Talk about daytime dramas! Whether it was Socrates or George Bernard Shaw who first said "Youth is wasted on the young", we're getting the best reminder of it since the anti-war protests of the late '60's, during my [ahem] youth. Whether it's the "Occupy" movement, Ron Paul's campaign, college tuition protests, protests over elimination of "file sharing" on the internet, or the silly idea that man has any appreciable effect on "global warming" (now "climate change" cuz the purveyors of this hoax figured out that "warming" wasn't necessarily happening, but gotta maintain the facade that evil man is causing it, whatever "it" is), the commonality is that adherents to each tend to be young.
I'm sure the frustration of the older generation watching the younger one go thru the learning curve has been around since the first cave kid decided to kill a mastadon with his bare hands and ran afoul of reality. At my now-advanced age of 64, it seems clear that the views of the young are formed absent sufficient life experience. Among all the "apps" these days, isn't there a "Life Experience" app? Does the technology not exist to install a bar code reader on the forehead of every newborn and simply scan in benefits of generations of forebearers?
If you watched the latest Republican debate on Fox (can we stop with the debates already?), I'm sure you had the same experience I did when the analysts were tracking the reaction of various demographic groups, one of which arrived via "Twitter" (the best illustration of technology run amok, in my humble opinion). Clearly, to any rational observer, Ron Paul easily came across as the worst of the candidates, even beating out Perry for that honor. He practically melted down trying to explain his Chamberlainesque Golden Rule of foreign policy (if we're nice to them, they'll be nice to us and not cut off our heads). His ideas, while some are attractive in the most cursory sense, are painfully naive. So the analysts are marvelling over the fact that, while everyone else kind of put Paul at the bottom, those replying on "Twitter" consistently rated him at the top. I wonder how many TV's had shoe damage. Clearly those using "Twitter" tend to be young and shazzam! so do Ron Paul's supporters. I mean, who else could get behind policies that have not worked in the 230-odd years of this country's existence?
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Friday, January 6, 2012
Boiling the Frog
The latest bureaucracy headed by a "Czar" in Washington (Consumer Protection) brought into focus for me how we have gotten to the big, expensive, inefficient government that is strangling the country today.
The Founders' original intent was to keep the Federal government as small and unintrusive as possible, which also implied that the people would be on their own to solve most problems that came up. Without getting into the details, this meant issues that were impractical for states or localities to deal with separately, such as national defense, interstate issues, issuing "coinage" (tho the states were not initially prevented from issuing their own), etc. One can see in the content and language of the Constitution an underlying commitment to guard against the infringements on personal liberty that had been suffered under the iron fist of English rule.
Over the years since the founding, problems or opportunities have arisen which begged for a solution. Initially they generally had to do with national defense when we nearly went to war with France during Adams' administration, and did under Madison. National defense implied a national army/navy, which implied federal taxes to pay for it. We almost lost the War of 1812, and prosecution of it was seriously hampered, by the general revulsion against Federal taxes -- not only among the people, but especially in Congress (hard to believe, huh). If not for local efforts to raise state militias, buy arms, build or obtain ships, and even to engage in armed defense under local auspices, we might have lost that War. And the state militias were generally short term and proscribed from fighting beyond their own state's borders. Imagine trying to conduct a war under those conditions!
As time went on, other stuff came up: the Erie Canal in 1816, the Panic (Recession)
of 1837, the trepedations over Mexican abuse of Americans living in the Republic of Texas 1836-1845, the Civil War (oh that), Reconstruction, the need for a national Navy as countries like Japan (1868) and Germany (1871) united and began making noises, labor unrest and abuse beginning in the late 19th Century when the Industrial Revolution had really gotten going, etc. I could bore you with a more complete list, but I'm sure I have accomplished that with this one.
Which gets us to about 1900. This is where we began to run off the rails, slowly at first, but with each derailment justifying the next more serious one. By 1900 the United States was certainly among the most prosperous and powerful nations on earth. The fact that 90% of the US population did not even have indoor plumbing puts it into perspective, but we were very prosperous by the standards of the time. This had happened mostly because industry and invention had flourished unfettered by government red-tape, regulation, and and other interference. People expected to fend for themselves and didn't expect, or want, the Federal Government to do it for them. That laissez-faire approach, however, gave rise to "problems" that, before all that progress, would probably have been accepted as the price for all the good it portended; ie, child labor (so now the 10-year-old kid was working in a factory instead of milking the
cows), employer "abuse" of workers, "corporate greed", the famous meat-packing scandals, corporate monopolies, etc. Few complained at the time, for example, about the "abuse" of the Chinese immigrants who worked on the Transcontinental Railroad, including the Chinese workers themselves, because the rewards were so great for all involved.
But once the fruits of a relatively free economy had settled in and were kind of taken for granted, there was sentiment to address the negatives that had been part of it. The idea that it might not have happened at all without producing the distasteful by-products doesn't seem to have been appreciated.
It is at this point Big Government was born. Big Government was a child at first, not that big and powerful, but along came the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, enacted to address the meat packing abuses exposed by the Muckrakers of the prior decade or so. It's worth mentioning here that each government intrusion is seen as necessary and justifiable at the time. What is not so apparent is the aggregate effect over time of all such justifiable and necessary individual actions/regulations/bureaucracies/expenditures. I'm not going to get into it here, but you can see the Doctrine of Unintended Consequences at work.
