Levi's New Frontier

Although I rarely wear jeans I do like Levi’s, which are an American classic. They embody some of the best American values: hard-working, long-lasting and inexpensive. They simply do their job well, again and again.

However, I doubt the wisdom of their recent business of partnering with men’s clothing shops to make special editions. These are usually based on proprietary “washes” which are usually indistinguishable to my, admittedly untrained, eye. The latest of these is with Brooks Brothers, following on their collaboration with J. Crew. Part of that brand’s effort to reinvent itself as a boutique provider of men’s clothing classics in addition to their own collection.

Brooks itself attempted to get into the denim business several years ago just as the designer denim market was reaching its peak. (And oh, how it pains me to write the oxymoronic words “designer denim.”) Those “five-pocket” jeans at least distinguish themselves by being made from longer-staple and thus higher-quality supima cotton. An assurance that isn’t to be found on the new pairing. The collaboration with J. Crew also offered some jeans made from selvedge denim which Brooks doesn’t appear to do, or at least doesn’t advertise. This is troubling because despite these drawbacks the new jeans are more expensive than previous products from either Levi’s or Brooks. I am certainly a novice when it comes to denim, but I’m not sure how much value is added with the new collaboration. It appears to be simply the pairing of two classic names hoping that the whole is more than the sum of the parts.

We shall see what the market decides.

Not Quite Savages

While in graduate school, I repeatedly raided the library to take advantage of their collection of out-of-print books by Cleveland Amory. This old-line New Englander possessed many of the biases of his upbringing, but he knew how to put a point. He also wrote one of my favorite descriptions of the Pilgrims, whom it has become all too fashionable to mock in our comfortably distant and comfortably secure times.

Actually, and in severe point of fact, of the forty-one men who signed the famous Compact in the cabin of the Mayflower, though eleven were addressed as “Mr.” and a handful could claim “Master,” not a single one bore the title of “Gent.” And, of original passengers, no less than eighteen were included under the designation “Family Servants and Young Cousins.” Charles M. Andrews, in The Fathers of New England, puts the matter in no uncertain terms. “A group of English emigrants,” he said, “more socially insignificant could hardly be imagined. … Their intellectual and material poverty, lack of business enterprise, unfavorable situation and defenseless position in the eyes of the law, rendered them an almost negative factor in the later life of New England.”
These are harsh words, of course, and they not only fail to do justice to the Pilgrims who were, as a group, perhaps the greatest of all this country’s heroes, but they are also inaccurate about the actual accomplishments of the Pilgrims. These Pilgrims, ironically often blamed for the excesses of intolerance of Boston’s Puritans, from whom they were very different, number among their signal accomplishments the first teaching and practicing of the separation of church and state, the first practicing of freedom of religious worship, the first trial by jury extending to all people, the first abolishing of primogeniture, the first recognition of the rights of women, the first system of free public education and, indeed, the introduction of almost all of our system of equality.

Cleveland Amory, Who Killed Society?

Fwd: Cicero

Earlier I was reading Cicero's Second Philippic Against Antony and one of the crimes he charges Antony with is that Antony had a letter from Cicero and read it out in public. Cicero doesn't deny authorship, although he does get in some good jibes about Antony's prior forgeries and the use of scribes, but crime aside, this accusation is particularly damning as it describes a strike against the gentlemanly code. As Cicero writes:

He read out a letter, this creature, which he said I had sent him. But he has absolutely no idea how to behave - how other people behave. Who, with the slightest knowledge of decent people's habits, could conceivably produce letters sent him by a friend, and read them in public, merely because some quarrel has arisen between him and the other? Such conduct strikes at the roots of human relations; it means that absent friends are excluded from communicating with each other. For men fill their letters with flippancies which appear tasteless if they are published - and with serious matters which are quite unsuitable for wide circulation. Antony's action proves he is totally uncivilized.

I found it fascinating (though easy to believe, upon reflection) that this breech of privacy was so condemned two thousand years ago. Today, with easily-exchanged email and easily-posted pictures the trust that we put in others is even greater. So too, must be the social punishment for betrayal.

LB of TP at VV in GT

I've recently discovered that many on the internet like to use their blogs to discuss a weekly event called Pink and Green Thursday based upon the preppy's supposed favorite colors (more on that in the future). It does make one post a week rather easy. In that spirit, if not that letter, I'll offer my discussion of the local goings-on.

Those in Georgetown tonight had the opportunity to meet Lisa Birnbach, author of the recently-published True Prep and the long out-of-print Official Preppy Handbook. The crowd was either dolled-up in their cocktail finest, or just out of work, depending on how unconscious you think they were of fashion. Some were certainly both. The press was on hand with a writer searching for those had either read the original or were willing to offer some commentary. I didn't comment as I was neither being born, getting married, or dying, but the article should appear this weekend in the Washington Post's style section.

At the urging of her many fans Birnbach gave a brief and delightful speech about her experiences writing the book and answered questions from the assembled crowd. One point she mentioned was the importance of charm. "We may not be very good with money, we may not be very good at school, but we have charm." She was prompted to note this after gladly seeing that people were interacting with each other face-to-face, rather than via their cell phones, an ever-rarer art in Washington.

She also squashed rumors of a reprint of the OPH saying she hadn't heard of it and offered some interesting history. Apparently, the OPH was supposed to be called "The Preppy Catalogue" when she was approached by publishers, extensively and exclusively focusing on the things - clothes, cars and crockery that made up the preppy class. Knowing that you couldn't understand people just through their material inheritance she added in much about the life changes, attitudes and general joie-de-vivre that gave the original so much of its, dare I say, charm. This time around she wanted to take a more sociological approach and face the question of how the self-reflexively eternal deals with changing times and our new century. She added that she hoped it was perhaps a bit more intellectually challenging. Perhaps.

