It's Over

For John, BLUF:  The Word of the Day.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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GLEICHSCHALTUNG

the standardization of political, economic, and social institutions as carried out in authoritarian states.

What prompted this was a blog post at InstaPundit, by Mr Stephen Green, on an item in PJ Media, "Advertisers Jump on the SJW Bandwagon, Declare Masculinity Dead", by Ms Faith Moore, 8 August 2018.

I guess there are a few of us "bitter clingers", clinging to our guns and Bibles and our masculinity, but otherwise it may all be dead, as we all align with the SJWs.

The only problem is that the SJWs sometimes change direction with no warning.  Watch out for whiplash.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Pronouncing Where the President is Going

For John, BLUF:  Foreign names are hard.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Pronunciation of Hiroshima.

From AP Reporter Yuri Kageyama.

Hat tip to a friend who is a former reporter.

Regards  —  Cliff

Trump and Mexico

For John, BLUF:  This political year nothing is what it seems.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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From PJ Media we have Mr Roger L Simon's "Diary of a Mad Voter" and "Can Trump Save Mexico?"

I love Mexico. I have been there dozens of times from the border to the Chiapas jungle.  I love almost everything about it.

But like so many, I detest their government.  It has been a disaster longer than I have been alive.  And glorious as the art and architecture may be, there's that other more depressing Mexico -- the land of El Chapo, mordidas and murder -- the desperate barrios you see from the cab if you accidentally stray from the Zona Rosa or Polanco or one of the other tony neighborhoods of the Distrito Federal.  This is the world's capital of income inequality.

Mexico, wonderful as it is to visit, is intolerably corrupt.  Corruption in Mexico even merits its own Wikipedia entry.  Most of us who have been there on multiple occasions have experienced it.  I have paid a mordida to their cops myself more than once for traffic infractions I didn't commit to avoid being hauled off to jail.  It's just the price you pay for enjoying yourself down there, sort of like meeting the troll at the bridge.

And, one wonders if the legalization of drugs will avoid this kind of corruption in the US, or bring it on.

What none of us want, I would think, is for 43 college students from one college to go missing.  Apparently stopped by the police and turned over to a local crime syndicate to be dealt with.  And, of course, the allegation of torture in last week.  Torture of the suspects in the disappearance♠ of the college students.

And, there is the myth of Mr Trump vs the reality of Mexico, which many deny.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  You know you have hit the skids when the term "disappeared" enters your language as a verb.

Word Definition—Bien-pensant

For John, BLUF:  Like Bill O'Rielly, a new word every day.  Or not.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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From time to time I will use the term Bien-pensant, or make it one of my tags (or labels).  It is meant to be sarcasm.

noun (bien-pensant)

a right-thinking or orthodox person.

ORIGIN
French, from bien ‘well’ + pensant, present participle of penser ‘think.’

On the other hand, I have to admit that my late friend, Bill Tuel, was correct to say that negative humor is bad.  So, I will work to minimize my use, but the election season is certainly a condition that invites me to sin in this way and sin freely and happily.

Regards  —  Cliff

New Definitions

For John, BLUF:  Ideas in the Public Square should stand and fall on their merits, not on if you can fool the People.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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From Springer's Blog we have "The Fine Art Of Grubering".

Abe Lincoln summed up the problem with the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act:

You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

Hat tip to the Instapundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Aniconism

For John, BLUF:  Yes, a threat to your First Amendment Rights.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The Word of the Day is:

Aniconism

Regards  —  Cliff

Troubles With Western Traditions

For John, BLUF:  No, not about pigs.  That would be oinkopobia.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Word of the day—Oikophobia

Here is the word as used by Law Professor Glenn Reynolds:

TO OIKOPHOBIC LEFTIES, THAT’S NOT A BUG, IT’S A FEATURE:  Why Middle-Class Americans Can’t Afford to Live in Liberal Cities.♠

Here is an example from Wikipedia:

An extreme aversion to the sacred and the thwarting of the connection of the sacred to the culture of the West is described as the underlying motif of oikophobia; and not the substitution of Judeo-Christianity by another coherent system of belief.  The paradox of the oikophobe seems to be that any opposition directed at the theological and cultural tradition of the West is to be encouraged even if it is "significantly more parochial, exclusivist, patriarchal, and ethnocentric."  Scruton described "a chronic form of oikophobia [which] has spread through the American universities, in the guise of political correctness."

Again, from Wikipedia we have a reference to Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault and their "assault on 'bourgeois' society result[ing] in an 'anti-culture' that took direct aim at holy and sacred things, condemning and repudiating them as oppressive and power-ridden."