Viewed as a continuum, it is evident that the threshhold that "requires" government intervention has been constantly lowered over time. One can see the progression by comparing the government response to the Galveston hurricane of 1900, certainly one of the most disastrous in US history, to each succsssive such natural disaster right on thru Hurrican Katrina. FEMA, SHEMA. They didn't have no stinkin' FEMA in 1900. All recovery activities after the Galveston hurricane of 1900 were private and local, with the exception of use of some Army tents for survivors. The entire town was practically wiped out, folks, but you didn't see "victims" sitting around waiting for their FEMA trailers, food, money, etc, then complaining that it wasn't sufficient. If you look at each successive such hurricane, each was followed by incrementally more government involvement, culminating in Katrina, for which the Federal Government was actually blamed by some of the breathtakingly clueless. Don't that just beat all? Was each of these increases in government assistance good? Again, looking at each in isolation, it probably was; however, in the long-term, big picture it is not.
So back to 1916 and the imposition of the first permanent Federal Income Tax. Lincoln had had the temerity to request enactment of the first one in 1862 to pay for the Civil War (or at least the Union part of it), at the confiscatory rate of 3% and temporary. And guess what . . . it was a flat tax! But I digress.
By 1916 the Federal government had grown sufficiently large, intrusive, and inefficient that it needed a more constant source of revenue. From there it simply grew, with each new "crisis" requiring less and less justification for Federal government intervention. It all got a big boost in 1932 with the New Deal, and again in the 1960's under Lyndon Johnson (Medicare -- to which the high cost of today's healthcare can be directly traced -- welfare (aka "War on Poverty", a futile pursuit if there ever was one), and a bunch of other lovely-sounding, well-intentioned government programs the long term effects of which were either not considered or were misjudged).
So now we have the Consumer Protection Czar. Oy. My problem with it is not the recess appointment nature of it or any other political reason; my problems with it, in no particular order, are that a) it will add another costly bureaucracy to the Federal Gov't; b) it will add another tangle of regulations and oversight, much of which will either duplicate or conflict with existing ones; and c) it will yet further erode the public's ability to fend for itself. None of this is remotely balanced by any benefit to derived from the government taking over responsibility for what citizens are best-equipped to do for themselves. One of the characteristics of the long-forgotten free-economy that made this country the most prosperous in human history is that consumer abuse was self-policing, in that consumers simply stopped patonizing those services they didn't like. That worked great until we got sufficiently comfy that we wanted to alienate that function to government so that, without thinking about it, we would receive the benefit of vigilance without having to be vigilant ourselves. Politicians, ever with an eye to the next election and long gone when the negative consequences arrived, were only too happy to oblige.
And this gets to the root of the issue: each time we get incrementally lazier, there is a price to pay far beyond the salaries of the people we hire to be vigilant in our stead. As I said somewhere else, it all reminds me of Swedish King Gustavus
Adolphus' flagship Vasa which was designed to be the most powerful ship afloat at its launch in 1628. It had cannons in every conceivable place, including the lower deck just above the water line (see any problem here for a sailing ship?) and others crammed onto the upper decks. Each cannon could be justified as it made the ship more powerful. Within an hour of launch it lay on the bottom of Stockholm Harbor, made unseaworthy by the addition of too many cannon. The Federal Government is already under water, primarily from having grown too large, inefficient, unwieldy, and costly.
And we, like the frog put in a pot of cold water, are thankful for each small bit of additional warmth, not mindful that, by the time it becomes uncomfortable, it will be too late.
The Founders' original intent was to keep the Federal government as small and unintrusive as possible, which also implied that the people would be on their own to solve most problems that came up. Without getting into the details, this meant issues that were impractical for states or localities to deal with separately, such as national defense, interstate issues, issuing "coinage" (tho the states were not initially prevented from issuing their own), etc. One can see in the content and language of the Constitution an underlying commitment to guard against the infringements on personal liberty that had been suffered under the iron fist of English rule.
Over the years since the founding, problems or opportunities have arisen which begged for a solution. Initially they generally had to do with national defense when we nearly went to war with France during Adams' administration, and did under Madison. National defense implied a national army/navy, which implied federal taxes to pay for it. We almost lost the War of 1812, and prosecution of it was seriously hampered, by the general revulsion against Federal taxes -- not only among the people, but especially in Congress (hard to believe, huh). If not for local efforts to raise state militias, buy arms, build or obtain ships, and even to engage in armed defense under local auspices, we might have lost that War. And the state militias were generally short term and proscribed from fighting beyond their own state's borders. Imagine trying to conduct a war under those conditions!
As time went on, other stuff came up: the Erie Canal in 1816, the Panic (Recession)
of 1837, the trepedations over Mexican abuse of Americans living in the Republic of Texas 1836-1845, the Civil War (oh that), Reconstruction, the need for a national Navy as countries like Japan (1868) and Germany (1871) united and began making noises, labor unrest and abuse beginning in the late 19th Century when the Industrial Revolution had really gotten going, etc. I could bore you with a more complete list, but I'm sure I have accomplished that with this one.
Which gets us to about 1900. This is where we began to run off the rails, slowly at first, but with each derailment justifying the next more serious one. By 1900 the United States was certainly among the most prosperous and powerful nations on earth. The fact that 90% of the US population did not even have indoor plumbing puts it into perspective, but we were very prosperous by the standards of the time. This had happened mostly because industry and invention had flourished unfettered by government red-tape, regulation, and and other interference. People expected to fend for themselves and didn't expect, or want, the Federal Government to do it for them. That laissez-faire approach, however, gave rise to "problems" that, before all that progress, would probably have been accepted as the price for all the good it portended; ie, child labor (so now the 10-year-old kid was working in a factory instead of milking the
cows), employer "abuse" of workers, "corporate greed", the famous meat-packing scandals, corporate monopolies, etc. Few complained at the time, for example, about the "abuse" of the Chinese immigrants who worked on the Transcontinental Railroad, including the Chinese workers themselves, because the rewards were so great for all involved.
