Sunday, January 10. 2010
Our intertubes friend Right Wing Prof died on Thursday. He invited us to post this piece from him (which we did) in 2007 because he didn't think it fit the tone or purpose of his site -
Almost heaven, West Virginia
Blue Ridge Mountains
Shenandoah River -
Life is old there
Older than the trees
Younger than the mountains
Growin like a breeze
Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West Virginia, mountain momma
Take me home, country roads
Our friend Right Wing Prof at Right Wing Nation is a guest author today. His reminiscence is about West Virginia, clans, ancestors, his youth, and snake-handling preachers.
You've probably never heard of the Big Sandy River, the tributary of the Ohio River that separates eastern Kentucky from western West Virginia. It's even less likely that you've heard of the Twelvepole Creek, also a tributary (well, if you can call a creek a tributary) of the Ohio, in the mountains of West Virginia, or Wayne, the largest town in Wayne County.
So let me take you there.
I assume you've been through West Virginia on the interstate. If not, you're missing perhaps the most beautiful state in the United States. The license plates say Wild, Wonderful West Virginia, and a drive across the state on I-64 shows you how wild and how wonderful the state is. But to really see West Virginia, you have to get off the interstate and drive into the mountains.
If you take WV-152 from I-64 in Huntington, the state highway rapidly becomes a narrow, two-lane road that winds like a snake up and down the mountains and twists through the valleys, only a few miles, incidentally, from where the Hatfields and McCoys live. You are in Wayne County, and the beauty of the landscape contrasts sharply with the early twentieth-century shacks. Suddenly, you begin to climb the side of a mountain, and you realize you're driving into a town. The buildings are well-kept and much nicer and larger than the small shacks and rundown farms you were seeing along 152. The crest of the mountain is downtown Wayne, an attractive town with several large churches and local shops.
As the road takes you down the other side, though, you feel as if you are in a different community: The buildings on the back side of the mountain, deeper into Wayne County, are ramshackle, falling apart, very unlike the buildings on the front side and the top. Wayne feels almost like a movie set, presenting its best side to visitors from the city, and hiding its worst side behind the mountain.
Wayne is the county seat, with a little over 1,100 people. Our destination is East Lynn. Turn on 37, and the road gets even narrower as it takes you further into the mountains. You will suddenly see the steep, narrow valley widen in front of you as the road makes a sharp right turn, and before you is the Twelvepole. Just down the road is East Lynn, somewhat larger than Wayne, but noticeably poorer.
I have before gotten nasty cracks from people when they asked where my family was from and I told them. Let me say it now: I am not ashamed of these people. These are Scots-Irish, deeply religious, and fiercely proud, too proud to take government handouts, preferring instead to get along as best they can, people who work hard all their lives and live in poverty, yet give to their families and communities and do well by their families, not white trash sitting around on the front porch smoking corncob pipes and collecting welfare.
My great-grandfather, Laban, was born here in East Lynn, three days before Jefferson Davis was elected president of the CSA. Laban was from a poor branch of a prestigious family (my great-great-great-grandfather was Henry Clay's first cousin), and he married Nancy Ellen, from a land-wealthy local family (the wealthier branches of the Clay family live in Kentucky). My great-grandfather was a schoolteacher (mathematics), but had been afflicted all his life with some sort of stomach problem. Somehow, he managed to talk his wife into leaving not only the clan, but the state, and moved his family to southern Indiana, where he believed the sulfur water springs would help his health problems.
Continue reading "Clay Bond, aka Right Wing Prof, RIP: Country roads, take me home"
O.K.....the game is on!! Travel Scrabble. Keep it going. Change one letter of the bottom word posted in the comments and let's see where we get stuck and can't continue!
Rules: You cannot add letters. You can only use English. You can only change one letter - one letter only, please - and you cannot change the letter sequence.
Our starting word is TRIP - We will do the first one below, and all can add their words below (don't violate the rules, tho).
Friday, January 8. 2010
I believe that we all have an immature side which wishes - or sometimes pretends - that our unwise and ill-considered actions might not have negative consequences. Some people have more of that wish, some less. Also, some people learn from bad experience better than others.
(I am not talking about neurotics who unconsciously or semi-consciously invite trouble upon themselves.)
As parents, we often have to invent consequences, eg a spanking if they run into the street, or grounding if they defy a curfew. However, the best teacher of consequences isn't parental discipline: it's Mr. Reality, aka The School of Hard Knocks.
Dr. Dobson has a brief simple discussion of the topic: Behavior and Consequences - The effective use of a powerful parenting tool
A widely accepted truism in marketing is that sex sells. A recent academic study of movies finds that sex doesn’t sell. The study’s co-author found those attached to the truism resistant to the facts:
"When I presented these results at European Science Days this summer, I was struck by how hard it is to overcome preconceptions about the box-office consequences of highly graphic sexual content," says co-author Dean Keith Simonton of the University of California, Davis. "But not all truisms are true."
It wasn’t until I noticed a small squib in this morning’s newspaper that I was aware of the research report, which CNN reported about December 29th. (I wasn’t distracted by watching porn or looking at the lovelies occasionally appearing here at Maggie’s Farm. Actually, I’ve been enjoying the unfolding of my Optimist’s Prediction For 2010, as the portents darken for liberal-left activism and brighten for center-right activism.)
