Author: Jacques Delacroix

One Sure Thing About Globalization – The American Motion Pictures Industry World Hegemony Part 2

Jacques Delacroix Economics , , , , ,

[Editor’s note: this lecture was delivered to the Leavey Institute of Santa Clara University in 2003. You can find it reproduced in whole here]

Poverty, some International Trends

Now, let’s look for objectionable new facts in the worldwide distribution of income. (It’s too difficult to get international data on wealth.) In the nineteen-fifties, the total of the national incomes of all other countries in the world barely equaled the national income of the US alone (Delacroix, 1974). Today, the US GNP constitutes less than one third of the sum of all countries’ GNPs (World Bank, 2002:4.2), although the US has experienced healthy economic growth since the fifties. It’s true that a number of countries are mired in deep poverty and that some are even regressing. (See below.) It seems to me those are all countries with exceptionally corrupt or tyrannical governments, such as Haiti on the one hand and North Korea, on the other, or stand-alone plutocratically-run former colonies such as the so-called “Democratic Republic of the Congo” (formerly Zaire), or Sierra Leone (where, incidentally, the bulk of the population was almost certainly better off under European colonialism), or that they have especially poor access to current information (because of high illiteracy and other reasons, including government censorship or even deeply entrenched cultural facts [4]), such as Afghanistan (but no hard data are available). By far the worst economic performers in the past ten years are the European countries that have been trying to recover from their cruel experiment in state socialism (“communism”), not the Third World countries.

In spite of loose talk of “globalization” somehow deepening the poverty of the Third World (5), the following countries experienced higher average Gross Domestic Product rates of annual growth than the US (and higher than any Western European country, except one; see below) between 1990 and 2000: Continue reading →

One Sure Thing About Globalization – The American Motion Pictures Industry World Hegemony Part 1

Jacques Delacroix Economics , , , , ,

[Editor’s note: this lecture was delivered to the Leavey Institute of Santa Clara University in 2003. You can find it reproduced in whole here.]

The word “globalization” is often used as shorthand to suggest that the world as recently shrunk for many purposes (Friedman, 1999). At first blush, this would seem to be good news, facilitating the spread of literacy, the diffusion of useful technologies, and socioeconomic progress, in general. However, a large segment of public opinion, in this country and, apparently, a larger segment in Europe and certain other countries (such as India), takes a jaundiced view of this shrinkage. This view is propagated by numerous websites as well as by professional intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky (who is often heard on National Public Radio). It contains a large anti-American component (Menand, 2002). It is widespread – at various levels of sophistication – in American universities. (1) In recent years, it has been dramatically acted out by rioters in Seattle, Quebec and Genoa, among other places. For left-wing opinion, “globalization” seems to imply that there is something radically new under the sun that is also economically nefarious for the poor and for the weak. For the same left-wing opinion, the word often suggests a sinister plot implicating in turn, “big corporations”, the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, and other organizations little understood by the general public. (For a broad, business-oriented and mildly liberal classification of the many sins the word “globalization” covers, see Eden and Lenway, 2001.) That new something entails a clandestine hegemony, or hegemonies, of some sort, dedicated to the further “exploitation” of the already poor and weak by the already rich and powerful. In this presentation, I develop the idea that there is little that is both radically new and nefarious,
and that what is new is likely to have largely beneficial effects. I rest my argumentation on readily available, public evidence.

Note: If you don’t think such a perspective on globalization exists, or you believe it’s inconsequential, you may want to stop reading. It is very difficult to find anywhere assertions about globalization displaying at once the following features: Continue reading →

Obama’s Economic Policies: What’s Wrong, in a Nutshell

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Economics, Politics , ,

People are overwhelmed by the avalanche of bad news, and of news in general. It’s difficult to stop long enough to summarize objections to the new economic policies fostered by Presidents Obama and Pelosi.  Besides, if you tried, you might just strangle with horror and indignation. I made the effort. Here it is:

Pres Obama wants to re-distribute wealth when the amount of wealth available to re-distribute  is dwindling. It’s never happened, I think, in any democratic, market-oriented country before. Normally, you wait for a period when wealth is growing.

