Ashcroft's War on Porn

Couple of blogs from the blogroll weigh-in against the conventional wisdom.

Clayton Cramer:

Do I think the government should be running around pursuing softcore pornography that people purchase in hotel rooms and on their cable TV service? No. But the Justice Department does have an obligation to enforce existing obscenity laws. Perhaps those laws don't make sense as written, but if there is this vast sea of support for pornography that Instapundit thinks there is, Ashcroft's enforcement of the laws currently on the books should cause a groundswell of public opposition, right?
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In some circles, it is very fashionable to be unconcerned about the coarsening effects of pornography on our society, especially on young people, whose concepts of male-female relations are still developing. A steady exposure to any idea will certainly have some influence on the viewer; that's the whole point of political propaganda and commercial advertising.

Justin Katz:

So here's a thought: if the public really is as enamored of smut as Ashcroft's critics believe, why not campaign to change the law? If porn is such an obviously good, or at least neutral, thing, why sidestep the actual issue — involving those six guys and some unknown millions of dollars — by substituting rhetoric about the war? Come out from behind the computer desk and lance the issue head on.

This is so similar to the pro-Jackson/pro-Stern crusade that Jeff Jarvis has been leading since the Super Bowl. So this post from Jessica's Well deserves mention:

Howard Stern hand puppet Jeff Jarvis continues his defense of big media's right to push whatever crap they wish onto the public airwaves.

What say we get together an organized campaign to mail to Mr. Jarvis' home one Playboy, Penthouse, or Hustler every day? I mean, he doesn't have to open his mailbox, does he? If he does he can always not look at what is there. And if he can't be there 24 hours a day to keep his kids from getting at the stuff, well.....I guess a little more supervision is in order at the Jarvis household.

P.S. I am just kidding. Don't anybody do this.

OK it's a joke but it is also a good thought experiment. Why shouldn't Mr. Jarvis be responsible for policing his own mailbox? How exactly is that more arduous than trying to police kid's TV watching?

It seems to me, that it comes down to Jarvis's personal "ick" response. Stern yes, Hustler no. And he expects (rightly) that we should respect that. But he has no respect for those who say no to both.

JYB on Sullivan

The JunkYard Blog is out of patience with Andrew Sullivan:

He plays with religion, mostly to denounce any that doesn't agree with his fairly narrow misinterpretations of scripture, and opines here and there on economics, but he basically doesn't know much of consequence about any of that. He certainly doesn't understand warfare or the military. He's just an opinionated guy who happens to write well and knows how to build a viable argument out of thin air. Which is why he's a journalist. What the heck else would he do?


Sullivan's grasp of military issues has always been suspect as discussed here:

Lessons of this War

He is also the sort of blogger i had in mind when i wrote this post:

When Instapundit Speaks (Successful Blogging and the Dangers of Rapid Response)

Even at his moment of glory-- the war on Howell Raines-- Sullivan was a less than reliable reporter.

Can Someone Please Explain

Andrew Sullivan must be smoking crack

Alanis the Brave

Michael Williams on another celebrity who felt the need to make a statement.

It may be hard to believe, but we're not afraid of you, we just don't like you. We find your nakedness and superfluous cursing to be aesthetically unpleasing. We don't want our kids to grow up to be like you, because absent the publicity machine of the fading music industry you're a pathetic, angst-ridden loser. You've written some music some people like, and that's a nice accomplishment, but it gives you about as much moral authority to pontificate on war, censorship, and politics as Humpty (pronounced with an "umpty").

"Profilers can aid case, but they won't solve it"

This is a pretty good article on criminal profilers.

Profilers were sure the D.C. sniper was white. John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo were black.

Profilers thought the Green River killer couldn't hold a steady job. Gary Ridgway worked for 31 years for the same company.

Profiles can be a useful tool in a criminal investigation--particularly one that has hit a dead-end--but shouldn't be so central that investigators ignore other clues, experts say.

And i really liked this part.

Egger, who has written four books on serial murders, said most profilers are either retired FBI agents or psychiatrists or psychologists who have moved into that area and were trained by the FBI.

"Profiling of course has gotten a lot of play because of television and movies," he said.
"Profiler" was a television show in which the main character was a beautiful blond woman who also was psychic.

"It was ridiculous," Egger said.

Carnival of the Capitalists Is Up

The April 5th edition of CotC is by Jonathan of Crazy Pundit.

