How Do You Solve a Problem Like Mubarak?

Oh oh, I feel a ramble coming on. I’ll try to keep the paragraphs short so at least it will be easy to read. But ramble on with me for a bit here.

I think the current situation in Egypt presents Americans with one of the central moral dilemmas of our time. One that we’ve seen repeated frequently, and to which we have been frequently accused of having selected the wrong answer. I’m going to try to work it out for myself onscreen here. I’ll be grateful for your company.

The present dilemma is very close to the problem of the “right-wing dictatorship” that the US has struggled with for decades. It is a problem for both liberals and conservatives. It is almost impossible to guess right. Think, for example, of the Shah of Iran. A dictator. And a friend to the U.S. in a part of the world where friends are few and far between. And a bulwark against fanaticism. The U.S. supported the Shah, antidemocratic though he may have been. Then came the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Mmm, maybe not such a bulwark. Shah out, Ayatollah(s) in. Iran now not only unfriendly, but close to a nuclear state, and a haven for anti-U.S. Islamist conspiracy.

So what to do this time around?

You got yourself a prominent Middle Eastern country, Egypt. It is a large country, and could hardly be more strategically located. It has been a prize in many a war.

The leader of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, is authoritarian (but not totalitarian), extremely corrupt, and anti-democratic. Oh, Egypt has elections, but they’re corrupt, too. He has ruled for around 30 years, since shortly after the assassination of Anwar Sadat. Egypt’s people are very poor and oppressed. He qualifies as a dictator.

The assassination of Anwar Sadat

For themselves, Americans disfavor dictatorship and oppression, and favor democracy and self-determination. As do all peoples blessed with a history of personal freedom.

Egypt is around 90% Muslim. Some Egyptian Muslims, by no means all, are known these days as Islamists, fanatical totalitarian Muslims who want to impose Islam on the entire world, through violence if necessary. While Islamists are less active in Egypt than in some other Middle Eastern countries, they do tend to radicalize the societies in which they are active, through threats of violence against moderate Muslims, if not by the persuasiveness of their ideas.

And by the way, let’s review generally what Islamists want. They believe that a a Twelfth Imam is in hiding and will emerge to save the world after a period of unimaginable chaos throughout the world. The chaos is a necessary predicate to his appearance. The Twelfth Imam will then emerge to establish a worldwide – that includes us – caliphate in which all will live in peace. There’s more, but you get the idea. This isn’t just about local self-determination. It remains unclear, to me at least, what “moderate” Muslims expect to happen and whether they feel called upon to create the chaotic conditions necessary for the Twelfth Imam’s arrival.

There is a small but strong minority of Coptic Christians in Egypt. There has been some Muslim violence against them recently. Both Muslims and Christians have participated in the recent revolt.

Egypt is not now an Islamist state or notable as a hotbed of Islamist anti-Western conspiracy.

Egypt under Mubarak is not a threat to the United States.

Egypt has reached an accommodation with the Jewish state. I can’t tell you the details, but they’re at peace and have been for quite some time.

Given the opportunity to vote, Muslims sometimes install radical governments (Hamas in Palestine, Ahmadinejad in Iran) who are powerfully opposed to America and supportive of the violent spread of Islam. And sometimes revolution goes directly from secular despot to religious despot (the Shah of Iran to the Ayatollah Khomeini). (Iran, like Egypt, is nominally a democracy, but in name only – only those who have demonstrated unquestioned fealty to the theocracy are permitted on the ballot. Like when Saddam Hussein would win elections with almost 100% of the “popular vote.”)

Meet the new boss, worse than the old boss.

So as we view recent events in Egypt: What’s it gonna be?

Support Mubarak and “stability” in Egypt because it tends to suppress the spread of radical Islam, keep Israel safe, provide some security for local Christians, and maintain a generally pro-U.S. presence at that critical world intersection, at the cost of continued economic and political oppression of the Egyptian public accompanied by massive corruption?

Or support the people in their efforts to overthrow Mubarak and introduce some measure of self-determination into Egypt, with the risk that hostile Islamists will eventually take over, destabilize Jordan (also at peace with Israel), possibly also Saudi Arabia (which has condemned the revolution), ally with Iran, and greatly increase the radical Muslim threat worldwide?

The choice, in my view is a moral one: I understand that the following is reductive, but I think it is generally fair to say that the choice is between the short-term certainty of increased freedom for Egyptians (good) and the long-term likelihood of enhanced security for free peoples worldwide (also good)?

Well, I’m going to vote.

I vote for the people and freedom and revolution, for instability and the risk of spreading Islamist influence.

My reasons are not sentimental or a hearkening back to our own American Revolution that turned out so nicely.

-- (1) There’s the obvious: The likelihood of increased freedom and better conditions for Egyptians. Won’t happen overnight, but even in the short run hope is better than hopelessness.

-- (2) Mubarak is going to lose. He has not been effective in quashing dissent, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, nominally illegal but active in Egypt.

-- (3) Is a state with Islamist elements in the government – or expressly Islamist -- worse than one where the government professes cooperation with the U.S. but cannot control the corruption that allows Islamists to conspire under government protection in the intractable interior? Is Iran worse than Pakistan? Aren’t we better off with a government to target – a hostile government that can be credibly threatened with sanctions and the threat of military attack – than with a hypocritical government nominally cooperative with the U.S. that is completely ineffective at quashing the export of Islamic imperialist terror? Aren’t we better off with an enemy we can see than one we can’t?

If Islamism takes over a government as strong and stable as Mubarak’s has been for the past three decades, its face will be revealed even more dramatically for those who aren’t already convinced by events in almost every European country. Creeping Islamism is a palpable threat in France, Germany, England, and the Netherlands, where Sharia “law” threatens liberal Western values; the slightest criticism of radical Muslim totalitarianism calls forth violent demands for silence, and even murder.

-- (4) But I’m not that worried about an Islamist takeover. Unlike Iran, this does not appear to be an Islamic revolution. It is political and economic, with some Islamist participation. The military is strong and is a fair bet to form the new government, one not beholden to the clerics.

-- (5) Mubarak is pretty bad. Islamists are never going to be happy with the U.S., but we may make a few friends by being on the side of political freedom.



On 9/11, a phrase kept going through my mind: The Middle East needs to be seriously reordered. The United States, correctly in my view, began this process in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is true that much of its effort was incompetent, but at least we live in a society that allows us to say it. Whatever the Middle Eastern “street” may think, or claim to think, about the United States, they can see that the people of Iraq are struggling towards democracy, as difficult and fraught with danger and insecurity as that may be. I’m betting that the Egyptians will not trade Mubarak for a mullah, and that in the long run, it will continue to be a force for stability in the Middle East, only this time with a population having some voice in its future – and friends of the United States.

I'm Going to Miss Keith Olberman

I’m sorry that Keith Olbermann has left MSNBC.

WHAT? The worst newsman on TV?

Yes, I’ll miss him. Oh, I never watched him, except by accident whilst channel surfing looking for Third Reich documentaries, UFO documentaries, coral reef documentaries, and Errol Flynn movies. And we won’t miss him for long. Like Conan, he’s agreed to stay off TV for a few months, but some channel will surely pick him up for something or other.

I think TV news needs Keith Olbermann.

Oh, yeah, he’s awful. And don’t talk to me about Fox News and Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and their colleagues. I don’t much care for them, either. But at least O’Reilly and Hannity (if not Beck ) can be counted on to air the other side of the issue with interviews with people with whom they disagree. Major political figures on both sides of the political spectrum sit down for interviews with O’Reilly. He shows up on programs where he can be expected to be attacked (The View, Letterman). Olbermann was a man of the left, he was always a man of the left, and “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” was relentlessly, unrelievedly leftist.

