There Must Be a Common Thread Here

Three links tonight with a common thread and I refuse to acknowledge any fault if I can't identify what that common thread might be.

One, "clans," as anatomized by Marc S. Weiner in describing his new book, which I haven't heard of until today  but now hope to read.  Put it in context: we all grew up on de Tocqueville, arguing that it is "intermediate institutions"--families, communities, churches, voluntary societies and suchlike that provide the ligaments of civic life.  Without these intermediate institutions we would all stand naked before the raw power of the leviathan.  Weiner's argument can be read as a response and rebuttal to de Tocqueville.  It is the state that guarantees our freedom, he argues, and the enemy of that freedom is the clan.  

Why the clan?  In Weiner's telling, the norm of the clan is the clan itself.  Preserving the honor of the clan trumps liberty.   If, for example (my example) our cousin has an improper sexual relationship, why then it is quite right to kill her because she has brought dishonor on the clan.  

It;s a refreshing argument, this sketch of "statist libertarianism, and it is refreshing to see it taken seriously over at the libertarian mother church, the Cato Institute.  Try tying it together (though I don't know how) with Suzanne Berger's Boston Review piece headed "How Finance Gutted Manufacturing.,"  The title is a bit of a stretch but the piece itself is a fascinating threnody to old-fashioned vertical integration.  Or more precisely to an enterprise that understood itself as woven into the fabric of its community and whose managers (but not its outside investors) wanted it to stay that way.  She fringes upon, though the does not specifically mention, the hallowed Coasean debate about "command" versus "contract" in the enterprise, and gives a plausible account of how or why we might have lost something important by shifting away from command.  Some  interesting responses also, including an oddly wrong-headed piece by Dean Baker in which he talks about German owners being "stuck with" their workers, whereas it seems that German owners have come to understand their work force as an asset worth preserving.

And finally, Dave weighs in with a link to The Atlantic's piece on Angry Young Men. "Won't be news to Buce readers," he says.    He's right: I've talked before about the anarchic energy of, say, Sherman's veterans or the young bucks without steadying adult hands on the Polish-Ukranian frontier--or the very absence of young bucks as promoting pacific resolution and good public order in Switzerland.  And upper body strength and the need, or lack of need, therefore. Still not sure I see the connection but I suppose there is something here  about old-fashioned men's work and the state as guarantor of order and of marauding gangs as a form of clan.

*****

We'll Huff and We'll Puff...

My cousin Dave, away from New England near 70 years now, takes delight in his latest discovery:

“Never forget that it is we New Yorkers and New Englanders who have the monopoly of whatever oxygen there is in the American continent.”

― Van Wyck Brooks.  My  mother had ol' Brooksie on display in the living room, as a mark of intellectual distinction.  I wonder how many people have any idea today who he was.

Flash Music

So my cousin Dave shipped me this lovely bit of flash music from the Plaça de Sant Roc in Barcelona.  It's wonderful in its own right and it brought back happy memories of the day just a couple of years ago when Mrs. B and I trooped through the same square with a couple of adolescents: we elders had to yield up assorted articles of clothing so the nubile 18-year-old could pass the modesty and decency test for entry into the old church.

Mrs. B shipped Dave's clip off to the other adolescent who was with us in Barcelona; he graciously responded with a favorite of his own.  I  guess I have said before, I am totally in the tank for flash music, particularly flash opera.  Duly prompted I went looking for more exemplars to share back.

I did find some, but I also picked up a bit of unintended education.  Some takeaways: one, there are a lot of flash-whatevers: the number is growing, rapidly if perhaps not quite exponentially.  Two, they vary: some really wonderful, a few kind of bad and most--well, most pretty much you would expect "most" to be. And three, sad to say I think I can descry the viper of commercialism.  There seems to be an ad agency somewhere that can produce you a flash performance that looks just like Disney, or  maybe it is Disney (I choose not to link).

Another point, really a new-to-me insight: some  items lend themselves to flash better than others.  The "Ode to Joy," supra, works nicely.  It seems a particular favorite is Orff's Carmina Burana and I guess I can see why: big chorus, lots of noise and drama. Here's an  an appealing rendition, from the Westbahnhof in Vienna. Here's another, this from Indianapolis (seems de rigeur for the location shot to show the crowds going about their business all innocent before the music pops).

