Brooks on Repubicans

Brooks writes interestingly on the rather pathetic (my term, not his) Republican race, how even brighter Republicans, like Lugar & Hatch (well, maybe) are adhering to tribal loyalty. In fact, as Brooks notes, adherence to the crazy of the day seems to trump anything, thus the parade of lame potential nominees, all, as Brooks notes, unelectable. And how about Romney! Wow, I thought Richard Nixon was awkward in public, but Mitt seems to take it to a whole new level. Nixon was plagued by demons of inadequacy and inferiority leading to a degree of paranoia (and thus Watergate). Romney has to try to hide that he's not a normal guy. Did Washington have this problem? No! Washington cultivated his alooffness. Different times, for sure.

Maybe to Help Other Bum Bums

My hip is tight as all get out and somewhat painful (although PT seems to be helping). Anyway, this brief YouTube clip may help explain why. Of course, I am now writing this from my standing desk. I'm hoping that this will help, and preliminary observations are encouraging.

Wierd Stuff from Paul Krugman

Ponder this from Krugman. The more educated you are, the more BS you buy. I mean, informed, skeptical doubt about climate change. It's possible in theory, but I don't see it, and I doubt these Republicans see it. What's going on here?

Niall Ferguson on State Captialism

Niall Ferguson sometimes gets it wrong in his commentary on current affairs, but I think that his wide-angle historical lens provides some very good insight into this issue of political economy. A lot of folks have suggested that China's current brand of "state capitalism" is ascendent and superior to the market capitalism championed by the U.S. and which served as the basis for the "Washington consensus". Ferguson provides a useful "hold on a minute perspective" on the contention that this "state capitalism" now holds the key to the future.

Ferguson notes the contention of Ian Bremmer that China is the premier example of state capitalism that could fundamentally change the way the world economy works. But as Ferguson notes, China's brand of capitalism is a varied amalgam of government intervention and very free markets. (Neither does he mention the role of corruption, but I understand from 1HP that this factor looms too big to ignore, especially in a system in which the state looms so large.) Ferguson, citing the likes of Adam Smith and Peter Thiel, acknowledges the importance of government institutions in any capitalist system. Issues of the environment in which the economic system operates are crucial. Ferguson argues that the key lies on how and in what ways the state deals with the economy, a point well-taken. In conclusion, he writes:

The real contest of our time is not between a state-capitalist China and a market-capitalist America, with Europe somewhere in the middle. It is a contest that goes on within all three regions as we all struggle to strike the right balance between the economic institutions that generate wealth and the political institutions that regulate and redistribute it.

The character of this century -- whether it is "post-American," Chinese, or something none of us yet expects -- will be determined by which political system gets that balance right.

John Horgan: Rational Mysticism

John Horgan's book is a tour through the intersection of science and mysticism. Of course, defining "mysticism" is not an easy task, and neither scholars nor the public have any sense of agreement of what this terms should mean. For Horgan, it means non-traditional, perhaps esoteric (an older term), views of reality. Horgan begins his tour with the doyen of religious studies, the venerable Huston Smith, and then moves on the the grand-synthesizer, Ken Wilber. Both of these men are big picture thinkers. From these high-altitude views (although both are practitioners as well), Horgan tours various thinkers like James Austin, Andrew Newberg, S. Grof, Susan Blackmore, and others. Each as a different take; none can provide a final, definitive answer. It's all too big, in one sense.

Horgan's tour is worthwhile, as he is at once inquisitive and skeptical; scientific (he's a science writer) and a seeker. In the end, he gives us no final answers, but more important and worthwhile questions. In a sense, we leave this book as much seekers as when we started, but with a few more insights.

Garry Wills on the Contraception Flap

Garry Wills holds at least two terrific characteristics: incredible erudition and a scathing pen. In this piece on the contraception flap and the Catholic Church, he puts both to use. Wills, whose many books include such titles as Why I Am a Catholic and The Rosary, does not go easy on the institutional Church when he finds it amiss, and he certainly says so in this brief article.

One other point. He notes how incredibly poor and unqualified this Republican field is. How true, and how sad. Wills: "By a revolting combination of con men and fanatics, the current primary race has become a demonstration that the Republican party does not deserve serious consideration for public office." This, from a political reporter from going back to the Sixties. Also, from someone who has expressed some some very marked criticisms of Obama.