[So how do I know that Olbermann didn’t interview persons with differing views? I don’t. I was not a viewer, so I did a little research. As nearly as I can tell, when he interviews Republicans, they tend to be pretty weak marks – Alvin Greene, the extremely improbable black Republican Senate candidate in South Carolina, and silly Republican Nevada senate candidate Sharron Angle. He may have interviewed more credible conservatives, but I couldn’t find any reference to one. I can stand to be corrected on this point.]

[One more thing: When left/right content is examined in the cable news channels, Fox News consistently scores as the most balanced.]

So why do I regret his separation from MSNBC? A couple of reasons.

First, the left needs a televised place to gather. MSNBC is a perfectly good place for it, and with Comcast’s acquisition of the network, we might expect to see some moderation of its ideology. Too bad. With Olbermann gone, that leaves the clownish Chris Matthews, reliably liberal but not seriously regarded by much of anyone.

Why do we need a network devoted to advancing wrong thinking? My reason is partly selfish: With MSNBC out there, criticism of Fox News loses a fair amount of its sting. But also, this is, after all, The Cool Hot Center, and there is value to hearing from the loyal opposition. May be corny, but I believe in public debate. It’s too bad that it has to be rancorous, and I wish it weren’t, but better some mudslinging than only having one side represented. It leads to ideological flaccidity and dangerous self-certainty. We need some cross-sniping to keep the focus on the issues sharp. And let’s face it: A lot of Republicans and conservatives need to have their own rhetoric punctured and bad actors exposed. Olbermann and Jon Stewart were good at it.

Second, Olbermann personifies a lot of what is wrong with American liberalism. He’s smug. He’s sarcastic. He knows better than you. I liked having him on TV every night, reminding voters of what they don’t like about the Democrats and contemporary American liberalism generally.

So, I wish him well. I hope he gets a starring role in prime time elsewhere, although I’m not entirely sure where that would be. He is a talented broadcaster, I’ll give him that. He’s smart and quick. He’s still interested in sports – he worked one of the nighttime NFL broadcasts until MSNBC asked him to stop because it was interfering with his “Countdown” duties. And I have a recollection that he was a lot of fun to watch on ESPN with Dan Patrick. Maybe he’ll head back there, but I reckon that having had a taste of the spotlight on national issues, he won’t want to be pegged as just-a-sports-guy again.

How about a radio show, you know, on that liberal Air America network? Oh, wait.

Maybe MSNBC will release his greatest broadcasts on DVD, which the Republican National Committee can buy up and distribute in 2012.

I'm Not a Birther, but . . . .

.  .  .  hokey smokes, Bullwinkle.

I have always accepted the President's claim that he was born in Hawaii.  Partly because it seemed likely, and partly because if you're a "birther" you probably also have to hang out (on the Internet, at least) with the 9/11 "truther" lunatics.

It's an important issue.  If he was not born in the U.S. (given the other known circumstances of his birth, mainly his Kenyan non-citizen father), then he cannot be President of the United States.  There is no available interpretation of the Constitution and related U.S. statutes (8 U.S.C. sec. 1401, 1403) that would allow it, if I understand matters correctly.  His birth in the United States is, because of the other circumstances of his birth, a critical requirement.   If he was not born in the U.S., he would have no alternative but to resign, or be instantly impeached and removed. 

Yes, yes, even if that would result in President Biden.  That's another reason I'm not a birther.

So now, the State of Hawaii, or at least it's rambunctious governor, says that there is documentary proof, if not a gilt-edged birth certificate, that proves his birth in that lovely venue. But, says Hawaii, it can't release it because of a law forbidding release of birth info without the consent of the one claiming to have been born.

So I would expect the President to prepare a letter, certified, return receipt requested, to the Hawaii secretary of state authorizing her to release that instrument forthwith.

If he doesn't, then Congressional leaders should call upon him to do it. 

If he still doesn't, those leaders should investigate the circumstances of the President's birth, and subpoena it.  If it demonstrates his birth in Hawaii, we're done.  If not, we're back where we were.

Now, it must be said that the Constitution does not require a birth certificate or any documentation of any kind.    It only requires that its requirements be met, and there is more than one way to prove that.  If you're willing to take the word of Hawaii's governor that he knows Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, that's fine.  That's not nothing, that's evidence of birth.  It's not great evidence, but it's something.  Is it enough for something this important?  Not for me, but I'm willing to listen to all nondocumentary evidence of where the President was born.

The Baby Obama

I am very, very regretfully coming to the conclusion that this topic requires some kind of official inquiry, and I would be hopeful that Hawaii can be persuaded to part with what it claims to be definitive evidence on this subject.

Hey  .  .  .  do we have any baby pictures of Barack Obama taken outdoors?

GUILTY PLEASURES: "Army of One" (First of a Series)

‘Fess up. We all have them.

We all like certain artifacts of popular culture that we’re supposed to like: “The Bicycle Thief”; A Farewell to Arms; Rhapsody in Blue; “Guernica.”

But in the course of our movie-watching, book-reading, music-listening-to, or art appreciation, there are those works that will never make it onto any top ten lists of achievements in their field; face it, they’ll never make onto any top ten thousand lists.

They’re your guilty pleasures. Those works – I hesitate to call them “works of art” – that are dumb, sentimental, so-bad-they’re-good, obscure, one-hit, or just flat awful by most critical standards – that you nevertheless find irresistible for some reason or another, or maybe for just those reasons. Maybe you even feel sorry for them, or the people who made them. Some of them may even have artistic merit, perhaps even considerable artistic merit, but for some reason slipped through the cracks of public consciousness.

I’m going to tell you some of my Guilty Pleasures. And I’m going to start with the one that defines the concept for me: “Army of One,” originally released in 1993 as “Joshua Tree.”

We’ll start with the cast: Dolph Lundgren, my favorite (and, in my view, a very underrated) action star; George Segal, in his most scenery-consuming performance, which is saying something; Michelle Phillips, playing an improbably beautiful alcoholic; and a bunch of others: Kristian Alfonso, Bert Remsen, Khandi Alexander, Geoffrey Lewis.

Now, I confess, it has been some time since I have seen this movie, so I have jogged my memory on the plot with some adroit Googling. Actually, the plot hardly matters, so I’ll just give you the premise. Lundren is a truck driver wrongfully imprisoned for murder, framed by a police executive (Segal). He escapes from prison and seeks justice. He gets a girlfriend along the way – by kidnaping, I think (Alfonso) – who turns out to be a po-lice.  (Lundgren, so capable in many other ways in this film, selects for kidnaping (in order to get her car) a woman who has not yet put gas in the car, which obviously requires it, making it a bad candidate for an escape vehicle, especially when this kidnaping and car theft takes place in a parking lot in which several police cars are parked, with their police officer occupants standing around outside them.)  Other police chase him. I’m sure that Michelle Phillips had something to do with this plot, since I remember her, but I can’t find a plot summary quickly that even mentions her.  Wait, here she is nuzzling Dolph, who is acting.

Dolph Lundgren (left) and Michelle Phillips

The show starts a little slow, but if you stick with it you will be rewarded with gobs of gratuitous violence and two truly unbelievable scenes.  (Well, the whole thing is unbelievable, but these scenes are unbelievable in context.) The first is a shootout between Lundgren and several dozen Uzi-wielding Asian bad guys, and even some cops, in a chop shop. It is entirely absurd – Lundgren apparently kills them all amid many explosions, fires, shooting, and paint. Paint? You’ll find yourself start to laugh and finally shake your head at the sheer over-the-topness of it all.

The second is the climactic car chase between a Ferrari F40 and a Lamborghini Countach. Surely they’re replicas; the budget for this thing couldn’t possibly have included the real things. It takes place largely in Joshua Tree National Monument, hence the film’s – excuse me, the movie’s – original name.  I tell you true -- it will legitimately put you in mind of the car chase from "Bullitt."  I mean, even the brief nudity uses replicas; it is pretty plain that they employed a body double for Ms. Alfonso, whose face is not shown during this -- yes, entirely gratuitous -- scene.

