Dead weight, leech, parasite ... I thought this apropos. Thomas Geoghegan compares the life of an upper middle class American woman (Barbara) to that of her counterpart in Europe (Isabel), and both of them to Milton Freidman:
Freedom or leisure is about as cosmically important as the dark matter, or dark energy, of the universe. It’s just that our minds have been darkened by economists like Milton Friedman. Yet Friedman himself had half an idea of who is better off (Barbara v. Isabel), even when he was writing libertarian-type tracts like Free to Choose. Freidman’s very life was an indictment of the ideas in the book. As a professor with tenure, he lived like Isabel, not Barbara. He had tenure, and three months off, and no one could fire him. He had a big TIAA-CREF pension, which a teachers’ union helped expand. It was a pretty nice life, even by Isabel’s standards.To the extent that Friedman was “free to choose,” he chose to live like a European in a social democracy. I wish that every one of us was free to live like Milton Friedman.
Yes yes yes!Here is an interesting post over at 4&20. Some women made a statement by baring their breasts in a gathering on the Clark’s Fork River near Missoula. The comment thread isn’t particularly useful – it’s just an exhibition of two ugly features of American life: Victorian prudishness, and Rosie the Riveter feminism.
The women are demanding “equality” in a stupid manner – they want to be able to display their chests in public in the same manner that men can. They forget one poignant feature about women: breasts. Men find them extremely attractive. Men are stimulated by looking at them. *
No no no!Breasts are really neat things. They are just globules of flesh designed to deliver milk to infants through a nipple on the front, and yet evolution has set them aside for another purpose – to attract and stimulate men. Our bodies, like women themselves, are complicated products of long evolutionary selection processes. The curves on the female body for instance, are there to allow her to bear children, and yet that 70% waist-to-hip ratio drives men nuts. Female features are soft – the hair, the faces … don’t get me going here.
The Clark’s Fork brigade – are they really that stupid? I suggested in the comments something I’ve noted about nude beaches and nude pumpkin runs and bike rides and such – that the women (and men) putting their wares on display in public are usually those who don’t enjoy much demand in private. A woman with a really attractive rack knows only to titillate (pardon the expression) without going on full display. The male imagination does the rest.
Noted philosopher BenesIs it discrimination that men can show their wares while women can’t? I suppose. It ought not to be illegal, but that is a Victorian hangover. If it were legal, it would be no more prevalent than it is now. Attractive women would not be walking down the sidewalk or into work with their mammary units in full bounce mode. The research on this issue was best explained by Elaine Benes on Seinfeld (paraphrased): Women’s bodies are works of art. Men’s bodies are functional. Women don’t get the same jolt at seeing a naked man as men do with women. When women go on display, men get aroused. That could be dangerous. Women want to filter potential mates, and public advertising of racks is a poor choice of media.
Noted philosopher Allen ... theorizingWoody Allen also chimed in on this issue, regarding the male organ – it is, he said, both an object of revulsion and attraction on the part of women. Once attracted to the other qualities of a potential mate, a woman will enjoy his giblets, but before that time, she has no interest in seeing them. It’s just not the same.
We’re different, Clark’s Fork cadre. We’re just different.
By the way, I know I will be accused of sexism and misogyny for writing this. I know that form of posturing well. Here are two things to consider: As we age, we become less attractive. I am sixty. If I show myself in public without proper cover, I would rightly be arrested for genuine indecency. Secondly, the positive outcomes from the hard and courageous work of feminists – greater opportunity and equality in the workplace, sexual liberation and more avenues to enjoy life and freedom – none of that is affected in the least by what is written above. Men still like looking at women.
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*Better yet, looking a breasts is good for men. There was a bizarre study in Germany that compared two groups of men – one group was asked to look at breasts for ten minutes daily, the other, poor schmucks, not. The results: The ogling group exhibited longer life expectancy, lower blood pressure, better blood circulation, and less chance of coronary heart disease. Further, the study said, the ten-minutes of admiration had the same effect as a 30 minute cardio workout.
