Gus Van Horn blog

There are aspects of his column that I disagree with (primarily a sympathy to religion that I think is undeserved), but I do appreciate Walter Williams having asked a few pointed questions of multiculturalists: Multiculturalists argue that different cultural values are morally equivalent. That's nonsense. Western culture and values are superior. For those who'd accuse me of Eurocentrism, I'd ask: Is forcible female genital mutilation, as practiced in nearly 30 sub-Saharan African and Middle Eastern countries, a morally equivalent cultural value? Slavery is practiced in Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and Sudan; is it morally equivalent? In most of the Middle East, there are numerous limits placed on women, such as prohibitions on driving, employment and education. Under Islamic law, in some countries, female adulterers face death by stoning, and thieves face the punishment of having their hand severed. In some countries, homosexuality is a crime punishable by death. Are these cultural values morally equivalent, superior or inferior to Western values? [ad links removed] As Williams indicates elsewhere, those who preach multiculturalism pave their way by confining their critiques (when their insults even rise to that level) to the West. That is bad enough, but, I'll add a further question of my own: If they can't bother critically examining other cultures, how can we assume that they have even examined ours for its virtues? Part of what makes the nihilistic left as strong a cultural force as it is is that too many people unwittingly accept the following basic, unstated, and wrong premise: Fault-finding is the hallmark of critical thought. This premise helps lead to the enormous injustice against the West we are seeing today: The civilization that ended slavery and has achieved unprecedented (and widespread) prosperity is unacknowledged, while a caricature of it is held up to barbarism and found equivalent, if not wanting. -- CAV Link to Original

I found a report, by Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, on the failure of the half-century War on Poverty full of interesting facts, such as the following: The media frequently associate the idea of poverty with being homeless. But less than two percent of the poor are homeless. Only one in ten live in mobile homes. The typical house or apartment of the poor is in good repair and uncrowded; it is actually larger than the average dwelling of non-poor French, Germans or English. According to government surveys, the typical family that Census identifies as poor has air conditioning, cable or satellite TV, and a computer in his home. Forty percent have a wide screen HDTV and another 40 percent have internet access. Three quarters of the poor own a car and roughly a third have two or more cars. (These numbers are not the result of the current bad economy pushing middle class families into poverty; instead, they reflect a steady improvement in living conditions among the poor for many decades.) [bold added] This reminds me of a time, when I was young, that my father served on the board of the parochial school we attended. My parents paid full tuition, although they were not exactly made of money. One of my Dad's tasks as a school board member was to evaluate requests for financial aid, and he often would visit the homes of the applicants in the course of making a recommendation on such requests. In many cases, applicants with larger homes or luxuries that we didn't have ended up being awarded some tuition relief. At least, however, this money came from private charity, rather than government looting, unlike what has been happening on a massive scale for the past half-century. There are many more eye-opening facts to be gleaned from Rector's article, but I must express disagreement with his conclusion. Neither looting of the productive nor eliminating poverty are proper functions of government. The entitlement state, as an abuse of government power, cannot be "reformed" as Rector advocates, nor should we try. It must be abolished. On top of that, if the prospect of starving won't move someone to acquire the skills to become self-sufficient, Rector is only fooling himself if he imagines that some government case worker is going to do a better job. And this is not to mention that the work-for-welfare programs he advocates would only add a further misuse of government to this system, whereby the precedent of the government ordering people around is added to that of stealing from them. -- CAV Link to Original

There is a rambling and imperfectly critical, but nonetheless interesting article on the history of evolutionary psychology (EP) at The Nation. In each case, we are presumed to believe in the phenomenon under analysis already. All we require is an explanation, a story that tells us why we are the way we are. Ultimately, the explanation is always the same: evolution—i.e, reproductive advantage. Click on one of these stories and you will find two things: first, the results of a recent psychological study that verifies an observation about a common human behavior; and second, an evolutionary explanation for why that behavior was advantageous for our ancestors. Because their standard operating procedure is to begin from behaviors that they perceive as universal (despite the fact that blond hair, for example, could hardly be considered universally valorized), evolutionary psychologists tend to confirm received wisdom. Many EP studies tautologically assert that widely held social values are... well, widely held. Study finds that most men are attracted to women who are deemed conventionally attractive by society! The authors do well to show that EP is used to "explain" things many of us wish we understood better, and that many people buy these "just so stories", but I think they fall short in addressing the larger picture of why such claptrap seems to fill the void for so many. It would take volumes to fully explain the disturbing popularity of EP, but I'll try a quick stab at it in the form of a question and an answer, followed by some relevant quotes I turned up: In an age of militant skepticism, and in a society that respects reason as if it were an occult art (because so many have become unable to practice it), what will people turn to to explain phenomena they want to understand? Something they are told is "science", and that has surface credibility would be a strong candidate. (Additionally, since we can't expect everyone to be professional philosophers, we can see the failure of professional intellectuals -- like that of journalist John Tierney -- permeating this story.) Interestingly, three consecutive quotes on science appearing in the Ayn Rand Lexicon are also relevant to this question. (Please follow links for citation data.) These point to the rest of the picture. First, we have this: And this decline is because... Centuries of bad philosophy have permeated the culture, causing people understandably not to rely on it, or to use it to evaluate propositions, whether or not they purport to be scientific. But, as Ayn Rand famously pointed out in "Philosophy: Who Needs It", human beings need guidelines to think and will end up finding (or absorbing from the culture) substitutes, like religion or pseudoscience. And so we see science collapsing, even as people turn to it for answers instead of (and/or without the aid of) philosophy: The disintegration of philosophy in the nineteenth century and its collapse in the twentieth have led to a similar, though much slower and less obvious, process in the course of modern science. Today’s frantic development in the field of technology has a quality reminiscent of the days preceding the economic crash of 1929: riding on the momentum of the past, on the unacknowledged remnants of an Aristotelian epistemology, it is a hectic, feverish expansion, heedless of the fact that its theoretical account is long since overdrawn—that in the field of scientific theory, unable to integrate or interpret their own data, scientists are abetting the resurgence of a primitive mysticism. In the humanities, however, the crash is past, the depression has set in, and the collapse of science is all but complete. The clearest evidence of it may be seen in such comparatively young sciences as psychology and political economy. In psychology, one may observe the attempt to study human behavior without reference to the fact that man is conscious. In political economy, one may observe the attempt to study and to devise social systems without reference to man. It is philosophy that defines and establishes the epistemological criteria to guide human knowledge in general and specific sciences in particular. [bold added] Evolutionary psychology explains human behavior no better than any religious creation myth, its lip-service to psychology, biology, and other sciences notwithstanding. Its popularity is a sign of cultural collapse, rather than of merit. -- CAV Link to Original