A warning: I saw it on TV and enjoyed it. I have read that the DVD version is not a good transcription, something to do with the aspect ratio, but I wouldn’t let that stop you if you’re looking for a couple hours of mindless pleasure, lots of asplosions, bad guys dying in large numbers, destruction of automobiles, dialogue so wooden you could burn it and make s'mores, and George Segal finally shutting up.

A final note on the fine, fine acting of Swedish muscle thespian Dolph Lundgren. If you haven’t encountered his splendid work before, you might recall him as villainous boxer Ivan Drago in Rocky IV, or the former consort of Grace Jones, or the original Punisher (a likely future Guilty Pleasure). I don’t know exactly what the note on his acting should be, just that he’s fun.

Dolph Lundgren (left) and Kristian Alfonso

And now, a final confession, which I truly regret having to make.  While I urge you to seek out the entire work so that every absurd moment of it can be enjoyed without interruption and as the auteur – director Vic (don’t call him Victor!) Armstrong – intended in his artistic discretion, the truth is that you can watch the entire movie on You Tube. Just enter “army of one lundgren,” find “Part 1,” watch it, and you will see the successive “parts” show up on the right-hand side as related videos. And candor further requires me to disclose that the chop shop battle is in Parts 7 and 8, and the car chase is Parts 11 and mostly Part 12.

So get out your rosary, and check it out.

*     *     *

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The President's Arizona Speech . . .

. . . wasn’t bad. It was, in fact, pretty good in the respects that mattered. Oh, it was too long, and he’ll probably be blamed for trying to take credit for the miracle of Congressman Giffords’s eyes opening after his visit, but he said some very good things about avoiding the quick and easy conclusions, and asserted with some heat that the current state of political discourse was not responsible for this tragedy. For that he deserves credit.

President Obama after his Tucson speech.

A couple of other thoughts:

       (1) Was anyone else embarrassed at the behavior of the University of Arizona student body?  While most of the speakers' remarks were very fitting, the constant cheering and calling out of the students -- to my ear, mostly female, but I couldn't swear to it -- made the whole thing difficult to watch.  I was watching the Fox News feed of the speech and the accompanying commentary, which was complimentary to the President.  It was also very tolerant of the screaming and hollering that accompanied what was supposed to be a memorial.  In large measure, the cheering seemed to be a hysterically celebratory reaction to the presence of President Obama in Tucson. Not his fault, and in fact he himself seemed rather discomfited at the students’ inappropriate behavior. The Fox guys seemed to think it was – well, I’m not entirely sure what they thought, but they didn’t disapprove. If I were that university president, whatever his name was, I’d have been mortified.

       (2) The Obama Administration has certainly discovered religion. The President, Attorney General Holder, and Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano each made extensive and specific references to the Bible and the Christian God.

       (3)  The President's oratorical skill has been much remarked on, and he is indeed a fine speaker.  But something has changed since he last burst on the scene with his notable appearance before the Democratic National Convention in 2004.   As I said, I didn't hear much to dislike in his speech lats night, and a couple of things to like, but it rhetorically it was a pretty ho-hum speech.  His delivery has been decidedly influenced by his reliance on teleprompters, and their absence last night may have had something to do with it.  (I think they were absent -- I didn't see them.)  He doesn't seem to know what to do with his head.  He swings it from side to side, as though moving from prompter screen to prompter screen.  And the content -- just OK.  I tried to imagine George W. Bush giving the same speech and I found it quite easy to do.  If Bush had delivered the line about the little girl splashing in rain puddles in heaven, he'd have been hooted off the screen by the MSM.

       I think there's one more thing -- he's lost his listeners' trust with his performance over the past two years.  Phrases that rang in 2008 sound insincere and scripted in 2011.  He's lost the benefit of the doubt, and it's been replaced by -- doubt.

       (4)  I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again – at the risk of making a political point as the winds of the Tucson storm continue to swirl around us – do not underestimate Barack Obama. He made points tonight. I wouldn’t be surprised to see an uptick, maybe a material one, in his personal popularity.

       And 2012 is a century off.

So You Think You Want to Read A Novel About Vampires, Do You, Dearie?

I had always thought vampires were supposed to be evil, murderous, and scary.

Then, about 35 years ago, they became exquisitely sensitive and romantic and even beautiful in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles and were portrayed by the likes of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in the movies.  Now, with the Stephanie Meyer Twilight series and inevitable batch of movies, they have become even more exquisitely sensitive and romantic.   And still very beautiful, in a pasty, vacant, heroin-chic kind of way.  While I haven't read any of these books or seen the movies, I get the impression that they can even be protective of honkies, or whatever non-vampires are called, especially cute female ones. 

Well, dearie, I've got news for you.

Real novelistic vampires, and I mean vampires in real, red-meat, hard-core vampire novels, are, in fact, evil, murderous, and scary.  I know this because I have read a novel called Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia, and I novelistically believe every word of it.  Any novel that begins with a guy working late one night in his dreary desk job when his slovenly, loathed boss unexpectedly arrives and before long transforms into a slobbering, furious, hungry werewolf, immediately establishes its credibility with me.  The book's central figure, Owen Pitt, improbably defeats his boss's efforts to kill and eat him, and this act of heroic self-defense comes to the attention of an organization -- the Monster Hunters of the title -- dedicated to suppressing outbreaks of the malign supernatural when they pop up around the world.  They recruit him to join their crusade against supernatural evil, and we're off and running.

Their efforts are not limited to vampires, oh no.  They also battle zombies, several species of demons, werewolves, wraiths, and the list goes on and on.  (There are also some helpful monsters of the elvish variety.)   The battles are violent and bloody -- although some of the bodily fluids involved aren't so much blood as they are goop. 

But here's what you need to know about vampires -- they're not just out for blood and, I guess, chicks these days -- they are planning world domination which involves the end of all other nonvanpiric forms of life (although what they would then feed on remains unclear).   These are bad, bad vampires, and were it not for various organizations like the Monster Hunters, our day of reckoning would have long since arrived. 

The book is great fun.  The Monster Hunters themselves are memorable, there's some romance, the usual friction with federal monster-hunting authorities, and the Monster Hunters organization itself has some deep, dark secrets of its own.  Oh sure, there's massive slaughter, astounding violence, exotic firearms, and serial dismemberment, but the tone is breezy and comedic, owing mainly to the character of first-person narrator Pitt.

One misgiving -- although it moves along briskly, the book is too long.  The mass market paperback version I read is 732 pages and could have easily stood to have lost about 150 of them. 

But if you're looking for a thoroughgoing escapist read -- that is, a read that will tell you absolutely nothing about yourself, the human condition, or the meaning of the universe, then put on your body armor and lay in a good supply of paper towels and Formula 409 and give this one a whirl.

Tomorrow's Conventional Wisdom -- Today!! (CONCLUSION)

More freshly-minted thoughts – actually, getting a little musty since the election was awhile ago.

[PS:  I've made a strong resolution to post much more frequently in 2011 -- a larger number of shorter observations, interspersed with the longer essays.  I'll be grateful if you'll check in from time to time, even if you don't receive a notification that there's anything new up.  Many thanks.   -- Steve.]

It’s Not the Economy, Other than Secondarily.

I have seen polls where voters said that the economy was their main concern.

I partly believe this. When the pundits talk about the economy, they focus on jobs.

Jobs are important. Real important. If you don’t have one, then jobs are the most important thing.

But most people have jobs. And most people are not extremely fearful that they will lose their jobs. More people than usual, these days, but still a long way from most. I don’t mean to be snotty about this. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose one’s job because of economic conditions. (Heaven forbid one is also incompetent.)

