all were extremely cheerful, and the blue and yellow flags flew from strollers and in pudgy baby hands and were trailed behind roller blading twenty somethings like capes. Loud speakers blasted from floats with the voices of young women singing pop songs about the wonders of being Jewish. It continued for a good six hours. In that time I grew used to the helicopters. And I enjoyed some good, marshal, American marching tunes, from good American high school marching bands. The Jews celebrating the founding of Israel were also celebrating their lives as Americans. Take away the yamulkes and the hebrew lettering on the blue and white t-shirts, and it might have been a Rockwell painting of Memorial Day.

I read my Hemingway and snoozed a little too.

And the police helicopters swept low and back and forth.

Whichever Way the Wind Blows, Apparently

2008-05-30T10:44:00.000-07:00

Out of the still whispering near-carcass of Modern Britain, skepticism, joy and juvenile longing may yet encourage wit and progress. Or so spiked wants us to believe. The magazine's editor, Brendan O'Neill, writes here at Reason on the true implications of the Tory resurgence. Nanny has not yet been shown the door.

On N.C.'s Post: "The Nothingness Bells"

2008-05-30T07:22:00.000-07:00

They are what we hear when in accepting the darkness we cease to fear death. It reminds me of Dylan Thomas ' Fern Hill:

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
O as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like sea.

External Economic Constraints

2008-05-30T05:42:00.000-07:00

I live in a big city with an extensive public transportation system, and am subject to the limits of that system. At the same time, I can walk where I like, and reach many things that I need at a whim. Articles like this one remind me why I've chosen the limits of a public system over the grinding of a commute. Orwell: "Freedom is slavery." Sometimes it can seem so.

What gets me: "Commuting has become so bad for some that more than a quarter of respondents said they've simply turned around and gone home." Truly, this is an infected life.

The Body/Non-Body Divide

2008-05-28T16:53:00.000-07:00

As a little kid, I remember coming inside via our garage into the basement from playing outside in the bright summer day. Before my pupils adjusted from pinpricks, I'd open my eyes as wide as I could at the cool darkness and be amazed at how utterly blind I was; so blind that my entire being would blend with the black until I no longer had a sense of where I ended.

I remember this feeling so vividly, that I was amazed by Per Petterson's essay on this very subject in the May 2008 issue of The Believer. Unfortunately this link will only yield the first two paragraphs of this excellently written essay. To entice you to go to your local elitist bookstore to find it, here is another paragraph/lyrical run-on sentence:

What I want is the pitch-black night as a condition, as something to sink and dissolve myself in; what I want is for the darkness to gush in through my eyes and my body to float out so it no longer is as distinct, as important as it often may seem to me, it must be admitted, that I can be found listening to its signals in monomaniacal and hypochondriacal ways; what I want is for the severence of body and non-body to dissolve a little, maybe accomplish some slight osmosis where the one ends and the other begins; to erase. That is what I want when I am sick of myself, of my face in the mirror, of the words I put on the screen, sick of the metallic taste in my mouth I get through staging myself each single day, when the proportionate relationship between me and me is almost 1:1, but not quite, and disgust and self-contempt ooze out of the cracks along the edge where the disparity prevents the tape of life from sticking.

All right, one more sentence, but just one, concerning one of Isabelle Eberhardt's stories ("The Oblivion Seekers") lest the copyright gods come and get me:

"The Oblivion Seekers" is the title of one of Isabelle Eberhardt's stories, the greatest desert diver of them all, and maybe there are many who do just that: seek oblivion, for reasons I shall not pass judgement on now, not out here alone on the dirt road, but to find that oblivion, to be forgotten, they may let the desert be the great eraser, be the sponge on the blackboard so thoroughly that in the end nothing can be heard in the emptiness except the fragile sound of nothingness bells.

The "fragile sound of nothingness bells?" Yet I know exactly what he means. I'd hear them at night when I lived in New Hampshire, walking out into the -20 F air to the laundry building, looking up at the zillions of stars stretching across the smear of Milky Way that is invisible in cities. I'd also hear the nothingness bells in my parents' basement, as I kicked off my muddy shoes, underneath the pervasiveness of the old buzzing fridge.

Have you heard the nothingness bells?

Libertarianism: A Peculiar Conservatism? Or Progressive?

2008-05-27T13:27:00.000-07:00

Something of a libertarian credo: "You cannot know better than I know what I need or want, what we as society need or want, or how to achieve and acquire those wants and needs. But in this skepticism there is optimism. I distrust you to know, but believe that given the freedom, we have the chance to find it out for ourselves, and possibly together."

Is a libertarian live-and-let-live approach irreconcilable with an energetic personal altruism? Progressive politics seems to say so, at least to the extent that progressives seek to mandate progress, giving up freedom for an uncertain (and improbable) social equity.

I pursue the politics of skepticism, revolting against the idea that a broad assertion can be broadly implemented. The big ideas I like are the ones that allow other big ideas to flourish in little ways. So I see progress through brotherliness most effective through personal or organizational, ex-governmental acts. I think it allows both for efficiency and for a central right, which is freedom of association. But then, aren't the few, true rights, inextricable?

And yet here is CATO observing that this is both fantasy and reality.

CNN Now Province of Leggy Young Hipsters

2008-05-27T12:23:00.000-07:00

Our national cable news of record presents itself to you with: "Legs", the economical hipster. Story here.

"Languid Young Princes of the Drawing Room"

2008-05-27T10:41:00.000-07:00

In my childhood, my parents, though only tepid Anglophiles, ardently braised my mind with British poetry and stories. So now: Hitchens on a biography by Sandie Byrne about Saki. It's a terrific article.

Hooray!

2008-05-22T11:33:00.000-07:00

THE SILVER APPLES BREAKING NEWS ALERT:

*Appeals court says it was totally unethical, disgusting, and cruel for Texas to steal 463 kids from their parents, regardless of whether they had actual evidence of abuse or not*

Will this mean the abuse-free kids will be reunited with their parents, like, tomorrow?

