Category Archives: Americana

A Nation of Owners? Renters? Both?

Americana, Current Affairs

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?"

Old_timer_structural_worker2

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

Americana

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.

1999 Duck Stamp


An surprisingly unsurprising quote from David Foster Wallace reduex – unburying the lead

Americana, Books, Religion, What's a man?

I just ran into a quote by David Foster Wallace that really hit me. It is a short fragment
of a commencement speech to the 2005 graduating class at Kenyon College. The fragment
is short, less than 1/2 a page and it is the best case for spirituality that I have ever read. It starts out: Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship–be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles–is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.

He was so brilliant and I am so sorry that he is gone. When David Foster Wallace committed suicide some time ago, I was staggered. It seemed so unlikely. I felt like I knew him from his writing and he seemed so confident. He was incredibly competent but, I guess, not as confident as he appeared. Two of my favorite pieces of writing were by David Foster Wallace – and he seems to always be David Foster Wallace, never David, or Wallace – A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again and Tense Present; Democracy, English, and the Wars over Usage.  Both were, IMHO, brilliant: interestingly written, interesting and informative, and great fun. And even though I read them when I was well into my 50’s and 60’s, I was greatly influenced by both of them.

A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again was written in 1997 and was about going on a cruise ship. It was a vicious takedown of the Cruise, but in a very funny and gentle way. The two things I most remember about the article was how jam-packed the cruise was – leaving no time to relax or contemplate the day – and the incredible amount of footnotes that were a huge part of the article. One of the footnotes even had it’s own footnote1. For months, if not years, my footnote use went way up much to the annoyance of some people who were trying to read what I had written.

But Tense Present; Democracy, English, and the Wars over Usage  was the biggest influence on me. It was a very favorable book review of A Dictionary of Modern American Usage by Bryan Garner. But it was also about the the importance of of good grammar and the use of the right word in the right way. It is about the importance of language in our democracy and how language defines class and much more such as why he doesn’t like Politically Correct English: Were I, for instance, a political conservative who opposed taxation as a means of redistributing national wealth, I would be delighted to watch PCE progressives spend their time and energy arguing over whether a poor person should be described as “low-income” or “economically disadvantaged” or “pre-prosperous” rather than
constructing effective public arguments for redistributive legislation or higher marginal tax rates on corporations….As a practical matter, I strongly doubt whether a guy who has four small kids and makes $12,000 a year feels more empowered or less ill-used by a society that carefully refers to him as “economically disadvantaged” rather than “poor.” Were I he, in fact, I’d probably find the PCE term insulting — not just because it’s patronizing but because it’s hypocritical and self-serving. I bought the dictionary, still use it, and highly recommend it.

1. He writing about a fire extinguisher in the passageway by his room, he footnoted that the sign said Break glass to access Fire Extinguisher and then footnoted the footnote with Duh!

Lynn Hill: probably the greatest athlete you’ve never heard of*

Americana, Sports

*I sort of like ending a sentence with a preposition, but, when I do, I am always aware that I am breaking an old rule and sort of pride myself on being au courant; but – I know, I know,  but again – ending a heading with a preposition is very difficult.

Anyway, back to Lynn Hill. Back in the mid to late 60’s I fell in love with Yosemite and went there alot. Earlier, in the late 50’s and very early 60’s I had a fantasy of being a Mountain Climber (or Mountaineer as they were called: nobody – at least nobody I knew – was a rock climber), I think, primarily, because I had met and even spent a couple of weeks in the Sierras with a couple of well known climbers. Jules Eichorn, and through him, Norman Clyde.

We spent alot of time in the Sierras with ropes and other climbing paraphernalia thinking about climbing but, usually, we just went up mountains we could hike or scramble. At one point I was involved in rescuing a climber who had fallen on Mt. Banner and I watched a doctor (and fellow rescuer) amputate a couple of the resuee’s fingers with a pocket knife. That soured me on anything more than a class four climb.

