Apparently, unbeknownest to me, there is a violent battle pitching apace concerning the serial comman in this country. I, for one, and for no real reason, am a serial comma guy. I'm real America. Let's just turn this debate over to Vampire Weekend - per Andrew Sullivan (you can follow a good bit of the debate at his site).
Language. people, and culture. Here's a great read on a theory about the relationship between how cultures think and the affect on language; or vice versa, or vice versa; pick your versa [thanks to Andrew Sullivan]. I've read some Steven Pinker, who knows from language and always intrigues, and this is exactly the type of wonder that runs through my mind every few years - and certainly during my time in Monterey where you made friends who were in myriad language training courses. Some of the differences in how language difficulty was ranked back then were no doubt based on both pronunciation difficulty and some of the psychological aspects of given languages. Spanish and French were grouped together at the lower end of difficulty, followed by Hebrew and others, and it finished at the highest difficulty with Russian, Chinese, and Arabic, among others. When we're exposed to something so distant from our cultural norm, whether a language or a life, we're probably going to struggle not only with the objective language but also with the basis beyond the language; and that's the people. In fact, the most memorable stories that most people have from Monterey (aside from poorly though out and failed marriages) usually revolve around our teachers. All the instructors there are native speakers so the curse and promise of their upbringing and culture had a massive effect on many students results. I'm sure that differing alphabets only add to the worry. Maybe the next time my mind starts to roil with language I'll look at it a bit differently.
The Eastern Market in D.C. is reborn today after two years of restoration following a massive fire in 2007. I was thinking of heading in this afternoon even before realizing the throng of locals and press that may be in attendance; I think I'll step up and head in, regardless. Maybe I'll bring my new camera and pass along some views.
Both David Brooks and Andrew Sullivan are missing the boat on the Administration's plans (and hopes). You can find Sullivan's piece here and it will further link you to the Brooks op-ed in the Times. Both are suffering from the great red herring of the here-and-now. What triggers this realization for me are these two paragraphs from the op-ed:
"Obama aides talk about "game-changers." These include improving health information technology, expanding wellness programs, expanding preventive medicine, changing reimbursement policies so hospitals are penalized for poor outcomes and instituting comparative effectiveness measures.
Nearly everybody believes these are good ideas. The first problem is that most experts, with a notable exception of David Cutler of Harvard, donít believe they will produce much in the way of cost savings over the next 10 years. They are expensive to set up and even if they work, it would take a long time for cumulative efficiencies to have much effect. That means that from today until the time President Obama is, say, 60, the U.S. will get no fiscal relief."
I'll call this the "next Monday I stop smoking" plan. Both Sullivan and Brooks believe that having one marshmallow now is better than two marshmallows later. (I know, read this if you must know.) This mentality always put forth the idea that if some program won't happen in the next two years, the next month, or the next week, then it's not worth our effort: and that's the most dangerous of all ideas and it runs rampant through myriad politically-charged issues. If your grand plan doesn't involve where we will be in ten or fifteen years - especially based on our current morass - then you're the problem. The Obama plan is certainly premised on reducing healthcare costs across the board in order to not only fund some of the spending required to support the American economy, but to prevent the spiraling costs from, well, spiraling. The Sullivan commentary even reposts a poorly chosen chunk from Bruce Barlett in order to support something:
"To summarize, we see that taxpayers are on the hook for Social Security and Medicare by these amounts: Social Security, 1.3% of GDP; Medicare part A, 2.8% of GDP; Medicare part B, 2.8% of GDP; and Medicare part D, 1.2% of GDP. This adds up to 8.1% of GDP. Thus federal income taxes for every taxpayer would have to rise by roughly 81% to pay all of the benefits promised by these programs under current law over and above the payroll tax."
I love Sullivan but he's simply circled back on himself by using this example as support for why reducing health costs isn't the solution. If you remove the 1.3% tagged to Social Security, you're left with the larger 6.8% chunk. If those numbers are reduced, and significantly, not only can we avoid increased future outlays but we can start saving now - and by now I mean over the next few years. As usual, the yelling and screaming must have impeded the use of a calculator, something I'll get to in a minute. Where exactly does Sullivan and Brooks think the demand for Medicare dollars come from? I'll wait a second while they think about it. What? Those costs (and percentages) come from...healthcare. Huh? From healthcare needs for those that can't afford it and/or don't have any coverage, or preventive medicine, or good health, or helping those who eat Twinkies everyday. If we don't even consider the future savings - or the resulting spirals that can be avoided we can suddenly go to our calculator powered by silence and get some real numbers. The average GDP (the mysterious GDP from above) from 2006-2008, in 2008 dollars, is about $14 trillion. My handy-dandy calculator tells me that 1% of that number is $140 billion. If we can cut just 2% from the 6.8% of the GDP that accounts for those parts of Medicare then we've can save $280 billion over the course of one year. If we assume that the GDP will grow, maybe slowly for a few years but quickly in the later years, and I can project the current number over six years then I'm sitting at about $1.68 billion in savings by lowering the amount of money spent to unfuck people's health, and the system. That's a big chunk of the TARP, stimulus, and etc. that we've already spent to prop up our addled economy. When you consider future numbers beyond that: possible further percentage cuts, maintaining a lower cost level, and providing better healthcare to everyone, then I'm cool with looking beyond Obama's time. As I've said before, this cat looks and plans way beyond what we imagine: every time. How many times do you need to be fooled?