But once the fruits of a relatively free economy had settled in and were kind of taken for granted, there was sentiment to address the negatives that had been part of it. The idea that it might not have happened at all without producing the distasteful by-products doesn't seem to have been appreciated.
It is at this point Big Government was born. Big Government was a child at first, not that big and powerful, but along came the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, enacted to address the meat packing abuses exposed by the Muckrakers of the prior decade or so. It's worth mentioning here that each government intrusion is seen as necessary and justifiable at the time. What is not so apparent is the aggregate effect over time of all such justifiable and necessary individual actions/regulations/bureaucracies/expenditures. I'm not going to get into it here, but you can see the Doctrine of Unintended Consequences at work.
Viewed as a continuum, it is evident that the threshhold that "requires" government intervention has been constantly lowered over time. One can see the progression by comparing the government response to the Galveston hurricane of 1900, certainly one of the most disastrous in US history, to each succsssive such natural disaster right on thru Hurrican Katrina. FEMA, SHEMA. They didn't have no stinkin' FEMA in 1900. All recovery activities after the Galveston hurricane of 1900 were private and local, with the exception of use of some Army tents for survivors. The entire town was practically wiped out, folks, but you didn't see "victims" sitting around waiting for their FEMA trailers, food, money, etc, then complaining that it wasn't sufficient. If you look at each successive such hurricane, each was followed by incrementally more government involvement, culminating in Katrina, for which the Federal Government was actually blamed by some of the breathtakingly clueless. Don't that just beat all? Was each of these increases in government assistance good? Again, looking at each in isolation, it probably was; however, in the long-term, big picture it is not.
So back to 1916 and the imposition of the first permanent Federal Income Tax. Lincoln had had the temerity to request enactment of the first one in 1862 to pay for the Civil War (or at least the Union part of it), at the confiscatory rate of 3% and temporary. And guess what . . . it was a flat tax! But I digress.
By 1916 the Federal government had grown sufficiently large, intrusive, and inefficient that it needed a more constant source of revenue. From there it simply grew, with each new "crisis" requiring less and less justification for Federal government intervention. It all got a big boost in 1932 with the New Deal, and again in the 1960's under Lyndon Johnson (Medicare -- to which the high cost of today's healthcare can be directly traced -- welfare (aka "War on Poverty", a futile pursuit if there ever was one), and a bunch of other lovely-sounding, well-intentioned government programs the long term effects of which were either not considered or were misjudged).
So now we have the Consumer Protection Czar. Oy. My problem with it is not the recess appointment nature of it or any other political reason; my problems with it, in no particular order, are that a) it will add another costly bureaucracy to the Federal Gov't; b) it will add another tangle of regulations and oversight, much of which will either duplicate or conflict with existing ones; and c) it will yet further erode the public's ability to fend for itself. None of this is remotely balanced by any benefit to derived from the government taking over responsibility for what citizens are best-equipped to do for themselves. One of the characteristics of the long-forgotten free-economy that made this country the most prosperous in human history is that consumer abuse was self-policing, in that consumers simply stopped patonizing those services they didn't like. That worked great until we got sufficiently comfy that we wanted to alienate that function to government so that, without thinking about it, we would receive the benefit of vigilance without having to be vigilant ourselves. Politicians, ever with an eye to the next election and long gone when the negative consequences arrived, were only too happy to oblige.
And this gets to the root of the issue: each time we get incrementally lazier, there is a price to pay far beyond the salaries of the people we hire to be vigilant in our stead. As I said somewhere else, it all reminds me of Swedish King Gustavus
Adolphus' flagship Vasa which was designed to be the most powerful ship afloat at its launch in 1628. It had cannons in every conceivable place, including the lower deck just above the water line (see any problem here for a sailing ship?) and others crammed onto the upper decks. Each cannon could be justified as it made the ship more powerful. Within an hour of launch it lay on the bottom of Stockholm Harbor, made unseaworthy by the addition of too many cannon. The Federal Government is already under water, primarily from having grown too large, inefficient, unwieldy, and costly.
And we, like the frog put in a pot of cold water, are thankful for each small bit of additional warmth, not mindful that, by the time it becomes uncomfortable, it will be too late.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Ron Paul
The fact that a guy with the views of Ron Paul has gotten as far as he has says more about the American electorate than it does about him. While I understand the attraction domestically of just wiping away layers of government and "going back to the Constitution", I fear that the main attraction of it is that it's nice and simple and doesn't require actually addressing the issues that would be involved in that.
But forget domestic issues. Just Ron Paul's foreign policy views should eliminate him from serious consideration. The notion that the US can suddenly and unilaterally pull back from most foreign committments (troops stationed overseas, "policing the world", etc) is also attractive in a kind of simple-minded way, but this has never worked going right back to the election of Jefferson in 1800, with plenty of examples in between. Washington's admonition against "entangling foreign alliances" has been widely misunderstood to be advice against a strong military.
