We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
It's a big mystery. It is difficult to find any evidence for anything "before" time and space existed, before "matter" existed.
For my practical purposes, in the beginning was logos - the Word.
Which brings me to my topic of thought and communication as poetry and metaphor. I just completed one of Prof. Robert Sapolsky's Great Courses, Being Human: Life Lessons from the Frontiers of Neuroscience. It's only 2 DVDs, but it is an inspiring introduction.
“Geary . . . succeeds in making the case that metaphor is the meat of language and not a sauce.”
From a Platonic point of view, it's not just the meat of language, it's the meat of thought. Sapolsky says that most communication is the residue of poetry.
The practical validity of g as a predictor of educational, economic, and social outcomes is more far-ranging and universal than that of any other known psychological variable. The validity of g is greater the greater the complexity of the task.
When I applied to medical school, they gave us an IQ test and a personality-oriented interview (along with the usual exams we all took).
For every kind of task, g is the best single predictor of performance. Not the only, but the "best single" predictor for performance in all life settings (but diligence, adaptability, social skills, judgement, emotional maturity, integrity, collegiality, ability to delay gratification, sports skills, appearance, and all the rest of individual traits and talents and psychological traits obviously matter too, to varying degrees).
Keller seems to have written his glowing essay about the Liverpool Protocol, How to Die, without talking to any practicing American doctors. He is writing as an advocate of Obamacare, and speaks as if American doctors won't let people die while the English people will.
If he had spoken with American doctors, he would know that most American internists do something very similar with patients whose condition is hopeless, and do so routinely. Daily. Everybody dies. American hospitals have plenty of patients with "DNR" (Do Not Resusitate) orders on their charts, and hospice units and hospice centers are common in the US.
I see two exceptions, occasionally. One is when the family or patient is adamant about "Do anything and everything." These tend to be people who don't know much. The second is with some terminal cancer patients. I have seen terminal cancer patients, with widespead metastatic disease in the ICU, dying while the latest cancer chemotherapy is still being pumped into their veins. It's pitiful.
Generally, doctors know when to give up and do not view death as an enemy. Unfortunately, Bill Keller seems to be addressing a straw man.
Among many other wonderful details, the book undermines the notions that the Europeans arrived to find a primeval land on which the Indians left hardly a footprint. Quite the opposite is true. For example, the Northeast Indians had 100-acre cornfields, scattered wherever the soil was rich, and did massive burnings of their woodlands every year to rewind forest succession, for game management, and to clear the underbush. They viewed the woods as their gardens and farms, and when they made fields, they cleared them to the point of removing the stumps. No slash-and-burn: permanent farm fields that were hard-won with stone axes and fire. The Pilgrims took advantage of their abandoned fields in Massachusetts.
Similarly, the Amazonian Indians turned the rain forest into their own orchards. At least 20% of the Amazonian forest is believed to be dominated by fruit- and nut-bearing trees planted by Indians for their use. That's not to mention their manioc plantations. And the South American Indians, like the Meso-Americans, developed massive irrigation systems to support their populations.
There was little of the New World that had not been shaped by Indian activities, except for the mountains and deserts - and the Incas populated the Andes quite successfully.
I also liked learning about the Indian prophet Deganawida, the Northeast "Peacemaker" born, it was said, of a virgin birth. Hiawatha, the great Indian orator and politician, was one of his followers. Some of those folks are some of my ancestors.
Finally, the book got me interested in Cahokia, the largest Indian city north of Mexico with a top population of 15-20,000 farmers. The mound-building city in Illinois was abandoned 300 years before Columbus. Image on right is what Cahokia's mounds looked like.
(For a variety of reasons, many mysterious, the New World experienced enormous population declines from their millions before Columbus, making conquest and colonization immigration a much easier task. European illnesses like the common cold and flu viruses which could be fatal to Indians just made it all worse, it seems. )
A pal had never heard of Murray. Here's an introduction. I find his thoughts about "social capital" most interesting but, on many topics, he is a hard-headed, liberty-oriented thinker.
Here are a few of our Murray links from very recent years:
Why Capitalism Has an Image Problem - Charles Murray examines the cloud now hanging over American business—and what today's capitalists can do about it.
