Author Archives: Hue White

Beginning, apparently, in 2013, Andrew Sullivan, editor of the now-dormant Dish blog, became aware of, and detested, a trend in online publications towards what was sometimes called sponsored content and other times native advertising; perhaps more euphemisms for companies hawking products in camouflage have appeared since.  Andrew’s first entry is here; a collection of them, in reverse order, is here.  From his first entry:

Did IBM also provide the art? Then I went to Quartz, the company’s new global business site. Two out of the first ten pieces I saw on the main-page last night were written by corporations, Chevron and Cadillac, presumably in collaboration with the Atlantic. (The Cadillac has now gone, replaced by another identical Chevron “piece”.) I’d like to know as a subscriber and former senior editor who exactly on staff helped write those ads, and how their writing careers are different than that of regular journalists. Jay Lauf, for whom I have immense respect, said this about the strategy of “native ads” – or what I prefer to call enhanced advertorial techniques:

“A lot of people worry about crossing editorial and advertising lines,
but I think it respects readers more. It’s saying, ‘You
know what you’re interested in.’ It’s more respectful of the reader that
way.”

Read this piece and see if you agree.

My own view, for what it’s worth, is that readers do not expect great magazines to be artfully eliding the distinction between editorial and advertorial with boosterish ad campaigns from oil companies. Usually, those advertorials are in very separate sections in magazines – “Sponsored By The Government Of Dubai” or something – but integrating them in almost exactly the same type and in exactly the same format as journalism is not that.

I can understand companies sponsoring real journalism in inventive, dynamic, interactive ways. Magazines need advertizing to survive. I also understand how banner ads are useless for many big companies. I also realize that keeping the Atlantic alive requires herculean efforts in this tough climate. But please, please, please remember that the most important thing you have at the Atlantic is your core integrity as one of the great American magazines. I see no evidence the editorial staff has compromised that in any way and regard their writers and editors as role-models as well as journalists and friends. But there comes a time when the business side of a magazine has to be reminded that a magazine can very gradually lose its integrity in incremental, well-meant steps that nonetheless lead down a hill you do not want to descend. I know they are principled and honorable people there; and I know they understand this. But please know that this stuff makes an Atlantic reader grieve.

Now Skeptical Inquirer, in a print-only article in their May / June 2015 edition, brings to my attention the blunderings of the venerable Science magazine.  David Gorski, MD, in “Science Sells Out: Advertising Traditional Chinese Medicine in Three Supplements,” discusses the myriad holes Science has dug for itself with the publishing of the first two supplements:

… the articles are formatted to appear not as ads but as regular scientific reports. … as not having “been peer-reviewed or assessed by the Editorial staff of the journal Science.”  Rather, “all manuscripts have been critically evaluated by an international editorial team consisitng of experts in traditional medicine research selected by the project editor…

Dr. Gorski continues with identification of the various logical fallacies involved in the justifications given for publishing such a supplement, the lack of evidence for virtually any of the proposed modalities, etc.  The editions were published in very last January and have attracted the malevolent attention of Orac @ ScienceBlogs.com, who rather gleefully skewers Science:

The introductory articles are painful to read, full of the obfuscations and justifications for the pseudoscience that makes up most of TCM, all wrapped up in calls for more tooth fairy science and completed with a bow of argumentum ad populum. Disappointingly, Margaret Chan, MD, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, begins this parade in an article entitled Supporting the integration and modernization of traditional medicine:

TM [traditional medicine] is often seen as more accessible, more affordable, and more acceptable to people and can therefore also represent a tool to help achieve universal health coverage. It is commonly used in large parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. For many millions of people, often living in rural areas within developing countries, herbal medicines, traditional treatments, and traditional practitioners are the main—and sometimes the only—source of health care. The affordability of most traditional medicines makes them all the more attractive at a time of soaring health care costs and widespread austerity.

Calling Dr. Chan. Calling Dr. Chan. The zombie corpse of Chairman Mao Zedong called. He wants his 1950s-era justification for promoting TCM and “integrating” it with “Western” medicine back, not to mention his “barefoot doctors.”

In a followup post, Orac suggests that the singular importance of evidence-based medicine may be on the ropes:

The scary thing is, the authors might actually be right. “Integrating” quackery with medicine does seem to be the future these days, and universities, the NCCIH, the WHO, Science, and the AAAS appear to be doing their very best to make that future a reality.

Back to Skeptical Inquirer, which published a companion to the Gorski piece: “WHO’s Strategy on Traditional and Complementary Medicine”, by Thomas P.C. Dorlo, Willem Betz, and Cees N.M. Renckens.  In this scathing analysis of World Health Organization’s management of these types of medicine, they suggest this portion of the organization has been captured by the Chinese government, which derives quite the benefit from the export of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM):

Curiously, the focus of the WHO TM Strategy is neither toward rigid proof of efficacy  of the mixed bag of therapies nor toward access to effective therapy but seems to be aimed at the financial and intellectual property (IP) aspects … For China, the Chinese TM therapies are a hugely important export product worth $3.14 billion in 2013.

And they go on to note that China appears to be pursuing the commercialization of a product which will not pass the usual medical high standards, and thus they are pursuing an alternative approach to inserting ineffective, dangerous therapies into the standard medical regimes.  (Dangerous mostly in the sense that it may delay the administration of effective treatment, although some traditional therapies are indeed directly dangerous.)

Perhaps I’m just old, but this seems an almost suicidal strategy, whether it’s occurring at The Atlantic and other such publications, or at the serious science magazines.  Readers read these publications for many reasons, but that, in my memory, doesn’t include camouflaged advertisements for products masquerading as serious articles.  Look: at base level, every honest article is analysis, the unbiased examination of an issue, a product, a public issue, SOMETHING.  It gives you what you hope are relevant facts, connects them together, looks for hidden connections, and delivers a conclusion where transparent reasoning is important.  Publications like Science, Nature, The Atlantic, and thousands of other publications literally are risking their reputations for reputable articles when advertising masquerading as articles is printed in such a way as to mislead readers.  When you get a rep for misleading readers, they’ll just walk away and find someone who still practices Old Fashioned Journalism.  The importance of understanding this distinction, between doing good journalism and just turning into a poorly paid corporate whore, seems paramount to me.

The WHO issue, on the other hand, is a matter of international politics, and encompasses the idea that if you have more votes,  you can ignore reality.

And both Skeptical Inquirer articles deserve a wider audience.  Hopefully SI will publish them online soon.

Today an old post from Mark Sumner @ The Daily Kos came across my virtual desk, decrying the ways of Wal-Mart.  Here’s what caught my attention:

But this isn’t just a Walmart story, it’s an American story. Not so long ago, American corporations accepted the idea that they had obligations to their stockholders, but also to their workers and the communities where they did business. They understood that profit was a tool, a fuel that powered the corporation to achieve its goals. But now profit is the goal. It’s been fetishized beyond all reason. Many people will even tell you that there’s a law requiring companies to generate as much profit as possible. There is no such law. There never was. And the only thing more insane than believing that such a harmful law might exist, is that many seem to think it’s a good idea.

I think we sometimes forget that capitalism is simply the economic system we happen to use (I shan’t say we chose it) as we came of age; it’s a reaction to mercantilism, which as a side effect tended to favor the status quo, thus freezing folks in their initial economic classes; not that movement was impossible, but it was difficult and, more importantly, the reason for freezing out new competitors rarely made sense to the losers.  Capitalism has at least a veneer of meritocracy to it, even though we now recognize that governmental favoritism, monopolistic behaviors, and other behaviors can impede that meritocratic impulse which we find so attractive about capitalism.