Revelation

2008-05-21T16:34:00.000-07:00

Yes, I still have been obsessing about the fates of the 463 beautiful little innocent FLDS children that were taken away from their loving mothers at the beginning of last month, and placed into state custody where these kinds of things have been known to happen. For a pretty weighted side of the story, there is now this site, a headline/blog style one here, and a site that quite elaborately houses many of the more important revelations. I've been visiting all three regularly and reading, reading, reading. This horrific set of events has finally motivated FLDS members to share their beliefs with us, after averting our eyes for so long.

It looks like Texas has will consider each family as a separate case, recommending a complex counseling/intervention "service plan" that parents will be forced to comply with before their children are returned to them. Following the rules put forth by the court, parents that comply with the service plan will have their children returned to them by April 2009 (!!!). The state has made no effort at all to keep brothers and sisters together, instead spreading them out in foster care situations that are hundreds of miles from one another. The number of minors who have conceived children continues to drop precipitously as families present birth certificates in court, making the state's case weaker and weaker. And of course there is the call from "Sarah Barlow" that started it all, which was a hoax.

Reports of 2 year-old children refusing to eat, 3 year-olds becoming withdrawn and sullen, abound on Texas local news stations, like KXAN out of Austin. CPS was turned away from the YFZ ranch today--because they were poking around for five more children reported to be still living on the ranch sans search warrant.

I still think that spiritual marriages between 14 year old girls and older FLDS members are wrong, and child abuse, but these occurences are starting to look more and more like they existed on the fringes of this otherwise wholesome microcosm. While Warren Jeffs whispers sermons into tape recorders from prison, I wonder if FLDS members are beginning to wonder whether or not his words are indeed ordained from God. His thirst for authoritarian power exploited this religion to feed his own ego and family wallet, and its followers are now suffering duly under his dictatorship.

The first amendment of the constitution has been broken here, hasn't it? Where is the ACLU? Hello? Can someone please get the abuse-free children back to living in the open air, eating preservative-free home-grown food, reading the book of Mormon everyday, and singing? Where their mothers can hug them and mend their socks? Is anyone listening? Or are you still all feminazi-ing about the polygamy thing?

"Hungover?" "Yes, and?"

2008-05-20T08:57:00.000-07:00

If there's one thing The New Yorker should manage to cover well, considering that this is New York, I would say: drinking. We fortunatly have less of a problem, at least in Manhattan, with drunk driving, but all caveats included, when Joan Acocella notes that "There are laws against drunk driving, but not against driving with a hangover," I begin to tremble and shake with premonition. That premonition is that MADD and Libby Dole will leap in and find something else to regulate. For example: No driving with a stupor-induced head ache. No operating your lawn mower ten days after a vasectomy. Etc.

"Sadness Is Just Happiness Turned On Its . . ."

2008-05-18T12:10:00.001-07:00

Apropos Of The Durants . . .

2008-05-18T11:09:00.000-07:00

An article in the latest Atlantic titled: In the Basement of the Ivory Tower. Completely compelling. Should we conclude that the progressives' drive for equality does not cooperate with progress? What of aspiration? No man or woman, but only reality, can conclusively rule on whose aspirations are reasonable, and only reality can convince a person that a chosen path was chosen in error. While we ought not to preclude anyone from aspiration, we ought also not to contribute to the myth that we are all of equal ability, vertically or horizontally, and we ought not to foster the culture that Professor X describes.

Here's another thing though: can there be absolute states of night and day though we are reborn every morning? William Blake:

"Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born.
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight."

It would be a mistake to see this as Blake condemning anyone to endless misery. We are not born endlessly to misery. We are each, one day, of the miserable or the delighted, but the days are not doled out in equal measure. The question for us is: Do we accept this, or work endlessly to change it? In working to change it, do we work against a historic inevitability? Do we work quietly in person or within a general consensus? Who defines and applies the consensus? How can that person or persons know better for the individual what the individual should find for themself?

Durant Quote 1: Cycles, And The Inevitability of Decline

2008-05-18T10:22:00.000-07:00

Over and over again, argue the Durants, in philosophy and history, civilizations come up against the challenges of decadence, of a dissociation of morals from religion, of the conflicts of equality and progress. They trace it so, to where we live now:

"Since inequality grows in an expanding economy, a society may find itself divided between a cultured minority and a majority of men and women too unfortunate by nature or circumstance to inherit or develop standards of excellence and taste. As this majority grows it acts as a cultural drag upon the minority; its ways of speech, dress, recreation, feeling, judgment, and thought spread upward, and internal barbarization by the majority is part of the price that the minority pays for its control of educational and economic opportunity.

As education spreads, theologies use credence, and receive an external conformity without influence upon conduct or hope. Life and ideas become increasingly secular, ignoring supernatural explanations and fears. The moral code loses aura and force as its human origin is revealed, and as divine surveillance and sanctions are removed . . . In antiquity and modernity alike, analytical thought dissolved the religion that had buttressed the moral code. New religions came, but they were divorced from the ruling classes and gave no service to the state. An age of weary skepticism and epicureanism followed the triumph of rationalism over mythology in the last century before Christianity, and follows a similar victory today in the first century after Christianity.

Caught in the relaxing interval between one moral code and the next, an unmoored generation surrenders itself to luxury, corruption, and restless disorder of family and morals, in all but a remnant clinging desperately to old restraints and ways. Few souls feel any longer that "it is beautiful and honorable to die for one's country." A failure of leadership may allow a state to weaken itself with internal strife. At the end of the process a decisive defeat in war may bring a final blow, or barbarian invasion from without may combine with barbarism welling up from within to bring civilization to a close.

Is this a depressing picture? Not quite. Life has no inherent claim to eternity, whether in individuals or in states. Death is natural, and if it comes in due time it is forgivable and useful, and the mature mind will take no offense from its coming. But do civilisations die? Again, not quite. Greek civilization is not really dead; only its frame is gone and its habitat has changed and spread; it survives in the memory of the race . . ."

