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Thoughts from San Diego on Law, Politics, and Culture
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April 30, 2004
Cool physics from high above Cayuga's waters By Tom Smith Check this out. Hans Bethe explaining quantum physics to laypeople. Lectures from the Cornell web site, via Southern Appeal. I was lucky enough to have dinner with Hans Bethe and his wife, along with a bunch of other students, at Telluride House in the late '70's. The thing I remember best about him was his enormous head. For all the world, he looked like those aliens in the Star Trek pilot episode, you know, the ones who created the illusory world for Captain Pike (Kirk's predecessor -- don't you know anything?!). The photos of Bethe don't do his forehead justice. It's bigger in person. Calling things by their true names By Tom Smith It's important to call things by names that reflect their true essence. After a presentation yesterday on the Grutter case (affirmative action at the Michigan law school), it struck me once again that what the Supreme Court is doing is not really law, and that they are not really a court. They make policy decisions about what should be done. They are in truth a legislature composed of unelected worthies, a kind of house of lords. But if this is true, we should call them not "Justice," but something more indicative of their true function. Thus it shall be my policy, and it is so ordered, that henceforth they shall be referred to as follows: Earl William of Scottsdale, First Lord of the Desert and Master of Costumes Lord John Paul of Chicago Lady Sandra Day of Rattlesnake Gulch, First Lady of Desert and Mistress of the Waffle Antonin Cardinal Scalia, by the grace of God, Lord of Trenton, and Prince of Rome Lord Anthony of the Central Valley, Baron of Tomatos, the Indecipherable Count David of the Woods, Defender of Faith, the Great Lunged, the Stealthy Baron Clarence of the Holy Cross, the Strong, the Silent Lady Ruth of the Upper West Side, Warrior Princess Count Stephen of the Yard Of course, just because this is the new rule, does not mean I will not depart from at will, should policy, politics or whim suggest I do so. It is the law, but only as long as I feel like it. You are dismissed. San Diego surf culture By Tom Smith Here's a link to a new surfing and climbing blog from San Diego. One of my students is a co-owner. Another surfer, Doug, long time purveyor of superior caffeinated products here at the law school, tells me I should learn to surf. I want to give it a try this summer, though I am doubtful that I will get it. I'm a good skier, but apparently surfing is its own thing, totally. Worth a try, however. In the unlikely event I do pick it up, I may have found a new lifestyle home. UPDATE: My student is too modest. He's Ross Garrett, expedition surfing pioneer (reg req'd) and former editor of Surfer magazine. None of which he told me, but beware the Google. I'm not going to get my exploits in Outside, unless they do a feature on middle-aged wannabes. Scroll down to the pic of the big red rattler on theacorn blog. It's a nice shot of the rarer sort of rusty colored rattlesnake we have in the hills around here, including those by my house. A few years back, I was hiking and came across a true monster of this variety. It was easily more than 5 feet long and as thick as my forearm. That year was a good year for snakes. They are out again now, but their numbers have been greatly diminished for several years, based on casual observation. I don't know why--perhaps the ongoing drought, which probably reduces their prey populations, mainly small rodents and rabbits. Out in my neighborhood, some people give their dogs snake aversion training. You take a rattlesnake, tie its mouth shut, put an electronic collar on your dog, and when the dog goes to investigate the snake, you electrocute the cannine. It works. Dog sees snake and runs away, probably thinking it has evil, magical powers. I haven't bothered and so far my dogs have had enough sense to leave snakes alone. I do find partially eaten lizards occasionally, however. April 29, 2004
Nitwit watch By Tom Smith Jacob Levy may be tired of dumping on Randy Cohen, "ethicist" for the New York Times, but I'm not. Jacob points to this review of Mr. Cohen's book (an appalling thought, a w Socially constructed gender another myth? How very shocking By Tom Smith Determining gender. You're wasting your time giving dolls to your sons. They'll just use them for target practice. And they might be Republicans too. What's happening? By Tom Smith We're suddenly getting a lot of hits (for us) from people from http://www.livejournal.com. Why? I can't figure it out. Did somebody link to us? Can't find it. Because they like us? Because they think we're an example of the vast right-wing conspiracy? This livejournal thing is to blogs what blogs are to the old web. For the truly brief attention span. Younger, edgier, hipper than the right wing foagies here. A mystery. But you're very welcome to visit our humble webode. Belmont Club for fightin' in Fallujah By Tom Smith This is more like it for some thoughtful (if sometimes speculative) commentary on what the heck is going on over there. The Blogosphere really is better. The power of networks and all that. I am so looking forward to the end of the big media era. UPDATE: Who is this guy? He seems to know what he is talking about. I hope letting the former Iraqi army sorts take over the fight in Fahlujah is not an error. Are the Marines thinking there is dirty work to be done and it's better to let the Iraquis do it? Torricelli option By Tom Smith Hugh Hewitt has some interesting points to make about whether the Dems will dump Kerry. An open convention would certainly make for high political drama. I almost hope it happens just because it would be fun to watch on the tube. Maybe even my boys would get interested in politics? Probably too much to hope when it's competing with the fantasy of video games and all that. Hugh Hewitt has by far the best right-wing radio talk show, IMHO. I would listen to it more, except for the incessant interruptions for ads, the bane of all of them. Does anybody really think Rush uses a Porta-Spa or whatever it's called? Or that Laura Ingram sleeps on a Thermapedic (or whatever) mattress. Foxy-pedic maybe. Hugh is always flogging some uber-refi mortgage guy. I can't listen to that stuff. But, as to Hugh, he has this very upbeat, sunny Christian style, but if you listen to the substance, he is quite ruthless, often fairly mean, and dismissive of people who deserve dismissing. He's not afraid to dismiss utter lightweights such as Kevin Drum, who has never had an insight in his life, as far as I can tell. God bless Drum for his success, however. One more job towards economic recovery. As to Hewitt, the mix of snarky LA style and "Morning glory, evening grace," (some sort of fundie salutation he uses a lot) works, surprisingly enough. He occasionally veers into the sort of self-preoccupation that is another trap for radio stars. Rush seems to be pulling out of his tail spin a bit, but during what I realize now must have been the depths of his narcotics addiction, all he seemed to talk about was himself, whom he was golfing with, what pro football star he had dinner with. As if I care. Hugh does a little of that too. Sometime this week, he was talking about some internet quiz about what Bob Dylan song you are, and reported some listener had convinced him it should be "Forever Young." Not "You're So Vain"? Oh, right, not Dylan. Still, what good is being a radio star if you can't indulge in the occasional toad puff. As to dumping Kerry, sounds like right-wing fantasy to me. Could the American people elect such an obviously dissembling, insincere, self-serving, condescending and fundamentally grubby person (i.e. Kerry -- I know that description doesn't narrow the field of prospective nominees much) to our highest office? Somebody should ask William Jefferson Clinton what he thinks. April 28, 2004
Life in Southern California By Tom Smith Seen on the road: middle aged guy driving 2004 silver Corvette convertible. License plate said ONE EAR. And sure enough, he had only one ear. Shows a lot more spunk than SKN CNCR. Boys and men By Tom Smith As the father of four boys (and no girls), I found this interesting. Via Michael Williams. Your news source on what's going down in Eye-Rack By Tom Smith Could the major media coverage be any worse? Here's a good source: the local paper for the Camp Pendleton area (go to bar at the top of page, click on News then on National); Many, many Marines from Camp Pendleton are deployed in Iraq. NC Times has reporters there and is trusted by the Corps, sort of, I think. Reagan Law School? By Tom Smith This is interesting. A Ronald Reagan Law School? The problem is, what self-respecting law professor would go there? Answer: lots of self-respecting law professors, if you paid them enough. The George Mason/University of San Diego of the Rockies? Those darn philosophers By Tom Smith Looks like philosophy may be the next discipline where pointing out that somebody is an idiot will be too un-PC to pass. Used to be, philosophy was populated by smart, mean guys and occassional gals who would get out of the kitchen if they didn't like the heat. If somebody like Stanley Fish showed up and started talking his usual rubbish, it would be time for fish stew. But now it's time for humanistic philosophy, I guess. I can imagine. "Gender"; "difference"; let's not do metaethics, let's talk about our intuitions and our concepts. Blech. Maybe we should do Math departments next. Math is like, so gendered. Drive out the boys by boring them to death. When it's not useless, the public service philosophy provides is largely in the destruction of bad, pernicious ideas. Humans seem to have infinite capacity to invent them. Now I am reading about the invention of the idea of the Aryan race. What an unbelievable crock, as an idea. Yet millions died for it. Philosophy, inter alia, is intellectual self defense. It's not about making people feel good, or making sure feminist intellectuals don't get their feelings hurt. Here's a question. Is it really possible to care about whether feminist intellectuals get their feelings hurt? It's fine by me if people want to do ethics, political philosopy and social philosophy in a rigorous way, but who thinks that is the agenda? But it's not my area, and if humanistic philosophy is its future, I'm glad it's not. UPDATE: And another thing: This rubbish about how it's "male-gendered" to have fierce, competitive arguments over technical issues, and that it would be more female-gendered to have more inclusive discussions over bigger issues, such as, whatever the soft left delusion du jour is. Here's what's female gendered. Form a club and then exclude the people you don't like from it. Yes, guys are frequently bastards. Gals are just as bad. Any guy who buys this preening feminist moral superiority baloney deserves to be bored to death. Well, maybe not. That's really cruel way to go. Somebody call Peter Singer By Tom Smith This website is humiliating to chickens and just wrong. Not funny, just wrong. Ok. Funny, but wrong. What really impresses me it that it seems to work. Phony war memorial By Tom Smith I renew my objection to these phony media war memorials, the intent of which is not to honor the dead, but undermine morale. I think "the fallen" would object. April 27, 2004