In the early days, the only international companies were the trading companies such as the Dutch East India Company; the overwhelming majority of companies were strictly local companies.  This resulted in the owners and the management having to live with the results of their decisions.  If you made a decision to treat your employees poorly, you heard about it: at church, at your office, and, if you were not a monopoly, at the clerk’s counter, as the customers decided to take their business elsewhere.  Communities did not exist to further the fortunes of companies, but to further the fortunes of the citizens, and they realized that betterment of the community resulted in the betterment of the citizens.

As railroads, telegraphs, and other earlier accoutrements of modern Western civilization began to appear, corporations began to lose this accountability factor; as the owners and management became disconnected from the community hosting the company, the era of the robber barons came into being.

These practices included exerting control over national resources, accruing high levels of government influence, paying extremely low wages, squashing competition by acquiring competitors in order to create monopolies and eventually raise prices, and schemes to sell stock at inflated prices^[2] to unsuspecting investors in a manner which would eventually destroy the company for which the stock was issued and impoverish investors.^[

(source: Wikipedia)

So, in a way, today’s world is little different from 300 years ago, it’s simply that advancing technology has enabled those incapable of caring for others to … not care.  Perhaps the titular example is the Bhopal Disaster involving a leak of poisonous gas at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India.  Union Carbide’s headquarters was half a world away.  Would this have happened if the CEO of Union Carbide had lived in town with the plant?  Of course not.  But one must also consider the conscious lying of tobacco company executives as a strong contender for the title.  (On the other hand, one must empathize with them while considering their alternatives.)

But a capitalist is not necessarily a robber baron.  Conscious capitalism is a website and a term for practicing a responsible form of capitalism:

Conscious Capitalism comes to life as it is applied to business. Conscious Capitalism has four pillars guiding and underlying a business that practices Conscious Capitalism.

Higher Purpose: Recognizing that every business has a purpose that includes, but is more than, making money. By focusing on its Higher Purpose, a business inspires, engages and energizes its stakeholders.

Stakeholder Orientation: Recognizing that the interdependent nature of life and the human foundations of business, a business needs to create value with and for its various stakeholders (customers, employees, vendors, investors, communities, etc.). Like the life forms in an ecosystem, healthy stakeholders lead to a healthy business system.

Conscious Leadership: Human social organizations are created and guided by leaders – people who see a path and inspire others to travel along the path. Conscious Leaders understand and embrace the Higher Purpose of business and focus on creating value for and harmonizing the interests of the business stakeholders. They recognize the integral role of culture and purposefully cultivate Conscious Culture.

Conscious Culture: This is the ethos – the values, principles, practices – underlying the social fabric of a business, which permeates the atmosphere of a business and connects the stakeholders to each other and to the purpose, people and processes that comprise the company.

The Higher Purpose section particularly applies here, because I have to think that running a business has to include more than just counting up your profits at the end of the  year.  If this is all you’re trying to do, then why exist?  You only go through life once (apologies to reincarnationists), and merely attempting to accumulate enough capital to attract a mate (or, worse, build a McMansion) is really a betrayal of life itself; here we are with this marvelous ability to think the oddest thoughts, to achieve, and all you want to do is make money?

But, annoyed rant aside, Conscious Capitalism is an attempt to provide that community pressure on those who must take the responsibility to prevent something from going wrong, whether it be disposal of fracking water causing earthquakes, just any pollution problem.  And, by doing so, it may also be considered an attempt to save capitalism from drowning in its own effluvia.  After all, capitalists must remember that capitalism was brought into existence for the betterment of the citizenry; the profit motive, rather than being primary, is for personal motivation, and as a way to measure how well companies do in competition with each other.  If the practices, side effects, and results of capitalism do not result in the net betterment of the citizenry, then the time may come to discard capitalism.

And I say that as an investor myself.

In the context of battlefield archaeology (previously covered here) and the definition of the Anthropocene (here), we now have a discussion of how the effects of battle shows up, and will show up in the future, in the geology of the work,  “Battle-scarred Earth: How war reshapes the planet“, (print: “Battle Scars”) (paywall) by Jan Zalasiewicz and Mat Zalasiewicz:

The earliest evidence of armed conflict dates back to around 13,000 BC and a mass grave in northern Sudan. Here 59 human skeletons were discovered, many bearing signs of violent death such as spear and arrowheads embedded in their bones.

The wars of the ancients give some guide to how long the marks of war might last. The old battlegrounds were picked over, as the dust and smoke settled, by vultures, rats and human scavengers. Much later, teams of archaeologists moved in, finding smashed human skeletons and the remains of weapons such as flint arrowheads. Could these objects last longer and become geology rather than archaeology?

A few might. The simple materials of the old warriors have good geological analogues. Indeed, some are the essence of geology. There is little that is more hard-wearing than flint: tough and chemically resistant, it is one of the ultimate survivor rocks. A wooden lance can carbonise over time to become a lance-shaped lump of coal. But not everything will last that long: iron weapons, for example, may not fossilise so easily, as iron rusts at the surface and corrodes once buried. …

Bombturbation [the explosive production of a distinctive mass of metres-deep craters and churned earth and rock] can continue even after the guns fall silent. Of the estimated 1.5 billion shells fired in the first world war, perhaps a quarter didn’t explode on impact. Thousands are found every year, and people are still killed by them. Most of this unexploded ordnance lies buried, some 20 metres down. If it stays buried, could it fossilise? This seems likely. Even if the steel eventually dissolves, and the explosive transforms to petroleum, a compressed carbon-impregnated impression will remain, like a crushed and flattened dinosaur skull in a sandstone slab.

Bombturbated mud also contains the bones of fallen soldiers. Of the million killed in the 10-month-long Battle of Verdun, only some 290,000 were ever found. The rest must lie somewhere within that bomb-churned stratum. These layers are akin to bone beds – concentrations of vertebrate fossils found in prehistoric rock. But there is one striking difference: in these human bone beds, the remains are virtually all of young men.

(NewScientist 28 March 2015)

A sobering thought for the humans who knew, or were related to, those humans, isn’t it?  Or even us.  But in 500 years, when future archaeologists are digging up those bones, will they feel the same way?  If hypothetical alien archaeologists were to dig them up, and speculate on why the young males of the herd were forced into the area and then massacred, will they feel any emotion over the uncomprehending misery experienced by those young soldiers?

Not odd enough?  How about this: at Mammoth Site, in Hot Springs, South Dakota, is a paleontological dig of the eponymous creature which we visited a couple of years ago.  Most interestingly, the docent stated that only males had been found in the bone bed, at least so far.  The theory went that the adult males were not part of the herd and wandered about.  At some point, they’d wander into this sinkhole, where the surface would give way beneath them.  They’d scrabble for footing, never find it, and eventually drown.  I tried to visualize that and was rather horrified.

But what if the female mammoths of the herd picked out those young males of which they didn’t approve – perhaps for not being docile enough – and pushed them into the sinkhole, as an object lesson to the other males?  Now how should we feel?

If you drive an electric car, you may also be lowering the temperature of the city in which you drive:

But as well as providing potentially carbon-free driving, electric cars emit almost 20 per cent less heat than conventional cars. This could lower city temperatures, meaning use of air conditioning would also drop, says a team led by Canbing Li from Michigan State University in East Lansing.

