Maggie's Farm

People are talking about the new Brit socialist/communist blog, Liberal Conspiracy. It is remarkable to me that, with so many years of Labour power and their disheartening, intrusive programs, that there are still people in the UK who want more government in their lives.

Our thoughtful friend Chris at Stumbling and Mumbling, with whom we generally disagree, discusses the two types of "Positive Liberty," which are at odds with the "Classical Liberalism" which we stand for here. A quote:

But there’s a second type of positive freedom... It’s that people must be empowered to control their lives - they must have real liberty, as well as formal liberty.
This means, for example, greater direct democracy in local and national government, worker control and a no-strings-attached basic income.

Heck, I want a free Lamborghini.

But thus does the "new," FDR-era definition of "liberty" become an infantile and spineless serfdom to a supposedly benevolent, but ultimately psychotically power-hungry State. It always works that way, human nature being the dark thing that it is. But I guess I would be OK with a Philosopher-King - as long as it's me, and not you - because I seek no power over anybody except my dogs.

What's the point of all of this in prosperous, middle-class countries which are full of opportunities for anyone who wants to reach for them... assuming they are not either dysfunctional, or the fortunate people who are motivated by the good things in life above and beyond material gain, and choices which cost money like recreation, entertainment, education, and special comforts and pleasures? God bless 'em, but I am not one of them (mostly) because there are too many things I'd lke to do which have costs attached. Like another ten days in Tuscany or Turkey or Scotland. My basic human dignity will not permit me to take things from others: it's degrading and leads to shame and shame's companion - bitterness, rather than the pride in finding your own path through life. A path illuminated by your own conscience, abilities, gifts, judgement, resourcefulness, hopes and dreams.

In my view, "positive liberty" represents, or necessitates, a form of totalitarianism (whether democratic in origin or not), and "classical liberalism" is far more than a pretty abstraction.

Has the dream ended? Are people in the West exhausted by fighting for freedom from the State, and resigning themselves to an ignoble "Gimme" attitude? I hope not, but sometimes I wonder.

Photo: Our Massachusetts Minuteman, who was not fighting the Brits for a free lunch, but for autonomy and self-determination, freedom from the State and its power and its oppressive taxation at gunpoint.

We posted on Theodore Dalrymple's new book today. As many know, Dalrymple, whose real name is Anthony Daniels, M.D., is a retired Brit prison psychiatrist.

Here is a list of his books. If anybody can find a photo of him, let me know. I can't.

Thanks Opie - that was quick! A pleasant, benevolent-looking fellow with a pack of smokes in his shirt pocket.

And thanks to Mr. Vanderleun for another photo, and a bio, here.

That is of course, a too-skinny Callas, with her weakened and beaten-up voice at the end of her career - but who wants to judge Callas?

Having seen the rarely-performed 1917 comic opera Gianni Schicchi for the first time yesterday, I can finally put Mio babbino caro into full context. As the Bird Dog daughter said yesterday, "It's not even an aria. It's too short, and there is no refrain. It's just sung lines. Should be longer."

In the plot, Gianni (we call him "Johnny"), the crafty lawyer, manages to create a fake will for a wealthy Florentine family friend giving everything to himself, thus providing his daughter with a sufficent dowry to marry the aristocratic boy she loves. Gianni, in Dante's Inferno, can be found in the 9th circle of hell - yet there was redemption in love: her little song was what persuaded her dad cross the line. What dad could not be similarly moved?

A propos the link this morning about lying about infant mortality (but also a propos everything else) we urge all readers and all Americans to read Darrell Huff's classic How to Lie with Statistics.

You do not need to be a math whiz to understand it, but if you don't know this basic stuff, you will be easily duped. Duped expecially by the MSM, which is not only biased in data presentation but is also widely ignorant about the most basic statistics.

In the link we mentioned above, the report was making an "apples and oranges error", known as a "Category Error."  It's the same error involved in the report that showed the world's best cancer center, Sloan-Kettering Memorial in NYC, as having the worst mortality rates of American hospitals. Data can be technically accurate, yet meaningless. Similarly, the most talented docs often have the lowest success rates because they take on the toughest cases.

Money manager acquaintances have told me how they make their numbers look good: they select their best time frame to present, and they decide whether to include or exclude new money added during that time frame. That is a fallacy known as selection bias. A good example at the bottom here: how different would the impression be if you just charted June to November?

Speaking of money managers, I have also enjoyed Jones' How to Lie with Charts and Graphs. Fun to peruse.

A snap of the interior of St. Peter's Church (1837), where we saw Pucchini's one-act Gianni Schicchi yesterday performed by the Chelsea Opera.

