Month: May 2013
Breton Religion
[Excerpt from Jacques Delacroix’s book of memoirs: “I Used to Be French: An Immature Autobiography.” Delacroix is looking for an agent, a publisher, or some sort of non-venal help.]
The church, the café, and the saints
There was no not going to mass except for the schoolteacher who could only play his part as a soldier of the secular Republic if he was an atheist. Mass always played out the same way: The notables’ families had their pews upfront, reserved by brass-plate names. Other families sat on benches wherever else they wanted but the women tended to position themselves near the front of the church, with the children, and the men gathered toward the back, near the main door. This was before Vatican II and Catholic Mass was interminable in this very religious part of France. It was also mostly in what I understand to have been despicable Latin, with some bad Ancient Greek mixed in. The sermon was in accented French rather than in local dialect, perhaps in part for the benefit of the outsiders, including baigneurs like me. The priest knew pretty well of what kind of sins his year-around parishioners were capable. He may just have let his imagination run a little wild in connection with the sins of the lightly clad baigneurs. Hence, he probably surmised they needed his sonorous sermons more than did the locals whose sins were mostly a little boring to his mind.
As the service droned on and thundered in turn, some old men, all widowers, would slip out the back and cross the square to the café. Little by little, in groups of two or three, for strength and courage, other men would join them in order of descending age. The last ones to leave were newlyweds whose young wives kept an eye on them above their shoulders, young wives who still thought they possessed a vulgar means of retorsion against their husbands embarrassing them before the community. By the time of the “Ite, misa est,” the only adult men remaining, in addition to the priest, were the Count and his relatives. I supposed these retired then to the manor’s grand salon to sip champagne (or, possibly, whisky; they were terribly Anglophile, or rather, Britophiles), while the common men threw a last one down the gullet at the café to conclude the weekly conversation. Continue reading
Update on the “tunnel people”
The “tunnel people” of Las Vegas were featured on Inside Edition last night (5/28). Yes, it’s an atrocious show on the whole, the breathlessness of the field reporting was unnecessary, and someone should have fact-checked the report closely enough to keep the reporter from erroneously referring to the storm drains as sewers, but even so, it was a surprisingly well-done piece. Inside Edition’s liaison in the storm drains was a photojournalist who had covered them previously and whose commentary was intelligent and decorous. More impressive was the footage of a young man hauling a number of his possessions, including a guitar, through another couple’s living space, which occupied the entire width of their drain between his quarters and the nearest exit to the outside world. This footage conveyed the difficulty of living in the storm drains and the resourcefulness of the residents with a power that still shots would have trouble equaling. The report was half-cocked at times, but it was exactly the kind of serious journalism that should be broadcast more often.
This is especially true of television broadcasts, which reach an audience that for various reasons simply cannot be reached in writing. Reform becomes much easier and more viable when one is able to get through not only to an engaged minority, but also to the lazy and the disengaged. Merely presenting more or less honest, accurate reporting in lieu of propaganda and sensational tripe is an incremental improvement. It’s one less piece of rubbish distorting the senses of the citizenry.
The effects are subtle, perhaps even imperceptible, but they’re meaningful because their aggregate effects are huge. Nicolae Ceaucescu, for example, tried to propagandize his subjects about the evils of American capitalism by liberally broadcasting Dallas on Romanian state television, but instead he ended up confirming his subjects’ suspicions that he was mismanaging their country to the point of penury, and that he and his wife were why they couldn’t have nice things of the sort enjoyed by scheming Texans. Had he been less tone-deaf, he might have broadcast that other Inside Edition classic from last night, an update on the boy who divorced his parents.
I knew I had reasons for only watching that crap by accident.
Adventures in Christian Vulgaria
A couple of weeks ago, my dad and I were in a hotel elevator with a group of conference-goers when, within twenty seconds of the door closing, one of the latter gents said, “I thought the whole point of this conference was not to play with ourselves.” His comment was apropos of a discussion about who was responsible for pushing the elevator buttons for the rest of us, but not apropos by much. My dad and I laughed at this witty commentary somewhat more sheepishly than the other eight or so passengers, some of whom reacted with ostentatious gusto. Neither of us considered thinly veiled references to masturbation appropriate to the circumstances, but there were only two of us.