Using summer 2012 in the Chinese capital of Beijing as an example, the team estimates that replacing conventional cars with electric ones would reduce the heat by nearly 1 °C. That in turn would result in a reduction in air conditioning use, leading to a drop of 10,686 tonnes per day in carbon dioxide emissions (Scientific Reports, doi.org/23g).

(NewScientist 28 March 2015 – paywall)

Democratic icon Paul Krugman (Nobel Prize winner in Economics) recently gave his view of the upcoming Presidential election:

In any case, there has never been a time in American history when the alleged personal traits of candidates mattered less. As we head into 2016, each party is quite unified on major policy issues — and these unified positions are very far from each other. The huge, substantive gulf between the parties will be reflected in the policy positions of whomever they nominate, and will almost surely be reflected in the actual policies adopted by whoever wins.

He goes on to enumerate certain issues and how the Democratic and Republican nominees will pledge to handle the issue – regardless of the name of the nominee.  If you are a Democrat, you will handle it this way; if you are a Republican, you will handle it that way.  This reasoning can be extended to support the idea of power politics, which is basically “student-body left”, blasting all opposition out of the way without regard, without discussion (with the opposition or within your own organization).

xaxnar @ The Daily Kos explicates:

We are a divided nation because there is a real battle for what kind of country this is going to be – and defeat is not an option. Sitting this one out, or holding out for ideological purity is not an option either. Republicans may be batshit insane, and wrong on every issue – but they keep winning because they all point their guns in the same direction. Democratic disunity (See Pierce here) and a Quixotic fixation on candidates who are not running or can’t possibly win is a luxury that advances no agenda.

Over on the other side, Iowa GOP State Central Committee member David Chung has some similar thoughts:

I hear it every election year from friends and family, “I look at the issues and candidates and always vote for the best person regardless of party.” Sometimes, it is said matter-of-factly, sometimes it is said condescendingly but it is always said sincerely.

The implication is that only the naive or uninformed vote straight ticket. Nothing could be further from the truth. In nearly every election, I have had the opportunity to talk to my party’s candidate for every office from county supervisor to president. Typically I know where they stand on all of the issues I care about.

I hear this from both liberals and conservatives. Many of my conservative friends say that the lesser of two evils is still evil. I am sometimes asked whether I support principle over party or party over principle.

I am sure that I will be accused by some of being an unprincipled party shill. But let me state it as clearly as I possibly can:

Politics is a team sport, and it is precisely because I support principles over party, that I vote a straight Republican ticket every time.

So on the surface, both sides seem to make good arguments for closing your eyes, putting your shoulder to the wheel, and pushing in rhythm to the drummer at the prow of the ship.  But with a little work I can come up with some questions that may throw some sand in the gears.

1. Is that really all there is to politics, the assemblage of political positions?  Whatever happened to competency, the knowledge of how to manage a bureaucracy, or even your own office staff?  The sport of watching the latest scandal coming out of Washington, or for that matter the local political hellhole, may be quite entertaining – I’ll admit to it! – but the dark side of these scandals is opportunities lost.  If some boob is hired by your ideological god and fouls up, then what good was that ideology you were praising?  Looking at the competencies of our candidates may be nearly as important as the ideologies.
2. Power politics reduces the seats up for grabs to simple prizes.  Look, if all you have to do is win the nomination and then be assured of your seat, then any power-mongering sociopath, and I mean that with nary a grin on my face, will be clambering up the pile to get that nomination, and all he has to do is convince the powers-that-be that he will lick their fingers as necessary.  Winning the nomination may or may not be a chore, but most sociopaths can fake being human long enough to get that nomination – ask a psychologist if you doubt it.
3. Power politics reduces the public debate necessary to our nation’s maturity.  True, we have debates today, but how often are those public debates truly useful?  As the political parties become more hierarchically structured, with less dissent tolerated, we also have a greater chance of taking positions that are incorrect because that’s the word coming down from on high.  We’re seeing this right now with such topics as climate change, Iran, ObamaCare, and just about any judicial nominee coming down the pike of either party.  On the left there are fewer examples, as the Democrats & assorted leftists tend to be a more raucous crowd, but single payer systems / socialized health care sometimes pop up as something sacred.  Both sides seem to be inclined to inflate the military budget at any opportunity, so I tend to see that as another example we could do without.  So we can say positions predicated on ideology, rather than reality, come to the fore.  How can we tell?  Conspiracy theories are a sure sign — “a few thousand climate change scientists are conspiring to deprive us of our free market rights!”  That’s a good sign.
4. Power politics and the manner in which we select planks is a toxic combination.  The folks who take the time to go to caucuses, contribute to political discussions, and in general get involved also tend to be the those most zealous partisans, and those with the more extreme positions.  It’s really a matter of human nature colliding with democracy; those of us who’d rather go bowling on Friday night tend to be more moderate and focused on the here and now, while the zealots become fixated on their vision and become convinced of the holiness of their position.  For an example, here is David Chung again:
   

   I am a Republican, I vote a straight Republican ticket—because I believe that it is the best chance in today’s system to effect the changes that I believe are crucial to our nation.

The wars of power politics may have already started as the Democrats seem to be making some real progress against an icon of the Republicans – Rush Limbaugh has been losing audience of late as radio stations drop his show due to advertiser pressure brought about by boycotts.  I have no use for Rush, he seems to be a beautiful voice married to a lust for money and power; but this does look like a metaphorical assassination to me.

So what’s to be done?  There’s a doozy.  In fact, the best thing to do make may be to sit back and wait for the blood bath – metaphorical, of course – to happen.  I expect that at some point the Republican ship will run into the rocks of reality and be forced to reform some of its positions.  I hope it’s nothing violent; instead, the realization that the Party is shrinking, as we may be seeing here, may be enough to cause the party to reform itself, throwing the more fringe types out on their ears.  If we’re unlucky, we may have to suffer through a heatwave that kills a significant number of us.

But don’t lose hope, not all conservatives are “batshit insane” (apologies to Xaxnar, above).  As noted here, the conservative PM of Australia, Tony Abbot, has apparently about-faced on his climate change denial – possibly due to the multiple natural disasters that have rained down on his country over the last few years.

[EDIT:1/2/2017 fixed typo]

Ever wonder why flightless birds evolved?  I doubt this applies to ostriches, given they exist on Africa, but Hawaii once hosted some flightless birds, and ARCHAEOLOGY’s Andrew Lawler covers the work of David Burney and Lida Pigott Burney on paleoecology:

The Burneys’ work suggests that, in contrast to the weedy fields where sugarcane was long cultivated, the area around the sinkhole was wooded, dominated by a species of small palm. The trade winds blew birds to the island chain, and though these ancient Hawaiian birds had no predators, being blown back to sea meant certain death. Wings, therefore, constituted a risk for larger birds, and thus flightless species arose. More than 50 species of finches hopped through the forests, each adapted to a tiny ecological niche. Two sorts of small birds called rails crept along the ground looking for the eggs of other species to snag. The only mammals on the island before humans arrived were small bats. Avians filled the ecological niches that elsewhere were occupied by grazing animals such as wild sheep and cattle, which could not survive the long journey across the ocean. “The mallard duck gets here and suddenly grows 10 times as large, stops flying, develops a beak like a tortoise, and goes out and eats the vegetation,” Burney says, gesturing up through the hole. “It’s a laboratory of evolution.”

The island’s most fearsome predator was a type of long-legged owl that caught what flying birds there were in mid-air during the day—there were no nocturnal rodents to eat—and pierced their skulls with pincer claws. “You can tell by the holes in the skulls of the victims,” says Burney.