Paul Krugman writes a column on a subject it is tempting to joke that he ought to know something about: "How to Get It Wrong". The "It" is, in this case, economics, and Krugman even admits that intellectual failure has occurred at several levels in his discipline. But if you're expecting a mea culpa, holding your breath could be a life-threatening proposition: That's right. Krugman, who we must assume applies the label "policy-oriented economist" to himself, is blaming a crisis caused by government meddling in the economy on a massive scale on "capitalism" (in a world where that system exists nowhere) and individual irrationality for the same (as if said meddling hasn't incentivized it). This should come as no surprise since "policy-oriented economist" as he uses it is a euphemism for "an economist who assumes that the government should plan at least some aspect of the economy". (I suppose one could make a case for saying that an economist interested in the problems of transitioning from central planning to capitalism is "policy-oriented", but that's an argument we can hope to have in a better day.) And so it is that Krugman (1) decries his professed discipline for failing to predict an economic collapse since economists improperly (a) modeled a system that doesn't exist anywhere today, by ( not accounting for an irrationality he needn't presume (because "economic policy" -- i.e., central planning -- actively fostered it), and (2) buys into (or at least sells) the myth that government looting creates jobs. (By using the term "looting", I am accepting Krugman's invitation to connect dots. Government funding for job creation has to come from somewhere, doesn't it? Or is there a model out there for ex nihilo creation I am not privy to?) With his column's title, Krugman tempts us to mock him as he prepares to hide behind the skirts of abstruse economic models. But I think he deserves more than mockery for errors so blatant that even a layman like myself can see them. I say this, because to truly understand how to get something wrong entails actual knowledge of how to get something right. Krugman's column thus encourages many steeped in bad mental habits to continue them, in part by setting up anyone speaking of the emperor's clothes to look like an idiot. -- CAV Link to Original

Littered With Error: Why? A couple of times in the past, I have mentioned the work of John Ioannidis, who has made a name for himself by pointing out that clinical research is rife with findings that are wrong or contradicted by other findings. Now, via We Stand Firm, I have learned of an article by another author that attempts to explain why this is the case. Here's an example: Mistaking what came first in the order of causation is a form of protopathic bias. There are numerous examples in the literature. For example, an assumed association between breast feeding and stunted growth, actually reflected the fact that sicker infants were preferentially breastfed for longer periods. Thus, stunted growth led to more breastfeeding, not the other way around... [link in original, citation markers removed] For a longer excerpt and a link to the full article (PDF, free registration required), visit the post at We Stand Firm. Weekend Reading "Even in day-to-day cases when you know that a change is going to be good, the happiness and anticipation can be bittersweet." -- Michael Hurd, in "Coping With Sudden Loss" at The Delaware Wave "For something to be remembered, it has to be exciting or special." -- Michael Hurd, in "Jump-Start Your Memory" at The Delaware Coast Press My Two Cents Not to detract from the excellent "Jump-Start Your Memory", but it has a slightly misleading title. Among the valuable tips Michael Hurd offers -- and one I rely on quite heavily -- is putting important things in the same place every time, which eliminates the need to rely on memory. It also eliminates what I regard as one of the most irritating ways to spend my time: looking for something. If by "Delicious", You Mean "Sugary and Mushy", ... If you've ever wondered why you can't seem to find a decent apple, a story in the Atlantic sheds some light on why that has been the case in the recent past, but has become less of a problem in recent years: [A]lluring yet undesirable, [the Red Delicious is] the most produced and arguably the least popular apple in the United States. It lurks in desolation. Bumped around the bottom of lunch bags as schoolchildren rummage for chips or shrink-wrapped Rice Krispies treats. Waiting by the last bruised banana in a roadside gas station, the only produce for miles. Left untouched on hospital trays, forlorn in the fruit bowl at hotel breakfast buffets, bereft in nests of gift-basket raffia. I wouldn't say that this apple "took over" the American market so much as ill-advised "enhancements" ultimately made a marketplace winner into an inferior product that is on its way out. The article decries "the machinery of industrial capitalism" for these changes even as it shows the market forcing the industry to correct its bad decisions. Nevertheless, I found it interesting. --CAV Link to Original

1. Out for dinner with the in-laws last week, my inquiry into the identity of the garnish on my plate -- which I tasted -- reminded me of an article I ran across some time ago at Slate, on "Kale of Duty: Why I Choose to Eat Nothing but Kale, Ever, for the Rest of my Life". About to elaborate a bit, the waiter continued, "It's best eaten --" "-- by somebody else." I couldn't resist interrupting him. 2. Taking heed of some good advice I recently passed along here on getting papers organized, I recently purchased a new shredder from Amazon. This thing is a beast compared to my old shredder, even when it was new. It shreds more at a time and faster. I have yet to jam it. It's reasonably-priced and fun to use. I may even find myself missing the backlog of papers I started working through Wednesday, after I finish -- probably this morning. 3. My daughter is a fan of The Octonauts, a children's cartoon series Wikipedia calls "reminiscent of Star Trek and Thunderbirds blended with Jacques Cousteau". During an episode I watched with her recently, some of the Octonauts went inside a whale shark to rescue a puffer fish (as well as to save the whale shark from the poisonous fish). "Can people really go inside a whale shark?" Pumpkin asked. "Not like that. The only way to end up inside a shark is to be eaten," I replied, chuckling. "Are people poisonous?" she then asked. "No. We just don't get into the water when sharks are around." 4. Although it was affected by the recent Napa Valley earthquake, the Quent Cordair art gallery is open for business: (HT: HBL) -- CAV Link to Original

