3W

Winding Down

2011-02-08T17:16:00.003-05:00

3W has been a wonderful resource for me. I have been able to correspond with you for a number of years both during and following life at the UfoC and in the process I almost learned how to write. But as the things I write become longer, 3W seems to fill a smaller role (the advent of FB also diminished the need to broadcast interesting links via the internet). I might still use 3W from time to time, but nothing regularly.

For brief and flighty thoughts, I have started a new blog Otiot on Tumblr. This is for random quotes I encounter throughout the day. The more I study the more I recognize that others are capable of saying thing better than I.

A Metric of Difficulty

2010-09-21T14:56:00.003-04:00

I came across this statistic yesterday and was intrigued/unsettled.

Infant mortality rate: rank/@ birth (UN/CIA)/under five

Iraq: 169/(81.5/43.8)/105.4
Afganistan: 194/(157.0/151)/235.4

Afganistan is second to last of all countries in the UN list of infant mortalities per 1000 live births. The CIA puts Afganistan third to last at 222nd of 224. A kid has a 1/10 chance of dying in Iraq before the age of five, but more than double that in Afganistan! That should give some sense of the level of civic development in the country and (through some unspecified logic) the likelihood of political stability there.

Universal Reaction

2010-06-06T21:22:00.004-04:00

I met a fellow at a wedding last week who was transferring from the UofC to Penn. Mark D had told of this student the week prior and I was really upset (given that I didn't even know the guy). How will frum discourse ever improve if Jews keep going to Penn? When I ran into the student at the wedding (totally by coincidence) he told me that the universal reaction he received when he told people of his decision--students, faculty, administrators--was dismay that he had chosen "to give up on his education."

I was thinking the same thing.

God, UofCers are so pompous.

Glenn Beck's Socratic Discourse

2010-05-25T03:57:00.002-04:00

Finally a serious thinker addresses Glenn Beck: http://beckstudies.blogspot.com/. I highly recommend these well-considered remarks on the important contemporary thinker, Glenn Beck. This blog presents a welcome addition to the nascent field of Beck Studies.

Cutting and Pasting from Google Books

2010-05-16T21:40:00.002-04:00

Just thought of a nifty way to copy text from Google Books (say, in one needs to quote an extended passage in a paper).

1. Place the desired page in the viewable portion of the screen.
2. (On a Mac) Crtl+Shift+3 for screen capture.
3. Cut and Paste the portion of text using Preview into a new file, Save As 'pdf.'
4. Open PDF with Adobe Acrobat Pro and use the OCR.
5. Voila!

Neeto.

The good is that I am less likely to mistranscribe text. The bad is that the OCR is not perfect, particularly with transliterated Arabic (though it got Mu'tazalite every time!) so I did have to fix the I~;I which was actually an H.

Why do Dems have so much more academic firepower on the Judiciary committee?

2010-05-14T12:56:00.000-04:00

Why is FB so Evil?

2010-05-13T23:53:00.002-04:00

I feel like much of the internet has desisted with the evilness arms race. Google and Wikipedia have both been upfront about the alterations they undergo and take precautions not to trample over people's privacy (pace Google Buzz). Why can't FB do the same? Or rather, why does FB believe that the only way to grow its corporation is by exploiting its users when other companies choose to take a different tact?

Quick thoughts on Stupak's resignation

2010-04-11T00:10:00.002-04:00

So I have been reading NYT's discussion of Stupak's resignation. I think that the conversation is largely off base. Stupak represents MI-1, which includes northern Michigan and the UP (upper peninsula), a region with some of the highest unemployment in the country. I don't care to find out exact figures, but it saw unemployment as high as 25% there.

As I see it, Stupak is not running for another term in part because he is being targeted by republicans, yes. But also in large part because he knows that this election would have been a tough fight with or without HCR. When your district suffers economically, your constituents will hold their elected officials (in part) accountable. Not only will 2010 be a slog, but 2012, 2014 and 2016 will also be tough. Such a economically depressed region of the country will not see a rapid decline in unemployment quickly, and the district will remain vulnerable the whole time. After 18 years in congress I think that Stupak decided it is not worth slogging through n more dogged campaign cycles. Instead retire now when the Dems owe you big.

What do I know from global warming?!

2010-03-14T22:35:00.004-04:00

So I had an idea that I am not going to fully flesh out because I have a lot of reading to do. I was reading a paper by Bob Axelrod "The Dissemination of Culture" Journal of Conflict Resolution, 1997. The article uses Agent Based Modeling to demonstrate that if you have a lot of little cultural blocs, each distinguished by five characteristics, if two of those blocs have common elements and one bloc is allowed to mutate to be like its neighbor you quickly get a few (1-3) dominant cultural regions.

I think this model helps explain why the frum world takes issue with global warming. It is strange, right? What do frum people care about global warming? My hypothesis is that the frum world has become very similar to the liberal elite over the past half century. Not just the MO, but also the Monsey crowd go to fancy law schools, buy Beamers and fancy clothes and drink good scotch and wines. Because of these similarities it risks being imbibed by the liberal American cultural region. In a move to reduce the number of sites that it shares with this cultural region it has strategically altered its character--regarding issues with which it has no intrinsic fight--in order to better ensure that it cannot be swallowed. Instead it makes itself more similar to the less well educated and Evangelical communities with which there is very little likelihood that any real assimilation will occur.

(Social) Science!

Happy Shushan Purim

2010-03-01T02:50:00.003-05:00

I'm sure most of you have already seen this photo, but just in case you haven't....

Why Germany?

2010-02-23T10:18:00.001-05:00

Germany currently has 21 medals to the U.S.'s 25. Pretty good for a country that is roughly 1/4 the size of the U.S. This isn't a fluke either. Germany had a combined 33 medals in the winter games in '88 and has not gotten fewer than 22 in any winter olympic since. I wonder if it has something to do with the historical communist influence. The olympics offered bragging rights for the Free and Communist World. Communist countries were renowned for the resources they would devote to the games. To that end, East Germany always received more medals than did West Germany. When the wall fell Germany was reunited, but the institutions that trained top athletes were able to persist because of the relative affluence of the country. Impoverished Russia, on the other hand was not able to maintain their olympic training organizations and as a result their medal count has diminished. That is why (according this speculative theory, anyway) Germany has been so dominant in the winter olympics.

As for Norway, I got nothing.

New Stuffs

2010-02-10T00:53:00.000-05:00

The Oatmeal and Toothpaste 4 Dinner on sidebar. They are funny, if odd.

This is amazing

2010-01-26T21:47:00.001-05:00

http://cafehayek.com/2010/01/keynes-vs-hayek-rap-video.html

Principled Disinterest

2010-01-19T09:33:00.006-05:00

I am confused. I got an email Friday from a member of the minyan asking us to "do a mitzvah" before shabbes and support his son's charity that is in the running to receive a grant through the Chase Community Giving project. My sense is, however, that there are lots of really worthy charities out there, and it is rather difficult for me to assess that one is more deserving than another. Furthermore, the money has already been allocated, so my vote won't increase the funds given to charity, only affect the recipient. What then is my ethical incentive for participating?

This seems to be a perfect instance where a specialist might well be a better arbiter than the demos.
UPDATE: If you were to, ex ante, choose between giving microloans to the developing world or find innovative ways to remind women to perform self-exams on their breasts, which would it be? I suspected as much; 14,000 for breasts and 8,000 for microloans. So this is not a question worthy-ness, breast cancer kills more than 40,000 of women every year. But it is unclear that self-exams go very far to prevent those deaths, whereas microfinance won a Nobel Prize for saving the world. I just don't think people are very good at prioritizing when there are no constraints on their decisions.

Shout Out to Josef

2009-12-13T23:27:00.002-05:00

Martha Nussbaum likes your channukiah.

Silly Idea

2009-12-13T22:14:00.004-05:00

Is it possible that the Tiger Woods hoopla is society performing a passion play, projecting angst regarding its favorite squeaky clean African-American icon onto its second favorite?

Dear Pres. Obama,
Please, please don't cheat. I don't think my tolerance of stupidity can withstand such an assault.

Very Truly Yours.

In other news, Leiberman has defected. Should the Dems play Tit for Tat, Grim Trigger or just suck up their Sucker payoff? I am guessing Reid will go for the latter most.