While Washington and Adams understood the need for a strong national defense,
Jefferson and Madison did not. It was only Adams' insistence on building those six orignal frigates (Congress, Philadelphia, Chesapeake, Constellation, President, and (blare of trumpets) Constitution) that saved Jefferson's be-hind when the Tripolitan Pirates (Mediterranean), recognizing the newly independent US's inability to protect
its sizeable merchant fleet, demanded "tribute" so they wouldn't attack defenseless merchantmen -- kinda like the Chicago mob. Jefferson was thus able, in his first term, to send several squadrons over "to the shores of Tripoli" and, while staring down the mouth of a cannon, make the Dey and Pasha understand that they weren't all that. Up until then, Jefferson actually wanted to scrap the frigates.
Jefferson's idea was to build a fleet of small (60-90 foot long) gunboats -- a couple hundred or so -- that would swarm enemy warships approaching the coast. He built them. Problem was that this did nothing to prevent Great Britain from absconding with American sailors on defenseless merchant ships on the high seas and "impressing" them into the Royal Navy. The Royal Navy had a huge desertion/recruitment problem during this period, as pay and working conditions were the worst. Their sailors would defect to the much more desirable US Navy at any opportunity, so Britain figured impressment was the only way to man their ships while fighting Napoleon.
So the Royal Navy impressed the heck out of American sailors all thru Jefferson's presidency and Madison's first term, which began in 1809. American sailors were the most attractive because a) England still resented American independence and wanted to strike back any way they could, b) the US Navy was microscopic and couldn't protect them, and c) they spoke English. New England merchants were torn (while trade with England was lucrative, losing their husbands and brothers was not), but the rest of the country done with it. It was about this time (1810-1812) that Madison began to see the virtue of a strong national defense and, in 1812, declared the War of that name upon England . . . who was pretty tied up fighting Napoleon.
There is no question that US military weakness led directly to the War of 1812. This weakness was by choice. Even at that time, the US was one of the most prosperous countries in the world and could easily have afforded a larger navy; however, the post-Revolutionary revulsion against a strong central government was still very much in evidence (the older generation had fought in the Revolutionary War), and Congress was reticent to impose taxes sufficient to build a Navy big enough to do the job. So when war was declared, the War Dept (such as it was) had to scramble around to scrounge up some ships. Some real American heroes emerged
from this War (Thomas Macdonough, Oliver Hazard Perry, Winfield Scott, Thomas Truxton, James "Don't Give Up The Ship" Lawrence, Andrew Jackson, and others), but the War was marked by ineptitude on both sides -- the Americans because they were totally unprepared for war, and the British because a) they underestimated the Americans, and b) they were pre-occupied with France. Oh, and Jefferson's gunboats? They were useless.
The underlying point is that US weakness led Britain to abuse Americans, which would not likely have happened if they'd thought there would be consequences. Same thing with Santa Anna messing with settlers in Texas leading to the Mexican War; same thing with the South thinking the North wouldn't fight the Civil War; same thing
with German disdain for the American military during WW I; add Japanese disdain as a direct inducement to attack Pearl Harbor.
Fast forward to today. Ron Paul's idea of pulling back international commitments, while attractive in a kind of simple-minded way, takes for granted the benefits the US derives from them in deterrence of nascent enemies who don't attack and generally don't screw with the US as long as they can see that we're strong and prepared to strike back. For example, absent US troops in South Korea, does anyone not think that the North would long since have unified the country under one of the lifetime supply of Kims that run it? Does anyone seriously think that the price and/or availability of oil would not be adversely affected absent a US presence in the Middle East? And OMG, Ron Paul doesn't see a problem with Iran having nukes? If Ron Paul were somehow elected, his foreign policy would not survive until his inauguration. I'll bet he actually does see the problems with it, but would rather maintain the purity of his position than deal with reality. Even Obama got more real after seeing that the ridiculous stuff he ran on ("if we're nice to them, they'll be nice to us") doesn't work.
Only the young and/or clueless could support a guy like Ron Paul. The young because they simply do not yet have enough knowledge to understand that the knee-jerk appeal of such ideas in no way makes them applicable to the real world. Clueless covers the rest, but I'm guessing that Ron Paul's supporters are the youngest among any Republican running. They'd have to be to fall for such clap-trap.
But forget domestic issues. Just Ron Paul's foreign policy views should eliminate him from serious consideration. The notion that the US can suddenly and unilaterally pull back from most foreign committments (troops stationed overseas, "policing the world", etc) is also attractive in a kind of simple-minded way, but this has never worked going right back to the election of Jefferson in 1800, with plenty of examples in between. Washington's admonition against "entangling foreign alliances" has been widely misunderstood to be advice against a strong military.
While Washington and Adams understood the need for a strong national defense,
Jefferson and Madison did not. It was only Adams' insistence on building those six orignal frigates (Congress, Philadelphia, Chesapeake, Constellation, President, and (blare of trumpets) Constitution) that saved Jefferson's be-hind when the Tripolitan Pirates (Mediterranean), recognizing the newly independent US's inability to protect
its sizeable merchant fleet, demanded "tribute" so they wouldn't attack defenseless merchantmen -- kinda like the Chicago mob. Jefferson was thus able, in his first term, to send several squadrons over "to the shores of Tripoli" and, while staring down the mouth of a cannon, make the Dey and Pasha understand that they weren't all that. Up until then, Jefferson actually wanted to scrap the frigates.