Derrida is a classic oikophobe in so far as he repudiates the longing for home that the Western theological, legal, and literary traditions satisfy. . . . Derrida's deconstruction seeks to block the path to this 'core experience' of membership, preferring instead a rootless existence founded 'upon nothing.'

My question is, if we make all that "Western Tradition" go away, what do we have left?♥

Hat tip to the Instapundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  The sub-headline of the article, from The Atlantic, is "Blue America has a problem: Even after adjusting for income, left-leaning metros tend to have worse income inequality and less affordable housing."  I wonder what Senator E Warren thinks of that.
♥  Not meant as a pun.

Hastert Rule

For John, BLUF:  .  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The Hastert Rule. This item is so long in the queue that I don't remember where I picked it up.

Does the Hastert Rule Make Sense?

No, it is destructive of Democracy.

Yes, the majority is the majority, after all.

Yes, the Speaker needs to garner as much support as possible.

No, Republicans are just wrong and should not be allowed to do this.

I am not sure.

 

pollcode.com free polls

The real question with regard to the Hastert Rule is what about those who are a minority in the majority.  If they are sufficiently excluded, why don't they do go to the real minority?  There must be something in it for them that they remain a minority within the majority.

Regards  —  Cliff

Where We Live

For John, BLUF:  Not reality based.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Wolkenkuckucksheim

(Cloud-cuckoo-land)

Regards  —  Cliff

Happy Birthday

For John, BLUF:  Pentecost is known as the "birthday" of the Church, Catholics and Protestants alike.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Today is Pentecost (The Jewish festival of Shavuoth, held on the fiftieth day after the second day of Passover.)  Pentecost is from the Greek pentēkostē ‘fiftieth (day)’.

Today used to be known as Whitsunday, from the Old English Hwīta Sunnandǣg, literally ‘white Sunday’.  My computer dictionary suggests it is probably a reference to the white robes of those newly baptized at Pentecost.  That makes sense, since the Priest's vestments are red today, red being the color for the Holy Spirit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Australian Ballot

For John, BLUF:  Learning something new every day.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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So the "word of the day" is a term, Australian Ballot, also known as the Massachusetts Ballot.

This seems to me to be a common term across the Fruited Plain for a secret ballot.  What seems so fundamental to Democracy is actually a fairly new concept.  It was only in 1892 that the secret ballot was instituted across the United States.

This term came up on City Life today, introduced by someone from Dracut.

Regards  —  Cliff

Ms Jill Abramson

For John, BLUF:  Some bosses are troublesome.  Just saying.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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In reading a story about the departure of Ms Jill A from The New York Times, in The New York Times, by Mr David Carr, I came across what Mr Cobb said was a favorite word of Ms Abramson:

tsoris

Spelled "tsuris" in my computer's dictionary, it is from the Hebrew and it means "trouble or woe; aggravation."

So "tsoris" (tso͝oris) is the word of the day.

Yes, as Professor Althouse says, Ms Abramson was fired, per the NYT, for being a B----.  Apparently women have not yet earned the right to be tough, difficult bosses.  The other explanation for the firing is that The Times was not paying her what it had been paying men to do the same work and she challenged them on it, which would also make her a B----.♠

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Best Althouse line—"Liberals retreat to the position right-wingers always take, the high ground of meritocracy and individualism."  I am sure she meant "Progressives".

Diplo–Speak

For John, BLUF:  Word salad, to have nothing concrete to say.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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This AM a fried of mine suggested "… China HASN'T said anything about Ukraine."  This friend then went on to say:

Even Chinese commentators have observed that this is a "word salad," and hardly a definitive expression of policy.

Regards  —  Cliff

Economists Fired

For John, BLUF:  No one really understands how an economy works.  But, there are a lot of strong opinions out there.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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At the blog site Quartz, back on 25 November, is an article titled "The shakeup at the Minneapolis Fed is a battle for the soul of macroeconomics—again".  As we all know, the Federal Reserve, a quasi-autonomous Federal entity,♠ is divided into twelve regional banks, each with a lot of independence.  There is also the Board of Governors and the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), plus some odds and ends.  The authors of the article, to give them credit, are Messrs Miles Kimball and Noah Smith.

Skipping the lede, we have:

Two of the Minneapolis Fed’s most eminent and long-serving economists, Patrick Kehoe and Ellen McGrattan, have been fired. The Star-Tribune article makes it clear that their departure was not voluntary on the part of either researcher. (Fortunately, both Kehoe and McGrattan will be fine, career-wise—both have stellar publication records and tenured professorships at the University of Minnesota.)