Pres Obama insists on an expensive stimulus package that will do, and has done little to stimulate the economy. Keynesian economics is largely wrong. This is Keynesian economics at its worst. It’s not even defensible by Keynesian standards.

Pres Obama choses a severe economic downturn to force us as a nation to try and do things we don’t know how to do. This includes switching from proven energy technologies such as coal and petroleum-based technologies to unproven ones such as air and wind technologies. It includes also constructing a satisfactory national health system, something no country has done. Normally, whenever you try something new, you make mistakes. You need a margin of error. You need to be reasonably rich. You don’t want to do it on a tight budget or when you are close to poverty.

Pres Obama is not evil. He has something I have seen hundreds of times in academia: He knows what he thinks he knows and he does not know anything else. He is narrow-minded and dogmatic. The more intelligent the person, the more stubborn in his narrow-mindedness and in his dogmatism. A less intelligent person would have the virtue of self-doubt, “Wait a minute, am I doing the right thing?”

Perplexing: There is an international media consensus  to the effect that the current global economic crisis was made in America. Yet, I detect no rise in anti–Americanism abroad. This would be a good time to be pissed off at us but, I don’t see it anywhere.

I wrote on this blog about “European Anti-Americanism.”  I suggested it was mainly based on envy. Perhaps, I was right: Others like us better when we are down and hurting. What do you think?

Recently, I mentioned the sentencing of a 75-year old woman to a whipping, in Saudi Arabia. I promised that I would check for indignant reactions on the part of Muslims. I have seen nothing on the website of the American Muslim Council and nothing of the website of the Islamic Society of North America.  I haven’t found anything either on French Muslim sites.

Of course, it’s disturbing. I would like it if someone told me that I am wrong and that I searched in the wrong places. I know I have Muslim readers. Get on your feet and do what’s right.

[Editor’s note: this essay first appeared on Dr. Delacroix’s blog, Bay Watch, on March 26th 2009]

The Good Old Days

Jacques Delacroix History , , , , , ,

Here is a story that’s more than a story.

All our food was organic and no one was overweight. We wore only natural fibers, from sheep and from the cotton fields of Africa.

Children did not get fat spending their days and nights in front of a stupid screen of one kind or another. We read instead.

No one was over-caffeinated or on pills. We rarely went to the doctor.

Kids with Attention Deficit Disorder did not disrupt any school.

We used water sparingly and washed our hair and bodies in simple, non-polluting soaps. We did not waste water or energy with long showers.

My own personal carbon footprint was close to zero, I am sure.

There were few car accidents, unlike now.  Continue reading →

A View from Inside China

Jacques Delacroix Liberty , , , ,

Below is what I think is an interesting document. It’s an email from a former MBA student. He is a Singapore Chinese who spends a lot of time doing business inside China, in Mandarin. He is an intelligent and well-educated man. I know him to have a conservative temperament overall but he is also a keen observer and an independent thinker. Some of his statements are disturbing to me. I post this document on my blog for its intrinsic interest, not as an endorsement. I note with interest that he has not asked me to delete his name in spite of his denunciations of Singapore’s treatment of its dissidents. I withhold it nevertheless. He can add it subsequently if he wishes.

I have been hearing lots about evil China and their evil products (mostly from Taiwan opposition party folks, Chen Sui Bian and his gang).

There have been lots of negative press about manufacturers in China and how bad they are. Thing is the blame needs to be shared. I sourced in China as well and I what I have seen appalled me. Not that the manufacturers are out to get the buyers, but more so, the buyers are working so hard to get the manufacturers. The incident about Mattel, for example, I feel it was an error on Mattel’s part not to confirm that lead-free paint was going to be used. They probably assumed it.