Jefferson's idea was to build a fleet of small (60-90 foot long) gunboats -- a couple hundred or so -- that would swarm enemy warships approaching the coast. He built them. Problem was that this did nothing to prevent Great Britain from absconding with American sailors on defenseless merchant ships on the high seas and "impressing" them into the Royal Navy. The Royal Navy had a huge desertion/recruitment problem during this period, as pay and working conditions were the worst. Their sailors would defect to the much more desirable US Navy at any opportunity, so Britain figured impressment was the only way to man their ships while fighting Napoleon.
So the Royal Navy impressed the heck out of American sailors all thru Jefferson's presidency and Madison's first term, which began in 1809. American sailors were the most attractive because a) England still resented American independence and wanted to strike back any way they could, b) the US Navy was microscopic and couldn't protect them, and c) they spoke English. New England merchants were torn (while trade with England was lucrative, losing their husbands and brothers was not), but the rest of the country done with it. It was about this time (1810-1812) that Madison began to see the virtue of a strong national defense and, in 1812, declared the War of that name upon England . . . who was pretty tied up fighting Napoleon.
There is no question that US military weakness led directly to the War of 1812. This weakness was by choice. Even at that time, the US was one of the most prosperous countries in the world and could easily have afforded a larger navy; however, the post-Revolutionary revulsion against a strong central government was still very much in evidence (the older generation had fought in the Revolutionary War), and Congress was reticent to impose taxes sufficient to build a Navy big enough to do the job. So when war was declared, the War Dept (such as it was) had to scramble around to scrounge up some ships. Some real American heroes emerged
from this War (Thomas Macdonough, Oliver Hazard Perry, Winfield Scott, Thomas Truxton, James "Don't Give Up The Ship" Lawrence, Andrew Jackson, and others), but the War was marked by ineptitude on both sides -- the Americans because they were totally unprepared for war, and the British because a) they underestimated the Americans, and b) they were pre-occupied with France. Oh, and Jefferson's gunboats? They were useless.
The underlying point is that US weakness led Britain to abuse Americans, which would not likely have happened if they'd thought there would be consequences. Same thing with Santa Anna messing with settlers in Texas leading to the Mexican War; same thing with the South thinking the North wouldn't fight the Civil War; same thing
with German disdain for the American military during WW I; add Japanese disdain as a direct inducement to attack Pearl Harbor.
Fast forward to today. Ron Paul's idea of pulling back international commitments, while attractive in a kind of simple-minded way, takes for granted the benefits the US derives from them in deterrence of nascent enemies who don't attack and generally don't screw with the US as long as they can see that we're strong and prepared to strike back. For example, absent US troops in South Korea, does anyone not think that the North would long since have unified the country under one of the lifetime supply of Kims that run it? Does anyone seriously think that the price and/or availability of oil would not be adversely affected absent a US presence in the Middle East? And OMG, Ron Paul doesn't see a problem with Iran having nukes? If Ron Paul were somehow elected, his foreign policy would not survive until his inauguration. I'll bet he actually does see the problems with it, but would rather maintain the purity of his position than deal with reality. Even Obama got more real after seeing that the ridiculous stuff he ran on ("if we're nice to them, they'll be nice to us") doesn't work.
Only the young and/or clueless could support a guy like Ron Paul. The young because they simply do not yet have enough knowledge to understand that the knee-jerk appeal of such ideas in no way makes them applicable to the real world. Clueless covers the rest, but I'm guessing that Ron Paul's supporters are the youngest among any Republican running. They'd have to be to fall for such clap-trap.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
"Friday" Night Lights at Peninsula High
This is a local Palos Verdes issue, but I guess there is yet another attempt to install lights on the Peninsula High football field. This doesn't affect me personally, as I live several miles from the school; but if you live less than a mile from it or have a view of the City, you'd better pay attention to the effect this will have on you. Have a look at www.darkskiesinpv.weebly.com.
This has been brought up several times during the life of that school, which has never had lights on that field. Each time, including when the school was built, lights were dismissed out of hand as far too big an imposition on the surrounding neighborhoods -- the noise far into the night, the view obstruction of bright lights on 80' poles, scads of cars parked in the surrounding neighborhoods, the traffic and screeching tires, the bands, the fans, the PA -- all will be audible miles from the school, especially at night. My father, Cliff Graham, was on the School Board in 1964 when that school was built, and there was hardly even a debate about installing lights: the disruption to the surrounding neighbors was too onerous and obvious to admit discussion of lights, and far outweighed any hypothetical benefits to the school or kids.
The proponents are disingenuously suggesting that the lights will only be used 5-7 nights per year. Does anyone believe that $500,000 lights are only going to be used 5-7 times per year? They will be used for every excuse. And, by the way, $500,000 spent on lights when the District is discussing laying off teachers? This is a school, not a sports franchise.
The kids will be there for a few years and they and their parents will move on. The surrounding neighbors (of whom roughly 1000 are against this by latest count) will be sentenced to the late night noise, traffic, nighttime view obstruction, security concerns due to all those cars parking on their streets late into the night, etc, for the rest of their lives . . . or until they have to sell their house at a discount because of all of it.
The governing bodies of the past 47 years have all clearly recognized how unfair lights would be to the people living in the surrounding neighborhoods, none of whom bought their homes with the significant baggage of lights on that field, as did none of the light-favoring parents of kids whose high school experience will now somehow be less fulfilling by having to play/attend games in the afternoon. I was one of those kids, and I survived. The negative effects of lights on the owners of those surrounding homes today would be no different than they would have been every time they've been declined since 1964. Are the kids and parents that much more special now than they have been (or than we were)? Are the neighbors commensurately less special? What, exactly, has changed?
