a scratch pad for half-formed thoughts by a liberal political junkie who's nobody special. ''Hard Heads, Soft Hearts'' is the title of a book by Princeton economist Alan Blinder, and tends to be a favorite motto of neoliberals, especially liberal economists. email

 
Paul Gagnon, "What Should Children Learn?", Dec. 1995 Atlantic:

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/95dec/chilearn/chilearn.htm

. . .OF the obstacles reformers confront, the toughest may be our mad utilitarianism. Consider the three aims of schooling -- preparing the worker, the citizen, and the cultivated individual. We put the worker ahead of the other two, as if they had no effect on the nation's economy or the quality of work done. Turning to citizenship, we bypass the substance of history, politics, letters, and ideas and peddle ready-made attitudes. Thus American educators have never had to think consistently about the moral, aesthetic, or intellectual content of public schooling for the masses -- the gifts that academic subjects open for everyone. . .

. . .States will find friends in teachers and citizens who, not overspecialized, have no ideology to press, and who understand that the three purposes of education -- for work, for citizenship, and for private life -- are by their nature distinct, many-sided, requiring different, sometimes opposite, modes of teaching aimed at different, sometimes opposite, results. Schooling for work is a "conservative" function, demanding disciplined mastery of tasks from the world of work as it is, not as we wish it to be, and objective testing of student competence. Schooling for citizenship, in contrast, is a "radical" activity, egalitarian and skeptical in style, mixing the hard study of history and ideas with free-swinging exchange on public issues. The school nurtures both teamwork and thorny individualism, at once the readiness to serve and the readiness to resist, for nobody knows ahead of time which the good citizen may have to do. To educate the private person, the school must detach itself much of the time from the clamor of popular culture. It must be conservative in requiring students to confront the range of arts, letters, and right behavior conceived in the past, toward the liberal end that their choices be informed and thereby free. . .

. . .WITH respect to world history, what should Americans know and teach? What is the main story? It is not the parade of military, technological, and economic "interactions," or the endless comparisons among often incomparable centers of great power, that global studies dwell upon -- although these must, of course, be taken into account. The big story is not the push to modernize but the struggle to civilize, to curb the bestial side of human nature. What students can grasp very well is that this is a common struggle, in which all peoples and races are equal -- equal in our natures, equal in the historical guilt of forebears who pursued war, slavery, and oppression. Black Africans, Anglo-Americans, Europeans, Native Americans, North African and Middle Eastern peoples, Mongols, Chinese, and Japanese -- all have pursued these things when they have had the power to, afflicting one another and weaker neighbors.

For our time, the first lesson to be learned from world history, the most compelling story, is the age-old struggle of people within each culture to limit aggression and greed, to nourish the better side of human nature, to apply morality and law, to keep the peace and render justice. Students can see the glory and agony of this struggle, and how often it has been lost. Because human evil exists, good intent has never been enough. It has taken brains, courage, self-sacrifice, patience, love, and -- always with tragic consequences -- war itself to contain the beast. Against the twin temptations of wishfulness and cynicism, history says that evil and tragedy are real, that civilization has a high price but that it, too, is real, and has been won from time to time. In history we find the ideas, the conditions, and the famous and ordinary men and women making it possible.

All peoples have taken part in the struggle to civilize. An honest look at the past reveals a common human mixture of altruism, malevolence, and indifference, and reasons for all of us to feel both pride and shame. Starting from any other point of view is historically false, and blind to human nature. Historians -- and standard setters -- have a special obligation to be candid. But many popular textbooks are unfailingly pious about other cultures and ultra-critical of our own, preaching a new-style ignorance in reaction against, but just as pernicious as, our older textbook pieties about ourselves and disdain for others. Both are pernicious because both sap the will to civilize. People who are taught to feel specially guilty, or specially victimized, or naturally superior, will not reach out to others as equals; they will not pay the costs in toil, tears, and taxes always imposed by that struggle.

This is not a "conservative" or "liberal" issue but one of trusting children, adolescents, and adults to work with historical truth, however inconvenient or impolite it may seem. History reinforces the rough notion of equality that we learn on the playground and in the street: there are like proportions of admirable and avoidable people in every imaginable human grouping -- by age, class, race, sex, religion, or cultural taste. Individuals are not equal in talent or virtue, and certainly not equally deserving of respect. To teach otherwise is to invite ridicule and resentment. Instead what must repeatedly be taught, because it is not quickly learned -- but is quickly forgotten in hard times -- is that in civilized society it is every person's rights that are equally deserving of respect: rights to free expression, equal protection under law, fair judgment, rigorous education, honest work and pay, an equal chance to pursue the good.