One of my favorite comments was when she discussed the obvious question: "Why Vineyard Vines?" It is, after all, so new. She explained that the first time she made the decision to not include what was then a new brand, Ralph Lauren's Polo, assuming that it would soon fall by the wayside. She didn't intend to make the same mistake this time.

Arnold Palmer's and white wine were served, getting at least one aspect of the preppy sub-culture exactly right.

A Guide to the North American Industry Classification System

Earlier this year I was working on a project which made use of NAICS codes. I was fairly unfamiliar with this successor to the SIC code system of business encoding so I searched the web and finally made my way to the library. Being unable to find a satisfactory guide, I made one myself. Assuming that others may face a similar difficulty, I am making it available here:

In Which I Provide Some Cool Commentary

There's hardly any aspect of modern life in which environmentalists can't find some form of sin. One has recently alighted on Air Conditioning as the latest outrage against Gaia. I offer a counterpoint here.

Hot air against air conditioning

By: Jeremy Skog
Special to The Examiner
07/13/10 6:05 AM EDT

This year’s air-conditioning wars are heating up with Stan Cox’s latest enviro-alarmist piece over at the Washington Post. The environmental movement has become the latest home of luddites and secular-puritans who don’t see science as man’s triumph over nature, but as something which keeps us from achieving the life of the noble savage.

Since I value the scientific method and have been known to occasionally put off tasks, I lived for a couple weeks this summer without air conditioning. On an average day, I would arrive home from work, make dinner, and then promptly fall asleep because it was just too hot to do anything besides digest. I then managed to force myself to haul a window-unit out of the attic and set it up (thankfully before the last heat wave). Now, since my body isn’t fighting to keep cool, I can be more productive and work well into the evening (fashioning posts such as this one) without collapsing into a heat-induced fog. Several scientific studies have shown that people are more productive in comfortable temperatures, for the apparently well-published population who couldn’t figure this out intuitively. In addition, there’s less stress on my body, probably why we in America don’t see thousands of heat related deaths like they do in the supposedly environmentally friendly continent of Europe.

The real problem with the anti-air-conditioning lobby (besides their yearningly innocent belief in a non-existent simpler and purer past) is that they see the world as a zero-sum game. But the way we expend resources today will not be the way we spend them tomorrow. These are the same people who claim we are “addicted to oil” like some drug-addled fool. We are actually “addicted to oil” in the way that professional athletes are addicted to food. We need energy in order to create something worthwhile. Furthermore, ‘need’ and ‘addiction’ are similar but not synonymous. The way to a better future is not to lock ourselves into some cycle of poverty but to create an environment (preferably comfortably cool) where we can come up with the ideas and advancements that will render today’s problems into non-issues tomorrow.

It takes a certain arrogance to imagine that we are at the peak of civilization. There’s a charming urban legend about how the patent office was going to close at the end of the 19th century because there was “nothing left to invent.” Imagine a world with no cars, no computers, and yes, no air conditioning. It’s eerily close to some environmentalists’ dreams. But it would be a simpler time in which we all fled DC in the summer for fear of malaria and smallpox and lived with the darker disease of a future without any the redemption of advancement. Personally, I’ll keep my air conditioning.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/Examiner-Opinion-Zone/Hot-air-against-air-conditioning-98279524.html#ixzz0tzpydopx

In Which I Take a Look at the Folger Library

The Folger Library has a particularly interesting exhibit on right now, accompanied by a lecture series. Originally posted here.

The Sea's the thing at the Folger Library

By: Jeremy Skog
Special to The Examiner
06/30/10 1:43 PM EDT

Summer is a particularly nautical season. The idea waves and of cool breezes is particularly appealing during the muggy months of metro delays and broken air conditioners but even those of us who can’t make it to the marina or beach can experience some of the sea’s mystery with the Folger Library’s new exhibit “Lost at Sea: The Ocean in the English Imagination 1550-1750.”

This exhibit will be of particular interest to bibliophiles with the large collection of historical books on display, including Captain John Smith’s “Seaman’s Grammar and Dictionary” a how-to guide for sailing covering everything from the names of the parts of the ship to instructions for fighting at sea. Captain Smith later came to regret his work as, in a first flush of Yankee thrift, English settlers in Massachusetts found it cheaper to buy the book than to hire the author as an advisor. One “book” is a model of a 21 pound atlas which bears the sign “please touch,” allowing visitors to feel the weight of the subject. Such sparks of humor sprinkle the entire showing, the exhibit’s pamphlet folds out with details of the exhibit on one side and a reproduction nautical map on the other.

The exhibit is accented by a series of free lectures. The first of the three was by Alden Vaughn who covered the tales of three English writers and the role of the Island of Bermuda which symbolized the sea in the English mind. Few Englishmen of the time actually went to sea – most got their information from literature and tales.

Before 1609 the island of Bermuda, then the "Isle of Devils," was uninhabited and to approach it was to invite having ones ship smashed on the reefs. The crew of one such unlucky ship, the Sea Venture, managed to survive on the island for a year before being rescued and making their way back to England in 1610. Their tales of the idyllic life and the island’s strategic location prompted a move for settlement and soon it became one of the most successful colonies in the English empire. Allegedly, the story of the shipwrecked passengers provided the inspiration for Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest.”

Those whose summer expeditions are distinctly landlocked will find plenty at the Folger to fuel their dreams of pink sandy beaches. The Folger Library is open between 10 am and 5 pm from Monday to Saturday through September 4th. Admission is free and cell-phone audio tours enhance many of the items on display.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/blogs/local-opinion-zone/The-Seas-the-thing-at-the-Folger-Library-97496299.html#ixzz0tzpPC1Qg

In Which I Fight For Independence Day Traditions

Some of our local politicians like to take their power to extremes. One example is Arlington, VA banning all forms of fireworks and making their possession a misdemeanor. I take a look at the history of the law and explain what's so wrong with it. Originally published here.