I think that when most people say they are concerned about the economy, I think they mean they are concerned about what our political leaders on the federal, state, and local levels have done and are doing to it, and that it will be extremely difficult to undo. That is, they’re not worried about the current dip – they’ve seen dips followed by booms – they’re worried about the rest of their lives, worried that after years of spending and required future spending by both Republican and Democratic administrations (with the current administration the champeen), the damage will be long-lasting and hard to undo. Deficit spending, spending on nothing, spending on (certain) public employee unions for poor service, corrupt spending, spending to create and enforce niggly regulations, pork spending, earmark spending – and only a little of it actually classifiable as economically productive. So, so much of it is paying bureaucrats to do nothing more than move it around, something markets do so much better and cheaper and with less injury to freedom.

Not my intention to mount a defense of markets versus a command economy, as if they needed one. My point here is that this election was about more than short-term joblessness, to the extent it was about the economy at all. In spite of everything, the public is optimistic. The government has screwed up the economy, by commission (spending) and omission (failure to curb financial sector wrongdoing). They can tell the government to fix it. They just took the first step.

The Peckerwood Factor.

It wasn’t a Republican sweep. There’s not much accounting for California, which continues its descent into economic lunacy. And parts of the Eastern seaboard, they can’t be helped either.

But there were some other losers. Joe Miller in Alaska. Christine O’Donnell in Delaware.

Thereby hangs the danger of the Tea Party. When the population rises, there are lots and lots of slots to fill. Some of the candidates to whom the population turns are going to be peckerwoods, just like some to whom they turned in 2008 were, to put the matter kindly, more liberal than voters cared to see as they swept out the Republicans in that wave of revulsion.

(When I use the term “peckerwood,” I mean a style of conservatism that is reactionary, extremely ideological, and almost aggressively ignorant. Your peckerwoods may vote sensibly, but their manner and rhetoric is, after awhile, offputting and offensive and guaranteed to lose the center that the Republicans need. I do not use it in the 19th and early 20th century sense of poor southern whites.)

And, like the hard libs who slipped through in 2008, some peckerwoods slipped through in 2010.

The Republicans need to keep charge of these types. I don’t have any prescriptions on how that can be accomplished. Not all – I’d say probably only a few – Tea Party-supported candidates are peckerwoods. But they tend to be loud and to draw attention to themselves and paint responsible Republicans with their broad brush.

Beware the peckerwood.

Who Will Lead?

In November many of us got a lot of what we wanted.

Now what?

The Republicans considerably increased the size of their tent in 2010. Who will emerge to lead the party to 2012? Who will step forward to avoid screwing this up?

At this writing, there are no breakaway front runners. An off-the-cuff survey:

Sarah Palin: No. I’m sure I’ll be writing more as time goes by, but let me say it straight out – she is not smart enough. And there’s the odd family life, Bristol making Billy Carter look respectable.  I’m not entirely sure Palin wasn’t born in Kenya. I’m tired of flaky exotics in the White House or near it.

John Boehner: Prematurely orange. I don’t know what to think about his lachrymose tendencies. I know the guy has come up from a hard life, and that’s terrific. But I’ve never heard a public utterance of his that stayed with me. He seemed to think the first two years of the Obama presidency were about lack of transparency. Not impressive.

Michael Steele: Every team needs some really, really good black guys. I’m not sure any team can win these days without excellent black guys. Well, I gotta tell you, the Democrats’ black guy is totally kicking the Republicans’ black guy’s ass. What a mediocrity – I can’t believe the party hasn’t shown him the door. You never see him as a spokesman anymore, and he’s compromised by his profligacy in office. I think the country has really grown up – we’re confident enough in our judgment, independent of race, to kick black guys out of leadership positions in both parties. (I hope.)

Newt Gingrich:  Really smart, really good debater, real knowledgeable, extremely sound on the issues, but hopelessly compromised by his seamy mistreatment of his (former) wife and his condescending manner (former professor, like we need another one of those). He should have Michael Steele’s job. He could be a party leader, just not a national leader.

John McCain: No. His maverick act was always a sham and was exposed in the campaign. And let’s face it, he’s old and seems older than he is.

Bobby Jindal: Not this time. Needs some seasoning before the cameras and some serious sartorial advice. Otherwise, really like the guy.

Tim Pawlenty: The guy gets a lot of attention, but so far I’ve found him pretty Lamar-Alexanderish. Smart but in love with his press clippings.

Rudy Giuliani: A guy who runs as bad a campaign as he ran (or allowed to be run for him) in 2008 has not exhibited a model for national leadership. Having said that, I still like the guy and believe there’s a role for him. But he has to hook up with some professional campaign management that won’t tell him to hide out in Florida for two months while every other candidate is on the news every day.

Mitt Romney: Strong, but he’s going to have to deal with the crisis of Romneycare in Massachusetts.  He should say something like:  "I can't believe how incredibly stupid I was, and I've like absolutely totally learned my lesson, and don't you want a president who learns from his mistakes?"   I don’t think the Mormon thing is a big electoral problem. Is it? Don’t have a feel for it. He needs to get out front on some current issues, though. He’s not going to look good riding Boehner’s coattails. Maybe he’s trying not to peak.

Chris Christie: Look out. A term or two under his impressive belt and he could be a guy. A mountain of common sense.

Michele Bachmann: Never seen her look bad. Like Christie, she could be a great national leader. Need to see more.

Mike Huckabee: A lot to like here. Personable, smart, not crazy-right. I’ve seen it written that his parole decisions could be a problem, but I don’t see it. Right now, my personal favorite. Not without reservations. But he seems like a reasonable man who could more than hold his own with the President in debate, and who could attract . . .

. . . the Cool Hot Center.

To All Cool Hot Centrists, a Merry Christmas or Whatever Foundational Holiday You Recognize, If Any

At the Cool Hot Center, we pitch a big, big tent.

My best to you and your loved ones.

Steve

Tomorrow's Conventional Wisdom -- Coming True

You'll recall that two posts ago, in a pararaph titled "Raw Numbers Underestimate the Policy Impact" of the election, I argued that the fear of the rising Tea Party tide would continue to influence lawmakers to move to the right -- or even the center, especially those up for re-election in 2012.  Mickey Kaus in Newsweek reports on an analysis of the defeat of the pro-amnesty DREAM Act that pretty convincingly shows that, at least among so-called "centrist" Republicans, this influence probably caused the bill's demise.

Tomorrow's Conventional Wisdom -- Today! (PART 2)

Three more hot thoughts on Politics 2010: 

This Is No Time for Bipartisanship – Let the Bickering Begin; or, Don’t Fear the Gridlock. Most of the American electorate – especially in this election -- doesn’t want the parties to get along. They don’t want the parties to compromise on bad policies. They want good policies. The voters do not agree, of course, on what those good policies are. But we now have a Republican majority in the House, and a Senate that will begin to tilt away from the Obama agenda. And the reason for that majority is because the voters want the Obama/Democratic policies stopped and reversed.

Does anyone suppose that this election was about a craving on the part of voters for bipartisan compromise? No – the majority loathed the results of Democratic hegemony from 2008-2010. They truly want to turn back the clock. They (no, no, not everyone, but the people whose numbers matter) regret their vote for Obama and are counting the days when they can turn him out (unless the Republicans nominate a peckerwood, of which they are surely capable – see later entry re Republicans' peckerwood problem). The Republicans should demand reversal of the last two years of nonsense and should not back down, even at the risk of nothing getting done.

I recall college discussions with pals over whether we would prefer almost any House or Senate candidate we could think of, Republican or Democrat, over a robot who would vote NO on every single vote. (Perhaps exceptions for veto overrides and the like.) Robot always won.