Source: Durant, Will and Ariel, The Lessons of History, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1968

On Bees In Literature and Poetry

2008-05-18T10:06:00.000-07:00

Edward Lear:

"There was an old man in a tree
Who was horribly bored by a bee.
When they said, "Does it buzz?"
He replied, "Yes it does!
It's a regular brute of a bee."

Conspicuously Absent

2008-05-16T09:10:00.000-07:00

Indeed, toddlers can be emotionally intense. However, hanging out with one on a regular basis allows personal reflection upon the more trivial yet fascinating things in nature that adults have long since overlooked. Like bug-watching, for example. Toddlers love looking at ants, termites, worms, or other insects and invertebrates they happen to find while digging in the dirt. These small, rapidly moving creatures are a source of interest as toddlers begin categorizing the non-human creatures that share their world. My daughter in particular loves ladybugs and bees. She tends to call all crawling insects "ladybugs" and all flying insects "bees".

Except that there aren't any bees. All of our May flowers are in full bloom, yet no bees. No bumblebees, carpenter bees, or wild honey bees. And despite being carnivores, I haven't seen that many yellow jackets buzzing around the old wood in our "backyard" either. Last year, the bee disappearance was confined to the Niagara penninsula only, but this year I have yet to see a single bee in Toronto. It is really strange.

Colony collapse disorder (CCD) is the name given to the mysterious force that is causing adult worker bees to abandon their hives and hatching larvae seemingly overnight. It has been reported in 24 states in the United States since 2006. While large-scale die-offs of domestic honey bee colonies have been reported in the past, these events were generally marked by harsh seasonal conditions. Also, loss of a worker bee population in colonies used to be something that happened gradually. Beekeepers with CCD report that in many cases, the queen appears to be healthy and still laying eggs, yet the worker bees disappear completely in a matter of a week. There are no obvious piles of dead bees outside of the hives either.

The majority of research conducted on CCD has occured within PennState's college of agricultural sciences. Researchers here, including entomologist Diana Cox-Foster, have been focusing on identifying whether CCD is caused by pathogens, environmental chemicals, and/or nutritional stressors. Possible pathogens include fungi, mites, and viruses. The Israeli acute paralysis virus has so far been the pathogen most closely correlated to incidences of CCD. The contribution of environmental chemicals and pesticides has been more difficult for researchers to analyze. Europeans, also experiencing CCD, are blaming climate change and even cell phone towers. And there is the obvious lack of proper bee nutrition, as more and more Americans kill off any errant patch of clover on their suburban lawn with sophisticated herbicides purchased at the Home Depot.

So what, you may ask? Well, there are many more species that act as pollinators besides domesticated and wild bees, so don't worry about all of the pretty flowers in your garden disappearing yet. However, there are certain commercial crops that are very dependent on pollination by bees, such as almonds, berries, melons, and fruit trees (apples, peaches, cherries). In many cases, farmers rely on migratory apiaries to come with their hives and help pollinate their crops to yield fruit. With more and more beekeepers going out of business due to CCD, expect higher prices on certain fruits and Californian almonds. And obviously your honey will be getting more expensive too.

Thanks, little M., for pointing this out to me.

Next, we should discuss the symbolism of bees in literature, poetry, and art. Maybe I will leave that to B. A. B...

Amidst The Noise:

2008-05-15T08:29:00.000-07:00

Some people are getting items into Myanmar. Friends in my B-school, natives of that land, have set up a site to help funnel useful items in through non-government, non-junta threatening connections. To see their work click here. And please consider helping. You know already what the bad news is.

By the Way

2008-05-14T12:32:00.000-07:00

Don't forget about this. They discussed this little tidbit for about 5 seconds on CNN last night, amidst how Hillary is the only Democrat that could win swing states because she is white and because of her last name or whatever else, so few might have noticed. Noticed how f*&$ed brand Republican™ is, that is. I noticed.

So the eternal question for all of us independents: Who will be the party that is more f%$#ed? It looks like John McCan't. Or McWon't, rather. Not with this sort of stuff happening. B. A. B., Ron Paul could still win! Hooray!

Why Is This Still Occupying My Brain-Space?

2008-05-14T05:59:00.000-07:00

It looks like I was wrong about race, but in a round-about-way. And the blogosphere talks about little else.

Cancel my subscription to this election. I've been writing fiction vignettes over here, trying to keep a good pace. All thoughts are welcome.

George Will: Questions for John McCain

2008-05-12T07:47:00.000-07:00

More like this please. Questions for the candidate, "Peripatetic John McCain, the human pinball," the intellectually dishonest, opportunistic, contemptuous . . .

Rather Than Comment . . .

2008-05-10T05:46:00.001-07:00

I'll take a post to address N.C.'s latest (here ) directly. N.C., I think you miss the point that the white-shoes and repairmen are a lot less interested in race than the left wants the electorate to believe, in an effort to discredit opposition to Obama. What interests them is the idea that Obama is a stalking horse for discredited and disruptive ideologies and insurgent non-western collectivism. They don't care what color the candidate is. They want their candidate to think like them, to recognize and acknowledge essential American rightness, and maintain a long past status quo. They looked for it in Bush 2 and instead got a mare's nest of nineteenth century revivalism, back room cigar chomping intellectual corruption, and nepotism. All of Obama's sociological perceptiveness and excellent speechifying does not change his liberalism or the fuzziness of his platform. In the lapel pin kerfluffle and pledge of allegiance shenanigans certain people look for a token of truth about something that underlies his rhetoric. This is not racism. Not that it's not there somewhere. But I don't think it's where you're looking. There is as much if not more racism in the condescension of the left than in hard, open bigotry.

However, the Dems are doomed. Peggy Noonan is right. And we'll get the creeping socialism anyway, from McCain, with weird Christianist social strings attached. Pretty much the worst of all worlds.