This hard truth we accept, and remember, only with the help of historical insight, which is indispensable in forging a democratic conscience . . .

posted by roublen at 7:26 AM

 
Via Yglesias, Everyone should read the New Yorker article by David Grann, about the almost certain innocence of Cameron Willingham, executed for arson-murder in 2004. The arson investigator created a lot of stylized "facts" "proving" arson, which turned out not to be true.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann?currentPage=all

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/08/executing-the-innocent.php

However, the arson detective, though he contributed to executing an innocent man, wasn't evil. He believed that he was in posession of the truth. The article was saddening, and angering, but what it ultimately drove home to to me is the importance of doing your best, trying to be as competent and as good as you can, at all levels of society.

. . .Willingham’s mother and father began to cry. “Don’t be sad, Momma,” Willingham said. “In fifty-five minutes, I’m a free man. I’m going home to see my kids.” Earlier, he had confessed to his parents that there was one thing about the day of the fire he had lied about. He said that he had never actually crawled into the children’s room. “I just didn’t want people to think I was a coward,” he said. Hurst [authentic fire expert who reviewed Willingham's case, and proved his innocence] told me, “People who have never been in a fire don’t understand why those who survive often can’t rescue the victims. They have no concept of what a fire is like.” . . .

. . .After his death, his parents were allowed to touch his face for the first time in more than a decade. Later, at Willingham’s request, they cremated his body and secretly spread some of his ashes over his children’s graves. He had told his parents, “Please don’t ever stop fighting to vindicate me.” . . .

. . .Just before Willingham received the lethal injection, he was asked if he had any last words. He said, “The only statement I want to make is that I am an innocent man convicted of a crime I did not commit. I have been persecuted for twelve years for something I did not do. From God’s dust I came and to dust I will return, so the Earth shall become my throne.”

posted by roublen at 5:10 PM

 
decided to read James Tobin's Nobel lecture, and in the first section he quotes a Keynes passage I had never read before.

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/1981/tobin-lecture.html

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/1981/tobin-lecture.pdf

"1.3. Macro-Economics and Full General Equilibrium

. . .Were there a full set of simultaneously cleared markets for all commodities, including commodities for future and contingent delivery, there would be no macro-economic problems, no need for money, and no room for fiscal and monetary policies of stabilization. . .

. . .the departure that sets the stage for macro-economic theory and policy, is one emphasized by Keynes. It is the virtual absence of futures markets and of course contingent markets in any commodities other than money itself. As Keynes said (1936, pp. 210-212),

An act of individual saving means - so to speak - a decision not to have dinner today. But it does not necessitate a decision to have dinner or to buy a pair of boots a week hence or a year hence or to consume any specified thing at any specified date. Thus it depresses the business of preparing today’s dinner without stimulating the business of making ready for some future act of consumption. It is not a substitution of future consumption-demand for present consumption-demand, - it is a net diminution of such demand ... If saving consisted not merely in abstaining from present consumption but in placing simultaneously a specific order for future consumption, the effect might indeed be different. For in that case the expectation of some future yield from investment would be improved, and the resources released from preparing for present consumption would be turned over to preparing for the future consumption. The trouble arises, therefore, because the act of saving implies, not a substitution for present consumption of some specific additional consumption which requires for its preparation just as much immediate economic activity as would have been required by present consumption equal in value to the sum saved, but a desire for “wealth” as such, that is for a potentiality of consuming an unspecified article at an unspecified time.

In short, the financial and capital markets, are at their best highly imperfect coordinators of saving and investment, an inadequacy which I suspect cannot be remedied by rational expectations. This failure of coordination is a fundamental source of macro-economic instability and of the opportunity for macroeconomic policies of stabilization. Current macro-economic theory perhaps pays too exclusive attention to labor markets, where Keynes also detected failures of competition to coordinate demand and supply. . ."

I'd guess the last sentence is a gentle criticism of the econ 101 catechism that recessions occur because prices, especially wages, are too "sticky" and refuse to fall sufficiently, and therefore the cure for recession is to enable deeper wage cuts. It always struck me as rather thin, now I guess I know why.


posted by roublen at 10:24 PM

 
Not sure what Squidoo is, but they have a great page ("lens"), written/compiled/organized by janices7, about Millenium Promise:

http://www.squidoo.com/millenium-promise-end-extreme-povery-tanzania-village

"Millennium Promise - A Proven Way To End Extreme Poverty. . .