My old friend Ward Rubrecht responds to an article by Matt Walsh (with a h/t to Anthony Strafaccia) on The Blaze’s Contribution Channel concerning pay for no-skill work such as burger flipping.  First, Matt:

Dear fast food workers,

It’s come to my attention that many of you, supposedly in 230 cities across the country, are walking out of your jobs today and protesting for $15 an hour. You earnestly believe — indeed, you’ve been led to this conclusion by pandering politicians and liberal pundits who possess neither the slightest grasp of the basic rules of economics nor even the faintest hint of integrity — that your entry level gig pushing buttons on a cash register at Taco Bell ought to earn you double the current federal minimum wage. …

You think the jobs I had when I was 16 should have provided me with the comfortable living I just established in my late 20′s? Frankly, I think you’re delusional.

To understand how delusional, consider that a $15 an hour full time salary would put you in the same ball park as biologists, auto mechanics, biochemists,  teachers, geologists, roofers, and bank tellers.

You’d be making more than some police officers.

You’d easily out earn many firefighters.

He continues on in a vein related to the viewpoint of the fast food worker.  I share Matt’s belief that no-skill workers should not necessarily be able to make a comfortable living, but I’ll approach it from a societal viewpoint.  I think society does not benefit from making it possible to have a comfortable living working a zero-skill job.  Our society has always been predicated on the skills and ambitions of the individual being improved so that they can become wealthier; the flip side is that society then gets the benefits of those skills.  The motivations are several, but most common is an inability to make a living at that job, and thus the scrabble of acquiring skills, whether it be a college education or a trade school.

But make it easy to make a living at entry level jobs may bring about an even greater social inequity – there will be those who will willingly stay in these entry level jobs, and progress no further, flipping burgers from 16 to 76, and not doing any better until their political superiors determine they should do better, and then those who have the ambition to go out and improve themselves – who will be able to earn more without begging for it from the political class, improve themselves further, or do whatever it is they want to do.

Additionally, if the entry level jobs pay is improved, now we’ll have a class of people who will permanently occupy these jobs, to the detriment of the teenagers seeking jobs for the first time.  The teenagers need some way to get their employment underway, and if there’s a class of folks occupying that tier of jobs ordinarily available to them, and a political understanding that all jobs should result in a comfortable living, then I don’t see any hope for them to scratch a living unless it’s under the table.

Ward offers the observation that pay has not kept up with need, the need being the cost of education (but not quite the same as saying you should be able to make a living).  I think this is looking at the wrong end of things; why is the cost of education so high?  Wikipedia covers this topic, including an out of date graph and this section:

Another proposed cause of increased tuition is U.S. Congress’ occasional raising of the ‘loan limits’ of student loans, in which the increased availability of students to take out deeper loans sends a message to colleges and universities that students can ‘afford more,’ and then, in response, institutions of higher education raise tuition to match, leaving the student back where he began, but deeper in debt. Therefore, if the students are able to afford a much higher amount than the free market would otherwise support for students without the ability to take out a loan, then the tuition is ‘bid up’ to the new, higher, level that the student can now afford with loan subsidies.^[15] One rebuttal to that theory is the fact that even in years when loan limits have not risen, tuition has still continued to climb.^[16][17] Keeping tuition increases at the rate of inflation would require the state kick in $128 million more tax dollars between now and 2015.^[18] Public college tuition has jumped 33 percent nationwide since 2000.^[19] College students are facing a roughly $20 billion increase in the cost of their federal loans.^[20]

I have a related, simple (and no doubt simplistic) view – it’s all simple economics.  The seats available are the goods to be bought; the dollars students can bring to bear is the money.  It’s well known that printing more money results in inflation, which is the increase in price of the goods.  In the college scenario, the Federal aid is the equivalent of printing money, as now the students can bring more money to bear on buying access to education.  The institutes notice that the market will bear a price increase, and so boost prices; after all, alumni and governments are currently dicey sources of revenue, and those hard science majors need expensive gear.

Who’s screwed?  Anyone who can’t get a grant or a loan.  Which means buying access means dancing to the tune of the grant and loan providers; the alternative is, what?  I’m not sure about the cost of trade schools these days …

The logical course, then, is to turn off the firehose: a harsh choice if you’re currently dependent.  My suspicion is that prices would start dropping after two – four years of pathetic begging from institutions, warnings of doom and gloom, and that sort of rot.  If government wants to subsidize education, then return to funding the institutions directly.

But right now it’s awfully harsh to be a student, regardless of loans or no loans.

I do not advocate free education, but crippling students and their families for a lifetime is obviously a poor choice.  So keep in mind what Stanford recently did:

Zero Parent Contribution for Parents with Income Below $65,000

Hillary has already had to absorb a couple of shots for apparent mismanagement during her tenure as Secretary of State; now it’s Jeb Bush’s turn, although he’s not yet declared himself a candidate.  The International Business Times reports that certain corporate donors to his gubernatorial campaign received business from the state pension:

An International Business Times analysis of Florida government documents and a list of George W. Bush’s bundlers compiled by Public Citizen found that 11 firms that received new Florida pension investments under Jeb Bush were Pioneers. IBTimes also analyzed data from the Florida Division of Elections and Political Moneyline to determine how much money executives from those firms donated directly to Jeb Bush’s campaigns, George W. Bush’s campaigns, the Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Florida between 1998 and 2006.

The article contains information concerning the firms and the amounts of money donated. (h/t ericlewis0 @ The Daily Kos)

IBTimes also runs a related story:

As Jeb Bush oversaw the State Board of Administration (SBA) that runs Florida’s massive public pension system, the state shifted billions of dollars into higher-risk, higher-fee alternative investments, benefiting the same sector of the investment industry he would work in upon leaving office. Many of those state deals delivered returns that fell short of projections. Roughly 20 percent of that system’s 53 private investment deals during Bush’s governorship went to companies that employed his brother’s Pioneers. Those financial firms, in turn, delivered more than $5 million of campaign cash to George W. Bush, the Republican National Committee and Jeb Bush’s Republican Party of Florida….

“If not an actual conflict of interest, these examples would provide fodder for apparent conflicts of interest,” said Common Cause Florida’s Peter Butzin. “Those folks who give … expect something in return. And if that something in return is not blatantly sending business their way or resulting in a particular vote, it most certainly is at least providing an opportunity for access, to get the foot in the door, so that they can make the case with that official.”

The balance makes for an interesting peek into the world of campaign finance and the importance of family networking.  Turns out a cousin of the Bushes ran an important division of Goldman Sachs at one time; now he heads up Neuberger Berman:

one of the largest private, independent, employee-controlled investment management firms.

According to Wikipedia.  Prison Planet also runs a story on both Jeb and Hillary.

The fighting, and political maneuvering, involving Yemen continues as CNN reports on the situation in Aden, Yemen’s sea port city currently contested by government forces and their allies, the Saudis, and the rebel Houthis:

Saudi Arabia began airstrikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen three weeks ago Thursday. But Aden remains a city not fully in the hands either of Houthi rebels or forces loyal to the ousted government of President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi.

Everyone we spoke to Thursday told us the same thing: Living in Aden these days is terrifying.

We visited a hospital where doctors have given up trying to count the dead and the dying who are brought in. Officials said they believe the toll of the dead runs into the hundreds.

Everywhere, we felt, saw, heard and smelled the desperation.

