Wednesday, February 25. 2009
The "best" students are often the most diligent and dutiful, but not necessarily the most passionate about learning or the smartest. Fairly or not, women and Asian students are often viewed in that light. The University of California reputedly sets limits on their Asian student acceptances.
Profs often find the "best" students boring to teach. Tom Wood at the NAS discusses. One quote:
Some years ago a friend mentioned that a professor at Berkeley he knew had either left for another teaching job or quit teaching altogether (I can’t remember which). The professor had no complaints about the salary, his opportunities to do research and writing, or his department colleagues. In most respects, he was quite happy at Cal—except for the students. And in fact, his complaints about the students were quite limited and specific. He had told my friend that the students were very, very good academically. They could and did do the work. They kept up with the course material, and did well on tests. But they were boring. They weren’t passionate. They weren’t engaged. And because the students were boring, he had come to find teaching boring. So he gave up his tenured position for some other place in academe, or perhaps outside academe altogether.
Today's Free Advt for Bob is a good piece for Lent, I think. Dylan's song is like a Psalm.
In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need
When the pool of tears beneath my feet flood every newborn seed
There's a dyin' voice within me reaching out somewhere,
Toiling in the danger and in the morals of despair.
Don't have the inclination to look back on any mistake,
Like Cain, I now behold this chain of events that I must break.
In the fury of the moment I can see the Master's hand
In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand.
Oh, the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear,
Like criminals, they have choked the breath of conscience and good cheer.
The sun beat down upon the steps of time to light the way
To ease the pain of idleness and the memory of decay.
I gaze into the doorway of temptation's angry flame
And every time I pass that way I always hear my name.
Then onward in my journey I come to understand
That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand.
I have gone from rags to riches in the sorrow of the night
In the violence of a summer's dream, in the chill of a wintry light,
In the bitter dance of loneliness fading into space,
In the broken mirror of innocence on each forgotten face.
I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there's someone there, other times it's only me.
I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man
Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.
Below is Dylan's recorded version, audio only:
If you don't care for Dylan, here's Emmy Lou Harris' cover of the song: you will like this. 1995.
Nothing is true, everything is permitted.
William Burroughs, as quoted at Driscoll (nb: a QQQ doesn't mean we agree with it)
Too smart by half. How quant David X. Li created the formula that killed Wall St. h/t, Volokh
More on the topic at Marginal Rev.
Politico translates Obama's speech. I think they got it right.
 Dodd also has a place in Ireland. How do pols accumulate so much wealth?
How do photochromic eyeglass lenses work?
A fish with eyes in the back of his head - and all over.
Shea Stadium is gone
Stopping traffic for a Peregrine Falcon. Good on that cop. But I would have chased the falcon away. You don't want him to get the idea that the middle of the road is a good place to eat.
Andrew Breitbart wants a Hollywood revolution
Moderately alcoholic Irish Catholics victimized
A FIRE co-founder as candidate for the Harvard Board of Overseers. Good.
Ice Ages and Sea Levels. Watts
Save Auschwitz, but get rid of the EU
Hate it when this happens.
Are we back to Sept. 10th? Powerline
The Palestinian industry. Jules
Missouri Dem: Don't worry. Our kids and grandkids will pay these debts.
Pub surveillance in Britain. Insane.
Tuesday, February 24. 2009
 Everyone has the choice of whether to live in Christ, or not to. I am grateful that I have the choice of whether to accept that offered gift, or to refuse it.
I once thought that living in Christ just sort-of happened when one deliberately accepted the gift, but I think differently now. I no longer think that I can be aligned with God on autopilot, as Augustine said he, or we, could. Maybe he could.
I need a discipline, both internal and external, to partake of the blessing of the Christian faith and of a life in Christ because sometimes I am there, but sometimes I am far away.
I have been thinking about the old-fashioned virtue of "self-command" recently, and about our cultural values - "authenticity," "genuineness," "follow your heart and emotions" and things like that. Why isn't "self-command" and "self-discpline" as much a part of our selves as anything else? Are our precious selves were so splendidly worthy and wonderful when on autopilot? If anybody is that wonderful, God bless 'em. I am not.