I didn’t have nearly enough presence of mind at the time, but I realize in retrospect that the equitable and salutary response would have been to promptly ask: “Dude, what the fuck?” That earthy, worldly query would have struck precisely the right tone. By most likely provoking a frenzied protestation of hurt Christian fee-fees, it would have offered me a timely opportunity to note that it was not I who had just raised the specter of masturbation in front of strangers in a crowded elevator. To adopt the parlance of the present company, it would have been edifying, a word, if not the Word, to strengthen a Christian man in his Walk.
The religious angle to this episode is bizarre but fascinating. The goofiness, subtle overfamiliarity, and faux self-deprecation with which these men approached the world was circumstantial evidence for their being Christian fellas after God’s heart, but I glanced down long enough to see the smoking gun: a study guide for “Every Man’s Battle.” Continue reading
Liberalization in India, and NOT Just in Markets
Shikha Dalmia, of Reason, has a new piece up in the Wall Street Journal on India’s harassment problem:
I’ve never met an Indian woman—rich or poor, upper or lower caste, pretty or homely, young or middle-age—who hasn’t been harassed […] Unlike rape and sex-selective abortion, which represent a genuine devaluing of women, sexual harassment in India is, I believe, an expression not of the power of Indian men but of their helplessness. It’s a pathetic attempt to have a sexual encounter, no matter how meaningless and evanescent. Its real cause is free-floating male libido with no socially acceptable outlet.
India’s sexual mores and institutions are rooted in a pastoral past, when people died before 50, so marriages between minors were the norm. Families in villages would betroth their children, at birth sometimes, and have a formal ceremony after both attained puberty, when the girl went to live with her husband’s family. This arrangement, now banned, had many horrendous downsides, but it produced an organic harmony between the sexual needs of individuals and the social expectations of monogamy and chastity […]
What would work [for easing India’s harassment problem]? Nothing short of transforming India’s puritanical culture and giving men and women more freedom to forge sexually mature relationships outside of marriage.
Read the whole thing. I don’t know how much good liberalizing India’s sexual mores would be without first more liberalization in markets. I often think of the US’s own problems when it comes to the sexual revolution of the 1960s: more STDs, more unplanned, unwanted pregnancies, and more costs associated with public health. Another downside was the attempt, by certain feminists, to destroy the very libido of men that Dalmia recommends liberalizing. The attempts by these authoritarians can still be felt today, especially in American universities (see Ken Masugi’s thoughtful piece on this problem).
Clean B****oles Becoming A Rarity in Socialist Venezuela
I know this has been making the rounds in the blogsophere, but it’s still worth highlighting: Venezuela is facing shortages for a number of basic consumer goods, including toilet paper. Naturally, the socialists who have been in power for the past 14 years have tried to pin the blame on the opposition and the United States. From Hurriyet (“Turkey’s leading English daily”):
The South American OPEC member has the world’s largest proven oil reserves but has wrestled with periodic shortages of several consumer goods since price controls were imposed in 2003 under the late socialist leader Hugo Chavez.
“We have consistently denounced the strategy of hoarding and speculation, and the campaign of terror that has spread among the people, forcing them to buy compulsively and fearfully,” ruling party lawmaker Jose Avila said.
The government has long accused the center-right opposition and the United States of plotting to undermine Chavez’s self-styled socialist revolution.
Indeed. And how does the socialist government of Venezuela plan to counter the chronic shortages that price controls have created? Why, with more government programs of course:
Venezuela’s National Assembly on Tuesday approved a $79 million credit to import toilet paper and other personal hygiene products to relieve shortages in the petroleum-rich state.
There are more damning indictments of socialism as well, though none are explicit. In other news, I always smirk whenever I hear an ardent supporter of the current thief-in-chief here in the States try to pin the bad economy on the Bush administration’s mistakes. It’s been, what, five years now?