I like home-grown tomatoes because they taste good. My gardens have always been "organic" only because I have never had a problem with insect pests - I grow enough so that the bugs and animals can have some - and because I enrich the garden soil with manure and peat moss (which are delivered to my garden center by polluting 16-wheelers). Nothing whatsoever to do with nutrition or good old Gaia, though.
America has been subject to food faddism forever. "Organic" produce is just the latest marketing scam for the wealthy and the body-obsessed. Here's a good update on the topic: Organic Illusions
As we've said here ad nauseum, there are three separate subjects here. First, the politically- and financially-powerful Education Industry. Second, the transfer of culture and knowledge. Third, the interest in learning and the capacity of kids to learn (plus, obviously, the value the family places on curiosity and knowledge).
Judging from what I see and hear daily, we have long reached the point of diminishing returns on the public school front.
Little old lady walks into the local bank and informs the teller that she would like to deposit $250,000 in cash, and would like to discuss it with the branch manager.
She goes into the manager's little office to discuss details of her deposit, and he asks how she came upon this windfall. "Gambling," she says.
"You must be good," says he. "I am," she replied. "For example, I'll bet you $25,000 that, tomorrow morning when I come in with the cash in my lawyer's hands, your balls will be square."
"Are you serious? OK, you're on." They shake on it.
Next morning, she arrives in his office with lawyer and bulging briefcase in hand to make the deposit. Manager says "OK, great. Now, what about our little bet? My balls are just the same as they always were."
"Well," she responds, "for $25,000 I need to check for myself." He pulls down his trousers and she checks his male parts carefully while her lawyer begins banging his head on the desk.
"What's the problem?" the manager asks.
"Nothing really," the old lady answers. "It's just that I bet him $100,000. that I could have your balls in my hands in 15 minutes."
So much of political debates for the past 150 years have been about whether central control by supposed experts is preferable to private efforts to be good caretakers of their resources.
Regular readers know that we tend to have a deep distrust of government, central planning, and centralized power and believe that we are line with the Founders in that regard.
We have regularly posted about The Tragedy of the Commons here. The moral of the tragedy of the commons extends far beyond cow pastures, vast herds of bison, and marine resources. (In fact, it extends to government itself which tends to view the populace as an inexhaustable resource for its own purposes.)
I had to look up "paraprosdokian". Here is the definition: "Figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected; frequently used in a humorous situation." "Where there's a will, I want to be in it," is a type of paraprosdokian.
1. Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience. 2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on my list. 3. Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak. 4. If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong. 5. We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public. 6. War does not determine who is right - only who is left. 7. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad. 8. Evening news is where they begin with 'Good Evening,' and then proceed to tell you why it isn't. 9. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research. 10. A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station. 11. I thought I wanted a career. Turns out I just wanted paychecks. 12. Whenever I fill out an application, in the part that says, 'In case of emergency, notify:' I put 'DOCTOR.' 13. I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you. 14. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy. 15. Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of a successful man is usually another woman. 16. A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory. 17. I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness. 18. You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice. 19. Money can't buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with. 20. There's a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can't get away. 21. I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not so sure. 22. You're never too old to learn something stupid. 23. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target. 24. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. 25. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine. 26. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car. 27. A diplomat is someone who tells you to go to hell in such a way that you look forward to the trip. 28. Hospitality is making your guests feel at home even when you wish they were. 29. I always take life with a grain of salt. Plus a slice of lime, and a shot of tequila.
Readers know that I have long rejected the notion of a college-level Liberal Arts-focused education as an economic investment. However, I have praised it as a potentially life-enhancing guided exploration more deeply into our culture and into current knowledge than secondary school can do (although good private schools can do it). "Cultivation of the mind" and all that.
In other words, do I do not think of it as utilitarian. (Colleges were designed for scholars and clery - for the cognitive and/ or financially elite.) I learned much in high school and in college which have never provided me with a penny of profit but which I believe have enhanced my life in countless ways: Geology, Statistics, Intro Music History, Ancient Greek History, Russian Lit, etc.
However, when I went to college the ways of learning these things outside college were not as accessible as they are today. The self-informed scholars of the past had to spend hours in libraries, after work, just to try to figure out where to start. Today, you can get the best Music History course in the world from the Teaching Company for $200. and enjoy it at leisure - with no exams.