A Peculiar and Pervasive Symbol

2008-05-09T19:16:00.001-07:00

For a good long time I've been over-writing and over-editing a short essay about the phrygian (liberty) cap. A selection below:

"We have come to see the Liberty Cap, when we see it, as representing liberty achieved, the cap of a free citizen, duly engraved in the seals of republics, legislative bodies, and liberal arts colleges. But since the Enlightenment, the cap, hung from a tree on a New England hill, or seen flashing through the streets of Paris during the Reign of Terror, has appeared at times when liberty was most desired, among angry or desperate men and women who challenged oppression: unrepresentative, aristocratic, or cruel. The cap has mostly been the physical sign of participation in bloody revolution, worn to demonstrate that liberty is sought."

I want one.

The Durants: Film Noir Historians

2008-05-09T18:11:00.000-07:00

Newly essential, please read and memorize: The Lessons of History. I'll link to it in my recommended books to the lower right. The problem with it is that it is a smallish tract which distills the observations of two people who wrote substantively about every period in the development of Western civilization. A blog reduces it to glib aphorisms, though we aim to surmount that here when we manage to construct even a half completed thought.

The Durants condense their thoughts fairly, with the authority of the thorough observer. They're a bit prudish, but you can see where they're coming from, maybe being more publicly prudent and privately prudish. I need to read more history, especially ancient, and suggest that if you need to too, their books would be a great start.

History: Distilled From the Vapors of Collegiate Lovers

2008-05-09T17:50:00.000-07:00

We'll get something out of this yet. To the right, a new theme song: Leonard Cohen's I'm Your Man. And below, in their condensed reflections, The Lessons of History, estimable historians Will and Ariel Durant on the inevitability of easy sex in the post agricultural society:

Gradually, then rapidly and ever more widely, the Industrial Revolution changed the economic form and moral superstructure of European and American life. Men, women, and children left home and family, authority and unity, to work as individuals, individually paid, in factories built to house not men but machines. Every decade the machines multiplied and became more complex; economic maturity (the capacity to support a family) came later; children no longer were economic assets; marriage was delayed; premarital continence became more difficult to maintain.

Nothing Like A Good Slutty Ad

2008-05-09T17:47:00.001-07:00

Here's one thing about ads featuring collegiate one-night stands . . . ah, hell. Nevermind.

Exit Strategy

2008-05-09T06:49:00.000-07:00

All apologies to Mr. Blake, proprietor of The Silver Apples and therefore my blogging boss, as he suggested that we shouldn't discuss current presidential politics anymore. I risk getting fired, but Lawrence O'Donnell spoke this morning on CNN of Hillary's exit strategy. I found this particular piece of gossip-evidence of a June 15th exit date believable, as it made perfect strategic sense to me.

People (my independent self included) love to poke fun at the chaos found within the left hemisphere of American politics, and this primary season has provided ample fodder for pondering the eternal question "How will the Democratic Party screw up its chances this time?" I hate Hillary Clinton's politic as much as any conservative could, for sure. However, it has become more difficult to celebrate the downfall of her campaign; when you see this woman who has been planning this run for ages, dreaming of being the first female President of the United States. Any hater has to feel sympathy--if only because of her toddler-like endless energy supply, ambition, motivation...and even, strength?

So now I suggest that if this piece of gossip-evidence is true, it appears to me that the Democrats might be more organized than ever. They know that Rev. Wright reminded every borderline racist that Obama was indeed an African-American, and they know Hillary has a point about white, blue-collar Democrats. They aren't stupid. They know that a decent chunk of Hillary supporters will defect to the moderate, sweet, old John McCain because they've grown that repulsed by Obama's uncanny ability to seemingly run on his naïveté and rhetorical talent alone, as this thing drags on like a dead body stuck under a bus.

So Hillary will wind her campaign down slowly, amicably, gracefully, etc. She will remind all of the white blue-collar Democrats how much the economy sucks, what a laughing stock the United States has become under the unprecedented presidential disaster called George W. Bush, and how she gave everything she could to fight on for her supporters to become the nominee. But most of all she hopes to remind these people that if they are indeed that Sick of it All, they will vote for the Democratic nominee, whoever it is (and we all know it will be the jeans-wearing, cigarette-smoking, strapping young sexy guy). And like a piece of play-doh in the "party elders" hands, Barry will name Hillary his running mate and the worst nightmares of all the white-shoed retirees and appliance repairmen will come true.

O.K., Mr. Blake, that is all, I'm sorry. Please don't fire me, because then I won't have anything to do as I wait for the edits on my report to come back.

She-ra, Princess of Power

2008-05-08T12:05:00.000-07:00

The Silver Apples subtitle is aptly, "An Opinion Digest," so here is a brief opinion. You may already despise my taste in music, but I heart my fair city's Crystal Castles, and have been listening to them for the past year or so. Electronic music is only one genre contained in my CD collection, mind you, but perhaps this uber-cool duo should have scratched "Castles" for "Meth," because this is how infectious I find them. Art thieves or not, I can't stop listening to them all the time, and I don't know why. Maybe it is because I loved playing my Atari 5600 when I was a little kid. Now Pitchfork's new TV station gives me this video, yay. I know, I know, Pitchfork has become everything that it is against, but still, yay for being able to watch high quality indie rock videos like this one at my leisure. Though I don't think I'd ever attend one of their shows, ever, because likely there'd be some scary goings on there, and I am a Responsible Adult now, highly fearful of youths. I also tried to embed this video into this post but found that it is too physically large and overlapped the right hand column of advertisements.

Global Warming Haters, Eat Your Heart Out

2008-05-08T06:27:00.000-07:00

I saw this on Glenn Beck last night, in case you missed this ABC blip from 2 weeks ago, it's great. I never saw An Inconvenient Truth, because I think Al Gore is and always has been a doofus.

Disclaimer #1: Yes, I watch Glenn Beck sometimes (i.e., when there is nothing else on TV) even though he is sort of a drunken idiot. I watch his dumb show largely for the excellent guests, and because he presents the conservative viewpoint in a simplistic (sometimes inaccurate), open-minded (open-minded only compared to most conservative media personalities), and (very) mildly entertaining sort of way. One of my aspirations in life is to give him a hug.