Walter Williams administers a column-length corrective to the idea -- perpetuated by leftists -- that the "money in politics" we should do away with is in lobbying and campaign finance. ... Most concerns about money in politics tend to focus on relatively trivial matters such as the costs of running for office and interest-group influence on Congress and the White House. The bedrock problem is the awesome power of Congress. We Americans have asked, demanded and allowed congressmen to ignore their oaths of office and ignore the constitutional limitations imposed on them. The greater the congressional power to give handouts and grant favors and make special privileges the greater the value of being able to influence congressional decision-making. There's no better influence than money. [bold added] Williams is correct: Bribery is ubiquitous because of pervasive, improper government power. However, Williams could have gone even further to identify the "money in politics" the left bemoans as a symptom, rather than the problem. It is easy to see how a contest for loot and favors spirals out of control when everyone is already corrupt, but what about those companies that would rather compete on merit? Ayn Rand once said of such companies: [W]hat could the railroads do, except try to "own whole legislatures," if these legislatures held the power of life or death over them? What could the railroads do, except resort to bribery, if they wished to exist at all? Who was to blame and who was "corrupt"--the businessmen who had to pay "protection money" for the right to remain in business--or the politicians who held the power to sell that right? Even for those who oppose the entitlement state, the power Williams describes -- and correctly calls to eliminate -- has essentially made bribery necessary. -- CAV Link to Original

Some time ago, I commented on political opponents of Barack Obama who carped about him golfing: This complaint is a sleazy attempt to portray the Chief Executive as derelict, and reminds me of other, similar complaints about his competence in that it raises entirely the wrong issue at the expense of failing to take his agenda or policies to task. Indeed, the attacks themselves are incompetent, for they implicitly concede the premise that what Obama wants to accomplish would be just fine, if only it were more ruthlessly and efficiently executed... [link in original, bold added] Indeed, to the degree such an enemy of freedom is distracted from his unremitting attacks, his political opponents should express relief more than outrage. But conservative commentator Walter Hudson, in the course of defending Barack Obama's attending a birthday party soon after the Ferguson shooting (HT: HBL), brings up a deeper problem: It's the spiritual manifestation of the same moral argument we tackle in the political discourse. Someone else needs something - healthcare, a job, housing - and we're expected to provide it. Just as such claims are made on an individual's property, so are they made on an individual's mood. You should care about what I care about. You should be sad, because I'm sad. You should refrain from laughing while I cry. It's entirely legitimate to criticize someone for indulging at the expense of vital responsibilities. To the extent Obama has neglected his job, you can build a case against his vacations. But this idea that he or any person should not enjoy life while others languish in misery proves as immoral as any have-not claim upon the lives of haves. [bold added] This is a profound rebuttal, and shows this latest charge to come from an even more dire level of intellectual bankruptcy than the usual attacks against presidents for taking vacations or playing golf. The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend. Such attacks against Barack Obama, being for entirely the wrong reasons, betray desperation at best. Barack Obama is a poor president because he advocates and carries out meddling and thievery by the government, which should be protecting us from such things. He explicitly (although wrongly) justifies such injustices on the grounds that we are our brothers' keepers. Agreeing with Barack Obama's rationale for gutting our freedom while whining that he is not working hard enough (at what -- that?) is no way to win a public debate now or elections down the road -- at least if one regards government protection of individual rights as a worthy cause. -- CAV Link to Original

A car salesman, who wishes that "more of my peers would accept the tenets of free enterprise", writes of collusion against Tesla Motors via regulatory capture by car dealers and state legislators: [R]ight before Labor Day weekend, when the Georgia Auto Dealer Association filed a petition with state officials seeking to cancel Tesla's license to sell its cars in the state of Georgia. Tesla's crime? Selling 173 cars directly from a factory-owned store located 25 miles away from Atlanta, the only Tesla retail location in Georgia. The dealers say Tesla can only sell 150 cars a year from the shop under state rules, and therefore should lose its dealer license entirely. "It's just very simple -- we want them to comply with the law the way others are," Bill Morie, president of the Georgia dealers association, told Automotive News. [format edits] What Moore, like a stereotypical shady used car dealer, is hoping nobody will notice, is that the whole idea of someone needing permission from the government to sell cars -- let alone being told how many he can sell -- is wrong. Licensing laws violate the whole purpose of government, which is to protect individual rights, including the right to enter contracts. The above episode, by the way, is just the tip of the iceberg of government corruption that has been victimizing consumers in Georgia and other states for some time, thanks to the "extremely tight relationships with statehouse legislators" that car dealers and others in heavily-regulated occupations enjoy -- and that Steven Lang's timely article demonstrates. Read the whole thing. -- CAV Link to Original

Few activities offer their participants more "opportunities" to receive unwanted (and often presumptuous) advice from complete strangers than parenting. Anyone who, like me, has been on the receiving end of such -- erm -- counsel will find that a writer at McSweeney's has perfectly captured what we're too kind/busy/sleep-deprived/frightened/wise to say in response. The passage below, in particular, reminded me of my "favorite" such incident: Oh nice lady, you are probably right! I should definitely cover his face always so he doesn't get sun on it. If he is exposed to the sun for even one moment, even as I am simply walking from the mechanic to a coffee shop where I have to unexpectedly stop to feed him because my car broke down, he will probably immediately get sun disease or burst into flames. My parallel occurred last winter, when I had to go to a bank a day or so after a snow storm. I parked my car across the street and opened the door to get my then six-month-old son out, only to discover to my annoyance that I'd left his jacket at home. Since it was forty degrees out and the bank was a very short walk across the street, I decided to go anyway. I didn't even make it to the crosswalk before a car arrived from around a corner and stopped. "That's child abuse!" someone bellowed at me from her position of omniscience in the newly-arrived car. This person, who looked like someone I wouldn't have wanted even in the same room with my son, glowered at me for a moment through her window. After I pretended not to hear her, she drove on, to my great relief and somewhat to my surprise. To this day, I wonder what that fool would do if airdropped into Scandanavia some winter, where children are routinely left to nap outside in subfreezing temperatures. -- CAV Link to Original