AL Monitor publishes Bruce Reidel’s report on the details of Pakistan’s refusal to assist their allies, the Saudis.  Mr Reidel is is director of the Intelligence Project at the Brookings Institution, which Wikpedia classifies as a centrist think tank:

After five days of debate, not one speaker apparently supported sending ground troops. While many praised Saudi Arabia as a friend of Pakistan, almost all called for a political solution and diplomacy to end the crisis. Some even blamed Riyadh for starting the war. Every political party opposed sending troops. The consensus was to stay neutral while reaffirming friendship with the kingdom.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif visited Pakistan during the debate. He met with both Prime Minister Sharif and Chief of Army Staff Raheel Sharif. The army has argued that it is stretched too thin with a counterterrorism campaign against the Pakistani Taliban and tensions with India to send troops to Yemen. Sharif said April 13 that he urged Zarif to rein in the Houthis and support a political solution.

It may be true that Pakistan lacks resources to expend; they have certainly been rocked by Taliban attacks, and are wont to worry about the Indians.  But I have to wonder if the Pakistani politicians are watching Iran’s deal with the global powers and are practicing circumspection against the possibility that an Iran free of sanctions could make for a raucous neighbor.  Mr. Reidel expands on this possibility:

The episode also raises concerns about Iran’s clout in the region. Much of the debate in parliament had been about avoiding further sectarian violence in Pakistan (which is 20% Shiite), which intervention in the war in Yemen would stoke (perhaps with Iranian help). Zarif had a big stick behind his back. Without ever mentioning the threat of Iranian meddling in Pakistan’s already fragile domestic stability, Zarif could remind his hosts they don’t want more trouble at home.

[UPDATE: Added missing title 5/2/15)

Disturbed by your medical care?  Try out Russia’s, courtesy The Moscow Times:

According to the State Statistics Service, from 2005 to 2013 the number of health facilities in rural areas fell by 75 percent, from 8,249 to 2,085. That number includes a 95 percent drop in the number of district hospitals, from 2,631 to only 124, and a 65 percent decline in the number of local health clinics, from 7,404 to 2,561. …

But it gets worse.

The Audit Chamber reports that some regions even lack mobile medical teams to provide care in remote areas. When local train service was canceled to many smaller towns in the winter of 2013-14, residents of tiny Novosokolniki, Nevel and Opochka in the southern Pskov region literally lay down on the railroad tracks to force passing trains to stop and carry them to cities with hospitals.

But it gets even worse.

In fact, the “optimization” process has affected not only “unprofitable” medical facilities, but even those with the latest equipment and the most highly qualified personnel. Moscow Cancer Hospital No. 62, one of the best of its kind in Russia, recently had to shutter an entire department even though patients were already waiting in line for weeks to receive treatment.

It’s a depressing report, and it’s certainly not an invitation to move to Russia.  The real question is whether a country as large as Russia can provide an adequate health care system, or if it’s just sloppy carelessness – or if the values of the culture work against a good system.

(h/t WorldPress.org)

Following his initial announcement, the New York Times suggests his chances are low due to competing with fellow Floridian Jeb Bush for the same votes and operatives:

Mr. Bush’s pre-emptive bid to build elite support has denied Mr. Rubio the opportunity to consolidate the center-right wing of the party. Perhaps this wouldn’t be a big problem if Mr. Rubio were a favorite of the conservatives skeptical of Mr. Bush’s candidacy, but the field is full of candidates who are equally good or better fits for many conservative voters.

Scott Walker, who took on unions and won in Wisconsin, is a conservative hero. Ted Cruz is a favorite of the Tea Party. Mike Huckabee is a favorite of evangelical Christians. Then there is a long list of other conservative candidates — like Ben Carson, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry and Bobby Jindal — who might compete for votes.

Harry Enten at the venerable FiveThirtyEight blog disagrees, despite admitting Rubio’s starting off with some low numbers:

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s campaign, which officially kicks off Monday, has so far attracted paltry support from Republican voters, according to polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, as well as nationally. He’s down near Chris Christie! Yet, when we talk about him in the FiveThirtyEight office, we usually put Rubio in the top tier, in front of everyone except Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, the two candidates at the top of the polls.

Why? Rubio is both electable and conservative, and in optimal proportions. He’s in a position to satisfy the GOP establishment, tea party-aligned voters and social conservatives. In fact, Rubio’s argument for the GOP nomination looks a lot like Walker’s, and Rubio is more of a direct threat to the Wisconsin governor than he is to fellow Floridian Bush.

And he has this lovely chart:

I think the addition of a few historical figures really helps to understand where the current batch lives.

Politico reports that he is most upset about Clinton’s support for the Iraq War:

Chafee has been a prominent critic of the war in Iraq and was the only Republican senator to vote against authorizing it. He describes the war as his primary motivation for challenging Hillary Clinton, telling POLITICO last week, “Anybody who voted for the Iraq war should not be president and certainly anybody who voted for the Iraq war should not lead the Democratic Party into an election.”

He has also criticized Clinton for being too close to Wall Street, but has said he agrees with her on many domestic issues.

Adam Toobin at HuffPo burnishes Lincoln’s liberal credentials:

Today, he is not a Republican, nor is he entirely focused on the Iraq War. He was a national leader on marriage equality in the U.S. Senate, anticipating both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s “evolutions” on the issue, and he pushed Democrats and Republicans in Rhode Island to successfully end the state’s discriminatory marriage practice in 2013.

Toobin likes him:

… the vast majority of us can agree that the presidential election in 2016 is one of the most vital in the nation’s history. Our domestic difficulties are matched only by our international challenges. Lincoln Chafee has a record of making the right decision at the hardest times. We see this in his record and his values. And with an ever-more extreme Republican field headed by the likes of Jeb, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, only the Democrats are in a place to choose a president, not a partisan.

A Realistic Record

After winning his first statewide race for US Senate in 2000 as a Republican, Lincoln Chafee voted against the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, opposed the Medicare Part D expansion and encouraged the reinstatement of the Clinton-era tax rate on the nation’s highest earners in 2006. He was one of the few politicians in Washington who predicted how these huge cuts and added entitlements would bloat the deficit. All politicians stand to gain from lower taxes, but Chafee was unwilling to commit future generations to paying for Bush’s political patronage. Of course, these policies were fundamentally wrong for the country, but it’s essential to know that whoever our president is, they will not sign away tax cuts or entitlement expansions, because it is easier or more politically convenient than vetoing and taking a stand.

Ted Nesi at Chafee’s home state CBS affiliate ran an entry on him of interest:

Lincoln Chafee is not going to be the 2016 Democratic nominee for president, even if for some reason Hillary Clinton isn’t, either. But on paper his résumé is a perfectly respectable one for a presidential aspirant: a former U.S. senator who spoke out on world affairs, a former governor of a blue state, a former Republican who can demonstrate the zeal of the convert for his new party. (The fact that he couldn’t win a second full term as senator or governor, of course, is an issue.) Chafee the candidate will probably get invited to participate in debates against Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Malley and whoever else makes the race – garnering him plenty of publicity and free TV time to expound on his worldview. Remember Mike Gravel stealing the show in 2007? Why couldn’t Chafee play that role this time? It will raise his profile once the race is over, too.

I would definitely be interested in hearing more from him; he seems to be more willing to think ahead rather than just react.

The Junior Senator from Florida has entered himself into the sweepstakes:

The lives of Marco’s parents were forever changed in 1956 when they came to America from Cuba. Early on, Mario and Oria Rubio struggled being in the United States and wondered whether they had made the right decision. But in the decades that followed, America proved to be that shining city on the hill as they worked their way into the middle class and were able to provide opportunities for their children that had previously been out of reach.