Another exception would be voting yes on certain specialized legislation, such as . . . .

*    *    *

Republicans Must Make Every Effort to Repeal The “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” – Policy and Politics.   Stop laughing. Yes, that’s the real name of “Obamacare.” As though it ended up having much to do with patients, protection, affordable care, or care at all. Surely the most reviled single piece of legislation in memory across a broad spectrum of American voters. Legislators could not tell you what was in it. Nancy Pelosi said we’d have to pass it to find out what was was in it. The bureaucracy it promised was gigantic and staggeringly complex. And in the meantime, we were treated to the vision of government social services collapsing economies and spawning beggar classes throughout Europe who demonstrated against any attempt to turn the tide of ruin.

And, of course, the bill itself was dead on arrival save for the legislative bribery it took to pass it.

And what’s happened since?

   --  Employers are cutting back and, in some cases, dumping health care benefits, and passing on higher expenses to employees. 

   --  Analysis after nonpartisan analysis has demonstrated its almost certain nonviability.

   --  President Obama himself admits that his repeated representations that healthcare costs will decrease under his plans may have been, um, untrue.

Almost nobody believes this monstrosity can work or is even beneficial to all but a few, at gigantic expense. To believe that people will tolerate a shrinking doctor class as MDs' rewards for excellence are slashed, while undeserving patients consume vast resources -- well, there are some who do believe that.   Supporters are scarce, and they seldom emerge from what is almost always a tower of academe or cosseted media position.  With each passing week, public support for the thing reaches a new low.

Obamacare doesn’t need fixing. It needs to die, and quickly, before the prospect of the economic and healthcare horrors it will unleash keep one more employer from adding one more employee.

Republican candidates called for repeal during the campaign, and now they need to demand it. Make the case – get the facts out – and work for repeal without compromise. It is the correct policy move.

But would it be politically prudent? The idea of repeal is very popular right now, and, as noted in my previous article, a large majority of Senators up for re-election in 2012 are Democrats. It is not beyond imagining that a strong Republican leadership could round up the votes required for repeal.

Nevertheless, it might well be a lost cause, since the President could veto any attempt at repeal, and Republicans are a Senate minority.  A majority for repeal might not be the necessary majority for override.  And, as we have seen with the recent tax agreement, there are Democrats out there (in this case, socialist Bernie Sanders of Vermont) who will filibuster.

Your Cool Hot Center advises Republicans: Let them filibuster. Let them vote against repeal. Let them vote to sustain the President’s veto. As long as you fight the good fight and present a factual, supportable case for repeal – not the peckerwood case, but the sound economic, moral, and policy case, perhaps while acknowledging the need for reform in certain areas – you will be rewarded in November 2012.   If you fight the good fight and lose, all it tells the electorate is that the housecleaning of 2010 was incomplete, and will energize the base for further corrections in 2012.

And, Republicans, if you don’t fight that fight, if you just nibble at the corners of Obamacare, if you try only to “reform” the beast, then you will have justified those souls who are convinced that principle counts for nothing in Washington, that anyone who goes there is inevitably compromised, must go along to get along, in derogation of the best interests of the Republic.

It’s gotta go. It or you.

*     *     *

No, I Don’t Miss George Bush.  And I don’t feel sorry for Wade Phillips.

Tomorrow's Conventional Wisdom -- Today! (PART 1)

In  my first post on the 2010 election I looked back at some of the reasons given for the shocking collapse of President Obama’s coalition.    It was fun to revisit the past two years of liberal incomprehension and error, but it did not meet my personal requirement that I offer the Cool Hot Centrist Nation something other than warmed over punditry of others.  (I frequently warm over my own punditry.)  Herewith, then, some nuggets of what I’m thinking about the next few years and beyond.  Quite a bit of it consists of priceless instruction to the Republican Party.  Starting with:

Don’t Underestimate Barack Obama.   I’ve received criticism from some readers for noting occasionally that the man has some very admirable qualities.  His policies are so bad that the temptation is strong to judge him as a bad man through and through.     Never mind whether this is ungracious – it’s simply wrong.   Barack Obama is smart (see my series on the nature of his intelligence –  Part 1 -- Part 2).   The Republicans should not take for granted that his ego will not allow him to move to the center, will not allow him to offer compromises to Republicans that they will be unable to decline.  I’m not saying that I expect this to happen; I’m not saying that it is likely to happen; I’m saying it’s wrong to assume that it can’t happen because the President lacks the brains to be flexible about his principles.  In fact, it is my expe  ctation that, at least at first, he will continue to press his academic statist agenda for reasons I have set forth elsewhere.

[Note:  This was composed before his recent compromise on taxes.  See?] 

It is the case that he has squandered a great deal of his personal capital through the exposure of his tendency to dissimulate.  But he still cuts an appealing physical figure.  He speaks very well off the cuff and from the lectern; his reliance on teleprompters has been overstated because his oratorical skills were overpraised in the past.  He has a fine speaking voice – must be the smokes.   I’m not being frivolous here – style points count in American politics.  In politics everywhere, for that matter.  Except maybe China, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, and Minnesota.

The economy is likely to get better, as the economy almost always does.

And if he runs again (80%) and is renominated (less certain) he will be formidable in debate against any Republican candidate who isn’t highly intelligent and thoroughly prepared, or who lacks his glibness.  Excuse me a moment – coughsarahpalincough.

I’m serious.  Don’t forget about the debates.  We (by this, I mean I and people who don’t want Obama to win in 2012) need someone who is Obama’s equal in intelligence, grasp of policy, self-assurance, and for lack of a better phrase savoir faire.  (“Charisma” is overused.)   I’m not sure who fits that bill in the current batch of hopefuls, but I know a couple who don’t.   Beg pardon --hackbobbyjindalwheeze.

Raw Numbers Underestimate the Policy Impact of November 2.   The Republican sweep was compelling everywhere except traditional liberal strongholds – the Northeast, California and a handful of outliers that I’ll consider elsewhere.   It included statehouses and local races. 

But the Republicans did not regain the Senate.   As things stand right now, the Senate is 51 Democrat, 47 Republican, and 2 Independent.  The independents are Joe Lieberman (Connecticut) and Bernie Sanders (Vermont).  Sanders is a socialist – no, that’s not a hyperbolic slam, he really is a socialist.   He caucuses with the Democrats. 

Of the 33 Senators up for re-election in 2012, 20 are Democrats.  And of those 20, not all of them are left-crazy, although they might have gone along with what they mistakenly believed was the bulletproof Obama-endorsed legislative agenda the past two years.  These guys aren’t dumb – they see what happened to apparently firmly- entrenched senators like Russ Feingold.  They see Scott Brown sitting in Edward Kennedy’s seat.  Would you expect them to go down the line with Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and President Obama on hot-button conservative issues?   Would you expect them to ignore the message rising from the entrails of the November 2 slaughter?

Personally, I would not.

It is probably too much to hope that the Republicans can assemble a veto-proof majority to do what they need to do to undo the legislative wreckage of the last two years.  But even with a minority in the Senate, the right-moderates stand some chance of maintaining effective control.

Part 2 will appear in a few days.

An Old-Fashioned Read -- I Thnk

Some of the most pleasant memories I have and will ever have are of browsing in bookstores. I don’t mind the the big chains, I understand why they exist and why the small independent stores, most of them, are fewer and number and don’t live long when they pop up hopefully in artsy neighborhoods. So I cherish those small ones all the more when I find one.

On our family vacation in Estes Park a couple of years ago I happened on the Macdonald Book Shop on Elkhorn, the village’s main drag. I bought Jayne Anne Phillips’s most recent novel (which I really must get to sometime) and struck up a conversation with the proprietor. I don’t often ask for recommendations, but I wanted to spend more money there and didn’t see how I could go wrong.

