Sunday Poem-Donald Justice: Men At Forty

June 17, 2012 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Men At Forty

Men at forty
Learn to close softly
The doors to rooms they will not be
Coming back to.

At rest on a stair landing,
They feel it moving
Beneath them now like the deck of a ship,
Though the swell is gentle.

And deep in mirrors
They rediscover
The face of the boy as he practises tying
His father’s tie there in secret

And the face of the father,
Still warm with the mystery of lather.
They are more fathers than sons themselves now.
Something is filling them, something

That is like the twilight sound
Of the crickets, immense,
Filling the woods at the foot of the slope
Behind their mortgaged houses.

–Donald Justice

Thanks to a reader for sending this in.

Adam Garfinkle At The American Interest on Egypt: ‘Still More of the Same—and Something New’

June 17, 2012June 19, 2012 / chr1 / 2 Comments

Full post here.

From a Reuters article as Egypt holds elections:

‘Both contenders may herald further turbulence. An Islamist president will face a mistrustful army, while a victory by a Mubarak-era general will rile the revolutionaries on the street.’

and from Garfinkle’s piece:

No one knows where this will all lead. The satyrs of history are on the loose again. Many say that, after Tahrir Square, Egypt will never be the same. And that is true: Egyptians have dared to dream that things could be different, better, and that their own hands and hearts could make a difference. But most likely, in two or three years’ time Egypt will look for all practical purposes very much the same as it did before the so called revolution’

And a previous quote from Walter Russell Mead:

‘What we are seeing in the streets of Cairo is less a revolution seeking to take shape than a haggling process. The leaders of the Egyptian political parties want to be able to choose all the parliamentary candidates through naming them to parliamentary lists. That would make party leaders the chief power brokers in a parliamentary regime. The military wants more MPs to be elected as individuals, weakening the parties and making it easier for the real powers in the country to manipulate the parliamentary process.’

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Update: The Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Mursi claims victory with 52% of the vote…we’ll see how this goes from here as the military is unlikely to transfer power to the office of the Presidency. Where has there been a deep transformation in Egyptian society…deep enough to embark on a bold new path of representative government?:

The Shafiq campaign rejected Morsi’s claim of victory and accused him to trying to “usurp” the presidency or lay the groundwork to challenge the official result if it shows Shafiq winning

Another Update: Mubarak suffers a stroke.

Francis Fukuyama At The American Interest Online: ‘Political Order in Egypt’

Walter Russell Mead At The American Interest: ‘Mubaraks, Mamelukes, Modernizers and Muslims’……James Kirchik At The American Interest: ‘Egyptian Liberals Against the Revolution’

Ronald Bailey At Reason: ‘Rio +20 Earth Summit: Is Sustainable Development Still Sexy? ‘

June 15, 2012June 21, 2012 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Full piece here.

Bailey will go to Rio +20 and be reporting from the summit:

‘According to the U.N., the Future We Want is the Green Economy. However, a sizeable percentage of environmental activists going to the conference believe that the Green Economy is merely more corporate capitalism in green-face.’

Biting the hand which they have trained to feed…

I imagine the large bureaucratic structure required to deliver such “sustainable” goals might decide there needs to be more bureaucracy and more summits. Of course, it too will have to meet up with the private sector eventually (mining, natural resources, oil, manufacturing in many countries fortunate enough to be developing) if only through taxation and regulation.

For some activists this [is] too much collusion with the capitalist enemy (too often crony capitalist as Bailey points out, which is another outcome of their influence on capital markets..not that capital markets are perfect…they’re just being tied to many activists with a Left-Of Center political philosophy to which these summits are a but a vehicle).

An equal, fair, naturally balanced world awaits…

Update: As a reader writes, there’s only so far the libertarian model goes here…many mines are nationalized, and most natural resources controlled by whomever is in charge for the time being. Still, aside from the science, the interest of many Leftists (and beneath them outright communists in some cases) has loosely affiliated its goals with attaching itself to climate science and the new secular doomsday scenario.

Update: Bailey writes here:

Consider paragraph 40, which reads: “We call for holistic and integrated approaches to sustainable development which will guide humanity to live in harmony with nature and lead to efforts to restore the health and integrity of the Earth’s ecosystem.” What can that possibly mean?