According to the study of 914 films released between 2001-2005, the largest sample yet studied, CNN leads with: “A recent study concluded that nudity and explicit sex scenes don’t translate to success for major motion pictures,” at US or international box offices or at the Academy Awards. A researcher at the Culture and Media Institute finds similar results for 2009:
This research also holds true for the 10 highest grossing movies of 2009. None contained graphic sex scenes and only one, "The Hangover," a raunchy comedy about a bachelor party in Vegas, featured a lot of sexual content. Others on the list, such as "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" "Star Trek" and "Avatar" contained mild sexual content while the rest contained little or no sexual content.
CNN quotes an author of the study:
"Sex did not sell, whether in the domestic or international box office, and even after controlling for MPAA rating," said Simonton, who is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis. “In other words, even among R movies, less graphic sex is better."
What did sell? “The top-grossing films in the study included movies like "Shrek 2;" "Spider-Man;" "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith" and "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," all of which contained mostly minor to mild sex and/or nudity.”
What about horny young men?
Tom Jacobs, staff writer for the research-driven consumer magazine Miller-McCune, wrote about the study and said there has long been the belief that the many young males who make up movie audiences are enthralled by female nudity.
"These researchers really put that belief to the test and crunched the numbers," Jacobs said. "What I took from the study is that a hint of sex is perhaps more enticing than out-and-out nudity."
That isn’t a surprise to those of us who love the great movies from the 1930’s to the 1950’s, where romance flourished, scenes faded away after the kiss, and viewers projected their own emotions and desires on to the screen, rather than today having to sit through another repetitive graphic humping on the screen.
At Maggie’s Farm, a few of us contributors enjoy occasionally posting a salacious photo, but the success of Maggie’s Farm is mostly owed to its cultural observations and photos. Our chief Bird Dog keeps that at the forefront of focus.
Let’s take an informal poll: readers please comment on our blog’s mix.
Thursday, January 7. 2010
What are "intellectuals" anyway?
When I was young and vain I thought I was one. I read lots of books, got myself overly-eddicated, used to read the New York Times daily, and robotically held most of the socially-acceptable, arrogant, bien pensant views. Now I know I am a regular person who just tries to live in reality as best I can, fully aware that many non-tweedy, non-Ivy grads understand life far better than I do. Uncommon sense and sensibilities can replace common sense. From Tom Sowell's new book, with interview video, at SDA:
Thomas Sowell on Intellectuals and Society - intellectuals certainly can renounce war, “and that does not stop your neighbor from building up the biggest army in the world and coming in and killing you.”
We used to ski the places on Rte. 93 quite a bit when the pups were younger. Wildcat and Gunstock Mtns, too. Less crowded and, truth be told, more genteel folks on average than on the Vermont slopes. I am partial to Loon, but Cannon Mtn. gets the prize for NH's funkiest, old-style place. Here's a brochure from the 1970s (Mittersill has been closed since the 70s):
Monday, January 4. 2010
 You will recall that the despicable race-monger and hate-monger Al Sharpton made his name with the Tawana Brawley case. It was, of course, a hoax, the victims of which were the then-15 year old Tawana herself - and police officer Steven Pagones.
Our link this morning to Powerline's The radical feminist empire strikes back at Duke got me to thinking about one of our perennial themes here at Maggie's (namely the bullsh-t people and the MSM feed us) which we specifically touched upon three years ago in a random post on Truthiness, from which I borrow these quotes:
An unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling lie.
Aldous Huxley
A historian who would convey the truth must lie. Often he must enlarge the truth by diameters, otherwise his reader would not be able to see it.
Mark Twain
All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie.
Bob Dylan
One of the most untruthful things possible, you know, is a collection of facts, because they can be made to appear so many different ways.
Dr. Karl Menninger
What is Truth?
Pontius Pilate
There is no doubt in my mind that many careerists, opportunists, cranks with an axe to grind, neurotic cause-seekers, victim addicts, grievance-seekers, and folks with passionate political agendas use Tawana Brawley Case methods to advance their causes. These people need problems to justify their work, their income, or their very raison d'etre. If they have a sociopathic streak, they are not above inventing or exaggerating those problems:
Those Duke profs want more rape.
The warmists want more warming.
The race-mongers want more racism.
The transfat haters want more heart attacks.
The capitalism-phobics want more poverty.
Educators want more ignorance.
The race-mongers want more black kids to fail in school.
The Moslems want to be insulted.
And so on. Yes, I always want more legal cases too.
Photo is Al Sharpton with Tawana Brawley, 1988.
Sunday, January 3. 2010
 At the wonderful Hall of the Fishes at New York's American Museum of Natural History there is a preserved female Anglerfish. Attached to her is a bump with a tiny tail on it, which looks like a parasite.
It isn't. It's the shrunken remnant of a male Anglerfish. The males attach themselves to a female, and their bodies shrink away into nothing but male gonads permanently attached to the females. (You can read about Anglerfish here.)
I was reminded of Anglerfish by Kay Hymowitz's piece at City Journal, "The Incredible Shrinking Father," which takes a look at voluntary single motherhood in America and the role of artificial insemination. It is remarkable that, in one generation, something that had been considered a family tragedy is now considered, by some anyway, a "lifestyle choice."
