I have no idea how this happened, but, somehow we – we being you and I as represented by the US Government – pay people to grow stuff that we pay other people to tell us we shouldn't eat.
Category Archives: Americana
The Blind Side
I just finished reading The Blind Side by Michael Lewis and I would recommend it to anybody who is interested in football, or US social policy, or the human potential, or race relations, or, for that matter, just wants a good read.I just finished writing about David Foster Wallace and how much I have enjoyed his writing and The Blind Side is the polar opposite.
With DFW, I am always aware of, and dazzled by, the writing. In the The Blind Side, the story is everything – more accurately, what is being told is everything. All the words, all the sentences are pushing a narrative forward. And I mean that in the best possible way.
At this point, I think everybody knows the basic plot – how a poor black kid, Big Mike who become Michael Oher, is discovered (not quite the right word, maybe found) by a very rich, white, Christian, family and how his life and their lives are changed. That does not do it justice. Michael Oher is a 350 pound, 6'4", freakishly quick, and astonishingly graceful black kid who is invisible. He goes to school, sort of, but nobody cares if he learns anything – they just pass him on to the next grade where he is invisible again. He is one of those kids we read about every once in a while that just slipped through the cracks. At 6'4" and 350 pounds!
Except that, when he is starting his junior year in high school, everything changed. Michael is very likable but he is very lucky. As the book says, among other things, Pity the kid inside Hurt Village who was born to play the piano, or manage people, or trade bonds. This book made me realize, again, that we, me and the people who read this blog, were all born on third base, at least, and, even on our best days, think we hit a double.We didn't we are just enormously lucky.
Poster of the Day
Thanks to Andrew Sullivan – The Daily Dish. Originally from Dvorak
–
A Nation of Owners? Renters? Both?
This is a post from Richard Taylor. The last time I stepped in as the
blogmasters' avatar I was posting from Italy, just south of Switzerland.
That seems like a good enough segue to muse for a moment on a great
article by the economist Robert Shiller in the Sunday
New York Times. (You have to read the article to find the connection.)
Noting the myriad federal subsidies to the housing industry, Shiller
asks "what is the long-term justification for putting taxpayers on the
line to subsidize home ownership?"
His answer is a complicated
one. I won't try to summarize it here; there is enough nuance and food
for thought that it deserves its own reading. I will say that I
appreciated having an economist acknowledge that our decisions cannot be
reduced to simple economic efficiency. He talks about the role of
values (and not the kind showcased on "The Price is Right"). In addition
to finding policies that make economic sense, those policies need to
take account of some fundamental values that run much more deeply in our
national psyche than simple economic efficiency. His point is a bold
one because his critics could argue that the values he describes are
contrary to the change in policy direction he seems to be proposing. He
seems more committed to recognizing, naming, the values than in winning a
technical argument (and willing to insist that we look deeply at the
values before jumping to policy conclusions). The piece feels like an
invitation to conversation rather than a prescription for legislation.
Some
may differ with his take on our values as a nation. That could be an
essay in itself. To me, the first step is to acknowledge that values
have a place in the discussion. Now we can talk.
More about cows
I ran into this Philosophical ramble – and, I am sorry to say, I lost the link – and thought I would pass it on: Suppose that you are a cow philosopher contemplating the welfare of cows. In the world today there are about 1.3 billion of your compatriots. It would be a fine thing for cows if all cows were well treated and if none were slaughtered for food. Nevertheless, being a clever cow, you understand that it’s the demand for beef that brings cows to life. How do you regard such a trade off?
If each cow brought to life adds even some small bit of cow utility to the grand total of cow welfare must not beef eaters be lauded, at least if they are hungry enough? Or is the pro beef-eater argument simply repugnant.
Should a cow behind a haystack of ignorance choose the world with the highest expectation of utility? In which case, a world of many cows each destined for slaughter could well be preferable to one with many fewer but happier cows. Or is it wrong to compare the zero of non-existence with existence? Should a cow philosopher focus on making cows happy or on making happy cows? If the former, would one (or two) supremely happy cows not be best?
I think these questions are important both for thinking about cows and animal rights and for human beings. I have never thought about this for cows, but I have thought about it in regard to Ducks Unlimited1 but I am very glad that somebody is thinking about it. The world a better place.
1Who spend a lot of time and money on duck habitat so they can kill them (the ducks) and, of course, duck art for duck stamps.