Proponents of lights are asking a large number of surrounding homeowners to bear a significant burden for an infinite time period, for the sole, temporary, theoretical, and minor benefit of those who share no part of that burden. It's as unjust and unwise now as it was in 1964.
This has been brought up several times during the life of that school, which has never had lights on that field. Each time, including when the school was built, lights were dismissed out of hand as far too big an imposition on the surrounding neighborhoods -- the noise far into the night, the view obstruction of bright lights on 80' poles, scads of cars parked in the surrounding neighborhoods, the traffic and screeching tires, the bands, the fans, the PA -- all will be audible miles from the school, especially at night. My father, Cliff Graham, was on the School Board in 1964 when that school was built, and there was hardly even a debate about installing lights: the disruption to the surrounding neighbors was too onerous and obvious to admit discussion of lights, and far outweighed any hypothetical benefits to the school or kids.
The proponents are disingenuously suggesting that the lights will only be used 5-7 nights per year. Does anyone believe that $500,000 lights are only going to be used 5-7 times per year? They will be used for every excuse. And, by the way, $500,000 spent on lights when the District is discussing laying off teachers? This is a school, not a sports franchise.
The kids will be there for a few years and they and their parents will move on. The surrounding neighbors (of whom roughly 1000 are against this by latest count) will be sentenced to the late night noise, traffic, nighttime view obstruction, security concerns due to all those cars parking on their streets late into the night, etc, for the rest of their lives . . . or until they have to sell their house at a discount because of all of it.
The governing bodies of the past 47 years have all clearly recognized how unfair lights would be to the people living in the surrounding neighborhoods, none of whom bought their homes with the significant baggage of lights on that field, as did none of the light-favoring parents of kids whose high school experience will now somehow be less fulfilling by having to play/attend games in the afternoon. I was one of those kids, and I survived. The negative effects of lights on the owners of those surrounding homes today would be no different than they would have been every time they've been declined since 1964. Are the kids and parents that much more special now than they have been (or than we were)? Are the neighbors commensurately less special? What, exactly, has changed?
Proponents of lights are asking a large number of surrounding homeowners to bear a significant burden for an infinite time period, for the sole, temporary, theoretical, and minor benefit of those who share no part of that burden. It's as unjust and unwise now as it was in 1964.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Dodger Stadium
While I'm on dangerous ground (see previous post Obsequious Fawning in the media), this whole thing about the San Francisco Giants fan being beaten up by some low-life residents of (I would guess East) LA is distressing on several levels, most of which are obvious.
Now, however, the media is reporting that the family of Brian Stow is filing the inevitable lawsuit against the Dodgers, part of the argument reportedly being that the Dodger organization did not do all it could have done to prevent this sort of thing from happening.
I'm as sympathetic to Brian Stow and his family as anyone, but I remember when Dodger Stadium opened about 1962. There must have been upwards of 100 million fans who have attended Dodger games there since then. How many fan beatings have there been during that time? I honestly can't remember a single other one. It's certainly an exceedingly rare event and one which the Dodger organization has an obvious interest in preventing.
If we can stipulate that fan beatings are so rare that no one can remember another one, on what basis is the attorney for the family going to credibly argue that anything else could or should have been done to prevent it? Seems to me they've been pretty successful. What should they have done -- had armed guards at every gate? Metal detectors? Oh wait, this didn't involve a gun, did it. How many different types of hazards is a business like this supposed to prevent?
This is the kind of
(not to mix my sports metaphors) Monday morning quarterbacking that, as an historian, drives me nuts: "Varus you idiot -- how could you not know the Germans were hanging out in the Teutoburg Forest?"; "Kimmel you ree-tard -- why weren't you ready for the Japanese 0800 7 December 1941?"; "Bainbridge, how could you not know that that [uncharted] sandbar in Tripoli Harbor would ground the Philadelphia while chasing them nasty Tripolitan galleys?"; "Nagumo you dummy -- you shoulda sent out a 5th floatplane at Midway", or "Chamberlain, I don't care if you were universally hailed as a hero after Munich -- look what happened later. It was your fault".
My point is that, after the fact, when everyone knows what was about to happen, and ignoring everything else that could have happened but didn't but which, apparently, it was incumbent upon the Dodgers to prevent, it's easy to say what should have been done to prevent what actually did happen. I refer to this as Hindsight 3.0 on the Dana Graham Scale of Hindsight (see my post in this Blog of February, 2009, on the Iraq War, in which different forms of hindsight are catalogued). What if an asteriod had landed in the parking lot? Coulda happened -- nothing between asteroids and the pavement to prevent it. And Frank McCourt is an expert on parking lots, is he not?
It is an unfortunate fact of life that bad stuff happens as a consequence of being alive, and while the above-mentioned [apparently] gang-bangers appear guilty as sin, it is they who are culpable. Going after the Dodgers to pay medical bills, just because they have deeper pockets, is difficult to justify.
Now, however, the media is reporting that the family of Brian Stow is filing the inevitable lawsuit against the Dodgers, part of the argument reportedly being that the Dodger organization did not do all it could have done to prevent this sort of thing from happening.
I'm as sympathetic to Brian Stow and his family as anyone, but I remember when Dodger Stadium opened about 1962. There must have been upwards of 100 million fans who have attended Dodger games there since then. How many fan beatings have there been during that time? I honestly can't remember a single other one. It's certainly an exceedingly rare event and one which the Dodger organization has an obvious interest in preventing.