So we return to my recurrent question: Is Liberal Arts college about job-preparation, for networking, is it a meaningless credential, is it a way to delay adulthood, or is it a guided exploration into our culture and knowledge for the deeply curious and scholarly with high IQ?
In Obama's economy, the reality hits. Plumbers making $70-150/hr make much more money than most recent college grads and lead more independent and entrepreneurial careers. In fact, more than many recently-graduated professionals.
Those are old twin stables, the Scott's and the Beinecke's, in the East Village. Hard to imagine how many stables there were in NYC in 1870. Many converted to modern purposes. The paired red buildings.
I've been inside functioning NYC stables. Usually 3 stories: 1st floor for office, carriages and saddles, horse ramp to second floor with stalls, 3rd floor as a hayloft. Hole in floor of second storey to dumpster below. Perfect firetraps.
Caught a grim play about the Armenian genocide at the Atlantic Theater Co, then grabbed a very early supper at Gemma (335 Bowery St) - acceptable Italian food, great atmosphere, busy bar scene, full of happy, attractive young folks.
In fact, the East Village, the Lower East Side and Alphabet City have undergone an astonishing change in the past 10 years. It's been gentrified by throngs of youth, and they all look good. No dirty hippies or addicts there anymore, or, it seems, many people over 40.
Many horse owners, and pretty much all owners of horses of any value, purchase insurance packages including medical and death benefit.
Many companies offer it. It's a free market. See Google equine insurance.
What was most interesting to me about the topic is that all of the medical insurance is Major Medical (which I believe to be the only sensible medical insurance to buy, but increasingly scarce) and it is quite inexpensive. Why inexpensive? Because it doesn't cover birth control, poison ivy, or the sniffles.
I suppose one reason it is inexpensive is because you shoot a horse with a broken leg, which is thus an inexpensive and relatively quick procedure. However, surgery for colic can cost over $10,000. and is not reliably successful.
The NHS is well-known for letting the elderly ill pass away without care (no bullets or lethal injections yet), and Obamacare will do the same, in time.
I wish I could buy some of that inexpensive equine insurance for myself (minus the bullets unless absolutely necessary). I don't mind going to a vet instead of an MD.
Furthermore, I'd prefer a bullet or a bolt to drawn-out pain, misery, and incapacitation.
We are all weary of the drearily repetitive claims of oppression and the academic insistence on PC orthodoxy. Everybody is oppressed - especially in America. And white-colored males are oppressed by the "victims."
What is true at Bowdoin is more or less true everywhere.The power of the victims' studies departments lies not in what they say but in their ability to prevent inquiry that runs against their preferred narratives.They need not go to a lot of trouble to make this happen.They are more often like rocks in the stream.The regular flow of academic life simply goes around them.Few faculty members or administrators want the hassle of getting in their way.
Bawer's book is as vivid an account of the history, the shifting rationalizations, and the rhetoric of victims' studies as we are ever likely to have.This owes something to his insider status.An openly gay man whose 1993 book, A Place at the Table, advanced the cause for integration of gays into mainstream society, Bawer is deeply sympathetic to academic work that emphasizes the history of groups who have struggled against prejudice. Moreover, he has been a participant in some of the key debates that shaped these fields.His chapter on how "gay studies" ("a serious academic discipline") was displaced by "queer studies" (a celebration of "oppositional relation to the norm") is the centerpiece of the book.He recounts his own disputes with queer theorists such as David Halperin, who attack him for criticizing the late Michel Foucault, whose view that sex is "socially constructed" is the founding principle of queer theory.
If sex is a social construct, somebody needs to inform the birds and the bees because they did not get the memo.
Fees for services vary depending on the area of the country one inhabits.
