Strange Doctrines

Next Thing You Know, They'll Be Residing in Extravagant, State-Funded Housing

"Michelle Obama" has asked James Lindgren to sign Obama's mass birthday card. James "find[s] it hard to say precisely why [he finds] this email a bit creepy." Fortunately for aficionados of shark-jumping, though, he gives it a college try:

[A]sking millions of Americans to sign a birthday card for the President suggests a tone-deafness about the cult of personality. If we lived in a dictatorship, getting millions of subjects to celebrate the Dear Leader’s birthday would be routine, but in a free republic this appeal to get millions of citizens to celebrate a current president’s birthday strikes a discordant note to my ear. 

No, I am not saying we are in a dictatorship; I am saying that because we are not, we should not be emulating the trappings characteristic of that fundamentally different sort of regime. Nor do I think this is particularly ominous, just a very small step in the wrong direction.

A small step, comrades, or a giant leap?

Michael Drake Finds This Hard to Fathom

Kids Today

According to this New York Times piece, a meta-analysis by Sara Konrath purports to find that "college students today are 40 percent less empathetic than those of 30 years ago, with the numbers plunging primarily after 2000." This claim somewhat dovetails with previous studies that supposedly document "an increasing narcissism among college students since the late 1980s."

Conceding the point that kids today are just awful people, I still think we really should try a little harder to see things from their point of view. (We're the ones with all the empathy, after all.)

Anyway, the article ends by noting the practical implications of this "rapid deterioration" (Bruce Perry, quoted in the article) in empathy: "Low empathy is associated with criminal behavior, violence, sexual offenses, aggression when drunk and other antisocial behaviors."

Thing is, after the late 1980s, the rate of violent crime began to decline.

Must be that lacking empathy takes all the fun out of being cruel.

(H/T Rob Sica.)

One Should Wield Guns in Campaign Ads Responsibly

I find it utterly charming that David Kopel's problem with Dale Peterson's campaign ad (Peterson is running for Alabama Agriculture Commissioner) isn't Peterson's Colonel-Kilgore affect, his inane tough talk about "thugs and criminals" (because nothing poses a greater threat to Alabama agriculture than thugs and criminals) or the fact that having dismounted his trusty steed (yes, that's right), he brandishes a very long, very manly-looking rifle. No. Kopel's problem is that while brandishing the rifle, Peterson "puts his trigger finger inside the trigger guard"!*

*Kopel's commenters point out that the trigger guard safetry rule doesn't apply to a lever-action gun with the hammer down. So I guess it's safe to vote for Peterson, then.

4'33'' - the Blog Post

Will You Kindly Just Dig It?

From Music Matters: Can reading program notes reduce your enjoyment of music?

The latest issue of Psychology of Music includes an interesting study by Lisa Margulis (University of Arkansas) who decided to investigate what the effects are of the widespread practice of including program notes for classical concerts on musical experience. In this study, the researchers presented people without formal musical training excerpts from Beethoven String Quartets prefaced by either a dramatic description, a structural description, or no description al all. Consequently, they were asked to rate their enjoyment of the music, and in a later stage, to recall excerpts and descriptions. What would you expect the results were? The results show a significant negative effect of description, suggesting that prefacing an excerpt with a text description reduces enjoyment of the music....

Click over to read the whole thing.

We Appreciate Your Input

The leading complaint in a review for Costco Van Nuys:

The majority of the people who work there are Hispanic and very "RUDE".

I half expected him next to advise Costco that they change their name to Costco Rico.

The Phatic Wilde

From Prospect Magazine:

(Via 3 Quarks Daily.)

All Work and All Play

Blogging's been slow because when I'm not delivering justice for the Federal Public Defender, I'm learning material for a new country rock project. In the residue of time I try to, you know, eat. So: not much time for blogging.

In lieu of a proper post, then, I'll recap a few of my apothegmatic Facebook stati for the past week, which seems suitably frivolous:

A poor workman can't afford tools.

A journey of a thousand miles ends after about two million steps.

Moderation in a reasonable number of things.

It takes two to tango. Unless it's more of a solo or group tango.

