I'm blogging from Nina's, and in addition to me and Nina, there are three other Madison bloggers. The table is beautifully set, with a blue damask tablecloth, many wineglasses, including filled champagne glasses, big, deep white plates, a pottery vase with daffodils, and -- I hate to say it -- three computers.
"Don't be mean to [name deleted], she's psychologically fragile."
"Oh, but those are the most fun to be mean to."
...
The discussion turns to missent email, and there are many stories of people sending out email to a big group that they thought they were only sending to one person? How many email horror stories are there? We all know one.
We're celebrating a great event: Jeremy's department voted him tenure. Hence all the celebrating. We're using a ball point pen to sign the champagne cork, which, presumably, Jeremy will treasure forever.
...
Porcini butter or mustard-shallot-truffle? -- Nina gives us a choice of sauces for the tenderloin steaks she's cooking up.
Tonya is talking about the Preppy Murderer, a propos of my comment that Peter Cincotti (whose music I'm appreciating) looks a little psycho.
The statement is made: I'd rather live in a place that's too liberal than too conservative. That's not me, by the way.
...
Nina: "I want you all to appreciate that there are two tablespoons of Polish beer in these crepes."
Nina's a blur of activity:
[UPDATE: Sorry the photographs are no longer viewable. Apple, after taking my money for years with a Mac account, made the page with the photographs unavailable.]
UPDATE: There was a lot of simulblogging going on: here, here, here, here, here, and here.
ANOTHER UPDATE: I did those links in the last update from bed, long after midnight, and I was far away from the power cord. The power was getting to 0% as I put the last link up, so I didn't get a chance to test them, and I'm not surprised, testing them this morning, that one link was posted twice and another omitted. I've fixed it now and am also reading more of the text at the links. Tonya specifies what Nina cooked -- "beef tenderloin, a corn and chanterelles mushroom dish, and a chocolate crepe with poached strawberries dessert." That leaves out the potatoes, which might have been the most delicious thing on the plate and the sauce, which was mustard-shallot-truffle. Tonya quotes me as saying, "Better than L'Etoile." L'Etoile is the best restaurant in town. That was truth, not flattery. And now Nina's finally had the time to do a post, and she says that having us over was "like being back in Poland, among friends."
YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit readers! You may be interested to know that the very next day I wreck my car and Tonya ends up on crutches. We have a second, less festive dinner on Sunday night, recovering from our wounds.
January 22, 2005
"It's a lovey, huggy little bear ... Who cares what it's wearing?"
Is political correctness about to stage a big comeback? Maybe.
UPDATE: Here's another article, with some detail about the woman who started the petition drive to stop the company from making the bear:
"If Vermont Teddy Bear had produced a bear with a noose around its neck saying, 'I'd love to hang with you,' and called it a Ku Klux Klan teddy bear, the response would be overwhelming disgust and horror," said Anne Donahue, a Republican state representative.Interesting that the offended politicians are Republicans.
UPDATE: Here's another article, with some detail about the woman who started the petition drive to stop the company from making the bear:
As the mother of a mentally ill 13-year-old boy, [the woman] has experienced the trauma of watching her son, [name deleted] being wrapped in a mechanical restraint or straight jacket [sic].I deleted the names. It seems to me that people should keep the medical records of their minor children private. I really don't understand being this upset about a slight or nonexistent increase in stigma and then making a spectacle of yourself opposing a teddy bear.
Along with her husband, [name deleted], she also has signed commitment reports for [the boy's] four separate psychiatric hospitalizations.
"There is a tremendous stigma in raising a child with complex mental illness, and I feel strongly that as a family we need to educate people in our communities to elevate mental disabilities to the same level of respect and care of those who are physically disabled," she explains.
Snow.
It's just getting light here, and I can see the snow that fell overnight:
I take the snow shovel and plow just up to where the NYT landed:
I wedge the shovel in the snow bank. It's Chris's turn to do the walk.
UPDATE: I write this on the following Wednesday and observe that these are the last two photographs of my car. There it is, covered in snow, and the very next day, it will be wrecked in a crash. Goodbye, Li'l Greenie!
I take the snow shovel and plow just up to where the NYT landed:
I wedge the shovel in the snow bank. It's Chris's turn to do the walk.
UPDATE: I write this on the following Wednesday and observe that these are the last two photographs of my car. There it is, covered in snow, and the very next day, it will be wrecked in a crash. Goodbye, Li'l Greenie!
Signs.
Yesterday, I made fun of the old Five Man Electrical Band song "Signs." You know:
Today, I see this:
Groovy!
Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?
Today, I see this:
Like a naturalist conducting a tour of the jungle, [Hans Monderman] led the way to a busy intersection in the center of [Drachten, Netherlands] where several odd things immediately became clear. Not only was it virtually naked, stripped of all lights, signs and road markings, but there was no division between road and sidewalk. It was, basically, a bare brick square.