The opera standards are popular.  There's plenty of Mozart, including this from Aix.  Also Verdi; here's a bit from SFO under the name of "pop-up opera," which seems right for the occasion.  Carmen, of course; here's a gratifyingly underproduced version from the grand old Spanish city of, um, Edinburgh.  Here's another, this from Grenoble, mostly a one-person performance but I'd say the girl is good.

Indeed all good stuff, although for a real flash mob, I'd have to admit it is best to have something more, like, flash.  So it just may be the grand prize ought to go to this one from the Cape Cod Stop 'n Shop (and a tip o' the cornet mute to  my sister Sally, who sent it to me from next door in South Harwich).

Update:  And here is a more general introduction to flashmob culture.

Metaphysics: Don't Try This at Home

It's junk mail, but kinda cute--from my cousin Dave:

I won't believe corporations are people until Texas executes one 

Cute, except the sovereign already has executed at least one corporation for high crimes, and that in a Texas-based episode, too.  Of course I'm thinking of Arthur Andersen, sent to old sparky in 2002 for its role  in the Enron meltdown.  The decision to abolish one of the minuscule number of public auditing firms always struck me asthe dumbest one of the many dumb public policy decisions of the last decade--traceable in part, I have always suspected, to a confused notion of just what a corporate being might be (same reason I've got no use for the corporate income tax.

Meanwhile, UB's ever-watchful Wichita bureau notes that Pat Robertson's advice that you can ditch your Alzheimer's-afflicted spouse is based on some kind of notion that s/he's no longer a sentient being. Would Robertson use the same reasoning to excuse like, oh, say abortion?  No, no need to answer that.

Change We Can Believe In

My Cousin Dave asks:  What do you think of this?

Thilo Sarrazin, the German Social Democrat who attracted attention last year with his controversial book claiming that immigrants to Germany were dumbing down the country, will not be booted out of the party

Link.

Ha, you know want to know what I think?  I think the German Social Democrats just noticed that the "True Finn Party"  captured 19 percent of the seats in the Finnish Parliament. 

Must be all the Salt Fish

I'm having a glorious time with Asgeir Jonsson's Why Iceland? which  I picked up because I wanted to learn how a country smaller than Anaheim could immure itself in a world-class banking mess. I am learning a bit about Icelandic banking, but my inquiries have also disclosed:

• The poster bad boy of the Icelandic meltdown (yuk yuk) is one Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson, mercifully called "Thor." His mother is the niece of the once-Bishop of Iceland, and the former wife of the late George Lincoln Rockwell, America's most famous avowed Nazi.

• The prime minister of Iceland is the first (and only?) leader of any nation in a same sex marriage.  

• The first lady (wife of the President) is the daughter of a distinguished family of Israeli/Bukharan Sephardic Jews.

• Okay, so you knew all that. But did you know about this (H/T to my cousin Dave, an 86-year-old boaster).

More about bank failure later.  

Background on Radiation Damage

My cousin Dave directs mus to a crisp and succinct briefer on the how and why of radiation damage,   The main takeway is that the Japanese do seem to be making the best of a bad thing, unlike those charged with cleaning up over what is still the worst modern civilian nuclear disaster.Here's a taste:

[S]ome of the emergency workers at Chernobyl received several sieverts of radiation, and many were working "basically naked" due to the heat, allowing contaminated powder to be absorbed through their skin. In comparison, the Japanese workers are most likely very well-equipped and protected at least from direct skin doses.

Also:

The thousands of children who became sick in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster were not harmed from direct radiation or even from inhalation of radioactive particles, but from drinking milk contaminated with cesium 137. The isotope, released by the Chernobyl explosion, had contaminated the grass on which cows fed, and the radioactive substance accumulated in cows' milk. Parents, unaware of the danger, served contaminated milk to their children. "Certainly this will not happen in Japan," [a commenter] says.

Am I the Last Guy in the World to Know This?

Charlie Sheen was born an Estevez, as was his father Martin.   That much I knew.  What I didn't know: it was Martin who chose the name Sheen after the TV figure he so much admired, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen.