Disclaimer #2: I do not consider myself pro-global warming, but do believe in climate change (whether it be induced by humans or by mother nature doesn't matter to me as much), and think that we should apply our intelligence in a pro-active way to produce technologies that would allow us to burn things without generating as much air pollution as we do now. Only if to lower the risk of asthma in children growing up in big cities, such as mine.

= God

2008-05-06T06:49:00.000-07:00

Like B. A. B., I find it unfortunate that conservatives such as Limbaugh make the completely illogical conclusion that Darwin's Origin of Species (1860) and his theory of natural selection is a rejection of God. This argument is and was ignorant of the details contained in the book, and I cite Thomas Huxley's response to Bishop Wilberforce at the British Association meetings in Oxford on June 30, 1860:

"I asserted, and I repeat, that a man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling, it would be a man, a man of restless and versatile intellect, who, not content with an equivocal success in his own sphere of activity, plunges into scientific questions with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric, and distract the attention of his hearers from the real point at issue by eloquent digressions, and skilled appeals to religious prejudice."

I am a mass-attending Roman Catholic by birth and a biologist by trade. Yes, the scientific method is based upon the observation (with ones senses) of fact and the objective process of testing a hypothesis in order to accept or reject it. And the more frequently the hypothesis is tested and withstands, the stronger and truer it becomes. Now, because I am confident that this blog will never solve the mysteries of life, the universe, and everything (answer = 42), I can only provide what I believe about the relationship of religion and science. So here it is. Keep in mind that I'm aware that some other philosopher has offered something similar to what I myself believe, but my knowledge of philosophers and philosophy stops at the Philosophy 101 class I took my freshman year (which I got a 4.0 in, barfy barf). Kant maybe?

Okay, so the more a hypothesis is tested, the stronger and truer or weaker and falser it becomes. This being said, most of the scientists I've met in my lifetime also are acutely aware that there is no such thing as an absolute truth or absolute falsehood. There have been many many black swans uncovered since the birth of the modern scientific method. Ben Stein realized that it is highly entertaining to find the minority of scientists claiming that everything can be explained by highly coordinated chemical reactions and interview them. I say "minority" only based upon my own experience, as the majority of scientists (I should say, biologists) I've met throughout my various training and research experiences are not anti-intelligent design by any means. In fact, this movie isn't really about Darwinism or intelligent design at all, but whether it is possible to define religious faith by application of the scientific method. It is infuriating to most scientists I've met that papers like Meyers' are met with such opposition and uproar, as he was most definitely applying the scientific method in his suggestion that natural selection doesn't explain everything, and therefore it is possible we've (sorry, Ken) come up against an insurmountable obstacle. However, his essay by no means supports the sheer idiocy of creation science. But alas, where is this line? Meyers has merely identified the presence of this line. It is a slippery slope indeed, and that is exactly the cliff that most scientists are afraid of falling off. Back to the flat world, spontaneous generation, and alchemy. Hence the uproar.

To accept neo-creationism, the scientific method requires observable (by everyone) evidence of intelligent design, and this is something that I believe will be impossible. A lack of evidence can suggest intelligent design (Meyers), but it will never prove it to be true. I also believe the scientific method will never yield an answer to abiogenesis or the origin of the universe. Scientists that believe otherwise are wasting their lives, but this is my opinion. (My beliefs on this are also supported by the surprisingly small number of scientists that devote their lives to unraveling the mysteries of abiogenesis and the origin of the universe--but I digress.)

Being a biologist, I am fully aware of the physical objective evidence that supports the theory of natural selection and "Darwinism" (or neo-Darwinism or whatever you want to call it, poor old Darwin). I personally believe that in light of the mountains of observable physical evidence, it appears that the theory of natural selection (and maybe even the Big Bang, but less so) is truer than that of intelligent design. For now. But both primordial soup and string theory gets equally as idiotic as creation science, at a certain point. Then they both lose me, and I go to church.

My Point Exactly

2008-05-06T06:07:00.000-07:00

The Templeton Foundation hosts a discussion: Does science make belief in God obsolete? This could hardly be more timely. Interesting that I stumbled over it after posting on Limbaugh's bizarre contention that Darwinism precludes a belief in God, (Which had a lot less to do with Limbaugh than with the idea itself. But some don't bother about these minutiae.)

My favorites? Mary Midgely: "Of course not," and Hitchens: "No, but it should." Hitchens even refers to the near extinction of mankind that N.C. posted on several days ago. Stick with us. We're ahead of the curve.

I can't help but quote Hitchens with approval: "What plan, or planner, determined that millions of humans would die without even a grave marker, for our first 200,000 years of struggling and desperate existence, and that there would only then at last be a 'revelation' to save us, about 3,000 years ago, but disclosed only to gaping peasants in remote and violent and illiterate areas of the Middle East?"

I touched on the subject here.

"All I Want You To Tell Me, Is How Much Is It Going To Cost?"

2008-05-06T05:08:00.001-07:00

Not a post on inflation, but a line from Songs of Innocence, by Richard Aleas. Profiled at NPR. Note what's going on here: hero's name is Blake, the book is Songs of Innocence. Cute idea: Not quite Chandler. I suggest that in further honor of Blake the Kabballist they could pose the girls in the shape of Hebrew letters.

The best thing about this project is the cover art and its bespoke 50's nostalgia. That works fine in pictures; not so much in writing style. Dig some of the improbably limbed chicks in the NPR cover art slide-show, man.

And Being a Market Pessimist . . .

2008-05-05T11:18:00.000-07:00

Bloomberg also reports on what I bet several weeks ago was a "sucker's rally." As has happened to me before, I bet too early (for the short term), but the options market may be whispering kind words in my ear. The Fed's rate cut drove cash into the equities markets, and if those same investors begin to take gains, that cash will come back out. Where will it go? Maybe it will go into metals juniors and gold producers and bullion. Projects need to be funded.

What Makes a Pessimist?