Fallujah

These posts at the Belmont Club are among the best i've seen:

Unconquerable Hate

Response at Fallujah

Command Decision

More Hollywood

The Marketplace QED

Market as God, Pundit as Priest

Clayton Cramer points to this rather odd post on Hollywood and wholesome movies. Cowen "concludes" that there is no market for more family-oriented fare because if there was, Hollywood would make them.

By that reasoning, all cars should still have tailfins and weigh 5,000 pounds. After all, if there was a market for smaller, more Teutonic cars, Detroit would have offered cars like that in 1958.

Markets are efficient information processors, but they are not omniscient. Buyers can only purchase what is presented to them by producers. Since producers are not gifted with perfect foresight, they often miss opportunities. That is why innovators and new entrants can reap high returns. As Clayton M. Christensen shows in The Innovator's Dilemma, established firms usually are locked into existing customers and are blind to the profits to be found in new or underserved segments.

It is not easy to identify new opportunities. That is as true for Hollywood as it is for Wal-Mart. It helps if you have good metrics about customers, buying patterns, product-line profitability, etc. Wal-mart does and that is one reason for their astounding success. Hollywood accounting is notoriously murky. The studio heads may be greedy, but they can't exploit what they cannot see.

Even six months ago no studio thought there was a market for the Passion. That shows a pretty big collective blind spot given that movie's huge box office.

The movie industry is as much a creative community as it is a business. Tom Wolfe has skillfully dissected the "compound mentality" that can infect such communities. Artists begin to care less about what customers want, and worry a great deal about what their peers think. Again, such groupthink (does Cowen think this only happens in government bureaucracies?) can create blind spots.

Cramer's post has more on Hollywood's cluelessness about the state of religious belief in America.

More Brooks, Red/Blue, etc.

This time in The New Republic.

This, as should by now be apparent, is an exceedingly lame and tedious exercise. It misses the broader point that Brooks does tend to be a little careless, and that he takes frequent liberties with his descriptions. But you see where I'm headed: Issenberg is guilty of the exact same thing--ignoring the broader point that Brooks is basically right.

Not a Good Sign

U.S. Civilians Mutilated in Iraq Attack

Some witnesses said the insurgents had planned Wednesday's ambush in advance. Esam Yassin, 22, who sells biscuits and soft drinks at a small shop on Highway 10, said owners of businesses along the four-lane road were warned Wednesday morning to stay away from the area because of an impending clash with the Americans.

The attack occurred in a commercial district that is normally busy. But on Wednesday, Yassin said, the morning streets were nearly devoid of their normal pedestrian and vehicular traffic.

Yassin said insurgents were circulating this message: "We will be waiting here for them and a big battle will happen. So we don't want civilians to be around."

Red/Blue Redux

I see that everyone who is anyone is blogging about Sasha Issenberg's "refutation" of David Brooks's "One Nation, Slightly Divisible".

It seems a lot like breaking two butterflies on the wheel. It's hard to believe that anyone takes Brooks's heavily embellished stereotypes as serious reporting. Issenberg finds it easy to demolish some of his factual assertions, yet at other times s/he handles the data clumsily. (E.g. statewide data does not necessarily tell us anything about a specific county.) Neither reporter did a very good job of reporting when it came to the big question-- how different are red and blue America?

As an aside-- it would be interesting if a magazine like The Atlantic did a reverse Brooks. Send a "Red America writer" to do a red/blue comparison.

Carnival of the Capitalists

The latest edition of econ and business blogging is here.

Military Schools and Business Education

Michael Howard has suggested that the military profession is not only physically demanding, but is also the most intellectually demanding:

There are two great difficulties with which the professional soldier, sailor or airman has to contend in equipping himself as a commander. First, his profession is almost unique in that he may have to exercise it only once in a lifetime, if indeed that often. It is as if a surgeon had to practise throughout his life on dummies for one real operation; or a barrister appeared only once or twice in court towards the close of his career; or a professional swimmer had to spend his life practising on dry land for an Olympic championship on which the fortunes of his entire nation depended. Second, the complex problem of running an army at all is liable to occupy hi mind and skill so completely that it is very easy to forget what it is being run for. The difficulties encountered in the administration, discipline, maintenance and supply of an organization the size of a fair-sized town are enough to occupy the senior officer to the exclusion of any thinking about his real business: the conduct of war. It is not surprising that there has often been a high proportion of failures among senior commanders at the beginning of any war. These unfortunate men may take too long to adjust themselves to reality, through lack of hard preliminary thinking about what war would really be like, or they may have had their minds so far shaped by a lifetime of pure administration that they have ceased to for all practical purposes to be soldiers.