Independence Day loses its sparkle in Alexandria

By: Jeremy Skog
Special to The Examiner
06/25/10 12:22 PM EDT

One wonders why Alexandria public schools have a Talented and Gifted Program at all when apparently the entire populace is too dull to manage even the simplest firework. That, at least, is the judgement of mandarins on the Alexandria City Council: William Euille, Rob Krupicka, Redella Pepper and Paul Smedberg who in 2006 voted to make almost all forms of fireworks illegal in the city The list includes even fireworks considered benign elsewhere such as sparklers, poppers, and, interestingly, hot-air balloons. Hopefully, the public can still be trusted with snakes.

In five-alarm prose the Alexandria Fire Department states that:

“Decades of tragic experience have proved that fireworks are too dangerous to be used at home by amateurs. Improper handling of fireworks and sparklers all too often results in injuries. More than 9,600 fireworks injuries occur annually. Of these, 62% of fireworks injuries were burns, while 20% are lacerations. Young people suffer the majority of fireworks injuries, which can result in amputations, severe eye injuries, disfigurement, and even death.”

These injuries would represent about 1% of the 500,000 burn injuries which the American Burn Association claims occur every year. In contrast, the Association states that 32% of burns are due to scalding and 3% are due to chemical burns. Yet household cleaners are still for sale in Alexandria stores and the council has shown no sign of attempting to shut down the many coffee shops which freely sell piping hot beverages to “amateur” consumers.

The reason, of course, is that fireworks make an easy target – they suffer from the same difficulties that all special-interest issues do. It is easy to point to an injured child and claim that one is “working to prevent horrible tragedies,” which always seems to call for an ever-larger role for government in making the decisions of citizens’ lives. It is much harder to point out that freedom sometime exposes us to risks and forces people to take responsibility, weighing risk and reward for themselves. The alternative is a state of perpetual childishness and the supervision it entails. Unfortunately, Arlington voters will have to wait several more years until they can elect representatives who have the courage to treat their constituents like adults.

To deter any potential Guy Fawkes’s the council has decreed that anyone who dares to “store, offer for sale, expose for sale, sell at retail, use or explode any fireworks” can be punished with a fine up to $2,500 and up to a year in jail. Patriotic subjects are advised to attend one of the government-organized rallies rather than attempting to celebrate America’s independence for themselves.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/blogs/local-opinion-zone/Independence-Day-loses-its-sparkle-in-Alexandria-Va-97162824.html#ixzz0tzpJV95f

In Which I Take a Look at Summer 2010's Asian Film Festival

With the opportunity to get a free showing to Red Cliff, a movie I'd longed to see in its full-length format I attended and viewed the premier of the Freer Gallery's 2010 Hong Kong Film Festival. Originally posted here.

Made in Hong Kong, Shown in DC

By: Jeremy Skog
Special to The Examiner
06/22/10 11:50 AM EDT

DVDs were a Godsend. You see I have long been a film snob, in that I demand verisimilitude. I believe in watching movies in the way they were intended to be seen - if directors did things a certain way there was a reason for it. But the medium of VHS demanded a hundred different compromises, both technical and in content. With the advent of DVD I was finally able to watch films properly, with subtitles instead of dubbing and no more of that terrible pan-and-scan “technology.” But some genres are best seen on the large screen, historical epics in particular, and in theaters I am still a prisoner to the prejudice against American audiences. So while I was thrilled to hear that John Woo was making an epic based on the eponymous Battle of Red Cliffs, I was dismayed to hear that what was originally made in two parts (I II), would be condensed into a half-sized “theatrical version” for its U.S. release. Two whole hours of story would be cut.

But the internationalism of DC once again came to the rescue – the full edition was chosen for last weekend’s launch of this year’s Made in Hong Kong Film Festival at the Smithsonian Institution's Freer gallery. Even better for those on a budget the films are entirely free, although the organizers do ask for a donation to help fund the series. (The series is cosponsored by the Freer and Sackler Galleries and the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office.) The festival features Asian movies which are rarely shown in the United States. The film lived up to the hype and is unmistakably the work on Mr. Woo featuring grand vistas and intensely choreographed fight sequences. Although the audio system in the Freer’s Meyer Auditorium is obviously designed for lectures rather than films, I didn’t notice after being drawn in to the story. This was the way the film was meant to be shown.

For those in search of something besides the standard Hollywood blockbuster this summer, they could do much worse. The seven (or eight, depending on how you count) films are shown at 7:00 on Fridays with an encore matinee the following Sunday at 2:00 from now until the middle of August. Doors open about 30 minutes before the showing and arriving early is recommended. The theater was nearly full for the first showing. Sadly, food and drink are not permitted as this is an art gallery.

In Which I Examine Unemployment in the Washington Area

It's often been argued that the Washington DC area has several features which make it exceptional when it comes to unemployment. I examine some of the statistics. Originally posted here.

Unemployment: Washington metro region vs. the nation

By: Jeremy Skog
Special to The Examiner
06/09/10 6:40 AM EDT

Businesses and investors undoubtedly spent much of the past few days mulling over the unemployment numbers released last week. It was certainly picked up on the political beat and stocks sank, only recently recovering slightly. But there’s always been a meme that the greater Washington area is more stable than other areas of the country, due to its reliance on the Federal Government and industries employing highly-educated workers, both groups which are traditionally less affected by job-market downturns.