How to Win the War in Afghanistan and Why it Will Never Happen

2009-12-04T00:33:00.001-05:00

How to win the war: legalize smack.
Why it will never happen: an African-American president will get nowhere (politically) by legalizing dope.

Leiberman Redux

2009-11-19T09:09:00.006-05:00

Quick thought: Reid's payoff for having Lieberman in the party is n(v)-c where:
n= frequency he votes with the party from 0 to 1
v= value of Lieberman's votes
c= opportunity cost of giving the Homeland Security committee chairmanship to someone else.

As the Democrats approach 60, v increases. At the same time c might be rather small because it is good for the Democrats to have a hawk chairing HS. If v is high and c is low, n can dip and Lieberman will keep his chairmanship.*

I was wrong. He's not nuts. And he gets money from the insurance industry.

* We had a separate argument in the department about the utility Lieberman reaps by keeping his chairmanship. I don't think he needs it as much as others do, and even if he did, he seems to benefit by signaling that he will defect.

Self-radicalized, homegrown nut

2009-11-08T17:21:00.002-05:00

Sen. Joe Lieberman has cracked under five years of alienation and pressure. After being turned aside by the Democratic party, feeling alone with no alternatives, he has cracked.

So I am responding to this article about the Ft. Hood shooting (which the FBI has said is not a terrorist incident), but also to his statements about supporting a filibuster against health care reform. CT is a fairly liberal state and all five representatives voted yea on HR 3962. So why would Lieberman not only vote against the bill (which would reduce its margin of victory), but also threaten not to impose cloture? What does he have to gain?

My detached sense (no longer in the DC world) is that he is finished with politics and wants to throw his weight around. I was not upset when he decided to support McCain, as that did not affect his legislative duties to the party. But when he not only doesn't support the party platform, but actively undermines it I just can't see how he can retain his HS chairmanship.

The Ft. Hood thing is just weird. It was a guy that cracked. Case closed. Is it really worth the time of the US Senate to understand why outliers happen?

A Special Shout Out

2009-11-08T01:23:00.007-05:00

to Rep. Owens (NY-23) on HR 3962. I will sleep happier tonight knowing that Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck made this vote possible. ~~It would have happened without him, but it still makes me happy.~~ The bill actually passed by 3 votes, one was Owens and another Cao of LA. So Owens's votes might have actually been fairly decisive.

Health & Care

2009-10-31T21:11:00.004-04:00

I had a series of shabbes conversations on health care today. What astounds me is the often callus regard physicians have for their patients sentiments. They agree that the highest level of care should be provided to every patient, but that excessive wait times (5 hours in the emergency room) and curt explanations are just a fact of life. Deal with it. Often, doctors claim to be exceedingly busy and unable to spend the necessary time to explain their diagnosis to patients and do general hand holding. My instrumental counterclaim is that more time hand holding will yield fewer malpractice suits. My friend's response was, don't sue so much and your health care premiums won't go up so fast. This is obviously silly, as the the cost of malpractice suits is 1) negligible to the entire cost of health care in America and 2) shouldered far more by doctors than patients. The reply strikes me as exceedingly arrogant, however, and reveals a certain bravado amongst physicians.

What really bothered me, however, was my inability to give a non-instrumental argument as to why health CARE is important. Why am I owed an explanation? I come in which a life threatening illness that almost kills me. Doctor enters, grunts, writes a prescription, and leaves. Five days later I am totally healthy but without a whit of understanding as to why. Has the doctor shirked her responsibility? Is she blameworthy? I feel like I could offer some souped-up Kantian 'respect' argument, but somehow that feels forced. Are we entitled to care, above and beyond health?

11221, you are so predictable like that

2009-10-13T22:47:00.004-04:00

Netflix has this cool feature that lets you see the top 100 movie rentals across the country. Of course shlock like "The Pursuit of Happiness" and "The Bucket List" are on it. But then you can get a list of the top 25 rentals in your area. Ann Arbor is a bit more posh than the rest of the country so we get Season 5 of "The Office" and "Annie Hall." I know those titles, though. Where are they uber-hip, where do all the cool kids hang out? So I googled "Williamsburg, NY zip code" pulled 11221 and punched up the list. What do I get? A documentary of Hasidic Jews, a 1983 PBS documentary on Style, "Masculine/Feminine" and nine foreign titles (two of which are Ingmar Bergman).

Oh 11221, it's good to know that you so are predictably trendy.

I want to see any movie

2009-10-02T10:15:00.002-04:00

which, according to the NYT, is rated R for, "drug use, swearing and the repeated violation of Commandments 3, 5 and 7 to 10."

It would be funny if the MPAA characterized moral breaches in movies according to the Rambam's minyan hamitzvot. That would be a very Coen brothers thing to do.

Kinda Annoyed

2009-09-17T22:51:00.002-04:00

Here is Obama's Rosh Hashana message:

Here is his Nowruz message:

I just don't appreciate that he uses the same tone to address the (unfortunate) Palestinian problem as the Iranian dictatorship. As if I am not perfectly aware of the suffering that the Palestinians endure. I just don't believe that if only we, the Jewish people, looked back on our cherished heritage* and our outspoken condemnation of oppression that somehow the Palestinian problem would be solved. It takes two to tango. Harumph.

* I think it is possible that the first Jewish intellectual to give the line from Yishaya "or lagoyim" discursive currency was Jesus. See Matt. 5.14 "You are a light unto the world. A city built on a hill." I find it weird when people quote that line as distinctively Jewish.

Trust

2009-09-14T09:21:00.002-04:00

Why do Republicans not trust government to promote social welfare, but defer to the government on matters of security and law & order? Why do Democrats trust government to promote social welfare, but mistrustful of the government on matters of security and law & order?

Security and order is a matter of trust. There exists a local power differential and the body on the low end must trust that the superior will not take advantage of its position. The police officer can pull me over, rip me from my car, beat me like a nag, and arrest me for resisting arrest. It is going to be difficult for me to make a sufficiently persuasive claim to seek recompense--the burden is on me. I just have to trust the officer and the government in turn. Now you might have a good story as to why that trust is warranted (bureaucrats want to retain power, elected officials don't want to lose office, the gov't primary role is to maintain security, not meddling in health care), but we can talk about trust in that context.

Health care, however, is not an issue of trust. The government might screw up, because that is what big bureaucracies are wont to do, but it is not a failure of trust, it is a feature of institutional design. That is why I find it so odd that the language of trust is bandied about regarding health care, it just seems out of place.

Fifth Annual Zev Day. 7/28. Be There.

2009-07-26T19:34:00.001-04:00

Well, I guess Zev Day has a much longer history, but I have only been aware of the festivities for five years.

What's the deal with organ trafficking anyway?

2009-07-24T13:19:00.003-04:00

I had a good spat with (R.) Dan and Shmuel over facebook about the uses and disadvantages of organ trafficking. They raise important concerns regarding a persons ability to consent (well, that might be putting words in their mouths), lowering of costs of organs and generally saving people's lives. I worry about people's ability to consent and exploitation of the poor.

If people are 'fairly' compensated for their organs, why shouldn't they be allowed to sell them on the market?

What This Means

2009-06-13T23:25:00.005-04:00

There are a plethora of reports alleging election fraud in Iran. The best I have read thus far comes from Juan Cole, whom I do not normally agree with. Al Jazeera is being really weird and anti-liberal in its coverage, generally maintaining a neutral to skeptical tone regarding the fraud.

The election indicates is that there is distance between the policies of the government and Ayatollah and the wishes of the people, but the fact that the results will likely stand demonstrates that the people are still unable to affect that policies of the Iranian government. Despite the media frenzy over the protests, comparisons to Tiananmen and all, the scale appears to be on the order of thousands, a relatively small showing for protests in the Middle East. The result is not a tragedy because the delegate to the office of the presidency will or will not change, but because of what it indicates about the willingness of Iran's oligarchy to change its policy, even on something as small as a figure head (let alone it's nuclear program). Given that policy change, let alone regime change, appears unlikely Israel will likely bomb Iran*. This is a disaster...

Update (6/15): OK, NYT is reporting protests of ~half a million. That's a real, ol' timey, Mid-East protest. None of this "thousands in the street" crap. I have no idea what's going to happen from here, but at least it shows some spunk.

*Again, this is a descriptive not a prescriptive claim.