2008-05-05T10:39:00.000-07:00

You tell me, apart from long equipment lead times, endless permitting, government restriction or nationalization, and an energy resource squeeze that exacerbates a metals squeeze. The Bloomberg article I link to addresses energy increases that are shutting down the world's largest, emerging market based, and therefore most cost-efficient mines.

More signs of the end times

2008-05-03T10:41:00.000-07:00

Fantastic.

Note: I promise more in the way of content next week, as I simply must address primordial soup in some sort of lengthy essay as we bounce from one heated topic to another, but I must also squeeze in a power nap today before little M. wakes up.

Clearing the Throat and Bonus Proof: GOP Is Party of the Risen Lord

2008-05-01T12:28:00.000-07:00

With Expelled, I expect that Ben Stein has made a terrific, useful movie that will remind us that a scientist who refuses to wonder and who hates the faithful is untrustworthy, locked in a mental box with marxists, monarchists and post modern architects. Hopefully it will also help us understand the gentler and more reflective nuances of what I've viewed as a frequently manipulative and cynical cultural movement stemming from fundamentalist Christianity via the dark ages.

But here's Rush Limbaugh writing something patently untrue: "Darwinism, of course, does not permit for the existence of a supreme being, a higher power, or a God." Darwinism itself doesn't threaten theology or faith, and the theory doesn't prohibit anything. In fact, it leaves the central and most important question unanswered, as it should. The realization that our lives are progressive rather than a series of ancient, sporadic miracles, prophecies and magic, is a liberating insight. It liberates us from corrupt authorities and from ignorance, which cripples our decisions. It liberates us from fate, from "God's will," which is the petty, meddling characteristics that we impute on Him like pagans. In this process, God grows more clearly wonderful, complex and universal. Science and religion are opposite in many ways, but they are not opposed. They wind around each other. They sometimes touch and they sometimes move apart, but they wind in the same direction. The difference is that religions have benefited from God's mystery and distance. Science pursues his fingerprints.

That said, Darwinism does threaten the dogmatic religions. This is very good. In threatening dogma, Darwinism undermines the authority of the institutions, diverts the aspirations of the faithful from salvation from original sin, and relates us to beasts. Darwinism also represents the scientific process at its best, and the scientific process requires us to state as fact only what we prove through observation. Authorities thrive by conflating faith with fact.

As for Rush, the rest of the transcript actually seems to conflate liberty with destiny and faith and is really strange. What happened to reason? Where's Goldwater?

Do You Believe?

2008-05-01T11:48:00.000-07:00

Thanks to reader Ken for reminding us of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a perfect example of the reductio ad adsurdum that has encouraged countless faithful to vomit on the floor out of frustration. On the one hand this is cruel and provocative. On the other hand: effective. It explains itself quite neatly so I'll let you get on to it after this clinch quote: "One third time for Intelligent Design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence."

Quiz:

2008-05-01T06:37:00.000-07:00

If presented with these three videos in a vacuum, who would you vote for?

1. Sweet, elderly man who supports a gas tax holiday, though he's not sure why--oh yeah, to give Americans a blissful few months to delude themselves about the economic meteor that is headed straight for the U.S.A? Wow, what a nice guy:

2. Scary middle aged lady who reminds you of your substitute teacher from elementary school whose tired voice sounds like a cat in heat as it presents some complicated set of plans/excuses of how we can afford a gas tax holiday and yet still fix the roads? How would that work exactly? Maybe I need to listen to this a few million more times before it sinks into my simple, spongy brain:

3. Hey... isn't this the guy that hypnotized us with his Magical Golden Words of Hope until we realized that he is just Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden's love child/America-hating/black church-attending/latte-sipping elitist/racist? And didn't Nostradamus say something about if a "dark man" is president the end of days will be upon us? What's that you say, Barry? A gimmick?

4. None of the above, I think I should be president instead.

The Harvard Libertarian Foru . . . baaaaarf . . .

2008-04-30T13:03:00.000-07:00

There is such a thing? If you click on the link though, it doesn't appear particularly robust. Or savvy. Or presentable. Much like the actual Libertarian Party.

Please, could you stay awhile to share my grief

2008-04-29T10:05:00.000-07:00

In 1994, my 14 year-old sister purchased an album that I told her to--Portishead's Dummy, the band's first--as my parents had a knack for breaking any CD of mine that they thought would contribute to my raging case of teenage angst. Happily, they never broke this lovely little terracotta figure I molded for my 3D Design and Sculpture course (the name of this piece is "The Second Degree of Mortal Anguish," in case you were wondering). I was 16 when I made this, and it was inspired by the lyrics to "Wandering Star," one of the singles on Dummy:

Please could you stay awhile to share my grief
For its such a lovely day
To have to always feel this way
And the time that I will suffer less
Is when I never have to wake

And of course, the verse at the song's conclusion, nearly whispered by Beth Gibbons:

(always) doubled up inside
Take awhile to shed my grief

Cute, eh?

Rapidly converting Dummy to cassette tape, I listened to it almost constantly for the next year. The repeated listening sessions took place largely in my 1982 Volvo 240, while I squeezed in two cigarettes on my morning drive to high school. I had also manipulated my little sister into not telling mom and dad about that, either, though she eventually did anyways. I retreated into Beth's fragile voice, as it wavered over quarter tones, tunefully capturing dissonance in a truly unique way. This album was revolutionary. You could identify it anywhere by its bass line, no matter how far off in the distance it was being played.

Dummy was an album that was classified as "trip-hop," alongside Massive Attack. Trip-hop was officially born in Bristol in the early 90's (Portishead is a town, eight miles west of Bristol). Trip-hop is generally a down-tempo, brooding form of electronic music with the soulfulness of hip-hop. It is pessimistic and ethereal. Portishead's second full-length album, self-titled, fit into this genre as well. This album came out in 1997, and I bought it when I was in college. It was equally excellent.