This was borne out last Wednesday, June 2nd when the Bureau of Labor Statistics also released their estimates of local employment and unemployment up to April, 2010. In contrast to a country-wide average of 9.7%, the regional unemployment rate is only 5.9%. This is mostly due to the suburbs - within the city itself the rate is reported at 9.8%. This is worse than last year for all of the areas in greater Washington. Last April, DC's unemployment rate stood at 8.5%, Maryland at 5% and Virginia at 5.1%.

It's easy to let this gloom overwhelm, but our area may be the one-eyed man in the land of the blind. It is the only metropolitan area in the country to see an increase in the number of employees on payroll over the last year, by 0.2% in the area and 1.5% in the District itself. This increase in jobs, however, wasn't large enough to counteract the overall increase in the size of the labor force, which increased by about 5,500 people in the entire area. Maryland saw a drop in the size of its labor force by about 3,700 people while the District gained almost 8,000. Virginia held steady, adding 1,200 people to the labor force. (These numbers may not add up exactly due to rounding in the reported statistics.)

This report was especially criticized because 411,000 of the jobs created nationally were temporary positions with the 2010 Census. Each of the 12 national census regions hires approximately 40,000 to 70,000 of these temporary workers. Depending on local laws, they may be eligible for unemployment benefits after their work ends.

Squeezed budgets have led to headline-grabbing cuts in local services, but it is true that the Washington region does have several unique advantages. One is its reliance on government which helps to smooth out booms and busts like an ocean does temperatures. The unemployment rate for government workers was only 3.4% in May. Another beneficial factor is the regions incredibly highly-educated workforce. DC has a national-high 47.5% of residents over age 25 with a bachelors degree or higher. 26% possess an advanced degree. Maryland and Virginia also rank well on these metrics - 35% of Marylanders over age 25 have at least a Bachelors degree as do a third of over-25 Virginians. This has a real effect on the workforce. Those with higher levels of education are both more likely to participate in the workforce and less likely to be unemployed. The national unemployment rate in May for those with at least a Bachelors degree was only 4.7% versus 15% for those without a High School diploma. This difference holds, even accounting for the fact that 77.3% of those with a College degree were in the labor force versus only 45.8% of those who didn't graduate High School. The general effect is a feeling of relative prosperity as more people in our area consider themselves eligible for work and more of them are employed.

These regional aspects can lead to an unfortunate myopia among policymakers - it can be hard to see a problem until one is personally affected. Most Americans currently list the economy as the most pressing issue facing our nation and the recent job numbers mean this will likely continue as graduates enter the labor force this summer. Given Washington's often insularity and the climate of anti-incumbent sentiment around the country it's ever more important for representatives to venture beyond the beltway and meet with their constituents to determine their upcoming legislative priorities and responsibilities.

This same local bubble can make the situation seem even more bleak for anyone job-hunting right now, especially they don't possess any of the aforementioned advantages. It can be difficult to see one's peers busily productive and though there is lots of advice available to job-seekers the traditional tip is still the best: stay busy and don't give up. Local residents shouldn’t be too discouraged by national news – the greater Washington area remains one of the best places in the country to seek employment.

The next release of Regional and State Employment and Unemployment news is scheduled for Friday, June 18^th at 10:00 am.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/blogs/local-opinion-zone/Unemployment-Washington-DC-metro-region-vs-the-nation-95922654.html#ixzz0tznfU2ib

In Which I Take A Look At Virginia's Primary Elections

I attended a barbecue hosted by one of the candidates to take on Moran for Virginia's 8th District Congressional seat. He did not win, but Patrick Murray continues the fight this fall. Posted here.

Berry’s Barbecue provides calm before primary campaign season storm

By: Jeremy Skog
Special to The Examiner
06/02/10 12:30 PM EDT

One of the facts one learns living in the Washington, D.C. region is the difference between politics and government – and one of the key parts of the difference is the schedule the two keep. Just when most of the area is going on vacation to enjoy a long weekend, local politicians switch into high gear. It is, after all, the best time to meet those constituents still around.

Matt Berry provided a good example of this dichotomy, hosting a barbecue for neighbors and supporters at his home near Ballston, getting them ready for the next big push in his campaign. Berry, a 13-year resident of Arlington, is running in the primary to be the Republican nominee for the 8th Congressional District in Virginia, the seat currently held by Democrat Jim Moran. His competition for the nomination is Patrick Murray a retired U.S. Army Colonel.

While he spent most of the time talking one-on-one with potential constituents, Berry did stand up to give a brief speech to his guests who were enjoying traditional the summer barbecue fare. He began by thanking everyone for their work on his behalf, asking for us to remember our servicemen, saying the he was humbled by how many people were taking an interest in his ideas and concluded by making the official public introduction of his two dogs, Wilson and Thatcher, the special guests of the event.

Although they kept to the shade, guests conversed eagerly about topics ranging from how they honor Memorial Day to, naturally, local politics. Many of those present favored Berry’s focus on the issues and the fact that he promotes his plans for resolving problems rather than just standard talking points.

The sweltering summer weather was relieved by iced tea, lemonade, and hamburgers and hotdogs cooked up by his campaign staff. Berry gave a nod to the cupcake craze by including red-white-and-blue cupcakes next to the watermelon and potato salad. About 60 guests left with “party favors” of bumper stickers, yard signs, and an appeal to support the Berry campaign.

Berry also took time this weekend to march in the Falls Church’s Memorial Day parade. Primary elections are being held in the 8th and 11th Virginia congressional districts on June 8th and voting is open to all registered voters. Residents can expect phone calls, door knockers, and other get-out-the-vote efforts in the final week before the election.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/blogs/local-opinion-zone/Berrys-Barbecue-provides-calm-before-primary-campaign-season-storm-95423824.html#ixzz0tzmF3Qk4

In Which I Begin a New Series

I have recently expanded my literary endeavors by blogging on DC-Related events at The Washington Examiner's Local Opinion Zone. It may take a while depending on my schedule, but I will attempt to re-post the updates here.

