Bandarlog


	Humps, Bananas, Milkshakes Blogfriend Fontana Labs captures this week’s Michelle Malkin “Defend the Indefensible” award (pop music division) for his scholarly appreciation of “My Humps” by the Black Eyed Peas. Crude, low tech, call-and repeat songs have a defender in me. “Tipsy?” – good song. “Milkshake?” – heaven forgive me, it’s a catchy song. “Let Me Clear My Throat” by DJ Kool? Turn it up! But listen to me, top 40 fans, the quality of good low tech hits makes purging the unworthy yet more imperative! The unredeemable* -- Gwen Stefani's "Bananas", for example -- must be destroyed. They say about tastes there is no disputing, and no accounting for.* I say: not so. Here is a fact of the world. My Humps is simply an awful song. Actually, “Bananas” has one redeeming feature. As readers of this blog have no doubt noticed, I am a dreadful speller. Thanks having Gwen Stefani’s lyrics lodged in my cerebellum (my shit is bananas, b-a-n-a-n-a-s!), I will never misspell bananas again. *Check out a similar view from Hau Hsu in Slate: “"My Humps" is a moment that reminds us that categories such as "good" and "bad" still matter.” [Ben A.: 2/28/06 09:40]


	Pre-Empted Again! I was about to write a post about this article, but opinion journal beat me to it. Once again, though, Harvard proves itself ahead of Yale. We had our own wild Afghan, No-English-man, over 15 years ago! [Ben H.: 2/27/06 12:46]


	True ... not to mention the Yosemite Sam school of international politics! [Doug: 2/26/06 13:32]


	An Apt Metaphor What we have here is the dawn of the new Yosemite Sam school of national politics. Put any news event in front of our politicians now--Hurricane Katrina, Terri Schiavo, Dick Cheney's quail or this week the ports--and like Bugs Bunny's hair-triggered nemesis they'll start spraying the landscape with wild remarks and opinions decoupled from what is knowable about these events. Wait to learn the facts--as almost alone, Sen. John McCain, suggested? Why bother? Dan Henninger [Ben A.: 2/26/06 11:44]


	Whit Stillman: Hero Interviewer: What was the germ of the idea for Metropolitan? Whit Stillman: Like many things it started with annoyance at something I’d read in the New York Times [Ben A.: 2/25/06 06:20]


	My grandfather had a saying: never lend your car or your wife. Perhaps as a result of his pithy advice, I've always hated leaving my car with a valet or with a New York garage attendant. Tonight I witnessed some evidence of the wisdom of my gut feeling. Walking down Lafayette Street tonight, i noticed a knot of passers-by gawking in front of the parking lot at the corner of Bond Street. It's one of these lots that uses a stacking system for cars; this particular one has four levels and looks a bit like a cross between a closet organizer and an erector set. One stack of cars had suffered some sort of malfunction. The driver-side of each of the platforms had broken free, tilting the platforms 45 degrees and tossing the cars on them into the support posts. If you think the car stacks look strange under normal circumstances, you should see one in a state of partial collapse. Somewhere in Manhattan, the owners of a black Mercedes sedan, a white Infiniti, and a Ford Explorer are enjoying a Friday evening out, oblivious to the fact that their rides have been compacted. For once, I could see the attraction of a camera phone... [Ben H.: 2/25/06 00:59]


	What's Really Depressing As expected, Winter in Paris without much social interaction has turned depressing; I consider myself lucky to have made it this far, with Spring not too many weeks off. Probably I shouldn't have been reading these Houellebecq books. They're "thesis" novels, of course, with the thesis being the classic Parisian one that life is bleak and pointless; what's really depressing about them, though, is their middling quality, the palpable sense you get that five pages would have served as well as five hundred, not just to get across the thesis but also all the worthwhile witticisms. By contrast, I've been listening to a recording of Winterreise with Christa Ludwig singing and James Levine on piano; although most of the songs are about despair of one sort or another, the overall effect is not depressing because it's just so damn perfect. (I'm not qualified to comment on the performance or even on the appropriateness of a woman singing them; all I know is I don't like Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's voice, so I left that recording in New York.) [Doug: 2/23/06 15:05]


	Cambridge Deja Vu So Derek Bok has ridden back into Mass Hall after 15 years, to take over as interim President of Harvard. You know, since Bill Kirby recently resigned as Dean of FAS, maybe the University can bring back Henry Rosovsky, too. Possibly that would mean disinterring him (actually, i just checked; he lives yet). And we can track down Art Hall and Zahir Ali and invite them to stand in front of University Hall chanting "Rosovsky doesn't give a damn about Afro-Am." Just like old times. I now recall that during our time in Cambridge Rosovsky was already a former Dean of FAS, and had been recalled to serve pro tempore. [Ben H.: 2/22/06 08:01]


	Genius Register it! I'll pay... [Ben H.: 2/21/06 16:31]


	This Is The Moment to register HarvardAlumsForAGenialCipher.com [Doug: 2/21/06 14:31]