Ballotpedia provides the basics, including my favorite map of position:

His only quiz surprises is that he favors stricter limits on political campaign funds, and opposes privatizing Social Security.  He graduated from Miami School of Law cum laude, so he has a basic understanding of law, but his government experience is 5 years service in the State House, and Senator from Florida since 2011; at age 43, it’s a little difficult seeing him having enough experience to run a nation, although Barack Obama had a similar amount of experience at his election.  On many positions I do not agree with him, so I doubt I’d vote for him; I have not heard him speak and so haven’t actually evaluated him for being a lunatic Republican or a reasonable Republican.

The New York Times gives a summation of his prospects:

Running neither as hotly conservative as Senator Ted Cruz of Texas nor as coolly establishment as Mr. Bush, Mr. Rubio could be the right contender to unite the unruly factions of his party. An often inspiring speaker, he starts with high favorability ratings in polls and performs well on the stump. He would look for a breakout performance in the debates, perhaps on foreign policy, a strong suit.

The National Review likes him:

But he has gone above and beyond that, spending the last couple of years churning out a number of innovative, conservative policy proposals on taxes, higher education, health care, and entitlements. Rubio enters the field with a comprehensive plan for individual and corporate tax reform, which he produced alongside Senator Mike Lee of Utah. The plan is not perfect, but it is an excellent starting point for how conservatives should be thinking about tax policy: It reduces distortions in the tax code, cuts rates for almost all Americans and businesses, encourages corporate investment, and provides badly needed tax relief to middle-class families.

Slate doesn’t give him much of a chance:

NOAA makes available sonar data from surveys to the general public.  A cool map of what’s available is here.  Gives you a feel for just how little exploration has taken place.

(h/t Samir S. Patel, “Ghosts of the Golden Gate”, ARCHAEOLOGY May/June 2015)

Continuing our watch on Hillary’s run, a visit to Ballotpedia is essential:

Interestingly, she’s listed as opposing higher taxes on the wealthy, free trade, a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens, and is against maintaining sovereignty from the U.N; she’s neutral on expanding the military.  This makes her, in my eyes, a little less liberal than I had expected.  Of course, she is a Clinton, and no doubt her husband is advising her in how to be in sync with the voters, which is an admirable strategy, I suppose, but it makes my skin crawl – but then, I voted for old Bill twice, with my skin in full crawl.  But by this I mean I do not know if the positions listed by Ballotpedia are honest representations of her opinions, or just the opinions she’s put out for the electorate to digest.

Of course, she’s the only declared candidate for the Democratic nomination.  Jonathan Chait has published a longish article explaining why he believes she’ll both win the nomination and the election, based on the growing Democratic party (although recent polls of voters casts some doubt on that), the liberal youth, her personal popularity, Obama’s recovering economy, and finally:

The argument for Clinton in 2016 is that she is the candidate of the only major American political party not run by lunatics.

Sadly, I have to disagree.  I shan’t call my fellow citizens lunatics, I’ll just note that they seem to have a lot of fallacious assumptions about reality, government activities, and, oh, a lot of other things, which I shan’t go into here.

… is traced to the old BBS world:

While the core technology behind today’s Internet was developed through the U.S. government-backed ARPANET, the things that define the culture of today’s Internet — sharing information, connecting with new people, playing games, even shopping — developed more through the bulletin board systems that proliferated before the advent of the World Wide Web. As Driscoll, a postdoctoral researcher at Microsoft Research, argued in a talk he gave at MIT last week:

We can think of this as a parallel world. There are parallel tracks here where the ARPANET is developing really robust ways of doing Internet working over a long distance with various types of media. Sometimes it goes over the wires, sometimes it goes over the airwaves, sometimes it goes through a satellite.

At the same time, there are hobbyists who are using just the telephone network that had been in place for decades — but they’re developing all this social technology on top of it. Figuring out how you should moderate the system, administer it. Who’s in charge? Who makes the rules? What are good rules? What are bad rules? How do you kick people off if they’re being a jerk? How do you get cool people to join you? All of this is happening on this “people’s Internet” layer.

As a BBS operator from the early 1980s to 2002, it seems a little odd to give this much credit to BBSes while not mentioning USENET and, perhaps, PLATO.  Not that we didn’t talk, discuss, fight, flirt, marry, divorce, game, and keep the ruggies trolls at bay…

(h/t Naomi Rockler-Gladen)

CNN reports the first photos have been received from the New Horizons probe.

OK, it’s just a blob so far.  But I’m still pumped.  Even if I’m still bummed that it’s a flyby.

The Iran drama continues.  First, the BBC reports that Russia has lifted a ban on arms deals with Iran in response to the emerging nuclear deal:

Russia said the embargo was no longer necessary after an interim deal was reached on Iran’s nuclear programme.

Tehran and six world powers aim to reach a final deal by 30 June.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest did not give details of Mr Kerry’s phone call, but said that “coordination and unity” with nations like Russia had been key to reaching agreement with Iran. …

Russia agreed to sell the S-300 system in 2007, but blocked delivery in 2010 after the UN imposed sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme.

The S-300 is a surface-to-air missile system that can be used against multiple targets including jets, or to shoot down other missiles.

Russia is fighting to stay afloat in the face of low oil prices, so this represents an opportunity for cash – AlJazeera reports the deal is worth $800 million.  This also lets Russia tweak the United States at the same time for its part in keeping oil prices low.

The Israeli government is quite unhappy, as The Jerusalem Post reports:

Russia’s decision to lift a ban on the sale of the advanced S-300 air defense system to Iran is a “direct result of the framework agreement reached in Lausanne,” Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Tuesday, referring to the recent nuclear agreement between the P5+1 and Tehran.

Ya’alon said that a storm is raging around Israel, and that Iran is “continuing to arm itself, and arm others.” Moscow’s S-300 deal with Iran is “something we have been warning about even before the details [of the agreement] were concluded. It was clear, even then, that sanctions will be lifted, and that of course this will influence and strengthen the Iranian economy.”

Meanwhile, Ya’alon said, Iran continues to arm elements around Israel, particularly Hezbollah in the North, while supporting combat in Syria, and the Houthi-Shi’ite takeover of Yemen.

The headline at the conservative American website Breitbart.com says it all: “Countdown to Israel Attack: Russia Lifts Ban on Missile Sales to Iran“.

Meanwhile, Iran stands accused of backing the Houthi rebels in Yemen, according to AL Monitor’s Mohammad Ali Shabani:

If there is a Saudi-Iranian contest in Yemen linked to the Houthis, its roots can be traced back to late 2009. As Saudi forces attacked border regions controlled by the Houthis, talk of the latter’s alleged Iranian connection reappeared — with force. The reason was clear, at least in Worth’s view: “A ragtag militia had held out for months against the high-tech Saudi military, and even scored some humiliating punches against it. … Meanwhile, the Iranian media lionized the Houthis for their heroic ‘resistance.’” US State Department cables published by WikiLeaks expressed skepticism of the Houthis’ alleged connections to Iran at the time.

The motivations of many of these actors is not clear, even to journalists detailed to cover it; but it can be fascinating.

For Iran, then, is Yemen less about gaining an ally than it is about depriving the Saudis of an anti-Iran ally? Can the same be said about the Saudi calculation?

Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of the Yemen war is the regional response. A number of states were quick to commit forces to the Saudi offensive, surprisingly including Iran’s longtime ally Sudan. It was also reported that Saudi Arabia had requested that Pakistan commit physical and human assets to the military operations.