O those weapons of mass destruction By Tom Smith The good news is that 80,000 people were not killed in Jordan. The bad news is that we will have to keep listening to how WMD fears were exaggerated. It's not too early to try out some possible rationalizations, however: 1. The WMDs were not where Bush said they would be. 2. The WMDs are in Syria, therefore by international law, they are no longer Iraqi WMDs. 3. There are lots of WMDs, but Bush based his conclusions that there were WMDs on faulty intelligence. 4. WMDs have nothing to do with Bush's national guard service. 5. The Palestinians do not have tanks and helicopters, therefore they have to rely on terrorists with chemical weapons. 6. We would not be in this mess now but for America's support of the Mongol invasions in the 13th century. 7. Chemical weapons are very biodegradable. 8. Why do they hate us? 9. Can over 50 former British diplomats possibly be wrong? 10. [write yours here] Claremont McKenna Professor Formally Charged with Hate Crime Hoax By Gail Heriot Kerri Dunn, the visiting professor of psychology at Claremont McKenna College who claimed that she had been the victim of a racist and anti-Semitic hate crime, has now been formally charged by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office with filing a false police report and insurance fraud. Her original allegation that her car had been vandalized by someone who wrote racist and anti-Semitic slogans on it triggered anti-racism/anti-anti-Semitism protests and a one-day shut-down of the Claremont Colleges back in March before she was found to be the perpetrator herself. When I was working for the Senate Committee on the Judiciary a few years ago, a bill to expand federal jurisdiction over hate crimes was pending before the Senate. I did a little informal research on some of the more spectacular hate crime allegations and found that, although it is true that serious and despicable hate crimes occur, it is also true that false allegations are made with regrettable frequency. The Tawana Brawley case is only the most well-known of these. I've no recollection whether criminal charges like these were brought in these previous cases. It sounds like a good idea when it can be proven. Close encounter with a democrat By Tom Smith This article by Bruce Reed is apparently creating a little buzzette inside the beltway this week. Bruce Reed and I have something in common: We were both Rhodes Scholars from Idaho. Bruce went on to relative fame and for all I know, fortune, or at least is some kind of influential guy with the Democrat party, and all I got was this blog. But perhaps it was destiny. The following is the story of my brief encounter with Bruce Reed. Sometime after I got the Rhodes, I was back in Idaho and hanging with the boyz. We had decided some cross country skiing was the thing for that day, and so we donned warm clothes, which in my case consisted mostly of army surplus woolens held up with oversize suspenders. We set out for Lake Lowell, a agricultural reservoir of which scenic would be a charitable description. We were there to ski, yes, but let us say that the flask or several of Jack Daniels also made its contribution to the snowy outing. About the time that staying up on skinny skis was starting to be very challenging, a perfectly clean and equipped suburban rolled up to our spot, which I had thought was pretty isolated. Out of the truck poured a large family, all quite slender and dressed to the nines, or whatever you call it when it's ski clothes. On they put very shiny, new skis. If I had been a snow bunny, I would have dove into my hole, but there was no where to hide. One of my friends, who knew them, and who definitely has a mean streak, seized on this moment of maximum embarrassment to introduce me to the dad, who was a surgeon or something, and to young Reed, who was soon off to Oxford. I tried not to fall over. I said something incoherent. It was all rather awful. Then, as if in a dream, they all scooted off in perfect diagonal stride form, even the little ones, who were also perfectly equipped and perfect little skiiers. Hard to believe they are trying to undermine all that we hold dear. My friends and I stumbled back to the old pickup, wet, poor and drunk, and puttered off to our little lives. Perhaps there is some kind of Republicans and Democrats moral in that story, but I'm not sure what it is. On the Infinite ... and the Finite By Gail Heriot My alarm clock went off a few mornings ago. Someone on the radio was evidently thinking deep thoughts. V-e-r-y d-e-e-p t-h-o-u-g-h-t-s. “We cannot grasp the infinite,” he said. “It’s too awesome for mere mortals to understand.” WHAM!! I hit the snooze button. Well, maybe mortals have a tough time with concept of the infinite. But it’s been my experience that people have a much tougher time wrapping their minds around the concept of finity. It sounds easy, but for some reason it isn’t. While few of us have serious trouble imagining an infinite universe, most people have real difficulty conceiving of a universe that doesn’t go on forever. If it doesn’t, we figure there must be something on the other side. Cotton candy, maybe. This mindset has practical consequences. When I teach Torts class, I sometimes find myself fighting against student intuitions that the world has infinite resources. It’s not that they refuse to acknowledge the concept of finite resources. Politically correct environmentalists have done everything but tattoo the thought on their brains. But some people don’t think about the ramifications of the concept beyond a little environmentalist sloganeering. “Of course, General Motors ought to be able to design a safer automobile,” these law students say (and of course, they are right). But it will come only at some sacrifice: The automobile will be more expensive, or less comfortable, or slower or somehow less desirable. If it’s more expensive, some people will not be able to afford it and will have to make due without a car or keep an older, less safe car longer; others will have to go without purchasing some other product they might have wanted (maybe needed medical care, maybe a smoke alarm or maybe something that just would have made their lives a little more pleasant). If the new design is less comfortable, some people may end up with back pain or some other problem. The point is that something’s got to give. Products liability law is all about deciding which of those trade-offs ought to be mandated (or at least which ones the legal system ought to provide incentives for) and which should be left to the manufacturer’s market-driven discretion. It’s a task that the legal system is not always up to. And when judges, lawyers, and jurors have difficulty grasping the finite, mistakes are especially common. Thank God for the Disposable Diaper By Tom Smith Let's be clear. You can attack a lot of things about modern civilization, but the disposable diaper should not be one of them. It should rank up there with anti-biotics as one of the boons of modern life. And they have gotten even better. You'll have to trust me on what follows. It's something I know a bit about. Disposable diapers (DD's) have improved greatly over the past dozen years, my procreative span. They were good before. Now they're great. Inside of them now is a greatly improved, super-absorbent miracle of materials science that soaks up those smelly fluids while it leaves the surface dry. Much, much better than any cloth diaper can. Guess what? It's good for the baby. How would you like to go around with a wet crotch all the time? How about with a rash? You would be cranky too with a rash, and cranky babies make for unhappy parents. If baby ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. Cloth diapers take a lot of water and energy to wash. Out West, water is a lot more valuable than land fill land. Not everybody lives in an east coast city. And about landfills-- landfills are great. This is something every kid should be taught instead of half the rubbish they get on recycling. (I disagree with the implication in the link that you should want to accelerate degradation, but that's another debate for another day.) Half the nitwits who prate about recycling and the planet know nothing about the engineering of landfills, which is sophisticated these days. In a landfill, for example, you try to retard the decomposition of the garbage. Did you know that? The whole idea is for the stuff not to decompose. In some of the ancient Roman landfills, food has been discovered that had not rotted away over 1000 years. And that's good. Because if it doesn't rot, it doesn't release anything