Don't count your chickens before they've actually become chickens.

If it's not one thing, it's either more or less than one thing.

A rose by any other name would still have the same physical characteristics.

Now you go.

When Is the Holy Ghost Not a Ghost?

Apparently, when you tell Pew whether you believe in "ghosts":

 
(Via Charles Blow, via Butterflies and Wheels.)

The Altruistic Acceptance of Market Valuation

Proponents of so-called 'Rational Choice Theory' (first proposed in economics and then enthusiastically adopted by a number of political and legal thinkers) have tried hard to make us accept the peculiar understanding that rational choice consists only in clever promotion of self-interest (which is how, oddly enough, 'rational choice' is defined by the proponents of brand-named 'rational choice theory'). Nevertheless, our heads have not all been colonized by that remarkably alienating belief. There is considerable resistance to the idea that it must be patently irrational--and stupid--to try to do anything for others except to the extent that doing good to others would enhance one's own well-being." (Amartya Sen, via Linda Beale, via Ken Houghton.)

And yet:

For the last thirty years, in much of the English-speaking world (though less so in continental Europe and elsewhere), when asking ourselves whether we support a proposal or initiative, we have not asked, is it good or bad? Instead we inquire: Is it efficient? Is it productive? Would it benefit gross domestic product? Will it contribute to growth? This propensity to avoid moral considerations, to restrict ourselves to issues of profit and loss—economic questions in the narrowest sense—is not an instinctive human condition. It is an acquired taste. (Tony Judt, via ???.)

Thoughts on the Rose Parade

Why? Why?

Happy New Year? Sure, Why Not.

I was going to abjure a "happy" New Year (per my usual), and instead recommend a thoughtful one.

But the coda to Tony Judt's reflection on life with advanced stage amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease) has given me, well, second thoughts:

The pleasures of mental agility are much overstated, inevitably—as it now appears to me—by those not exclusively dependent upon them. Much the same can be said of well-meaning encouragements to find nonphysical compensations for physical inadequacy. That way lies futility. Loss is loss, and nothing is gained by calling it by a nicer name. My nights are intriguing; but I could do without them.

(Via 3 Quarks Daily.)

The Sound of Salience

Every 9/11, there is ubiquitous, conspicuous public mourning.

Every 12/26, there is nary a whisper.

Must be the timing.

Strange Way to Spell "Salad Mix"

Has a Song with So Much Promise Ever Gone So Wrong?

The first verse of Jimmy Webb's "The Highwayman" is just superb:

I was a highwayman
Along the coach roads I did ride
With a sword and pistol by my side
And many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade
And many a soldier shed his life blood on my blade
They finally hung me in the spring of '25
But I am still alive

"But I am still alive." Wow. I'm thinking Sergio Leone, the Man with No Name, like that. And the language and music - very cool.

When the Going Gets Rogue

I found the following review of Sarah Palin's book helpful:

4,702 of 5,875 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ain't afraid of no Vietcong king, November 17, 2009

By	Gen. JC Christian, patriot (Tremonton, UT United States) - See all my reviews

There are many kinds of truth. There are truths based on facts, truths based on faith, and truths based on something that sounds as if it should be true (truthiness). Then there's the kind of truth we find in Sarah's book: stories and concepts that become truths simply because she states them. She's a lot like our Lord and Savior, Glen Beck, in that respect.

Baffling Gates

The LAMTA has decided to address the problem of free-riders on the metro. So they've taken to installing turnstiles at select locations, including my home station at Hollywood & Highland. No way anyone's going to beat this system:

The Art of Meat Eating

Animal rights activist "C," per Jonathan Safran Foer, per Elizabeth Kolbert's review of the Foer's "Eating Animals" in the New Yorker:

How would you judge an artist who mutilated animals in a gallery because it was visually arresting? How riveting would the sound of a tortured animal need to be to make you want to hear it that badly? Try to imagine any end other than taste for which it would be justifiable to do what we do to farmed animals.

The Higgs Loop

Shorter Robert Higgs: How can anyone believe in figments like Good Government when the Invisible Hand is right there in front of them?

(Via Marginal Revolution.)