At this point, my dreamy recollection from the musty stacks takes a left turn, because one of the books she recommended was one of the very worst books I have ever read, and I warned you about it here. So I was not particularly looking forward to reading the other one she recommended, So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Leif Enger.

Yet I found myself quickly charmed. Turning the pages to find out what happened next took very little effort. This struck me almost from the outset as a very old fashioned novel in the former sense of the word – a novelty, an unusual tale, something that transports us into a new (that is, novel) world. I won’t be giving anything away to tell you that the novel is narrated by Monte Becket, a man living in Minnesota with his lovely wife and lively adolescent son in the mid-1920s. He wrote one successful novel and found himself unable to finish another one. He encounters an enigmatic stranger, Glendon Hale, who, after initial reticence, becomes friends with the family. Hale, who has skill as a boatmaker, plans to set off to find his first wife he calls Blue, a Mexican woman he left many years earlier, to apologize to her. Becket decides to join him, and the book is about their journey and what happens to them along the way. There are two other major characters, a young buck who is magic with horses and engines – the automobile is still in its preadolescence – and the real-life character Charlie Siringo, a former Pinkerton detective. About the plot I will say no more.

I read this book quickly to its conclusion (285 pages) and when I was done, I thought my, what a fine book. And then I thought: but what was the point? Was there a catharsis? Did the characters change? What explains its unexpected conclusion, and how does it illuminate the darker corners of the human condition? Was it intended to do so, or was I just tricked into reading something that was just a plot, a coupla guys who started out here, to whom stuff happened as they moved along, and ended up there, the end?

No, I don’t think I was duped. I felt enriched, as I do when I feel like I’ve ingested something of value and I think I will remember this book. But I will tell you that it perplexed me, and it perplexes me as I write these lines. This is one of those books that has a study guide in the back with a bunch of questions designed to guide the discussions of book clubs. I looked through them and as I did, I thought yeah, I should have noticed that.

Which makes me think that this is one of those books with hidden riches that are so skillfully hidden that I – who must read quickly and perhaps less reflectively than I should properly to honor the author’s art – would not experience them unless I worked at it. That’s not a criticism. I felt the book’s value as I read it, but I knew just as certainly that I wasn’t going to be able to articulate its lessons. But I feel that those lessons are there.

Perhaps you can experience them. But even if you don’t, it’s a fine read, and I commend it to you.

Two Years Gone: An Election Punditry Checklist

In the coming days I’ll have some original thoughts on what’s coming up in the next two years and beyond. Mark your calendars.

Right now, though, I think it’s worthwhile to look back on one of the most rapid political collapses in anyone’s memory. This went far beyond the usual mid-term corrections in legislative balance. This election meant something. Something good, in my opinion, but if you don’t think so, OK. You’ve got a couple of years to see whether the voters like what they’ve wrought, or not.

What follows is not particularly original. One pundit or another (including Your Cool Hot Center) has said one or more of these things at one time or another. I’m in agreement with most of the conventional wisdom on the reasons for the spanking the Dems took on November 2. With so many plausible explanations, it is small wonder that they summed to nudge the pendulum so far from where it was in November 2008.

Think back to the avalanche of goodwill that accompanied President Obama into office. A lot of that goodwill was from folks like me who didn’t vote for him, but who admired him in many respects and hoped – maybe even assumed – that he was shrewd enough not to attempt to govern from the far left where he had resided throughout his legislative career and before.

And a lot of that goodwill came from – yep, the mainstream media.

Two years later, his coalition has evaporated, he is personally unpopular, his legislative majorities are gone (I know, the Dems still have a tiny majority, but if you were a Democratic senator up for election two or four years from now, how would you be voting?), employers won’t hire, Afghanistan festers.

How did it go so wrong so fast for this brilliant, charismatic figure of true historical significance?

Oh, it’s not so hard to figure, really.

          -- The President and Congress began immediately to promote and enact a well left-of-center, big-government, union-gaga, tax-and-spend, redistributionist Euro-model agenda. The public perceived it clearly and rejected it.  Check. The President has already rejected this explanation, stating instead that there was a failure of communication. I hope he keeps on thinking this, because it’s risible nonsense. The guy was on the teevee almost every day. It became a joke at our office; we have CNN on in the lobby and every time I’d walk through, there he’d be, promoting his agenda to one friendly audience or another.

It was just a real damned bad message. And, of course, you have Nancy Pelosi saying that the contents of the healthcare act could not be disclosed and that it had to be enacted before people would see what’s in it. Well, this might be a failure of communication – only problem is, the more people found out about what was really in the thing – that is, the more accurate communication the public received -- the less they liked it. Nope, there was no failure either (i) of communication other than a failure to tell the truth about the programs, or (ii) of voter understanding.

Which reminds me: I would ask those who believe that voters were misinformed or underinformed, or who misunderstood the information they received either because they’re dumb or because they got their news from Fox News or the Drudge Report – what is your view of the status of their intelligence, information, and understanding at such time as they handed the Democrats an very impressive victory a mere two years previously? Was the uncritical and even fawning Obama coverage by the mainstream media during the election (and don’t you dare try to deny it if you hope to maintain a molecule of credibility) your idea of accurate informing of the public? They were informed and smart two years ago but ignorant and dumb now? (And by the way, Fox News and Drudge were as popular then as they are now.) I need to write about this foxnewsphobia some day, but surely it must be clear at this point that Fox News whips the daylights out of its competitors (and the Drudge Report whips the daylights out of Huffington Post and dailykos.com and the like) because their reportage corresponds more closely with what their viewers perceive as reality than does the output of the now-suspended Keith Olberman, the clownish Chris Matthews, NPR, Katie Couric, David Gregory, the New York Times, and so on ad infinitim? (And I’m not a big fan of O’Reilly/Hannity/Fox & Friends.)

          -- The Democrats misunderstood their 2008 election victory as a rejection of conservatism, when it was actually (i) a rejection of Bush for his own abandonment of conservative principles (like GHW Bush before him), combined with (ii) some Bushy personality and communications deficiencies, (iii) a very weak Republican ticket, and especially (iv) a misleading media and self-portrayal of a charismatic, eloquent, historically-inevitable black guy.  Check.

          -- Voters felt betrayed; Obama ran as a bipartisan moderate but was neither from the get-go.  Check. He and his acolytes were so impressed by his margin and the tsunami of praise that swept him into office that he figured voters weren’t interested in him compromising the left agenda he’d coyly concealed during the campaign. This was error.

          -- The President fibs. He is mendacious about many things, including (probably) his personal composition of Dreams of My Father, but most vividly about the health care bill and the existence of “shovel-ready jobs” ready to be stimulated by the stimulus.  Check.

          -- The Democrats were thuggish in enacting their unpopular stuff, strongarming it through Congress using legislative logrolling that crossed the line into spectacularly brazen bribery.   Check. Special provisions favoring five states, unions, trial (plaintiffs’) lawyers. Obama was elected to change the way Washington did business, but his allies put on the most astoundingly craven display of legislative corruption in recent memory to enact the healthcare bill.

          -- Joe Biden.   Check. The gift that keeps on giving, although Nancy Pelosi is giving him a run for his money. Tell me true: Hypothetical: Big-time terrorist attack on the US. President drops dead of a heart attack. You would prefer the vice-president be: (a) Joe Biden or (b) Dick Cheney. Mm-hmm.

          -- The President’s overseas apology/bowing tours exhibited his discomfort with the idea of American exceptionalism that most voters rightly embrace.   Check.

          -- The President doesn’t believe strongly in the international Islamist terror threat.   Check.

          -- The President doesn’t believe strongly in the dangers represented by illegal immigration from Mexico. Check and double-check. With Mexico dissolving into criminal anarchy, and with that culture osmotically creeping into the American border states, the Obama administration sues Arizona for its efforts to do something about it. Nice.