. . .My Call To Action - Raise $1.5 Million

After deciding Millennium Promise was the most effective approach to solving this problem, I brainstormed to come up with ways that I could assist the charity. I like to think big! Thinking small means that you will achieve small. With that in mind, I decided that I needed to find a way to raise the $1.5 million. This is the amount necessary to fully fund a Millennium Village of 5,000 people for the initial five years. Of course, I know that it will take a village of people to sponsor a village.

Virtual Millennium Village Poverty Ladder

So to facilitate small business and individual participation, I started what is known as a 'poverty ladder' with an overall goal to raise $1.5 million. The poverty ladder is called the Virtual Millennium Village, Tanzania (since all proceeds will sponsor a village in the Mbola region of Tanzania). Millennium Promise enables folks who start a poverty ladder the ability to track all the funds contributed directly to the ladder.

Partnering with Small Businesses

I am working to find online business and retailers that will sponsor a portion of the overall ladder. For instance, All About Gifts & Baskets has generously set a goal of $200,000 to be raised by the company and their customers. They are asking customers to contribute either $1, $2, $5 or $10 with each gift purchase. And they are matching one for one the funds contributed by their customers. I have also been able to get Wedding Favors Unlimited to use the same type of customer contribution and matching system so that they can ask bride's to open their hearts to the Virtual Millennium Village - Tanzania project as well.

Contributing From Squidoo & Social Networking

I am also funding the ladder by contributing my online proceeds from this Squidoo page and other social networking pages that I operate directly to the poverty ladder.

Family - Friend - Public Contributions

Finally, I am asking all my friends and family and all of you to get involved. I know that we can raise the funds! . ."




posted by roublen at 11:25 PM

 
re: access to health care & saving and improving lives, Ezra and others are linking to this January 2008 report from the Urban Institute (written by Stan Dorn):

http://www.urban.org/publications/411588.html

http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/411588_uninsured_dying.pdf

"Abstract

The absence of health insurance creates a range of consequences, including lower quality of life, increased morbidity and mortality, and higher financial burdens. This paper focuses on just one aspect of this harm—namely, greater risk of death—and seeks to illustrate its general order of magnitude.

In 2002, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) estimated that 18,000 Americans died in 2000 because they were uninsured. Since then, the number of uninsured has grown. Based on the IOM's methodology and subsequent Census Bureau estimates of insurance coverage, 137,000 people died from 2000 through 2006 because they lacked health insurance, including 22,000 people in 2006."

Related Research

Increasing Health Insurance Coverage for High-Cost Older Adults

How We Can Pay for Health Reform

Ousting Obesity: Strategies from the Tobacco Wars

8/19 update:

Also this paper from Families USA:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/08/10_reasons_to_support_health-c.html

http://www.familiesusa.org/assets/pdfs/health-reform/10-reasons-to-support-reform.pdf

"10 Reasons to Support The Health Care Reform Bills

The health reform debate is in full swing and proposals are taking shape. Even though key decisions are still being made, it is clear we have gained significant ground. There is much to be excited about in these proposals: Millions more people will gain health insurance, coverage will be more affordable, and people will have access to the health services they need. These provisions will improve the lives of millions of Americans and give us the peace of mind that comes with knowing that we have coverage no matter what. But the road ahead will not be easy. We must continue to work for improvements and we must ensure that we do not lose the gains we have made so far—they are worth fighting for. Below are some highlights in the health care reform proposals.

What we’ll get from health reform:

1. A major expansion of Medicaid coverage—fully federally funded—for millions of low-income working families who currently fall through the cracks

2. A regulated marketplace that clamps down on insurance company abuses so people can no longer be denied coverage

3. Requirements that insurance companies spend more of the premium dollars they collect on patient care

4. Sliding-scale subsidies so middle-class, working families can afford the coverage they need to keep their families healthy

5. A strong public plan option that will provide choice, stability, and an honest yardstick to keep costs down

6. Limits on out-of-pocket spending, giving Americans real health security and peace of mind

7. Much-needed relief for small businesses so they can afford to offer coverage to their employees

8. Improvements to Medicare that will help seniors and people with disabilities afford their drugs and their cost-sharing

9. Better access to coverage for uninsured children so they can get the care they need

10. Long overdue steps to modernize the system, improve the quality of care provided, and curb unnecessary spending so our American health care system delivers the best possible care . . ."



posted by roublen at 7:44 PM

 
The quote from Sayers' "Problem Picture" essay reminded me of a favorite poem by E.V. Rieu,
about algebra textbook-authors Hall & Knight:

"When he was young his cousins used to say of Mr Knight:
'This boy will write an algebra - or looks as if he might.'
And sure enough, when Mr Knight had grown to be a man,
He purchased pen and paper and an inkpot, and began.