A Possible Explanation for Greece’s Economic Woes
And one that does not have to do with Athens’ infamous bookkeeping practices. From the New York Times:
But property ownership in Greece is often less than clear cut. So Mr. Hamodrakas put a padlock on his gate and waited to see what would happen. Soon enough, he heard from neighbors. Three of them claimed that they, too, had title to parts of the property.
In this age of satellite imagery, digital records and the instantaneous exchange of information, most of Greece’s land transaction records are still handwritten in ledgers, logged in by last names. No lot numbers. No clarity on boundaries or zoning. No obvious way to tell whether two people, or 10, have registered ownership of the same property.
Yikes. There is more here. I highly recommend it.
Forget fiscal and monetary policy, Greece needs to instate a decent property rights regime before it can become a wealthy and healthy property-owning democracy.
This should not be surprising for a couple of reasons, but only if one is somewhat familiar with the modern history of the region. The Balkans has been, until very recently, under the thumb of various empires governed from afar (Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian). Once independence from foreign despots was attained (through war) in the nineteenth century, these states then had to survive more war (World Wars), endure more occupation (through the same world wars), and then navigate their young states through the Cold War (where dictatorship was sometimes preferable to ideological considerations, and sometimes integral to ideological considerations). In addition, Balkan states have had to constantly deal with threats from each other as well.
If anything, the inclusion of these states into the European Union is probably the best thing to happen to them in a long, long, long time. It is unfortunate that bureaucrats in Brussels decided to hastily implement a single currency without first ensuring that each of the member states possessed the institutions necessary for protecting clear and well-defined property rights.
Update: On the other hand, entry into the EU was probably (correctly) seen as a way to strengthen institutions associated with protecting property rights.
President Obama Wins War on Terror
President Obama chooses to give an important speech on peace the week before the day when Americans remember those who died to save their freedom-loving society, and to save many others (including me). President Obama declares in a recent speech that the war on terror, like all wars, must end. Then he ends it by declaring it ended. This happens about a month after two terrorists who happen to be Muslims blow up a bomb killing children at a public even in Boston. (The act was denounced by representatives of the Boston Muslim community.)
President Obama’s announcement also takes place one day after two men shouting something in Arabic comprising the word “Allah” assassinate a young man in full daylight in London. They use knives and ask passers-by to film the event. The speech happens also one or two days before a similar assassination attempt is carried out in Paris on a French soldier. (The attempt fails because French -grown terrorists are not a so competent.) London Muslim authorities condemn the first attack loudly and clearly. I am awaiting the French Muslim response as I write.
(In the same speech, President Obama also orders restrictions on the use of killer drones. I welcome some of the announced changes. The president is no always wrong, just most of the time.) Continue reading
La mauvaise foi
Le mensonge adulte me fascine depuis longtemps. Le mensonge collectif m’intrigue particulièrement. La mauvaise foi de tout un groupe, toute une caste ne cesse de m’étonner. Pourtant, Jean-Paul Sartre l’avait bien analysée (avant d’en donner lui-même des exemples inoubliables).
Je commente quelquefois sur ce blog l’indifférence aux faits que je rencontre souvent dans les medias français. (Voir: “Un Menteur bien français”) Un ami parisien, avocat et réalisateur talentueux de documentaires (avec beaucoup de coeur) m’écrit sa colère sur le même sujet. Mon ami se place à gauche (à mon avis, seulement, “l’option défaut” – une autre histoire) tandis que je suis un conservateur “anglo-saxon” classique (pas nationaliste, pas gaulliste, pas religieux). Voici, ci-dessous, son texte retouché seulement un petit peu pour protéger quelques susceptibilités particulières. L’écriture y est celle qu’on trouve dans un courriel (“maille” en Franglais) expédié rapidement a un ami. – JD
Parlant des journalistes français en général:
En attendant aussi, je pense que la journaliste (de la télévision), Madame X, comme 90% des journalistes (français en tout cas) sont bien trop fainéants pour faire leur travail. En l’occurrence vérifier l’information, ce qui est le B-A BA de leur métier.