into the environment. You compress everything down, and maybe eventually build on top of it. Perfect. It's a much, much better idea than sending a load of baby poop into the ocean, rivers and streets. Much more hygenic. Fewer sick people, fewer dead people. And, as you should suspect from the principle that everything the "green movement" says is wrong, disposable diapers take up very little space in landfills, as do non-recycable fast food packaging, another good idea. (If you want to help do your bit for landfills, be sure not to recycle your newspaper. Yes, they take up a lot of landfill space, but they're also very stable and last time I looked, it was utterly uneconomical to recycle newsprint, a wasteful boondoggle. Much better to farm trees. You're saving resources everytime you don't recycle your paper. Just be sure to throw it in the can not marked "recycle".) I feel about disposable diapers the way some people feel about guns. You can have my Huggies when you pry them from my cold, dead fingers. As for Jeanne, you should be worrying about your cold, dead fingers. Good news on cotton By Tom Smith Good on the WTO for ruling that US cotton subsidies violate trade agreements. Agricultural subsidies are the purest pork. They raise prices for US consumers, hurt agriculture in developing countries and do nothing but line the pockets of giant agri-business corporations that hardly need charity from single moms who just want to buy their kids some new underwear. Just remember, when ever you hear a sentence from the major media with the phrase "family farm" in it, it's a lie. Agriculture in the US is huge business, and is a bloated, socialistic mess, one of the many bloated messes that we inherit from St. FDR. (Electric power is another, but that's a rant for another day.) These giant corporations (it's fine to be a giant corporation, but not if you are a parasite) get subsidized water, doing grave harm to both wild critters and city dwellers, and get managed prices and public money for not producing. In the meantime, they stand in the way of anything that promises to give the hard working people in the fields anything like a fair break. I'm not pro-union, but I'm also not pro giveaways to Archer Daniel Midlands or Ore-Ida. Our agriculture subsidies have long been a disgrace, so deeply woven into our political economy that probably the only hope of getting rid of them is pressure from outside our borders. April 26, 2004
Interesting analysis from debka of Bush's Iraq strategy By Tom Smith Does encirclement of Najef and Fallujah show fingerprints of Sharon's strategic thinking? Help me! I'm too hot! By Tom Smith My day so far. Wake up. Feel horrible, because it was too hot to sleep last night, and possibly also suffering from cabernet fever. About to leave for school when . . . Windstar has a flat tire. Very flat. So Heidi (I am my children's nanny's employer) takes kids to school in her new F-250 crew cab, with off road package and 6 litre v-8 turbo deisel engine (envy, yes), while I wait for AAA guy to arrive. I pay for it, so I don't change tires. Arrives, is nice, changes tire and observes brakes are almost done. All the tires are almost done. Drive to garage on donut tire. Heidi follows. Emile at Union 76 calls later with estimate. All tires done; 4 new tires, about $400. Plus allignment. Plus brakes all around. Change oil, which is overdue. Adds up to just under $1000. Jesus wept. I am not even awake yet. Just so I can feel better, it is unbelievably hot. Well over 100 in the sun, probably 96 in the shade. Could turn on AC in house, but I'm too cheap, not to mention poor. I cannot figure out how to get my Digital8 sony camcorder to talk to my computer. Ate too many pancakes over the weekend and feeling really fat. Still smarting from April 15. They call it Monday for a reason. Various students have said, "wait till you're in a good mood to write the exam!" That would not be today. April 25, 2004
When in Rome By Tom Smith Maybe Kerry only thinks he's a Catholic. Mel Gibson and Kerry make an interesting contrast. Gibson disagrees with the Vatican II reforms, so he joins a schismatic, ultra-traditionalist church, supports it heavily with his own money, and puts a hundred million or more into making an ultra-traditionalist Catholic movie about the Crucifixion. Kerry says he is a Catholic, and attends Mass at the Paulist Center in Boston, kind of a refugee camp for liberation theologians and other dissidents purged (for want of a kinder word) from the Church in the 1970's and '80's under the leadership of John-Paul, who for reasons of his own, was rather, let us say, skeptical about the fusion of Marxism and Catholicism. Why do right wing schismatics break away and form their own church, while left-wing schismatics-in-spirit Catholics remain a part of the Church, or at least say they do? I think it may because the left-wingers want to undermine the Church as an institution, "working from within." As the Students for a Democratic Society used to say, "The cell of the new society, within the shell of the old." Sort of like in the movie Alien. Silly Democrats By Tom Smith The Democrats are too silly to manage foreign policy. Listening to former Secretary of State and fashion maven Albright talk about her wardrobe or North Korea is enough to make you want to dig a bomb shelter. April 23, 2004
St. John of Vietnam update By Tom Smith Senator and oracle Kerry continues his unique take on Catholicism. Update. Kerry the theologian. Why I love the New York Times or Lifestyles of the Rich and Tasteless or American Civilization may suck, but at least it's funny By Tom Smith A truly outstanding morning for the New York Times. As usual, the best stuff is in the supplemental sections, where instead of undermining the national defense, which is not always a sure bet for humor, the Times is merely gnawing at the pillars of culture. First, in the Escapes section, Gretchen Reynolds samples "eco-spas": It is this mix of expensive coddling and environmental thoughtfulness that, ultimately, is at the heart of the eco-spa movement. "Sometimes, I just need to get away from materialism and celebrate the earth," said Beverly Hosokawa of Delray Beach, Fla. Ms. Hosokawa, who is 53, taut, convivial and married to a retired Internet company chief executive, has been to El Monte Sagrado four times in the last 10 months. "Florida is all about who has the biggest house and the most expensive car," she said. "Here, it's all about serenity and the spirit." Her favorite activity, she said, is not the vitalizing formula facial ($158 for 90 minutes) or the reflexology massage ($105 for an hour), although such indulgences are wonderful. "I adore the sacred circle," she said, referring to a large, round and empty plot of grass at the center of the resort. "It's so nice that they didn't put a big swimming pool there. I can go out and practice yoga and reconnect with the spirit of the earth." I don't know about you, but the absence of sacred circles has always bothered me about Florida. Eco-spas make easy targets for the cynical. They celebrate self-indulgence and expense where a more dogmatic environmentalism demands looking outward and thinking small, making do with less. But, Mr. Worrell pointed out: "Luxury accommodations bring in the kind of people who can make policy. Get them thinking about the earth and good things can happen." Ms. Szekely of Rancho la Puerta agrees. "The other day, all of our guests were sitting around the table talking and arguing about George Bush and air pollution," she said. "Those are the kind of people who come to spas like ours, and when they leave, they take some of our consciousness with them." "Easy targets for the cynical"? I think that's rather harsh. As for me, I'm really sorry I missed that conversation about air pollution. My own tour of [the] El Monte Sagrado [spa] ends with a 90-minute, demi-painful treatment from Ed Moffett, a tall, calm, deceptively powerful therapist (who also works part of the year at the Miraval resort). Mr. Moffett's deep-tissue, "bone-cleaning" massage promises to release energy and dissipate stress, and in fact, during my next morning's run, I feel fleeter and lighter than I have in years. But as with so much that is good for you, the process involves sacrifice. As Mr. Moffett presses deeper, I wince. Finishing, he pats the sheet around me and says, sotto voce, "Get up when you're ready." I nod but don't move, my body now scoured and pure. I'm feeling benevolent toward all life, lying there, listening to the tumbrel of running water inside and outside the room, and the whoomp of my own pulse. Unfornately, they don't seem to offer brain-cleaning massage. Still, the sacrifice Ms Reynolds endures not just for her own sake, but for the planet itself, it rather moving. For those of you who like to feel fleeter and lighter during your next run, an alternative to $1000 per weekend eco-spa-ing might be to run further and faster for a few weeks, thereby losing weight and getting stronger. Many athletes of all kinds use this method. It's called "training." But getting your bones cleaned sounds promising too. I'm glad her deceptively powerful therapist didn't tell her to get on the floor and bark like a dog. Maybe that's extra. But now it's time for the world of art, and The Meaning, Beauty and Humor of Ordinary Things. Sometimes all one can do is quote: It has been said that Mr. Koons lost his way after the 1988 show, and the current show does not dispell that suspicion. The early 1990's foray into explicit, participatory pornography still looks like bad judgment, as in the oversize ink-jet-printed photograph of the artist and his wife at that time, a porn star and member of the Italian parliament, both smeared with mud, making love. But the snowy, Renaissance-style marble sculpture of the couple tenderly embracing is a delightful fusion of the sacred and the profane. Or this: Consider, for example, the basketball hanging motionless in a water-filled aquarium, neither sinking nor rising. (The secret: it's partly filled with mercury.) This canny intersection of Minimalism and Pop might be a comment on the institutionalization of sports as a national religion and the deification of athletes like Dr. J, whose signature graces this ball. There is also the critique of what Marxist theorists like to call consumer fetishism: the erotic love of products like aquariums and shiny vacuum cleaners and souvenir liquor containers. Yet the sculpture casts a mystical spell. The orange sphere hovering miraculously in the middle of the square tank becomes a kind of three-dimensional mandala, a symbol of spiritual unity and equanimity. It has a stillness that is weirdly soothing to stand before. Or it might be a comment on the utter vacuity of the art world. However, that it might be a comment on the erotic love of aquariums is a provocative suggestion. I shall have to ponder that. No doubt it is mystical, even downright spiritual. For spiritual, though, you can't beat those "Praying Hands" sculptures for sale on the back pages of Parade magazine. And finally, this little foray in the culture of Hip Hop. I read it, and feel less white already. And now I know what spinners are. April 22, 2004