Editor's Note: I am taking the week off to be with family over the next week. Posting will resume on September 9 at the latest and comment moderation may be delayed more than usual until then. Have a great Labor Day! Exactly How Dangerous Is Ebola? Scott Holleran interviews Amesh Adalja of the Center for Health Security of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center on the subject of the threat to Americans posed by the Ebola virus: Read the whole thing. Weekend Reading "[F]or most people, fear of flying raises issues of control." -- Michael Hurd, in "Let Go and Live" at The Delaware Wave "Notice I'm not saying that you shouldn't control other people. I'm saying that you can't." -- Michael Hurd , in "The Joys and Hazards of a Love Relationship" at The Delaware Coast Press "Is it better for doctors to ask your permission first -- or seek your relatives' forgiveness afterwards?" -- Paul Hsieh, in "UK To Experiment on Cardiac Arrest Patients Without Their Consent" at Forbes My Two Cents The Hsieh article is particularly disturbing, given that some "libertarian paternalists" have already floated the very similar idea of making such things as organ donation "opt-out" in America. The Infernal Midnight of the Cluttered Mind Weird Al Yankovic does a great send-up of mindless jargon. --CAV Link to Original

1. I recently found Crabbie's Ginger Beer to be a perfectcompliment to sitting on the porch with my family on a warm, sunny weekend, even though it is not strictly a beer. Here's an excerpt of a review from the Huffington Post: Crabbie's, the UK's best-selling ginger beer, is finally available in the U.S., and we are quite pleased about it. This ginger beer is fermented, old-school style, and that method is reflected in the flavor -- slightly honeyed and floral, with way more complexity than we expected... [links removed] I do disagree with the reviewers there on one thing: Ignore the serving suggestion printed on the label and just refrigerate it before pouring. 2. Scotland will be voting on independence soon, and this has some people wondering what the flag of the United Kingdom might look like without the cross of St. Andrew -- and then trying a few more interesting alternatives than merely altering the Union Jack. The authors like a design incorporating the Tudor Rose, but I found their red-and-white flag featuring the Cross of St. George, the Red Hand of Ulster, and the Red Dragon of Wales somewhat compelling -- until I then smiled after the Hand caused me to remember an old Monty Python skit. Yeah. Go with the Tudor Rose or, better yet, stick with the Union Jack, anyway. 3. This article, on why "Breaking A 'Pay-It-Forward' Chain ... [is] Good Economics" has solved a minor mystery for me: That's why I had five bucks of the cost of a McDonald's order shaved off -- with no rhyme or reason -- by the driver ahead of me one morning a few weeks ago. And learning about the self-delusive -- and yet sanctimonious -- attitude of the "pay-it-forward" crowd just gave me a chuckle and made that discount even more enjoyable. 4. Quote of the week: My second childhood was kindly delivered to me by my children. This, I suspect, was no coincidence. Children know something that adults have forgotten -- something adults have to forget when they begin playing the great game of growing up and becoming someone. -- Mark Rowlands HT: Vivek Haldar. But do we have to forget it, though? And what is it? I have at least a partial guess as to the answers to each question, thanks to my children and my favorite philosopher. -- CAV Link to Original

In a column arguing against the notion that shows of force by the police exacerbated rioting in Ferguson, Thomas Sowell, notes that, "Any force sufficient to prevent riots from getting out of hand is almost certain to be characterized as 'excessive force' or 'over-reaction' by people with zero experience trying to stop riots." This is a conclusion he reaches after examining historical evidence, such as from the 1960's. For example: Sowell raises a good point -- which he also makes by examining the correlation between armed guards and murder rates (9% for U.S presidents!), and alluding to an absurd, correlation-based conclusion one might draw. "Does anyone seriously believe that leaving presidents unguarded would reduce assassinations?" he asks. This is hardly to say that warnings (such as one from Mark Steyn) against the militarization of our police are unwarranted. Rather, we should be careful to distinguish between incorrect calls for "restraint" when the government should properly wield force (of the retaliatory kind, in defense of individual rights) -- and warnings to the effect that the government is headed down a slippery slope of laying the ground work for ever more intrusive instances of improper, rights-violating initiatory force. Things like the latter were going on long before Ferguson. There is no objective need to equip every police department like a military unit or to treat routine police work like a SWAT raid or an incipient riot. Since I have observed both leftists and conservatives making the mistake of treating both kinds of government action as equivalently desirable or not (although usually in different contexts), let me cite a clarifying quote from Ayn Rand: This distinction, which is at the root of what made American governmentdistinctive at its outset (and must, again, one day), is potentially one of the greatest casualties of the debates ignited by the Ferguson riots. Leftists wrongly condemn the government (properly) quelling a riot as "violence", and yet encourage government looting (an initiation of force, no matter how bloodless) for redistribution. On the other hand, conservatives often seem tone-deaf to such matters as policemen needlessly escalating encounters (e.g., the alleged profanity used initially against Michael Brown I recall from one account) or the police aping the military they rightly admire. Both seem to think that enshrinement in law (e.g., cries against (improperly) "illegal immigration" from the right, or support for entitlements from the left) is some sort of ritual blessing on an action a proper government would not take. Thomas Sowell's and Mark Steyn's respective comments about the police in the wake of the riots might initially strike one as antithetical, but when one considers them in light of the proper role of the government, it becomes apparent that they actually make complimentary points. -- CAV Link to Original

Microsoft Research Mobile explains why practitioners of the "Nigerian scam" persist in claiming from the outset to be from Nigeria -- even though doing so is tantamount to saying, "I am a scammer". I am excepting from an excerpt of an unlinked 2012 article here, so follow the link for more of the argument: ... Since his attack has a low density of victims the Nigerian scammer has an over-riding need to reduce false positives. By sending an email that repels all but the most gullible the scammer gets the most promising marks to self-select, and tilts the true to false positive ratio in his favor. [bold added] While the idea of criminals discussing the finer points of binary classification might be mildly amusing, I am sure that the effectiveness of such a tactic was determined by trial-and-error. Such principles do nevertheless explain the success of this and similar scams. Furthermore, they demonstrate, by way of a negative example, the power of evaluating new propositions by determining whether they integrate with the rest of one's knowledge (and, if so, how). Gullibility indicates a failure, for whatever reason, to do this on a consistent basis. There are two lessons here for those of us interested in cultural activism: (1) What we have to do is hard in the sense that we have to find and satisfy the most demanding audience (i.e., people with the most active minds); and (2) We have it easy in another sense, that we aren't competing for the same audience as the many intellectual hucksters and panderers in our midst today. I have to admit that there have been times that the apparent successes of the latter have dampened my spirits. (In some ways, this reminds me of aspects of the Ayn Rand's Fountainhead charatcer, Dominique Francon.) The example above, strange as it might seem, will help me remember that it is mistaken to become disheartened with such cultural phenomena. -- CAV Link to Original