However, in past days, active diplomacy on the part of Iran appears to have undermined Saudi Arabia’s effort to regionalize the conflict. Shortly after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s trip to Tehran last week, which featured a joint Iranian-Turkish call for an end to the conflict in Yemen, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif traveled to Oman and Pakistan, holding talks focused on Yemen. Surprisingly, Pakistan, a strong ally of Saudi Arabia — which some even portray as Riyadh’s Plan B in case of an Iranian nuclear weapon — has refused any involvement in the Yemen war.

Pakistan has more than a few internal problems of its own.  Being nuclear armed and faced with various horrifying insurgencies and massacres, their stability should be a desirable objective.  I do not worry that Iranian fundamentalists would use nuclear weapons if they had them, as they’ve not shown themselves to be suicidal – and they know nuclear hell would rain down on them if they were to develop and use nuclear weapons.  But the various insurgencies have displayed a disturbing trend towards suicide missions and belief in religious creeds that may lead them to use nuclear weapons.  Technical problems might not permit them to actually use them, but they might try.

Google is good enough to supply this map:

This is also known as King v. Burwell.  Ronald D. Rotunda at the Verdict Blog summarizes the case:

Plaintiffs argue that the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) does not allow the federal government to subsidize federal health exchanges, only state-created health exchanges. The law itself is complex, totaling nearly a thousand pages in length. However, the statutory interpretation issue is straightforward.

William Baude suggests in the New York times that a decision adverse to supporters of the ACA should simply be ignored except in the most narrow of circumstances:

But luckily the Constitution supplies a contingency plan, even if the administration doesn’t know it yet: If the administration loses in King, it can announce that it is complying with the Supreme Court’s judgment — but only with respect to the four plaintiffs who brought the suit.

This announcement would not defy a Supreme Court order, since the court has the formal power to order a remedy only for the four people actually before it. The administration would simply be refusing to extend the Supreme Court’s reasoning to the millions of people who, like the plaintiffs, may be eligible for tax credits but, unlike the plaintiffs, did not sue.

What?

To be sure, the government almost always agrees to extend Supreme Court decisions to all similarly situated people. In most cases, it would be pointless to try to limit a decision to the parties to the lawsuit. Each new person who was denied the benefit of the ruling could bring his own lawsuit, and the courts would simply rule the same way. Trying to limit the decision to the parties to the suit would just delay the inevitable.

That feels like minutiae.

But the King litigation is different, because almost everybody who is eligible for the tax credits is more than happy to get them. Most people who receive tax credits will never sue to challenge them. Lawsuits can be brought only by those with a personal stake, so in most cases the tax credits will never come before a court. The administration is therefore free to follow its own honest judgment about what the law requires.

This idea may seem radical, but it has a strong legal pedigree. Judicial authority, or jurisdiction, is case-specific and person-specific. That is true even of the Supreme Court, which the Constitution gives “judicial power” to decide “cases” and “controversies.” It is reaffirmed by Marbury v. Madison (1803), which affirmed the power of judicial review by relying on the Supreme Court’s duty to decide “particular cases.”

Rotunda disagrees:

Let us say that the Obama Administration follows this law professor’s advice if it loses before the Supreme Court. IRS officials will give out tax subsidies contrary to the law. Those officials will violate the Federal Anti-Deficiency Act, 31 U.S.C. § 1341, et seq., which prohibits them from passing out federal money without statutory authorization. The helpful employees who pay out these subsidies go to prison, and the government collects from the recipient three times the federal money received. There is no need for the prosecution to prove any specific intent to defraud.

That is not the end of the story. What happens if the Administration does not enforce the Anti-Deficiency Act? Congress thought of that, too. Any taxpayer can sue the officials and force them return the money, out of their own pockets, by filing a qui tam action under the False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. § 3729 et seq. The taxpayer has an incentive to sue because he or she collects from 15 percent to 30 percent of the proceeds.

There is another problem. If the Administration can ignore an adverse decision in King v. Burwell (and apply the rule only to the four individuals who are plaintiffs), future governments can do likewise. For example, let us say the Supreme Court rules that there is a constitutional right to gay marriage. Under the proposal of the law professor, states can apply that decision only to the particular gay couples suing in that particular case. My Verdict co-columnist Michael Dorf discusses that point on his blog.

So, if the Administration takes this advice, it will find that its officials will go bankrupt repaying the money out of their pockets. My advice: follow the law, not the law professor.

This exchange was a trifle startling: I’d never heard of fining officials for misconduct (usually it seems like they’re immune and just get a hand slap), and this assertion that a case applies only to the parties … well, OK, now that I think about it, it does make sense.  But why bring it up when it’s clear the government is party to the suit?

I have not found a rebuttal from Mr. Baude.

NPR reports on a Congressional deal to permit it to oversee the Iran Deal, earlier covered here:

The Associated Press explains the compromise reached Tuesday in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

“The bill that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was to vote on later in the day would have given Congress 60 days to review any final deal. During that time, Obama could lift sanctions imposed through presidential action, but would be prevented from easing any sanctions levied by Congress.

“Under the compromise, the congressional review period would be shortened. There would be a 30-day initial congressional review period. Twelve more days would be added if Congress passed a bill and sent it to the president. There would be additional 10 days during which the president could veto it — something he has already threatened to do.

“Moreover, if the deal is submitted after July 9 — a short time after the final agreement is to be reached on June 30 — the review period would revert to 60 days. Under the compromise bill, the president would be required to certify to Congress every 90 days that Iran is complying with terms of any final agreement.”

Nuncupatory.

(h/t Jack Vance)

When Deb and I were just beginning our relationship, we decided to try writing a book together.  We came up with a plot and characters, and then I started writing a first draft, wherein Deb would trail along behind me by about a chapter, revising the work.

After a while, I noticed she could not abide …

Well, hold it here: how many readers are starting to nod and think they know where this is going?  Everyone’s hand UP!   It’s all about sentence construction, isn’t it?  Short declarative sentences are the goal, the more complex forms are to be avoided as they can lead to confusion!

And … it’s boring.

Let me add a thought to this drab, watery mix: artists, by and large, are novelty seekers, from the lass who constructed a tent upon which she appliqued the names of every lover she’d had, to the guy who wrapped islands in plastic and called it art.  From this I project they take inspiration for the communication of the obscure, or otherwise, impulses motivating their art.

Let’s poke this metaphor down the road to the next inn, which is the House of Datedness.  Deb and I were talking about this the other day, but did not arrive at any definite conclusion: what makes something dated? I personally entertain two possibilities, one of which isn’t particularly germane as it refers to tangible objects (the essence of the thought being, if the materials used begin degrading without excess usage, then the object may be dated; think faded, warped plastic), but the second impinges on this conversation as it both provides a provisional definition and also casts a shadow at an operationality of interest.  But let me approach this obliquely, reversing the flow of time:

Today’s dated fashion was yesterday’s exciting innovation.

Seems obvious, doesn’t it?  But let’s reconsider – it’s only an assertion, not an explanation.  So … what makes a fashion dated?  I suggest that a fashion, an intellectual concept, may, to take a concept from mathematics (dangerous, that, skirling near the edge of tolerance of some beloved readers), contain a countable number of interesting perturbations, or an infinity (countable or not) of interesting perturbations.  The former, when their ways are exhausted, become … dated.  We’ve seen them all, or at any rate, the interesting variants.  The latter, while sometimes resulting in resemblance, don’t seem to become dated; the variations are infinite, if you’ll excuse the repetition, and, in a good fashion, attractive to the human mind.