Internal discipline is about self-command. How good am I at commanding myself? And how often, like a bad parent, do I fail to be a good Chairman and CEO of myself and let things slide that should not slide, and permit leeway where there is no leeway? To let myself play in the street, as it were?
My discipline muscles need constant exercise. I have a few planned for this Lenten season.
Even the "best" Christians are sometimes prone to overlooking the beam in their own eye while noting the motes and beams in others'. We are taught to "hate the sin but to love the sinner." Readers know that I do not believe that Christianity is mainly about morality, but about faith. However, I believe that a deliberate living in Christ requires a discipline. Like when your Dad gives you a car for your birthday, the joy is contingent. Getting to that "life in abundance" isn't meant to be easy, but it is probably the definition of success that I value most highly for myself.
I judge others constantly, not from a high place but mainly for self-protection. I judge myself at least as judiciously, and likely far more harshly. Usually at 4:30 AM. The conscience I am stuck with tolerates little or no compromise with normal exigencies. At the same time, I know my conscience isn't necessarily God's voice. Sometimes it's my own, and some of it is my moral vanity.
In my mens' Bible study last week we wandered into a discussion of sexual temptation, and how we each deal with it. It's safe to say that each one of us has a deep appreciation for appealing females, and are fun-loving fellows who enjoy the pleasures of life. We aren't a "holy" bunch. We also agree that our word is our bond. It's discipline and self-command. Of course, anyone can make whatever choices one decides to, and live with that. That's fine, as long as you do not ask me to be responsible for guiding your choices.
I am meandering towards the subject of external discipline. If we are to enjoy the blessings of a life in Christ, most of us need that. I need my brethren to help keep me on track. Otherwise, I'll be off on my own track, and there is nothing too wonderful about that. "My track," I am ashamed to say, is probably all about me and all about gratification - and as instant as possible. OK, call me an obsessive if you want to: it's probably correct. I need and want to be judged. I do not want to be an animal.
Editor's note: I stumbled onto a sermon by Rev. Norman Koop, Pastor of the First Congregational Church of Woodstock, VT, yesterday. I thought it relevant to my "House Church" meeting on Sunday afternoon where the topic was confronting evil and sin (in self and others). Intolerance. Pastor Koop makes the case, via Paul, that it is our unpleasant duty to confront and address the sin of our church brethren because, as Congregational Church members, we have made a solemn committment to the well-being of eachothers' souls. Paul's letter was a tough message for the Corinthians - and we are the Corinthians. The sermon is here (try "Listen now using the flash player").
A Climate Change leader, quoted at Thompson (not satire):
The longer I work on climate change, the less important I think it is whether or not the warmists or the sceptics are right. [...] Imagine a world where we had listened to the climate scientists and started to change our resource-consuming behaviour and address the inequities of the global economic system. Although the warming still didn’t materialise, we would have addressed a host of environmental issues and be living a largely pollution-free existence. We may even be saying thank you to the climate scientists who, although they got it wrong, provided us the opportunity to create a cleaner, brighter and fairer world.
Are these judges werewolves?  Via Althouse. Supremes to decide:
The American Civil Liberties Union objected to the cross and filed a suit on behalf of Frank Bruno, a Catholic and former Park Service employee. The suit noted that the government had denied a request to have a Buddhist shrine erected near the cross.
Two years ago, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for the ACLU and declared the cross an "impermissible governmental endorsement of religion."
Congress has intervened to try to save the cross by transferring a small parcel of land with the cross on it to a private group. However, the 9th circuit judges were unswayed. This "would leave a little donut hole of land with a cross in the midst of a vast federal preserve," the appeals court said.
The 9th said what? Article Vll: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
 Ecstasy is safer than peanuts?
Few American cars driven by the Admin
Men and women view art differently
The upside of the foreclosure mess
The War Against Drugs has failed.
With recession, carbon emitting has gotten cheaper h/t Insty
Is the world experiencing "Green fatique"?
The big picture: Obama wants to move the center to the left. No kidding. He is a Socialist, and he never had a real job.