Stupid mid-life urges By Tom Smith I have this really stupid urge to show up at this thing and compete. But I have thought up the following reasons not to: 1. I could get my nose smashed like I did in high school. 2. I could tear my rib muscles or even get a rib cracked, both of which are very painful and slow to heal. 3. Some idiot could break my arm if I don't tap out fast enough. 4. It could be really humiliating to be crushed by a smaller guy and really unpleasant to be crushed by a bigger guy. 5. Since I am not going to be below 209 I would have to go in heavyweight where people can be really, really big and even mean. 6. Just because I would be in white belt does not mean competitors would not be skilled in collegiate style wrestling, street fighting or just plain mean M-F's 7. Whatever Andrew Sullivan may think, rolling around with big, sweaty guys in inherently disgusting, and that part of the experience is always a negative, even if you do win. 8. I might be one of the oldest competitors. Guys in their 20's are often bizarrely strong and flexible. 9. I could get hurt. 10. Maybe I should go and watch and see what I would be getting into. The chicken is a noble bird. 11. I could hurt my back. 12. I could get bitten by some HIV positive guy. Illegal, but it could happen. Not PC, but it could happen. 13. I know there are such a thing as foot locks, but I have no idea how do defend against them, so some monster could hurt my feet or ankles. 14. I might humiliate myself in front of a bunch of people like those who go to watch these things, who are not known for their sensitivity. 15. There's no graceful way to not compete once you get a look at your opponent. E.g., if some 260 pound, ripped monster with Semper Fi tatooed on his shaved head shows up, you can't really say, I fweel sick, or pretend you get a call on your cell phone, without getting jeered at. Yet, you would be insane to do otherwise. 16. Last time I did something similar I went out for the boxing team at Oxford, got my head pounded on for two weeks, then quit with nothing more to show for it than 10 missing IQ points. People kept throwing punches at my head I couldn't stop or avoid. Most unfair. 17. It would piss off my wife though she also might think it was kind of sexy. 18. I could get hurt. So, I think I will just go and watch. In all likelihood I will be deeply grateful for my prudence. If I'm not, there's always next time. Sexual identity By Tom Smith Crumudgeonly clerk links to my post on the flap over the California law requiring schools to allow students and staff to "define their own sexual identity." He notes that San Francisco will now pay for "sexual reassignment surgery" and that an Australian court permitted hormones to be given to a 13 year old girl who wants to be a boy. I don't consider either of these events as support for the silly California law. I think "sexual reassignment surgery" is mutilation and ought to be illegal. Very, very few surgeons will perform it. The fact that some do is testament, in my view, to what some people will do for money. In San Diego within the last few years, there was a case of a man who for some pathological sexual reason, wanted his legs amputated. I think he found some defrocked doctor to cut them off for him. I think a surgeon who would remove a boy's or a man's genitalia for similar reasons, is every bit as ethically challenged. I gather what most school boards are doing is just quietly ignoring this idiotic mandate from Sacramento. Westminster is simply being more honest about it. That means threatening to take away grant money from them is more about getting them to knuckle under politically than it is about actually enforcing the law. If this law were actually enforced, public outrage would doubtless insure that it was repealed. Biology is very complicated, but with humans, all but a very few are readily identified as male or females. We're not like, say, emus, which I gather are difficult to sex (they are definitely male or female, it's just awkward to make the call). A reader emailed me about instances of ambiguous genitalia. I am aware of them, but the usual procedure there is to do surgery on the infant, which usually involves constructing female genitalia. In any event, that is not the situation which the law addresses. Rather, the law is an attempt to enshrine in the California Code the politically correct, but patently false view that "gender" is the product of social conditioning and institutions, rather than the obvious fact that the sex of a human being is the product of biology. "Self defining gender" is rubbish, and is just as scientifically disreputable as the notion that potatoes could be made to grow in a proper Marxist manner. Some portions of the left have managed to get themselves in the position of disapproving the way nature works. But that is their problem. It is a bad idea to pass laws based on deluded ideas of how sex works, especially if those ideas are actually espoused only by a small minority of people, the majority of whom may have compassion for sexually confused people but are unwilling to throw logic out the window. April 20, 2004
Why don't movie studios want to make more money? By Tom Smith Michael Medved makes a convincing case that dropping the old Production Code, that strictly limited bad language, nudity and violence, has cost the movie industry billions. So why doesn't the market work to make studios produce more G and PG rated fare that would make more money? Brain science and politics By Tom Smith What goes on in the brain when we look at political ads? Via VC. It would be interesting to do this to law students. Does Torts activate fear centers? Is Contracts more rational? Does Civil Procedure soothe them to sleep? Does Constitutional Law activate their irrational impulses (it seems to have the effect on the Supreme Court)? April 19, 2004
What gender are you today? By Tom Smith Kevin Drum says the Westminster school board is being bigotted to resist the California legislature's mandate that students and staff should be able to "define their own gender." The board is doing so apparently on grounds of Christianity. That is probably politically unwise, especially when the mandate could be resisted on grounds of logic. What on earth does it mean to "define your own gender"? Could you say you are male on Mondays and female on Tuesdays? Could you invent a new gender, say, schlemale, and insist that you have your own bathroom or lockerroom? Is it maybe just a little bit unfair to the boys to have to share digs with a girl who says she's a boy? Doesn't it say in the Bible somewhere, thou shalt not follow a multitude to be a moron? I mean, please. If you have a girl who wishes she were a boy, then what you have is a girl. Who wishes she were a boy. But she is still a girl. All the professors in the world spouting pseudo-scientific nonsense about socially constructed blah blah blahs don't change that. You don't have to be a Christian to see that. It may help, because it makes it less likely that you are in the grip of that particular insanity. But any form of reasonably lucid thinking will do. If you think you're a Martian, you're still an Earthling. Sorry, it's a tough old world that way. If Kevin Drum can criticize people for saying, this particular law is just too idiotic, we won't obey it, when the law really is just as idiotic as they say it is, that's his problem. Maybe he only thinks he has a point. Just one more little point. If some high school girl thinks she is a boy, or high school boy thinks he is a girl, what they need is help. Instead of messing with people's minds and forcing otherwise harmless Christians to be the ones to stand up and say, uh, sorry, but they aren't really boys or girls, the state could provide some real psychiatric care, along the lines of, Debbie, you're a girl. Let's see how we can deal with that, here's a concept for you, FACT. Dog update By Tom Smith Since I have occasionally referred to my dog Denali, I thought the world would like to know the results of his visit to the vet. Yes, as some have suspected, he is significantly overweight. At 98 pounds, he needs to lose about 20. But his dry, flaky skin and sluggish attitude may be the result of hypothyroidism, which is ironic, given that I am married to an endocrinologist. So we're getting his blood tested and will know tomorrow morning. If he is, well, at least I'll be able to score the meds from my spouse, probably. Apparently, hormones are hormones, if you are a vertebrate, which tells you something about our drives. You don't even have to be a mammal to get the urge, but I guess you knew that. Now, as to the smell. I specifically asked the doctor about Denali's remarkable odor issue. I leaned over, put my nose in his furry back, sniffed and said, "He is kinda smelly, doctor." The doctor, I noticed, did not accept my implicit invitation to give him a good