          -- This historic black racial-healer president tolerated, if not promoted, a racist Justice Department under Eric Holder, and appointed a self-racially-identified candidate, and a mediocre one at that (Sonia Sotomayor), to the Supreme Court.   Check. The Republicans will continue to press for an investigation of Holder’s disgraceful stewardship of Justice. And now we’re stuck with Sotomayor. Just this week a memorandum to the President from constitutional and Supreme Court expert Laurence Tribe (a liberal, by the way, who has long hoped for an appointment to the High Court himself) surfaced in which he advised his former student Obama respecting this self-proclaimed “wise Latina”: “Bluntly put," Tribe wrote the President, "she's not nearly as smart as she seems to think she is[.]”  But nothing was going to stop POTUS from appointing a Hispanic judge.

          -- The President dithered for months over what to do in Afghanistan, and ended up neither getting out nor giving his generals what they wanted.  Check. In fairness, no one is entirely sure what to do in Afghanistan at this point. But Obama, after having identified this as Job One during the campaign, seems to have lost interest.

          -- Voters did not like it when the President, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, John Kerry, and other Democrats repeatedly talked down to them, accusing them of narrow-mindedness, misunderstanding, misperception of their own interests, ignorance, fearfulness, rejecting of science (!), and the like.   Check. This is a variation of “we didn’t communicate our programs well enough.” What they really want to say is – hell, what they actually did say was, in one form or another -- “the American voter has not understood our communications – or has unreasonably declined to accept our assurances – on the benefits of government takeover of healthcare, bailouts, cap-and-trade, increased regulation, promotion of trade unionism, etc.”   Unstated finish:  because they're too dumb, afraid, etc.  Well, sure, sometimes people are dumb.  But they almost always know when they're being insulted.

          -- The President vacationed and golfed even more frequently than recent presidential champs in this regard.  Check. The President and FLOTUS definitely love to party and vacation. Can’t blame them for that, really. But in the midst of an economic downturn, it just doesn’t play well.

          -- Barack Obama isn’t all that. Charm and eloquence emanating largely from those twin slanty transparent screens that seem always to show up at his public appearances.   Sorry, no check. The President remains a very impressive man in many respects.

And I’ll pick up with this thought in the next article.

Overall, however, not so terribly surprising that the electorate got out the brooms.

Consider the Buckeye

One of the benefits of a childhood spent reading everything that was remotely within my reach is that I can now dazzle (and bore, and annoy) my grandchildren with my knowledge of the natural world. I bring them what we call “treasures” – fossils, minerals, shark jaws, stuff I find on the ground.

So I was thinking of them when on a downtown Dallas sidewalk, I spied what looked like a leaf, but which I knew was not. It was a butterfly with its wings folded up, only its dull brown underwings visible. It was not dead, but it was not at all well. I was able to pick it up by its wings, and was rewarded with the sight of the beautiful wings of a buckeye – my favorite butterfly from all those years ago, narrowly edging out the mourning cloak. 

Buckeyes are not extremely rare, but they are hard for casual strollers to notice because they’re usually on the fly, and they’re mostly brown – they’re not distinctive, and barely visible, when they’re on the move.  One of my childhood recollections is being amazed by its beauty in my triple-digit rereadings of Herbert S. Zim's Golden Nature Guide for "Insects," and one day seeing a nondescript brown butterfly whiz by.  I stuck out my net and -- I couldn't believe it -- a buckeye.  It was like accidentally bumping into a celebrity in line at the grocery store.

I didn’t have any way to transport the buckeye, but I decided if it were still there when I came back from where I was going, I would take it back to the office.  Turns out, it was, so I put it in the bag with my purchase. I wasn’t seriously impacting biodiversity here. The insect was obviously in distress – I suspect it was hit by a car and simply stunned beyond recovery. It wasn’t going to last long on that sidewalk. It would either roast, or a bird would get it. It flapped when I picked up, but showed no interest in flying away. I took it back and put it on an Aeron side chair, pretty confident that it would not fly away, and it didn’t. I sent out an email to the firm for people to come see, and it had a number of curious admirers. It expired about a day later. I kept it and brought it home for the grandboys, who were politely impressed. Here it is:

This little shot doesn’t do justice to its beauty. I have a point I want to make about the buckeye and about the world, but I need to show you a more accurate portrait of the creature.

Look at those colors. Even this better shot doesn’t do justice to the depth of the midnight blues and purples, the cocoa brown, and those amazing burnt orange sergeant’s stripes.  Look at this remarkable combination:

So I wonder whether you have the same thought about them that I do: They’re perfect. They don’t offend the eye, just the opposite – they’re delightful, they’re in harmony, they’re not fighting with one another despite their distance from one another on the spectrum.

And that got me to thinking, so let me invite you to consider along with me: Think of the most colorful, wildly piebald living thing you can imagine. I’m thinking of the wildest koi I’ve seen in my recent koi education. I think of the coral reef creatures I watch on those documentaries on the teevee. Any number of blooms. Jungle birds. Can you think of a single one that leaves you with the same impression you get when you see someone wearing mismatched colors? Some of us have better color sense than others, and I am sadly among the others (although I’m getting better under The Memsahib’s tutelage).   So I address some of the more discerning among you:  Have you ever seen a color scheme in nature that displeased your eye?

I suggest to you that this is not a result of sentimentality about nature – the feeling that if it’s “natural,” it must be beautiful – but because we connect instinctively with the world around us. That is, what our senses collect from the natural world define for us what “works” when we judge beauty that we have tried to create for ourselves.

It’s just a little buckeye, only a little more than an inch across. It met with some misfortune that put it in my path, unable to fly. Perhaps it doesn’t bear the weight of my mullings. But I thank it nonetheless; would like to assure it that its life acquired meaning as people who would never ever see a buckeye paused to admire it; and hope that it finds a place with the boys’ other treasures, at least until its colors fade and its scales slough away and it crumbles utterly, all as must come to pass in the natural world.

*     *     *

Follow Your Cool Hot Center on Twitter: @CoolHotCenter



If You Only Read Stuff You Know, You’ll Never Know Anything Else; or, A Summer Heavy Reading Roundup

Last spring I overdosed on true crime, thrillers, westerns, and other high-calorie, low-nourishment books. I reviewed some of them on this site. But I needed a break. Herewith some quick-hit reviews of my stouter fare from recent months, probably not to everyone’s taste.  But you never know -- something may strike a chord.  I was going to write a separate article about the Nussbaum book and probably should have, but once I got started  .  .  .  .   Anyway, here's some gruel for thought:

Truth: A Guide

Simon Blackburn

Every so often I read a book that’s way over my head, one I could never hope to understand in full. I do so deliberately, and I’ve done it ever since I was a little kid. Even though I slog through concepts that I couldn’t repeat back to you five minutes later, I’ve always felt that a little something sticks. More important, this exercise reminds me there is so much out there that I don’t know and don’t understand, but there are people out there who aren’t frauds who do understand it.  I even try to read a book about math or modern physics at least one a year.

Our first book here falls in this category of stuff I don’t really get but feel elevated by having read it. It is a survey of philosophical attitudes towards the concept of truth. Blackburn examines the relativist and the absolutist points of view and all shades in between and surrounding them. I was doing pretty well until the chapter on Nietzsche. Then my eyes glazed over and I had to switch into hope-some-of-this-sticks mode. Wittgenstein, Rorty, Kant, Hume, and many others stroll across the stage.  On the theory-of-truth scale, Blackburn is somewhere on the absolutist side of the dial but not all the way over, as am I.  Or at least I think I am -- books like this have the salutary effect of rattling one's certitude.

What did I learn? You’ll have to wait for my book.