Is letting kids excel racist?
Don't blame Obama. A Pres cannot take an economy out of recession
Economic indicators, early 80s vs. today, via Coyote:
Monday, February 23. 2009
 No time for thinking today. A few cocktail-hour links:
Hopey-changey means Realpolitik. No more of that Republican freedom malarkey.
Not a coward: talking back to Eric Holder. Am Thinker
Palin: an unbalanced MSM tried to destroy me. Indeed. Unbalanced is the right word. She did seem to drive people crazy.
A billion American dollars to "rebuild Gaza." Is that "stimulus" too? What Gaza needs are some liquor stores, strip joints, and casinos.
Yet another new name for it: Climate Disruption. I guess that means whenever it's not nice and sunny out...or when it's too sunny too.
Might be a good time for the Mafia to go public.
 States' Rights! It's about freedom.
Easy to forget that America is a voluntary federation of states: it's in the Constitution - if that means anything any more. I am advised that that is ancient history, and irrelevant. Not to me.
Elected tyrannies are commonplace in history. The wise ancient Greeks warned us about that. Politics is about the accumulation of money and power. Period.
 A Modest Proposal for CO2 emissions.
I noticed this too. Obama is running hard for reelection already. The family Bush was always above that sort of thing. Dems are "better" pols: They understand the power game better.
11 states skeptical about the Trojan Ponies in the stim bill. Bobby Jindal on accepting stimulus money:
...here's the problem. So many of these things that are called temporary programs end up being permanent government programs. But this one's crystal clear, black and white letter law. The federal stimulus bill says it has to be a permanent change in state law if you take this state money. And so within three years the federal money's gone, we've got now a permanent change in our laws, we have to pay for it, our businesses pay for it. I don't think it makes sense to be raising taxes on Louisiana businesses during these economically challenging times. And what it shows is what we're going to do in the stimulus is we're going to look at every program, every dollar. If it makes sense for Louisiana, makes sense for our taxpayers, we'll use those programs and dollars. If it doesn't, like on Friday we said, "This doesn't make sense for us. This is not a good deal for us." It makes--my job is to represent Louisiana's taxpayers. Makes no sense for us to take temporary federal dollars and create permanent state obligations.
Some states, like some businesses and individuals, can be blinded by greed. Bobby is the Not Obama.
It's not easy to demonize a tall skinny blond-with-a-brain who has a sense of humor, but the MSM has done it - and made her a "controversial" celeb in the process. Love her or hate her, Ann Coulter serves a useful purpose. From Klavan on the Culture:
Look, I don’t always agree with Coulter. She sometimes seems to scream black whenever the media screams white (a strategy that works only about 85 percent of the time). I’m pretty sure we really did evolve from apes—myself within living memory. And I enthusiastically endorse any and all non-bloodletting sex acts done in private between consenting adults—as long as you don’t then ask me to pay for the resulting child, abortion or course of medication.
But the whole way liberals work is to redefine manners and morals in such a fashion that conservative common sense automatically becomes hateful. If you note that women and men are different, you’re misogynistic. If you denounce the destruction of marriage in black communities, you’re racist or moralistic. If you call for the defense of America against the world-wide Islamist menace, you’re a bigoted warmonger. If we take this garbage seriously even for an instant, we spend our whole lives playing catch-up, saying sorry, going on defense.
Coulter’s answering strategy is to blow all that foolishness away. She says the unsayable thing, does it with intelligence, humor and style and gets the world exactly right far more often than not. And did I mention she’s disconcertingly adorable? There’s more good, honest material in a paragraph of her work than in any entire edition of the New York Times. She may be a loose cannon now and then, but somehow the barrel always ends up pointed in the right direction.
Ann loves to stir the pot, but most important is that she keeps things "sayable" that others are too timid to say. I always get a kick out of Ann.
 FYI: Van Morrison's live performance of Astral Weeks, recorded in Nov. 2008, is released this week.
Sunday, February 22. 2009
Joseph Priestly was curious about everything, and one of those things was the gasses coming out of the vats in the brewery next door. But Priestly was much more than that. Smithsonian.