	Straining at Gnats, Swallowing Camels Whole Politicians have ginned up a not insignificant controversy regarding the "takeover" of some US port terminals by Dubai World Ports. To read articles about the deal, you would think DWP is some obscure Arabian shell company. The average citizen cannot be expected to know the who's who of infrastructure companies, but politicians sounding off on infrastructure security matters should. DWP is a big, serious company; and it is doubtful that the management of the ports in question (currently owned by P&O, which DWP is acquiring) will even change. While politicians show grave concern about security when an "Arab company" buys some assets, they still refuse to address forthrightly the issue of letting Arab people immigrate or visit the US. After all, it was UAE citizens among the 9-11 bombers, not UAE companies. Of course, attacking companies doesn't set off any P.C. alarms. [Ben H.: 2/21/06 07:37]


	Seeing reports this morning that Summers will resign today. [Ben H.: 2/21/06 07:11]


	Have not read the book you linked, but the thesis does not shock me. I would suggest, in the same vein, though perhaps a bit more dispassionate and technical, this book. [Ben H.: 2/21/06 07:10]


	Direct rebuttal of a conspiracy theorist like Perkins is difficult. Everyone wants to be the insider, the man who sees through the official version constructed for the rubes. The desire to join the inner ring of knowledge is pervasive and pernicious. No one wants to know that things are exactly as they seem, that the cynical story is in fact the most naive. Let cynicism work for you by taking no issue with Perkins' content, but rather identifying him as a bit player and exagerator of a James Frey variety. "Oh, were you taken in by that song and dance" -- this is the tone to strike. I would rather know your thoughts on this book, Ben H. Good, bad, or unknown? [Ben A.: 2/20/06 23:36]


	Not Exactly By Luttwak's Script At Ben A's recommendation, not long ago I read Edward Luttwak's Coup D'Etat: A Practical Handbook. Now, I've never launched a coup (or if I did, and I told you, I'd have to kill you), so I can't say from personal experience whether Luttwak gives wise counsel, but on its face it did seem pretty sensible. Over the last two weeks, coup talk has swirled in Philippines, but in ways that break several of Luttwak's cardinal rules. The possible date of the supposed coup is bandied about openly in the press as well and the identities of plotters. And all the while, neither the government nor the markets show a particularly robust reaction. The Filipinos certainly have lots of experience with coups, so maybe they've moved to a level of coup sophistication beyond Luttwak, a strategy impenetrable to ordinary common sense. On the other hand, maybe the country is just a fucking mess. I can't tell you how many people outside my industry have asked me about this book. So, Ben, what do you think about Confessions of an Economic Hit-man, they ask archly. The book is a farrago of lies, fantasy, self-delusion, and transparent fish-story bullshit, but somehow the more forcefully I state the case, the more my interlocutors give me conspiratorial nods in response. Seriously, I can think of a couple of governments I'd love to topple, but alas I'm just a pathetic bond monkey. [Ben H.: 2/20/06 21:56]


	Students For Larry On my Bloomberg, one of the top stories is headed "Harvard's Undergrads Support Summers". The Crimson has the details. The student body sure has changed since we were there. I can't imagine that the kids of early 90s Harvard would ever have taken the President's side in a controversy, let alone pass up the opportunity to help capture an authority-figure scalp. It's particularly weird given Larry Summers' utter lack of charm, charisma, or P.C. credentials. Any theories guys? Maybe his ability to retain student support is related to what some people* argue has allowed demanding religions to hold onto their flocks in the face of secular advance while mainline denominations, which ask so much less, have withered. Harvard students no less than parishioners respect those who feel their mission important enough to make demands of those they lead. Or maybe having observed the bloated egos of the FAS up close, students can very easily sympathize with Summers' frustration. Quite aside from the content of the story, the fact that Harvard faculty politics would make the top story roll on Bloomberg tells you a lot about the thick settlement of Wall Street by Harvard people. *See David Klinghoffer's article from the mid-90s in National Review, Kitsch Religion. [Ben H.: 2/20/06 21:38]


	Bingo, Ben A! Fujimori's wife (now ex-wife) started a campaign to run against him in the '96 elections, but Fujimori persuaded the Congress to pass a law banning relatives of the current president from running in a subsequent election, the so-called "Ley Susana." In interviews conducted for the documentary "the Fall of Fujimori" the former president claimed that during her abortive campaign, the family still had dinner together most nights. The domestic comity comes off as a little surprising in light of an incident in 1994 where Susana call a radio program to claim that Fujimori was holding her captive in the Presidential Palace. [Ben H.: 2/20/06 15:21]


	Process of Deduction Step One: Running against your wife, that sounds Southern Hemisphere, maybe Latin America Step Two: Even for Latin America, it's pretty odd. Conclusion: Fujimori [Ben A.: 2/20/06 12:28]


	No I can't even tell you who the prime minister of Canada is, so low is my level of global political awareness. [Doug: 2/20/06 12:26]


	Royal Flush The Economist had a little sidebar on Ms. Royal a couple of weeks back, and the pertinent fact I retain is that she is either married or otherwise romantically attached to Francois Hollande, the socialist party leader, and a fellow who himself has had presidential aspirations at one time or another. Could they wind up running against each other? As absurd as that sounds, a mid-sized country did within recent memory have a presidential election in which a wife challenged her husband (though she did not make it on the ballot in the end). Can you name the country and the candidates? [Ben H.: 2/20/06 08:57]


