A Commonplace Book

Apparently, my subconscious has decreed that it's time for my once-every-eighteen-months post in this journal.  I will say that I'm very impressed at the technological progress LJ has made since last I was here.

There's lots I could write about, but my impulse is to mention this post from three and a half years ago, in which I wrote:

With Nate Silver having said even before the Obamacare rollout debacle

"Our best guess, after assigning probabilities of the likelihood of a G.O.P. pickup in each state, is that Republicans will end up with somewhere between 50 and 51 Senate seats after 2014"

and with historical evidence strongly against any party holding the Presidency for more than eight years...

...did we just watch the Democrats blow themselves up?

ETA: actually, they just ended the filibuster for judicial nominees.  Still, this doesn't seem too bright.  If the Republicans should take the Senate, they'll now have cover when they end the filibuster for legislation too, since the Democrats did it first.

I am not at all surprised-- since it wasn't much of a stretch-- to have been proven right about a lot of that.  I admit not to have predicted Trump's win, though I did feel that with the general level of insularity and cluelessness in the American elite, there would be a blowup at some point along the line.  In situation after situation, though, throughout life, the real trick is not so much predicting what will happen as answering the far more difficult questions "when?" and "to what degree?"

My Friends List on Facebook is chiefly composed of opponents of Trump, whether they're actual liberals or not, and I've been amazed and disgusted at the degree of wallowing in misery they seem to enjoy.  It's not enough for them to know about everything he's doing; no, they have to post about it and wail and rehash it with cross comments, as though they either 1.) actually enjoyed feeling this way or 2.) as if they thought that doing that were actually accomplishing anything.  Both seem unlikely, but I've had to impose Social Fixer on Facebook, eliminating most political posts, just to be able to use it at all.

What I wish they would do (apart from trying to exit their own intellectual bubbles) is to focus on how the Democratic Party should change.  Just to start out, there was a truly amazing amount of wishful thinking in it orbiting the permanent Democratic majority idea.  I could have told them no such thing was possible, just as I can tell you right now that for precisely the same reasons, there is no such thing as a Permanent Republican Majority.  The Democratic Party will return to power at some point.  What I want to know is, why is exploring the question of "on what terms" will it return to power ("When? And to what degree?") not far more attractive to the liberals on my FB FL than the extended exercise in sociointellectual masochism they're indulging in?  Kübler-Ross, were she still with us, might well have rearranged Bargaining at the end, since half the Left seems stuck in Anger and the other half seems to be vacillating between Anger and the later stages of Depression and Acceptance.  This isn't death, people, with which no bargains can be struck.  This is democracy.

I was just having an argument with my sister on Facebook.  She shared a page about a comedian's routine about how Australians think American gun laws are crazy, and I commented with something critical of the assumptions that the routine was based on.  She immediately got very defensive and emotional-- I do wonder to what extent her pregnancy affected that, if at all, though naturally I didn't mention that possibility to her-- and we went around and around in what seems in retrospect to be a mildly ridiculous fashion.

Anyway, my point isn't to rehash the whole thing, but to talk, as my sister obviously didn't want to, about the intersection between humor and science and policy.  A lot of people say something like "it's only comedy, so lighten up!"  But I don't think that that answers, despite the strong desire of many people in the glow of laughing to dump on the buzzkill.

In some ways, I think, comedy is the opposite of science, in that comedy often reinforces definitions and assumptions that the comedian has in common with whoever finds the routine funny, as I bet many people argued about Andrew Dice Clay, while science tries to challenge and test assumptions. I think comedy makes people more sure of their values, definitions and assumptions-- as for example black jokes would make people less likely to challenge those things in their minds about black people.  This is probably the worst aspect of comedy, in fact.  It increases tribalism.

I'm sheerly astounded at the actions of Senate Democrats in getting rid of the filibuster now, of all times, with a mere twelve months left until 2014's elections, when far more Democratic seats are up for grabs than Republican ones.   With Nate Silver having said even before the Obamacare rollout debacle

Our best guess, after assigning probabilities of the likelihood of a G.O.P. pickup in each state, is that Republicans will end up with somewhere between 50 and 51 Senate seats after 2014

and with historical evidence strongly against any party holding the Presidency for more than eight years...

...did we just watch the Democrats blow themselves up?

ETA: actually, they just ended the filibuster for judicial nominees.  Still, this doesn't seem too bright.  If the Republicans should take the Senate, they'll now have cover when they end the filibuster for legislation too, since the Democrats did it first.

A New Jersey teacher who confronted Governor Chris Christie about his remarks about bad teachers and was yelled at by him, has apparently written an open letter to him and posted it on the Net.

"Yesterday I took the opportunity to come hear you speak on your campaign trail. I have never really heard you speak before except for sound bytes that I get on my computer."

The phrase is "sound bites", not "sound bytes".

"Too me, there is never enough money that is spent on education."

"To" me.  Also, "that is", as used here, is bad English composition.

"How will that help them see the value in their own self-worth"

Question mark at the end, not a period.