I will post a series of random quotes from Boswell's London Journal for a while, on Sundays. As was commented on the publication of these journals:
 "Boswell was the most charming companion in the world, and London becomes his dining-room and his playground, his club and his confessional. No celebrant of the London world can ignore his book."-Peter Ackroyd, from the introduction; Praise for the earlier edition: "The journal is admirably edited and annotated."-W. H. Auden, New Yorker
A friend told him "Mr. Boswell, you are the vainest man I have ever met, and yet it is impossible for me not to love you." Mr. Boswell - Jamie - is an easy person to like. His honesty about himself shines through. He is 22 at this time, journaling about his second move from Edinburgh to London in search of a cushy commission in the Footguards (which he was never able to obtain despite his extensive networking efforts).
Much of these journals documents his daily life, which is mainly social - and centered on meals. Breakfast with these friends, dinner with other friends, see a play with others, then maybe a late supper with others, perhaps after a bit of whoring, which he describes in some detail including an assessment of his performance. He is quite open about preferring "genteel" ladies for his "amorous adventures" because he lives on a tight budget and prefers not to pay.
He is a devout Anglican. He takes long walks every day, usually discussing politics or literature with friends. The great David Garrick befriends him, and, towards the end of these journals, Boswell meets Samuel Johnson. Johnson, of course, finds the young fellow to be a delightful companion. Boswell is always puzzled about why people like him so much and seek out his company, viewing himself as shallow and dull. He worries about his social presentation, especially his tendency to lose his reserve and dignity (which he constantly does). He also has recurrent incapacitating bouts of depression.
This bit is from December 11, 1762:
I drank coffee at Macfarlane's. Erskine and he got into a dispute about the Peace and each told his antagonist that he was speaking arrant nonsense. They were seriously hot. I was much diverted at Captain Andrew's being so, who does not enter the least into common notions, and does not care a farthing whether there be peace or war or confusion in Europe, provided he and his own agreeable circle be safe and happy.
I must own that I am much of that way of thinking. I cannot help it. I see too far into the system of things to be much in earnest. I consider mankind in general, and therefore cannot take a part in their quarrels when divided into certain states and nations. I can see that after a war is over and a great quantity of cold and hunger and want of sleep endured by mortals, things are upon the whole just as they were. I can see that Great People, those that manage the fate of kingdoms, are just such beings as myself: have their hours of discontent and are not a bit happier. This being the case, I am rather passive than active in life. It is difficult to make my feeling clearly understood. I may say, I act passively. That is, not with my whole heart, and thinking this or that of real consequence, but because so and so things are established and I must submit.
Meditating calmly and finding myself situated in this sublunary system, I do not know well what to make of it. I do not rightly understand it. Guardian Angel: "Stop. How should you? God has formed men with very limited capacities." True. But still I cannot help enquiring and thinking.
Image: Boswell in his 40s. Portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1785
Massachusetts' Berkshire County (and northwestern CT Berkshires) has been a popular summering area for 150 years. The nightime is cool, even in August. It is filled with second homes and country places for those from NYC and Boston. The area is artsy and full of pretty-good, small-scale skiing. There isn't much work up there outside of once-industrial Pittsfield - and there never has been. As we have commented, 2009 is a good time to have cash to buy things, because these second home prices are falling. Take a look:
This 3-BR 1942 Cape on 0.3 acres overlooks the town of Great Barrington. $620,000:
This 1793 eyebrow colonial in New Marlborough has 1/2 acre, 3 bedrooms. $185,000;
This 1770 center hall colonial is on 1/2 acre near downtown Sheffield. 6 BR. $725,000.
The village of Alford has a Congregational Church, an 1830 schoolhouse, and a town green. Not a single store, shop, or restaurant. This is a 4 BR 1810 farmhouse (with additions) on 4 acres. $700,000:
Here's an 1825 village colonial in Becket. 5 BR, one acre. $430,000:
In Lenox. Not an antique, but just a walk to Tanglewood and to the pleasant antique village. 4 BR, 0.5 acres, $1,000,000.