Psychologist Michael Hurd, a favorite commentator of mine, titles a blog post about soccer with two questions: "Is Soccer Anti-Individualist? Or Just Dull?" His answers appear to be, "'Probably' and 'Yes'". Regulars here will know that I strongly disagree with the good doctor on both counts: My answers are, "'Almost certainly not', and 'Absolutely not'". Hurd does admit to not not knowing much about either soccer or football, so I'll kill off the second, less interesting question now, by referring to my view of baseball, a sport I know little about, but whose merits I came to see: Until the year Rice won the College World Series and I had the opportunity to watch several very good baseball games narrated by a very talented commentator, I had zeroappreciation for all the strategy that goes into that game. I used to see (before switching channels): nine men standing around on a field, scratching themselves and spitting while some guy with a beer belly swung a stick at a ball. Likewise, to the uninitiated, soccer will look like a bunch of people running around on a field kicking a ball for no particular reason. Since Hurd takes an Ann Coulter column as his point of departure, I must tackle a further, factual error that he ends up propagating from among her many errors and evasions: Yes, goals are rare, but they normally can be anything from a team to an individual accomplishment. In addition, Hurd and Coulter to the contrary, goals are the "equivalent of the home run, the touchdown or the slam dunk" they can't appreciate in soccer. In tight games, they can be all of these at once. (Watching such a game is not for the faint-hearted, much less anyone for whom fear is a "dominant attitude".) Having said that, Hurd and, I must admit, Coulter do raise interesting cultural issues that have coincided with the rise of soccer as youth sport, and that pertain to the first question ("Is soccer anti-individualist?"). I think I have partially answered this question already: Consider a winning touchdown, thrown by a scrambling quarterback to a crafty receiver who evades coverage and then sprints through a hole in the opposing team's defense -- a hole created by another team-mate's block. The multiple contributions to this score -- or even good, bone-crunching defensive play that scores zero points for that matter -- are good examples of team efforts with good individual contributions. The fact that several people contributed makes a touchdown (or a goal-line stand) no more anti-individualistic than the multiple passes and thinking-on-the-feet seen in many goals. Too much commentary on soccer is hung up on the quantity of goals (as if, say, 1-0 baseball games are unheard of) and the invisibility of individual contributions -- at least to those who don't understand what is going on.) But Hurd and Coulter raise the following point, which deserves to be addressed: Baseball and basketball present a constant threat of personal disgrace. In hockey, there are three or four fights a game -- and it's not a stroll on beach to be on ice with a puck flying around at 100 miles per hour. After a football game, ambulances carry off the wounded. After a soccer game, every player gets a ribbon and a juice box. [bold added] Really? I have no idea about now, but if such is the case, it hasn't always been that way. I played soccer from junior high until college, back in the eighties, before egalitarianism ruined (or started attacking) youth sports. All the ribbons -- medals and trophies, actually -- went to my brothers, who were both excellent players and whose teams won state championships. We did get drinks -- water, Gatorade, and the like -- at the half and after the game. Playing non-stop for 30-45 minutes (depending on age) will make you need water. Oh, and I encountered only three girls -- all exceptionally good players at a time when the overall skill level in the American game was low -- who were members of boys' teams over the decade I played or refereed. Why? Common sense was more prevalent back then. In soccer, it is legal to bump another player with the shoulder when going after the ball. This alone gives men, who are generally larger and have superior upper body strength, a huge advantage over women. Women have other physical limitations relative to men that make mixed competitive teams beyond perhaps elementary ages a dubious proposition at best. We did play mixed -- for fun with a few other families -- occasionally on Sundays. I don't know how common mixed teams are in youth competitions nowadays, but if Coulter is right, the egalitarians are running up a score. And whatever the merit of injuries, those happen in soccer as well. (Search "As for her assertion that personal humiliation or injury are required to count as sport".) I have a shoulder injury that occasionally acts up to this day. Hurd is right to be alarmed at the idea that everyone in a youth soccer game is getting a ribbon and a juice box. But that's egalitarianism, and not soccer. Hurd closes by saying, "The triumph of soccer as the activity of choice for school-aged children is probably no accident." If so, it's despite the efforts of leftists pushing it just because they see it as non-American and those of obnoxious evangelists who insist on calling it futbol. It's because soccer is fun and people of any size and build can play it, if they apply themselves and learn to think on their feet. -- CAV P.S. Regarding the title: In European soccer league competitions, a team that comes from behind to draw (and thus secures a point in the standings as in hockey), is often said to have "rescued a point". Link to Original

Caroline Glick takes a look at the shifting alliances in the Middle East from an Israeli perspective, particularly in light of Barack Obama's foreign policy: ... Obama's pro-Hamas-, pro-Iran- and pro-Muslim Brotherhood-axis policies, along with his refusal to date to take effective action in Iraq and Syria to obliterate Islamic State, have convinced the US's traditional allies that for the next two-and-a-half years, not only can they not rely on the US, they cannot discount the possibility of the US taking actions that harm them. These traditional allies are Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Glick argues that they are cooperating behind the scenes against the Islamic State and Hamas, and to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions. Glick sees this cooperation lasting until the end of Obama's term -- unless it is rendered impossible by Israel's own left: The Israeli Left sees this new partnership. But it fails to understand its basis or significance. For the Left, all developments lead to the same conclusion: Whatever happens, Israel must strengthen the PLO by strengthening Palestinian Authority Chairman and PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas. Failing to recognize the basis for Israel's emerging strategic partnership, led by Finance Minister Yair Lapid and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, the Left is advocating using our new ties with Saudi Arabia and Egypt as a means of strengthening Abbas by organizing a regional peace conference. What they fail to understand is that such a move would destroy the partnership. Israel's strategic cooperation with Egypt and Saudi Arabia owes to their shared interests. It cannot extend beyond them. And they have no shared interests in regard to the PLO. Threatened by the axis of jihad, no Muslim government can be seen publicly with Israelis... Glick speaks with uncertainty about the next administration seeking to "rebuild the US alliance structure in the Middle East". Even if it does, the damage caused by Obama's non-self-interested foreign policy will be hard to repair, for he has made it apparent to the world that we are unreliable at best. -- CAV Link to Original