As for Brooks, who finds savings of $100 million across agencies, or $17 billion in budget cuts to be comical, fuck off. I can look out beyond next Friday and say that if we have sorted out the massive issues we face today by the time Obama is 60, well done. You know, you have to start sometime, right? It's Monday, get onboard.
Why don't you guys just have your one marshmallow and go home.
Thanks.
This interesting little nugget has somehow caught commentators and the public (as if commentators aren’t public) by surprise. During the President’s first complete cabinet meeting he told all his department heads and agency chiefs to cut back spending (or find savings) by a total of $100 million: basically, find some administrative areas they can be more efficient and make them so. Now, I’ll simply point out that there is a massive difference, in monetary value and importance, between the spending programs, budget, and the economic recovery bills so ridiculed as waste by Republicans; and efficiency of an operation or organization. If the military is going to have a budget of x trillion dollars and the big budget cut is going to be the $550 toilet seat then we've got some comedy. But, this $100 million dollars is a matter of streamlining what is required for administration and management for the departments and agencies – nothing more, nothing less. This isn't meant as a move that adds or cuts programs in the big "budgetary" manner – we’re not talking about cutting a fighter aircraft order; we’re talking about saving money on the process that orders the aircraft, see the difference? And it certainly isn’t a pathetic effort or ploy as assessed by Andrew Sullivan or Greg Mankiw. Going back to the $550 toilet seat that everyone hoisted in the air as an embarrassment back whenever that happened: we wanted – we needed – to complain about the $550 in the vein of pure waste, but now we suddenly find it laughable that $100 million in waste can be saved…and someone is willing to do it?
Look, this has been Obama’s character since the campaign. Remember way back when he commented that ensuring that your tires were properly inflated could contribute – along with other programs he sponsored – to increasing mileage and saving energy? Regardless of the fact that it may only increase mileage by 3 -4%, being that we import more than 20% of our oil used for gas/fuel, it’s a nice amount of savings. He’s always been focused on building a process that leads to an end goal and not dicking around with lightning rod tomfoolery. Remember the Clinton and McCain support for the summertime gas tax holiday? He didn’t bite because removing a gas tax for ninety days isn’t any type of fix or leadership, it’s pandering. What he’s building in his administration is the idea that we’ll spend money wisely from the very top down to the smallest agency. If they can spend $100 to do something that an agency has been spending $300 to accomplish then why should we guffaw at them merely because our economy is in the shitter? That’s some really crappy analysis by Sullivan and Mankiw. You know what you could do to make it really funny? You could relate it to a cup of expensive liberal coffee and then it’ll really get a laugh! Hijinks!
How about this one: that funny total of $3 in the average family’s savings over a year would only save you enough money for 10 more rounds of .22 ammunition for your rifle. Man, that is so funny!
Here’s the breakdown: this savings idea is the equivalent, in your household, of buying a plain label brand of NyQuil or plain label pain reliever. It always makes sense; in good times and bad times. We get the same actual ingredients for less money. That is a totally different animal then saying that you can’t afford a $60,000 luxury car and then settling for something in the $55K range. Can I put a percentage savings on the plain label medicine that makes it look funny in relation to a $55,000? I can. If you are saving $4 on medicine but buying a $55,000 car then it’s only a matter of about .007%. That person is such a damn fool.
Buy the NyQuil.
At some point it was either Andrew Sullivan or another commentator that remarked, concerning gay marriage, that “I don’t have to justify my civil rights.” There’s a ton you can read into that little phrase and all of it should be good. No one should have to stand up and defend their right to vote, marry, speak their mind, write what they think, create their art, sing their song, or dance their dance. Unless there is proof positive that an action is harmful or detrimental to society then there can’t be a law that forbids that action.
The Court decided today, if that’s a reflection of what happened (it seemed more a 3-3-3 split…Scalia, Thomas, and Roberts together...surprise!), that you must have photo ID to vote in Indiana. I ran through my little mind’s input when this was argued but now you can read commentary on the result – as if you will. Slate has some blogging from their folks, Michelle Malkin pipes in (I’ve got to be fair), and scotusblog adds a few shillings to the fray. What I found most interesting was the scotusblog bits about this really being a Republican-driven action in order to…make up your own mind.
This is a case that fully limits facial challenges to the court. The facial bit (I live with a lawyer-to-be) means that you cannot challenge a law that adversely affects you until you can prove that you’ve been adversely affected by some inane law (I can’t help it). Think about challenges to the separate but equal idea for schools – under the current Court they’d tell you that in order to challenge that law as unconstitutional you’d have to prove that discrimination is wrong after the fact – let us discriminate and they you prove it…dare you! Passing a law that discriminates is fine because it isn’t hurting anyone unless they tell us it’s hurting them. That’s a very nice modus operandi.