sniff. "Well, he has heavy fur, a dark pigment, is on the heavy side, all these things contribute to his smell." Then he paused. "I smell a lot of dogs in this job, and I would say he is within the normal range." "He smells normal?" I prompted, hopefully. "Within the normal range," said the doctor. "Within the normal range," I said. "For a Labrador," the doctor added. I am vindicated. By science. Powell is so gone By Tom Smith The Woodward book guarantees that Powell will not be around for Bush 2.2. The Bushes have this thing about loyalty, being part of the Bush team, even to a fault. Loyalty is way more important than ideology to them. But I suppose it would look bad to get rid of Powell before the election. I wonder what Powell is angling for? Or is it just the habitual self-serving of the inside-the-beltway culture? The German gravy train without the gravy By Herr Professor Tom Smith This via Brian Leiter as well, same post as below. Verrrrrrry eeeenteresting, and not stupid (if you're old enough to remember that), from AIE address of Niall Ferguson: And this, it seems to me, takes us to the very heart of the political economy of European integration Let me tell you some simple percentages about the way the European Union works, to illuminate the fundamental imbalance between representation and taxation which is at the heart of the story of European integration. Today, Germany accounts for around a quarter, a little under a quarter, of the combined gross domestic product of the entire European Union. It accounts for just over a fifth, 22 percent, of its population. It accounts for 16 percent of the seats in the European Parliament, and around about 11 percent of votes on the Council of Ministers, though that process of voting is, of course, under a process of reform. (In fact, if the draft treaty isn't enacted after enlargement, Germany's share of votes in the Council of Ministers will fall to 8 percent.) But if you look at net contributions to the European budget in the years 1995 to 2001, Germany contributed 67 percent. So the Germans get between 8 and 11 percent of the decisive votes in the Council of Ministers, that is, the key decision making body of the European Union, but they contribute two-thirds towards the combined budget. Now, that's all very well, ladies and gentlemen, if Germany is the fastest growing economy in Europe. But as I've already pointed out to you, it is today the slowest growing economy in Europe. It is, in fact, the sick man of Europe. And although the German economy is very large, it is far from clear why, when it has not grown at all in the past six quarters, that economy should continue to subsidize the economies of the smaller, poorer countries of Southern and now also Central Europe. My estimation, ladies and gentlemen, is that the train is still running, but there ain't no gravy anymore. And as that reality gradually dawns, the process of European integration, which I believe has depended from its very inception on German gravy, is bound to come to a halt. Who, after all--who is going to pay for those, and I quote, "maximum enlargement-related commitments," to the 10 new member states which have been capped at 40 billion euros? The general assumption appears still to be that the German taxpayer will pay that money. I see no reason whatsoever why that should be the case. Indeed, the very smallness of the sum that has been agreed illustrates the way the German purse-strings are tightening. So that's how the EU works. Note to self: don't lose any wars. And there's this cheery news: . . . It is the argument that Europe is fundamentally a Christian entity; that the European Union is a kind of latter day secular version of Christendom. Ladies and gentlemen, I only wish that were true. The reality is--and it is perhaps the most striking cultural phenomenon of our times--that Western and Eastern Europe are no longer in any meaningful sense Christian societies. They are quite clearly post-Christian--indeed, in many respects, post-religious--societies. In the Netherlands, Britain, Germany, Sweden, and Denmark, less than 1 in 10 of the population attends church even once a month. A clear majority do not attend church at all. There are now more Muslims in England than Anglican communicants. More Muslims attend mosque on a weekly basis than Anglicans attend church. In the recent Gallup Millennium Survey of Religious Attitudes conducted just a couple of years ago, more than half of all Scandinavians said that God did not matter to them at all. This, it seems to me, makes the claim to a fundamental Christian inheritance not only implausible but also downright bogus in Europe. The reality is that Europeans inhabit a post-Christian society that is economically, demographically, but, in my view, above all culturally a decadent society. They cannot, though they will try, resist forever the migration that must inevitably occur from south and from east. They will try. Indeed, they try even now to resist the migration that really ought legally to be permissible from the new member states to the old member states after May the 1st. Even that has become contentious. Increasingly, European politics is dominated by a kind of dance of death as politicians and voters try desperately and vainly to prop up the moribund welfare states of the post-Second World War era, but above all to prop up what little remains of their traditional cultures. I understand Samuel Huntington is worried that Mexican culture is taking a firm root in this country and shows no sign of being dissolved into the traditional American melting pot. I read an alarmist article by him in Foreign Policy this week. Well, I have good news for him. Long before the mariachis play in Harvard Yard, long before that, there will be minarets, as Gibbon foretold, in Oxford. Indeed, ladies and gentlemen, there already is one. The Center for Islamic Studies is currently building in my old university a new center for Islamic studies. I quote: "Along the lines of a traditional Oxford college around a central cloistered quadrangle, the building will feature a prayer hall with traditional dome and minaret tower." It will open next year. I wonder what Gibbon would have said. Note to self: pay sentimental journey to Oxford while Christians still allowed there. Here's what the center at Oxford is going to look like. Notice how the seal of the new Centre contains no words we heathen can read. Oh, well, Europe was nice while it lasted. Almost forgot to mention, my favorite touch of all, you guessed it, ladies and gentlemen, the Bin-Ladin Visiting Fellowship! As we say in the academy, petro-dollars are petro-dollars. I suppose the helicopters could land on the Magdalen playing fields to evacuate princelings and princelingettes in the event the terror threats against London materialize. Wrong lesson from the past By Tom Smith It's not Vietnam; it's the British experience in Iraq (linked to, with disapproval by Brian Leiter). Attention all hands! By Tom Smith Fans of naval history (or at least of Patrick O'Brian, such as I) will find den Beste's survey of naval warfare interesting. April 18, 2004
Tom's Putanesca By Tom Smith Sometimes you're in the mood to make a big, sloppy pasta dish you can eat until you can't move. This one works well for that. And it's so easy, even a guy can do it. Take a big skillet, pot thing and heat some high quality olive oil until nice and hot. How hot? I don't know. Really hot. Not burning, not smoking, but hot. How much? Maybe 2 or three tablespoons. Enough so the garlic floats. Chop up a bunch of garlic. How much? Depends on you. I don't know. A lot. Last time I made it I used a whole head, and nobody seemed to think it was too much. Chop the garlic coarsely, not finely! Use the flat of your knife to smash the garlic, peel it and chop it. Fry it until it starts to brown. Now add 1 can of anchovies. You can chop them first, but it's not necessary. I like the anchovies to mostly dissolve in the oil. Some people add the oil from the anchovy can, but I don't recommend it. If you really like anchovies, add 2 cans. Now it's decision time. If you like savory, blended flavors, it's time to add the capers. I just throw in a whole bottle of the fat film cannister sized bottle after draining it (or not). Now add plenty of red pepper flakes. It gets hotter as it cooks, so consider your audience. Add two big (28 oz.) cans of whole or recipie cut tomatoes (I like Progresso). Some people drain and even squeeze them toget a less soupy sauce. I think it's good soupy. I drain some, then throw them in. Now let that puppy cook for a while, stirring and tasting frequently. Did I mention you should have put on by now a big pot of water for the pasta? You should have. This recipie is for two 1 pound packages of spaghetti. I assume you have a family to feed and/or can eat an astonishing amount of food. You can put in the pasta now. It will take 10-14 minutes or so. All that pendantic stuff about using plenty of water seems to be true. Go to Williams-Sonoma and put up with the snotty clerk who asks you "Is price an issue?" and buy the biggest, best pot you can afford. On the parsley, there are two ways to go. You can just chop up a bunch really coarsely and throw it in and let it cook a bit before serving. Alternatively, if you're going for more of a fresh taste, chop it a little more carefully (i.e. no big stems) and stir it in just a minute before serving. The former is safer and delicious. The latter is really good, but you have to catch it right. If you are going the fresher route, you might also want to add the capers a little before the parsley, rather than at the beginning into the hot oil. Personally, I like the way the caper flavor permeates things if you add it earlier, but hey, it's your dinner. Drain your pasta. Personally, I think the most important thing you can do is get the pasta just al dente, which we all know is tricky. This is complicated by the fact that people's tastes as to how cooked pasta should be, vary considerably. Some people like it raw, others way overcooked. In any event, a little oil in the pasta water will help prevent it from sticking, and cold water to rinse it will arrest the cooking process. This is a very salty dish already, so I would not add salt to the pasta water. Anyway, plop the drained pasta into a big platter, pour the sauce on top, use a pasta fork to mix it up a bit, start the movie and dig in. You can grate some Parmasean cheese on top if you want, but it's not necessary. This is a rather rich sauce as is. For wine, a good chianti works. To find a good chianti, go to the store and buy the $20 one. The market knows. Or a pinot from the US of A. Best of all, this meal is Atkins-friendly and contains no calories whatever! The assassination game By Tom Smith He killed lots of Jews and got assassinated. Can you name him? (He also had a nice funeral.) Those darn weapons of mass destruction By Tom Smith I wonder where the materials and expertise for the poison gas bomb that almost went off in Jordan came from? How deeply mysterious, given that we all know there were no WMDs in Iraq? How could chemical weapon precursors or completed bombs have made their way out if Iraq when we know that they had ceased to exist? Very interesting criticism of Bush's foreign policy management By Tom Smith Statfor.com has a very good point here. April 17, 2004