	The Anti-Thatcher It's certainly no shame to lack interest in the political scenes of insignificant countries that are getting inexorably more so; feel free to skip this if you're in this group. If you want my prediction on France's 2007 presidential race, I'm going to go with Ségolène Royal, who has more than her Bond-girl name going for her. Namely, she gives people the feeling that they are voting for "change" -- a woman in charge of France? Now that's really shaking things up! -- and everyone says they're for change in a political/economic climate that reeks of defeat. But she also gives people the knowledge, at the level of their bones, that she will change nothing -- she is a Socialist, after all. And this is crucial to win over the pathetic little functionaries whose fear ultimately settles all political questions in France. (Bonus in-depth tidbit: She sent up a trial balloon a few weeks ago by avowing respect for certain programs of Tony Blair, universally known here as Bush's Poodle. It was promptly shot down by scandalized socialists. Does it mean she really has some centrist leanings? I doubt it: I think it was just stupidity on her part. As in America, you have to appeal to the base before the primaries, so she should have stuck to the "change through absolute stasis" program of the left. She will indeed have to mouth some respect for Blair, but she forgot to wait until the face-off with Sarkozy (who I suspect will beat out Villepin in the other primary) before doing so.) [Doug: 2/20/06 03:36]


	Summers: Freak to Frat, Again The guy has borderline Aspergers. This was Deb's diagnosis after he spoke for 15 minutes to her med school class, and the quotes you cite, reinforce this theory. Probably a guy like Summers never should have been put in a position where glad-handling was so important. His power to alienate is uncanny. It wasn't just Cornell West and Nancy Hopkins; lots of reasonable people were turned off by him. The tragedy is that Summers had the potential to be the most important intellectual leader in American education. So instead of a freak who was innovative, thoughtful, and could have changed things for the better, we'll get the Ivy league equivalent of the frat boy -- a presentable, cultured, liberal centrist who raises money and challenges nothing. Depressing. [Ben A.: 2/19/06 15:05]


	Freak to Frat This seems to be a standard lifecycle in innovative industries. The pioneers are freaks who derive enormous success from unconventional appraoches, then, with success achieved and something like oligopoly position established, the frat guys come in and guarantee regression to the mean. This cycle has already played out in venture capital, but the intense drubbing VC received by investing in the class of 1999/2000 companies lowered the appeal to yobs substantially. The usual requirement for an advanced technical degree also helps to preserve a freak remnant. [Ben A.: 2/19/06 14:11]


	I Like This Guy More And More The Culture Editor of Jyllands-Posten When I visit a mosque, I show my respect by taking off my shoes. I follow the customs, just as I do in a church, synagogue or other holy place. But if a believer demands that I, as a nonbeliever, observe his taboos in the public domain, he is not asking for my respect, but for my submission. And that is incompatible with a secular democracy. [Ben A.: 2/19/06 13:57]


	Larry's Luck Runs Out Now that I reflect on it, I must confess surprise that the Harvard Corporation held out for so long. Yet surrender is in its institutional genes, and nature appears close to asserting itself. The Schlieffer affair perhaps gave the anti-Summers movement the last bit of impetus it needed to overcome the Corporation's feeble resistance. Harvard did not cover itself in glory in its handling of the matter. Yet, that the discredit for this should fall on Summers is somewhat ironic. The "crime" took place took place before Summers returned to Harvard and (I can speak from a certain degree of personal knowledge on this score) he really did recuse himself from the matter when he took up his current post. Impunity for naughty profs did not start with Schieffer -- just ask what sanctions Charles Ogletree and Larry Tribe suffered for their plagiarism incidents. If anything, Summers has proven more willing to call professors to the carpet for bad behavior, low scholarly productivity or inadequate teaching, which is precisely one reason the faculty so despises him. If the faculty succeeds in ousting Summers, it will have gotten a taste of blood. His unfortunate successor will do best to drop any pretense of running the business of education and just stick to extracting money from vain alumns, of which a small portion will go to hiring more useless administrators and the vast majority to increasing the size of the Scrooge McDuck-like hoard of the endowment. Anyway, for me the biggest disappointment is that once again, an American elite institution shows its intolerance for people with bad table manners and sloppy dressers. You think I playing the discrimination card too readily? From the Crimson: During last year’s crisis, Goldin said, people had “real gripes”—“I would talk to them and try to understand it.” Those gripes, Goldin said, included specific incidents involving Summers and Faculty members. For instance, “‘I met him at this thing and he didn’t say hello.’ Or, ‘he didn’t shake my hand,’ or, ‘his underwear was showing,’” she recounted. "His underwear was showing." A vicious, hateful slur often used to bludgeon sloppy dressers. You might as well say that the Jewish Summers "is a poor tipper"! Urban Asses Ugh. Yet another piece of evidence for why I should take the money and run away from my industry already. Back when I started, hedge funds represented a fairly obscure corner of the financial industry. As such, it attracted an unusual collection of people, many from backgrounds non-traditional for established financial institutions -- competitive bridge and backgammon players, math professors, journalists or even, ahem, Latinists -- and with the non-traditional personalities to match. But as the hedge fund industry has grown in size and prominence, and as the success of hedge fund pioneers has demolished scepticism about a largely unregulated and opaque asset class, making it easier for newcomers to raise money, the baseball-cap, frat-boy, MBA asshats who flood banking have now set their sights on hedge fund jobs. Sadly, weirdly, ironically, even established hedge funds started by non-traditional types hire them! When we instituted a dedicated recruiting function, you should have seen what percentage of the resumes that made it through the initial screen met this profile. I pushed back and still manage to see a lot of interesting candidates. But for many of my competitors, their hiring profile would exclude their younger selves. As a result, we get clowns like Mr. Urban Ass House filling up the industry and, I suspect, a lot of investors will get inferior results. [Ben H.: 2/19/06 13:43]