Related On This Site: Well, maybe not: Jonathan Adler At The Atlantic: ‘A Conservative’s Approach to Combating Climate Change’ Monbiot invokes Isaiah Berlin and attacks libertarians: From George Monbiot: ‘How Freedom Became Tyranny’…A Few Thoughts On Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts Of Liberty”…

Instead of global green governance, what about a World Leviathan…food for thought, and a little frightening: At Bloggingheads Steven Pinker Discusses War And Thomas Hobbes…

Ronald Bailey At Reason: ‘Delusional in Durban’…A Few Links On Environmentalism And Liberty

Joel Kotkin At Forbes: ‘Is Perestroika Coming In California?’

June 14, 2012June 14, 2012 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Full post here.

‘California’s “progressive” approach has been enshrined in what is essentially a one-party state that is almost Soviet in its rigidity and inability to adapt to changing conditions. With conservatives, most businesses and taxpayer advocates marginalized, California politics has become the plaything of three powerful interest groups: public-sector unions, the Bay Area/Silicon Valley elite and the greens.’

So much for economic “sustainability,” at least during the Recession.

California’s anti-immigration, anti-union Democrat: Full video and background on Mickey Kaus here.

Related On This Site: Some concentrated wealth on top, a stalled legislature with members who know how to play the game…and a service sector beneath…that probably can’t go on forever: Joel Kotkin Via Youtube: ‘Illinois Is In A Competition’…From The WSJ: ‘Joel Kotkin: The Great California Exodus’…

The people who promise solutions to poverty and homelessness seem to be engaged in a utopian cost-shifting exercise which favors their interests and overlooks crime, violence and personal responsbility…hardly a way to balance the budget: Repost-Heather MacDonald At The City Journal: ‘The Sidewalks Of San Francisco’

Richard Epstein At The Hoover Institution’s Defining Ideas: ‘California’s Kafkaesque Rent Control Laws’

…California Dreamers From The Atlantic-A Brief Review Of Kevin Starr’s History Of California

Thursday Quotation: Jeane Kirkpatrick – J.S. Mill

June 14, 2012July 25, 2012 / chr1 / 1 Comment

Sent in by a reader:

In his essay Representative Government, Jon Stuart Mill identified three fundamental conditions which the Carter administration would do well to ponder. These are: “One, that the people should be willing to receive it [representative government]; two, that they should be willing and able to do what is necessary for its preservation; three, that they should be willing and able to fulfill the duties and discharge the functions which it imposes on them.”

-From Dictatorship And Double Standards.

Is there an Obama doctrine…and according to what ideals…American progressive liberal internationalist?

One risk is that we unwittingly reward too much aggressive and destabilizing behavior by say, Iran, in the name of shifting America toward more such ideals, coalition building, and essentially transferring our power to international institions that don’t necessarily secure our interests.

Iran getting the bomb is not a good option for us, and certainly not for Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Are we seeing a mix of old school American modernist foreign policy (all Arab countries are pretty much the same, a mess, so let’s bring more democracy) with a liberal internationalist twist? A neo-neo colonialism?

If we support overthrowing Gadhafi, why not Assad? Do we still have to pretend that being vigilant observers of what’s going on in Syria is a proxy for the current administration’s unwillingness to address what’s going on there?

It seems the Western lens has been shifted to preferred ideals and policy prescriptions that are quite liberal during the current administration. As for the merits of such policies, that’s up for debate. What are our interests? How do we secure them?

Adam Garfinkle has more here on Syria (even Yemen and Syria are vastly different, as he points out).

Charlie Rose Episode On Libya Featuring Bernhard Henri-Levy, Les Gelb And Others…A Few Thoughts On Watching Operations In Libya

From NASA’s Mars Program: ‘NASA Mars Rover Team Aims For Landing Closer To Prime Science Site’

June 13, 2012 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Full post here.

‘Curiosity is scheduled to land at approximately 10:31 p.m. PDT Aug. 5 (1:31 a.m. EDT, Aug. 6).’

and

‘The landing target ellipse had been approximately 12 miles wide and 16 miles long (20 kilometers by 25 kilometers). Continuing analysis of the new landing system’s capabilities has allowed mission planners to shrink the area to approximately 4 miles wide and 12 miles long (7 kilometers by 20 kilometers), assuming winds and other atmospheric conditions are as predicted.’

NASA’s Mars Facebook page here.