In Stockbridge, this 1795 renovated farmhouse. 8 BR, 4 acres. $1,000,000. I like it, but 150 acres would be better.
 I would break that surveillance camera if I were a Brit today. Government monitoring my wine? If I recall, that government was not at Cana.
American Idle. Money! The more irresponsible you are, the more the gummint works for you. Related: What Obama/Reid/Pelosi have planned for you next. This is overreaching, I think, but they are going to do it so fast that nobody can react.
However, the conservatives are coming back to life.
A good time to buy stuff. Everything good is cheap. Will Wilkinson bought a diamond ring. I am buying some stuff too.
Stop the presses. Global warming will create mental health problems in Tasmania.
Where is Octodad? And who needs Dads anyway? h/t, Dr. Helen. A quote:
Out-of-wedlock birth rates in the U.S. are now 38%; among African-Americans the figure is 70%. Fathers of children living with single mothers are far less involved with their children than are married fathers; about a third of all children in single-mother families have not seen their father in the previous year. Yet decades of social science have made it clear: Children who grow up without their fathers experience more poverty, have more problems at school, more trouble with the law -- and more single motherhood in the next generation.
In recent years, medical science has also raised doubts about our frequent desire to wish fathers away. Every week, it seems, science confirms just how much genes matter. Everything from eye color, to propensity to high cholesterol, to a rotten disposition, to talent at math or tennis is encoded, to some degree, in the genetic material passed on from our two biological parents.
Kaus:
...why should taxpayers fork over $30 billion so that UAW workers can continue to make $28 an hour as opposed to, say, $26 an hour or even $24 an hour, which would still be a reasonable wage these days? Or so that GM's bondholders don't have to take a bigger loss? It's not as if other workers--even at companies way more successful than GM broke--aren't taking big wage cuts. ...
"The world is nuts. The country is nuts. The government is nuts." Eat a Sea Kitten. Heck, eat two of 'em. Halibut is my choice.
Certification. It will replace much of "higher ed." Good idea. Plato, sad to say, is not for everybody. There is a natural aristocracy of mind - and I do not claim to be part of it.
The Tea Party is growing. Good fun. Why should moonbats be the only ones to protest? It's patriotic, right?
How Spring Break could pay off the entire US deficit
Oh no! Not a penny for Katrina! Never mind about that Katrina scam. Game over.
A VDH mini-rant. A quote:
Mr. Biden, there is no reason to set the reset button on foreign policy, as you promised all those Europeans. None at all. Tell that resetting stuff instead to Ahmadinejad, Chavez, that Korean nut, Putin, and all the other thugs who kill and cause misery, but not to our America that saves and feeds and helps. Mrs. Clinton, it’s now your turn. We are not impulsive as you told the world. So you can stop apologizing for America’s recent behavior—unless you think the world would be a better place with the Taliban, and Saddam and his two boys in power. Or maybe Europe should have Schroeder and Chirac back, or Libya with nuclear weapons, or Khalid Sheik Mohammed freed from Guantanamo. Or maybe America shouldn’t have given that $15 billion for AIDs relief in Africa, or helped with earthquakes in Pakistan and tsunamis in Indonesia. Now all that was sorta impulsive.”
As he thinks about this apology business, the battered American always gets a little angrier, “And another thing. Mr. Holder, I’ve never said or done a racist thing in my life, not one. Always supported equal opportunity, always will. So don’t call me a “coward” or my countrymen “cowards,” not when you’re my Attorney General. You are The Attorney General of the United States of America, so please, no more playing Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, leveling the latest shake-down charge on television.
AP analysis: Dems self-destructing over ethics
Courts full of junk science. Can that be fixed?
Is it the dawn of a Newt Age? I hope so.
It's only 5 states with foreclosures. h/t, Insty
Our Socialist friend Stumbling defends bonuses.
Who is to blame? Neither Dodd nor Frank. Course not.
Who was John January? Wow
ACORN breaking into homes, occupying them. Good grief. What are people thinking?
Dems keep trashing the past. It is unbecoming of them. Gentlefolk do not do things like that.