And they probably pushed the price down so hard that the manufacturers had to cut corners to make any sort of financial sense. And when excrement hits the fan, they sad the manufacturers were to blame. And what about Walmart? Most manufacturers I know, many of whom are my friends, are refusing to sell to Walmart. Walmart are so harsh on pricing that they would specifically ask for the lower (if not lowest) quality goods. They would put such a large order, so huge that they would take over the entire manufacturing capability of a factory. If the factory is dumb enough to let them be the biggest and majority customer, they will be in for a fix. Walmart to hit prices down low and threaten to move elsewhere. The factory would have no choice but to budge because, if Walmart left, they would go out of business. So corners are cut, and Walmart knows about these cuts. All they care about is price and in the end, the customer suffers. It is not just the savings are “rolling back” to the customers, but the poor quality of the products are going back to the customer as well. By the way, Walmart usually price their goods anywhere from five to twenty times that of the cost they procured it at.

My view on communism is very different from the average person in the “free world”. This is the “new” communism in China. My opinion is that things actually get done here and quick too. In the time that Oakland took to rebuild the Cypress Highway that connects 880 to the Bay Bridge after the earthquake, Shanghai has constructed more than 10 times of that distance in highways, most of them elevated, a complete subway system, 3 large bridges and 3 underwater tunnels, a full industrial park (cao he jing) a full financial center in Pudong, A new airport, and a new half of the city in Pudong literally done up. This is just within the limits of Shanghai city, excluding all the work done for the interstates. What can I say?

Comparing it to Singapore with a “democratically” elected government, China enjoys more freedom. Now, I say this as a person living in China, not as a politician. I see demonstrations from time to time in Shanghai and recently, the Shanghai government has been listening.

Talks happen, and situations get changed. It is true that China has seen more restricted times in the past but Hu and his current government is set to change that. The situation in Singapore is much more different where the law is often used to suppress opposition and dissidents.

See http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/.

People in Singapore mostly just take it in and forget about it, choosing to think about car payments, house payments and if their favorite British soccer team is going to win.

Anyway, these are just some of my thoughts. Of course, there are things that gets to me in China and Singapore as well, and also many things I like about the USA. These are some ramblings I have. Feel free to put them on your blog if you want to. I really miss talks with you outside Kenna Hall while you are bumming cigarettes off me. ;)

P.S. I haven’t seen the Palin article on your blog. I will look it up. Every time I see her picture or video anywhere, I always get the impression of a deer in the headlights.

P.S.S. I have been out of touch with a lot of things. I really disapprove of Obama in 1) his work on 90% tax on the AIG bonuses (which I think is stupid and unconstitutional) and 2) him sending more troops into middle east.

A. L.

From the Comments: The Climate Change Cult

Jacques Delacroix Comments, Current Events, Politics , , ,

I reread your paragraph, Travis:

“I can see Delacroix’s point that a few un-peer-reviewed sources make one question what other sources are also un-reviewed, but it seems absurd to me to throw out all the information in all of the chapters of the IPCC report because it contains one un-peer-reviewed source. The chapter-leads who ultimately allowed the un-reviewed source to enter the IPCC report are not in charge of other chapters, which are essentially independent manuscripts, so why arbitrarily distrust them as well?”

You seem to say that the process by which papers (peer-reviewed papers, another issue discussed above) are compiled within each chapter of the IPCC reports is like  Wikipedia’s process for each of its entries.

Would you say that IPCC is as open to revision as Wikipedia is? I mean only revision by means of serious peer-reviewed papers. Suppose someone produced a study using good methods and trustworthy data and had it peer-reviewed (say on Mars). Suppose further the study concluded that there has been no real appreciable global warming since 1780. Do you think that there is a likelihood that the new study would be incorporated into the next IPCC report? What likelihood: 100%, 75%, 50%, 5%?

This is a real question for Travis . I don’t know if Travis is listening so, anyone besides Travis should feel free to answer it.