	Freezepop Forever! The best synthpop band in the history of ever played my neighborhood tonight. Here's their cover of "Boom Boom Boom, Let's Go Back to My Room." [Ben A.: 2/19/06 03:41]


	The Urban Ass House When the jumpers stop falling, Smoove has a job waiting in the hedge fund industry. Courtesy the incomparable Curbed. [Doug: 2/16/06 15:11]


	I knew that interview reminded me of someone! If there is anyone out there not aware of Smoove B's column, I would start with this one. The one at the top of the archive list that Ben H linked to deviates from the established formula at the end of the second paragraph, in a way that deflates the inevitable punch line. Also: the Smoove B Boudoir. [Doug: 2/16/06 12:35]


	Starting at Guard... ... for the Celtics, Mr. Smoove B! I didn't realize Smoove played basketball professionally. [Ben H.: 2/16/06 07:16]


	Romance is Not Dead "Pop some bottles, some Moet Rose. The red Moet, we ain't popping no Kristal, it tastes like urination. We ain't popping no Kris, that's $500 a bottle. It ain't that serious. It ain't going to get you drunk. Make sure you put that in there." Valentine's day thoughts from Delonte West [Ben A.: 2/15/06 19:56]


	Optimism on Africa It may merely demonstrate how nuts the Greenspan liquidity bubble has become, but the one place you will find consistent optimism on Africa these days is the Emerging Markets investing community. For years, I've put small amounts of money in obscure African local markets, not out of any sense of hope for development, but because access to these markets was difficult and high rates prevailed as a way for local elites to extract a rent from their friends in government. These days, however, even staid funds are piling into Africa, and at very low interest rates to boot. One investment bank sent around a team last week to pitch investments in T-bills of Tanzania, Zambia, Uganda, Nigeria and Kenya. With the exception of Tanzania, rates in each of these countries are in single digits. Kenya is facing famine, but apparently that has not dampened investor enthusiasm. The last time I heard people talking about Africa as an "attractive addition to the asset class" was, oh, May 1998. Ivory Coast and Liberia were particular stars. Shortly thereafter, EM markets blew up utterly and Ivory Coast and Liberia descended into anarchy. Speaking of Liberia and the Dalrymple thesis on African "amoral tribalism", check out Russell Banks' excellent new novel, The Darling. [Ben H.: 2/14/06 08:21]


	Anne Applebaum's Reaction to Dalrymple on Europe is here. I'm struggling to advance my own essay on France -- I have the basic structure down, and even many of the details, but I decided to write it in French, and that's made it a terribly slow process. Then I have coffee to speed it up, this prevents me from sleeping, requiring more coffee the next day ... downward spiral. [Doug: 2/14/06 05:04]


	Optimism On Africa? No. I think your analogy is right on. [Doug: 2/14/06 04:54]


	Africa Thanks for linking to the Dalrymple piece on Europe, Ben H. Anne Applebaum’s response today is good as well (and as an aside, Cato could do much worse than to hand over all decision-making authority to Brink Lindsey and Will Wilkinson). Still even when it’s articulated beautifully -- as it is by Dalrymple -- I find the plight of Europe a snooze. Europe is of more strategic and economic import, perhaps, but Africa is far more interesting. That’s because Europe’s problems have answers. To indulge a metaphor from my own line of work, Europe is an otherwise healthy man with hepatitis. It sucks to be that guy, but we have a drug for it. That drug may cause debilitating flu-like symptoms; it may cause depression; but inject it for 26 weeks and there is a good chance of cure. So too, Europe. These are prosperous, sophisticated countries, blessed with functioning institutions. Everyone knows the prescription – open markets, enhanced competition, enforced assimilation, unshackled entrepreneurs. An unpleasant prospect for some, but not a mystery. Africa, in this analogy, would be a pandemic of extraterrestrial flesh-eating fungus. A stupefying, horrifying disaster. What the hell is going on? How can so many countries get poorer over a fifty year span? What solutions can be put in place here? Perhaps I am just manifesting my ignorance, and a Africanist like Tim Burke or an actual African, could set me straight in moments, but Dalrymple’s account seems instantly convincing. And not merely because it partakes in equal measure of Achebe and Luttwak. It is just very plausible that the nation state structure – and certainly the sham versions that afflict sub-Saharan Africa – could squash economic and human development. Here’s Luttwak’s version: There was one thing that the new states [the newly independent African states] lacked which they could neither make for themselves nor obtain from abroad, and this was a genuine political community. … There was no organic nexus between the native cultures and the instruments of state power, and neither could such a link be formed. … The problem was not that this dissociation would make the state apparatus weak, but that it would leave it entirely unconstrained and much too strong. … If colonialism was a crime, the greatest offence was in its undoing when fragile native societies, embryonic modern societies, and minority peoples ill-provided to protect themselves, were everywhere abandoned into the hands of political leaders equipped with the powerful machinery of the modern state. Unfortunately, this diagnosis does not lead obviously to remedy. If the instrument of state power is itself the problem, the standard tools of international aid will fail. William Easterly has some suggestions that could end-around the state system and connect resources directly to the intended beneficiaries. Anyone optimistic? [Ben A.: 2/14/06 03:56]