I certainly do remember the Bishop. On our high school class trip, we went to New York City. A plurality of my class mates voted that we attend a live shooting of the Sheen show. I snuck away to peek in at the city room of the New York Times (in those days, apparently no security guards.)

But my cousin Dave adds something about the Bishop I did not know: Dave recalls the other great TV personality of that generation, Milton Berle, known to friend and foe alike as Uncle Miltie. Dave points out that the Bishop became known as Uncle Fultie. For those who need further education on the topic: 

Welcome, DeLong Throng

Follow Me, Men!

..to your one stop shop for nothing in particular.  That's our problem--branding--unless you can identify an audience for "attention surplus disorder "  An "underrated" ranking from  DeLong is too kind, although the tag "law professor" is somewhat misleading: it is true that I've been on the coal face down here at the law school man and boy these 40-plus years now but after all that time I'm pretty much of a busted flush on law: I would rather talk about Caravaggio or Shakespeare or Verdi or Genghis Khan.   And more, oh so much more: I offer a nomination for The Luckiest Horse in the Fifth Millennium BCE, and The Biggest Fathead in the Second Millennium AD,  plus the predictable mindless yapping  and the occasional absurdly misguided prediction.

Oh, and at no extra charge you get The Wichita Bureau,  The Alabama Bureau, My Cousin Dave, my sister Sally, my friend Joel,   my friend Toni and the twins, Ignoto and Ignota.  Oh and of course, acute or acerb asides from Mrs. Buce.

So wallow and disport yourself ad libitum.  And as the serving maid said to Prince Philip--"Save your fork, ducks--there's pie!" 

I'm Still Trying to Figure Out What's Wrong with This

My cousin Dave points out that 23 percent of all auto accidents are alcohol-related.  Therefore, reasons Dave, stay away from people who don't drink.  They cause three times as many accidents.

Oh, is That Backwards?

From the selected curses of my cousin Dave:

May your kids all wear their baseball caps backwards at your funeral.

You Didn't Read it in Archie Comics

My 84-year-old cousin Dave is waxing nostalgic for high school:

As a high school student I remember a boy, an athlete, with a name from central casting: Soc Babotas. I didn't know him but I so admired that name. I envisioned book titles. Soc Babotas and his Electric Canoe. Soc Babotas in Yellowknife. Soc Babotas and his adventure with Anacondas. All these dreams must have been when I was freshman. By senior year I surely was thinking, Soc Babotas Gets Laid.

Elecric canoe?

Update: John thinks the electric canoe may come from the Tom Swift novels. A plausible guess, but it's not on the Wiki list, although we do get runabout, rifle and locomotive. And here's this:

The name "taser" was originally "TSER", for "Tom Swift Electric Rifle". The invention was named after the central device in Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle (1911),

Link.

Update to Update: Oh, wait, it's this guy.

I Would Have Said "Since McKinley Was Shot"

My cousin Dave is 84, and shows signs of going cranky:

I just returned from a short visit to Victoria BC A one word description of Victoria might be "Civilized" Visiting was like stepping into a time warp

Here is a partial list of things I didn't see or hear at all, or in diminished amounts:

Beggars. Louts. Oafs. Graffiti. Obesity. Dirty streets.

Dirty public toilets Butt cracks. Women with big hair.

Trucks with lifts. Loud car radios. Loud obscene language. Smog. Bumper stickers. Sirens. We even saw some teen aged boys skate boarding and guess what: They were respectable kids!!!

My mind drifted back in the mists of time Where had I seen such a society before?

Gradually, the answer came to me The USA circa 1960's

The experience reminded me of a long held conviction: USA started a long cultural decline that day after Jack Kennedy was shot and we've never completely recovered our moral society.

Trucks with lifts?

Teabaggers: A Hasty Response

My cousin Dave, an Obamaniac, reads accounts of the mischief of the Teabaggers and says: "These stories worry me How about you?" Here's a hasty and ill considered and totally off the top of the head response:

Sure they do. I will concede/assert a few complicating points.

1. Radical lefties have done it too. Of course. So what? Just because your big brother engages in a dangerous flirtation with fascist hoodlumism, does that mean you have to do so too?