[Editor’s note: you can find the context of this post in discussions found here and here]

Tea Party in the People’s Green Republic of Santa Cruz

Jacques Delacroix Liberty , , , ,

On April 15th, my wife and I went to a tea party to protest the Obama-Pelosi spending and its probably consequences. (For those of you who read me from overseas: April 15th is the last day Americans may pay their federal income tax without a late penalty. They also pay taxes to their state, to their municipalities, and others.) Nothing extraordinary about our attendance; millions of Americans did the same. However, for us it was in Santa Cruz, California.

Santa Cruz is a perfect 1970s political throwback, except that today’s Greens warn against global warming instead of global glaciation. We even have flower children here. I believe at least 90% of residents of the country of Santa Cruz voted for Obama. If someone showed me it was 98%, I would not be surprised. Santa Cruz is the kind of town were strangers would address you at the coffee-shop with anti-Bush remarks without hesitation. It did not cross anybody’s mind that you might actually have voted for Bush (twice, in my case).

Well yesterday, at the height of the gathering, there were about 140 people demonstrating in front of the post office. That’s a fairly small number as compared to the tens of thousands some media showed at the Alamo in Texas, for example. Also, the time of the protest was ill-chosen. It began at 2, when most people are at work. The most impressive observation about this anti-spending demonstration was the density of approving  car horn honking it generated. I have never heard so much honking in the past ten years in the area. It seems to me each of the pro-fascist, anti-anti terrorist demonstrations produced much less honking in spite of the town’s leftists near-consensus.  At the Santa Cruz tea party, 9 out of 10 signs were crudely hand-made, not evidence of top-bottom organizing surely. I think some people in the middle are switching sides because they are appalled by the first 80 days of Obama-Pelosi.  Continue reading →

I Am Bored So Here Is A Story

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics , , ,

I am not yet mentally ready to face squarely the fact that the Obama administration is going to do all the wrong things about our dire economy. Let me say again that Pres.-elect Obama is not the Anti-Christ. It’s just that you can’t implement policies the existence of which you don’t even suspect. Obama is a recognizable type. He is a Social-Democrat, European-style, circa 1970.

I am bored with current events. One more time, the Democratic Party has to deal with corruption in its Illinois branch. Reminder: a former Governor of Illinois is currently in jail. Gov. Blago was caught with his hand close to the cookie jar, not even inside. Big deal! The Democratic Party does not want to risk a special election to fill Obama’s Senate seat because of the tiny chance that a Republican might win. Makes me yawn.

The West Europeans are suffering from heating gas delivery cuts in the middle of the winter. Russia is cutting them off. My only reaction: It told you so, in the nineties!

The mayhem is continuing in Gaza. That’s boring too: Some Palestinian group gets up on a hill, pounds its chest, shoots in the direction of Israel with a .22, and promises aloud to obliterate the Zionist entity and to kill many Zionists. The Israelis get pissed off, they return fire with an M16. They kill hundreds of Palestinians; a handful of Israelis die. Then, anti-Semites worldwide join hands with mindless do-gooding tender-hearts and force Israel to stop. Everyone goes home until next time.

Hamas, lying on the sidewalk in a pool of blood, with two broken legs, a skull fracture, and one eye missing declares victory. The Arab world cheers!

A question lazy journalists don’t ask: The current death rate of Gaza residents at the hands of Israel is comparable to the homicide rate of what country? (Relevant blog: Nationamasterblog.)

As I said, I am bored. I don’t seem to be the only one. Today at noon, every major television network showed us an empty room awaiting impeached Gov. Blago to arrive to make a meaningless declaration instead of broadcasting Gaza and surroundings.

You may be bored too so, here is a completely unrelated story. Continue reading →

Anti-Americanism: Lesson One, Europeans

Jacques Delacroix Culture, Politics , , , , , , , , , ,

Hostile liberal members of the American media have been repeating for years that the Bush presidency caused the prestige of the US in the world to decline sharply. In addition, they whine endlessly that the US is disliked pretty much more than it ever has been. I think tender-hearted liberal commentators are confusing several issues, some of which have nothing to do with Pres. G.W. Bush or with any of his policies.