Three Questions

2009-06-09T08:39:00.002-04:00

Whenever reading political theory always ask three questions:
1. What is the premise?
2. What is the account/mechanism?
3. What is the payoff?

So for Hobbes it would be something like:
1. People have a projectivist epistemology which causes acrimony. We must solve that by bringing people together under one rule.
2. Consent is employed to transfer 'natural rights' to one body.
3. A perfectly consensual and represented politics.

There are still some bugs in this and my account of Hobbes might not be perfect, but I think it is a good rubric. A surprising number of articles do a hack job of #2 and don't address #3 at all. So, for instance, if you ever read something that outlines a problem and resolves it by magic pixie dust, dragon fire or power excised by the industrial bourgeoisie always be skeptical.

Kol Yisrael Arevim

2009-06-05T11:03:00.003-04:00

I post this because it is getting some traction in the blogosphere, and because it finely articulates why I struggle with Zionism and kol yisrael arevim.

For a moment I will engage my mother, who will no doubt respond along these lines: So they are stupid?! There are lots of stupid people in the world. Why let stupid people alter your identity?! The problem is that according to normative religious/cultural principles I actually share a community with these people. Why can't I construct a community which cleaves along the lines of smart/stupid as opposed to Jewish/non-Jewish (granted my life is far more heavily weighted the former already)? Why would I want to share anything with bigots?

The best rebuttal I can offer at this moment is that maybe God wants us to take responsibility for stupid people. Maybe that's the point of community. Living together in a diverse environment in order to understand the baseness and transcendence of the human spirit. I think it was St. Thomas who argues this, but how can we appreciate the beautiful without the ugly?

Gogol the Optimist

2009-05-27T23:46:00.002-04:00

I am working on a proposal to write a paper about Emerson and Gogol. I mentioned this to my dad and told me a story illustrating how nuts Gogol was. Apparently, he was obsessed with the numbers 2 and 4 resulting in his suicide at the age of 42.

I burst out laughing--I always sensed he was a glass half full kind of guy. A true Russian optimist.

Can One Appeal to Merit?

2009-05-27T08:30:00.003-04:00

I attended a workshop over the last month with one of the professors here where we discussed her forthcoming book which articulates a non-ideal philosophical argument for racial integration, specifically affirmative action. Throughout the seminar I was confused as to why she did not address the question of merit head on--if one works hard and excels (those are two different items) isn't one entitled to a position at an Ivy or elite firm (or at least more entitled than someone without that merit)? How do the values of integration (democratic norms along with social justice ones) address the claims of merit?

Turns out she doesn't really think such an appeal exists, at least to a strong version of the claim. Sure, she concedes, you are going to have a hard time remaining an elite school if you open up enrollment to a lottery, but merit, in itself does not really constitute a claim. Merit will excel on its own, but it is not a ethical value by itself; an instrumental not a deontic value (that might be stating it a bit too strongly--she did intimate that at a large firm passing up someone more qualified for a cousin of yours might be an ill). So if you don't believe that merit is an appropriate claim, anti-affirmative action arguments really fall down.

Just prima facie, there seems to be some appeal to justice wrapped up in merit, something like Aristotle's equals to equals where one's capacity ought to equal the challenge of the position, but I am not sure. Furthermore, it would be hard to argue that every promotion ensures a correspondence between merit and responsibility. Anyhow, it was kind of a mind blowing moment.

Why Now?

2009-05-26T20:20:00.002-04:00

There seem to be indications that the Republican party is ready to block Sotomayor's confirmation. I am not really sure how it is going to do this. Its party discipline is on the decline, and I can't imagine that Collins or Snowe will block her (especially considering that they confirmed her in 1998). Neither do the Republicans have the votes, nor do they have the motive to raise hell over her nomination. From initial reports she writes narrow decisions and is not an outspoken pro-choicer. Furthermore, a battle against the first Latino SC judge won't play politically.

Given all that, why nominate her now? Obama has excellent public approval and a lot of goodwill. If you believe, as I do, that Sotomayor will sail through the confirmation, why not choose someone more controversial now and save the safe bet for later? Is he saving capital for health care later this year?

Barack Hussein and Hosni Mubarack

2009-05-11T02:40:00.001-04:00

Are they really so different?

But No Horsetrading

2009-04-28T16:51:00.002-04:00

One of the odd things about Sen. Specter's announcement is that it does not appear as if he bargained for any committees. The Dems got a +1 and really did not have to trade anything away except a "player to be named" i.e. not to contest him in 2010. It will be interesting to see if he gets any committee chairmanships.

In light of this Snowe remarked: the party's message has been, “Either you're with us or you’re against us.”

The GOP's in trouble. The harder you whip, the harder you fall.

West Wing: The Obama Administration

2009-04-27T09:52:00.007-04:00

When I began watching the West Wing I found it a bit implausible that so much could happen in one season. A war, budget fiasco, infidelity scandal, air strike on a hostile nation all in one year?! Come on. Well, I formally rescind my skepticism. Here is my list of episodes for the first 100 days of the Obama administration:

1. Inauguration & oath misfire
2. TARP
3. Confirmation-gate(s)
4. pseudo State of the Union
5. Closing GitMo, torture memos
6. Pirates!
7. Mexican drug war
8. North Korean ICBM test
9. Swine-flu

Update: 10. Specter switches parties
11. Bo the dog (would probably be wrapped up into another episode)
12. Pakistan (two episodes)
13. Nuclear North Korea
14. Sotomayor (like Glen Close and Justice Mendoza rolled into one)
15. GM and Chrysler bankruptcy

Only a 100 days in and already we'd be shaping up for a very entertaining season. I wonder what the season finale will be (G-d forbid life imitate art).

Kalonomos Cohn's New Blog

2009-04-16T04:04:00.001-04:00

My friend, Kalonomos Cohn, who is still not on facebook, has started a philosophical blog. It is a bit heavy, but is highly recommended.

Presidential Trends

2009-04-13T16:26:00.003-04:00

Republicans: Iraq::Democrats: ?

Well, Bush 41 invaded Iraq, Clinton invaded Somalia, Bush 43 invaded Iraq and Obama ... crap.

My favorite pirate quote: “Every country will be treated the way it treats us,” Abdullahi Lami, one of the pirates holding a Greek ship anchored in the pirate den of Gaan, a central Somali town, was quoted by The Associated Press as saying in a telephone interview.

Does that mean if we give them flowers and chocolate that they will give us flowers and chocolate?!! They are freaking pirates, they are never going to be nice ... unless ...

On a personal note, I am walking a ~~narrow plank~~ thin line between thinking pirates are pretty cool and being gravely concerned with the new pirate scourge on the high seas. OK, maybe I'm not doing such a good job...

The Limits of Time

2009-04-03T00:09:00.002-04:00

It doesn't seem like I got much done today. I woke up at 6:40, went to the gym, minyan, home, showered, made lunch and then stalled until 11a. I was in class from 11 until 6, Penn & Inklings from 7-8 (which counts as work as far as the life of the mind) and then back to the department from 9-12, but only working 2 of those three hours. So what is that? 7+1+2, ten hours of work. Not as bad as what I feared. So what would a really productive day look like?

Let's say you get back from minyan at 8:30 and you give yourself an hour to turn around (Email, NYT, shower, make lunch, FB). Work from 9:30-6:30 an hour and a half for dinner and then another four hours at the department. That's 13 hours, which is about the upper limit over any non-small stretch of time. The day seems like more than 13 hours can be squeezed out of it, but I just don't think it can, absent serious quality of life compromises.

If you were crazy and had your meals served to you at your desk you could probably get six hours of sleep, an hour for turn around (wake up, shower, get into the apartment, take clothes off), an hour commute and a half an hour for davenning leaves 24-8.5, fifteen and a half. So the margin between productive and paralysis is only 2.5 per day. There just really ought to be more time.

Purim Plato

2009-03-12T00:02:00.003-04:00

I saw Robert Mankoff speak yesterday at the Institute for the Humanities Brown Bag Lunch. He was funny but, like all other White People in the croud, I love New Yorker cartoons, so it was a lot of preaching humor to the laugh machine choir.

During his monologue he claimed that Plato and Aristotle warn against the vices of humor. This was our interaction during the Q&A session:

Me: But when you read Plato it is obvious that he is not always serious. For instance in the Republic Socrates chides poets for speaking in a voice other than their own, but then you realize that Plato is speaking through the voice of Socrates.
Mankoff: That's what I get at the University of Michigan*.
Me: I think that is funny.
Mankoff: And I think you are full of shit.