Contemporary Art: Memento Mori

I have long been a fan of Simon Schama. His History of Britain is one of my favorite documentaries so I was pleased to learn that he would pack his Goyard suitcase and make to the journey down to Washington D.C. where he would be giving a lecture hosted by the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Gallery. The subject of the lecture was "The Beast in Contemporary Art." Since I generally agree with Charles Rider that all modern art is bosh, this was an event that I couldn't miss - especially since I had missed him at the National Book Festival last fall. Well, Mr. Schama was too clever by half (as usual) the matter in the talk turned out to be bestial not only in the William Golding sense of human nature, but quite literally as well.

He began with a discussion of the most damned piece of recent art, Damien Hirst's For the Love of God [pictured above.] Schama read off its sins, concluding that it was "A kind of fetish object ... created by a celebrity culture," and cheekily suggested that perhaps Goldman Sachs should have bought it for its new building. In Mr. Hirst's defense, Mr. Schama repeated Damien's own line that "Modern art is full of nothing."

"He likes to give out, does Damien, the affect of unkowning."

After this we went on a whirlwind tour of the history of skulls as a symbol in Western art. "Instead of being empty-headed he might be over-stuck in the canon." Next it was on to fetishism of a more fleecy nature when Schama compared the use of sheep by Hirst to its evolving role as a symbol over time. We first received the amusing anecdote of when in 1994 Bridger dumped a pail of black ink into a vat of formaldehyde in which Hirst has preserved a sheep, utterly blocking it out.

"I was in a carpe diem state of mind," Bridger claimed adding that he was simply contributing "an addendum" to Mr. Hirst's work since "the lamb had already made its statement." Humorous yes, but there was real knowledge to be gained when Mr. Schama discussed the works of the pre-raphealites pointing out how they believed that the bold garishness of color and form in their art represented truth whereas the stifling line, appreciated by the untrained eye was the real lie. These works were purposefully painted this way, as a rejection of the materialistic mores of the time. They also loved using lambs, both as a symbol of sacrifice which evolved from the Christian symbolism but also as an image of Englishness and of the larger populace. Perhaps it is not coincidence that Ricardo's own famous image is of English wool and Portuguese wine. Whereas the pre-raphealites were obsessive in the representation of their landscapes Hirst goes the direct opposite route, using the frame to seal off the subject from the viewer. The importance of the frame which thus allows only a partial connection between the work and the audience is as important to Hirst as it was to Bacon. From sheep we moved on to horses and the concern they represented with bloodlines and thus their appeal in Europe.

But what does it all mean? As we moved on the paintings shifted, becoming more brutal - from farmyard to the butcher and the inevitable decay that accompanies all life. Mr. Schama mentioned that we have seldom had a generation of artists when there wasn't an urge to prevent decay and mortality. And this modern art does engage us with its brutality but it is unredeemed by any hope of salvation because the art of Mr. Hirst is basically materialistic. Contemporary artists all have some connection with our age of unrelenting atrocity, Schama states, but we are particularly cursed by the collapse of the dream of the humanitarian principle. Unlike 'pop art' the artists under discussion produce the sort of art which does make some attempt to engage us with brutality and slaughter. Chilling stuff, to be sure.

But there is some value here. In Schama's interpretation "while much beastliness of contemporary art is averse to sententiousness," it is not necessarily simply a reaction. When the artists do succeed they aim higher than simply another commentary on the brutishness of our times - their target is also art and the role it has played throughout history in the politics of power. Images such as the "roast beef" of Old England which was plump, virile, and wealthy are as common as the use of the lamb by England which was a self-consciously Christian empire. Hirst strips all this away and just shows the slaughter as purely materialistic and thus attacks the older artists themselves. This is, most certainly, an attack on traditional art, showing the world as drowning in the bloody slops of the abattoir.

It would be impossible in a lecture like this to escape the phrase: "post-modern irony," and this is just how Schama describes the claim of those like Hist who say that they are fighting against art's battle to deny decay and prevent putrefaction and so they claim that they put decay on the forefront. But Schama can't help siding with the Rembrandts who painted their figures in all of their glory but also with hints of decay - the starkest evidence is use of butterflies who are there not just as a commentary on the brevity of life but of art itself. In the end, Schama believes that contemporary artists are not truly escaping anything but are busy supplying pieces with enormous back-baggage. "No generation has been more art-full."

Just as one knows one will hear the phrase "post-modern irony" in any art lecture these days, one also knows that when one goes to a lecture by a British art historian who's had his own series, one gets a discussion of Potter's bull. Lo and behold:


So I definitely had a most enjoyable evening. Mr. Schama's flaw as a lecturer is that he is perhaps too entertaining and he cannot be both appreciated and comprehended contemporaneously. Luckily the lecture is available for viewing online. I highly recommend it.

The Mommy Wars

It's said that the most important skill in comedy is timing and President Obama doesn't disappoint. On the day after Mother's Day he announced his second nominee for the Supreme Court, Elena Kagan, who also happens to be the second single, childless woman he has nominated. One of the original promises of feminism was to enable women to choose their roles in life. Over time however, this has become, to use a favorite Obama phrase, a "false choice." Rather than make more roles acceptable for women, feminism has increased the stress upon them as women are now pressured to maintain a career as well as a family. The disputes between women has been termed "the mommy wars," where women snipe at the decisions made by those who have decided differently and the most contested front is the balance between work and family. Unfortunately, to the extent one can read into this issue, Obama's nominee reinforces the concept that giving up on having a family is the price women must pay to succeed professionally.