A quote from her essay:
You’d think that we had enough problems keeping fathers around in this country, what with out-of-wedlock births (over a third of all children are born to unmarried women, and, in most cases, the fathers will fade from the picture) and divorce (the average divorced dad sees his kids less often than he takes his car in for an oil change). But these days, American fatherhood has yet another hostile force to contend with: artificial insemination. This may sound a tad overheated. After all, AI has been around, by some accounts, for over a century. And the number of kids born through the procedure each year, though steadily growing, remains quite small relative to the millions of babies conceived, as we can now say completely without irony, the old-fashioned way.
But aided by a lucrative sperm-bank service industry, an increasingly unmarried consumer base, a legal profession and judiciary geared toward seeing relationships through a contractual lens, and a growing cultural preference for individual choice without limits, AI is advancing a cause once celebrated only in the most obscure radical journals: the dad-free family. There are multiple ironies in this unfolding revolution, not least that the technology that allows women to have a family without men promotes the very male carelessness that leads a lot of women to become single mothers in the first place. And fatherless families are a delicate proposition, as AI families are discovering, since all the scientists’ technology and all the lawyerly contracts can’t take human nature out of human reproduction.
Leaving aside the fact that single motherhood accounts for a large percentage of America's poverty stats (that's another article in itself), I consider voluntary single motherhood to be the height of selfishness, immoral, irresponsible, and no favor to a kid. I do not believe that "it takes a village" to raise a family, but I do think that, for a number of practical and psychological reasons which I will not go into now, it takes two parents to do it - one of each type. A couple of sets of grandparents, and some aunts and uncles, are good too, if you can get 'em. Paid help is no substitute because blood is thicker than money.
Fortunately, we live in a free country, and freedom implies the freedom to make stupid and irresponsible choices. That is why freedom requires maturity, education, intelligence, and restraint for things to work. Being a free citizen in a free republic demands a lot from a person, and all of us have to dig deep to find the strength.
You can read Hymowitz's entire piece here.
Image: A lovely female Anglerfish
Our old English long-case clock rang 12 times on New Year's Eve, as it has for my wife's family here in New England for between 240 and 300 years. There’s a note pinned inside by her great-great grandfather that reads “This clock was buried in the basement of one of our ancestors during the Battle of Bunker Hill” (which you will recall took place on June 17, 1775). History records that the London clockmaker, Devereaux Bowly, opened his shop in 1710 and died in 1773, so the clock had to have been made between those dates. My wife’s patronymic ancestor, a sea captain, was in Boston by 1736, so he could have brought it to Massachusetts any time during that period.
Of all the furniture that the past bequeathed to the current day, most of us have a particular soft spot for the long-case, or grandfather clock (so-named after the popular 1876 song, My Grandfather’s Clock). It is still and no doubt will be for many years to come the most popular form of household timepiece. Clocks give life to a room, but the tall clocks of the peculiar form that is now 300 years old have a special dignity. To the early American colonist, owning a clock was a status symbol. Most people of that time could not afford a clock of their own and had to rely on the church clock on the town common for the time of day. Privately owned clocks were only found in the finest of homes and were certain to be displayed in a prominent place for all to view.
Long-case pendulum clocks were still a new invention in 1736. In 1580 the Astronomer Galileo observed a swinging lamp suspended by a long chain from a cathedral ceiling. He studied its swing and discovered that each swing was equal and had a natural rate of motion. He later found this rate of motion depended upon the length of the chain or pendulum. In 1640 he designed a clock mechanism incorporating the swing of a pendulum, but he died before building his clock design.
It wasn’t until 1656 that Galileo’s pendulum principle was put to use by Dutch scientist Christian Huygens, who was the first to develop a pendulum based clock. Huygens’s invention however allowed clocks to run accurately to the point of three minutes loss or gain per day. Some years later in 1670 the English clockmaker William Clement noticed that a longer pendulum kept better time, so he lengthened the pendulum to over three feet. This of course required a longer case for the clockworks, and so the long-case clock was born. From then on the clocks were variously called long-case clocks, floor clocks, and even coffin clocks because they resembled the shape and size of the simple wooden coffins of that time.
Grandfather clocks were first made for royal families and nobles, but in time their production cost were cut down to where they were affordable for merchant families and became a symbol of socio-economic status and wealth.
Around 1685, long-case clocks were imported into American colonies for the first time and roughly 10 years later their construction in the New World began. New York, New England, Pennsylvania and Virginia became long-case clock making centers, but, until the 19th century American introduction of inexpensive brass movements, English clockmakers reined supreme.
Ed. note: I'm sure most of our readers are familiar with My Grandfather's Clock:
Friday, January 1. 2010
 Why don't colleges just collect all of the grievance study groups and put them in one department. Fat Studies, Anorexia Studies, Queer Studies, Women's Studies, Hispanic Studies, Black Studies, Indian Studies, Transexual Studies, Lesbian Studies, Klutz Studies, Oppressed Studies, Ugly Studies, Not-Too-Smart Studies, Too-Short Studies, etc.
You could call it Boo Hoo Studies, and in it you could sequester everyone who expects college to cater to their narcissism instead of teaching them about bigger, better, and more important things than themselves. Baby bottles in the coke machine, over in that department.
Eventually, they will need to include one more increasingly marginalized and disenfranchised minority in Boo Hoo Studies - Regular People Living Without Grievance. RPLWG just can't get a break these days, can they?
Editor's note: Or, to borrow the phrase from The Anchoress, could it be called the "It's All About Me" Studies Department?
 Sig Sauer P239 CCP: High Quality Carry Gun.