From Via Media: ‘The Internet’s Creative Destruction… Of Porn?’

June 12, 2012November 25, 2018 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Full post here.

‘As go porn and print, so goes TV.’

Not that there’s any less of it, but that the old business model isn’t working like it used to.

Related On This Site: Who Reads The Newspapers?…From The New Yorker: Malcolm Gladwell’s “Priced To Sell”…Bill Virgin says newspapers built up their value, and slowly let it die: From The Seattle Post-Intelligencer Via Sound Politics: Why Did The PI Die?.

What about pay sites?: From Denis Pombriant: ‘Reinventing The Newspaper Business Model With Zuora”

William Butler Yeats: “Vacillation”, Verse IV

June 11, 2012November 24, 2016 / chr1 / 4 Comments

My fiftieth year had come and gone,
I sat, a solitary man,
In a crowded London shop,
An open book and empty cup
On the marble table-top.
While on the shop and street I gazed
My body of a sudden blazed;
And twenty minutes more or less
It seemed, so great my happiness,
That I was blessed and could bless.

–William Butler Yeats

Whole poem here.

Via Youtube Via Michael Totten At World Affairs: ‘VICE Guide To Karachi’

June 9, 2012June 9, 2012 / chr1 / 1 Comment

Michael Totten post here.

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What’s life like in a slum in Karachi? Crime bosses provide basic social services and protection for residents and become populist figures, earning the love and fear of the people. The bosses then buy off the police. The corruption is deep, the makers of the film courageous, and perhaps a little nuts. The PPP doesn’t necessarily have control. Good film. Perhaps, what the Karachi government is to the Liyari slum, the Federal government is to the FATA region.

Is the creation of a powerful state (police, law, courts) a necessary step to overcome this basic corruption? If so, is it a matter of timing…and here in the U.S. (Chicago, New York especially) won’t there always remain corruption? Fukuyama’s analysis is deep, but what are the limits of the modern liberal State?: Francis Fukuyama At The American Interest-’The Two Europes’

Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen have plans for America and India to address some of the corruption there, and it may involve much more state involvement here in America by extension. Can you see life, liberty and property from here?: Amartya Sen In The New York Review Of Books: Capitalism Beyond The Crisis

…From Michael Totten: ‘An Interview With Christopher Hitchens’…From Abu Muqawama: ‘Mubarak And Me’…From Michael Totten: ‘The New Egyptian Underground’…Michael Totten At The American Interest: “A Leaner, Meaner Brotherhood”

Update And Repost-A Conversation About Libertarianism

June 7, 2012June 7, 2012 / chr1 / Leave a comment

A socially conservative friend pointed out the following: “Libertarians rise to power against liberalism, because, ultimately, they share the same antipathy toward founding one’s social conventions and morality in the word of God, and the Church. They will turn upon each other to our benefit.”

I’m not sure who he meant by “our,” and I mean this genuinely.

I thought about it: Reason magazine is fiscally conservative, railing against the public sector unions in California and the fiscal hole they’ve helped put California in, yet the very same socially liberal and politically left conditions in California that can make unions possible and certainly more powerful could also shared by many libertarians (a broader definition of liberty anyways). On this view, the society is adrift away from Natural Law and the Church.

Douthat’s The Grand New Party…Ross Douthat At First Principles: ‘The Quest for Community in the Age of Obama: Nisbet’s Prescience’

Nussbaum argues that relgion shouldn’t be a source for the moral laws From The Reason Archives: ‘Discussing Disgust’ Julian Sanchez Interviews Martha Nussbaum…More on Strauss as I’m skeptical of his hermeticism and his strong reaction to Nietzsche and some things he may have missed about the Anglo tradition: From Philosophy And Polity: ‘Historicism In German Political Theory’…From The Selected Writings By And About George Anastaplo: ‘Reason and Revelation: On Leo Strauss’

Maybe if you’re defending religion, Nietzsche is a problematic reference: Dinesh D’Souza And Daniel Dennett at Tufts University: Nietzsche’s Prophesy…… From The Access Resource Network: Phillip Johnson’s “Daniel Dennett’s Dangerous Idea’…Roger Scruton At The WSJ: ‘Memo To Hawking: There’s Still Room For God’ …Theodore Dalrymple In The City Journal: Atheism’s Problems.

How does Natural Law Philosophy deal with these problems, and those of knowledge?