For the moment I don't want to contest his notion of humor (which I think leaves out such things as puns), but want to understand what he means by "full of shit." It reminded me of when Jose and I were walking down the Champs-Élysées and I was ranting about some ridiculous idea when he accused me of the same thing. I remarked in turn: I am not quite sure what you mean by "full of shit." If you mean to say, "My Zev, you are sounding very Zev-like today" then I may take your meaning.

Are "we" full of shit? Is that, maybe, what we are supposed to be? Let the pedantic comments roll.

* I wanted to correct him and say Chicago, but I (fortunately) thought better of it.

Vice Quota?

2009-03-10T09:25:00.002-04:00

After listening to a BBC report on the 'severity' of cannabis factories in London, I was wondering, does society have a vice quota? From what I understand it is pretty clear that there is nothing wrong with ingesting pot, so long as one does not smoke packs a day. Is it possible, however, that society needs vice? Currently people use marijuana to get their vice fix, but were it legal many (not all, or probably even most) would ("be forced to") get their fix in other ways, such as with more severe narcotics?

There are certainly many hippies out there who love the psychedelic effects of hash, but there are also many stupid teenagers who smoke weed because it serves as an affront to power. Those stupid teenagers would probably just find some other outlet, or worse, pick up cigarettes. If you look at the problem as a vice addiction as opposed to a drug "addiction" (which really doesn't apply for weed) the contours of the problem might change significantly.

Fun Morning Data

2009-03-09T11:00:00.005-04:00

In October of 2006 the Pres. Bush signed executive order 13412 blocking the involvement of U.S. oil companies in Sudan. Guess what happened to oil production in Sudan from 2006 to 2007? Sudanese oil exports jumped from $4.8 billion to $7.6 billion and China increased its oil exports from Sudan by 121% according to the WTO. That's a 59% increase over a 15% global price increase or roughly a 35% increase in production. With that kind of growth we should start putting sanctions on ourself.

Can you guess three of the top ten oil exporters to China from which the US receives no oil?
N. Korea, Iran and Sudan.

What Gives?

2009-02-03T19:07:00.002-05:00

Given that the Obama administration had such a grueling admissions application how is it that three nominees have had to drop out and a fourth had to eek it out? You'd think that the point of the invasive questionnaire would be to prevent things like this.

The more substantive question is, you have to assume the Obama administration knew about these tax dodges. Why were did they then let these two (Richardson dropped out before any hearing) be nominated? Were they not adept at calculating this political risks? Particularly in Daschle's case, as Obama had publicly backed him up, was Daschle worried about other things coming to light?

OK or Not OK?

2009-01-30T00:09:00.005-05:00

Speaking of the Bush administration and neo-conservatives role in the plans to invade Iraq, a professor (who is NOT in my department) said in class today:

...there were some Episcopalians, but they were mostly Jewish and so they had a lot of experience with occupations in the Middle East and wanted to avoid those problems.

Not OK. The strange thing about this statement was that the professor singled out Jews, as if to say there is something inherent about being Jewish that brings that kind of experience. Weird man.

My Hero

2009-01-25T23:02:00.001-05:00

http://rugmaster.blogspot.com/

Inaugural Thoughts

2009-01-23T10:04:00.003-05:00

1. Concerning string-syncing. I understand that the cold made it very difficult to play outside and it may have even been detrimental to the instruments. In that case I see no problem with announcing that a recording of "Air and Simple Things" will be played in honor of this auspicious event and have the four musicians stand by the dias. If lip-syncing is considered deceptive, then so is string-syncing. I understand that they did not intend to deceive, but then they should have at least announced what they were doing. If they actually played their instruments for those that could hear on the dias, but recorded the audio-out feed I would be more conflicted, however that would also undermine the technical reasons for not playing (though if one of their strings had snapped in the middle of the performance when the audio feed was being broadcast I guess the feed would have masked it).

I do not buy the excuse that the, "occasion’s got to be perfect. You can’t have any slip-ups." That would entail that every time a musician were to play for a dignitary this excuse could be employed, which just seems ridiculous. Would you want Roberts to have recorded the oath of office before the ceremony?

2. I think it is silly that Obama needed to swear in again. Rather, I think it plays right into those strict constructionists on the court that Obama argues with. Obama should have just said no. In the language of the gemara, it is a konam or certainly a yad, and I believe that kulai alma would hold that the neder was good.

3. On transcripts. This NYT transcript of the inauguration speech delivered by Obama inserts an "applause" after the line at the beginning, "I thank President Bush for his service to our nation..." Firstly there were also some boos, which is ignored by the transcript, which for the sake of etiquette I am ok with. The problem with the transcript is that there was a lag between Obama's words and the reaction of the audience due to the scale of the event. We were applauding at the very beginning of the speech and were silent for the thanks to Pres. Bush. The transcript invents a event that never happened (though I can only really speak for those of us near the Washington Monument).

4. A cautionary note. While it is fun to sing "Got 99 problems and Bush ain't one" just remember that we elected Nixon after we elected Kennedy, which was in part backlash to the the crazy youth culture of the 60's. Celebrate, don't gloat, otherwise we'll get Cheney45.

Winning, yet again

2009-01-22T23:34:00.003-05:00

I like winning, and I particularly like beating Europeans. I also enjoy beating Canadians, but there is no real sport in that. This makes Tuesday all the more sweet. You see, we in American find ourselves consistently competing with our older brother. Who will develop the next new industry, the next political paradigm, the most powerful army? We always win, but it is always close.

For a while there Europe looked like it was going to out liberal us, which was just plain unacceptable. We invented liberalism. Well England did, but we did it way better than they did and they have been playing catch-up for some time now (France is all turned around on that account, but you have to feel mostly sorry for them). But recently it looked as if Europe was going to lead on environmental policy and global responsibility. Then we elected a ~~minority~~ person of a minority racial/ethnic heritage (isn't minority just easier?) to the highest office in the land and out liberaled Europe yet again. They can only look at their feet and say, "Oh yeah, we are really liberal too, except we don't like minorities. But other than that we are awesome." And not only a minority, but a super-cool one of whom everyone else is envious. That's right, we won again. U.S.A.

The Longer it Lasts

2009-01-08T18:41:00.003-05:00

the more likely it is that someone will say/do something stupid.

First my indignation towards the left:

“Look at the conditions in Gaza: more and more, it resembles a big concentration camp,” Cardinal Renato Martino, the president of the Council for Justice and Peace, said in an interview published Wednesday in an online publication.

He defended his comments in the center-left daily La Repubblica on Thursday. While noting that Hamas rockets into Israel were “certainly not sugared almonds” he called the situation in Gaza “horrific” and said conditions there went “against human dignity.”

After all, the Vatican would know about concentration camps. If you want to say that, "people are subjected to inhuman conditions and starvation because of military action and it is a form of collective punishment" then say it, don't be stupid and incendiary.

Now towards the right. The Israelis are not letting the ICRC have access to gaunt, starving children 80 meters away from troops? Learn when not to follow orders.

Parental Intervention

2009-01-04T11:21:00.004-05:00

Your younger brother is a terror. He bites, kicks, steals your CDs, capriciously deletes your downloaded music and ravages your room whenever you step out. You have had it. The easiest thing would be to have your parents intervene somehow (putting a monitoring system on the border of his room, preventing violations to your sovereignty) but they are busy. You pick a week, a week where you can be grounded with impunity, and beat the crap out of Johnny. You don't kill him, but you wail on the brat, and wail good. Your parents are incensed. You are the older and more mature child, how could you do something like this? They ground you for a week, maybe the whole month, and reluctantly send your brother to therapy, recognizing that the satus quo is unacceptable. And you have successfully brought an end to the terror.

Unfortunately the UN/EU are not as reliable as my parents, but it is better than the status quo.

Casus Belli

2008-12-29T00:55:00.003-05:00

A question that I have been batting around for the last two days is: what constitutes as casus belli? In some ways I don't think it is a relevant question, or more to the point, there might not be such a thing as a casus belli in a sub-conventional conflict. But if there were (what does that even mean?) what would such an incitement look like?