..et en plus ( ceci allant souvent avec cela), ils sont d’une incroyable prétention (suffisance, arrogance, plein d’autres mots me viennent à l’esprit les concernant).
Sur plusieurs sujets, j’ai moi-même fait l’expérience de leur nullité.
Par exemple, sans doute as-tu suivi l’affaire Cahuzac, ce ministre du budget qui a planqué du fric ã l’étranger et qui a nié jusqu’au bout, quitte à mentir de la tribune de l’Assemblée Nationale.
Un seul journal, sur le web, Mediapart a sorti l’info. Son patron Edwy Plenel a été traîné dans la boue par tous les autres journalistes et, notamment, les stars de la télé. Pourtant Edwy Plenel n’avait qu’un mot à la bouche à leur adresse: “faites votre travail”.
Autre exemple beaucoup plus grave encore: l’affaire Al Dura, du nom de ce gamin qui se serait fait buter dans les bras de son père par l’armée israélienne, pris dans des tirs croisés à un carrefour de Gaza. Il se trouve que le seul mec, au départ, et qui se bat seul depuis plus de 10 ans, pour expliquer au monde que c’est une mise en scène, est l’ami d’un ami, Philippe Karsenty. Un jour je suis allé l’écouter, il faisait une conférence sur le sujet. Il a montré les rushes qu’il avait réussi à soutirer à France 2, la seule chaîne qui ait, à l’époque, diffusé ces images. Et là, on voyait comment les faits avaient été mis en scène par les Palestiniens et comment l’enfant bougeait à la fin des rushes; comment surtout, on le voyait prendre dans sa poche un bout de tissu rouge, le placer au niveau de sa poitrine et faire le mort. Je t’assure que ces images, que j’ai vu, sont incroyables.
Le journaliste de france 2 est une sommité, Charles Enderlin. Ce jour là, il n’était pas sur place. Il a fait fait confiance à l’un des cameramen avec lesquels il a l’habitude de travailler, un Palestinien. Et il s’est fait manipuler. France 2 a soutenu, soutient, son journaliste. À intenté toute une série de procès à mon pote… Qui les a tous gagnés. Pourtant impossible d’obtenir de mea culpa de la chaîne qui continue les procédures.
Et, impossible, pour moi, d’aider ce mec depuis toute ces années. Ma nana, de 2005 à 2010, était est grand reporter au Nouvel Obs (dont Jean Daniel a pris l’initiative de lancer une pétition de soutien à Charles Enderlin). Je lui ai proposés plusieurs fois de rencontrer Karsenty. NIET. À la fin, je crois que le commencement de la fin,avec elle, date d’une engueulade à ce sujet: “Karsenty était un psychopathe à moitié facho, un abruti qui avait le malheur d’être très à droite, maire adjoint de Neuilly, proche de Sarkozy, et moi un imbécile qui ne méritait pas d’autre explication de son refus”. À un point, citant un de nos copains communs, grand Reporter à Telerama, elle s’est exclamée qu’il avait fait une super enquête qui prouvait ses dires que Karsenty était un taré.
Je me suis procuré l’article du copain dans Telerama… Pas
une fois la parole n’était donné à Karsenty. Alors, j’ai demandé a ce dernier… Et tu t’en doutes déjà, inutile de prolonger le suspense, jamais il n’a rencontré le grand reporter de Telerama qui l’a pourtant assassiné dans son article.
Pire encore sur ce même sujet. J’en ai parlé à mon amie Annick Cojean. Je l’adore et elle est sûrement une des journalistes françaises les plus respectée par ses pairs en France ( grand reporter au Monde, prix Albert Londres et présidente de ce prix), comme dans le monde ( elle est l’auteure de ce best seller mondial, “les proies” en français, sur le harem de khadafi et traduits en plusieurs langues). Elle m’a expliqué qu’une journaliste, également prix Albert Londres, Catherine Gentile, de TF1, avait expliqué au conseil d’administration du prix, qu’elle connaissait vraiment bien Enderlin, que c’était un très grand journaliste et qu’il ne pouvait pas avoir été manipulé et que le cas échéant, il aurait fait acte de contrition. Et, en plus, dixit, “elle avait tout checké, le gosse était bien mort dans les conditions que l’on sait. Elle avait fait l’enquête”.