Anyway, back to Lynn Hill. While we were mostly hiking in the High Country, we kept hearing stories of these crazy guys who were camped at camp 4 in Yosemite Valley. They were starting to climb all the unclimbable walls in The Valley. As an aside, strangely, several of them became interested in outdoor clothing: Doug Tompkins who founded North Face and Esprit, Yvon Chouinard who founded Patagonia, and Royal Robbins. I have no idea of the connection between first class climbers and first class clothing. End aside.

When we would pass through The Valley, we would occasionally even see them trying El Cap or inching up Half Dome. These were climbs that would take the better part of a week and we would watch from the ground for, say, an hour, and it would seem like nobody moved more than an inch. But the climbs got faster and the climbers got better until The Nose was first climbed in 1958 in …47 days using “siege” tactics: climbing in an expedition style using fixed ropes along the length of the route….the second ascent of The Nose was in 1960 by Royal Robbins, Joe Fitschen, Chuck Pratt and Tom Frost, who took seven days in the first continuous climb of the route. (From Wikipedia)

On September 19, 1994, Lynn Hill free climbed El Capitan in less than 24 hours.The greatest climbing feat – by anybody – ever. El Cap is 3900 vertical feet – by any reasonable standard, it is impossible. In 1954, Roger Banister ran the first sub-four minute mile. Now the world record is about 17 seconds less. About a 7% improvement. Lynn Hill’s feat was a 98% improvement – and she free climbed it. Up until, everybody climbed El Cap by hanging onto their ropes and hardware; she climbed it using the ropes and hardware as a safety backup. Anybody who thinks women can’t compete with men should watch Lynn Hill climb. A great athlete and the greatest climber.

Oscars

Americana, Film

The other day at lunch, Richard Taylor asked me to post my Oscar predictions – or, atleast, who I want to win. I have not seen all the nominated movies and have no insight on who will win. Who wins the various Oscars is really an Inside the Movie Biz political game. Who do people like, who do they admire but don’t especially like, who did they vote for last year and don’t want to vote for them again – you get the idea. 

I do obsessively read other people’s opinions on who will win, but, because I really don’t remember how accurate they were in the past, I don’t have much of an idea how good their predictions are. I sort of feel the LA Times is a good source because they seem to be the quasi-company paper; I like a website called the House Next Door because they seem to actually be thinking about the nominations; the New York Times because – well – its the New York Times and they have two different ways of predicting.

With those caveats, here are some predictions and what I liked the best of what I saw.

Visual Effects – Probably will win: Avatar; I hope will win: Avatar because that is what it was -and I mean this in the best possible way. 

Avatar

Cinematography – Probably will win: Inglorious Basterds; I hope will win; Inglorious Basterds – I just thought every shot in this movie was gorgeous.

Inglourious_basterds49-jpg
 

Best Actress: Probably will win – Sandra Bullock; probably should win – one of the actresses from one of the movies I didn’t see; I hope will win – Sandra Bullock

Best Actor: Probably will win – Jeff Bridges -his Dudeness – in Crazy Heart which I didn’t see; who I hope will win – George Clooney if for no other reason than he is willing to take a risk but he started off so off-putting and ended up so vulnerable.

Best Supporting Actor: Probably will win – Christoph Waltz; I sure hope so, he was great.

Best Supporting Actress – Mo’Nique; I hope will win -Vera Farmiga who was charming in Up In The Air

Best Original Screenplay: Probably will win – Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds; I certainly hope so. The only problem here, as I see it, is that Tarantino writes great scenes rather than great movies. The scenes don’t alway fit together into a great movie – he sometimes gets around the problems by putting the scenes out of order as in Pulp Fiction – but, wow, are the scenes great.

Best director: Probably will win – Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker; I hope will win – Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds

 


Best Picture: Probably will win – The Hurt Locker; Who I hope will win – Avatar. It was a staggeringly original total experience.