I finally had an opportunity to talk to a neighbor yesterday – let’s call him Jack for short. We’ve been living next door to each other for a year now, and have met and said hi, but never talked turkey about anything. Yesterday he and his family were standing in their driveway eating ice cream cones as we arrived home, and so began to chat. Jack is a bit reticent and standoffish, and so his body was outside the circle of conversation among his wife and mine and his kids and me. So I decided to leave the circle myself and get into his sphere a bit.
It was interesting, but a bit uncomfortable at first, and he moved off the driveway and into the street. He is a nervous type, and his hands often say more than his others means of expression. I got him to talk a bit about what he does – it’s a mixture of things. He’s a bit of a weatherman and computer geek, but is primarily a mathematician, the field in which he has a PhD. I found it easy to get him to open up after learning about this, and marveled at the science of moving equations, weather prediction, Moore’s law, randomness, and the United States of America.
He’s from Canada. Much of his reticence comes from a learned reluctance to talk about this crazy, stupid country. Once he had finished his probe of me, and learned that he could speak freely, the conversation took off. Later his wife and kids were waiting for the two of us to shut up so they could get on with their evening activity, a walk in the park. I told him we must have a barbecue, but he suggested we take a walk together in the near future. Whatever – we are moving soon, but I want to maintain contact with this very interesting man (who does not waste his free time blogging, I’m sure).
He asked me a very basic question: “Why can’t you reform the health care system?” (There were a few “Don’t get me going’s” littered about by both of us.) I told him that it was power – the health insurance companies have control of politicians and have constructed a wall around the system. They charge for entry, and rake off a large percentage of the health care dollar for their own consumption. Further, they only want to insure people who are in their prime – young and healthy. They are risk-averse. If an American is not young AND healthy, then health insurance companies don’t want to deal with him. They dump him – they don’t care what happens to him, whether he is uninsured or dies young or is so fortunate as to gain entry into a government program … they just want him to go away.
To a Canadian, this is insanity. To me, it is insanity. Canadians enjoy access to their system without having to pay a king or corporate executive a premium or royalty. Health care is a mere commodity – when we get sick, we take care of on another. In normal countries. Not in this crazy, stupid country.
In the USA, tweets from a twit are newsJack and I talked about the insane, but not the stupid part. Americans have a larger share of sociopaths running free in the population than other countries (4% of the population versus 1% elsewhere), but it is hard to imagine, given random distribution, that we have bred more stupid people than other places. But look about …our Teabaggers saying “Keep your government hands off my Medicare” and this phenomenon called “Sarah” who is so popular for the mere fact that she is ignorance on display. People are drawn to stupidity. That is hard to fathom.
I hope to take a walk with Jack very soon. He knows he can speak freely with me. I am so glad I took time to draw him out a bit. He is a brilliant man, academically speaking, but also a man living in a country whose people do not have basic intelligence or the ability to take care of their own needs. He feels a bit of an outsider. Imagine he has learned to shut up about what he sees, which is why he was reluctant to converse … until he knew that I was safe.
He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.” (Albert Einstein)
KrugmanWell, Social Security is under attack again, and the attacks are serious, even more so now that Democrats are in power. Paul Krugman put up a good column today.
A lot of the Beltway establishment has a thing about Social Security — in a way, by the way, they don’t have a thing about Medicare, which is a vastly more important long-run problem. No matter how much you talk logic or numbers, they’re obsessed with the idea that Social Security must be cut; as I wrote back when, somewhere back in the 90s talking tough on Social Security became a badge of seriousness, and facts just can’t make a dent in that social convention.
Indeed, facts don’t matter, but action does. And we need serious action now to once again save the program from predators.
In my time, the first serious attack on the program came in the early 1980’s when Ronald Reagan was president. It was full frontal, and failed miserably. They quickly learned that the program was extremely popular, that it was a third rail. They backed off, and did two things:1) Using JuJitsu, they instituted the largest tax increase in history, applied solely against working people and retirees receiving benefits; 2) they set out to convince the younger generation that the program could not be sustained, and that they would never receive benefits. (Most youth that I have talked to echo that choice bit of propaganda.)