My raging teenage angst filled with runnings away and jumpings off of hotel balconies slowly evolved into a sub-chronic, highly functioning black dog that would sneak up on me now and then, as it still does. When the 2000's came around, I gave up on ever hearing another Portishead album again. Trip-hop faded slowly into history. I clutched onto these two albums as security objects for almost a decade, pulling them out in the dead of winter, putting them on as I waited for my medication to kick in. Many people despise music like this, thinking it pathetic, a purposeless downer, fine. For me it was a true comfort, as Beth told me over and over that I didn't have to suffer in silence. I could use Portishead as a soundtrack to accompany my worst moments. Those moments where the ground drops out from below your feet.

Today was a bright and unseasonably cool day. I set off at lunchtime to run an errand I'd never thought I'd get to ever run again. Because 11 years later, Portishead's Third has finally arrived. Finding that my HMV at Bay and Bloor had closed (go iTunes), I doubled back nearly 15 blocks to the next closest record store (I can take the time to do this, because I am a consultant and can work whenever it suits me). I clutched the CD next to my chest in a bright orange bag and nearly ran home. I found the sweet spot in my living room where my left and right speakers converge, sat on the floor and listened to the whole thing. I report that Portishead are no longer trip-hop, but psych-rock. However, I feel this album will more than surpass my depressing music needs for the next decade or so. Thanks, Portishead, this was well worth the wait. We Carry On.

Update: The "gross" sculpture in the photo is a female figure, lying on her side, with her hands covering her face. I suppose this got lost on some people. Our assignment was to create a human figure. I got an A+ on this, so I was proud of myself at the time as I worked rather hard on it. Not everyone can be brilliant at art, I suppose.

Moving On, Moving Up

2008-04-26T10:38:00.000-07:00

The underlying dialectic of the meme in which we're engaged suggests a persuasive and vibrant repudiation of the overarching mimetic dialogue, thus providing a highly rational and disruptive re-imagining of the bourgeois superstructure. This posits a radical and procreative trend towards an exegetic meta-discourse. The goal of course is revolution.

Just kidding. I'm taking the blog Constructivist for awhile and added a new song. Please try your best to keep existing, and don't get too wrapped up in dreams or baseless rumors.

Persuasion

2008-04-26T10:04:00.000-07:00

A fine comment here at National Review's "The Corner". Incentives and subsidies pervert the market and inflame the situation we now see, leading in extreme cases to desperation and suffering. The modern right is increasingly complicit in statism by helping blend the corporate with the legislative.

David Freddoso takes the right path too. Not conciliatory, but persuasive and engaging. The right gains nothing through rage and name calling. Some of the stuff I see and hear reminds me of Greenpeace in boats in front of whaling ships unveiling flags, or PETA throwing red paint on fur coats. What's gained? The question really is how much is lost from the high ground. When I do get around to formulating a real idea, I try always to think of Benjamin Franklin's advice in his autobiography. Not that I always succeed . . .

I've Never Seen That Show

2008-04-25T07:19:00.000-07:00

But discussion of the vagaries of life, our lives, the lives of our ancient predecessors, etc., makes me think of this, Prospero's speech from The Tempest, especially as I've recently put some extra thought into mortality:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors
As I foretold you, are all spirits, and
Are melted in air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud cap'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on: and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

How close we came to not existing...

2008-04-24T10:55:00.000-07:00

This is a really neat genetic study out of Stanford that suggests humans nearly bought it as a species 70,000 years ago, due to widespread famine brought upon by climate changes occurring at the time. We dropped down to about 2,000 individuals. For me, these mDNA data, together with geological evidence of mega-colossal volcanic eruptions like the Toba causing "global winter" (and a bottleneck in the human population) at nearly the same point in time, is all the proof I need of how pathetically fragile we are.

The question is, will we be able to adapt if rapid climate change like this ever happens again? We live on a planetary oasis in an uninhabitable universe. Think about how miserable all the earthless humans are in Battlestar Galactica.

The Radish

2008-04-23T16:41:00.000-07:00

Sorry, but I like poetry too. Whether you like a poem or not is very subjective, maybe more so than prose. Many people hate poetry or find it doesn't matter, but I think that it matters more than a novel. I think it links language more intimately with human consciousness, and therefore, is more real. The type of poetry that I like to read varies tremendously. I tend not to like drug-induced nonsense or nonsense of any kind, though I do like drug-induced poetry if I can still understand the symbolism without having to take drugs myself. I don't like poetry that uses too much literary flourish. I know B. A. Blake really likes Dylan Thomas, whom I also like though find a little too drunk or perfect sometimes. I don't like poetry that I don't understand, but sometimes, if someone explains it to me, then I like it. I think I've already stated that I don't like war poetry as some sort of irrational rule. I like going to the poetry section at the bookstore and picking up a book of poetry by someone I've never heard of that is a professor somewhere, and buying it if it looks like something I would like. I also really like poetry that has references to the occult in it.

So here is me typing a poem that I like a lot onto this blog. I'm not sure its necessarily legal to do this, so I may delete it if They come after me. It is called "The Radish," by James Tate, from Return to the City of the White Donkeys (Ecco, 2005). I guess my affinity for this poem is due to the fact that I go grocery shopping a lot, but nothing like this has ever happened to me. I do think about really strange things sometimes as I am moving down my list and through the aisles, which is probably what initially drew me to this poem. Pay attention to it and you will be rewarded.