Women who desire a more balanced life may still look to the role model of Justice Ginsberg who is married with two children. She says that a marrying supportive husband was one of the most important factors in her successful legal career.

Stuff Guilty People Like

Christian Lander, author of the blog "Stuff White People Like," opines in a CNN piece on his feelings of being 'white.' For the most part it's the sort of self-loathing identity-politics that one would expect from a left-coast Liberal (and admitted Canadian at that!) Mr. Lander, apparently without irony, make a great deal about apocyrphal incidents where American Indians were given blankets infected with smallpox. This idea has since become a cultural meme, used to emphasize the inherent guilt allegedly associated with having successful ancestors.

What Mr. Lander forgets is that it was the techniques of Western Medicine and the scientific method developed as a part of Western Civilization which enabled the WHO to eradicate this gruesome plague from the world so that Mr. Lander may peacefully condemn his ancestors.

On behalf of white people everywhere I say to a world where people need fear one less disease: You are welcome.

D is D

Democrats have a great fondness for obfuscatory adjectives. Look what they have tried to do to "Justice": Social Justice, Environmental Justice, Economic Justice - yet a thing still is either just or it is not. This long struggle to pass a bill - any bill - under the name of "health care reform" has shown that however they modify themselves as blue dog, pro-life or whatever else they are still Dems first and foremost.

A Majority of (the) One

So instead of abortion being deemed a "right" at the pleasure of 5 of the 9 members of the supreme court, it is now "banned" at the pleasure of 1 president? While I'm generally against populism, this is populism of the smallist minority possible and almost entirely unaccountable to any constituency.

You might be an addict if...

While reading a CNN article on the breakdown of Greek
society I came across this quote:

"Take Haris Georgatou, for example. A broadcast engineering
technician, he points out one way he's adapted to the new
national concern. After years of spending $15 a day on
coffee, he now makes his own at work."

Oh the suffering! But really, how much coffee do you have to
drink to spend $15 a day? In Greece!

Some quick calculations. The CIA World Factbook lists the
Greek GDP per-capita as $32,100 calculated according to
purchasing power parity. This isn't adjusted for the
shipping-magnate effect. I'll make the further, obviously
unrealistic, assumption that the average Greek works 50
weeks per year and only buys coffee on workdays. If Haris is
at all representative than the average Greek is spending 9%
of his pre-tax income on coffee. With priorities like this,
their financial difficulty start to make sense. It seems the
US isn't the only country with a Columbian drug problem.

Proof that Global Warming Exists!

As you may know, today is Groundhog day which inspired me to perform some calculations. From Pennsylvania, Punxsutawney Phil issues his yearly opinion on whether or not we will have six more weeks of winter. His historical accuracy is 39%, making him far and away one of the most prestigious climate scientists of our time. However, his recent predictions have been nothing sort of chilling.

For those of you unfamiliar with the science, if Phil sees his shadow and then retreats into his burrow, we will have six more weeks of winter. If he does not, then we are in for an early spring. For the first 50 years of the twentieth century the Groundhog predicted spring only 3.5 times, including one partial viewing. However, since then the Groundhog has predicted spring an astounding TEN TIMES! Clearly, we are in for some rapid warming.

To make this even more clear, the image below shows the increasing number of spring predictions. This allowed me to perform a simple linear regression. I'm sad to report that this represents a BEST CASE SCENARIO as the obviously exponential rate of increase in the data means that the tipping point is even nearer. This inevitable extrapolation predicts that winter will be PERMANENTLY six weeks shorter by 2380. Translated, we are losing 2 hours and 42 minutes of winter every year! When will people take this threat seriously?

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Last year I began commenting that Obama was going to fall
victim to what I referred to as "Ex-Girlfriend Syndrome." MY
thesis was that those who fall hard for infatuation, when
disillusioned, reverse all of their former ardor from love
to hate. All of the people who had bought into the Obama
ideology would eventually become his worst enemies because
they would feel personally betrayed by his failure to live
up to their ideals, rather than the cool cynicism which most
feel toward once-admired politicians. It was therefore very
interesting to me to see this passage in the WSJ today:

"There is nothing surprising about where Mr. Obama finds
himself today. He had been made by charisma, and political
magic, and has been felled by it. If his rise had been
spectacular, so, too, has been his fall. The speed with
which some of his devotees have turned on him?and their
unwillingness to own up to what their infatuation had
wrought?is nothing short of astounding. But this is the
bargain Mr. Obama had made with political fortune."

There Oughtn't Be A Law

I have often debated with several lefty classmates whether or not the state should restrict the use of cellphones while driving. The difference in our viewpoints is that the liberal worldview is an amoral one - if something can be shown to increase utility in some way then it is 'good' whereas if it doesn't it is 'bad.' Utility, of course, can be measured in many different ways - well-being, security, 'happiness' (Liberty is rarely considered) and these measures may often be in conflict. The fundamental belief is that if we simply had the right set of laws then we would be living in a utopia, in the best of all possible worlds. What I generally term as the 'conservative' view is that mankind in not perfectible and that utility must be weighed with morality when legislating. Sure, texting while driving may increase danger, but it is not an immoral act. My own bias is that actions should only be illegal when they both decrease utility and are immoral. Thus, texting should not be illegal because it isn't immoral. Similarly things which are immoral but not necessarily bad for society (much harder to come up with an example) shouldn't be illegal either. Still, conservatives generally recognize that utility isn't the only measure on which to base laws - a view that liberals don't share.