If you’ve persevered this far, your mind may be prepared: hence the thesis, that there are fashions in writing, and a literary fashion can be countable.  Thus, genres; thus, dead genres.  But let’s deconstruct this to the title of this post, Sentence Construction.  Today’s fashion is the short, declarative sentence: get to the point.  So … sentences can be used for many purposes: describing a scene, conveying a fact, conveying a falsehood as a fact (just exploring a crack, there) … sprinkle in a few more, and let’s end with conveying someone’s mental state.

We use font changes as a dull bludgeon: here!  pay attention!  I’m saying something important!  But this is not always available, and, as suggested, it has the exactitude of a fire axe.  Not to put too fine a point on it.  But. as a writer, particularly during the fictional tome of earlier mention, I find myself considering what I’m writing and why I’m writing it; I’m trying to convey a thought of possibly some delicacy; not in the old-fashioned sense that someone’s powdering their nose (although, a visual of John Wayne applying a spot of powder over the sink is a trifle intriguing), but in that attempt to really elicit in the reader a reaction, whether an intellectual trembling, or a feeling, or something far more primal.

And today’s writing works against this.  We write in short, declarative sentences.  We restrict ourselves to verbs and adjectives found in common discourse.  The readers may run in fright if faced with an unfamiliar word, unless, of course, it’s newly constructed: verbing a noun, for instance.  Yes?  Our bricks of communications are our sentences, but whereas an unusual brick may cause a crisis in a house, we need to consider the results of using a dull brick in our communications:

Our communications become dull.

The readers eyes skip along, pattern matching sentences, assigning meanings based on partial readings, skimming and … maybe they lose the thread.  How many font changes can I introduce, can emoticons help my cause?  Not really; they are cheap theatrics.

Normal bricks are necessary, even in creative writing.  But when it comes to making an important point, I find I closely examine the writing leading up to it and begin to wonder, Does the reader realize something important is happening?  An analogy to music employed in TV and movies comes to mind, which I will let the interested reader pursue, as the point here is how to achieve a similar effect using mere words.  To continue the main path, I discover myself rewording: changing the arrow of time by stating result, and then cause.  Combing opposite words, which the reader might reject initially, to initiate a thought sequence.  Using a complex sentence, not because I’m in a hurry and disdain the backspace key, but to lead the reader’s mind down a path, to show them forks in that path, to prime their mind for what’s to come by associating deliberately selected concepts as closely as I can, to oppose them in selected ways to evoke feelings, reactions, deductions, conclusions).  Make them go back and reread carefully, because none of the patterns are matching.

And then word selection, perhaps the most common subject: short words when rapid action is occurring; but permitting the luxury of words which may currently be out of favor otherwise: not only does it bring a flavor of exoticity (although exoticity itself is, no doubt, a sad overreach), which some, such as Hemingway, might disdain, but to recall that a synonym doesn’t necessarily mean precisely the same, but brings a flavor to a meaning unavailable in the original, or any other synonym.  Selection of key words to make the reader think, opposing them to get the readers’ attention, and building a path of concepts: Sentence Construction.

Knowing when to use them, that’s the key, now isn’t it?  I once told my sister that I don’t analyze, I zen.  That’s what I have to do when I write in order to get close to communicating.

And, yet, this is all done against the canvas, if you will, of current writing: today’s newspapers, journals, magazines, blogs, and graffiti.  What I have just advocated will, if it were taken seriously, become … dated.  And then we’ll start swinging back to the short, declarative sentences because they are more effective.

And why?  Because, as this entry just made clear, novelty gets the attention of the reader.  Not only of subject, but of medium.  And novelty is defined by context, and our context is time, canvas, and a thousand million fingers, tapping away …

And why do I blog?  To get this crap out of my mind and onto a plate, where it can be a big steaming pile of …

(Complaints concerning my command of grammar are commended to the trash can; I have never been able to diagram a sentence, and have always had trouble distinguishing an object from a subject.)

(Exotic word choices and sentence rhythms inspired by Jack Vance, 1916 – 2013.  There’s a reason I reread him more than any other writer.  Someone aspirate the reason for me.)

Hillary announced her widely expected run yesterday, and the liberals are, of course, showering her with accolades.  Exactly why The Gay Blade @ The Daily Kos wants to reveal Hillary’s strategy to the public is sort of puzzling, though:

The candidate doesn’t even appear in the ad for the first 90 seconds. The visuals are a snapshot of very likable people, your fellow Americans, going about their daily lives. The mix of people is diverse, middle class and represent broad archetypes that will resonate with the average viewer. The characters depicted are real, approachable and totally believable. These people are your friends and your neighbors and they slip Hillary Clinton, someone who is most definitely not middle class, into this river of average Americana. Yet, for all its technical perfection, that’s not the real brilliance of the piece.

The real brilliance of this piece is that it’s inviting Republicans to stick their head in a noose. It’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that Republicans will respond with attack ads. By being so consistent, the GOP has made themselves predictable and this ad is calculated to capitalize on the contrast.

TGB goes on to explore how the ad will be used to tie up the GOP candidates into a package and make them look like fools.

Granted, The Daily Kos is a progressive website, but to be honest, it seems to me that this sort of strategy, if indeed it is the strategy du jour, is little more than an attempt to score cheap points – and that’s barely useful in an election.  If all you’re trying to do is stir up your own side, well, it’s a little early in the game, and the independents may not see it the same way as the partisans on your side.

And the Republicans and right leaners?  Ideally, you want to find a way to persuade the moderates that Hillary is not a lunatic, and that whatever mistakes she’s made, such as voting with the neocons for the disastrous Iraqi War, she has repented.  Indeed, the willingness to admit to errors, to rue them, and to try to do better may make a superb contrast with the possible GOP strategy of never saying you’re sorry.  Granted, that would be a very difficult theme to introduce; in fact, if they’re smart they’ll let the GOP throw the mud, pick their favorite and say, Yeah, I screwed up on that.  The Iraqi War might be ideal – I can see Hillary standing up and saying,

Yes, I voted with the Republicans for that war, and that’s the biggest mistake I ever made.  All they can think of is making War, wasting our lives, while we hold out our hands in peace.

Obama’s setting herself up for such a theme with the Iran and Cuba deals.

Previously, NewScientist reported on a research project at Google, moving from their PageRank system to (for lack of a better word) TruthRank.  Now NewScientist’s Feedback (21 March 2015) (paywall) column reports on a new hazard to be scaled:

RANKING internet search results according to how well they reflect “facts the web unanimously agrees on” (28 February, p 24)? What could possibly go wrong?

Adrian Ellis wrote to ask about something the web is unanimous on: that glass is really a very thick liquid (14 March, p 54). Well before the ink was dry on his letter, a colleague asked a FWSE (famous web search engine) about this.

It shot back: “Antique windowpanes are thicker at the bottom, because glass has flowed to the bottom over time… Glass is a supercooled liquid. Glass is a liquid that flows very slowly.”

At first glance, the web page it was quoting seems to exemplify a core Feedback hypothesis: that the internet holds many false beliefs, the more fruitloopy of which we catalogue.

However, closer inspection reveals a different flavour. The above text is from a page (bit.ly/GlassLegend) entitled “Glass: Liquid or Solid – Science vs. an Urban Legend”. It is in fact debunking the ideas quoted. This is a prime example of artificial stupidity. The search ranking system cannot tell the difference between myths and statements that mention them.