Notes on Poetry in Islam

2008-12-17T04:37:00.002-05:00

I am currently working on a research group examining how Aristotle's Poetics was read in Medieval Islamic, Jewish, and Christian settings. I am particularly interested in how Averroes read the Poetics in his two commentaries on that work and the dangers he may have encountered in his outlook on poetry. Yes, I said dangers. And, as an indication that such dangers are still present today, here is an excerpt from the end of an article, written by someone from Australia on Islamic forms of poetry:

I hope that this short essay will help you to remove from your mind the cobweb that you might have regarding poetry in Islam. If we go by the Islamic rules then only Hamd and Naat (some of them written by the great Islamic poet Golam Mostafa) are the only poems allowed in Islam. Almost all the poems written in Bangladesh are unIslamic and all most all the poets are engaged, in many cases, in blasphemy acts whether they realise this or not. Although there is no specific hudud punishment specified in Sharia for writing poetry, please know that if a poetry is considered grossly offensive and/or blasphemous then the punishment is death by beheading.

As one can see, the message is now very clear. Most of the poets of Bangladesh (or any other country) are the potential targets for capital punishment if an Islamic Paradise is established and ‘real Islam’ is practiced in Bangladesh.

Yikes! If the situation in 13th century Spain was anything like the one described here, Averroes was really living on the edge by discussing and praising Homer and pre-Islamic poetry.

I want a representative, darn it!

2008-12-15T14:15:00.003-05:00

So we might get Caroline Kennedy as our U.S. senator from NY. Why can't we get a representative, you know, someone who represents the interests of NYers (and not just those downstate)? Clinton carpet-bagged and spent her tenure making a presidential run. The only up-state work of hers I know is helping to keep the Niagara Falls airbase open and supporting grape growers. It would be nice if someone came along who actually, knew or cared about the constituents.

Brian Higgins 2010!

Nimussim!

2008-12-15T11:18:00.005-05:00

I live in this universe, and I come to expect bizarre, unthinking behaviors by others. I am still, however, confused by the outpouring of animosity towards Pres. Bush in the wake of the footwear flinging yesterday. Eight years ago the Iraqis were under the rule of a brutal dictator. Then the US went in and removed said evil dictator causing wide-spread elation. Then the Iraqis tried to kill each other, keeping US forces in Iraq. Why are they angry at us exactly?

Here is just one quote:

Abu Ali, a 55-year-old laborer, said: “It is a wedding of all Iraqis. Muntader’s action is less than Bush deserves for killing, displacing and bloodletting Iraqis. I will blame the Iraqi government and American forces if anything wrong happens to Muntader.”

We haven't been wantonly killing Iraqis. This is not a war against Arabs, but against people that want to kill Arabs* (many of whom, happen to be arab themselves, this is true). Now the academic is me wants to analyze this and ask why there exists this deep misperception about the role of the US forces in Iraq. But my other part is utterly confused.

There has been abuse, and it is not a trivial matter, but our troops are drawing down and it will not be a open ended occupation. I can imagine that Iraqis are frustrated by the constraints on their daily lives and blame the US for their woes (though I expect better from academics), but that still does not make it reasonable (not that political science cares all that much whether people are reasonable or not). If the Iraqis feel they are better for not having Saddam around they ought to thank Bush. I can imagine Iraqis saying their lives are worse now than under Saddam, but I cannot believe that the majority want him back.

It is we in the US that would seem to have cause to throw shoes (wiretapping, tourture, misleading the public about a war) not the Iraqis.

*Fine, not initially, but that is what it has turned into.

Jerusalem Post Headline

2008-12-14T02:20:00.002-05:00

"Haifa: Two teenagers arrested for shooting at each other during Shabbat". Just because the buses in Haifa run on shabbat, doesn't mean you can shoot people on shabbat!

It's a Good Thing

2008-12-09T11:53:00.002-05:00

Good thing Chicago as a fair-minded, independent and financially stable news source to continue shaking up Chicago Politics. Well, all except for the last part.

Unfortunately, freedom of the press requires solvency of the press.

Flip a Coin!

2008-12-06T18:56:00.004-05:00

This is really stupid. Al Franken and Norm Coleman are squaring off in MN to see who will be the next senator of that fine state. Right now Coleman leads by 0.03% and the race will most likely be decided by contested ballots in the courts. Those courts will have judges who are D's or R's with systematic biases to vote one way or the other.

Given that the margin of victory is less than the margin of error in a recount (I don't actually know this, I am only guessing) and given that courts are known to have systematic bias, a coin toss would be the most transparent and fair way to go about deciding this election. I am serious.

Update: I was beaten too it. Drats.

Luckily, Minnesota’s electoral law has a provision for ties. After all the counting and recounting, if the vote is statistically tied, the state should invoke the section of the law that requires the victor to be chosen by lot. It’s hard to swallow, but the right way to end the senatorial race between Mr. Coleman and Mr. Franken will be to flip a coin.

2008-11-25T09:43:00.001-05:00

There is something very romantic about working on your thesis in the library while Shimon Peres chats with the president of Italy a few meters away.

Germans bearing Talks

2008-11-24T16:08:00.003-05:00

Whether you agree with him or not, there is something nice when a prominent German writes that the defeat of anti-Israelism and terrorism "may only be achieved through dialogue". Nevertheless, whatever it is I fear Germans bearing talks.

Secretary Clinton

2008-11-22T19:09:00.003-05:00

I know my opinion does not count for anything, but I am not a big fan of Sen. Clinton's appointment to the post of Secretary of State. As Jon Stuart pointed out on the Daily Show last week, Obama and Clinton agreed on many issues, but one of their few arenas of disagreement was foreign policy. To offer her the Secretary of State position, then, seems rather calculating.

Furthermore, Clinton campaigned on domestic policy, not foreign policy. Her spare attempt to demonstrate foreign policy experience badly backfired as it was shown that she had not in fact entered Bosnia under fire. I don't see that Sen. Clinton has any coherent vision of foreign policy. She really should have taken HHS, but such is life. I was rooting for Richardson. I wonder if Dennis Ross will get his old job back. I know he reeeeally wants it.

My only hope is that she will resign from the position in 2012 in order to be able to begin campaigning in 2014.

Some Notes on Teaching

2008-11-21T00:58:00.007-05:00

I have again been persuaded that it is good policy to give very few A's. My standards are not harsh, but I stick to them (an A on a paper requires original analysis argued by a clear thesis). Students in my class have begun finding out who gets A's (I did not give one A on the second paper, and only 4/40 on the midterm). It is considered something of a feat. Following the midterm one of my students (a Cool Dude) began yelping in the halls, another immediately called her parents. The grade actually begins to mean something, my frugality has actually created value. It is a wonderful thing to see my students think about Rousseau, not the only for the grade, but for the affirmation of their work (it would be lovely to have them passionate about R too, but how much can one ask for?). That is to say they begin to take pride in their work.

The funny thing, which I have only begun to realize is that it is much harder to withhold A's than it is to give them. Everyone loves to give good grades to their students--you win, they win, the school wins. Except grade become inflated; they begin to be worthless as it corrupts the economy of education. I am of two minds on this also. It is terrible that students with a 3.7 can't get into law school (thank G-d PhD programs are not as demanding). I think what I have learned, though, is that this stinginess also has an educational upside.

I think part of that is due to the time I take on grading. It is a huge sink hole of time, and I loath it, but I have had only one contest of a grade I gave out of 120 graded assignments (and the protest was only informal). Giving thorough feedback seems to lend credibility to one's discretion and reinforces the grade's worth. And one more thing, always give stickers for A's, always.

I did break the cardinal rule of substitute teaching this week, though, I did a good job. I didn't expect to, really I didn't. I have been sick with a cold all week and I really didn't want to be teaching, but I gave it the old college try. A student yesterday begged me to give a repeat performance, another came to my office hours today, even though I am not his TA. I can't even get my own students to come to office hours. As the backhanded compliment we used to give at the UofC goes, I guess I would make a really good high school teacher.

Better get back to writing my paper, "A Suitable Philosophical Investigation" to avoid that fate.

I Think I'm Getting Better at This

2008-11-18T12:35:00.004-05:00

I was right. Joe Leiberman would continue to caucus with the Dems as long as he retained his chairmanship, which he will.

You heard it here first. All five of you. Well four, because one of the five is undoubtedly me.

1 for 2

2008-11-12T00:38:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm 1 for 2 on elections this month. Better than I expected.