Michael Howard, "The Uses and Abuses of Military History," 1962

We must remember as well, that war does not just test the knowledge of generals. On the individual level it tests character as well. Equally important is the premium war places on how well officers work together. Modern military studies have emphasized the importance of tempo during combat operations. The German victories in 1940 owed everything to their ability to read, rethink, and readjust faster than the French. This same factor helps to account for the overwhelming nature of the US victories in Iraq.

The military education system is designed with these challenges in mind. That makes it an interesting subject in its own right. But, here i want to compare it to corporate education. Some of the salient points:

1. There is a lot of it. The generals we see on TV have been to civilian graduate schools, specialized branch schools, and the Army War College. These are full-time positions where officers attend classes for months or even a full year.

This is in stark contrast to corporate life where executive education is heavily front-loaded. Usually the average manager has completed 75% or more of their formal business education before they join the corporation.

2. Key parts of the military's system are in-house; they shape the curriculum, especially at the highest levels.

Corporate education is usually outsourced and generic. The MBA and other executive education programs are usually offered by colleges. In-house, customized programs are most often seen at lower-level training programs for the rank-and-file.

3. Performance at military schools is a factor in promotion decisions. Both Eisenhower and Marshall finished first in their class at Leavenworth which helped marked them for eventual high command. Patton, Bradley, and Mark Clark all had outstanding records at mid-career schools.

Academic performance counts at the entry-level in corporations. But usually only there. Few mid-career executives find themselves in classes where they are graded and where the grades count toward promotion.

4. Military school faculties include officers who are marked for high command. Adm. Raymond Spruance, the victory at Midway, served two tours at the Naval War College in the 1930s. In the two years prior to Pearl Harbor, two of the nine men who would command US field armies were teaching at the Army War College. This is after the war in Europe had started and during an immense expansion of the US military.

Again, this is a key difference from the typical business model. High flyers do not spend a year or two in the training department as a step toward the CEO post.

5. The military school system is not just a means of pushing information and procedures down into the ranks. They also serve as centers for the creation of intellectual capital. In the 1930s the Naval War College helped create and refine the carrier doctrine the USN used in the Pacific War. In the 1980s, John Lehman created Strategic Studies Groups at the NWC. As he described them, "This elite group of midgrade officers, navy and marine, is selected from the fleet to spend a year working on strategy. Each year a new SSG is formed, and changing perspectives help to keep the strategy from solidifying into dogma."

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There is no corporation that invests as heavily in education as do the armed services. For all the talk about the importance of intellectual capital, the private sector, as a whole, approaches education it in a haphazard fashion and spends comparatively little. At the same time, it is telling that the large corporation which is famous for its education system--GE-- is also one of the most successful big companies in history.

It is also telling that one of the last strategic reassessments of the Welch era-- the rejection of the "#1 or #2 in every market" requirement-- had its genesis in a remark made by a colonel at the Army War College.

UPDATE: James Joyner comments here.

See Part II here.

Corporate Blogging

This article from Fast Company takes a look at how some companies are using blogs internally.

At Verizon, Paul Perry, a director in the company's eServices division, started a blog to keep up with news about competitors. Using a news aggregator, a popular blog-world tool that grabs and assembles syndicated "feeds" of content from Web sites and other blogs, people in his group can quickly post news they find on those feeds to the internal blog. DaimlerChrysler employs Web log software at a few of its U.S. plants; managers discuss problems and keep a record of their solutions. And American Airlines, where only 20% of the company's highly mobile workforce has corporate email, is considering blogs as a way to give employees more channels to management.

The Hartford Financial Services Group is already finding success using blogs in one of its mobile groups. A team of 40 field technology managers, who serve as links between The Hartford's network of insurance agents and the home office, set up a blog in August. They use it to share information about e-commerce features and solutions to technology problems. Before, email and voice mail sufficed, but email threads would die, and there was no way to search past shared information. "We don't get a chance to talk with each other as often as we'd like," says Steve Grebner, one of The Hartford's field managers, who thinks of the blog a little like a town square. "To me, it's like there's 14--or 40--brains out there, and you might as well tap into that knowledge base."

See also, this from last year.

Maybe the Frontier Did Matter

If you think about it, the 2004 election shows that the United States is an oligarchy with a closed political system that offers only a narrow range of choices. Consider-- John Kerry and George Bush are both sons of prominent and wealthy New England families. Both attended Yale. Both are members of the same elite secret society (Skull and Bones).