2. Protesters have legitimate concerns. So far as one can tell, true,although they don't always make it easy to determine just what it is they want. I suspect that for the most part these are people who fear paying more for less. This is a legitimate concern, and may even be a realistic possibility. But you'd think they'd have some knack for making their points more explicitly (cf. get your government hands off my Medicare, oh tee hee). And you'd think they might have some minimal inquire as to whether, e.g., President Obama really does favor the compulsory killing of old people.

3. The Dems have done a piss poor job of trying to respond to such legitimate criticisms as there may be. One impediment here is they don't have any idea what they intend to do themselves. This makes it hard to come up with a response. It also excites paranoia--no information always does more harm than any information.

4. My own guess is that the best the Dems will come up with is a little bit more of the same--somewhat expanded coverage, st somewhat higher cost, and heaven knows on whose toe the cost ingot will drop. This is not a program likely to mollify the protesters. Ironically, it won't mollify Obama's warmest supporters either, who are already demoralized to observe that he doesn't walk on water.

Afterthought: Teabaggers? GTeabaggers? Isn't that somebcdy's idea of a bad joke?

What McCain Needs to Learn

The best thing the Dems can hope for right now is that McCain will tire as the campaign progresses, on the order of Bob Dole in 1996. We'll notice that his wife helps him down the jetway. He may throw a rake at a kid. When Dole fell during the '96 campaign, someone quipped that he could have bailed it all out if he had come up saying "Live from New York, it's Saturday night!" McCain had better learn to say "Live from New York, it's Saturday night!"

Update: My cousin Dave suggess "live from Sedona!"

Worshipping at the Porcelain Shrine

My cousin Dave brings me up to date on what I've missed while I was away:

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. (AP) - When tourists ask for the bathroom in the Minneapolis airport lately, it's usually not because they have to go.

It's because they want to see the stall made notorious by U.S. Sen. Larry Craig's arrest in a sex sting.

"It's become a tourist attraction," said Karen Evans, information specialist atthe Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. "People are taking pictures."

Craig was arrested June 11 by a Minneapolis airport police officer. The Idaho Republican pleaded guilty to misdemeanour disorderly conduct. Craig has since said his guilty plea was a mistake. His request to withdraw the guilty plea will be heard Sept. 26, just four days before he has said he will step down from his Senate seat.

Just 15 minutes into her shift Friday, Evans said she had been asked directions to the new tourist attraction four times. Other airport workers field the same question.

"It's by the Lottery shop, right next to the shoeshine shop," said newsstand worker Abdalla Said, adding he gets the question daily.

The Royal Zino Shoeshine shop owner's grandson, Royal Zino, said it has been hectic.

"People have been going inside, taking pictures of the stall, taking pictures outside the bathroom door - man, it's been crazy," he said. On their way to Guatemala, Jon and Sally Westby of Minneapolis made a visit. "We had to just stop and check out the bathroom," Sally said. "In fact, it's Jon's second time - he was here last week already."

F'Gods Sake, How?

My cousin Dave hears that Elizabeth Edwards embarrassed Ann Coulter on the Chris Matthews show.

Dave is skeptical; he says it can't be done. Dave remembers the two old sourdoughs:

OSD 1 I just shot Joe

OSD 2 F'Gods sake Why

OSD 1 He insulted my gal

OSD 2 F'Gods sake, How?

For the main event, go here and/or here.

Kalle Anka

Okay, so have you had it with A Wonderful Life? Thoughtcha did. You want some real Christmas culture? Then carry yourself away to Sweden, where every Christmas afternoon they settle down to a session of Kalle Anka Och Hans Vänner Önskar God Jul--that would be Donald Duck And His Friends Wish You A Merry Christmas. Evidently the government tried to crack down on it as unseemly--which ought to have been predictible as the most futile use of government resources since "Whip Inflation Now " buttons.

I'm not sure this (with a bit of chipmunk-on-chipmunk action, if I read it right) is the right one, but it ought to be close: link. Enjoy, and if you can find the real link, give me a headsup.

Footnote: My cousin Dave weighs in with this one. Hint: Fjuckby.