Chingis Kahn

2008-11-11T23:56:00.005-05:00

I asked Prof. Lindner today why there are so many ways of spelling Ghangis Khan (really what I was asking was what the best approximation was). He remarked that the best spelling he had found was Gangis Kahn, you know Sylvia and Gangis Kahn. They live in Flatbush and daven at the Young Israel there. The Kahns.

I happen to have a picture of them from the Young Israel dinner last year:
(In actual fact, Prof. Lindner spoke about Sylvia and Gangus Kahn of the Upper East Side who go to the 92nd St Y, but that's obviously not these two.)

That's the UofC I know

2008-11-08T21:15:00.003-05:00

An unassuming, but sharp, economist from the minyan at Michigan chanced to spend shabbes in Hyde Park recently. He told me that the students were all very nice to him, but that there was one thing that he found odd. Everyone made him say something smart before they would talk to him. I guess it's like our password, or something.

Completely obnoxious, but that is the UofC I know and, er, love.

Punctuation

2008-11-06T23:08:00.004-05:00

Fox News has this picture on its website,

with the caption, "America elects its first black President"
That's accurate, except that they exclude the punctuation which reads, "America elects its first black President?!"
Much different.

Post Election Thoughts

2008-11-05T22:39:00.008-05:00

In no particular order:

A. If his choice of Chief of Staff indicates anything, it looks like Obama is not anti-Israel. Emanuel davens at Anshe Sholom (or at least he is a member) and his father was a member of the Irgun.

B. I smell a rotten salmon in AK. Stevens is up there, but voting turnout is way down from 2004 by ~80,000 votes and currently down ~15,000 votes from 2006. Why would a year when Democrats are so energized and with two contested national races would Alaskan voters (D voters) stay away from the polls? To dampen my cynicism a bit though, exit polls seem to show the 48/46 split for Stevens. It's still really weird.

C. The youth vote matters. According to the NYT ~22m 18-29 year old voters turned out. Without their 2-1 split you're looking at about 49.9m votes from Obama and 49.5m for McCain. And that doesn't include those parents who were implored by their naive children to vote for Obama either.

D. Al Jazeera headlines: ترحيب دولي بانتخاب أوباما رئيسا للولايات المتحدة
Which I believe, though my Arabic sucks, means "World Welcomes Election of US President Obama" (please feel free to correct my translation if you know better than I).

E. Yay.

Will Lieberman Jump Ship After Elections?

2008-11-04T13:27:00.003-05:00

I doubt it, but he might. The Dems are none-too-happy that he has been fraternizing with the enemy and no longer need his clinching majority vote. That being said, I don't know that CT is as likely to vote for a Republican leaning Independent. Then again, he might get better committees from the Republicans if the Dems decide to dump him and by the time the next election rolls around he'll be 70 and might not want to run again anyhow.

I think he will caucus D so long as the party lets him. If they take away some of his committees he might just jump though.

Go out and Vote!

2008-11-03T04:38:00.002-05:00

Once again Victor Davis Hanson, a classics prof, says it all, i. e., all we know about Obama. Go out and vote, though. Hope for the best. If the polls are right, I'll spend the next four years hoping for change.

5046

2008-10-30T01:11:00.003-04:00

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 4 YEAR TERM (1) POSITION
DEM Obama, Barack
5046 South Greenwood Avenue
Chicago, IL 60615

Why does that address sound familiar?
I can't believe that I actually lived exactly one block away from the potential president of the United States of America. That's pretty cool.

Re: A Cautionary Thought About Egomaniacs

2008-10-29T11:05:00.002-04:00

Obama's Egomania is, in the view of at least one commentator, nearly messianic in scope. In my view, though, Obama's Egomania is a significantly smaller problem than his unknown position on Israel and other foreign affairs and his pink-o economic plans. The fact that he palls around with terrorists like Ayers and people like Khalidi and Mazen Asbahi does not particularly endear him to me, to say nothing of his relationship with Jeremiah Wright. In fact, I do not see how one can consistently support both Israel and Obama.

A Cautionary Thought About Egomaniacs

2008-10-28T09:15:00.003-04:00

When I attended a rally in Detroit for Barak Obama I knew what he was going to say. Not the general content, but the exact words he was going to use. I am not telepathic, I just happened to hear excerpts from the speech he had given the day before in Virginia on NPR that morning. I knew what his pleas for the economy would be. I knew his zingers. I knew that he cared about Main St. It is for that reason that I either pity the man or suspect him--who in their right mind would subject themselves and their family to 20 months of public exposition?

Public service is honorable, but there is always the question of whether you intend to serve the public or you intend for the public to serve you (re: Kennedy's "Ask not" speech). Obama moved from an Illinois state senator to run for U.S. House three years later. Four years after that he ran for U.S. Senate and four years after that (well two, really) he ran for president. The humility of civil service is realizing that whether you serve 100,000 or 100 million you are still doing the same amount of good. The moral obligation to serve others is not about the effect, but the responsibility.

I am bothered by this. I am bothered that such a bright man would be willing to give the same stupid stump speeches (allbeit eloquently) day after day after day, reducing political discourse to a pabulum over the course of 400 days. I am bothered by the fact that he is willing to vote for the USA Patriot Reauthorization Act despite having grave concerns about it. I am bothered that he voted for FISA and still does not believe it was the wrong vote. I am bothered because I cannot tell whether Obama wants to serve us, or we are supposed to support him.

This election is certainly an historic one, and I understand that Obama had a shot at the Whitehouse that might not have presented itself again, but I am still bothered. I hope to be shown what this man can truly do for our country.

The Atlantic's Redesign

2008-10-24T00:32:00.003-04:00

I might cancel my subscription, or at least print out the articles online. The new Atlantic typeface is actually painful. What's worse is that The Atlantic was just given a facelift a few months ago and I liked the results. The less cluttered cover, the centerfold table of contents, even "the agenda, " which was a digest of academic articles has been replaced by "the dispatch" which is just more reporting. Boo.

But the typeface is really abysmal. I can live with the new sarif ~~mercury~~ cover font which is supposed to be a 60's era throwback (someone likes Mad Men a bit too much), but the Titling Gothic is blocky and hefty, lacking all the elegance and grace of their earlier fonts. It's like pulling out a terrible copy of an old Life magazine. Gawd.

I hope an pray that they change the font back. Why mess with a good thing?

As I live and breath

2008-10-11T22:35:00.004-04:00

I knew Alan Dobry for four years. If I gave him an aliyah once I gave him an aliyah a hundred times. Never did I suspect that he was the man who gave Obama his start in public office, nor had I any inkling that he was a major operator in HP politics.

You just never know.

Here's Rooting for you, Buddy

2008-10-04T21:35:00.005-04:00

The thing the article about Jose misses is that people have been holding by his geyrus for four years now. He has been getting aliyahs, layning, being yotze others with brachos, counting in minyanim, that kind of stuff. Real people in real shuls. It seems strange that the sochnut is deciding who can and can't be yotze others, essentially.

Please Call Your Congressperson and...

2008-09-29T16:00:00.003-04:00

... thank them/yell at them for voting for/against the federal package to infuse liquidity in the market.
Who is my congressperson?

I know what I will be praying for during the next two days. A re-vote will likely come up on Thursday.

The Swing Demographic-Jewish Grandmothers

2008-09-26T13:02:00.004-04:00

So I post this because it is kind of my weekly pre-shabbes phone call with my grandmother. We talk for thirty seconds or so, you know how're things? Judy? Gabby? Grandkids? Who comes to visit, who has already called, who she's still waiting on. That's all warm up these days, a cacophony before the concert. Then we get down to business. McCain will be better for Israel. He will be stronger in Iran. But hasn't the no negotiation policy failed (well, actually I believe it has run its course, neither here nor there)? What about McCain's tax policy, do you really think the middle class does not deserve tax breaks? Foreign dictators will try and test Obama, McCain is a greater deterrent. And so forth.

The point it, while Silverman is funny, I actually think she's wrong. We are on different sides of the issues. My grandmother favors hard power over soft power (having seen it work during the Holocaust) and I prefer soft power, and military engagement somewhere way down the line (but on that line, nonetheless). It's not just a matter of correcting the erroneous emails that she does not receive.

Oh yeah, and the fact that Fox News is her source for election coverage does not make the challenge any easier.