How Science Should Be Funded Over at Wired is a story about a private effort to fund nutritional studies, headed up by Gary Taubes, author of Good Calories, Bad Calories, whose contrarian views on nutrition have made him a best seller. His group, the Nutritional Science Initiative (NuSI) is funding scientists who currently sit on opposite sides of such questions as whether the source of energy (e.g., fats or carbohydrates) present in food is relevant to whether individuals gain weight. Taubes, too, is aware of the risk. As Calabrese puts it, "Gary is advancing a study that may refute a theory he's built his career on. It may blow his theory right out of the water." This is how a real scientist -- and an actual patron of science -- behaves, and it reminds me, favorably, of one science blogger's reaction to the book mentioned above: Gary Taubes is interesting. If he's right, the majority of medical community has been flat wrong about some basic assumptions for a long time. It's sobering to think that might be the case. Even if Taubes is wrong, it's unsettling that he's not obviously wrong, that he can make a plausible argument that some widely held scientific beliefs are upside-down. Assuming this article is accurate and the involved scientists are able to ask and answer the right questions, we may finally know the truth one way or the other. Weekend Reading "The simple fact is that failure happens for a reason, and we possess the power to discover that reason and to become wiser and stronger." -- Michael Hurd, in "See Failure as Opportunity" at The Delaware Wave "Ignore the media and do what makes objective sense to you, today, in your own situation." -- Michael Hurd , in "What Are You Afraid Of?" at The Delaware Coast Press My Two Cents In his second piece, Michael Hurd takes a common reaction to media doom-and-gloom about the economy as his point of departure. His observation that many people panic at bad news, or simply take common advice from the media straight is a reminder: Many, if not most, people do not take the time to integrate new information or advice into the rest of their knowledge. Perhaps most people should, even after assessing their own situations, say, cut back on spending. But anyone who does this just because of what they hear on the news, doesn't really know that this is a proper (or even harmless) course of action for his own situation. Such a person might fool himself into feeling like he is acting responsibly when he is, in fact, flying blind. The Power of Discrimination discrimination ( n) -- an act or instance of ... making a distinction. Matt Honan of Wired demonstrates, by way of a negative result, the folly of not making choices in life, in an amusing article, "I Liked Everything I Saw on Facebook for Two Days. Here's What It Did to Me". He concludes in part, "By liking everything, I turned Facebook into a place where there was nothing I liked." -- CAV Link to Original

1. A woman with a rare genetic disease was both unconvinced by her medical diagnosis and "frustrated by the rampant misinformation" on Internet patient forums -- so she did her own research. In the end, she correctly told her doctors which DNA test to run. In addition to having to familiarize herself with an unfamiliar scientific literature, she also had to face the understandable skepticism of her own physicians: "I'm beyond impressed," says Michael Ackerman, a geneticist at the Mayo Clinic. He specializes in inherited heart disorders like ARVC that can cause sudden death at any time. Such diseases make for people who do their homework, but Ackerman describes most as "Google-and-go" patients who check their diagnosis online or read up about treatment options. Kim had written up her research as a white paper--36 pages of research and analysis. "Kim's the only one who handed me her own thesis," he says. "Of all the 1,000-plus patients I've taken care of, none have done extensive detective work and told physicians which genetic test to order." The article mentions a series of personality traits, like "perseverance and love of isolation" that served Kim Goodsell in good stead as she sought to understand her problem, but underlying her quest was her impressive degree of independence. She would not let a single term she did not understand go unexamined. 2. An American sports fan rebuts one of the more thoughtful anti-soccer editorials I read this World Cup, one by Kareem Adbul-Jabbar. That piece concluded with a prediction to the effect that soccer would "return to its sickbed" after the tournament. But Sheldon Hirsch, who attended his first professional game in nearly four decades, an exhibition after the World Cup, begs to disagree: The enormous crowd of 109,318 opened my eyes and raised doubts about Kareem's critique. The crowd seemed like a rabid NFL gathering, except almost twice as large, perhaps half as inebriated, and more prone to song. Notably, this was not a World Cup or Olympics competition; or Michigan vs. Michigan State; or an MLS championship game. Over 100,000 people attended an exhibition game; clearly, serious soccer fans. I think Hirsch supports his contention that Abdul-Jabbar shot an airball on this topic quite well. 3. Is there anything a smartphone can't help solve? There are now apps, called "Dumbphone" and "IgnoreNoMore", that respectively help (1) users fight compulsive smartphone checking and (2) parents get their kids to call them back. 4. Wow! My old post, "Data Storage Then and Now", may soon be made to look quaint after only a few years: New technology that could store about a terabyte of data in a device the size of a postage stamp is a step closer to manufacture. -- CAV Link to Original

Larry Elder notes a self-defeating trend that has become manifest in the wake of the Ferguson, Missouri, police shooting: While I have not been following this story -- or any other -- very closely, it has been nearly unavoidable since it is local news for me. Some of the belief in the "shot in the back" narrative must surely be blamed on media coverage: This is the first time I have heard about this medical evidence despite an apparently non-stop torrent of such coverage. Most people would call such claims -- when made contrary to evidence or (worse) the need for evidence -- "self-serving". That is clearly not the case, particularly for blacks: As Elder implies, the incessant pursuit of what he calls "The Great White Defendant" is hindering any real examination of the actual difficulties poor blacks face in places like Ferguson, and, therefore, any progress towards a solution. Even assuming the worst of the police officer who shot Michael Brown, it is folly to spend energy on this one case at the clear expense of failing to attack so many other real and bigger problems. -- CAV Link to Original