Très bien. Ai-je dit. Puis: “Avait-elle rencontré Karsenty”? Renseignements pris par Annick… Tu te doutes de la réponse, Non évidemment.
Annick voulait-elle le rencontrer… Tu te doutes de la réponse ( quoique quelque peu embarrassée).
Et pourquoi, je te raconte tout ça? Et bien, parce qu’enfin, Israël bouge et a décidé de publier les rapports sur l’enquête que l’emmerdeur de Karsenty l’a contrainte de mener et qui conclut que l’enfant n’est très certainement pas mort comme le montrent les images de France 2 et que Karsenty a très certainement raison.
Si tu veux, je t’envoie le lien de l’article. Ça me fait plaisir pour Karsenty…. qui a été traîné dans la boue depuis toute ces années. J’espère qu’on va, enfin, le prendre au sérieux et vérifier ce qu’il avance. Dommage qu’il ne soit pas journaliste… Il serait sûrement le prochain lauréat du prix… Albert Londres!
Commentaires?
The Obama Administration: RIP
OK, that pronouncement is a bit premature. But if the Republicans hold the House next year as seems likely, it’s a done deal. Just keeping track of all the attacks on the administration has become quite a chore. And quite a few of those attacks are coming from Obama’s base of support.
- The press is howling about the Justice Department’s heavy-handed subpoena of journalists’ phone records. “A fishing expedition for sources and an effort to fend off whistleblowers” is how the New York Times editorial board describes it. This issue isn’t going away any time soon.
- Then there’s Guantanamo, the closing of which was to be Obama’s first priority upon taking office in 2009. Thus New York Times commentator Joe Nocera: “The president could have jumped through the hoops Congress now requires and continued moving prisoners out of Guantánamo. But he didn’t. Instead, he froze all transfers, including 56 men from Yemen who had been ‘cleared’ for transfer by a national security commission that Obama himself established. The government, the commission essentially said, has no national security interest in holding these men. Yet Obama continued to let them rot in that Cuban hell. And you wonder why they are on a hunger strike?”
- Some unions are mad at Obama as Brandon Christensen pointed out on this blog, where he quotes one union’s demand: “repeal or complete reform” of Obamacare.
- The IRS scandal may have a shorter half-life. The Times correctly points out that Presidential use of the IRS to bludgeon political enemies goes back at least to Franklin Roosevelt and Richard Nixon. Still, it’s heartening to see the Tea Party rejuvenated, with street protests and blogs pointing out that thuggish behavior is a long-standing and probably irremediable attribute of the IRS.
- Waiting in the wings is Dodd-Frank. This financial “reform” act is mostly not yet in effect because the agencies are trying to figure out how to write the rules that will actually put into practice the clear-as-mud intent of the law. It’s a near-certainty that this law has fixed nothing and that another financial crisis will hit, possibly before Obama leaves office. Already we see signs of bubbles in the housing and stock markets.
“This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer,” said Will Rogers. Three years of gridlock, if we’re fortunate enough to get it, should hide away the hammer, at least for a time, from both Congress and the President.
Reading Hayek in Beijing
That’s the subject of a fascinating account of life in China through the eyes of a dissident in this last week’s Wall Street Journal. An excerpt:
Put another way, the conventional notion that the modern Chinese system combines political authoritarianism with economic liberalism is mistaken: A more accurate description of the recipe is dictatorship and cronyism, with the results showing up in rampant corruption, environmental degradation and wide inequalities between the politically well-connected and everyone else. “There are two major forms of hatred” in China today, Mr. Yang explains. “Hatred toward the rich; hatred toward the powerful, the officials.” As often as not they are one and the same.