As Wills says (as only he could), "Acton to the rescue!"

Good News! Chocolate!

Sock Doc is a recently discovered health and fitness site, and what better way to introduce it to you than to have him tell you about the goodness of chocolate. Around this house, chocolate is revered like the sacred substance it once was the Mayans of old. (No human sacrifice involved, however.) Forin addition to its positively alluring taste (must we say "addictive", making us chocoholics? Who cares!), it turns out that sufficiently high octane (>70%) chocolate really rates as downright healthy. Well, gotta go--have some chocolate!

David Christian & Really Big History

This is my year (or two, or three) of reading big history. Iam Morris's Why the West Rules--For Now is probably my biggest, widest angle look so far (and I should mention 1493 and The Better Angels of Our Nature as recent additions), but David Christian dwarfs Morris's tour, which runs from the beginning of humankind to our possible futures. In this TED talk, Christian begins at the Big Bang! Now that's big history! And quite a fascinating tour it is: from the first nanosecond of creation to the present is a story of increasing complexity and "Goldilocks" (just right) circumstances that bring us to our present. Just right--and quite fragile. Anyway, the tour is fascinating. He and some of his colleagues have put together "The Big History Project" at this webpage for use as a high school curriculum. What a great idea and organizing theme to look at our past through both the physical and social sciences, and a great way to learn and teach complexity. Consider the desirability of learning history through this kind of lens, and not as just "one damn thing after another", as it is too often taught. No one remembers disjointed events well, but add a story (narrative) and they'll remember; make it a detective story (as history really is), and you've got them hooked.

P.S. How wonderfully nerdy is this? After initially posting, I found a short talk by Bill Gates on the Big History Project website home page. The ultimate nerd endorsement!

Rick Santorum, Natural Law, & Evangelicals

This thoughtful article caught my eye, and I should give it some brief consideration. Santorum bases much of his thought on concepts of natural law. The natural law tradition is a great and important tradition. Indeed, even the great positivist legal hphilosopher H.L.A. Hart brings it in the back door in his work The Concept of Law. In the Catholic Church, the article notes, naturual law came in recent times (by Church standards!) to serve as a preferred philosophical model. When you think of it, it allows us to consider what is "natural" as the guide to what is moral. Fine, so far. Unfortunately, what is "natural" becomes preferred over what is human (varied cultural practices). Thus, somehow, homosexuality, which seems nearly universal and in many cases perhaps genetic (which is a tricky question in itself, but certainly beyond individual choice), gets defined out of "natural", while celibacy--quite unnatural to my mind--gets defined in. (If God hadn't wanted us to engage in sex, God wouldn't have given us so much ganas (as we high school Spanish students dubbed it). (I will spare you the other colorful terms that we can dub this phenomena--you choose.)

So while natural law gave some good directions, and it proved of use in the Middle Ages (it allowed Aristotle in the back door), it was left behind for a reason, reasons that seem lost on Rick Santorum, among others.

Robert Lustig on Sugar: Sweet Tooths Gone Wild

Thanks to Iowa Guru, I learned the Dr. Robert Lustig appeared on Science Friday with Ira Flatow on our local NPR station, WSUI (a great Iowa resource). Lustig is on the war path against added sugar in our diet. His perspective tracks closely with that of Gary Taubes, and to a lesser extent, Michael Pollan. Put simply, too much fructose in our diet drives metabolic syndrome. We reduced fat in our diet about 30 years ago thinking that fat was clogging our arteries, and to replace the fat, we added more carbs in the form of sugar. In fact, also about this time, high-fructose corn syrup came into existence. So what happened? Obesity (which Lustig says is not the primary problem) and metabolic syndrome (from an over-worked liver) have sky-rocketed. His message--even simpler than Pollen's "eat real food, mostly plants, not too much"--is "eat real food". Whether it's meat or plant, if it's unprocessed, it's okay. (Real fruit has fructose, but it also has fiber, which slows the metabolism enough to give the liver a chance.

The link to NPR, by the way, allows you to listen or to read a transcript of the interview. Do it!

By the way, this is not my first post mentioning Lustig: see here.