Yet, for all of that, they seem to be two very different sorts of men. In part, this is a tribute to the infinite variety of the human beast. But if i had to get more specific i'd summarize the difference in one word-- Texas.

Those things that make Bush the anti-Kerry-- from his religiosity to his democratic manner-- come from west Texas, not Boston or New Haven.

For a over a century the Northeast has been caught between powerful gravitational fields. Across the Atlantic was Europe-- refined, intellectual, exquisite Europe. To the west lay, well, the West-- crude, boisterous, and democratic.

During the primary campaign this was thrown into stark relief. Kerry, Dean, et. al. condemned Bush as an out of control cowboy who alienated Europe. Cowboy bad, France good. They thought this was a powerful critique.

Rich, Harvard-educated Theodore Roosevelt went west to the Dakotas as a young, dandified widower. After a stint as a cowboy, lawman, and hunter, he returned to New York as the embryonic TR. It was TR who became a war hero, a beloved president, and finally, a mythic, towering figure. His biographers agree that his later political career would have been impossible but for his time out West.

Henry James took the opposite path. He left America behind to live in England.

Edmund Morris notes that James's "preference for English society and English literature drove Roosevelt to near frenzy." TR considered James a "miserable little snob." He wrote with disdain of "the undersized man of letters, who flees his country because he, with his delicate, effeminate sensitiveness, finds the conditions of life on this side of the water crude and raw."

James, for his part, judged Roosevelt "the mere monstrous embodiment of unprecedented and resounding Noise" and "a dangerous and ominous jingo."

John Kerry had no need to become an expatriate. Over the last century Massachusetts has become very congenial for the sensitive and exquisite. But there is still that patrician disdain for how we do things out here in fly-over country (still so crude and raw). Most of all, there is that craving for European modes and European approval.

The BBQ Test

During the 1952 election, political reporters Stewart and Joseph Alsop hit upon a key test for predicting presidential elections: Which candidate would voters prefer to have over to their house for a cook-out?

By this measure, how can Bush lose? It's easy to picture GWB eating a burger and playing catch with the kids. But Kerry? You almost expect him to ask for a knife and fork to eat his drumstick.

And let's not even discuss how the wives would fare.

The A-List

This is one of the best books i've ever read on business strategy and corporate planning. Maybe the best.

I'd say more but i wrote a review of it for Strategy and Leadership. I'll wait until that appears and then link to it.

They're Just Thugs

Jeff Soyer watches The Sopranos on DVD. He is not amused.

Yes, it's a great show to follow. Great acting, plots, etc. But... But, but, but, but, folks, these Mafia dudes, organized crime types, whatever you want to call them, are terrible people. Yeah, you can feel for Tony but in the end, they are nothing but thugs.

I have to agree. It may be good television, but it really goes to a lot of work in order to make the ugly more admirable.

UPDATE: Scott Chaffin weighs in here.

Historical Footnote

I ran across a table that summarized US naval losses in WWII. What struck me was that the US lost only two battleships in the course of the war, compared to four fleet carriers and one light carrier. Both of the battleships lost were sunk in the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. All of the carriers were sunk during combat operations when they were at full alert and prepared.

The image of the battlewagon as a pathetically vulnerable dinosaur really is based on the losses of four ships in the first month of the Allied-Japanese War. In addition to the American losses at Pearl, Britain lost the Prince of Wales and the Repulse when Japanese plains attacked them during the Malay/Singapore operation. After that, Allied battlewagons held up very well.

Part of that is due to the fact that carriers became the prime target during air attacks and the BBs were not subject to the same risks. However, the battleships did fight surface actions in the Solomons and Philippines and were remarkably resilience. We also have to recognize that it proved astonishingly difficult for US planes to sink Japanese battleships: it took 10 torpedoes and 6 bombs to sink the Yamato.

Zero Defects and Branding Services

Frozen North (permlink not working, look for 18 March) discusses the role of quality in the marketing of services. He is quite right to emphasize that the customer service experience is a critical component of the brand image and that service firms err if they ignore it in favor of advertising and PR.

The long-term problem is that CS quality isn't a sustainable point of differentiation. Your competitors can copy your zero-defect call center. At that point, bad service hurts your brand, but good service doesn't help: customers perceive it as par for the course.

Good service, then, is a necessary, but not sufficient factor in branding success. The firm needs something else to claim a premium position. Strategic management requires that leadership keep its eye on two goals at once: the short-term objective of zero defects and the long-term goal of being distinctive in a way that is meaningful to customers. It is a mistake to believe that the latter will flow automatically from the former.