But in spite of the apparently anarchical layout, the traffic, a steady stream of trucks, cars, buses, motorcycles, bicycles and pedestrians, moved along fluidly and easily, as if directed by an invisible conductor. When Mr. Monderman, a traffic engineer and the intersection's proud designer, deliberately failed to check for oncoming traffic before crossing the street, the drivers slowed for him. No one honked or shouted rude words out of the window.
"Who has the right of way?" he asked rhetorically. "I don't care. People here have to find their own way, negotiate for themselves, use their own brains."...
To make communities safer and more appealing, Mr. Monderman argues, you should first remove the traditional paraphernalia of their roads - the traffic lights and speed signs; the signs exhorting drivers to stop, slow down and merge; the center lines separating lanes from one another; even the speed bumps, speed-limit signs, bicycle lanes and pedestrian crossings. In his view, it is only when the road is made more dangerous, when drivers stop looking at signs and start looking at other people, that driving becomes safer.
"All those signs are saying to cars, 'This is your space, and we have organized your behavior so that as long as you behave this way, nothing can happen to you,' " Mr. Monderman said. "That is the wrong story."
Groovy!
The flap about Summers.
Here's a good opinion piece (by Ruth Marcus) in the Washington Post about Harvard President Larry Summers and his suggestion that a biological difference between men and women might contribute to the underrepresentation of women in the sciences.
"Impermissible" is an extreme word. The question should be: why is it worrisome? And then the answer is obvious: it's worrisome because there has been and continues to be so much deeply entrenched unfair discrimination against women that we are afraid that any negative quality that science might establish will be used to mean more than it should. Like Marcus, I cringe at the blather about female intuition and empathy and agree that those who talk about that seem to invite the observation that there is a downside. People talk about the positive in the hope of overcoming all the negative assumptions that underlie the unfair discrimination that really has taken place historically. But I do think it would be better to cut out the patronizing flattery of women. And I don't oppose legitimate scientific research into biological differences or think people should be gasping with horror at offhand speculation about biological sex differences, but we can properly demand that presidents of universities do a first-rate job of speaking in public about such things.
[S]ome who weren't present took the reported remarks and inflated them, as if Summers had said biological differences were both irrefutably established and the sole cause of the shortfall. Summers has since issued three increasingly lengthy -- and increasingly groveling -- explanation-apologies....
[M]any who find Summers's remarks offensive seem perfectly happy to trumpet the supposed attributes that women bring to the workplace -- that they are more intuitive, or more empathetic or some such. If that is so -- and I've always rather cringed at such assertions -- why is it impermissible to suggest that there might be some downside differences as well?...
"Impermissible" is an extreme word. The question should be: why is it worrisome? And then the answer is obvious: it's worrisome because there has been and continues to be so much deeply entrenched unfair discrimination against women that we are afraid that any negative quality that science might establish will be used to mean more than it should. Like Marcus, I cringe at the blather about female intuition and empathy and agree that those who talk about that seem to invite the observation that there is a downside. People talk about the positive in the hope of overcoming all the negative assumptions that underlie the unfair discrimination that really has taken place historically. But I do think it would be better to cut out the patronizing flattery of women. And I don't oppose legitimate scientific research into biological differences or think people should be gasping with horror at offhand speculation about biological sex differences, but we can properly demand that presidents of universities do a first-rate job of speaking in public about such things.
About that Wisconsin vote.
Here's the latest Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article trying to sort through the evidence of fraud in the presidential election.
Reading out an "extensive dictionary definition"? Sounds as though things are getting pretty hostile over there in Milwaukee.
A week after questions arose over 10,000 voters who registered on election day but whose identity couldn't be confirmed with verification cards, Milwaukee's top election official declared Friday that the number is inaccurate because it is based on an estimate.
Nonetheless, she could not provide an accurate count of how many people registered Nov. 2.
"We didn't have 5,000 people who voted twice," Lisa Artison, executive director of the city Election Commission, told an elections task force. "We did not have 10,000 people who voted who shouldn't have voted."
The 10,000 number was first raised Jan. 14 by state Rep. Jeff Stone (R-Greendale), citing the city's figures showing that 84,000 people registered on election day, though only 73,079 of them could have their registrations processed and confirmation cards sent to them.
At the task force meeting, which Stone attended, Artison stressed that the 84,000 number was an estimate, and then read an extensive dictionary definition of the word "estimate."
She later questioned an "agenda" by critics - including the media - in using the 10,000 number. She and others have said the gap is due to illegible cards, cards with incomplete information or cards that are duplicates, among other reasons.
Reading out an "extensive dictionary definition"? Sounds as though things are getting pretty hostile over there in Milwaukee.
January 21, 2005
Why I love the Drudge Report.
Have I ever mentioned that I adore the Drudge Report? I love the distinctive, iconic, minimal layout of the page. The real news is there, set plainly in three columns of underlined teasers, and weird, sensationalistic things are lined right up with them. Some of those things are so dumb, but they fascinate us even as we think they are too stupid to mention, like today's "Fish Discovered With Human Face Pattern..."