As a person with a very good knowledge of another society and culture (France) and a pretty good understanding of several others (most of Latin America plus Spain), I may be able to help disentangle the impressions they are giving the general American public concerning their country’s popularity in the world. I also have better than average access to Germany and to Russia thanks to several long-term friendships.

I wish to begin by stating that I believe popularity is considerably overstated as a geopolitical resource. Governments do what they do largely on the basis of their calculated self-interest. Love of another country probably plays little role in the tactical alliances they form. (I must say that I could be talked into believing that there exists a sort of solidarity of kinship linking Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia with this country. This solidarity may contribute to making the public opinion of those democratic countries more tolerant of policies they don’t especially like than they would be absent the felt kinship.)  Continue reading →

Why Blog?

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics , , , , , , , , , ,

Blogging is very time consuming. It’s cutting seriously into the life of leisure for which I am so obviously gifted. I am certainly not trying to achieve fame. I renounced that particular kind of folly many years ago: It’s not worth it because you are likely to fail. It’s not even worth it when you succeed according to many tabloid stories.

I can’t even say I am terribly successful in terms of effect achieved.

Only 26 people at most read my most recent ambitious posting, “Fascism Explained”. Writing it took me the better part of two or three half-days. Its sequel, “How about Communism?” captured only a little less of my free time and it was read by the same small number of people at best.

My two biggest hits ever, “The Inauguration; the Hamas Victory” and “Advice to Pres. Obama on Manhood” were each read by 56 people maximum.

Why am I alienating my free time that way? Why this fairly futile effort on my part? I could be on my pretty boat on Monterey Bay catching suicidal and cognitively challenged fish. Or, I could simply be reading one of the books I have been wanting to read for weeks. I might even rub my wife’s feet instead. (She is a talented artist and a conservative who thinks Attila the Hun was kind of a girlie man. The only thing that reaches her nowadays is hard foot massaging.)

There is an answer to this multiply-worded single question above:  Continue reading →

What’s Peer Review and Why it Matters

Jacques Delacroix Liberty , , ,

WELCOME MBA STUDENTS. IF YOU NEED A BREAK, IF YOU FEEL LIKE SCHOOL AND WORK ARE GETTING TO YOU, TAKE A WALK THROUGH MY BLOG. YOU WILL BE AMAZED,  PLEASED AND SHOCKED. WELCOME.

JD

Global warming update: In its 2007 report, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated that 40% of the Amazonian rain forest could be gone in a short time because of climate change. The source cited is not peer-reviewed. Its authors are a public policy analyst, that is, an advocate, and a journalist at the Guardian of London. Neither is a scientist. The main thing is that they did not even try to get their piece published in a real, scholarly, and therefore peer–reviewed journal.

Reliance on sources that are not peer-reviewed is forbidden by the UN Panel’s own rules. The fact that the IGPCC violated its own rules does not imply an evil intent but carelessness or zealots’ quasi religious enthusiasm. (I keep telling you that climate change is a religion.) I ask myself: How long would I continue to patronize a car mechanic who told this level of untruths?

The story was in the Telegraph, a UK left-wing newspaper, on January 25th. This came up after the 300+ mistake I talked about before, about the time it will take for Himalayas glaciers to melt down. (It’s 300 years longer than announced by the Panel, according to the correction given by the Panel itself!)

You can find everything including linked to references in the “ Watt’s Up With That” site. Continue reading →

The Minimum Wage and Stupid National Public Radio

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics , , , ,

Two things on my mind this Bastille Day 2012. The first is who is more stupid, French leftists or American liberals? I have life-long knowledge of both tribes. At this point, I think French leftists are smarter but more dishonest that their American cousins. In general, there is a certain artlessness about deception in ordinary Americans. The French are often artful; can’t take that away from them.