Who in the Clinton years

2008-09-26T04:16:00.001-04:00

would have thunk that George Bush's legacy would be increased nation-building in Asia and the nationalization of American Banks?

A Parable

2008-09-25T23:44:00.003-04:00

A rich Jewish businessman was once contemplating the davenning for the yammim noraim. He thought to himself, "I understand how God gives life and takes it away, but I am a rich man, how could God possibly relieve me of all my wealth in one fell swoop?" When he arrived at his house a Polish noble was waiting at his kitchen table demanding all the businessman's assets. Times were tight for the Polish government and it needed his capital to stay afloat. Mocked and despondent the businessman now understood how God could relieve one of all his assets, but he was still incredulous about God's capacity to granted wealth so easily. Later that day the businessman found that the Polish noble died in a house fire--the contract was never delivered to the town clerk for endorsement.

It is a simplistic story which I probably heard in seventh grade from a rabbi around this time of year. That being said, I am amazed how I find myself with the same incredulity about the market. My faith in volatility is continually restored.

The Problem of the Haredim

2008-09-23T05:12:00.003-04:00

Haredim do not join the army, do not become policemen, and do not have any kind of liberal education, not to mention advanced study of civics or politics. Yet as soon as they feel threatened, they form gangs and try to intimidate and attack random Arabs.

"Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?

2008-09-20T23:50:00.005-04:00

that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46)

So as the age old question goes, what does "sabachthani" mean? There is some perseption out there that the word is related to the line from Tehilim (Psalms) "lama azavtani?" (why have you left me?). The note in my NRSV Bible on this verse claims that the word, "is a citation from Ps 22:1, which the writers quote in Aramaic," but there doesn't seem to be a clear relationship between azavtani and sabachtani at all. Sokoloff does not list an entry for the word in his in Palestinian Aramaic dictionary, aside from an entry meaning "hair net" which advances the imagery of a network or lattice.

So Adam and I were bothered by this today during kiddush and took it up with one of the professors in shul. Benji's answer, which I like, is that the word is related to סבך (s.b.h) or entangled, complicated, interwoven (all alternate forms of the word with the same root). Benji thought that the word is related to the modern Hebrew מסובך (complicated) which can also indicate a sense of, "why did you get me caught up in this mess?" (or "on account of what," depending on the lema/lama transliteration) which is where the translation in Matthew "forsaken" may have come from. The coolest part of this is that in the episode of the Binding of Isaac the thicket in which the ram is caught is called a סבך (Gn 22:13). I am not going to say that Matthew was a bad translator (even though Benji's interpretation is way better), maybe it just didn't come over so well from the original Greek. Who knows?

And with that, I am off to slichot.

The Dow is Now Lower than When Bush Took Office.

2008-09-17T18:06:00.000-04:00

I hope you're happy.

The Fates Align

2008-09-15T09:19:00.002-04:00

The market is in freefall and the Gulf has been assaulted with two bad hurricanes. If the Dems can't take it this election season they should just hang up their spikes and call it quits.

Bret Farve quits.

So what you're saying is that you were wrong

2008-09-14T12:39:00.003-04:00

NYT reported this on 9/9 and this on 9/14. The might want to acknowledge that the earlier analysis was rather off base. (Same byline, btw.)

This is part of a larger problem I have with media outlets throwing everything at the proverbial wall and seeing what sticks, while never redressing that which did not.

Thoughts on Palin Interview

2008-09-13T22:59:00.003-04:00

You can find the series of Palin interviews with Charlie Gibson here.

The first segment was certainly her weakest. She was clearly in unfamiliar territory and was speaking from talking-points as opposed to engaging in a conversation. The following three segments showed her to be more comfortable, which (in my partisan opinion) was due to a familiarity with the discourse, as opposed to the substance of the issues. When Gibson asked her where a McCain administration would find money for programs she talked about "efficiencies" but refused to go into specifics. It is clear that the federal budget shortfall will not come from nickel and diming social security and welfare, but from major realignments of the US tax code and possibly consolidating programs. A mayor or governor can fill shortfalls with tightening the reigns of government, but I don't think the federal budget works quite the same way. I see no reason to believe that Palin has any grasp on macro-economic matters in the least.

Gibson asked good questions and Palin gave good answers (after the first segment). By good I mean that they were convincing, though they often did not actually address the issues. Why did she keep the earmark money from the bridge to nowhere? So she was for the bridge in her role as governor-cum-advocate. While opposed to lobbyists in general, she did not seem to have any problem with commissioning a lobbyist herself. I think it can easily be explained by saying that once the lobbyist culture in Washington exists she is not going to fight it from Wasilla, but compromises her image as a reformer at all costs.

She continues to look like a well spoken politician, with no substantive grasp on federal politics. Biden's job will be to engage her as an equal and direct the conversation outside of her talking points, demonstrating a feeble understanding of economic and foreign policy issues. If he can't do it the Sophists might seize the day from the Socratics yet again.

Obama's Ace

2008-09-11T18:19:00.003-04:00

It is really concerning (to me) that McCain appears ahead in both national popular polls and electoral polls for the first time since April. I have only one thought of consolation at this juncture. Obama's big strength is not messaging (although he is a good speaker), but organizing. He was a far better speaker than Clinton, but that is not what won him the primary; he was able to out-hustle her on the ground. When there were a handful of primaries every week in February Obama's campaign had an opportunity to shine in the media spotlight with each successive win. Now that there is only one day at the polls organizing is not going to get that much press until the show is over. The hustle should manifest itself in a vast turn out of Obama supporters on election day, but otherwise it will be rather silent. Here's hoping.

One other thought: McCain's bounce has certainly been pronounced, but will the momentum fall off? I suspect that McCain has gotten about all he can get from the RNC+Palin so those states that are still solidly blue in the polling will stay so until election day (including non-trivial ones such as WI, IA and CO). If Palin has not picked them up, she ain't gonna get 'em (I can't imagine there are many Palin fence sitters). The polls will undoubtedly shift from here on in, but not with the same volatility as in the last two weeks.

1.4 Million Views Can't Be Wrong

2008-09-05T09:35:00.001-04:00

Because it has gone viral and it is funny.

Quick Thoughts on Palin's Speech

2008-09-03T23:09:00.007-04:00

She did what she needed to do. She gave a convincing performance with a good delivery. The only time I noticed her waiver was when referring to global energy concerns in Venezuela. Her youngest daughter was also very cute.

The Republicans seem to be much more ad hominem than the Dems were (although the Dems did use the 7 houses line quite a bit). She introduced her family at length and then went into how America likes small town leaders. It is a story which makes sense, but it still remains to be seen if she does. The speech did not focus heavily on policy and did not really give the sense that policy intricacies are her forte. She did not talk about housing at all, for instance. Equally absent was a strong conservative social message--she did not mention abortion or activist judges in her speech. Her message was as a reformer, and she delivered it convincingly. That the Republicans can sell an anti-insider platform is really amazing, considering it was they who created the current explosion of lobbying in Washington.

What's this business of referring to Obama as "our opponent"? He is not Voldemort. Poor form.

Her job was not to lay out detailed policy, but look competent behind a podium. I was fairly impressed with her delivery given her relative new-comer status on the national stage. I don't know if she is really going to affect the campaigns beyond tonight. She will not craft policy and her aims in the VP debate will not be that high. She gives the impression of a ticket that is willing to change the order in Washington, but I think it will be mostly up to McCain and Obama to sell their visions.

Something that really bothers me though is that it really seems as if people are willing to equate Palin's lack of experience with Obama's. The frustrating part is that there is a trump card that cannot be played--Obama is brilliant. No one wants to hear that Obama was editor of Harvard Law Review or offered a professorship at one of the country's best law schools, it does not play well in Nebraska or Coal Country. But he is deeply immersed in policy debates and understands the complexities. When he does not he has others do the scut work like Cass Sunstein and Rob Rubin. Would you pick any CEO to run the country? Is that all it takes?