Thomas Sowell recently wrote a column about leftist attacks against admission standards and testing for college-preparatory schools. Therein, Sowell raises a good question for the quota-pushers, including teachers' unions and those civil rights "leaders" who imagine that "their civil rights include getting into these elite schools, whether they qualify or not": Sowell, who has written extensively on such matters in the past, also includes a nice history lesson for anyone who imagines that it is unusual for some groups to be over- or under-represented in such institutions. -- CAV Link to Original

From a somewhat rambling Mike Steyn column comes word of one of the most ridiculous regulations I have ever heard of: I'm still hopping mad about the US Government's bagpipe crackdown. The international piping scene is basically Scotland, Canada and the north-eastern US. On the Atlantic seaboard, it's a cross-border community. Yet since the end of June the official position of the United States Government is that, if someone from northern New Hampshire competes in a bagpipe championship in Quebec, he cannot take his pipes through any US/Canadian land border crossing. So instead of a pleasant three-hour drive from Montreal back to New Hampshire, he has to fly from Montreal to Boston and then drive all the way back, more than doubling the time and vastly increasing the cost. ... nder the insanity of America's hyper-regulatory tyranny, you now have to register musical instruments with the US Department of Fish & Wildlife. And, even if you do, you still can't drive that instrument over a US/Canadian land border. This reminds me of a thought I had this morning. Many people expect the government to arbitrate everything because they do not think that individuals have any ability to be objective, let alone any reason to do so. (And yet it seems that it never occurs to many of these same people that the government is staffed by "imperfect" humans.) The above is an example of the kind of result this gets -- something completely inane that has the force of law. Most people will be unconcerned, since this involves mere inconvenience to a small number of people who play an oddball instrument, but, in principle, anyone can -- and many often do -- find themselves on the wrong side of ridiculous government rules and facing real consequences. You may realistically laugh at the bagpipers now, only to find yourself facing prison time later. That is where the pro-regulatory, pro-central planning mentality has already gotten us. It's high time to question the wisdom of trusting the government to know what is best. -- CAV Link to Original

Mike Steyn sees something in the ongoing events of Ferguson, Missouri, that should concern every American: a trend towards the militarization of our police departments. Noting that, "In 2014, when a police cruiser doesn't have a camera, it's a conscious choice", Steyn goes on to note the historical origins of the modern police departments and observes: There is much more from Steyn on both this alarming trend and on the ineptitude of the local authorities, particularly Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson. Steyn leaves us with the following warning: "[O]ne day, unless something changes, we will all be policed like Ferguson." (HT: Steve D.) -- CAV Link to Original

Making Molehills of a Mountain The Unclutterer blog tackles a tiresome task -- keeping papers organized -- with some good advice, including the following: Organizer Janine Adams wrote on her Peace of Mind Organizing Blogabout a women who got through 12 years of accumulated papers by working on them for 15 to 30 minutes a day. It's often easier to tackle a dreaded task if you know you only have to do it for a short period of time. [minor format edits] This is a multi-pronged approach and it could easily be applied to similar chores. The advice about having good tools is also worthwhile. (My wonky shredder comes to mind.) Weekend Reading "Inauthenticity is a game that takes too much work, and ultimately it can be destructive." -- Michael Hurd, in "ASK For What You Want" at The Delaware Wave "There are indeed certain occasions when lling] the truth doesn't matter as much as physical safety or privacy." -- Michael Hurd, in "Kids: The Great Loophole Finders" at The Delaware Coast Press My Two Cents As a parent, I always appreciate it when Michael Hurd covers topics related to raising children, as he does in his second piece above. In this case, I am glad to see that I have been on the right track regarding how I handle questions that are not age-appropriate. Robin Williams, RIP I was saddened by the news that Robin Williams took his own life last week. I'll memorialize him with the benevolent and very funny video above, although I must mention that I enjoyed his more serious acting work even more. I particularly liked his portrayal of Oliver Sacks, a neurologist, in Awakenings, for example. Ironically, I learned of the video only recently due to followers of a certain religion -- take a guess -- being so thin-skinned as to threaten him over it. -- CAV Link to Original

1. Pumpkin has become interested in helping me lately, so I come up with "jobs" for her whenever I can, like holding doors or carrying things from the kitchen to the family room. But she shows good initiative, particularly with my phone, which sometimes falls out of my pocket when I play with the kids. (She's handed it back to me numerous times after that.) My favorite example of her assistance came after I'd taken my phone out out and left it on the coffee table. She tracked me down afterwards and asked, "Did you mean to leave this out?" Yes. That's a direct quote. It does sound like the way an adult would ask it. Little Man has been matching Pumpkin's initiative with an often radiant benevolence. He frequently smiles and really likes the song, "If You're Happy and You Know It". Going between the kitchen and the family room one day, I encountered him walking, smiling, and clapping. Now, if I can just get him to stop trying to put toys into the Diaper Genie... I am very fortunate: There are very few people who easily improve my mood, and two of them are my children. (If that makes me sound like some kind of a grouch, so be it.) 2. John Cook offers high praise for what he calls an "open source dissertation". He's not being secretive, fearing that someone will scoop his results. There have been a few instances of one academic scooping another's research, but these are rare and probably not worth worrying about. Besides, a public GitHub repo is a pretty good way to prove your priority. In terms of having the idea, yes. But ... I haven't looked at this dissertation, but one caveat would be that making something like this public maycause problems getting patent protection down the line, if that is an objective. Other than this, I find the idea of an "open source dissertation" intriguing. 3. Mid-century architecture buff Toby Weiss, calling it "too young to save, too old to matter", has created a good web site memorializing the Northland Shopping Center, a 1950's-era shopping center in Jennings, Missouri, that has long since been demolished and replaced. I, too, would have loved to see this: Saving a shopping center is practically unheard of, but the architectural and historical aspects of Northland made it a special case. I still imagine how cool a multi-story Target inside the Famous-Barr building would have been, how the properly-marketed genuine retro buzz would have made it a truly one-of-a-kind shopping destination, and how trailblazing ... the resurgence of a retail legend would have been... Having driven past the Target at Northland's old location during errands last Friday caused this site, which I encountered long ago, to pop back into memory. As a bonus, re-visiting this site helped me realize that a really odd-looking building I occasionally pass in Clayton was once a Famous-Barr. 4. Football season is upon us -- at least for the kind I usually just call soccer. The English Premier league begins play this Saturday, and I really liked this thorough and entertaining team-by-team preview. Although I am an Arsenal fan, I thought the "Why You Should Watch" fan quote about Newcastle took the cake: Perhaps more than any other Premier League team, Newcastle United have no idea where they'll finish in 2014-15. After 5th and 16th place finishes in the previous two campaigns, they were 6th on Boxing Day last year, then were the worst team in the entire Football League by several measures to finish the season. Where they belong this year is anybody's guess. Alan Pardew has brought in seven players to refresh the squad, and Siem de Jong and Rémy Cabella could be the bargains of the summer. Meanwhile, 18-year-old Rolando Aarons has been a force in every preseason match so far. There's reason for hope for Toon fans -- but of course it could all go very south, very quickly. Newcastle is a bullet train that could go off the rails at any moment. Who doesn't want to watch that? Say what you will of the EPL, but thanks to the time difference between Old Blighty and the States, it is no maker of football widows here. -- CAV Link to Original