UPDATE: Note that the caption on the second photo at the link calls it "Human Fish-Face." We're still laughing about that chez Althouse. I'm picturing something like this.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Here's what Chris pictured.
YET MORE: Here's a much better photograph of the human-face fish (not, I repeat, a fish-face human). And this seems like a good time to mention Don Knotts.
AND MORE: A reader sends this from "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life." Another view of same. Hmmm... I should watch this film, which starts, fishily, like this:
UPDATE: Note that the caption on the second photo at the link calls it "Human Fish-Face." We're still laughing about that chez Althouse. I'm picturing something like this.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Here's what Chris pictured.
YET MORE: Here's a much better photograph of the human-face fish (not, I repeat, a fish-face human). And this seems like a good time to mention Don Knotts.
AND MORE: A reader sends this from "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life." Another view of same. Hmmm... I should watch this film, which starts, fishily, like this:
FIRST FISH
Morning.
SECOND FISH
Morning.
THIRD FISH
Morning.
FOURTH FISH
Morning.
THIRD FISH
Morning.
FIRST FISH
Morning.
SECOND FISH
Morning.
FOURTH FISH
What's new?
FIRST FISH
Not much.
FIFTH AND SIXTH FISH
Morning.
THE OTHERS
Morning, morning, morning.
FIRST FISH
Frank was just asking what's new.
FIFTH FISH
Was he?
FIRST FISH
Yeah. Uh huh...
THIRD FISH
Hey, look. Howard's being eaten.
SECOND FISH
Is he?
[They move forward to watch a waiter serving a large grilled fish to a
large man.]
SECOND FISH
Makes you think doesn't it?
FOURTH FISH
I mean... what's it all about?
FIFTH FISH
Beats me.
Why are we here, what is life all about?
Is God really real, or is there some doubt?
So are you watching the new season of "The Apprentice"?
I really thought I'd stopped watching that show, but last night I found myself drawn back in by some mysterious power. Well, that and the fact that Chris wanted to watch it, and I was already sitting right there in front of the TV. (I'd been monitoring the inauguration doings for hours.) I thought last season's show was boring, but they've tweaked it: instead of male/female teams, the contestants are split into those who went to college and those who didn't. Now, of course, this doesn't really prove anything about whether it's better to have a college education. They could have picked more competent people from the pool of less educated applicants and deliberately chosen some awkward, inept folks from the college grad applicants.
And, in fact, that's kind of what it looks like they did. One character is so goony, I suspected him of being an actor, unleashed on the group to screw them up. Since Trump decides whom to fire each week, he could easily keep the actor around, screwing up the morale of the college grad team. But I don't think this character is an actor. Why mess with the success of the show by cheating? And why trust an actor to get it right? In the huge pool of applicants for the show, you can find someone very weird and annoying, but also smart and articulate, with some business background. Anyway, the new season looks good. The people seem more real and differentiated than they did last time (when I had trouble telling them apart). The non-college people are lively, and the college-people are enlivened by the goofball in the group.
And, in fact, that's kind of what it looks like they did. One character is so goony, I suspected him of being an actor, unleashed on the group to screw them up. Since Trump decides whom to fire each week, he could easily keep the actor around, screwing up the morale of the college grad team. But I don't think this character is an actor. Why mess with the success of the show by cheating? And why trust an actor to get it right? In the huge pool of applicants for the show, you can find someone very weird and annoying, but also smart and articulate, with some business background. Anyway, the new season looks good. The people seem more real and differentiated than they did last time (when I had trouble telling them apart). The non-college people are lively, and the college-people are enlivened by the goofball in the group.
Code word: "Lambeau."
From a Wisconsin State Journal article about Wisconsinites at the the inauguration:
Interesting to choose a word that ought to remind you of your failed candidate's flaws.
About 200 people from Wisconsin traveled by bus through the night Wednesday and early Thursday to participate in the Turn Your Back on Bush protest at the inaugural parade.
Wisconsin activists who were scattered along the route turned their backs at hearing the code word "Lambeau."
Interesting to choose a word that ought to remind you of your failed candidate's flaws.
The anti-inauguration playlist.
Tonya burns the CDs to be played at an anti-inauguration party (here in Madison, of course). You can read the playlist in its entirety. I post a comment to say "Won't Get Fooled Again" does not belong on the list.
When I heard she was looking for protest songs, I offered her my copy of "Songs of Protest," which she was surprised I had, but I am an inveterate 60s music fan, and I well remember when "Eve of Destruction" seized everyone's imagination ("Yeah, my blood’s so mad feels like coagulatin’"). And I can't tell you how many times I played Sonny Bono's "Laugh at Me": "I've got something to say, and I want to say it for Cher ..." So that paean to the wearing of lynx-fur vests goes. And who doesn't want to laugh about "Signs," that song expressing righteous indignation about signs? "And the sign said 'Long-haired freaky people need not apply.'" You remember when mean signs like that used to be everywhere "blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind"?