Hanson, hypocrisy and democracy By Tom Smith Maimon, as usual (but not always!) is correct, the Hanson piece is excellent and a must read. He obviously is down about the state of the national debate. I used to feel as he does now frequently, but then I realized I was making a mistake about the nature of public debate in democracies. When one is nearly struck dumb by the idiocy, hypocrisy and imprudence of the arguments public figures make, one has to remember that one is not watching anything like a normal moral or intellectual agent. Does Kerry really think the UN can be trusted to safeguard our national security? Does Teddy Kennedy really think Iraq is another Vietnam? The answer, of course, is, of course not. But not because they are thinking something else. They are not really thinking. If Teddy is thinking about anything, it's "how long to lunch," where lunch means a triple scotch. Kerry has made a calculation that saying the silly things he is saying are his most likely path to the White House, though why he would want to live in that pokey mansion, when he has several homes much grander, is beyond me. Hypocrisy is the inconsistency between what you say you believe and what you really believe. You can't be a hypocrite if you don't really believe anything. If for some bizarre reason, 25 percent of people who now believe in the right to choose abortion were suddenly to become adamant lifers, then both Kerry and Kennedy would have similar revelations. Similarly, if more slowly, for the New York Times and many other annoying institutions. Hanson is quite right that the Democrats cannot consistently complain about blood for oil, drilling in Alaska, and high gas prices. But they can, of course, in the same way I complain about a ref's calling me for holding, and on the next play grab a facemask and hang on for dear life. Consistency is for losers. This is politics, which is just war by other means. Poor Teddy. This great liver in a suit stands up and looks for the notes his staff had prepared. Without his very competent staff he could no more be a leading senator than my limping, smelly Labrador could be. As a water dog, he at least would have made an effort to save Mary Jo, but that is neither here nor there. Teddy and John and a lot of Republicans to be fair (Chuck Hagel to take an easy case) are not in the game of attempting to figure out what they really think, or what the truth is, or what is good for the country. If you tried to access that part of their program, you would find it had been overwritten decades ago. From the outside, as Hanson documents, this looks very bad. But asking democracy to produce consistent, intelligent positions on big issues is like asking the fashion industry to finally tell us what colors look good. It doesn't work that way. Hollow men and women (who bring unique feminine virtues to hypocrisy, posing and position grubbing) want political office for various, mostly alarming personal reasons. What they say and do is a statistical phenomenon. Complaining about their hypocrisy is like complaining that the weather can't make up its mind. It's a mistake, of course, because the weather has no mind. We have to hope the American people can drag themselves away from Survivor long enough to support the position that we should vigorously oppose this bizarre tribe of desert dwelling robots who want to burn us alive in buildings and make our women were parachutes. I live in San Diego, and having women wear parachutes is just not an option. I sometimes, rarely, wish they would wear more than they do. But parachutes? No. April 16, 2004
If a robot reads your mail, is your privacy violated? By Tom Smith No, duhhh. And if you disagree, here's an idea: Don't use Gmail. Who are these people, and why do they keep trying to 'protect' me? I'm really sorry I'll have to miss this . . . By Tom Smith The ACLU at the [University of Chicago] Law School presents: TOPICS ON ABORTION International Abortion and Reproductive Rights Issues Professor Martha Nussbaum will be speaking on whether women in developing countries should have a right to abort female fetuses for the purpose of ensuring male progeny. Via Will Baude. This is one of those really tough questions. We all know abortion is a good thing and killing male not-babies is fine, even a positive good. But what if the good thing (killing not-babies) is being done in order to accomplish a bad thing (having male "persons"). A brain twister to be sure. Good thing we have profound thinkers to enlighten us on this subject. Here's my answer. It's OK to kill male not-babies, but not OK to kill female not-babies because [insert tendentious, mind-numbingly complex, utterly implausible, jargon-ridden, self-serving, result-oriented, unprincipled feminist argument here]. There. I just saved you a trip to Chicago. If I have jumped to a false conclusion, please forgive me. I was an unwanted child (at least during my teenage years). Inclined to Criticize By Tom Smith Interesting reaction to my dismissal of Randy Cohen, insipid New York Times ethicist, over at Inclined to Criticize. (Note to bloggers -- you need to have some conspicuous way to permalink to your posts that even genetically challenged right wingers can figure out! As it is, you'll have to scroll down.) Note Inclined to Criticize's graceful writing style. That's a good thing. Theistic Philosophers By Tom Smith A student objects to my characterization of contemporary philosophers as mostly atheists, and sends me a famous (I gather) article by Quentin Smith. Here's an excerpt: By the second half of the twentieth century, universities and colleges had been become in the main secularized. The standard (if not exceptionless) position in each field, from physics to psychology, assumed or involved arguments for a naturalist world-view; departments of theology or religion aimed to understand the meaning and origins of religious writings, not to develop arguments against naturalism. Analytic philosophers (in the mainstream of analytic philosophy) treated theism as an antirealist or non-cognitivist world-view, requiring the reality, not of a deity, but merely of emotive expressions or certain “forms of life” (of course there were a few exceptions, e.g., Ewing, Ross, Hartshorne, etc., but I am discussing the mainstream view). This is not to say that none of the scholars in the various academic fields were realist theists in their “private lives”; but realist theists, for the most part, excluded their theism from their publications and teaching, in large part because theism (at least in its realist variety) was mainly considered to have such a low epistemic status that it did not meet the standards of an “academically respectable” position to hold. The secularization of mainstream academia began to quickly unravel upon the publication of Plantinga’s influential book on realist theism, God and Other Minds, in 1967. It became apparent to the philosophical profession that this book displayed that realist theists were not outmatched by naturalists in terms of the most valued standards of analytic philosophy: conceptual precision, rigor of argumentation, technical erudition, and an in-depth defense of an original world-view. This book, followed seven years later by Plantinga’s even more impressive book, The Nature of Necessity, made it manifest that a realist theist was writing at the highest qualitative level of analytic philosophy, on the same playing field as Carnap, Russell, Moore, Grünbaum, and other naturalists. Realist theists, whom hitherto had segregated their academic lives from their private lives, increasingly came to believe (and came to be increasingly accepted or respected for believing) that arguing for realist theism in scholarly publications could no longer be justifiably regarded as engaging in an “academically unrespectable” scholarly pursuit. Naturalists passively watched as realist versions of theism, most influenced by Plantinga’s writings, began to sweep through the philosophical community, until today perhaps one-quarter or one-third of philosophy professors are theists, with most being orthodox Christians. Although many theists do not work in the area of the philosophy of religion, so many of them do work in this area that there are now over five philosophy journals devoted to theism or the philosophy of religion, such as Faith and Philosophy, Religious Studies, International Journal of the Philosophy of Religion, Sophia, Philosophia Christi, etc. Philosophia Christi began in the late 1990s and already is overflowing with submissions from leading philosophers. And here's the link. Very interesting. My philosophy advisor at Cornell, Norman Kretzmann, was an analytical philosopher theist. I knew they existed and I have read a number of things by Plantinga, and he edited an anthology on the ontological argument which I just loved my freshman year, but I had no idea these philosophers were so influential or numerous. Very interesting. And I might add, though I am unsure of all its ramifications and connotations: heh. We need some procedural innovation here By Tom Smith I'll spare you the details of my Civil Procedure class at Yale Law School. It might have been called, "Let's Make Something Up." But maybe we could use that now with the 9/11 commission. Perhaps the commissioners could question themselves. I know it sounds unusual, but work with me. You might get something along the lines of Ms. Gorelick: Did you, or did you not, erect "the wall" that prevented sharing of intelligence between the FBI and the CIA? Ms. Gorelick: That's not a fair question! Ms. Gorelick: Well, how would you ask it? Ms. Gorelick: I'm not sure. How would you ask it? Ms. Gorelick: I asked you first! Over perhaps they could break into small groups and question each other. That seems to work in grade school. Here's a link to some excellent blogging on the 9/11 commission. Who picked these bozos? April 15, 2004