I was holding this really exemplary radish in my hand.
I was admiring its shape and size and color. I was imagining
its zesty, biting taste. And when I listened, I even thought
I could hear it singing. It was unlike anything I had ever
heard, perhaps an Oriental woman from a remote mountain village
singing to her rabbit. She's hiding in a cave, and night has
fallen. Her parents had decided to sell her to the evil prince.
And he and his thousand soldiers were searching for her everywhere.
She trembled in the cold and held the rabbit to her cheek. She
whispered the song in a high, thin voice, like a reed swaying
by itself on a bank above a river. The rabbit's large, brown ears
stood straight up, not wanting to miss a word. Then I dropped
the radish into my basket and moved on down the aisle. The store
was exceptionally crowded, due to the upcoming holiday. My cart
jostled with the others. Sometimes it pretended we were in a cock-
fight, a little cut here, some bleeding. Now the advantage is mine.
I jump up and spur the old lady, who's weak and ready to fall.
I spot a mushroom I really want. It's within reach. You could
search all day and never find a mushroom like that. I could smell
it sizzling in butter and garlic. I could taste it garnishing my
steak. Suddenly, my cart is rammed and I'm reeling for my balance.
I can't even see who the enemy is. Then I'm hit again and I'm
sprawling up against the potatoes. I've been separated from my
cart. I look around desperately. "Have you seen my cart?" I ask
a man dressed in lederhosen and an alpine hat. "I myself have
misplaced my mother's ashes. How could I know anything about your
cart?" he said. "I'm sorry about your mother," I said.
"Was it sudden, or was it a long, slow, agonizing death, where
you considered killing her yourself just to put her out of her pain?"
"Is that your cart with the radish in it?" he said. "Oh yes,
thank you, thank you a thousand times over, I can't thank you
enough," I said. "Schmuck," he said. The mushroom of my dreams,
of course, was long gone, and the others looked sickly, like they
were meant to kill you, so I forged on past the kohlrabi and
parsnips. I hesitated at the okra. A flood of fond memories
overcame me. I remembered Tanya and her tiny okra, so firm and
tasty, one Christmas long ago. There was a fire in the fireplace
and candlelight, music, and the crunch, crunch, crunch of the okra.
I have never been able to touch okra since that sacred day.
We were in the Klondike, or so it seemed to me then. Tanya had
a big dog, and it ate the roast, and we had a big laugh, but now
I don't think it's funny. I remember the smell of that roast,
as if it were cooking this very minute, and I can see Tanya
bending over to check on it. How did we ever get out of there
alive? And what happened to Tanya? I look around, peaches and
plums. I'm butted from behind. "Watch it," I say to no one in
particular. Eight eyes are glaring at me. "I'm moving," I say.
But I can't move. The rabbit says, "Tonight we will meet our
death, but it will be beautiful and we will be brave and not
afraid. You will sing to me and I will close my eyes and dream
of a garden where we will play under the starlight, and that's
where the story ends, with me munching a radish and you laughing."
"I can't move," I said.

War Poetry: "Here, Bullet."

2008-04-21T11:51:00.000-07:00

Is Brian Turner, ten year army vet and author of Here, Bullet, a new Wilfred Owen? I'm reluctant to judge, but in sharing I do reccomend.

Resourcefulness and Optimism

2008-04-21T08:38:00.000-07:00

I suppose I can no longer complain about the fact that grad school set our household way back in terms of affording a down payment for a responsible mortgage. Not buying new shoes or new clothes for the adults over the last 18 months or so, we continue to hoard away every penny. It still doesn't seem to be accumulating fast enough, despite the presence of two decent incomes, especially in a country where there is no housing credit crisis on our side. Homes continue to sell seconds after they are put on the market around here, for 250-400 K more than what they were listed for. Taxes are much higher. These are things I cannot control. I chuckled to myself filling up my 10 gallon tank from empty on Saturday as the total came to $50.52. I remember paying that to fill a 10 gallon tank in Italy in 2002, and being completely shocked. I'm really cruddy at converting gallons to liters, but my Corolla did it for me: gas is over five dollars a gallon up here.

Back to why I can't complain: I still buy Tide (because it works the best on the infinite amounts of stains I deal with, having a toddler), I sure as heck didn't make my own baby food (balancing full-time work with being a good mom), we eat cereal, we buy organic milk to nourish our little developing brain (darn organic chemist), and I would never be able to grow vegetables in a city infested with hoardes of aggressive black squirrels and raccoons (I couldn't build a cage around the plants, as I don't own the property). How much are our weekly groceries? I confess: $240 a week. Though in my defense, they were only about $175 (for the same stuff) in Boston. The above article made me happy though, good old market forces. If we ever do own property, I will most certainly become a farmer mom to supplement our embarrassingly large grocery bill.

Wolfe's "Regime Change"

2008-04-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

Tom Wolfe has stuck it out for beauty, documented the war against it, and allowed its detractors to show themselves fools. I do not suggest that beauty is not in the eye of the beholder. I am not agitating for baroque adornment. But I love this article: In July 1997, Reason attended a lecture of his downtown. And went on to allow the director of the Whitney to show himself a fool. "Dialogue." "Theory." "Movement." The vagaries of time we can accept. Now it's time for them to sweep away the Marxist in the gallery.

Here we go: I'm forced to use it . . . the postmodern art world is so damn elitist, so condescending, so contemptuous. Of what? Of anything that can be plainly said? Of procedure and thought based on reason. Of anything built on something more than shifting sands and bile. Just read the Wolf piece. Then go egg a Norman Foster building. And the Whitney.

Dynamite the Distortions.

2008-04-21T05:58:00.000-07:00

The poor suffer when Big Ideas meet Good Intentions. Now they are eating mud in Haiti. Not so much because there's not capacity, (and God knows there's more to Haiti's trouble than the recent crisis), but because that capacity has been co-opted for another Big Idea. By the Government. The Economist not only sums up the history of the problem very neatly, it also offers a sensible solution. Palliate the acute problem beginning now, with donations, (start by aggressively soliciting the Greens, ADM, and their lobbyists and pocketed congressmen) and then move to liberalize the agriculture markets. That will certainly be too much to ask though; the issue is so entrenched, in the culture of developed nation farmers and politicians, that only a very strong corrective medicine can shake this. For long-term charitable help outside the sphere of government and endless food donations, I recommend Heifer International. Also, the cessation of all hostilities against genetically modified agriculture.

British Food and Modern Britain

2008-04-18T08:07:00.001-07:00

Mock turtle soup is one reason why British food has such a dismal rep. If you were a Victorian cook, and lacked a turtle, you would chop up a cow's brain. These days some use soy to mimic meat. That explains an aversion to soy that I still can't shake. It must share important qualities with cow brains. Lately, though, Brittania pardoned her islands, and gave them gastro-pubs. Sadly, she also gave them Sir Norman Foster, which means they should see a doctor.