But he very soon discovered that he couldn't write at all,
And his heart was filled with yearnings for a certain Mr Hall;
Till, after many years of doubt, he sent his friend a card:
'Have tried to write an Algebra, but find it very hard.' . . ."

http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/601.html

Also, this chess poem about the Tumbleweed opening:

"In Seattle, last summer, with nothing to do,
I went to the Chess Club, and there met a Jew
From New Orleans, a rabbi—no matter what name—
Perhaps you have met him, or heard of the same;
He's a player of note, and his problems in chess
Get some mighty good players in an awful bad mess. . .

. . .I played P to K's fourth, which he seemed to approve,
And replied with the same; 'twas a very good move. . .

http://www.exeterchessclub.org.uk/Trawl/Poems.html


posted by roublen at 3:23 PM

 
re: pick-up artists, what really grates is the lack of empathy. Suppose a PUA was the object of desire, suppose there was a woman, or *gasp* a man, who wanted to sleep with him, who he didn't want to sleep with. Do they really believe there exists some magic strategy or technique that would get the PUA into bed, when he didn't want to go?

re: Nice Guys, it seems worth pointing out that there are plenty of Nice Girls too, women platonic-friends who will sit patiently and make sympathetic noises while Himbo bangs on and on about how he only wanted a fling, but the girl is taking it too damn seriously. I guess the big difference is the sense of entitlement - Nice Girls probably don't lapse into thoughts of revenge, payback, threatening/pleading/cajoling/demanding the object of desire conform to their will, as easily as Nice Guys do.

I think CS Lewis in "The Abolition of Man" hit upon a key feature of the modern world: the dogged, hyper-rational, hyper-efficient pursuit, aided by the most advanced science and technology, of our most irrational, and often transient, impulses. "When all that says `It is good' has been debunked, what says `I want' remains."

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/lewis/abolition3.htm

Checkov, "Uncle Vanya". (also in the movie "Vanya On 42nd Street")

"SONIA. . .[A pause] Tell me, doctor, if I had a friend or a younger sister, and if you knew that she, well--loved you, what would you do?

ASTROFF. [Shrugging his shoulders] I don't know. I don't think I should do anything. I should make her understand that I could not return her love--however, my mind is not bothered about those things now. I must start at once if I am ever to get off. Good-bye, my dear girl. At this rate we shall stand here talking till morning. [He shakes hands with her] I shall go out through the sitting-room, because I am afraid your uncle might detain me. [He goes out.]. . .

. . .[Sonia lays her head on HELENA'S breast.]

HELENA. [Stroking her hair] There, there, that will do. Don't, Sonia.

SONIA. I am ugly!

HELENA. You have lovely hair.

SONIA. Don't say that! [She turns to look at herself in the glass] No, when a woman is ugly they always say she has beautiful hair or eyes. . ."

I love the detail [He shakes hands with her].

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1756/1756.txt

probably my favorite passage from "Murder Must Advertise" (Chapter X)

"`. . .I see,' said Mr. Smayle. `Well, of course, Mr. Hankin doesn't have to try and prove that he's better than me, because he is and we both know it.'

`Better isn't the right word, Smayle.'

`Well, better educated. You know what I mean.'

`Don't worry about it,' said Ingleby. `If I were half as good at my job as you are at yours, I should feel superior to everybody in this tom-fool office.'

Mr. Smayle shook his head, but appeared comforted.

`I do wish they wouldn't start that kind of thing', said Ingleby when he had gone, `I don't know what to say to them.'

`I thought you were a Socialist, Ingleby,' said Bredon, `it oughtn't to embarass you.'

`So I am a Socialist,' said Ingleby, `but I can't stand this stuff about Old Dumbletonians. If everybody has the same State education, these things wouldn't happen.'

`If everybody had the same face,' said Bredon, `there'd be no pretty women.'

Miss Meteyard made a grimace.

`If you go on like that, I shall be getting an inferiority complex too.'

Bredon looked at her gravely.

`I don't think you'd care to be called pretty,' he said, `but if I were a painter I should like to make a portrait of you. You have very interesting bones.'

`Good God!' said Miss Meteyard. `I'm going. Let me know when you've finished with my room.'

There was a mirror in the typists' room, and in this Miss Meteyard curiously studied her face.

`What's the matter, Miss Meteyard?' asked Miss Rossiter. `Got a spot coming?'

`Something of the sort,' said Miss Meteyard, absently. `Interesting bones indeed!'"

Deep Thoughts:

This is really good. Do you have any ketchup?

"Dharma [ethics] can not come very naturally. . .there must be a lot of room for you to grow, a lot of room to express yourself with your choices. Dharma can not come to you by accident, it must be purely deliberate. . .By one’s own initiative, one must discover the value of dharma and place it first."