When I heard she was looking for protest songs, I offered her my copy of "Songs of Protest," which she was surprised I had, but I am an inveterate 60s music fan, and I well remember when "Eve of Destruction" seized everyone's imagination ("Yeah, my blood’s so mad feels like coagulatin’"). And I can't tell you how many times I played Sonny Bono's "Laugh at Me": "I've got something to say, and I want to say it for Cher ..." So that paean to the wearing of lynx-fur vests goes. And who doesn't want to laugh about "Signs," that song expressing righteous indignation about signs? "And the sign said 'Long-haired freaky people need not apply.'" You remember when mean signs like that used to be everywhere "blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind"?
January 20, 2005
Inauguration events.
I neglected to set the TiVo to record the inauguration events, but when I came home at lunchtime, I started recording the CNN coverage, which stretches the whole length of the day. I'm hoping to see a repeat of the swearing in and inaugural speech eventually. I heard some discussion of it on NPR as I was driving home: a commentator thought Bush had delivered a crushing blow to Saudi Arabia, and there was chatter about how much he said the word "freedom" and how many times he referred to God. I'd like to hear this for myself. For now, I'm reviewing what the TiVo caught.
So, first up for me is the luncheon in Statuary Hall. Trent Lott describes a lot of the fancy trappings in the room, like a painting of a sunrise in Wyoming, two crystal hurricane lanterns (gifts from Congress to Bush), and a 100-year-old eagle-shaped lectern (which Lott calls a "podium"). Bush stands to give a little speech in which he thanks "distinguished members of the Congress and" -- Reaganesque sideways head flick -- "some who aren't quite so distinguished." Snicker. He says he was touched that Chief Justice Rehnquist made it to deliver the oath and there is much warm applause. Bush is "lookin' forward to puttin' my heart and soul into this job for four more years." Laura Bush is wearing a blindingly white suit. Lynne Cheney is wearing a light blue suit with a gray fur neck ruff. Closeup of Bill Clinton during the benediction: he's looking very grand. Now people are leaving the room. We see Bush give his mom a nice kiss on the cheek. Voiceover commentary from David Gergen, who says he's not picking up the the same "sense of hope" that there was at Bush's last inauguration. Apparently, everyone was feeling good about "coming together" back then, but they aren't now. They're itching for a fight. Even the Republicans are "restive." I'm hearing this theme in a lot of the commentary today: Bush is not trying to reach out to the other side, not showing a desire to bring people together. "The divisions are so deep here in the country, and the divisions with other nations are very deep."
Now Bush, Cheney, and their respective wives are walking down the Capitol steps. Hey, the Cheneys are getting ahead. The steps are miked so we hear the footsteps, including the click of the ladies' high heels. The men can't go downstairs at a manly pace, because the women have to step carefully in those heels. They stop halfway down for a military marching band playing a medley of all the songs you might predict they would play. There are some fabulous dress uniforms here, some in the Revolutionary War style, which look especially great. I wish the commentators would tell us what we're seeing, but they are yapping generically about pageantry.
The Bushes get into a spiffy Cadillac limo, and the commentators have plenty to say about the car. Now the car is rolling along toward the White House. Secret Service agents trot alongside it. Wolf Blitzer voices over that the "white stuff by the side the road" is snow. What would we do without the commentary? My God, there's some white stuff by the side of the road? Is that bioterrorism? Now, steam is coming out of a grate in the street, and Blitzer says, "Now, that looks like they're having a little smoke coming out of something." The commentators decide it must be steam, since the Secret Service men are not reacting to it. Well, at least he recognized snow right off the bat.
Now the car is passing the designated protesters' section. There's a banner that calls for impeachment and says "guilty of war crimes." A lot of people are holding up signs with a picture of Bush and the words "worst President ever." Someone is holding up a yellow frowny face. There's a lot of fist shaking. There are Bush supporters on the other side of the street, and each group is trying to out-shout the other. It's quite loud. Beyond the designated protesters' area, we see an occasional protester with his back turned on the motorcade. Two guys standing side by side hold cards that say "liar" high above their heads.
Waiting at the reviewing stand is Condoleezza Rice, wearing a sleek black fur hat. She's laughing and talking to Arnold Schwarzenegger. The President's parents and daughters are waiting at the reviewing stand. About a block from the stand, the President and First Lady get out of the car to walk the rest of the way. Bush's smile is so wide we can see his gold tooth. The commentators are quite taken by the symbolism of the President walking out in the open. It seems to say something about the success of the war on terrorism that the route can be so perfectly secured that this is possible. We see Dick and Lynne Cheney walking toward the reviewing stand. With them is Mary Cheney, whose sexuality the losing presidential candidate saw fit to intone about ominously during one of the debates, a misstep he will, I assume, regret for the rest of his life. The parade is in full force, including a big float of the unfurling Declaration of Independence.