[Cleaned up from earlier] Now that I think of it, Palin's presentation is rather similar G.W. Bush in 2000. Then Gov. Bush packaged himself as a compassionate conservative who had reached across the aisle to get things done in TX. The role of the governor is not especially large in TX, but he offered a return to American morals (as a born-again Christian) in the wake of the schism relating to Pres. Clinton's sexual improprieties. Bush did not run on his father's coattails and it is still largely forgotten that Bush 43 was born in CT and not TX. It was not perceived as the extension of a legacy, but a new direction for the country. Palin similarly sets herself up as an outsider (which she truly is) who can come into Washington and restore decency. My frustration is that Palin sets the stage for precisely the same failures for which the Bush administration has been responsible. His Manichaean understanding of policy options and lack of comfort justifying his decisions seem, at present, to have done the country ill. But Palin sets up those very concerns all over again. Electing a president who is both articulate and bright may actually be a good thing. No one likes an armchair academic ('cept me, of course) but surely there is *some* value to carefully thought-through policies. Though Palin is only filling the VP slot the same arguments that will advance the Republican ticket with her on it are exactly those that placed us in many of the messes we find ourselves in today. I fear that people will make the same misjudgment with Palin that was made with Bush because of this discomfort with expertise. Maybe JS Mill was right, just a little.

Family Values

2008-09-02T08:05:00.003-04:00

I read a tight exposition of the difference between political and moral philosophy yesterday in David Estlund's "Democratic Authority." Estlund claims that while moral philosophy is only concerned with outlining personal responsibility political philosophy is also concerned that people as a whole have the capacity to meet those expectations. This is what frustrates me about Republican Family Values.

No one ought to condemn the Palin family for hypocrisy or neglect, I am sure Gov. Palin is a fine parent. The problem is that the conservative Republicans confuse moral and political philosophy. They advance abstinence only sexual education programs and whip over the Mexico City Policy when these in initiatives actually harm the causes they advance. When nearly 65% of unwed teenagers are sexually active advancing these policies confuse moral and political philosophies. The fact that these issues arise in our own homes should make us sensitive to that.

2008-09-01T03:56:00.003-04:00

Will McCain get more press for not having the convention than Obama got for having one?

Italy's support of Ghaddafi

2008-08-31T04:34:00.005-04:00

Italy just signed a deal with Europe's favorite tyrant, Moamer Ghaddafi, to give Libya $5 billion as "reparations for Italy's colonial rule of the country in the early 20th century". I am not a policy expert, but I cannot see how supporting this horrible regime makes up for past colonialist "misconduct." The real motive for this pact may be Libya's pledge to "increase patrols of its coastline to prevent boatloads of African immigrants from traveling to Sicily". In any case, I do not see why this should be couched in terms of doing justice or making reparations. Two wrongs do not make a right and it is hard to imagine that Italy's occupation of Libya could have been worse than Ghaddafi's current misguided tyranny.

Quick thought about Palin

2008-08-29T12:50:00.003-04:00

Strange choice. One great thing about the pick, though. Biden, will have to sheath his sharp tongue during the debates in order not to appear disdainful.

The Curve is Inverting!

2008-08-21T11:04:00.002-04:00

It is still before the convention so I am not too worried. But I am worried. W/e, Kennedy-Nixon was tight too.

With OH swinging for McCain I am forced to rethink my dread of and antipathy towards Clinton as a running mate. She has been pretty quiet since her campaign has ended, maybe she can be trusted. Just don't let her bring any of her old campaign staff back.

Blog Maintenance

2008-08-19T21:37:00.005-04:00

I deleted some blogs off the blogroll. No offense intended, if a blog has not been updated for more than 12 months I tend to take it off. If you restart blogging please tell me and I will replace the link.

I also added another political blog that I have become obsessed with in recent weeks (thanks to Shim S.B. for the heads up). 538 is a capital blog with a wealth of data about the upcoming elections (Silver, who runs the blog, is also as UofC guy featured here). When anyone asks me who is going to win in November I just start reciting from the blog and people think I am smart, or something.

Olympic Fashion

2008-08-19T09:22:00.003-04:00

Apparently there is controversy about the American casual attire for the Olympics (though, if I am linking to Gawker, I must not be looking very hard). As I have a large preppy streak in my wardrobe my opinion might not count, but I do like the look. I think the issue of logo size is overblown as the large logo has been in for a few seasons now and its not like the Adidas or Nike logos are inconspicuous on the athletic gear. The look is classic American, so it scores 'authenticity' points and what exactly are the alternatives? You can't go with wool and polyester looks cheap (eg the poor Aussies) so cotton it is (I guess linen is also an option, but that is just more prep for you). The rep ties might be a little over the top, but it's nothing compared with the opulence of many other countries (eg India).

Where's your reaction Yehuda?

2008-08-18T13:37:00.001-04:00

With all this news about Russia invading Georgia I would think Yehuda would have some interesting perspectives, being a native of that great state. Why no reaction?

But it Gets Better

2008-08-17T00:40:00.003-04:00

So I come back from shul motza'sh and see that that US Men's Sabre is in the Semifinals. Huge! The women are considered better than the men by a lot. While the women's sabrists took gold, silver and bronze in the individual matches, mens sabre did not pick up any medals and only had one fencer in the top 10. Tonight they topped Hungary 45-44 and then dispatched Russia in similar fashion. The US was up against Russia by 6 after 3 bouts, 15-9, but Russia came back and handed Rogers and Smart's butts-on-a-plate. Russia was up 35-28 after 7. When Keith Smart came up for the last bout the U.S. was down by 5. That means that Smart needed to get 10 touches while only allowing 4 opposing. It started rather badly for Smart getting to a score of 37-42. Then Smart turned something on and brought the score to 43-44 when Russia took the final touch. Except that Smart has seemed to call halt right before the touch was scored (he was on the attack at the time). I don't really understand the call, but the ref took the touch back. Smart took two more to win the bout 45-44!

America is doing really well in fencing which will hopefully translate well for the sport. Women's sabre took individual gold, silver and bronze an a team bronze. The women's foil team took silver, which is a massive accomplishment as foil and epee are generally considered "European" strengths. Men's sabre has already undertaken two large upsets. A gold medal would be a great capstone.

Congrats on the silver medal finish!

What A Billion People Can Do

2008-08-14T23:19:00.003-04:00

Obviously a billion people can do a lot. Build really small cars, manufacture cereal box toys and party favors and give the world some really yummy inexpensive food. One thing that a billion people apparently cannot do is win in the Olympics. No, not China (which is having an old fashion Gold Rush revival in the shooting and weightlifting events), India has a lone gold medal in shooting. The US currently has 1.3*10^-7 medals for every American (a bit lower if you include those in our de facto 'guest worker program') China provides 2.7*10^-8 medals per denizen but poor India can only give its people 10^-10 medals. What's up with that?

Fencing at its Best

2008-08-14T08:05:00.003-04:00

I managed to get up for the final two matches of the gold medal bout of Ukraine v. China in women's sabre. China was up at one point by 10 and when I tuned in UKR had lost the previous round 5-0 and were trailing 27-35, which is like being back a full length in swimming. UKR came back with some aggressive fencing coupled with CHN overreach (attack no, counter attack). It was finally 44-44 both advanced an attacked and it looked like CHN might have edged out. The director did make a call initially and after a gut wrenching minute or so of consulting video the director admitted "Abstention!" which has got to be really tough to admit you can't call it in front of a very tense home crowd. UKR then went on the defensive and won on an attack no, counter attack. What a finish!

My complaint about the officiating is that there appears to be a proclivity to use instant replay. I think there is a 'simultaneous attack' for a reason, because it is too close to call. If it is not humanly possible to ascertain who had the attack it should not be scored. The replay should only be used at full speed and consulted if the director feels she really missed something. But what do I know.

יש ויש

2008-08-13T04:01:00.003-04:00

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Shufersal's new supermarket line, Yesh, is that it targets both Haredim and Arabs together. Despite different kashrut / halal needs, Arabs and Haredim apparently have similar shopping habits when it comes to food.

To Drug or not to Drug?

2008-08-12T09:11:00.003-04:00

I just don't agree. Performance enhancing drugs are so powerful that sports would turn into an R&D race. If we allow the use of designer pharmaceuticals why not prosthetics? From an ethical perspective I am not sure that athletes would avoid risky medications which offer an immediate payoff. In competitions where 0.05 seconds is significant doping would seriously skew the competitiveness of some athletes over others.

A retort might be that if we let all box car racers use NASCAR engines then things would be fair again. But then it is no longer box car racing. Along those lines I guess I would not be outraged if they had a doping Olympics and a non-doping Olympics. My sense, though, is that people are not nostalgic for the days of Sosa and McGuire and would regard the doping games much like Arena Football; as a gimmick rather than a sport.