The second matter on my mind is that constant struggle to avoid using nasty epithets in connection with liberals’ statements. One that keeps coming up is the simple “stupid.” I scrupulously avoid the word on this blog and in my other writings. Yet, there are informational events that sort of self-label with no escape possible. Here is one, below.

It’s shortly after 5 pm on Sunday July 10th 2012. I am in my pick-up truck listening to National Public Radio. (I know the combination is jarring.) There an in-depth discussion of the minimum wage. That’s always interesting. Conservatives make an apparently impeccable theoretical argument against: Minimum wage laws create unemployment among the most vulnerable categories of the work force. Liberals sometimes make sophisticated arguments for the minimum wage. Behind those, however, I always find the usual combination of mindless jeremiads of “sad” and “unfair.” But, it seems to me that the empirical evidence supporting the conservative position against minimum wages is on the thin side. Listening to a relaxed radio show from the Left could be a good way to find out more. Continue reading →

Liberal Authoritarianism: Independence Day, the Sequel

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics , , , ,

This is Part Two of a report on my American Independence Day (Part one is “An Eventful American Independence Night.” It was posted on July 5th 2012.)

The best beach in Santa Cruz was cordoned off for the evening with plastic netting, and illuminated by powerful projectors. There were only a small number of narrow entry points where beach-goers were inspected individually for contraband. I don’t know if anyone was frisked but younger people were intimidated into answering questions they should not have to answer routinely according to my understanding of the Constitution. (I think law enforcement officers may not stop you at all without cause or probable cause.)

There were two kinds of contraband, possibly three. The first was obviously alcohol. Alcohol is outlawed on that beach at all times. I regret to admit that I think it’s a good policy. In the days before the prohibition, I had the feeling that the same beach was more dangerous to children. The “maybe” contraband would be weapons although I don’t understand by what authority a quasi-municipality, the harbor, and a county could jointly or separately restrict the citizens’ right to bear arms. Incredibly, it being the Fourth of July, Independence Day, the second kind of contraband was… fireworks.

Local government entities routinely ban fireworks for the Fourth of July. They ban fireworks in the towns were many houses are made of wood. They ban fireworks in brush and forest areas, reasonably enough. They also ban fireworks in the sand and on the water. Public safety specialists in the Santa Cruz area apparently believe that sand can burn and that the sea can go up in flames. Note that even the most fanatical local greenie will no affirm that the local seawater is so polluted that it will catch fire. (In fact, it ‘s not polluted at all, except very segmentally and only by concentrations of seabird shit. Bird dropping being natural, greenies should love them and not fear breathing them while swimming or swallowing them accidentally. But I digress in the most disgustingly self-indulgent manner!)

The local prohibition of fireworks makes me wonder how thousands of French villages, many quite a bit smaller than Santa Cruz, manage to offer a beautiful, complex fireworks to their citizens on Bastille Day, year after year. It makes me wonder why France has not yet been burned down to the tree roots and French beaches sand melted into glass. Of course, the French often have their fire department take charge of fireworks, even volunteer fire department. The system seems to work for everyone.

Someone will object that involving fire departments would cost money and that this is not a good time given that so many local entities are in dire financial straights. I don’t know about that. They did not rely on that obvious situation when they thought, and we thought, they were rich. And I don’t believe paying locally employed law enforcement officers time and half or more is economical. That’s not counting the private security employees hired for the occasion of this every labor-intensive endeavor. Why does the uncharitable thought cross my mind that providing overtime for public employees is one of the motivation behind the fireworks ban, possibly not a conscious one?

Later in the evening, leaving the scene in my truck was like moving across a city under martial law. There were law enforcement officers in the fog under the street lights at every crossroad directing traffic into unnatural patterns. One sent me into an eternal loop I could only escape by cheating. The police occupation continued much after the crowds had left the area.

A harbor guy I won’t name because it would be bad for this career confided to me that the real issue occasioning this vast deployment of armed force was concerns with possible mass rioting. I know a little the guy who said this. He strikes me as a reasonable person. He was not putting me on. This raises the question: Who would riot?