Swami Dayananda

http://www.avgsatsang.org/hhpsds.html

http://www.avgsatsang.org/hhpsds/pdf/Viveka_What_I_Really_Want.pdf

posted by roublen at 12:33 PM

 
I think this quote, from the F. Scott Fitzgerald essay "Ring", speaks to something in every sports fan. It was the quote Bill Bradley chose to open his basketball memoir, "Life On The Run."

"During those years, when most men of promise achieve an adult education, if only in the school of war, Ring moved in the company of a few dozen men playing a boy's game. A boy's game, with no more possibility in it than a boy could master, a game bounded by walls which kept out novelty or danger, change or adventure.

It was never that he was completely sold on athletic virtuosity as the be all and end all of problems. The trouble was that he could conceive of nothing finer. Imagine life conceived as a business of beautiful muscular coordination - an arising, an effort, a good break, a sweat, a bath, a meal, a love, a sleep - imagine it achieved; then imagine trying to apply this standard to the horribly complicated mess of living, where nothing, even the greatest conceptions and workings and achievements, is else but messy, spotty, tortuous - and then one can imagine the confusion that Ring faced on coming out of the park."

Dorothy Sayers wrote an essay "Problem Picture", somewhat related to this, about the tendency to look at life in terms of "problem" and "solution":

http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/dlsayers/mindofmaker/mind.11.htm

"There are four characteristics of the mathematical or detective problem which are absent from the life-problem; but because we are accustomed to find them in the one, we look for them in the other, and experience a sense of frustration and resentment when we do not find them. . .

. . .4. The detective problem is finite; when it is solved, there is an end of it- or, as George Joseph Smith casually observed concerning the brides he had drowned in their baths, "When they are dead, they are done with". The detective problem summons us to the energetic exercise of our wits precisely in order that, when we have read the last page, we may sit back in our chairs and cease thinking. So does the cross-word. So does the chess-problem. So does the problem about A, B, and C building a wall. The struggle is over and finished with and now we may legitimately, if we like, cease upon the midnight with no pain. The problem leaves us feeling like that because it is deliberately designed to do so. Because we can, in this world, achieve so little, and so little perfectly, we are prepared to pay good money in order to acquire a vicarious sensation of achievement. The detective novelist knows this, and so do the setters of puzzles. And the schoolboy, triumphantly scoring a line beneath his finished homework, is thankful that he need not, in the manner so disquietingly outlined by Professor Leacock, inquire into the subsequent history of A, B, and C. . ."

Another Sayers essay I've been thinking of, "Strong Meat":

http://www.gutenberg.ca/ebooks/sayers-strong/sayers-strong-00-h.html

". . .There is a popular school of thought (or, more strictly, of feeling) which violently resents the operation of Time upon the human spirit. It looks upon age as something between a crime and an insult. Its prophets have banished from their savage vocabulary all such words as "adult," "mature," "experienced," "venerable"; they know only snarling and sneering epithets, like "middle-aged," "elderly," "stuffy," "senile" and "decrepit." With these they flagellate that which they themselves are, or must shortly become, as though abuse were an incantation to exorcise the inexorable. Theirs is neither the thoughtless courage that "makes mouths at the invisible event," nor the reasoned courage that foresees the event and endures it; still less is it the ecstatic courage that embraces and subdues the event. It is the vicious and desperate fury of a trapped beast; and it is not a pretty sight.

Such men, finding no value for the world as it is, proclaim very loudly their faith in the future, "which is in the hands of the young." With this flattery, they bind their own burden on the shoulders of the next generation. For their own failures, Time alone is to blame—not Sin, which is expiable, but Time, which is irreparable. From the relentless reality of age they seek escape into a fantasy of youth—their own or other people's. First love, boyhood ideals, childish dreams, the song at the mother's breast, the blind security of the womb—from these they construct a monstrous fabric of pretence, to be their hiding-place from the tempest. Their faith is not really in the future, but in the past. Paradoxical as it may seem, to believe in youth is to look backward; to look forward, we must believe in age. "Except," said Christ, "ye become as little children"—and the words are sometimes quoted to justify the flight into infantilism. Now, children differ in many ways, but they have one thing in common. Peter Pan—if indeed he exists otherwise than in the nostalgic imagination of an adult—is a case for the pathologist. All normal children (however much we discourage them) look forward to growing up. "Except ye become as little children," except you can wake on your fiftieth birthday with the same forward-looking excitement and interest in life that you enjoyed when you were five, "ye cannot see the Kingdom of God." One must not only die daily, but every day one must be born again. . ."

posted by roublen at 6:07 PM