Now, watching "The Jim Lehrer News Hour," I'm able to see the swearing in and the inaugural address. The show's editors seem to delight in displaying the gloomiest members of the audience. I'm touched by the freedom theme of the address, as Bush speaks to the people of the world and to those who oppress them:
This is a profound and beautiful vision, and I cannot imagine the Bush-haters who turned their backs on the motorcade can have any better vision for the world. But, of course, I know, they think he's lying and they think, even if he believes in those ideals, he will fail in the attempt to fulfill them. So Bush's opponents have, at best, a pragmatism, a realism, a cynicism.
What did Bush say about God? I note that he said "freedom" twenty-seven times, "liberty" fifteen times, and "God" three times. Aside from the mention of God in the quote just above and in the final "May God bless you," the reference to God is in this passage, which takes a theological position that should be remembered:
Bush excluded God from his prediction that freedom will triumph. God's will cannot be known. He takes his confidence not from a belief in God's favor, but from a belief in the human love of freedom, the "hunger" and "longing of the soul." It is a belief in humanity. God is mentioned one more time in that passage. He is the "Author of Liberty," to use the phrase from the song "America," which refers to the ideas of the Declaration of Independence ("all men are created equal, ... they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"). So Bush does not wholly present God as unknowable. Following the theory of the Declaration, he sees God as creating liberty, but his vision for the future, presented idealistically in the speech, is that the human love of freedom is what will prevail, as he promises to come to the aid of people all around the world. I'm sure Bush skeptics will see that promise as disastrously ambitious, but it is a beautiful promise, and those who hate Bush so much were once the people who themselves spoke of beautiful ideals.
Rereading this post, I acknowledge that one could see a contradiction in that last quoted paragraph from the speech. First, there is a claim that God's will is unknowable, and, later, there is a statement that history has a "direction" that is "set" by God. But I would say that the best interpretation of the statement is that God created liberty and this liberty is longed for by human beings, whose actions in pursuit of their desire cause history to have a direction.
So, first up for me is the luncheon in Statuary Hall. Trent Lott describes a lot of the fancy trappings in the room, like a painting of a sunrise in Wyoming, two crystal hurricane lanterns (gifts from Congress to Bush), and a 100-year-old eagle-shaped lectern (which Lott calls a "podium"). Bush stands to give a little speech in which he thanks "distinguished members of the Congress and" -- Reaganesque sideways head flick -- "some who aren't quite so distinguished." Snicker. He says he was touched that Chief Justice Rehnquist made it to deliver the oath and there is much warm applause. Bush is "lookin' forward to puttin' my heart and soul into this job for four more years." Laura Bush is wearing a blindingly white suit. Lynne Cheney is wearing a light blue suit with a gray fur neck ruff. Closeup of Bill Clinton during the benediction: he's looking very grand. Now people are leaving the room. We see Bush give his mom a nice kiss on the cheek. Voiceover commentary from David Gergen, who says he's not picking up the the same "sense of hope" that there was at Bush's last inauguration. Apparently, everyone was feeling good about "coming together" back then, but they aren't now. They're itching for a fight. Even the Republicans are "restive." I'm hearing this theme in a lot of the commentary today: Bush is not trying to reach out to the other side, not showing a desire to bring people together. "The divisions are so deep here in the country, and the divisions with other nations are very deep."
Now Bush, Cheney, and their respective wives are walking down the Capitol steps. Hey, the Cheneys are getting ahead. The steps are miked so we hear the footsteps, including the click of the ladies' high heels. The men can't go downstairs at a manly pace, because the women have to step carefully in those heels. They stop halfway down for a military marching band playing a medley of all the songs you might predict they would play. There are some fabulous dress uniforms here, some in the Revolutionary War style, which look especially great. I wish the commentators would tell us what we're seeing, but they are yapping generically about pageantry.
The Bushes get into a spiffy Cadillac limo, and the commentators have plenty to say about the car. Now the car is rolling along toward the White House. Secret Service agents trot alongside it. Wolf Blitzer voices over that the "white stuff by the side the road" is snow. What would we do without the commentary? My God, there's some white stuff by the side of the road? Is that bioterrorism? Now, steam is coming out of a grate in the street, and Blitzer says, "Now, that looks like they're having a little smoke coming out of something." The commentators decide it must be steam, since the Secret Service men are not reacting to it. Well, at least he recognized snow right off the bat.
Now the car is passing the designated protesters' section. There's a banner that calls for impeachment and says "guilty of war crimes." A lot of people are holding up signs with a picture of Bush and the words "worst President ever." Someone is holding up a yellow frowny face. There's a lot of fist shaking. There are Bush supporters on the other side of the street, and each group is trying to out-shout the other. It's quite loud. Beyond the designated protesters' area, we see an occasional protester with his back turned on the motorcade. Two guys standing side by side hold cards that say "liar" high above their heads.