Imagining the Future: Science and American Democracy
Yuval Levin

A slender book, but a rich one. Levin examines the relationship between the enterprise of scientific inquiry and ordered liberty. His point is that in general, science is engaged in a search for knowledge, and that it is aimed at improving our lot generally. That aim is one shared by elected politicians.

He accordingly suggests that government may have some role in how science is conducted. That sounds scarily repressive of free inquiry, but Levin seeks to show that we need not fear legislation on subjects such as stem cell research and the like.  (NOTE:  I am, in general, opposed to such legislation.)   Contrary to caricatures of Neanderthalic Tea Party types, Levin believes that the Left is generally less supportive of science than popularly believed, and the Right more so. It is a humane and careful analysis.

The Age of Wonder
Richard Holmes

This history of the “Second Scientific Revolution” in England that took place in the late 18th and early 19th centuries was an unalloyed pleasure. It focuses on a handful of the most prominent scientists and explorers, focusing on Joseph Banks, the South Pacific explorer who went on to become the head of the Royal Society and whose influence spans the period; William Herschel, the German immigrant who made astonishing astronomical discoveries with his self-designed telescopes, including a 50-inch (that’s the diameter of the concave mirror that collects and focuses the light) whopper that was 40 feet long, although he discovered Uranus with a much smaller one; and Humphry Davy, the brilliant chemist who, among other scientific advances, invented the Davy Lamp, which greatly reduced the threat of coal mine explosions. There is a fascinating chapter of Europe’s obsession with ballooning. Especially welcome is Holmes’s attention to the contribution of female scientists and patrons, especially Hershel’s long-suffering sister Caroline.  She was a prolific comet-finder and recognized then and now as an important scientist in her own right. 

I see in the Amazon reviews for this book that some readers have noted some scientific errors.  I found one myself, a use of "billions" when he should have said "millions."  Minor stuff.  It's a first-rate scientific history about a critical period in the intellectual development of the West.

Speaking of the West  .  .  .


A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900
Andrew Roberts

This one’s a bit of a cheat: I’m only about two-thirds through it, but it deserves a place here. The title hearkens back to Winston Churchill’s History of the English-Speaking Peoples, which ends at 1900. You will not read a lot of modern histories like it, as it is unapologetically friendly to the ascendance of Britain (and its dominions) and America.  Roberts also devotes attention to former British colonies like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.   These days you’ll seldom find a book of any genre, much less a scholarly work, that:

  -- has some kind words for colonialism;

  -- expresses some sympathy for the Treaty of Versailles;

  -- is decidedly unromantic about Ireland; and

  -- takes the position that not all civilizations are created equal, and that the civilization represented by the English-speaking peoples is mainly responsible for what progress and peace we find in the world today.

Amazing passages on the murder required to sustained communist regimes worldwide, the creation of the British welfare state, the loyalty and sacrifice of British commonwealth countries during both world wars (Ireland excepted), and the relative benignity of such repression and discrimination as is from time to time found in the English-speaking countries. Coming in for special condemnation is the liberal intellectual after World War II, whose blindness to (and sometimes, outright lying in support of) the horrors of Stalinism and Maoism, and contempt for political systems based on individual and economic liberty, makes you wonder what pathology could possibly be the source of such eloquent ignorance.

It’s lively, mixes anecdote and big-picture data-gathering, and is rather convincing. If you want a pretty hairy-chested view of world history during the Twentieth Century, this is your meat.  (Approx. 650 pages of text.)


Not for Profit
Martha Nussbaum

Your Cool Hot Center tries to identify the good and the bad about the Left and the Right. Professor Nussbaum holds some claim to being the world’s foremost feminist scholar, which is kind of like having the biggest . . . . nope, won’t go there. In fact, calling her a “feminist scholar” somewhat demeans her, as her academic and philosophical interests range far and wide, and she writes interestingly on many of them. She is also a fine prose stylist. I’ve read many of her articles with pleasure, but this is the first book I’ve tackled.

I agree entirely with her thesis that the decline of support for the humanities in our educational system from top to bottom – but especially in the universities – is deplorable. I also agree with her that a firm grounding in the universal human values examined in art, literature, and history promotes democratic values.  In fact, I believe she would agree with me that such an education nourishes the mindset necessary for informed, common-sense decsionmaking. She argues pretty convincingly that the humanities are being reduced at the expense of programs that purport to prepare students for the world of business and competition. Hence the title.

But there is something a bit odd about her argument. She doesn’t spend much time demonstrating the link between the humanities and a robust democracy – but I didn’t mind that, since I agree with her anyway. What struck me as odd is what she asserts the humanities are mainly good for.  I was cruising along nicely with her until this sentence stopped me:

“These abilities are associated with the humanities and the arts: the ability to think critically; the ability to transcend local loyalties and to approach world problems as a ‘citizen of the world’; and finally, the ability to imagine sympathetically the predicament of another person.” (At 19.)

Gosh, I guess I don’t disagree with any of those, and I even think I’d also give pride of place to “the ability to think critically,” but the rest – I dunno. Numbers 2 and 3 aren’t wrong, but I sure wouldn’t have put them in my top few benefits of studying the humanities.  "Transcend local loyalties" -- hmm, well, I suppose it isn't a strict necessity that a humanist believe in American exceptionalism, so OK.  But this odd little list is the first tip that she's up to something.

The reader isn’t puzzled for long. Professor Nussbaum gives up the game less than ten pages later when she writes sarcastically about what she calls “education for economic growth”:

“But care must be taken lest the historical and economic narrative lead to any serious critical thinking about class, about race and gender, about whether foreign investment is really good for the rural poor, about whether democracy can survive when huge inequalities in basic life chances obtain.” (At 28.)

This is what Professor Nussbaum means by the humanities as a requirement to a vigorous democracy. She means humanities that stress the ideology of victimization and redistribution (i.e., “equality”) over the primacy of the individual and political freedom.  (Really -- the humanities should spend some time on "critical thinking" on "whether foreign investment is really good for the rural poor"?  I would be interested in knowing whether Professor Nussbaum thinks that it is or isn't, and what important literature or art takes this as its theme.)   She’s not shy about this – she congratulates the American public on the election of Barack Obama as having “opted for a group committed to greater equality in health care and a greater degree of attention to issues of equal access to opportunity generally.” (I'm sure she'd like a clawback on that one, as it is now apparent that most of the Democratic Party and all of the Left (and a lot of Republicans, too) completely misunderstood Obama's victory.  She later bemoans Obama’s apparent support for growth-friendly educational programs.  The poor guy just can't stop disappointing his admirers.)

This leftish view of the value of the humanities to democracy may be the reason that Professor Nussbaum places sole blame for their decline on the ascendancy of more employment-friendly studies. While I do not disagree with her that this is a factor, I suggest that another reason, which is not mentioned in Professor Nussbaum’s analysis, is that way too many humanities departments have rendered themselves jokes by their politicized emphasis on exactly the issues she thinks crucial, those being race, class, and identity orientation generally.  Not to mention the Poststructuralist/Postmodernist/Deconstructionist rubbish (Derrida, Foucault, Rorty, that crowd) that is the tenure-enforced philosophy in so many humanities departments today.  Nobody with a lick of sense takes it seriously, but university humanities departments are shot through with it.  It is small wonder that such value-free university literature studies (in particular) are regarded as largely irrelevant both by students and those who interact with them after graduation.  You can call it "humanities" if you want, but very little of it connects up with what most humans perceive about their own condition.

So – a legitimate concern on the part of Professor Nussbaum, and a very interesting and readable book (her passages on her experiences with the Tagore school in India are fascinating).   But she exhibits the myopia about what ails modern humanities education that one sees too often from its most celebrated contemporary representatives, and her argument is undercut by her notion that democracy is best served by using instruction in the humanities to heighten race/class/gender/you-name-it awareness.

Yeah, like we need more of that.