If we can stipulate that fan beatings are so rare that no one can remember another one, on what basis is the attorney for the family going to credibly argue that anything else could or should have been done to prevent it? Seems to me they've been pretty successful. What should they have done -- had armed guards at every gate? Metal detectors? Oh wait, this didn't involve a gun, did it. How many different types of hazards is a business like this supposed to prevent?
This is the kind of
(not to mix my sports metaphors) Monday morning quarterbacking that, as an historian, drives me nuts: "Varus you idiot -- how could you not know the Germans were hanging out in the Teutoburg Forest?"; "Kimmel you ree-tard -- why weren't you ready for the Japanese 0800 7 December 1941?"; "Bainbridge, how could you not know that that [uncharted] sandbar in Tripoli Harbor would ground the Philadelphia while chasing them nasty Tripolitan galleys?"; "Nagumo you dummy -- you shoulda sent out a 5th floatplane at Midway", or "Chamberlain, I don't care if you were universally hailed as a hero after Munich -- look what happened later. It was your fault".
My point is that, after the fact, when everyone knows what was about to happen, and ignoring everything else that could have happened but didn't but which, apparently, it was incumbent upon the Dodgers to prevent, it's easy to say what should have been done to prevent what actually did happen. I refer to this as Hindsight 3.0 on the Dana Graham Scale of Hindsight (see my post in this Blog of February, 2009, on the Iraq War, in which different forms of hindsight are catalogued). What if an asteriod had landed in the parking lot? Coulda happened -- nothing between asteroids and the pavement to prevent it. And Frank McCourt is an expert on parking lots, is he not?
It is an unfortunate fact of life that bad stuff happens as a consequence of being alive, and while the above-mentioned [apparently] gang-bangers appear guilty as sin, it is they who are culpable. Going after the Dodgers to pay medical bills, just because they have deeper pockets, is difficult to justify.
Obsequious Fawning
This is going to be misinterpreted, so let me just say that I was in the US Marine Corps when it was unfashionable. I was no hero -- just a guy doing what had to be done.
A common theme these days in the (especially center and right-wing) media is the (in my view) ridiculous fawning over those who serve in the military. Every one is characterized as a "hero" and the conservative talk show hosts (guys like Limbaugh, Medved, Praeger, Hewitt, Hannity, Beck, etc) seem to fall all over themselves to lick the boots of anyone who is, or has been, in the military. Don't get me wrong --these guys all deserve our respect and thanks, but elevating them all to the status of "hero" demeans those whose deeds are truly worthy of the term. The left-wing media, of course, are clueless about so much and continues to be anti-military, so that's not surprising, but I'm not talking about them -- I expect that from those who are further down the learning curve.
The fawning from the Right can be explained, I think, by guilt and ignorance. Military service was, to put it mildly, out of fashion when most of the media were coming of age. Guys like Medved, Limbaugh, Hannity, etc, all did whatever they could to evade serving. This was very common at the time, as we all know, so they were not unique. However, now that they have become conservative spokesmen, often advocating military action, and with all that the conservative philosophy implies about the need and uses for a strong national defense, I strongly suspect that there is a gnawing guilt deep within them for not having done their part when their time came. It's easy now to advocate sending people into combat when you are too old to serve and your children are not about to volunteer for the now-all-volunteer military. It might, ironically, even assauge some personal guilt. They can't go back and re-live those days; they can, however, profess nauseating worship for everything and everyone military in an attempt to, at least in their mind, make up for their own refusal to step up. It's pretty transparent.
These same people tend to be painfully ignorant of things military. Most of them couldn't tell you whether a colonel outranked a corporal, or whether the Navy Cross was more or less desirable than the Silver Star, or what the significance of the Chaut-chaut machine gun was. You don't have to have served in the military to know this stuff. Being interested enough to study a bit of military history will give one the insight to understand that just being in the military does not make one a hero. In fact, shooting at (or being shot at by) the enemy does not, by itself, confer hero status -- isn't that stuff sort of implied when one signs up?
Along with unfamiliarity with the military generally goes unfamiliarity with the truly heroic deeds of such as John Basilone, Alvin York, Stephen Decatur, Leonaidas,
Jackson Pharris, or Taffy 3. Those are just a few that come to mind at the moment, but with the exception of Michael Medved (easily the best informed talk show host on radio today, tho he has other issues), I'll bet none of the above personages could tell you anything about any of these people or what they did to truly earn the status of "Hero". I would have more respect for their opinions on military matters if they could.
A common theme these days in the (especially center and right-wing) media is the (in my view) ridiculous fawning over those who serve in the military. Every one is characterized as a "hero" and the conservative talk show hosts (guys like Limbaugh, Medved, Praeger, Hewitt, Hannity, Beck, etc) seem to fall all over themselves to lick the boots of anyone who is, or has been, in the military. Don't get me wrong --these guys all deserve our respect and thanks, but elevating them all to the status of "hero" demeans those whose deeds are truly worthy of the term. The left-wing media, of course, are clueless about so much and continues to be anti-military, so that's not surprising, but I'm not talking about them -- I expect that from those who are further down the learning curve.