The other serious issue is that the more laws we have, the less people respect them which leads to a weaker government and society. When prohibition was passed is made a common activity illegal and turned a vast population of otherwise normal people into criminals. Respect for the law dropped and people actually sought out the thrill of going to a speakeasy and defying the government. On the whole our society weakened because people no longer respected the law and institutions that were supposed to hold it together. Today, think of how regularly we break speed limits. In an effort to be overly restrictive the government ends up reducing people's concern with lawbreakers by making ordinary people share the same experience and worldview as actual criminals.

As I've often said, if your immediate reaction isn't "Oh good, the police!" But rather "Oh no! The cops!" then our government is too restrictive and we've started down the path to destroying our society by rotting its foundation.

Reflections on A Red Mass

We are one year into the Barakalypse and it seems safe to say that the root causes of 1/19/2010 spring from the attitudes of 1/20/2009. Last night saw the victory of Republican Scott Brown in a special election for Senator from Massachusetts. This was certainly a defeat for Democrats and their agenda, but it can’t be characterized as a victory for Republicans. Rather, it is a sign of the anti-incumbency mood of the electorate and their revulsion with a Washington establishment that seems arrogant and out of touch – more interested in cutting backroom deals and attaining their partisan agenda than in solving the country’s problems. It is fair to say that if the only way you can enact your agenda is with a sixty-vote supermajority then your agenda probably shouldn’t be enacted. The fact that losing the 60th vote was such a blow for Democrats should be the clearest message to them from this election.

“Stopping health care”

Brown nationalized his election on health care and used this key issue to attract support from around the country and votes at home. As Democrats respond in dazed manners after running into this electoral brick wall all sorts of theories have been voiced, from having the House pass the Senate bill to ramming through some parts using the reconciliation process usually reserved for budge measures. The liberal media has certainly gotten on board with these ideas, calling for “courage” in editorial after editorial. This shouldn’t be taken seriously. Any such actions would be political suicide in the most public manner. Some of the more wily Democrats have already gone on the record calling for a halt in legislation until Brown is seated. If these signs are true, then perhaps a return to the center has begun.

Voters are no longer listening to Obama.

Obama stumped for Corzine and, to a lesser extent, Deeds in the November 2009 Gubernatorial races. Democrats lost both of those. He came out late for Coakley with some one-liners about Scott Brown’s truck and we saw how that turned out. Obama no longer has coat-tails. It’s not that people are actively against him yet – he still enjoys a reasonable personal approval rating – they just don’t care what he thinks. If Obama wants to save his presidency he needs to separate himself from his policies and what’s going on in congress. Naturally, this would lead to an internal civil war and Reid and Pelosi have leadership taken away from them. But are they even going to be around for the O’s second anniversary? Is Obama capable of trimming his ambitions of being the anti-Reagan who will lead the long-awaited and never-appearing swing back to big-government? I doubt it.

The future for Scott Brown

Amid all the excitement last night it was easy to predict great things for the senator elect. This is seems a bit premature. There are those who have started calling themselves “Scott Brown Republicans,” allegedly as a code for “reform republicans.” I think this is dangerous, we should have learned the dangers of putting our hopes for change in one untested vessel. Another suggestion was proffered during Brown’s victory speech: having him give the republican response to Obama’s upcoming state of the Union address. As the president had planned to make health care the theme of his address and Brown succeeded in nationalizing his campaign as a referendum on health care there is a certain symmetry to this idea, and Brown is certainly the blue-eyed boy of the moment. But the party needs to look forward – the response is an opportunity for a potential presidential candidate to make his case, and the party’s, to the nation. I just can’t see Brown in this position yet. Let him start as a talking head on one of the networks (I’m sure they’ll be fighting to book him) and let someone else with more stump-speech experience go up against Obama’s teleprompter.

With the 41st vote secured we can all breath a little easier and wait a little less for a doctor, but there’s still more work to be done for November and the party needs to position itself to ride the wave of discontent in the populace. People need ideas to vote for rather than just poll’s to vote against.

You Didn't Learn Everything in Kindergarten

One of the popular memes of our time is that “All I really need to know, I learned in Kindergarten,” a childishly charming, if mind-clouding thought. This phrase first gained popular acclaim when it was used as the title of a book of essays by Robert Fulghum, and what an idyllic and untroubled childhood he must have had – and yet how incredibly boring it sounds. My own was filled with torment, strife, struggle, hurt feelings, and taunts. All alleviated by the occasional earned success, love of parents and friends, opportunity to lead the group, and sense of playful adventure. All of the things, in short, which allow us to become civilized adults. For those of you who may be unfamiliar, the opening of the book begins:

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.
These are the things I learned:

* Share everything.
* Play fair.
* Don't hit people.
* Put things back where you found them.
* Clean up your own mess.
* Don't take things that aren't yours.
* Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
* Wash your hands before you eat.
* Flush.
* Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
* Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
* Take a nap every afternoon.
* When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
* Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
* Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
* And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.