	Corporate Art I was just joking around: no business art has dinosaurs, or squid,or Michael Landon. Bird may not be working in the exact tradition of Cezanne, but he's having a good time at least. Snow Not too bad up here. Light and fluffy snow, which always makes for a fake seeming blizzard. [Ben A.: 2/13/06 21:07]


	The California Absurdity Aesthetic I've gone back to look at that painter's site a few times. I think it's because it reminds me of a similarly-inclined California artist I knew about 10 years ago. His name was Chris Penrose and he was a computer-music composer at UCSD. He's just about the only guy I know who was as alienated and ironical as I was then. (I've decided that I did take that corporate finance class after all.) We never became friends but he did teach me C++, just because that was the kind of stuff he was into. (He was a NeXT hacker.) I just googled him and he seems not to have left many traces since then -- I assume the eponymous basketball player is not him, and that the eponymous Leeds Mental Hospital patient is not him, but only because he has no connections to England that I'm aware of. He did seem to get an appointment at a Japanese university shortly after I met him (the Japanese Absurdity Aesthetic is close to the Californian variety, come to think of it). But the only music of his that I can find is After the Taj Mahal, still up on a Princeton server, which includes his masterpiece of alienation and despair, Manwich (1993). The full MP3 file there is 12 MB and lasts more that 12 minutes; do not listen to it unless you can give it your full attention. I link to it because of its artistic merit; as for its potential for moral uplift or morale uplift, let's just say the EU is not going to make it its anthem. [Doug: 2/13/06 14:09]


	White-Out! We got a crapload of snow here in NYC. Ben A, how did you fare in Boston? Without prejudice to the truly impressive mass of white stuff on the ground, I must say I found myself a little surprised that this storm represented the NYC record for snowfall. The scene in Brooklyn was rough, but didn't seem rougher than the worst I've seen since moving out there; nor in Manhattan* did it seem worse than that really giant storm in either '98 or '99. yes, this Sunday I happened to have an appointment in Manhattan. I never have anything to do in Manhattan on the weekends anymore, but wouldn't it just be my luck that this* weekend I broke the pattern. Getting in was actually not so bad, but returning home turned into an odyssey, as the F train shut down while I was aboard... [Ben H.: 2/13/06 08:37]


	Schlieffer I have read that article, although i knew most of the details beforehand. The professor's wife is something between a friend and competitor of mine. It seems like most of the details are true. It is certainly the case that Andrei and his wife are very close friends with Summers. The question I have is: why is this making news now? I remember gleefully reading out loud portions of the govermennt FCA complaint to my colleague the other Ben (who also knows the couple) -- in our old office on 49th Street, which means no later than autumn 2000. Even final settlement with the goverment occurred some time ago. My guess is that the faculty is making another push to unseat Summers and that this article may be a part of it. [Ben H.: 2/13/06 07:06]


	Corporate? Ben A, why did you characterize that painting of Bea Arthur wrestling dinosaurs as "corporate art"? It's certainly art, which is now defined as anything created expressly to be incongruous, but what makes it corporate -- the fact that nobody will be offended by any of its elements' incongruous presentations? I have to say that, given the current definition of art, the painting is truly great art; I can hardly imaging anything more incongruous. I slightly preferred "The Anguish" by the same guy. The guy's paintings reminded me of my friend Jane's, although she uses animals to bring out aspects of her subjects' personality, rather than for the simple shock of incongruity. [Doug: 2/13/06 06:51]


	Chirac Victim of Prank-Calling Quebecois Has this been mentioned in the American press? A talk-radio jackass impersonating the newly elected Canadian prime minister manages to get through to Chirac. If you go in for talk-radio jackass humor, and speak a little French, you may find it funny. (Full audio here ). [Doug: 2/13/06 06:23]


	Another Harvard Scandal, If Anyone Still Cares You know, I honestly can't say whether, in an access of that irony that characterized my senior year, I actually took a "corporate finance" class pass-fail from this guy, showing up never but still passing, or whether this is a false memory planted by one or more of those dreams we all have where we wake up on the day of the final exam and realized we'd forget we signed up for the course. Maybe somebody has the patience, reading speed, and interest to read that whole article, about an economics professor whom Harvard bailed out of a Russian-privatization scandal at the cost of $26 million; frankly, the first page sufficed for me. [Doug: 2/13/06 03:48]