USD's $100,000 Door Prize By Gail Heriot My friend Andy Stephens is fond of pointing out that effective philanthropy is not as easy as it looks. The world is full of people who through talent and hard work amassed quite a fortune, only to fritter it away on ill-conceived efforts at charity. Spending money for the public good (or for any purpose) is just like earning money: It requires energy and thought to do it well. Andrew Carnegie was good at it. So was John D. Rockefeller. But many people aren't and countless otherwise savvy people make a complete hash of it. (Maybe some of them will benefit from Andy's new book project, which on famous philanthropists, what they did right and what they did wrong.) Why am I mentioning this? Next week is the official opening of the University of San Diego's new Degheri Alumni Center--a lovely new building made possible by the generosity of the Theresa and Edward O'Toole Foundation and named for USD alumnus Bert Degheri (Mrs. O'Toole's nephew and foundation trustee). I am confident that USD will make every effort to ensure that this kind gift will be money well spent. I am considerably less enthusiastic about the festivities planned for the dedication. According to the USD web site and posters across campus, an anonymous donor has put up the money for a drawing to be held at the dedication. One hundred USD students (50 men and 50 women) will win $1000 each. You do the math. That's $100,000 being spent to attract a crowd of students (who are notoriously happy to come to any event in return for a free slice of cold pizza). I don't know whose idea this was, but it certainly sounds like it was not well thought out. I can hardly imagine a less effective way to spend $100,000. It's not that putting money in someone's pocket is a bad thing. But choosing randomly-selected USD students (many of whom come from fairly prosperous homes) for such a windfall is pretty odd. If you're looking to find people who really need the money, it's probably better to stand outside a pawn shop or an unemployment office. And if you're looking to make a USD education available to someone who otherwise might not be able to afford it, it's probably better to give the money to the students most in need rather than to those who happen to win the lottery. There are hundreds of thousands of excellent ways to spend $100,000 to promote the public good; I've got a long list in mind of things to do at USD in particular. Expensive door prizes for college students shouldn't be high on anybody's list. That's my rant for today. Those darn Canadians By Tom Smith What are they up to in the great white North? This piece in US News claims a bill which would outlaw traditional criticisms of homosexual behavior (e.g. "It's wrong!") is on the verge of passing in our giant but mostly uninhabited northern neighbour. Brian Leiter says the report is error-ridden, and I can only say, I certainly hope so. Indeed, I hope it is completely false. If hate speech is outlawed, what next? Dislike speech? Not-very-enthusiastic speech? If lack of enthusiasm is outlawed, how many Canadians will manage to stay out of jail? If you said "I believe in every moral proposition in the Bible", could you go to jail? Are you going to have to say "I believe in every moral proposition in the Bible, except those inconsistent with the Canadian Anti-Hate Speech and Fish Preservation Act of 2004" (or whatever they call it)? What about criticism of the Act itself? Is anti- anti-Hate Speech Act speech itself hate speech? Why would you criticize the act that prohibited hate speech against gays unless you hated gays. Hmmmm? Well? Do you? Looks like it's the reeducation camp for you, eh? Hope you like fish head stew. What I want to know is, how can you have a respectable secret police if they wear those ranger hats and jhodpurs? Maybe some of the al-Quaeda types on their way to the US could be induced to stay and try their hand at thought policing? Problem though--they're not too fond of the whole boy meets boy thing either. Well, maybe they could be brainwashed or something. You can do wonderful things with technology these days. I think we need the British at a moment like this. Can't they send over Lord Puffy or somebody, and he can meet with the top Canadians and say "Look, old bean, rights, what what?, rum sort of thing, cheerio, can't throw a chap in jail for his views, what?, not on, don'tchaknow?, there's a good chap!" Then the Canadians can run around in circles, have a crisis of confidence and go back to the Anglo-American tradition of freedom or something like it. New Tax law blawg By Tom Smith Paul Caron, professor of law of the University of Cinncinati, has a new blawg on tax law. I always envy tax lawyers. Tax law seems so orderly and precise compared to corporate law and constitutional "law". Unfortunately, you have to be very smart and also very organized, hard working and organized to be a tax lawyer. I did tax law for a few weeks in the giant law firm which tolerated, ah, employed me for a few years, but it was too hard. Maybe tax law blogging will allow those of us who like to consume a little tax law now and then to do that. Speaking of taxes, I wrote the check this morning and am feeling a bit suicidal, but hopefully that will go away. I know taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society, but my question is, so where's the civilized society? Totally. I think it would be a mistake to see [Castro] as a Ceausescu. I would compare him more to Reagan and Clinton. … They were both tall and had great shoulders, and so does Fidel. By Tom Smith I use Oliver Stone's own words because I can't make up anything more ridiculous than that. Read the whole thing, as Glen Reynolds suggests. Castro's little Hollywood lapdog reveals his tiny mind and his missing conscience. Castro has great shoulders. My God. I wonder if Oliver Stone ever managed to sell his ski lodge in Telluride. He was asking $10 million. Maybe he'd like to go live in Elian's reeducation camp, assuming they haven't snuffed the little guy. UPDATE: Oxblog update on those darn Cuban thugs. They're so cute. This is pretty good. This really is an outrage By Tom Smith County sheriffs and CHP leave little girl and dead mom at the bottom of a canyon for five days while desperate relatives beg them to search. I guess we can be grateful the mom died quickly from the trauma of the accident. That the little girl survived is little short of miraculous. I've driven through that country and the roads are spooky, even to someone who grew up driving mountain roads. But it's hard to believe a competent search effort would not have turned up the car. April 14, 2004
The horror. The horror. By Tom Smith WARNING: Lovers of things Disney are likely to find this post offensive. Read at your own risk. Well, another trip to Disneyland is over and none of my children were abducted by a pedophile. I count that a success. By family tradition, every year the rents and the kids go to Disneyland, unless Dad can come up with an adequate excuse. One year, a bad back. Another year, some sort of pressing work thing. Another year, just could not face it. But other than that, every year, up we go to the land of the Mouse, the happiest hell on earth. To be completely honest, this year we went to "California Adventure", the companion theme park joined to Disneyland at the hip. And for the first two hours or so, I even, well, not exactly enjoyed it, but experienced an absence of fear and detestation that was welcome. I even said to Jeanne, "I will say this for California Adventure. It's less loathsome than Disneyland." "That's the spirit," she said. Especially as I get older, I find my taste for vulgar entertainment increasing. I rather enjoyed taking the boys to Hellboy day before yesterday, at least the first hour or so. A Nazi wizard in a secret SS project opens a portal to another universe and inadvertantly brings through (before the GI Joes shut him down) a little demon, who grows up into . . . Hellboy. How could you not like a story that begins like that? But even with my deteriorating tastes, I cannot get my arms around the Magic Kingdom. It's not the overpowering artificiality of the place. It's kind of dazzling to be in Southern California in a theme park that is recreating as history stuff that is only fifty years old in a way that is faker than the original, even when the original was pretty fake or at least plastic to begin with. Nostalgia for a past that isn't even past yet, or just barely. In Europe the move effortlessly through their own history. In America, we create a fake history, charge a family three hundred dollars to look at it, and then drive back into California more confused than before. Wacky stuff too, like the Bug's Life place that takes as a theme how cute agricultural pests are. How weird is that? You walk among buildings that are upended food crates. There is a fake farmers