Steven Pinker, Adam Gopnick & WWI

I found this article by Adam Gopnick in the New Yorker from several years ago while reading Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. About Pinker's book: more to come, but let me say now that it is terrific. I was enamoured (and still am) with Mann's 1493, but this book is right up there with it. (What a great time for non-fiction readers!). Anyway, Pinker has some interesting discussion of war & IR, and this is where I found the Gopnick article.

Gopnick's article reviews several new books at that time about WWI (aka "The Great War"). I've read the Fromkin and have the Stevenson. Anyway, the essay is quite thoughtful and through. The topic continues to fascinate me. How did Europe descend from the belle epoch to hell in such a short time? Why, why, why? For those of you who watch "Downton Abbey", you may get a sense of it, or if, like Iowa Guru & me, you're "Upstairs, Downstairs" groupies, you get a sense. Through films, poems, novels: the horror and senselessness (seemingly, anyway), and destruction of it all always come through. WWII racked up worse numbers, but WWI, I think, damaged the collective psyche--and individual psyches--more.

This review article (rather lengthy) is a fine gateway into the issues of WWI and cites some fine scholarship on a maddeningly elusive and immense topic. With the 100th anniversary looming and some fine publications recently released, I think we'll learn more and more about this cataclysmic event--and perhaps understand it with less certainty.

Republicans, Who Are You?

The linked article by Krugman today and this one yesterday by Tom Friedman point to a glaring fact: the Republican Party has drifted to the real fringe of reality and sensibility. If the electorate follows any Republican nominee, heaven help us all.

As someone who grew up Republican, I have some knowledge of the Republican party as it used to be. Back then, a tussle developed between the "conservatives" and the "moderates" ("liberals" if you're from the New York or New England), and the winner, like Richard Nixon, had a foot in both camps; ditto Jerry Ford. Even Reagan, for all his reputation, was more pragmatic than his legend reveals. But since Regan & old Bush, it's all crazy. Gone are the days of Mark Hatfield and Charles Percy (both of whom died this year). This book review addresses this lost party.

Now we have a no-nothing party. Not that free market perspectives, low taxes, and a strong military are necessarily bad, but from where the current party is coming from, it's just nuts.

Sad, really.

I Like Ike, and So Does Stephen Walt

Paying attention to issues surrounding the selection of public monuments, over whom to honor and in what form, is instructive although often a bit crazy in manifestation. People can argue over the trivial, no doubt, and just getting a monument would prove more than I'll ever get! However, as I say, it is instructive, and in this case, what the heck, I'll throw my 2 cents in with Stephen Walt. Walt notes that famous architect Frank Gehry wants to portray Ike (a/k/a President Eisenhower) in monument as a barefoot Kansas farm boy! His roots, yes, but how we should think of him and his accomplishments, no way! Ike helped lead an Allied coalition against Hitler's Germany to victory, and then as president he led us through nearly a decade of peace and prosperity. Although Republicans will howl, Ike is the best Republican president since TR (take that, Reagan!). However, as Walt notes, Ike should be honored for what he told us as he was about to leave the White House. And since you might not go to the link Walt's site to read it, I'll save you the trouble. From Ike's farewell address given in 1960:

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

And was this his view only as he ended his presidency? Note what Walt quotes him from 1953:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.

It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.

We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.

We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

Those words themselves are worth a monument.

Thomas Homer-Dixon Update

Thomas Homer-Dixon sent out a recent email on updated activities, and a visit to his site led me to read this article about complexity. Complexity is one of the most compelling and productive theories that has recently arisen on my intellectual horizon. It applies to natural sciences and social sciences, which, I contend, shade into one another. Homer-Dixon also provides a succinct description of complexity theory and of "panarchy," taken from the work of his fellow Canadian, C.S. "Buzz" Holling.

This article deals with climate change, Homer-Dixon's current number one concern. Unlike the enigmatic  (late)  Seth Roberts (a UC Berkley/Quinghua) professor who takes appropriate skepticism to an extreme of denial, Homer-Dixon looks beyond theoretical skepticism to realities, such as the Arctic. Homer-Dixon argues we'd better sit up and pay attention. I really admire his work. Deep theoretical understanding combined with first-hand observations and engagement make his work the most compelling and important that I've read on the burning (literally) issue of climate change.

Edited & updated 12.03.20. sng