Santa Cruz is Silicon Valley’s beach town. Directly as my informer stopped talking I conceive visions of hordes of rowdy India-born hoodlums descending on my city, their pocket protectors bristling with non-pens pens of unknown usage. I could just see them in my mind’s eye sowing wi-fi havoc on our rudimentary 2010 !phones.

Or, maybe, just maybe, political correctness being what it is in this left-liberal region, this bastion of 1970s political culture, another fear underlaid the ban and the security measures. I don’t know that what came to my mind is true. It may just be speculation. Is it possible that the local authorities are afraid that the gangs from nearby towns such as Watsonville and Salinas would seize the opportunity of lose revelry to transform the beaches into battlefield where to continue their deadly wars ? Is it possible the same local authorities don’t have the internal fortitude to name the object of their fears? The problem is that upward of 99% of violent gang members seem to have Spanish surnames. Could it be that stating that they, the authorities close the beaches to contain gangs would be considered the sin of sins, racial profiling?

PS I like Santa Cruz Harbor a great deal. It’s this extreme rarity: a public entity with quasi-municipal powers that does not rely on taxes. It’s long overdue for my complimentary essay.

An Eventful American Independence Night

Jacques Delacroix Current Events , , , , ,

Yesterday night, July fourth, American Independence Day, around 8:30 pm, I was out of the Santa Cruz harbor in my humble and felicitously stable 26-foot boat. With me, an immigrant, were three immigrants and one of their offspring plus one college-educated Oakie. (Oakies who can’t find a job raising beagles and who are too lazy to trim trees will go to college, contrary to widespread opinion.) The immigrant offspring is only three and we were offshore trying to catch as many outlawed fireworks as we could for her. All the immigrants were legal but, for two of them, it had not always been so. I don’t know the third immigrant well enough to ask him.

We were meandering slowly when one of us spotted an overturned kayak in the distance. There were two people in the water trying in vain to get back on. I hurried there slowly, as in the books. My mostly inexperienced crew did a great, calm job of retrieving the kayakers and even their kayak. The Oakie did a stellar job although his proximate ancestors got no closer to the water than when noodling catfish. All the retrieved kayak gear seemed to me fairly new and expensive. One of the kayakers, a woman, obstinately tried to recover all her equipment from the cold water. To my experienced free diver’s eyes and ears, she was showing the first signs of delirious disorientation from cold exposure. Nevertheless, we got both of them aboard as well as most of their stuff. Continue reading →

Atrocities: Municipal, State, and Zionist

Jacques Delacroix Politics , , , , ,

The City Council of Santa Cruz, California is going to spend $200,000 to decorate, embellish, create a planned turnabout in an important touristy location. I am not sure we need a turnabout at all. It confuses Americans. If we need one, I don’t know why it has to have artistic qualities as judged by the philistines on the city council. The location itself is quite beautiful. Is the council determined to compete with Mother Nature? I guess there is no economic crisis after all. (The council is dominated by Leftists.)

To make things worse, the commission goes to an artist from Rhode Island, clear across the continent. The local paper, an objective ally of the council, does not say how the awardee was selected. Santa Cruz has thousands of artists. Sometimes, it seems that everyone who is not a therapist, an acupuncturist, a herbalist, or a teacher is an artist. Some residents combine two or more of the above avocations, as you might expect. The fiscal irresponsibility has reached the point where I am going to say “no” to any expenditure, I don’t care how justified the cause would seem to me if I understood it. I don’t want to know. It’s “No.” In the current context, this expenditure is an obscenity and a small atrocity.

I listened to the debate yesterday between the two California candidates for the beleaguered office of governor of this failing state. I am going to vote for Meg Whitman, of course, the former CEO of E-Bay. The main reason is that she is not Jerry Brown, a charlatan I have known all my adult life and a proven failure at every political office he has tried. He has tried most of them, incidentally, including Governor, twice, in the late seventies and early eighties. Continue reading →