	UN Reform? According to this article UN Secretary General Kofi Annan will bow to American pressure and undertake fundamental reforms of the institution's operations. One tactic mooted is that of outsourcing work now done at the NYC headquarters overseas. Now, I will be the first to rejoice when the number of featherbedding parking-ticket scofflaws in my city goes down. However, the UN may represent the one case where outsourcing will not save money. The central task of most UN bureaucrats is corruption. Based on my observations trading emerging markets and living in New York, the price of bribery runs much higher overseas than in New York. AFT Follies Speaking of featherbedding bureaucrats, that AFT cartoon revue should embarrass any dues-paying member of the union. Of course, anybody who willingly pays dues to the AFT probably already has developed a hardy immunity to embarrassment. Ben A, forget about saving up for private school. We ought to be lining up admissions counselors. A colleague with kids in pre-school was saying that top kindergardens in NYC have a lower admissions rate than Harvard. Probably the situation is no different in Boston. I hear madrassas are cheap and not too particular about admissions criteria... [Ben H.: 2/11/06 23:58]


	Anybody need some corporate art? [Ben A.: 2/11/06 20:06]


	The Intolerable Persistence of Dogma There’s no doubt that Ben H’s cost of exit analysis explains why the fight over the Catholic Church proves so much fiercer than the fight over say, Reform Judaism. It doesn’t account, however, for the very weird phenomenon of atheists demanding that the Church sanction lifestyle liberalism. What does explain this? For many liberals and progressives, Catholicism is less a religion or an institution than the symbol of reaction par excellance, the no-fun preacher from Footloose raised to the nth power. Ken Macleod describes this phenomenon nicely as the ‘liberalism of fools’: Anti-semitism, said Bebel and Engels, is the socialism of fools. The rage of the small property holder - the peasant, the artisan, the stall-keeper - against his inexorable ruin by the competition of bigger capital is given a face and a race to hate: a physical particularity that stands in thought for the abstractions of 'finance' and 'the market' and 'the banks'. 'The Jew' becomes the concrete embodiment (in fantasy) of exchange value. So goes the Marxist tale, anyway, though it has many more subtle twists than that. Is there another hatred that might be called 'the liberalism of fools'? The progressivism of fools? The libertarianism of fools? If anti-semitism is, in an important aspect, a rage against the machine, against progress, is there an opposite rage: a rage against reaction, a fury at the recalcitrance of the concrete and the stubbornness of tradition? A rage against what is sacred and refuses to be profaned, against what is solid and doesn't melt into air, against ways of life that resist commodification, against use-value that refuses to become exchange-value? And might that rage too need a fantasy object? This seems about right. Macleod’s only error is his belief that Catholicism has lost its status as focus of ignorant progressive rage. It continues to serves that role. Indeed, in certain zones of the culture, it has reality only to serve that role. [Ben A.: 2/11/06 19:54]


	Start Saving for Private School Now I give you the American Federation of Teachers. [Ben A.: 2/11/06 19:35]


	Dogma I share your puzzlement, guys. A related phenomenon I had a hard time understanding manifested itself during the height of media attention to "pedophile priests." The editorial boards of major newspapers saw fit to weigh in with detailed prescriptions of what the Catholic Church ought to do about the problem; prescriptions which almost always extended to doctrinal changes like ending the requirement of sacerdotal celibacy. It seemed to me then rather odd that people from outside a community, people who for the most part profess a dislike for its governing institutions and suspicion of its foundational beliefs, should suddenly make pronouncements about the internal affairs of that community. "I think religion is really stupid; and, you know, Ganesh should really be squirrel-headed, not elephant headed." Somehow it doesn't make for a coherent position. THe behavior you guys identify -- members of a dogmatic religion trying to replace its tenets with their own preferences -- seems to me particularly rife among Catholic "dissenters." I suspect this is because Catholicism is so institutionalized, in both the physical and structural sense. WHoever wins the doctrinal fight doesn't just get the name "Catholic", but also all the buildings, schools, hospitals, etc. And its long continuity and centralized authority means that it is hard to leave the institutional church and still claim authenticity. If you are a member of one or another branch of Baptism and you find yourself disagreeing with church doctrine, you and a few like-minded people can split off and form your own congregation, maybe link up with another denomination, maybe not. The choice of exit versus voice depends on the barriers to exit: in Catholicism, they are high. [Ben H.: 2/10/06 22:19]


	The New York Real Estate Market, In a Word [Doug: 2/9/06 06:59]


	Catholic Dogma Douthat's point is the sound and often-repeated one that, look, the Catholic church is fundamentally a dogmatic institution, and if you don't like the dogma, get the hell out. Americans have indeed been leaving the RCC, and since my tastes are anti-dogmatic, this pleases me. But it wouldn't please me so much if they didn't have protestantism to turn to -- if they were left with materialism and nihilism. The latter situation is more or less the one France is in. Ever since they slaughtered/exiled the Huguenots, the idea that you can pick and choose your religious convictions has been foreign to them. Most of the "crisis" and "decline" talk here centers on economic policy (Villepin is currently struggling to push through a bill that would very slightly unparalyze the labor market). But the religious dimension of the crisis is far larger than most people realize. I am planning a sect that combines Unitarianism with bits of the Da Vinci Code. Once things really get rolling I plan to seize the best old cathedrals here by force of arms. You can't imagine how grateful the French would be for an occasion to exercise their long-dormant will to power. [Doug: 2/9/06 06:48]