"Are you aware that poverty is the biggest determination of a child's educational success"

That's "determiner". Also, QUESTION MARK!

"If not, I suggest you read Diane Ravitch's new book Reign of Error."

Put the book title in quotation marks or italics, and then go look up "Correlation versus causation".

"You are simply putting a temporary band-aid into place."

As opposed to all those permanent Band-Aids? Redundant.

"Unfortunately that temporary fix is already starting to be exposed as Charter Schools are showing that they actually are not able to do better than public schools."

"Charter schools" doesn't begin the sentence and isn't part of a title or proper name, and therefore doesn't get capitalized.

"I invite you to come do my job for one week Governor Christie."

Put a comma after "week".

"Has there been back-room meetings as you agree to divert public funds to private companies that are seeking to take over our public educational system? This is my theory."

HAVE THERE BEEN MEETINGS, not "Has there".

"You have portrayed us as greedy, lazy money-draining public servants that do nothing."

Whereas, if this woman is representative, what they are is illiterate and incompetent.

Christie could hardly have asked for a better illustration of his point.

The rich man has his motor-car,
His country and his town estate.
He smokes a fifty-cent cigar
And jeers at Fate.

He frivols through the livelong day,
He knows not Poverty, her pinch.
His lot seems light, his heart seems gay;
He has a cinch.

Yet though my lamp burns low and dim,
Though I must slave for livelihood—
Think you that I would change with him?
You bet I would!

-- Franklin P. Adams (1881-1960)

I made some cinderblock garden beds last year, and this year planted tomatoes in one of them, which happened to be the one next to the fence. This was the result:



The damn things are taller than I am! Being new at this I got them into the ground rather late, so they're only putting forth ripe tomatoes now, but the plants have exploded with them.



The other day I picked almost two dozen ripe and almost-ripe tomatoes, and there are probably that many more still on the plants. Maggie's thinking of making sauce. Two things I learned from this year's crop: something to climb up is vital (they soon outstripped the cages I placed) and they ripen from underneath. That is, the ones underneath ripen before the surface ones, so have a way to check them and pick them underneath.

Credit should be given to the author of The Vegetable Gardener's Bible; Ed Smith's W.O.R.D. system (Wide beds, Organic methods, Raised beds, and Deep beds) sure worked for us.

Looks like the shutdown's going to occur. This'll be interesting.

I've just been watching Lincoln, and have been reminded how vicious American politics has been during most of our existence. In 1798 Congressmen Matthew Lyon and Roger Griswold got into a fight with walking stick and fireplace tongs on the floor of Congress, and Preston Brooks came up to Charles Sumner on the floor of Congress in 1856 and beat him senseless with a walking stick-- to an incredible wave of congratulation and support (and free canes) from his constituents. In 1954 a group of Puerto Rican nationalists shot up the House of Representatives, which was debating an immigration bill. Between the Dixiecrats, now all gone, and the World War Two generation, now mostly gone, we had a very civil run for the past seventy years or so. But I guess that was more an historical accident than anything else. And TV and radio united America considerably back then; where will things go now that the internet has allowed intellectual Balkanization and news outlets are more like Jacksonian newspapers?

Conventional wisdom suggests this is a mistake by the Republicans, since much of the public blames them. Could be. I wish I could say I knew, though. I can't help thinking of Bill Maher's backhanded admiration for the way they actually lead, though I'm sure he thinks where they're leading is Hell. (If, that is, he believed in Hell.) I'm sure this will be a millstone for their next presidential candidate, but I don't know that they're going to suffer much electorally otherwise; any electoral suffering that was likely to occur to them probably already has. John C. Calhoun once said something to the effect that even losing arguments that are made for a long time can't have no effect. Between this and Roberts's upholding of Obamacare by destroying the universality of the Commerce Clause, I have a strong sense of history being made.

I wish I could see where it's going, though.

I don't buy that many antiques any more-- a consequence of clutter is that you realize how bad many such decisions are-- but when this came up for only $6,000 (very cheap for what it is, and it'll be very useful and fun), I could not resist:



Back in 1936, a desperate Pierce-Arrow Motor Company decided to try to take advantage of the fast-growing travel trailer business to save the company, and began producing the Travelodge in their almost-empty plant in Buffalo, New York. The interiors were beautifully made (quality was a habit with Pierce-Arrow), with gumwood paneling, a tiled bathroom with a beveled-glass mirror, china cabinet doors with leaded-glass windows and a woodburning stove. The trailers, however, were priced competitively with middle-class trailers. Only a few hundred were made, sales volume was not what they had hoped for, and the company folded.



It doesn't have the wind generator on it any more (they knocked a thousand dollars off the price, and no way was it worth that to me) but I think it's incredibly cool. And one of only a few dozen survivors-- you know I love rare stuff.

I've been reading Megan McArdle's blog, and she said at one point that the way to have a successful blog is to post often. Is that true, do you think?

Of course, I have probably been posting so rarely that no one reads this any more, and won't see that question to answer it, which is a nice point of irony.

Megan McArdle reports: Amazon To Build A Market For Fan Fiction.