Even the horrible Soros agrees that letting Lehman fail was a big mistake. It was, but I also understand why it was done. I am in golf and cash. I meant gold and cash. And real estate, which changes in value but never disappears. that's why it is called "real."
The NYT omits one inconvenient truth. Yes, the world is getting colder. I can feel it every morning here.
When we release Gitmo creeps.
Jindal rejects gummint $. Good on him. Most state and local governments are acting like whores.
Has anyone seen Lie To Me? I wonder how it is.
As goes California, so goes the country?
California is in a French-like bind: unable to afford a welfare-type state, and unable to overhaul it. "The people say they want all these programs, then there's nothing they want to pay for," says Hector De La Torre, a Democratic assemblyman. "The schizophrenia in the legislature reflects the peoples'."
Train people to act like babies, and they will gladly do so. I have already been asked by many how to take advantage of the stimulus, and so we are working on it. Our clients pay taxes, and they want their piece of the action too. Why not? They will be paying for it, and they aren't stupid.
The Transfiguration, Workshop of Alessandro Botticelli, c. 1500.
9:2 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them,
9:3 and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.
9:4 And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus.
9:5 Then Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah."
9:6 He did not know what to say, for they were terrified.
9:7 Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, "This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!"
9:8 Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.
9:9 As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.
Saturday, February 21. 2009
From A Beacon of Liberty amid Depression:
The event in question took place over four days in an obscure building, the Musée Social, just off the Boulevard Saint-Germain in Paris at the end of August, 1938. Present were some 26 academics, business people and writers, mostly from Europe, but including the American commentator and journalist Walter Lippmann (who, as it turned out, was in Paris on honeymoon at the time). Also in attendance, apart from the young Raymond Aron, were some of Europe's leading economists: Louis Rougier and Jacques Rueff from France, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek of the Austrian School, and two Germans, both living in exile, Wilhelm Röpke and Alexander Rüstow. Although invited, neither the future Italian President Luigi Einaudi nor the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset was able to attend.
The immediate cause of this coming together was the publication of a French version of Lippmann's An Inquiry into the Principles of the Good Society by the Librarie de Médicis, the same publisher that had also recently published Rougier's Les Mystiques Economiques and von Mises's anti-collectivist broadside, Socialism. The wider context was the challenge to liberalism and the free market posed by the rise of a generalised state interventionism in the form of planning, corporatism and socialism. Capitalism seemed on the brink of systemic failure and for many it was capitalism itself that was to blame. Its decline and its end appeared inevitable.
But the participants also saw that the challenge they faced was directed against more than simply the liberal economic order and the political democracy born out of the 19th century. "The totalitarian rebellion," Lippmann commented in his introductory remarks to the conference, "attacks the entirety of the Western tradition - its religion, its science, its law, its state, its property, its family, its morality and its conception of the human person." As a matter of urgency, the civilised world had to find a response to an inhuman enemy.
And, like Benda, they saw that intellectuals were aiding and abetting this enemy. Never, Rougier asserted, had the clercs betrayed as much as they were now doing. They denounced the crimes of Hitler and of fascism but remained silent before the Moscow show trials. They called for the socialisation of the economy without understanding that they were weakening democracy and helping dictators. Believing themselves to be the most implacable enemies of tyranny, they were in fact its best allies. They were betraying the very cause that they professed to serve.
Read the whole essay at Standpoint
 An excerpt from Vaclav Klaus' speech to the EU parliament last week:
The present decision making system of the European Union is different from a classic parliamentary democracy, tested and proven by history. In a normal parliamentary system, part of the MPs support the government and part support the opposition. In the European parliament, this arrangement has been missing. Here, only one single alternative is being promoted and those who dare thinking about a different option are labelled as enemies of the European integration. Not so long ago, in our part of Europe we lived in a political system that permitted no alternatives and therefore also no parliamentary opposition. It was through this experience that we learned the bitter lesson that with no opposition, there is no freedom. That is why political alternatives must exist.
He is completely right, and the unelected EU mandarins don't want to hear it. More here at NRO. The EU has nothing to do with freedom.
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