	*Not Everyone from The Salient* Goes on to Ignominous Failure** I commend to all of you the work of Ross Douthat, a perceptive alumnus of Harvard's only conservative biweekly. Check out this smash-mouth commentary on Elaine Pagels & co: * * * In the latest New Yorker, Joan Acocella rehashes Elaine Pagels' gloss on the Gnostic Gospels in the course of covering the history of Mary Magdalene, and concludes her piece by remarking, in passing, that "the young Bible scholars [promoting a more Gnosticized Christianity] should have all our support, and we should agree with them that the energetic, far-seeing Magdalene of the Gnostic texts is good evidence that the Church should ordain women." I love the exhortative use of "our support," and its implication - doubtless justified - that New Yorker readers turn to the magazine for marching orders on questions they are otherwise unqualified to address. But the sentiment, like much of the case for a Catholicism that incorporates Gnostic insights, makes absolutely no sense at all. As Gnostic apologists like Pagels have long made abundantly clear, the whole advantage of taking up the Gnostic texts is not to modify orthodox Christianity, but to replace it with an entirely different interpretation of the life of Christ - in which he intended to found, not a universal Church that carried on an Old Testament legacy, but an elitist (albeit sexually egalitarian) community of spiritual adepts who preferred cultivating the light within to any creed or set of commandments. * * * Oh, snap! Commonplace Book The best passage I read today: "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth? Declare, if you have understanding." Job 38:4 The second best passage I read today: "You are angry that I love the Soviet State, and not you." "You love the Soviet State more than you love me," said Hale, "was how I understood it." Tim Powers, Declare The Ownership Society Welcome to it Doug! And please give my and Deb's congratulations to Dao as well. Matt Groenig says that the best thing about sex is that you can stop thinking about sex for fifteen minutes, buying a house works the same way. Those who find themselves unable to stop, however, can feed the addiction here. (hat tip, the once and future ogged). [Ben A.: 2/9/06 00:41]


	Homeownership The kitchen is already fully and decently equipped, although I didn't check the appliance brands. One might conclude from my failure to check the brands that I'm a stranger to our age's real-estate fetishism and its annexes. This is not quite correct because the only blog I read these days is Curbed. [Doug: 2/8/06 04:18]


	Welcome to Homeownership Congratulations. It is now traditional for you, as a new homeowner, to allocate 25% of your conversational capacity to kitchen and bathroom fixtures. What are the French brand equivalents of "Viking" and "Subzero"? [Ben H.: 2/7/06 20:37]


	Plato's Bakeshop The boulanger in our neighborhood won the "best baguette of Paris" award in 2001. It proudly advertises this fact and so I made a note to savor their baguettes carefully. You might think -- or no, not you, but some less sophisticated person might think -- that nabbing the #1 baguette spot requires some slight clever twist to set yourself apart from the pack, like some subtle additional flavor or texture-enhancer. Perhaps a "best burger" award in an American city could be won this way. But here it's a matter of removing, not adding -- that is, removing the infinitesimal imperfections which separate you from the Platonic Form of the Baguette. And the Form of the Baguette is, even compared to the Form of the Hamburger, absolutely simple. So how did the prizewinning loaf taste? Exactly like every other baguette I've bought in France. [Doug: 2/7/06 18:20]


	Apartment We signed initial papers on an apartment purchase today; closing set for early April. It's a quite small two-bedroom near Gobelins, of the classic bourgeois Parisian-Haussmann type. It costs (what is to us) a fortune, but we are eager to get in on this guaranteed 15% annual value appreciation thing we've heard so much about. [Doug: 2/7/06 18:08]


	Goodwill Balance A very similar idea, Doug, is at the foundation of Francis Fukuyama's book Trust. His point is that where a certain kind of goodwill is more general -- that is, in countries where people tend to trust their fellow citizens to behave well -- you get a very different political and economic system than in places where trust does not extend beyond the family or tribe. As I recall his argument, though, he conflated your two questions, assuming that more trust per capita meant more generally diffused trust; or maybe, more precisely, that family members always trust each other, so family bonds assume greater political and economic importance in the absence of high levels of goodwill and trust. I think your splitting of the question captures an important point. Having done business in many different countries, my intuition is that some nations have a lot more goodwill than others, quite independently of how that goodwill is distributed. Ukraine and Russia seem to me to exhibit a lower level of per-capita goodwill than other places, but neither could fairly be described as tribal. [Ben H.: 2/6/06 14:30]