Monica's hummer saved Social Security. Who knew?The next, and more serious attack,came in the late 1990’s, when Bill Clinton was president. As revealed by aides after he left office, he was set to spring a secret privatization plan on us, and it had gone so far as to have measurements be made of the amount of keyboard input time would be necessary to set up the new private accounts. Fortunately for all of us, Clinton is a sleazeball, and his presidency was jeopardized by the Monica scandal. To shore up support, he needed to rally his base, and so became a champion of the program. The “Lock Box” was created.
But it was close. Too close.
The next attack came from George W. Bush in 2005. He said he was going to spend some “political capital” to privatize the program. But since he was perceived as a right wing Republican, and since he had very little capital, it was easy to mount opposition, and the plan quietly died.
We are in trouble now, serious trouble. One, a Democrat is in office, and two, his administration is offering assurances that the program is safe. Assurances are nothing more than a disarming tactic. As with the Public Option, the linchpin of health care reform, Democrat assurances are probably meant to forestall ground-level organization. They will then, in Clinton fashion, spring on us the fully developed privatization plan.
These are Democrats. I may not know much, but I know Democrats.They are far, far more dangerous than Republicans. Now is the time to join organizations that exist to prot3ectSocial Security, and spend what money and effort you can for that cause.
And, of course, write to your representative and senators. Be polite but firm. Tell them that the issue is important, that if they betray trust, you will vote for their opponent in the next election. (That makes your one vote into two.) It takes courage to vote for a Republican to punish a Democrat, but it is easier to unite against Republicans. Only Democrats can undermine Democrats.
Park 51 opponents have made much of the fact that polls show majority support for their view, as though public opinion should dictate where religious minorities can congregate. A new poll today reveals that 62% of Americans — a record high — now oppose the war in Afghanistan. By the reasoning of project opponents, shouldn’t that mean that public opinion should be honored with a withdrawal from that country? After all, religious freedoms are not supposed to be dependent upon the approval of majorities; the whole point of such liberties is to protect minorities from majoritarian frenzies. By contrast, wars are actually supposed to be fought only with the support of the citizenry. If majority sentiment should prevail, a far more compelling case can be made that it should do so with regard to Afghanistan than with the religious liberties of a minority group.
Asking for political courage from politicians who represent the most frightened and neurotic people on the planet is a fool’s errand. Of course they know what is up, how wrong what they are doing is. But what is there to make them do the right thing? In American politics, doing the right thing is its own punishment.
Transcript of secret White House conversation earlier this week:
Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel: Bobby – what are you doing going off on progressives like that? You fuckhead! We may hate them, but we need them.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs: Yeah. My bad. I just get so frustrated with them. They’re not voting the way we want. They’ve been a little hard to manage.
President Obama: Yeah. Bad move. Now we have to give them something.
Emanuel: Shit! See what you did, ratfuck? See what you did? OK. Done. What can we give them? Let’s think.
Obama: Can’t be anything important.
Gibbs: Can’t hurt anyone in congress – you know – can’t be something they have to take a stand on and maybe get hurt.
David Sirota assured himself that another Democratic Leadership Council member will never appear on his show. Harold Ford, former DLC head and member of Congress, supported Clinton’s trade deals and Bush’s tax cuts and wars while in congress, came on Sirota’s show to talk about his personal courage.
Sirota was having none of it. Click on the link to hear the ten minute interview. Great fun!
The front page of this morning’s Denver Post has an unintentionally revealing headline:
Audits cut costs in health coverage.
Have they discovered new efficiencies? Have insurance companies cut back on sales commissions? Have executive salaries been slashed?
No. Not at all. The article merely says that insurance companies are now doing audits to be sure that dependents are really dependents. If they are not, then they are excised from the system. They save costs by shifting the burden somewhere else, usually government.
The article really only highlights the principle of the “exclusion zone.” Insurance companies are able to extract a fee to let people into their system. If they could not exclude people, getting in would carry no benefit, and the companies would not exist.
Private health insurance companies can only make money if they exclude the elderly, the poor, the already sick. That’s why public systems in the thirty or forty other countries that use them manage to cover all their people at half our cost: They exclude no one.
Piece of Mindful 