I never leave home without my carry gun, my keys, my wallet with some cash in it, and my cell. Who would?
Update: In response to queries, I now carry a Colt Cobra with which I very much enjoy trying to shoot beer bottles and cans down on the lower 40. Do not mess with me if you see me in downtown Hartford.
I have never needed to aim a gun at a person while in civilian clothing, although I have performed a Dick Cheney once or twice in thick woods with birdshot. Most bird hunters have. It's something to be avoided, because it pisses off your pals and makes them reluctant to invite you again.
 I have been taking a little time to think about how participating in a website like Maggie's, if you don't watch out, can have the effect of making you run faster and faster to keep up with the latest idea/opinion/reaction etc.
(Here's a clip from Dylan's 1978 No Time to Think from his Street Legal album. Lyrics here)
I can react, but I cannot really think, while looking at a screen - or while reading at all. I can reflect on something when I put down the book or close the page. I can reflect, and perhaps generate a thought, only by getting away for a bit from external input so I can hear some "internal input."
Am I unusual? Almost everybody I know thinks they have some degree of ADD.
I know everybody's mind works differently under different circumstances. My brain tends to think impressionistically, not sequentially and in linear fashion (except when it is demanded of me or, less often, when I demand it of myself - then it kicks into gear), and works best when I am under some sensory deprivation, like in the shower, in the car with the radio off, or with closed eyes. That's when ideas and connections come to me from my pre-conscious.
Giving myself a writing assignment is one way to force myself to think sequentially. Most of the time, no interesting thoughts appear and I end up trashing the piece. Opie likes to say "Those who can, think. Those who can't, link." We link a lot here at Maggie's, but I'd like to try to steer Maggie's away from trying to cover news. Had we the time and the brains, I'd like to post more pieces like neoneo's Give Me Liberty or Give Me Social Justice along with our usual eclectic mix of fun and/or informative non-political stuff.
Having thoughts and ideas is a discipline, like prayer. But disciplines can become good habits over time.
This year, I resolve to think more.
Related, College asks students to power down, contemplate
And here's a Google Tech Talk on the topic from Computer Science Prof. David Levy -
The charming New Year's Babe is via Theo, of course.
Thursday, December 31. 2009
A Dr. B. re-post from our long-ago archives -
"Why do I do all these things for Jim, Dr Bliss, when for the past six months I can't stand his presence and I can't even stand the way he eats? Is it because I feel guilty, or have no self-esteem?"
Guilty? Self-esteem? It's of interest to me how the morality-free zone of psycho-babble in our popular culture can obscure the persistence of the old virtues, even among those who live them.
The language of duty, loyalty, honor, self-sacrifice, endurance, perseverance, reliability, courage, self-reliance - the things Bill Bennet wrote about - has been replaced by a language of "feeling" and "guilt" in some strange and ill-informed distortion of psychoanalytic understandings.
Indeed, "my feelings" appear to have replaced the virtues to the point that "not being true to your feelings" is like a modern-day sin. And yes, I guess it is a sin - if you regard yourself as a god.
But back to my patient. I know her well enough to know that she was raised with the sturdy Mid-Western Presbyterian virtues, internalized them, and lives them. Her kindness and thoughfulness with her husband are driven by character (in the old sense of the word) - not guilt, and surely not, at the moment anyway, by "loving feelings." For her, it would not be so much "guilt" in betraying her character - it would be "failure." And not life failure, but a failure to be who she was built to be.
The point I want to make is not about my patient's psychology, or how she ought to deal with her situation. That's another subject. It's about the pop-psych assumptions that are in the air that would cause a person who "does the right thing" despite her emotions of the moment is somehow afflicted by "guilt" or some other pathology (although guilt is not a pathology), rather than being a mature person whose habits of character are stronger than her emotions.
I sometimes joke that if we were all true to our feelings, we'd all be in jail.
A few take-home points:
- Distrust the elevation of "feeling" over character. It is immature. That is not to say that we should ignore our emotions - it's just that they are not sacred, they are seldom what they seem, and they can be very poor guides to life. Contrary to popular misunderstanding, psychoanalytic thinking does not make emotions sacred: they are just surface data points.
- Guilt is neither a pathology nor a sin. In my experience, guilt is usually well-earned. So-called "neurotic guilt" is a psychological issue for some, but those with plenty of it never know they have it, without therapy.
- "Character" - meaning virtuousness, not personality type - is culturally-defined, and transmitted mainly via family with, one would hope, the support of genetics and of the surrounding culture.
- The only definition of "failure" I have is failure of character. We should feel like a failure when we fail in the virtues that we have been raised on - assuming that they are a worthy set of virtues. When we fail, we should repent, seek forgiveness, beat ourselves up a bit, contemplate our shortcomings, learn, and move forward.
- Despite the prevalence of amoral, pop-psychological language, decent people still live, or struggle to live, according to the time-honored virtues. If they do not - keep your distance and beware, because they are "coming from a different place" and are playing by a different rule-book.
New Years Eve. Time to party hearty? Been there, done that in youth. No more. There's no point to it.
We ask our readers to please drink responsibly. Each reader is precious to us, and we cannot afford to lose one to a traffic accident.