Why did this happen? We cannot know, especially since Minneapolis Fed Chief Narayana Kocherlakota isn’t giving his side of the story. But Jeffrey Sparshot makes this possible connection in the Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Kocherlakota switched in 2012 from opposing some of the Fed’s easy-money policies to calling for more aggressive Fed action to spur economic growth and employment. The move reflected a shift in his views on persistently high unemployment: He went from thinking the cause was largely structural (and thus could not be fixed with monetary policy) to thinking it was largely due to weak demand (which means it could be addressed through policies aimed at boosting demand).

In other words, although the Minneapolis Fed shakeup could be due to any number of reasons—a personality conflict, a disagreement over the Fed bank’s mission, etc.–one possibility is that the personnel changes are related to Fed officials’ changing attitude toward business cycles. To understand that possibility, it is crucial to understand an academic controversy that has been simmering for decades.

Then the authors go on to discuss "Freshwater" Macroeconomists versus "Saltwater" Macroeconomists.  It is all there for you to read, at the link, above.  However, it all reminds me of those who ask why Congress can't just compromise.  It the Minneapolis Fed can't compromise, when they are the ones who are so smart about the economy, how can we expect Democrats and Republicans in the US Congress to come up with a compromise?

At some point the authors use the word "apotheosis".  I had heard it before, about something related to G Washington, but wasn't sure of the definition.  The definition is "the highest point in the development of something; culmination or climax:  his appearance as Hamlet was the apotheosis of his career".  (In the case of G Washington it is the second definition, "the elevation of someone to divine status; deification".)

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  One of the knocks on the Federal Reserve Bank is that while the Directors and the Head are nominated by the President and confirmed by the US Senate, the institution is otherwise fairly independent of the Federal Government, the States, the Public and God (or at least they think so).

Girlfriends and Economics

This is from the German philosopher, sociologist, and political theorist, Herbert Marcuse.  I am not a follower of Herbert Marcuse, but I did think that this was an insight worth passing on:

Not every problem someone has with his girlfriend is necessarily due to the capitalist mode of production.

Professor Marcuse was not always wrong.  Jewish, he left Germany in 1933, coming to the US 1934 and becoming a US citizen in 1940.  He ended up teaching at the University of California, San Diego.  I would say those are the moves of a pretty smart person.  It was just that he may have been wrong about the free market.

Regards  —  Cliff

Bailment

Usufruct

noun Roman Law
the right to enjoy the use and advantages of another's property short of the destruction or waste of its substance.

I saw it in a book about the law and how it can help or frustrate commerce.

Regards  —  Cliff

Scientists vs Engineers

Scientists discover the world that exists; Engineers create the world that never was.

Theodore von Kármán, Aerospace Engineer

My Son and his family and my other Son and his family lived on different streets in a development that had a street named after Theodore von Kármán.  Another street was named Macintosh, as in the computer.  Out by Vint Hills Farm.

Regards  —  Cliff

AP Bans "Islamist" From Stories About Islamists

For John, BLUF:  AP may change its Style Book, but if so they have to expand the narrative.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

Well, maybe Slate has it right about "Right Wing Bloggers" not being happy with the Associated Press.  Then there is the citation of a New York Post article for its exposure of the New York Police Department overreach in its surveillance of the Muslim Community.  Frankly, I think the NYPD does overreach, as when it stops citizens on the street to frisk them.  What ever happened to the Bill of Rights?

But, enough of that.  Slate comments here on the AP changing its style book with regard to the word Islamist.  This change is close on the heels of dispatching "illegal immigrant" to the backwaters of journalism.  Per Slate, in part the change reads:

"Where possible, be specific and use the name of militant affiliations: al-Qaida-linked, Hezbollah, Taliban, etc.  Those who view the Quran as a political model encompass a wide range of Muslims, from mainstream politicians to militants known as jihadi."

This will be good it if results in longer stories with more insight into each of the wide variety of organizations out there and their interconnectedness.  On the other hand, I am not counting on it.  I think we will be depending on the Samizdat to keep us informed as to what is really going on. The organization urging the Associated Press to change its Style Book, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), was happy with the change.

In the mean time, over at The National Review, Mr Clifford May talks about Muslim on Muslim conflict, showing why we need more detail from the Associated Press, and others on what is going on in the Muslim world.  Then there is Reporter Spencer Ackerman, writing in Danger Room of Wired about an interview with an American Jihadist in Somalia (Mr Omar Hammami, a 28 year old Alabama native), who argues it isn't US foreign policy that encourages the Jihadists to fight, but Islam itself.  Both the US and his former al-Shebab buddies are after him, with a price on his head.

Regards  —  Cliff

Word of the Day

Schadenfreude

Regards  —  Cliff

Intervention

For John, BLUF:  A means of connection; tie; link.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

Nice use of the term "nexus" by City Solicitor Christine O'Conner at tonight's City Council Meeting, at about 9:20.

Didn't help.

Regards  —  Cliff