There is more, too: Continue reading
ObamaCare Snark
Oh, the delicious irony. From Yahoo! news:
Unions backed the health care legislation because they expected it to curb inflation in health coverage, reduce the number of uninsured Americans and level the playing field for companies that were already providing quality benefits. While unions knew there were lingering issues after the law passed, they believed those could be fixed through rulemaking.
But last month, the union representing roofers issued a statement calling for “repeal or complete reform” of the health care law. Kinsey Robinson, president of the United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers, complained that labor’s concerns over the health care law “have not been addressed, or in some instances, totally ignored.”
“In the rush to achieve its passage, many of the act’s provisions were not fully conceived, resulting in unintended consequences that are inconsistent with the promise that those who were satisfied with their employer-sponsored coverage could keep it,” Robinson said.
Well no shit Sherlock. There is more: Continue reading
Duckshit and Bullshit in Santa Cruz, California.
Today, interestingly right before Memorial Day, thousands of residents of Santa Cruz are hiding their faces like a bunch of old nuns who would have caught sight of a naked man by mistake. (I should stop saying this; it’s may not be fair to nuns.) The cause of their emotion: a front page article in the local newspaper about one of the most obvious beaches in town being grossly polluted. The newspaper is itself a grossly biased greenie-liberal sheet that can’t spell. (It has its good days once in a while but I can’t figure out why.)
Something like this happens regularly with the most attractive beaches in the area pointed to by the severe index of pseudo-science, or of quasi-science. The last time I looked into it, it turned out that natural lagoons had been allowed to form on the offending beaches, stopping the flow of small creeks. Ducks and seagulls had gathered in there, of course and done for weeks on end what waterbirds will do in the water. The solution: Breach the sand dam that allows for the lagoon; sea water downstream then tests clean within a day or so.
At the time, local surfers organizations and many greenie mouthpieces had darkly commented as if it were a known fact that the high bacteria count near those beaches was due to human fecal matter. It was not. It matters. I would not let my grandchild swim in duck shit but the fact is that it’s less likely to infect humans with human disease bacteria than do human feces. Got it? Continue reading
Around the Web: Disappearances
1. Ron Unz, founder and editor of The American Conservative, skewers the mainstream American media for dropping the ball on all sorts of major scoops, including:
2. Richard Nixon’s abandonment of hundreds of surviving American prisoners of war after the end of hostilities, at a time when he had declared that all surviving POW’s had been repatriated; and
3. John McCain’s exceptionally weird and disturbing role in the decades-long stonewalling of investigations into the fate of these men and efforts to repatriate any survivors.
4. On a separate but similar topic, a discussion of some possible fates of Indian independence leader and Axis collaborator Subhas Chandra Bose. Bose, aka Netaji, officially died in a plane crash in Taiwan, but is widely believed to have died in the Soviet Gulag, to have disappeared into civilian life in asylum in the Soviet Union, and to have lived into his eighties as a “mysterious holy man” in Uttar Pradesh.
Optimism and Despair in a World of Injustice
The infamous development economist William Easterly recently tweeted that writing about spontaneous order without citing Friedrich Hayek is now “mainstream cool,” while writing about spontaneous order and citing Hayek makes one an ideological extremist. This biting critique of intellectual discourse, a mere 140 characters long, does more than just expose the drastic ideological shortcomings of the modern Left. It highlights the endlessly interesting obstinate ignorance that collectivists of all stripes have historically displayed toward the basic theoretical and moral insights advanced by libertarians.
In a recent Freeman essay by anthropologist Mike Reid, a pattern similar to the one noticed by Easterly emerges in the actions of central planners aiming to preserve the cultural heritage of a number of ethnic groups that have been deprived of their property rights by the very governments now looking to preserve their cultures for them. Reid takes examples from India and Canada and finds that the logic of preserving a specific culture does not hold up to scrutiny.
On the policies of the government of India, Reid writes: Continue reading
Notes On Liberty 