Speaking of alcohol abuse and alcoholism, here's an interesting report on The Three Types of Alcoholism. I am not sure whether it corresponds well to my clinical experience or not. Probably not. However, this does:
The authors note that this finding supports two pathways to alcoholism: one where drinking represents a tendency to behave impulsively and seek excitement, and a second where drinking is used to relieve negative mood states and reduce behavioral inhibition.
In other words, substance addiction often - but not always - has underpinnings of either neuroticism or sociopathy. In the end, every human - drunk or sober - is a unique individual with his own basket of issues.
Wednesday, December 30. 2009
 Probably yes.
While I am quite pleased and content with my own (first) marriage, when I talk with unhappy people, which I do all day, I am often reminded that the nuclear family is a very recent invention, that the notion of romantic love is also recent, that arranged marriages and marriages of convenience or necessity were the norms of the past, and that humans are not "naturally" monogamous - whatever I might mean by "naturally".
When you put the nuclear family together with dreams of enduring romantic love, it's a set-up for disappointment. The nuclear family, unlike the extended family (or the tribe), is isolating and does not provide a broad base of support in life. Intense romantic love, unlike plain old-fashioned strong attraction and desire, is a regressed state of mind - some shrinks half-jokingly call it a form of insanity. Not that it isn't great fun, but it gives way to reality in time, although the best marriages can rekindle the old feeling from time to time.
One thing that is probably not talked about enough is how many marriages are not founded in "true love," but instead are founded on loneliness, desire for companionship, desire for babies, desire for security, fear of becoming an old maid, friendship, desire for a social foundation, etc. This is not a bad thing, but I sometimes wonder whether the contrived and ridiculously costly fairy-tale trappings of the typical American wedding is designed to obscure those facts. Young folks these days often talk about having "friends with benefits" while they await true love, without realizing that "friends with benefits" can be one description of one kind of satisfying marriage.
But to get back on track here, yes, I believe that we tend to wish that a marriage could meet all of our emotional and physical needs. Shrinks term that a regressive, ie childish, wish - not just because it is unrealistic, but also because if emphasizes the "meeting my needs" aspect of a relationship rather than emphasizing "how can I try to give these people (wife, kids) a good life".
It's a truism that people thrive when they have multiple sources for emotional care, and many outlets for love and caring. Friends, colleagues, neighbors, members of clubs or churches, etc, Making and keeping good friends is not really an easy thing to do, and I don't know anyone who doesn't want one, or doesn't want another one. In fact, I suspect that one reason moms want jobs these days is because they feel isolated with their kids.
Althouse noted a NYT op-ed piece by History Prof Stephanie Coontz about the limits of marriage. Althouse comments:
The problem, in Coontz's view, is not only that we deny ourselves the happiness to be found in friendships, but also that by expecting so much from one romantic relationship, we can put so much pressure on it that it breaks. What's worse, if the marriage was our source of happiness, we have nothing.
Quotes from the Coontz piece:
A study released this year showed just how dependent we’ve become on marriage. Three sociologists at the University of Arizona and Duke University found that from 1985 to 2004 Americans reported a marked decline in the number of people with whom they discussed meaningful matters. People reported fewer close relationships with co-workers, extended family members, neighbors and friends. The only close relationship where more people said they discussed important matters in 2004 than in 1985 was marriage.
In fact, the number of people who depended totally on a spouse for important conversations, with no other person to turn to, almost doubled, to 9.4 percent from 5 percent. Not surprisingly, the number of people saying they didn’t have anyone in whom they confided nearly tripled.
The solution to this isolation is not to ramp up our emotional dependence on marriage. Until 100 years ago, most societies agreed that it was dangerously antisocial, even pathologically self-absorbed, to elevate marital affection and nuclear-family ties above commitments to neighbors, extended kin, civic duty and religion.
Read the whole thing here.
Mr. Nyquist has a post about truth, with abundant cool quotes including this from Nietzche: "Nobody dies nowadays of a fatal truth. There are too many antidotes to them." A quote from his piece:
Truth never grows old, unlike the daily news or petty gossip. The truth, furthermore, requires special handling. Those who bungle had best carry a lie. In this regard, we should think on government and bureaucrats. "It is error alone that needs the support of government," wrote Thomas Jefferson. "Truth can stand by itself." And of course, it usually does stand by itself -- with nobody anywhere near it. "I tell the truth, not as much as I would but as much as I dare," wrote Montaigne. "And I dare more and more as I grow older."
There is also Oscar Wilde's admonition: "If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out." Or as they say in Yugoslavia, "Speak the truth and run."
This one came in over the transom a few years ago:
Sales: "You want answers?"
Finance: "I think we are entitled to them!"
Sales: "You want answers?!"
Finance: "I want the truth!"
Sales: "You can't handle the truth!!! Son, we live in a world that requires net license revenue. And that revenue must be brought in by people with elite skills. Who's going to find it? You? You, Mr. Operations? We have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom.
You scoff at the sales division and you curse our lucrative incentives.
You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what we know:
That while the cost of business results are excessive, it drives revenue. And my very existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, drives REVENUE! You don't want to know the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at staff meetings ... you want me on that call. You NEED me on that call!
We use words like upgrades, another round, top-shelf, medium-rare, on-the-rocks, cabernet, Cohiba and foursome. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent negotiating something. You use them as a punch line!
I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to people who rise and sleep under the very blanket of revenue I provide and then question the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said "thank you" and went on your way. Otherwise I suggest you pick up a phone and make some sales calls. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to!"
Finance: "Did you expense the lap dancers?"
