October, 2014 archive
Goodbye, Columbus 0
Tony Norman considers the nascent, but growing movement to bring perspective to American’s veneration of Christopher Columbus. Several municipalities have replaced “Columbus Day” with “Indigenous Peoples Day” (or similarly worded memorial days) or instituted such a commemoration in addition to Columbus Day.
It’s a thoughtful read. Here’s a bit.
But as Mark Twain once said, “The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.” Ambrose Bierce, arguably the only writer who could legitimately challenge Twain as the greatest wit of 19th century America, insisted that history “is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.”
Keystone Kops in the Keystone State 0
Shaun Mullen has an update on the fustercluck search for a domestic terrorist in Pennsylvania.
Cantor’s Cant, Legacy Dept. 0
Eric Cantor has made a lasting contribution to the polity.
“Anyone who is in leadership or chairs a committee knows now that getting Cantored is a real possibility,” said one senior staffer of a House Republican committee chairman who is up for reelection.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Spontaneous politeness. It’s like spontaneous combustion; if you combine the right elements, stuff happens.
Deputies learned that a bullet hit a woman in the leg without actually coming out of the barrel of a gun.
Maria Ramos, 48, had placed a live .22 caliber rim-fire bullet on a table. The bullet fell off the table and hit concrete, causing it to discharge, wounding Ramos in her upper right leg.
Football uber Alles 0
Werner Herzog’s Bear posits that football is a reflection of corporate America. A nugget:
Do read the rest, then ignore tonight’s game.
Philadelphia Eagles Fans . . . 0
. . . are still the worst fans in pro sports.
Who Put the “Dismal” in the “Dismal Science”? 0
One quality that Playboy and Reader’s Digest share is this: You can pick up an old issue of either and always find something to read.
I did that last week and discovered an excellent article in the June 2012 issue of Playboy by Tim Schultz entitled “These Rogues Of The Dismal Science Have Been Vindicated By The Economic Crash. How Much Longer Can Mainstream Economists Ignore The Heterodox?”
The thumbnail version is this: “Neoclassical” economists, the dominant school these days, believe that persons always act in rational ways* and that, consequently, economic behavior and outcomes can be predicted with the use of computer models. As a result of their touching faith in human rationality, neoclassical economists are constantly getting stuff wrong, such as the string of bubbles we have witnessed in the last three decades.
“Heterodox” economists, very much a minority, believe that human economic behavior is subject human qualities, such as greed, pride, predatory behavior, and so on. In other words, they tend to view economics much more as a social science, akin to sociology or psychology, than as a hard science, similar as physics. (You can guess to which view I am partial.)
I have not found the article available on-line without a subscription, but you can read about it at Alternet. I urge you to do so.
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*Clearly, none of them drive cars or pay attention to the roads.
Sounds Like? 0
Voice of the tattle.
“We lost everything,” she said. “Can you send me a card to where we’re staying now?”
The card nearly was sent. But as the woman poured out her story, a computer compared the biometric features of her voice against a database of suspected fraudsters. Not only was the caller not the person she claimed to be, “she” wasn’t even a woman. The program identified the caller as a male impostor trying to steal the woman’s identity.
Politicon 2
John Dickinson is fed up with political fund-raising emails. So too am I, even those from persons I tend to support. Furthermore, because I’ve chosen to contribute snall sums to a few candidates on my local ballot, I seem to get them from every candidate everywhere. A snippet:
The Voter Fraud Fraud . . . 0
. . . is not standing up under judicial scrutiny, even the scrutiny of judges appointed by Republicans. A nugget (emphasis added).
“Some of the ‘evidence’ of voter-impersonation fraud is downright goofy, if not paranoid, such as the nonexistent buses that according to the ‘True the Vote’ movement transport foreigners and reservation Indians to polling places,” wrote Judge Richard A. Posner of the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
One suspects that the word, “goofy,” does not frequently appear in the opinions of Federal Appeals Courts.
More at the link.
Collateral Damage 0
This poor railroad engineer will have to live with the memory of this the rest of his or her life, and it wasn’t his or her fault.
As my two or three regular readers know, I worked for the railroad for over two decades; this sort of stuff happens every day because persons carelessly (and sometimes intentionally) put themselves in harm’s way, forgetting that the railroad is a place of business, not a scenic overlook or a nature trail or a shortcut to where they want to go.
Don’t take chances with trains.
If it’s a tie, you lose.
Victims All, All the Time 0
Matthew Pulver describes the symbiosis between Nixon’s odious southern strategy and the sense of victimhood and paranoia which characterizes (and fuels) contemporary right-wing ideology. A nugget:
Read it.
Football uber Alles 0
If you haven’t read the New York Times’s story detailing how the Tallahassee police force overlooks, nay, covers up misconduct by Florida State football players, you should.
Then do something productive with your time, like not wasting it on big time football.