“Okay, Here’s what I’m going to do for you – I’m going to punch you in the face. Don’t worry, it’s okay until the point-in-time where you tell me it really hurts like a son-of-a-bitch. What? You think it’ll hurt and you don’t want me to do it? Sorry, doesn’t work – you don’t know it’ll hurt until it does hurt so standstill and so let’s give it a go….”
One last nugget: it’s not just a photo ID, it’s a photo ID with an expiration date. My retired military ID card (as I’ve already pointed out) has no expiration date so I can’t use it to vote in Indiana.
Ah, sign of our times.
T
I've become a little disenchanted with Andrew Sullivan's blog. The facts: we're similar on the political spectrum even if it seems that his conservative ideals and my liberal ideals couldn't possible align. I'm sure that both of us have been slow on the uptake on any number or issues across the board. He was way behind in the Iraq/Bush idiocy and I'm behind on the early 80s conservatism for which he stands tall. My disenchantment is mirrored by his/my entries...too many links to other ideas and blogs. I think he's off vacationing, yet still blogging nonstop, and maybe he won't mind the challenge put forth: one week, Monday-Sunday with no links to full-blown stories; simply commentary on those stories. I'm cool with inclusion of reader e-mails since they are perfectly acceptable as fodder for thought, even if I have none. I'm just tired of endless links even if they provide quality entertainment. What I want, as much as my trolling for those quality links, is to read the bits that run through his mind.
I'll be expecting a call soon while I begin lining up serious and flippant commentaries.
T.
p.s. I saw my second unicycle guy again today. He was about 1/4 mile from the mall and teetering back-and-forth while allegedly riding home. It seemed so much work; it seemed I was hypmo-tized...
I've been fighting every urge to no throttle co-workers and co-approvers this week. It's Friday and I'll be heading home in just a smidge so life ain't all bad. I can't give you anything too deep, though a pool and kids entry is coming, but I can give you something. I stumbled on this at Andrew Sullivan's website earlier this week. This show is apparently something like the British version of American Idol though I suspect it's not just singers that appear. Who knows?. I remember getting into one season of American Idol and finding it entertaining once I got involved with a given contestant...but it was nothing like this. I doubt that AI has ever had a contestant this good, or this humble...even Simon is floored. The first clip is from last week, the second is from the semi-finals a day or two ago. Enjoy.
T.
(AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson)
Andrew Sullivan attended an Obama get together in D.C. last night and filed this report. I think it's worth putting out there.
T.
Andrew Sullivan posts an interesting reply on his blog to Christopher Hitchens’ non-mea culpa at slate.com. When I first read Mr. Hitchens’ post on Monday I was uncomfortable with most of the rearview mirror speculation he used when determining exactly which train station platform the supporters of the war should have disembarked from their ride; he determined there were none – apparently it was a one-way ticket to this destiny. I never thought the question was whether or not there were “actual or latent” WMD programs. I wasn’t one to debate the quality of the intelligence, and certainly not one to sit on my couch and parse anything about the details of intrigue swirling in the White House. What I wanted to decide was whether or not I was willing to follow this president into a war of choice – and I wasn’t: good intelligence or not. I had zero faith in this administration. It was hard to believe that the jingoistic remnants of September 11th were clouding our view of what the President was asking of the country. In many ways what bothered me then is what bothers Mr. Sullivan now:
The real question is: if we knew then what we know now about the caliber, ethics, competence and integrity of the president and his aides, would we have entrusted them to wage this war?
If the actual, unrigged intelligence data had been presented at the UN, if the statements of president, vice-president, defense secretary et al had been carefully parsed to ensure that we knew exactly the knowable risks of action and of inaction, then a ramped-up inspections regime might well have been preferable to war.
Would we have trusted their presentation of pre-war intelligence? And the answer to that, I venture to guess for my friend as well, is: no. If we had known that war meant sending Iraq into a vortex of uncontrollable violence…
Yes, I am glad Saddam is gone. Yes, I believe my own intentions before the war were honorable, if mistaken. Yes, I believe Hitch's were as well - and those of many others. But we were fools not to see the true nature of the people we were trusting; and too enraptured by our own sense of righteousness to realize that we could have been wrong. And wrong we were.
As for Mr. Hitchens’ assertion that some of us feel a need to crow for vindication for our opinions before war; I have no such need. All I ever wanted was for everyone to open their eyes and decide the degree of trust they held in this Administration. There’s an interesting opening essay in one of Hitchins’ books that speaks of England and Churchill in WWII – the blind admiration for a leader that may or may not have been warranted. I’ll go back and read that one tonight.
Peace.
T.
I've been tempted to say something but it's pointless. Andrew Sullivan has a very incisive commentary on Ms. Coulter's genius. (Here's a link to the source of the commentary.)
Peace. Really.
T
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One (many) of the great memories of my youth in Omaha was going to see the Harlem Globetrotters just about every February at the Civic Audit...