Sales: "I did the job I was hired to do."
Finance: "Did you expense the lap dancers?!"
Sales: "You're goddamn right I did!"
Tuesday, December 29. 2009
 On Friday morning a patient told me that he liked to hire people who are in AA because he knows that they struggle with honesty, and take the subject seriously - and often know more first-hand about dishonesty than most.
So thanks to Assistant Village Idiot for noting a relevant piece by the always interesting Kling at TCS on the anthropological subject of "trust cues" in human relationships and especially in affiliative groups (tribes), That's Your Cue.
Are humans tribal? You bet they are. And it often makes good sense to be.
Trust cues are our ways of indicating that we are members of a group, or tribe, and that it is important for us to be a member in good standing. In a sense, my patient took AA "membership" as a trust cue, because he knows they talk about honesty all the time in AA.
My favorite example of a trust cue which is ceremonially acknowledged is the "made man" in the Mafia: the guys know they can fear and trust him because he has blood on his hands. A similar example might be admission to any exclusive club.
But trust cues aren't always rational or reliable. For example, I have a bias towards trusting the intentions of serious Christians but, as far as I know, serious Christians are as morally flawed as everyone else. I suppose I'd like to believe that we, like the AA "members," worry more about how we treat others.
Thus trust cues do not necessarily mean "trust" in a moral sense, but more "trust that we're on the same page;" that we view the world somewhat similarly, and/or that we share enough similar life experience to constitute some sort of group membership.
When I attend a psychoanalytic meeting, I know it's my "club:" mere attendance indicates some fundamental interest in unconscious processes. When I go to my church, I know I'm with my "tribe:" we are all interested enough in Christ to show up. And, come to think about it - if you really want to see a trust cue festival, attend a Dartmouth alumni Christmastime cocktail party: you have never seen so much green conviviality since St. Patrick's Day in NYC.
What Kling does, in his discussion of Wade's book Before the Dawn, is to note the ways in which dogma (as opposed to truth) is used or abused to indicate group membership.
Wade says that the evolutionary value of trust cues is that they facilitate peaceful interactions among strangers. When I offer a trust cue, I am saying that even though we do not know one another, I am a member of a trustworthy group. I value my membership in that group, and I know that lying to or cheating another member of that group could cause me to be excommunicated from the group. Since you are also a member of the group, you can trust me not to lie to you or to cheat you.
However,
...political beliefs serve primarily as trust cues. For example, those who favor an increase in the minimum wage are sending trust cues to people on the Left, and those who oppose an increase in the minimum wage are sending trust cues to people on the Right.
The actual consequences of raising the minimum wage are rarely discussed. In other words, political debates often ignore what I call Type C arguments (from empiricism) and turn instead to type M arguments, which accuse one's opponent of belonging to an outcast group. The reason for this is that people are not trying to persuade each other rationally. Instead, they are using trust cues to indicate that failure to agree implies excommunication from the group.
It has been my view that the current fad of getting upset about global warming is a trust cue, and little more. What it actually proclaims is "I am virtuous and I care a lot, and I don't mind more government control over things." The science, and the real empirical debate, lies outside the cue structure. Assertion of tribal membership is what such political postures are all about.
Read Kling's piece here, and Asst. Village Idiot's comments here. Interesting stuff.
Monday, December 28. 2009
Almost everyone agrees that 2009 is ending on a troubled or fearsome note. That leaves little space for my tendency toward optimism. Yet I still remain optimistic.
Why? I believe that the activism of free individuals, alone and in concert, is an increasing force in the US and elsewhere in the world. This activism is near the tipping point of capability to overturn the heretofore entrenched oligarchies of the self-serving. In 2010, this revolt of the masses will begin toppling power structures that restrict instead of serving to enlarge opportunities.
Although some shifts may be radical, it won’t be a revolt led by radicals nor will radicals take over in its wake. The revolt toward individual freedoms will be by the majorities of common-sense pragmatists, empowered by modern means to communicate and organize despite statist efforts to stifle these abilities. Extremists and false populists will be more quickly exposed and rejected.
Whatever their political label, the entrenched oligarchies throughout the world are as one in their primacy upon feathering and protecting their own nests. In most countries their selfish actions are recognized as already or becoming over-reaching, with reckless abandon endangering existing or nascent basic freedoms and economic security. Rapidly expanding numbers of citizens are moving to activism, in the voting booths and the streets, as excuses, rationalizations, and lies are less and less tolerated.
Realities are unavoidable. Those on the left admit that their year of “hope” has instead been politically hackneyed, essentially hollow, and played out. Those on the right tend to get mired in the undeniable fears that across the board the acts of those in control of Washington have set us up for disasters, from economy-stifling taxes and spending to restricted and intrusive health care to weakened national security to fickled alliances. Those less overtly partisan struggle to even find a middle-ground between troubled and afraid.
In 2010, those who wish to lead and succeed will be innovative, constructive optimists who unite us to go beyond just complaining. The US is still the leader of the world’s aspirations because we are more selflessly optimistic, and act that way. As we, the people, again show the way, those elsewhere in the world will be encouraged to move in a similar direction toward demanding and getting increased freedom from failed oligarchies of greed.
The coming year will not be the end of statist profiteers, but the optimistic beginning of their end, at least for this generation.