Waiting at the reviewing stand is Condoleezza Rice, wearing a sleek black fur hat. She's laughing and talking to Arnold Schwarzenegger. The President's parents and daughters are waiting at the reviewing stand. About a block from the stand, the President and First Lady get out of the car to walk the rest of the way. Bush's smile is so wide we can see his gold tooth. The commentators are quite taken by the symbolism of the President walking out in the open. It seems to say something about the success of the war on terrorism that the route can be so perfectly secured that this is possible. We see Dick and Lynne Cheney walking toward the reviewing stand. With them is Mary Cheney, whose sexuality the losing presidential candidate saw fit to intone about ominously during one of the debates, a misstep he will, I assume, regret for the rest of his life. The parade is in full force, including a big float of the unfurling Declaration of Independence.
Now, watching "The Jim Lehrer News Hour," I'm able to see the swearing in and the inaugural address. The show's editors seem to delight in displaying the gloomiest members of the audience. I'm touched by the freedom theme of the address, as Bush speaks to the people of the world and to those who oppress them:
All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.
Democratic reformers facing repression, prison, or exile can know: America sees you for who you are: the future leaders of your free country.
The rulers of outlaw regimes can know that we still believe as Abraham Lincoln did: Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and, under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.
The leaders of governments with long habits of control need to know: To serve your people, you must learn to trust them. Start on this journey of progress and justice and America will walk at your side.
This is a profound and beautiful vision, and I cannot imagine the Bush-haters who turned their backs on the motorcade can have any better vision for the world. But, of course, I know, they think he's lying and they think, even if he believes in those ideals, he will fail in the attempt to fulfill them. So Bush's opponents have, at best, a pragmatism, a realism, a cynicism.
What did Bush say about God? I note that he said "freedom" twenty-seven times, "liberty" fifteen times, and "God" three times. Aside from the mention of God in the quote just above and in the final "May God bless you," the reference to God is in this passage, which takes a theological position that should be remembered:
We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom. Not because history runs on the wheels of inevitability; it is human choices that move events. Not because we consider ourselves a chosen nation; God moves and chooses as He wills. We have confidence because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul. When our Founders declared a new order of the ages, when soldiers died in wave upon wave for a union based on liberty, when citizens marched in peaceful outrage under the banner Freedom Now they were acting on an ancient hope that is meant to be fulfilled. History has an ebb and flow of justice, but history also has a visible direction, set by liberty and the Author of Liberty.
Bush excluded God from his prediction that freedom will triumph. God's will cannot be known. He takes his confidence not from a belief in God's favor, but from a belief in the human love of freedom, the "hunger" and "longing of the soul." It is a belief in humanity. God is mentioned one more time in that passage. He is the "Author of Liberty," to use the phrase from the song "America," which refers to the ideas of the Declaration of Independence ("all men are created equal, ... they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"). So Bush does not wholly present God as unknowable. Following the theory of the Declaration, he sees God as creating liberty, but his vision for the future, presented idealistically in the speech, is that the human love of freedom is what will prevail, as he promises to come to the aid of people all around the world. I'm sure Bush skeptics will see that promise as disastrously ambitious, but it is a beautiful promise, and those who hate Bush so much were once the people who themselves spoke of beautiful ideals.
Rereading this post, I acknowledge that one could see a contradiction in that last quoted paragraph from the speech. First, there is a claim that God's will is unknowable, and, later, there is a statement that history has a "direction" that is "set" by God. But I would say that the best interpretation of the statement is that God created liberty and this liberty is longed for by human beings, whose actions in pursuit of their desire cause history to have a direction.
Staving off dementia.
Good news:
So drink as much as you can without drinking too much. There's some line there, and good luck finding it and staying on the right side of it.
In the largest such study to date, older women who drank moderately had less mental decline than those who abstained .... [R]esearchers found that light to moderate drinking of any kind of alcoholic beverage reduced the risk of mental decline by more than 20%, compared with abstinence.
Essentially, their brains were the cognitive equivalent of being 1.5 years younger....
The research, published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, adds to a couple of large, European studies that found a reduced risk of dementia in drinkers, said Diana Kerwin, an assistant professor of medicine in the division of geriatrics and gerontology at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
"You get a benefit up to (the point of) excessive alcohol intake," she said. "Alcohol is not bad."
So drink as much as you can without drinking too much. There's some line there, and good luck finding it and staying on the right side of it.
Life in Madison: trash, string.