The fawning from the Right can be explained, I think, by guilt and ignorance. Military service was, to put it mildly, out of fashion when most of the media were coming of age. Guys like Medved, Limbaugh, Hannity, etc, all did whatever they could to evade serving. This was very common at the time, as we all know, so they were not unique. However, now that they have become conservative spokesmen, often advocating military action, and with all that the conservative philosophy implies about the need and uses for a strong national defense, I strongly suspect that there is a gnawing guilt deep within them for not having done their part when their time came. It's easy now to advocate sending people into combat when you are too old to serve and your children are not about to volunteer for the now-all-volunteer military. It might, ironically, even assauge some personal guilt. They can't go back and re-live those days; they can, however, profess nauseating worship for everything and everyone military in an attempt to, at least in their mind, make up for their own refusal to step up. It's pretty transparent.
These same people tend to be painfully ignorant of things military. Most of them couldn't tell you whether a colonel outranked a corporal, or whether the Navy Cross was more or less desirable than the Silver Star, or what the significance of the Chaut-chaut machine gun was. You don't have to have served in the military to know this stuff. Being interested enough to study a bit of military history will give one the insight to understand that just being in the military does not make one a hero. In fact, shooting at (or being shot at by) the enemy does not, by itself, confer hero status -- isn't that stuff sort of implied when one signs up?
Along with unfamiliarity with the military generally goes unfamiliarity with the truly heroic deeds of such as John Basilone, Alvin York, Stephen Decatur, Leonaidas,
Jackson Pharris, or Taffy 3. Those are just a few that come to mind at the moment, but with the exception of Michael Medved (easily the best informed talk show host on radio today, tho he has other issues), I'll bet none of the above personages could tell you anything about any of these people or what they did to truly earn the status of "Hero". I would have more respect for their opinions on military matters if they could.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Speed Bumps
I understand that this doesn't exactly threaten world peace; however, it's irritating and here's why:
It seems that more and more streets are having speed bumps installed -- Basswood Rd, Via Rivera in RPV, Via Valmonte (I'm sure there are others), and now I see them going in on Via Del Monte. Via Del Monte,which has been there since glaciers retreated, and has never had speed bumps, now all of a sudden needs them? When I was a kid (just after the invention of the automobile) these streets all existed, but none of them had speed bumps. In fact, Via Valmonte was Hawthorne Blvd in those days! You think it's busier today?
What has changed to make all these speed bumps necessary now? Are drivers driving that much faster than we did in high school (impossible -- we drove so fast our watches stopped), or are we just becoming less and less tolerant of any perceived inconvenience?
From a real estate perspective, the owners of homes on these streets (and they are inevitably the ones who prevail upon the city to install speed bumps) all knew they were buying on a relatively busy street when they bought, and generally paid less for their homes because they were in that type of location. That was their compensation for it. If the traffic, noise, dirt, whatever were that unattractive, they should have bought somewhere else. But nooooooo -- no longer wanting to pay the price for having saved money when they bought, they now want to shift the cost onto the rest of us by making driving on their street inconvenient and uncomfortable for everyone else. Half my cars bottom out on the Basswood speed bumps if I go over 10 mph. I see the hand of shock absorber manufacturers in this.
If the current trend continues, most roads will have speed bumps: once the busiest have been dealt with, the next busiest will seem busy and will get them, and so on.
This is probably Abe Maslow's Corollary #29. So before we get to that stage, I have an idea: why not just go back to dirt roads? That way, no one will be able to go that fast due to the ruts and pot-holes, and sewer/utility maintenance will be ever so much easier. The dirt roads certainly won't be any rougher than they are with all these speed bumps, so just rip up the pavement. Screw it. I can just see it: after a few years of that "Oh, it's so dusty/muddy". OK, let's pave the roads. A few years later "People are driving too fast now". Fine, let's put in speed bumps.
It seems that more and more streets are having speed bumps installed -- Basswood Rd, Via Rivera in RPV, Via Valmonte (I'm sure there are others), and now I see them going in on Via Del Monte. Via Del Monte,which has been there since glaciers retreated, and has never had speed bumps, now all of a sudden needs them? When I was a kid (just after the invention of the automobile) these streets all existed, but none of them had speed bumps. In fact, Via Valmonte was Hawthorne Blvd in those days! You think it's busier today?
What has changed to make all these speed bumps necessary now? Are drivers driving that much faster than we did in high school (impossible -- we drove so fast our watches stopped), or are we just becoming less and less tolerant of any perceived inconvenience?
From a real estate perspective, the owners of homes on these streets (and they are inevitably the ones who prevail upon the city to install speed bumps) all knew they were buying on a relatively busy street when they bought, and generally paid less for their homes because they were in that type of location. That was their compensation for it. If the traffic, noise, dirt, whatever were that unattractive, they should have bought somewhere else. But nooooooo -- no longer wanting to pay the price for having saved money when they bought, they now want to shift the cost onto the rest of us by making driving on their street inconvenient and uncomfortable for everyone else. Half my cars bottom out on the Basswood speed bumps if I go over 10 mph. I see the hand of shock absorber manufacturers in this.
If the current trend continues, most roads will have speed bumps: once the busiest have been dealt with, the next busiest will seem busy and will get them, and so on.
This is probably Abe Maslow's Corollary #29. So before we get to that stage, I have an idea: why not just go back to dirt roads? That way, no one will be able to go that fast due to the ruts and pot-holes, and sewer/utility maintenance will be ever so much easier. The dirt roads certainly won't be any rougher than they are with all these speed bumps, so just rip up the pavement. Screw it. I can just see it: after a few years of that "Oh, it's so dusty/muddy". OK, let's pave the roads. A few years later "People are driving too fast now". Fine, let's put in speed bumps.
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