	Two Continents Analyzed Both the Dalrymple articles linked to below are great. The one on Africa may be objectively more interesting but I was more personally struck by the aptness of the Europe article -- not only because I know more about Europe but because I happen to be writing a longish essay on French decline. The only reason I think that anything needs to be added to what Dalrymple says there is that he leaves out the intellectual/philosophical dimension of the European crisis. He identifies a "vicious circle" but it's wider than he suggests: the secular-scientific view that most people buy into reinforces their political/economic immobilism in two ways, first by suggesting that there's no real point to human activity, second by suggesting that free will doesn't really make any sense anyway. If you think the leap from abstruse philosophizing to practical behavior is too far, you haven't seen the sales figures of Houellebecq's novels. One interesting contrast that comes out of the essays is the range of goodwill -- too short in Africa, too long in Europe. In France, anyway, brotherly feelings and brotherly actions are dispersed among all of humanity in a manner that goes under the name of "solidarity". In fact the mouthing of the word "solidarity" has largely replaced actual kindness for other people; the breakdown of the family here is legendary. Africa seems to have the opposite problem: the range of goodwill is shrunk down to the family -- Of course, the solidarity and inescapable social obligations that corrupted public and private administration in Africa also gave a unique charm and humanity to life there and served to protect people from the worst consequences of the misfortunes that buffeted them. There were always relatives whose unquestioned duty it was to help and protect them if they could, so that no one had to face the world entirely alone. Africans tend to find our lack of such obligations puzzling and unfeeling—and they are not entirely wrong. These considerations help to explain the paradox that strikes so many visitors to Africa: the evident decency, kindness, and dignity of the ordinary people, and the fathomless iniquity, dishonesty, and ruthlessness of the politicians and administrators. So there is a question of the best means of distributing goodwill. And it brings up another question, which is whether there might be different levels of per capita goodwill in different societies. E.g., might Americans' advantage be not only a better targeting of goodwill, towards the "local community", say, but also just more goodwill than other people? [Doug: 2/6/06 12:02]


	Europe in Decline: An Alternative View Theodore Dalrymple takes on the theme of "European Decline", a less apocaltyptic counterpoint to Mark Steyn's essay. [Ben H.: 2/6/06 10:36]


	"One goat can undo in an afternoon what it has taken decades to establish" For discussion. [Ben A.: 2/5/06 23:56]


	Shame I can only hope that Reuters is somehow mis-reporting this. The Bush administration should seize on the opportunity of the Mohammed-caricature controversy to highlight the difference between American commitment to free speech and European capitulation; and to signal the Islamocrazies at home and abroad that we will be cowed neither by guilt-mongering nor by threats. The only reason I can fathom for this statement is that perhaps the administration wanted to stick a finger in the eye of sanctimonious European critics. Cheap shots can be immensely satisfying, but the Islamic threat to liberty is much too grave to treat with such cavalierness. [Ben H.: 2/3/06 16:38]


	Like a Wall of Ice The Charles Martel reference called to mind a funny incident from when I was an exchange student in France in the late '80s. Before moving in with my host family, I spent a couple of weeks in classroom program hosted at the campus of the University of Poitiers (as in the Battle of Poitiers, where Charles Martel repelled the Arabs). Over the summer, it seems, the University rented out its dorms to all comers and aside from the small group of American kids it was filled with sketchy Arab/North African transients. They took delight in harrassing the young American girls and generally being anti-social. My host family dragged me around over the course of my stay to meet various relatives of theirs all over Brittany; and perhaps based on French stereotypes of American teenager, I got the sense that they all expected me to be some sort of culturally illiterate moron and an easy target for making light of. One day, we went to the beach with one of these sets of relatives and the paterfamilias says that my host family mentioned that I had spent some time in Poitiers. Indeed, I had, I told him. As-tu vu Charles Martel, he asked, assuming that I wouldn't know who that was and maybe would make an ass of myself. En fait, non, I replied and paused a beat. Mais, j'ai bien vu les Arabes. Quant a Poitiers, Charles Martel a gagne la bataille mais les Arabes ont gagne la guerre. That shut the guy up. [Ben H.: 2/3/06 07:14]


	More French Demographics Fun I provide a wikipedia link for those who don't know about Charles Martel, with the caveat that, like most jokes, the one scrawled on the poster above probably stops being funny once it requires explanation. [Doug: 2/3/06 06:52]


	This Is Via ALDaily, Of Course ... Nic Bullen of Napalm Death can sound remarkably like the Cookie Monster; his performance on the band's 1987 debut "Scum" (Earache)--which contains 28 songs, 11 of which are under one minute in length, including "You Suffer," which clocks in at less than two seconds--is a virtual Cookie Monster tribute. Frank Mullen of Suffocation, whose 1991 album "Effigy of the Forgotten" (Roadrunner) is considered a model of death-metal music, sounds like an especially malevolent Cookie Monster. [Doug: 2/3/06 06:26]


	Y'a Pas Bon! The last installment of the saga of everyone's favorite borderline-racist French ad campaign? [Doug: 2/2/06 14:05]


	Signs of a Backbone... In France? Latest twist in the Jyllands-Posten story: France Soir has apparently reprinted the "offensive" caricatures of Mohammed, to show that free expression should not be crimped by religious dogma. [Ben H.: 2/1/06 13:50]