One of the distinctive features of life in Madison is the difficulty of following the trash collection rules. A thick booklet is mailed to us annually to let us know just what we are allowed to put out for the collectors and how we need to separate and package it. Sometimes you put something out, and you even try to follow the rules, but the trash collector doesn't pick it up. He doesn't leave a note identifying the rule you've failed to comply with, and you have to guess, try putting it out a different way next week, and hope the trash has become acceptable and collectible. I wore myself out on Saturday cutting down a lot of cardboard boxes. I'd had six pieces of furniture delivered, and they were quite elaborately cartoned. Recycling of corrugated cardboard is mandatory -- except for pizza boxes, for which recycling is forbidden. So I worked quite hard getting the boxes cut down and taped in a pile. But I've had my cardboard snubbed by trash collectors in the past, and I knew there was some rule about how small the piles had to be. When I dragged the four big piles out the curb this morning, I figured I was probably wasting my time and dreaded the recutting and taping that lay ahead. How happy I was when I returned home today and saw that the merciful trashman had picked up the oversized cardboard!
And about that tape. I wanted to tie up the cardboard with string. With string, you can make a slip knot and use it to tighten down the layers of cardboard. It's much better than tape. When I was doing the boxes on Saturday, I realized I was out of string and drove over to Target to buy some. Where do they put the string? Is it over on the housewares side of the store with the woman-oriented products? It's an ordinary household item like a sponge or a hanger isn't it? Or is it way the hell on the other side of the store, past the masses of clothing, with the home repair items, on the male-oriented side of the big store? Maybe over here with the wrapping materials? Here's packaging tape, so where is the string? I pick up the red telephone and ask about string. They say it's back in Automotive, near the back wall of the store. Okay. Automotive? What's automotive about string? I go back and find some odd things like rope and natural jute twine packaged for the crafts market. No normal string, such as you'd use to tie up cardboard. I find a stockboy and explain what I'm looking for. He says those things back in Automotive are really all they have, that Target is phasing out string. Phasing out string? How can you phase out string? It's a standard item. Well, he says, consolingly, maybe come back around March and they should have some kite string.
UPDATE: A reader writes:
Though he was new to town, he displayed some Madison-savvy by going with the what-about-the-disabled angle. I love when one liberal cause is played against another. Accommodating the disabled has just got to trump recycling!
ANOTHER UPDATE: I'm getting email about the difficulty of finding string at Target. And a propos of string, a reader sends this link.
And about that tape. I wanted to tie up the cardboard with string. With string, you can make a slip knot and use it to tighten down the layers of cardboard. It's much better than tape. When I was doing the boxes on Saturday, I realized I was out of string and drove over to Target to buy some. Where do they put the string? Is it over on the housewares side of the store with the woman-oriented products? It's an ordinary household item like a sponge or a hanger isn't it? Or is it way the hell on the other side of the store, past the masses of clothing, with the home repair items, on the male-oriented side of the big store? Maybe over here with the wrapping materials? Here's packaging tape, so where is the string? I pick up the red telephone and ask about string. They say it's back in Automotive, near the back wall of the store. Okay. Automotive? What's automotive about string? I go back and find some odd things like rope and natural jute twine packaged for the crafts market. No normal string, such as you'd use to tie up cardboard. I find a stockboy and explain what I'm looking for. He says those things back in Automotive are really all they have, that Target is phasing out string. Phasing out string? How can you phase out string? It's a standard item. Well, he says, consolingly, maybe come back around March and they should have some kite string.
UPDATE: A reader writes:
Thank you for your post on Madison trash. I lived there in the early 90s. After we moved in, we had a prodigious number of cardboard boxes to break down. After several rebuffed efforts to recycle them curbside, I called the recyclers to ask what I had to do to get my boxes picked up. Elaborate rules were laid out. I asked what I would do if I were disabled, thinking that surely in Madison someone would have thought about those of us who cannot dice corrugated cardboard into precise squares. They suggested I ask a friend to help. I reminded them that I had boxes because I had just moved in. Because I had just moved in, I had no friends. No luck. Rules are rules.
Though he was new to town, he displayed some Madison-savvy by going with the what-about-the-disabled angle. I love when one liberal cause is played against another. Accommodating the disabled has just got to trump recycling!
ANOTHER UPDATE: I'm getting email about the difficulty of finding string at Target. And a propos of string, a reader sends this link.
The real reason the exit polls were wrong?
A study shows the exit polls skewed toward Kerry because the pollsters were so young. The theory is that younger people tended to vote for Kerry and younger people were more willing to be surveyed by young pollsters. The study was done by the research firms that designed the elaborate polling system. The young-pollsters theory ought to raise some suspicion, given that the firms have an interest in coming up with the least damning explanation for their miserable failure. The report asserts -- according to the NYT -- that "that the technical foundation on which their work was based was sound" and "that there was no evidence that the surveyors had embarked on any conscious effort to skew the vote." Whew! That's a relief!
French names.
We tend to think of the French as being to the left of us, but they are surprisingly reactionary about some things. They've just gotten around to freeing parents from the obligation to give babies the father's last name:
And then there's the new law itself. Somehow, it took 26 pages of statutory text to remove the old obligation and 100 additional pages to explain the details of how to apply the law.
There's still something in it for reactionaries:
A "societal disruption," another proof that fathers are being forced "to renounce one by one the attributes of what used to be called their familial power," complained an editorial in Le Figaro, the center-right daily.Quite aside from the lack of interest in equal rights for women, France had been in violation of human rights requirements laid down by the Council of Europe in 1978.