With half the world either on vacation, spaced out, "enjoying" family, skiing, lounging in the Caribbean over Mohitos and Rum Punches, or too busy digesting cookies to spare time for the intertubes, it seems like a good time to mix in some daily Dr. B. re-runs from our archives.
This one, "A Good Spanking," is from 2007.
 The proposed anti-spanking law in California has been much discussed, as here at Education Wonks. Also, Raven.The story has also been much mocked: Blame Bush notes that spanking can lead to things which are considered "disorders" in California, such as respect for authority, consideration of rules, self-discipline, and awareness of consequences.
There may be some shrinks who are opposed to corporal punishment, but I do not think that I know any. There are many situations for which I would recommend corporal punishment (eg ignoring a rule about playing in the street, or accidentally pointing a BB gun at somebody, or being sadistic with a sibling or a pet - for a few examples) and, in general, I think it is preferable to withdrawal of love or attention (ie, "time-outs," which I think are usually applied when the adult needs the break from the kid. That is, a "time-out" is a cop-out.).
In fact, I think schools ought to be able to administer corporal punishment too. I received my share, and not only did it not harm me - I think it helped me (in retrospect!). It "concentrates the mind," assists the memory, sets a firm limit, and demonstrates "tough love." A reasonable degree of anger is an essential accompaniment.
What I observe more than anything else is that defiant, obnoxious, or even "conduct disordered" kids - and sometimes just naughty kids, get sent to psychiatrists and social workers before anyone tries forceful discipline - as if growing up respectful and obedient were automatic. For many it is, but for many it is not.
Never forget that when a young adult messes with a drill sargent, watch out. When an adult messes with a cop, that adult will be taught a very firm physical lesson. When an adult breaks a serious rule, men without smiles with loaded guns will come and point them at your chest, throw you to the floor, cuff you, and lock you away in a small room with Bubba-With-No-Teeth who is big and strong and feeling lonely.
So a good whuppin', when needed, isn't really so bad. It beats humiliation by a long shot. When the rules of life are not internalized, they need to be enforced externally until they are - which for some people means never. Some fear is very useful in life to keep us out of trouble. We can be their friends later, after they grow up a bit.
Spare the rod and spoil the child. Do not listen to those who deliberately and sneakily try to conflate punishment with child abuse, and never let the government tell you how to raise your kids. In case you haven't noticed yet, the government is an idiot.
Related: Dr. Helen on kids who kill
Image: Boy being birched by teacher, no doubt deservedly, while other students observe. 1375.
I should have known that the line to get into the Guggenheim yesterday would wrap around the block. Thus we just returned the pupette to her apartment with her Christmas loot in time for her to cook a post-Christmas dinner for friends (I think Julia and Julie inspired her), and we banged around town a little. Lousy photographer.
I do love NYC for its vitality. I think this is the Ukrainian mission to the UN on the right:
The walk-up in Yorkville on 85th where Mrs. BD first lived when she moved to NYC. I hiked up those stairs many times to the fifth floor. It was worth the effort.
Very convenient to the dry-cleaners -
More below the fold -
Continue reading "NYC yesterday"
Sunday, December 27. 2009
 Had enuf cookies yet?
Among the host of other Christmas goodies, the BD pupettes produced a couple of dozen Ginger Snaps made with grated fresh ginger. All other Ginger Snaps pale in comparison.
Friday, December 25. 2009
 Our Christmas holiday, or feast day, or Holy Day, is a stew of thousands of years of solstice festivals with plenty of ancient gods in the mix.
Indeed, Christmas' pagan ancestry is just one reason Puritan (Congregationalist) Protestants made it a crime to celebrate it. (Another was that it was a Roman Catholic feast day.)
Here's the history of Christmas tree ornaments.
Here's Is Christmas a pagan holiday?
This Christmas Tree History site recalls:
The Puritans banned Christmas in New England. Even as late as 1851, a Cleveland minister nearly lost his job because he allowed a tree in his church. Schools in Boston stayed open on Christmas Day through 1870, and sometimes expelled students who stayed home.
The Christmas tree market was born in 1851 when Catskill farmer Mark Carr hauled two ox sleds of evergreens into New York City and sold them all. By 1900, one in five American families had a Christmas tree, and 20 years later, the custom was nearly universal.
That is good marketing.
Readers know that I love Christmas for all of its historical and current pagan, secular, and religious meanings.
I spent Christmas Eve, as usual, with dear friends and family - and candlelight at church. That is all magical for me and my family. We try not to over-spend.
May yours be merry and bright.
Tuesday, December 22. 2009
 The Dem long-term goal is complete government control of medical care, as in Canada. They make no bones about that.
Their House and Senate bills take a big step in that direction. They do it by mandating the purchase of medical insurance - and then regulating what your insurance must pay for. From what I can tell, they are not really mandating insurance at all - they are mandating that most or all of your medical bills get paid by the general population, depending on what government panels deem worthy of coverage for you (watch that process become immediately politicized).
Thus the need for the hefty tax increases and for an inevitable leap in insurance prices. That leap in prices, down the road, will, the Dems hope, lead to people crying for the government to jump in completely. That's always the plan: break something, then arrive on the scene to "fix it."
A wiser path - but one which would never lead to Canadian medicine - would have been to disconnect medical insurance from the workplace, to ensure portability, to create high-risk subsidized pools (as is done for high risk drivers in auto insurance) for those who cannot purchase insurance, to take down interstate barriers to insurance competition so that people have the choice to buy whatever sort they want, and to do some tort reform so that docs do not need to spend $40-200,000/yr on their insurance. Plus no mandate - it isn't American to force everybody to buy something if they do not want the product.