Three editorials taken together go very far in making sense of the chaos in Ferguson, Missouri, that has existed since Michael Brown was fatally shot by a police officer. The first offers an explanation of the clearly evident outrage, but without addressing the equally obvious problem of opportunists seizing an opportunity to wreak havoc. The second -- and the most important in my opinion -- does the best job of explaining the chaos facing black leaders genuinely interested in progress. The third illustrates, by way of example, the cultural problem indicated by the second. The authors are, respectively, Leonard Pitts, Jr. of the Miami Herald, Joseph Epstein of the Wall Street Journal, and Jesse Jackson, Sr. Pitts writes that the protests are not just about Michael Brown. Pitts's piece reminds us of a broader historical context and is worth reading, especially for those of us in physical proximity to the events, and who might be wondering if any of this is even about Michael Brown: t is about the bitter sense of siege that lives in African-American men, a sense that it is perpetually open season on us. And that too few people outside of African America really notice, much less care. People who look like you are everyday deprived of health, wealth, freedom, opportunity, education, the benefit of the doubt, the presumption of innocence, life itself -- and when you try to say this, even when you document it with academic studies and buttress it with witness testimony, people don't want to hear it, people dismiss you, deny you, lecture you about white victimhood, chastise you for playing a so-called "race card." There is no disputing that black men are worse off by many measures than almost any other demograpic group, and seeing that on a daily basis can be an enormous psychological burden. However, as Joseph Epstein indicates, there is plenty of room for disagreement as to why so many black men remain poorly-off and feel unable to change things: ... The old dead analyses, the pretty panaceas, are paraded. Yet nothing new is up for discussion. Discussion itself is off the table. Except when Bill Cosby, Thomas Sowell or Shelby Steele and a few others have dared to speak about the pathologies at work--and for doing so, these black figures are castigated. And, much later: The situation today for a civil-rights leader is not so clear, and in many ways more complex. After the victories half a century ago, civil rights may be a misnomer. Economics and politics and above all culture are now at the heart of the problem. Blacks largely, and inexplicably, remain pledged to a political party whose worn-out ideas have done little for them while claiming much. Slipping off the too-comfortable robes of victimhood is essential, as is discouraging everything in ghetto culture that has dead-end marked all over it. The task is enormous, the person likely to bring it off, a modern-day Moses able to lead his people out of the desert, nowhere in sight. Until that person or persons arrives, we can expect more nights like those in Ferguson, with cries of racism, with looters and bottom-feeders turning up, with sadness all round. [link added] While I am not sure a "modern-day Moses" is strictly necessary, I agree with Epstein's assessement of the situation faced by black Americans as transitional. I would go further than Epstein in my assessment of the quality of the "civil rights" establishment: I see them as derelict at best. Jesse Jackson, Sr. offers us a prime example, in the form of an editorial that appeared recently in USA Today: Here's America today: high unemployment and low graduation rates result in guns and drugs in and jobs out; hospitals and public schools closing; gym, art, music and trade skills taken out of our public schools; inadequate investments being made in our infrastructure with roads crumbling, bridges falling down and an outdated public transportation system; a failure to address climate change; denial of capital investment for entrepreneurs; abandoned homes and vacant lots; a lack of youth recreational opportunities; frivolous entertainment, texting and Twitter replacing serious news reporting, reading, writing and arithmetic; a cutback in funding and a denial of equal opportunity in public jobs such as for teachers, policemen and firemen; all of which leads to hopelessness, despair and cynicism. [bold added] Yes. After ironically alluding to the failed War on Poverty, Jesse Jackson calls for more of the same, and, for good measure, takes the death of a young man as a chance to hawk big government solutions to ... global warming, of all things. Not anywhere is there a hint of Jackson considering whether our nation's government has created or worsened any of the real problems faced by the country in general and black men in particular -- or a clue that he might consider a real alternative to trying to solve everything through central planning. It is supremely ironic, given that Jim Crow, a government program for keeping black people down, didn't make black leaders as highly suspicious of intrusive government as the American people were around the time of the Revolution. As Thomas Jefferson might have asked: Might a government big enough to pass loot around also be big enough to sap the pride and initiative -- and the sense that there is opportunity out there for the taking -- from an entire people? Leonard Pitts argues that black men endure heavy psychological pressure from the idea that their options are purposely limited by the society around them. But Joseph Epstein makes it clear, and Jesse Jackson demonstrates, that it is time to stop and question the premise behind those feelings. Opportunities are, in fact, partly limited by vestigial (and vanishing) racism, prejudice, culture, and bad government. How to make the most out of what opportunities are open and how to fight the right battles to become as free as anyone else require what is most sorely missing in this whole sad episode, and many others like it: A rational examination of facts (including one's emotions), with the overall purpose of determining what is best for one's life and how to achieve it. This is not to minimize the incredible burden it must be to go through life seeing poverty and hearing from all corners that the deck is stacked against you -- or the horror of seeing someone much like you killed out of the blue. But self-control and careful thought are, in fact, the way to win anyway. Anyone can take away your freedom or your life, but no one can touch your soul unless you let them. -- CAV Link to Original