And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

Subtly disguised within this passage are both our modern society’s navel-gazing fascination with childhood and also the deep American streak of anti-intellectualism. While some such thoughts are spurred by the yearning for a simpler and less-complicated life yielding to them is a danger that our society often fails to recognize. In Kindergarten we are passed between a series of all-powerful authorities who guide our actions and (we hope) protect us from harm. In childhood these authorities may be parents, teachers, and other adults. Their eventual goal is to help us grow into reasoning, mature adults – heirs of the liberty that allows our civilization to thrive and capable of accepting the responsibility it needs to survive.
Yet this passage tempts us with the feeling of nurturing safety that comes when we pass on the responsibility to make decisions to others. Who do adults go to for this feeling? Sadly, it usually ends up being the state and its enforcement bureaucracy.
Whenever the state interacts in our life to direct and limit our actions, we become less like adults and more like children. One of the key differences between adults and children is that as adults we are capable and responsible of directing our own actions – and that we have the liberty to do so. When we give up too much of our adulthood we resort to a state of savagery, and lose those best civilizing influences among us. Thus, what appears to be a comforting world-view eventually ends in subjugation of a savage citizenry to an ‘ever-protecting’ state.
I don’t have time to go over every phrase, and to be fair some actually make sense, such as “living a balanced life.” But I some thoughts struck me as key bricks which build up the Berlin wall of the essay’s message.
“Wisdom,” Fulghum states, “was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandbox at nursery school.” One wonders why throughout history tribes have been guided by their elders rather than a council of the supposedly innately-wise children. It harkens back to Rousseau’s statement that humanity is everywhere born free and gives in to chains. In contrast freedom is achieved by man through his creation of workable social structures, and those structures require the occasional submission to experience. Wisdom is not given, but gained.
“Share everything,” how simple and romantic it sounds until we face the problem of deciding what is one’s fair share. Children always seem to each have their own opinions about that (and what happens when teacher isn’t around to make sure that one can keep one’s own project one slaved over.)
“Play fair.” Fairness, hopefully is defined by the will of the students. But what about when the current will of the students is morally wrong. Sometimes teacher must be there to protect individual students from the will of their classmates – a mob is still a mob whether they are for you or against you. Sometimes teacher’s rules are onerous and are designed to make her life easier, not for the benefit of the students – law is often but the tyrant’s will. That’s why we have parental boards full of wise adults – to keep teacher in line.
“Don’t hit people.” What human heart has been willing to stand by while the class bully torments one’s friend. There’s another childhood lesson too: “Don’t be a tattle-tale.” How do these mesh? Should we always bring others in or should we “clean up our own mess?”
“Don’t take things that aren’t yours.” Presumably ‘without asking,’ otherwise how would we learn to ‘”share.” The ability to balance these two is apparently part of that innate “wisdom” that Kindergartners possess.
“Warm cookies and milk are good for you.” Best hope they don’t have trans-fat. Is the better lesson to learn to enjoy cookies and milk, or when our parents tell us to finish our vegetables? ‘He who does not answer to the rudder, will answer to the rock.’
“Hold hand and stick together.” Unless one wants to go off adventuring on one’s own or just have some time to oneself. There’s no room for individual achievement or heroic greatness in Kindergarten; that is supposed to wait until later. Stick with the herd, so it’s easier for teacher to keep track.
“The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.” Mysticism, pure an simple. Without asking why the plant goes up or down we might as well be animals living the life of apes with no past, present, or future. The whole march of mankind is based on not accepting what happens but asking why it does and if it is good. Animals accept their world, mankind makes it. Oh, and if we bother to ask our unwise elders, they might be able to tell us a thing or two. “Learn from your parents,” is conspicuously absent on this list.
Many of these points were well-made by Judith Martin in her chardonnay-dry style in one of my favorite essays:

Post-Kindergarten Society

Kindergarten is an excellent institution, in its way, and Miss Manners can think of few better solutions to such problems as keeping five-year olds off the streets and producing handmade pot holders. But she does not see why she, having reached what we shall call a certain age, must continue to be subjected to its rules and practices in what ought to be a larger, if not more sophisticated society.
In kindergarten, nobody has a last name, and few even have full use of their given names. Everyone has a simple nickname, and must always be telling everyone else what it is. We make quite a point, then, of addressing them correctly, and of helping others to do the same to us, as in “Hi, I’m Cindy.” Naturally, nobody has titles – even many of the teachers have ceased to be “Miss Twinkles” and become “Hi, I’m Pam.”
In kindergarten, we all wear simple, durable play clothes that are practical, mostly in bright colors, and sporty. We dress up only as a big joke. And those of us learning to read like to have signs across the fronts of our shirts and our possessions marked with their names – lunch bags that say LUNCH BAG, and so on.
In kindergarten, we are not expected to go very long without juice and cookies, and so we can eat at our desks and wherever we wander, and we always have simple snacks available for breaks. We prefer to drink from heavy mugs marked with our names or pictures of our favorite cartoon characters.
In kindergarten, we have Show and Tell, in which we are assured that nothing is too trivial or too personal to command the attention of all, who must treat any revelation, no matter how pointless, with rapt attention. We are assured that if we blurt out everything that is on our minds, we will feel better.
We may also have general conversation in kindergarten, but it should be about things that everyone understands, such as sports or television programs or how we feel about our food.
In kindergarten, exercise is very important, and anyone who does not want to play is cajoled into doing so.
In kindergarten, creativity is important, and so we praise and accept anybody’s efforts and consider them all equally worthy.
In kindergarten, we must all learn to work together and to share in the rewards, and anybody who wants to go off alone or who piles up more than his or her share must be gently led back to the group to let everyone else participate and catch up.
Most of all, we must learn, in kindergarten, to like and accept everyone else. Not only do we not want loners here, but we want to show everyone that if you make an effort, you can like anyone at all, and all of them more or less equally. We assume that dislikes are only a matter of prejudices and misunderstandings, and that any people if placed together in pleasant circumstances can get along as well as any other people.
In kindergarten, if we discover anyone who simply cannot learn and flourish within these standards, we suggest a little outside help, because we know it must be a sign of emotional problems.
Miss Manners does not quarrel with any of these rules, under which kindergartens have flourished for some time now. She only please that, having put in her time, she be promoted into a society where formality, distinctions, subtleties, individuality, standards, and eccentricities are permitted.

To reap the benefits of civilized life, we must be willing to accept the responsibilities that make it possible, no matter how tempting trite philosophies and savagery concealed by simple statements may be. And the biggest word of all isn’t “LOOK,” but “WHY?” Children look, adults see.