market and even a fruit stand where, if you look carefully, you can even find a piece of fruit to buy. But the potato chips are much more prominently displayed. Maybe they should try Agricultural Labor Land, where everyone could pick lettuce or oranges for an hour in the sun and have people yell at them. It might beat waiting in line. Then there were the Chinese New Year dancers prancing around with their paper dragon, not one of whom was Asian, unless there are white skinned, red haired Chinese I haven't heard about. I'm not trying to be PC. They probably can't hire real Asians without violating some law. But it sure makes the dance look a little stupid. There were more Asians in the audience, including some from Asia, than there were in the recreation of China in the act. Weird. What I hate is the crowds and that the experience is really about waiting in lines. I hate lines. The line of people walking from the parking lot, the line to get tickets, the line to get in, the lines to go on a ride. It feels like the Soviet Union as reimagined by some crazed circus junkie. By afternoon, the lines were up to an hour and a half long at most rides and the so called fast track was taking reservations for six in the evening. So we went to an impressive reproduction of a forest service camp and played can you guess where your kids are for an hour. They had a little rock climbing wall there and my spirits lifted momentarily. But then I saw it wasn't really climbing at all, but just a little fake traverse for kids. Fake climbing. Seven year old William, a little spider on the climbing wall I have built in the garage, did it. It was touching to watch him glide over it--then announce it was "pathetic". "Too easy" Patrick concurred. In my desperation, I almost asked the fake ranger if I could give it a go, but I would have been the only person over 12 and I didn't want to be called "camper." I will say this. The fake ranger station was more solidly built and with better materials than any USFS facility I have seen, and I've seen a few. To make it realistic, Disney would have had to make it shoddier than it was. How odd to see the imitation being higher in quality than the original, except for the location, of course. It was a forest camp without a real forest. If Disney did Gulag land, the gruel would be oatmeal and not bad. The kids had fun, though, and obviously that is why we do it. Or if "we" means Dads who hate Disney, and I'm sure I'm not the only one, then we do it to prove to our wives that we are capable of being unselfilsh at least for a few hours at a time and to watch our kids have fun. I'll try to remember William, moving effortlessly across the rock, instead of the noise and the heat. April 13, 2004
Annoying Federalist Society Atheist By Tom Smith Brian Leiter has reprinted a long passage from some annoying Federalist Society atheist, who hurls a few of the usual insults at people who believe in God, namely that they cannot think straight, are stupid, and so forth. This is a silly claim to make. First, let's review the speakers list at any given Federalist Society national event (they are much the same). You sure see a lot of theists on the list! Nino Scalia--yes. Bob Bork-- probably. Ken Starr--yes. Frank Easterbrook--no, but believes in Easterbrook like most of us believe in God, so count him as half. Posner the Greater and Posner the Lesser-- ditto. Clarence Thomas--yes. One could go on. If the Federalist Society invited only non-believers to their events, they would have to get a new set of icons. Next, this point that theists are stupid. What a stupid thing to say. Lots of very smart people are or were theists. Take Bertrand Russell. Oh, that's right. He was the self-serving atheist with bad breath. I meant to say Wittgenstein. He certainly spoke as if he were a theist. He was always talking about God this and that in his letters and to friends. Unappealing man in lots of ways, to be sure, but no dummy. One could go on, especially if you go back before God became so unfashionable. I. Kant for instance. Smart, last time I checked. And Karl Marx. Oh, sorry. He's the atheist who almost destroyed the world. R. Descartes. No slouch at maths, solid grasp of theory, high IQ I think. Maybe not up to the standard quite of your average Federalist Society member, but still a clever chap. Or Leibnitz or Newton. Whichever one invented calculus, they both worshipped you-know-who. But that was before science! Well, not before science, but before really good science! I don't know about that. Seems to me they did really good science, and understood very well what science was. But most philosophers these days are atheists! Proves nothing. There's a strong selection bias at work. People who believe in God and like to buy a new car every few years decide not to become philosophers. I think you would find that a lot of professional mathematicians are theists. Are they stupid? A rather mean thing to say, but look: before we worry about why so many scientists are atheists, we should worry about why so many became Nazis in Germany. People aren't very good at separating what they believe from what gets them ahead. Those that do are often a little wacky, like Ludwig. Lots of Federalist Society members believe in God. I for one, though I think my membership in said society may have lapsed, cheapskate that I am. Few libertarians may believe in God, presumably because they think the universe was created by the market in a moment of perfect efficiency. When they die, they go to a resort run by the Libertarian Party. Oh, just kidding. Some of my best friends are libertarians. I'm half-libertarian myself. Just don't go to them for religious advice. Most pompous NYT editorial ever? By Tom Smith This is going to be hard to beat. (Via volokh.) I think I finally understand why the Times hates Scalia so much. Scalia is a Catholic, which means he believes there is a God, and that God is not the New York Times. But the New York Times thinks It is God. Therefore, Scalia is a heretic. The Scots have this thing about swords By Tom Smith It's probably genetic. We've got a major samurai cult going in our household, but so far, no real katanas. Enough heads have been whacked by bokken (wooden samurai practice swords) to make it clear that that would be a very bad idea. Here's a good place to begin your latest unhealthy obsession. John Burns outside of Najaf By Tom Smith This is interesting: The decision of the prominent clerics to intervene was a result of days of secret contacts, and a vindication, American officials said, of months of assiduous American courtesy toward Ayatollah Sistani. The aged cleric has been an increasingly shrill champion of Shiite rights in Iraq, but at the same time a restraining influence through his emphasis on the importance of settling the country's web of ethnic, religious and political rivalries peacefully. Neither side offered any details of the talks. Nor was it clear what concessions, if any, the delegation might have offered Mr. Sadr as the price of ending his insurrection, or even whether the American occupation authority had indicated a willingness to make a deal with him. American officials gave mixed signals suggesting they were hoping that tough warnings that they were after Mr. Sadr, coupled with the military threat outside Najaf, might tip the balance in the talks. Since last week, the American occupation authority has said it planned to arrest Mr. Sadr in connection with the murder of a grand ayatollah on April 10, 2003. The clearest hint came in the remarks by General Sanchez, who in a teleconference call linking the American headquarters in Baghdad with reporters at the Pentagon, said, with emphasis, that "the mission of the U.S. forces is to kill or capture Moktada al-Sadr." But at another point, Gen. John P. Abizaid, the head of central command, said that there would "probably end up being a uniquely Iraqi solution" to the effort to bring Mr. Sadr to justice, and that "we're applying the military force necessary to assist in that regard." In my amateur opinion, this is exactly what is going on, and shows the US is playing it pretty smart. The key I think will be placating the Shia without alienating everyone else to the point that they rebel. As usual, this extremely important stuff is buried in the Times. The old joke about the NYT: World to End, see story on C-21. More: a roundup from CS Monitor. Does Tom Freidman really think it helps to sermonize? He takes himself waaayyyy to seriously. April 12, 2004
Darn! I wanted to be the first Yale Law grad to publish a book on speculative cosmology By Tom Smith Does this count as Intelligent Design, Brian? Saudi influence in American academia By Tom Smith This looks interesting, from the Buggy Professor: This will be a fairly straightforward article, with two key links --- both to articles published at Frontpage online in the last few days. It deals with the assaults on free speech and civility on campus practiced by certain politically correct students, including, it appears, a fair number of foreign students from the Middle East. The argument is then fleshed out with some added comments about Middle East Studies in this country, Saudi influence, the ideological and scholarly travesties that mark the Middle East Studies Establishment --- full of self-deception before 9/11 about militant Islamist fundamentalisms (seen as heralding democracy in the Arab world) --- and the mainstream scholarly inability in that discipline, dominated by politically correct types and political agendas, to come to terms with Islamist terrorism ever since. No, not just before 9/11; in the nearly 3 years after it. Such is the set of delusive, self-conning views toward Islamist fundamentalisms, and what inspires the militant frenzied terrorism that feeds on them, in these bankrupt scholarly circles, enjoying US tax dollars for their research . . . never mind, continued Saudi thug-o-cratic largesse. But I can't quite figure out how to link to specific posts on his site. Still, he is a good find. A reasonable liberal. |