I've been collecting some from my area of Connecticut:
- Private practice legal services, paperwork: $300-450/hr, with volume discounts and pro-rated for time - Private legal services, court time: $500-600/hr - Home health aide: $20-25/hr - Home health, Registered Nurse: $40-70/hr - Nurse Anesthetist: $200/hr - Prep and insertion of dental implant (not including the crown): $1800. for about 30-40 mins. - Veterinary check-up (dog) plus shots and lots of labs: $1200. - Independent financial/estate advisor (non-legal): $200-500/hr - Auto mechanic: $30-60/hr - Babysitter: $15-20/hr (more if more kids) - Live-in nanny: $300-400/week - Registered Dietician: $125-150/hr - Brief office visit to Internist (10-15 mins, no tests): $125 - Internist, routine "annual" physical, not including labs/tests: $600. - Short visit to Dermatologist, with minor slicing and dicing: $250 - Shrink visits: $300-400/hr (pro-rated for time) - Harpist for parties: $150-175/hr - Piper (Bagpiper): $150-175/hr - Electronics repair: $175/hr (rarely worth it nowadays) - Home computer services: $200/hr - Master carpenter: approx $50/hr, less with bigger job - Painter: approx $25-40/hr, more with bigger job? - Master gunsmith (wood or steel work): $60-80/hr - Per diem bookkeeper: $35/hr - Chimney Sweep: $175/first chimney, $125 each additional - Yard work: $100/man-day
If you wish to share fees of various services in your area, please do so in the comments.
It includes some good, friendly discussion of social equality vs. economic equality, and of economic mobility which I see as one of the wonders of American society.
Here's one bit from Voegli, speaking to Noah:
I close by remarking on your wistfulness about the absence of internal radicals or external Communists who might prod us to equalize incomes. It is in keeping with your hopes, now certainly flagging, that Occupy Wall Street would catalyze a politically irresistible redistributive movement. In your book's final sentence-"The worst thing we could do to the Great Divergence is get used to it" - you are trying to say something to the Americans indifferent to that great crusade. But perhaps they, in their reluctance to enlist, are trying to say something to you about their abiding desire for economic vigor and absolute mobility, and their abiding fears about the power and decency of redistributive government.
The average US income, per person, in 2011 was about $45,000. Make that an income cap, with anything above taxed at 100%. As a start, I suggest that this example of equality begin with Washington politicians and federal employees. It might catch on.
Why stop with income? Let's address assets too, which are much more important for economic equality. The average American's net worth in 2011 was $77,000. Let's bring the pols and bureaucrats down to that too, and take the rest away from them for equality and the Common Good. Bernanke, too, and Obama, Harry Reid, John Kerry, The Clintons, Elizabeth Warren, etc. Maybe throw in Krugman, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates just for giggles, and confiscate all trusts.
I suggest that the same apply to the owners and staff of The New Republic and The NY Times. If it requires force, so be it.
For my plan to work, obviously the government will need to set the prices of everything because otherwise nobody could afford stuff. Hey - it might just work!
...to a surprising degree, it is women—not men—who are perpetuating the culture, especially in school, cannily manipulating it to make space for their success, always keeping their own ends in mind. For college girls these days, an overly serious suitor fills the same role an accidental pregnancy did in the 19th century: a danger to be avoided at all costs, lest it get in the way of a promising future.
I doubt that it is widely true that young women have become the sexual exploiters and predators, but I know it is true to some extent.
I woke early on the morning of the operation and lay in bed thinking about the young mother I had operated on the previous week. I had operated on a tumour deep in the right side of her brain and somehow – I do not know how since the operation had seemed to proceed uneventfully – I had caused a major stroke, so that she awoke from the operation paralysed down the left side of her body. I had probably tried to take too much of the tumour out. I had probably strayed too deeply into her brain. I must have been too self-confident. I had been insufficiently fearful. I longed for this next operation, the operation on the pineal tumour, to go well – that there should be a happy ending, that everybody would live happily ever after, Neurosurgeons look with awe and excitement at brain scans showing pineal tumours, like mountaineers looking up at a great peak that they hope to climb. and that I could feel at peace with myself once again.
It's a wonder how many physicians are natural writers. Dr. Marsh is one.
It's 
It's actually about general intelligence, aka "g," of which IQ is a standard measure. 
I have just finished reading 
Finally, the book got me interested in 
So much of political debates for the past 150 years have been about whether central control by supposed experts is preferable to private efforts to be good caretakers of their resources. 
Readers know that I have long rejected the notion of a college-level Liberal Arts-focused education as an economic investment. However, I have praised it as a potentially life-enhancing guided exploration more deeply into our culture and into current knowledge than secondary school can do (although good private schools can do it). "Cultivation of the mind" and all that.
Many horse owners, and pretty much all owners of horses of any value, purchase insurance packages including medical and death benefit.
Fees for services vary depending on the area of the country one inhabits.