"This reform - we decree it silliness without a name," said a right-wing Roman Catholic newspaper, La Croix, in an editorial, calling the change a boon for genealogists, a nightmare for notaries.
And then there's the new law itself. Somehow, it took 26 pages of statutory text to remove the old obligation and 100 additional pages to explain the details of how to apply the law.
There's still something in it for reactionaries:
Paradoxically, the reform reinforces the spirit of patriarchy, or at least tradition. Aristocratic families that have produced only female offspring no longer will have to watch helplessly as their names die out.
At the Robert Debré hospital in Paris, 29-year-old Hélène de La Porte des Vaux and Nicolas Dudouet, a 33-year-old journalist, plan to give their soon-to-be-born baby girl both of their names - to preserve Ms. de La Porte des Vaux's chic name.
January 19, 2005
Penmanship and nonverbatim notes.
As I finish up grading exams, which are nearly all handwritten -- almost no one uses a typewriter and computers aren't permitted for exams here -- my heart lifts to see this article about the newly rekindled interest in teaching good handwriting! For years, everyone has just assumed that handwriting had gone into hopeless decline, that the hands of our youths had adapted to keyboards and would scarcely know how to hold a pen soon enough. What is the cause of this glorious, historic turnaround?
UPDATE: Washington University School of Law lawprof Samuel Bagenstos writes:
NOTHING, though, supplied such a jolt to the handwriting cause as the advent of the new Scholastic Aptitude Test. In the version being introduced this March, each student must write a 25-minute essay. And that essay, unlike the answers to the SAT's multiple-choice questions, will be read and rated by two genuine human beings, as Nan Barchowsky was quick to remind a class at Harford Day School.Ms. Barchowsky could add that they might want to go to law school some day. And then there's our new era of hotly contested post-election disputes:
"Do you know anything about the SAT's?" she asked, and the hands of these ambitious children predictably rose. "The people who'll grade those essays won't have any time to decipher illegibility. Scary thought, isn't it?" She paused. "And you're probably going to be taking notes for the rest of your lives. I don't know anybody who works on a computer and doesn't also have a pad nearby."
As The Journal News in Westchester County recently reported, a judge disqualified ballots in a tightly contested State Senate race because he could not read the signatures.Here's something else in the penmanship article that caught my eye:
In high school and college, any student without a 24/7 laptop cannot hope to keep accurate notes on a lecture course. Kate Gladstone, a handwriting specialist based in Albany, estimates that while a student needs to jot down 100 legible words a minute to follow a typical lecture, someone using print can manage only 30. "That's fine for class," she said, "if the class is first grade."If my students are taking notes at that rate in my 3 credit law school courses, that means their set of notes for the course would be 220,000 words long. That's about 500 pages! The handwritten notes would be 66,000 or about 150 pages (in typescript). Isn't there some advantage to summarizing in your head as you write as opposed to speedtyping close to verbatim? The student with more voluminous notes has a big task ahead compressing those notes into a form that can be studied. The student who had to think to compress while writing in class has saved all that time and, if he is doing a good job of taking concise notes, will have absorbed the material better while writing, because you need to understand things at the time in order to phrase the notes concisely. Verbatim notetakers can get by thinking I'll figure out what this means later, but later, you've got those horrendously voluminous notes to deal with. And the notes actually won't be verbatim, just close to verbatim, so they may be quite puzzling. You may read it later and say to yourself: I know the teacher said that or approximately that, but what did it mean? Sometimes a student will come to my office and read something from his or her notes and ask me what it means, and it's too late to make sense of it. Being able to take down words nearly verbatim may give you a comfortable feeling that you've got everything there and you'll be able to get to it later. But will you?
UPDATE: Washington University School of Law lawprof Samuel Bagenstos writes:
Although I can't say I always agree with your comments, I am a frequent reader of your blog. I have to say that today I read something with which I completely agree. Why are so many students wedded to verbatim note-taking? I want my classes to be a conversation, where we work our way through difficult issues (and work our way through how to *think* about difficult issues). I don't want my classes to be a monologue, where I talk and they dutifully write down my words. (The only exception: At the beginning of each class I usually spend about five minutes lecturing in a way that recapitulates and synthesizes the previous day's discussion.) I want my students to think critically about the assigned reading and what I and their classmates say about it. They can't do that when they're trying desperately to get down every word I say. Anyway, virtually nobody I know talks in such a way that every word is precisely chosen and essential to the point. Among law profs who come to my mind, the only person who talks that way is Erwin Chemerinsky. When a student writes down my words verbatim, the words take on a kind of oracular quality in the student's mind. The student often spends undue time puzzling through hermeneutic questions about what that text means, when really there was nothing special about the particular words I was using. (You can see, I've had the same students-coming-to-my-office experience as you.)
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