Exterior:

23rd St. in Chelsea, down from the church:

I stand in awe of the people out there in the world who can design and make the real things that make the real world work, while the rest of us take it all for granted as we pursue other things.

There is an entirely unjustified arrogance, I think, often found in those of us who have more purely abstract work and interests, as if there were something lesser about building things that make trains run. There is surely some insecurity hiding behind that superiority - the insecurity of knowing eternal Shakespeare perhaps, but not having a clue about magnetic detection of invisible flaws in rails - or even about how trains really work.

Like me, many of us would be lost and helpless - thrown back into the stone age - if the everyday, underpaid and underappreciated practical  geniuses disappeared.

The Sperry Rail-flaw detector is my case in point today. You could not run a safe railroad without these funky yellow machines, which you can see around regularly, perched on sidings, if you ride rails. Nowadays, they use ultrasound probes. Photo of an older one below, and details of Dr. Elmer Sperry's remarkable career here. As you can see, his useful company - one of 8 manufacturing businesses he created - is still in business in good old Danbury, CT, once the hat-manufacturing capital of the US (and the home of Charles Ives). Thanks, C., for the inspiration.

Thanks to a loyal Yankee reader for this snap of a Great Black-Backed Gull on the blustery Connecticut coast this week with what I would identify as a small cold-water-loving Winter Flounder in his beak. A tasty sushi dinner for  either man or bird.

Our majestic Great Black-Backed is the largest gull in the world, and has been extending his range southward along the Atlantic coast for thirty years. Who knows why? But he competes effectively with our regular, abundant Yankee Herring Gull, a very fine, handsome, large and sturdy bird too, for whom Nor'easters and hurricanes are no big deal, and just an excuse for aerial acrobatics.

"How To" books and sites are great fun to read, even if you never actually do the thing. I have been perusing Home Depot's Home Improvement 1-2-3 with great enjoyment and edification. Since I do not ever plan to retire, I don't know when I will find the time to try most of these things, but it's fun to know how they are done.

And speaking of "How-To" books, one would have to place the Kama Sutra on top, as it were. It was written by the Hindu sage Vatsyayana between the 2nd and 4th centuries, for prosperous male urbanites, not for the masses. It was meant for spiritual connoisseurs, you might say.

Here's a good Kama Sutra ("Writings on Love") site. Study it carefully, boys and girls - and practice, practice, practice. Pop quiz later this week.

Image: Charunarikshita - "lovely lady in control."

Saw the Screwtape Letters today, a 90-minute off-broadway monologue by the subtle and crafty devil Screwtape which includes most of the memorable parts of CS Lewis' book. It is performed, appropriately, in Hell's Kitchen - in Saint Clement's Church.

Hell's Kitchen has come a long way over the past 20 years - what a hopping area which used to be creepy, dark, and semi-abandoned. I'd live there now in a flash. We had an excellent Turkish meal down there at Turkish Cuisine, with decent Turkish wines and Turkish dark beer. I am a big fan of the Turks and of their food - and that yogurt-mint sauce they make which is good on grilled lamb and everything else. It's not too easy to find good Turkish restaurants.

We took a nice stroll through the theater district to get over to the church/theater. On the cross-town shuttle from Grand Central, we met a group of 20 good gals from Ohio who came to NYC on a bus for a two-day shopping spree. They were all carrying these gigantic black vinyl shopping bags they found in Chinatown.

Americans are largely satisfied and optimistic about their personal lives, but pessimistic about their public institutions, says David Brooks in a NYT opinion.

I am not sure that is necessarily a bad thing. A quote:

Sixty-eight percent of Americans think the country is on the wrong track. Sixty-two percent think that when government runs something, it is usually inefficient and wasteful. Sixty percent think the next generation will be worse off than the current one. Americans today are more pessimistic about government’s ability to solve problems than they were in 1974 at the height of Watergate and the end of the Vietnam War.

This happiness gap between the private and the public creates a treacherous political vortex. On the one hand, it means voters are desperate for change. On the other hand, they don’t want a change that will upset the lives they have built for themselves.

I have no doubt that the relentless negativity of the media contributes to that, but it still sounds like the America I know and love - people running their own lives as they see fit, and grumbling and suspicious about politics and the gummint.

What would make me worry would be people loving their so-called public institutions.

Sparrows are the mice of the bird world.

Flocks of sparrows are on the move to, and through, our corner of Yankeeland this week on the Atlantic Flyway. Except for our most common and most distinctive species, I have trouble identifying many of them in the field - even up close.

The subject comes up because I IDed a Swamp Sparrow skulking in my raspberry brambles yesterday. One must admit that these are not particularly distinctive birds, except to the expert.

Photo: A Swamp Sparrow, from this photographer's site.