(As I have mentioned in the past, I like my family medical insurance. It is portable, cheap catastrophic insurance which cannot be canceled - and which would become illegal under the Dem plan. The Dem plan requires me to buy all sorts of junk I neither want nor need.)
Related: The healthcare backlash is coming. Or maybe it already has. People know that this thing is a dog...not to insult our canine friends.
Also, via Insty:
PETER WEHNER: The Health-Care Backlash. “This health-care bill may well be historic, but not in the way the president thinks. I’m not sure we’ve ever seen anything quite like it: passage of a mammoth piece of legislation, hugely expensive and unpopular, on a strict party-line vote taken in a rush of panic because Democrats know that the more people see of ObamaCare, the less they like it.”
You would think that a farm barn is a farm barn is a farm barn, but it's not true. There are significant differences between regions and even countries.
In colonial New England, farmers naturally adopted the "English" style barn - basically a square framed box with a moderate pitched roof. It was not easily adaptable and eventually the "New England" barn evolved which was adaptable and expandable. Sadly, a lot of these barns no longer exist.
The Brunn Barn was one of the early progenitors of the "New England Barn" and has an interesting history in that it - well, no other way to put it - was "lost" for a while. Originally, the barn sat on the Brunn property which changed hands. The barn was moved to a different location on Butts Road near what was then Annhurst College (now the Woodstock Middle School and Hyde School complex) where it sat for most of the better part of hundred and fifty years. It was used as a general purpose storage building and even then, it didn't get much use. So it effectively was lost as everybody just thought it was an old building left hanging on eventually deemed a "hazard" and subject to razing - the building had fallen into some disrepair and externally was covered with tar paper shingles.
As it happened, Dr. George Looby, a large animal vet was looking for a barn for use as an agricultural exhibit for the antique tractor and farm equipment section of the Fair. This building was mentioned as a possible candidate and when Dr. Looby investigated, he discovered its history. It is built using the "scribe rule framing" post and beam construction technique - every mortise and tenon joint is unique to that joint only - they are not interchangeable as they would be in square rule framing. Scribe rule was the hallmark of New England Barns of the time period.
The Brunn Barn was moved to the Fair grounds and restored to its original condition. It now houses the mechanical and operations agricultural exhibition of the Woodstock Fair presenting the equipment and tools of the time period in which it was built.
Monday, December 21. 2009
The Senate vote for cloture on the Reid-negotiated and bought version of ObamaCare will shape the coming decades’ politics as surely as the Congressional votes to virtually abandon South Vietnam shaped its’ following decades.
For the past three and a half decades, the clearest dividing line and predictor of how we and our leaders would approach issues, ranging from the social to the geopolitical, is the position – contemporaneous or in retrospect -- held about the US Congress’ votes to not meet US pledges to supply and aid South Vietnam in the face of North Vietnam’s heavily Soviet and Chinese supplied continued armed and logistical build-up and massive invasion.
In the reaction to President Nixon’s deserved fall, an overwhelmingly Democrat and anti-Vietnam war Congress was elected in 1974, determined to overturn US foreign policy. Polls were equivocal, at least providing some cover or excuse. In the wake of President Obama’s undeserved credence to govern from the center, an overwhelmingly Democrat and liberal Congress was elected in 2008, determined to instead legislate from the left and overturn US domestic policy. This time, polls are decisively opposed, but ignored, and there’s no cover or excuse.
Basically, in both cases, we went from a nation following a course – as befuddled as it may be – of determination to pursue freedoms to a nation that waffles freedoms away. Basically, our “conservative”, “liberal” and “moderate” postures toward most issues over the past decades have been in line with how we view the causes and outcomes of our Vietnam involvement. So, too, will our future divides and postures be determined by how we now or come to view the causes and outcomes of reshaping almost a fifth of the US economy and almost 100% of our personal and fiscal health.
The divides over Vietnam were partisan but, also, crossed political party lines. The results, however, increased later realignments and partisanship. The straight party-line vote in the Senate on ObamaCare is a consequence, and will lead to an even sharper divide in how the political parties are and will be viewed.
There are no Profiles In Courage to be found in the tactical refusal to propose a fleshed-out free market Republican alternative to the statist approach by the Democrats. There are no Profiles In Courage to be found in the refusal by the controlling Democrats to allow anything but capitulation or purchased whoredom from critics.
At this point, there’s been so much damage to our faith in Washington, regardless of our dispositions on health care or political affiliation, that there’s cause for all who would be honest about it – or will come to be -- to be in despair.
However, there’s real reason to not be in despair, indeed to be quite hopeful.
Whatever version of ObamaCare emerges from conference between the Senate and the House, the core deceptive tactic by the Democrats to hide true costs creates the means of their ultimate defeat. With added reflection on what the Democrats have steamrolled, and various new taxes that kick in before most of the statist “benefits”, the reaction of voters in 2010 will likely be an increased Republican membership in the Congress. At that time, Republicans in Congress will be – and should be – held fully accountable to stop ObamaCare cold in its tracks, and to really fight for free-market reforms that actually increase choice while reducing costs. If not, look for the emergence of a new political party actually representing the majority of Americans. Either way, Americans who believe in personal freedom will win.
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