Missouri: It Really is the Heart of It All

The current Atlantic sets out to find the state that comes closest to being a microcosm of the whole US. It turns out that Missouri is a surprisingly good fit based on a host of economic, demographic, political and cultural measures.

It is worth noting that John Ashcroft was a very successful politician in Missouri.

Carnival of the Capitalists: March 22, 2004

The latest edition of the best biz/econ blogging is here.

Still Neo, I Guess: The Case for War One Year Later

I started blogging a year ago, just before the invasion of Iraq. One of my first posts laid out what i saw as the case for the war. Looking at it today, i believe that the case remains surprisingly solid.

(I claim no special insight or brilliance on this matter: my post was just one non-warblogger's assessment of the arguments being made in 2002-3003.)

Several points stand out. The case for war did not argue that Saddam's WMDs were an "imminent threat" or that he was involved in the 9-11 attacks. Instead, it argued that he was trying to get WMDs, that containment/sanctions/deterrence were beset with problems of their own, and that waiting was worse than acting. Nothing i've read in the past year refutes that assessment.

Nor has the Iraq war brought the war against al Qaeda to a halt as some claimed it would. We are still rolling up cells and neutralizing their leadership.

The evidence that has come to light since the fall of Saddam bolsters the claim that the UN and France had corrupt motives for opposing the war.

I have to admit that i am surprised that we have not found evidence of WMDs. The intelligence failure is a legitimate cause for concern.

Although i did not include it, i had hoped that a decisive military victory would provide geopolitical leverage against other outlaw regimes. I don't believe that this has been borne out. Certainly Libya's conciliatory moves have been a positive. But that has to be balanced against the difficulties of the occupation and the failure to kill or capture Saddam in the early days of the war.

"Iraq: Intelligence, Facts, and Fantasies"

Here is a recent speech by one of the best US Senators. Kyl isn't one of those guys who show up on cable shows four times a week. And he is not much of a screamer and shouter. He's just a thoughtful, serious senator.

Senator Kennedy began his presentation by calling on CIA Director George Tenet to use his upcoming testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee to state whether "he feels that the White House altered the facts, or misused the intelligence." If Director Tenet believed that, Senator Kennedy said, then Tenet "should say so, and say it plainly." As we all know now, Senator Kennedy on Tuesday asked Director Tenet whether he believed the administration had misrepresented the facts to justify the war. Tenet answered: "No, sir, I don't."

Words Almost Fail Me

Here is a writer on a German website worrying that the Passion will increase anti-Semitism

Opinion: The Crux of Gibson's Crucifixion

Not in Germany, you know, but among those lesser peoples to the East

Christian anti-Semitism is far from being surmounted in Eastern Europe in particular. In parts of Poland and Hungary, for example, the hate of Jews as "murderers of God" is still quite alive.

Many ways to play this game

Jane Galt asks:

Did the Spanish elections incentivize terror?

Is it also fair to ask if loudly asserting that al Qaeda won in Spain encourages them to bomb other allies?

More Spain

Justin Katz takes me to task for my post on Spain, democracy, and warbloggers. He is always worth reading so check out his post.

My disgust with the reactions i cited is rooted in the quick condemnation aimed at the Spanish electorate by people who know almost nothing about what happened. Maybe Spain wants to capitulate to bin Laden, maybe they don't. All we do know, today, is that the new Spanish government wants out of Iraq. That alone is not conclusive evidence of appeasement. (Maybe they believe that Iraq is now the wrong war at the wrong time to quote a famous American general who was also derided as an appeaser).

If Spain refuses to share intelligence on al Qaeda with the US or if they allow terrorist groups to set-up camp in Madrid, then they deserve to be condemned as cowards and opportunists. But where is the evidence they intend to do anything of the sort?

Great Britain and the US are allies. That relationship survives no matter what party is in power. The Atlantic alliance was not broken when Tony Blair defeated John Major. It survived the election of a Republican in 2000. Allies have a shared interest which transcends domestic politics.

Empires, in contrast, take sides in the domestic elections of their satellites. They care about internal matters. Too many warbloggers betray a deep-seated imperial impulse. (I don't mean Justin, but those like Simon, Jarvis, Sullivan, and their commentators). They demand a rigid ideological conformity from our partners in the war against terror.

Today they praise Poland as a brave and steadfast ally. A week from now they could just as easily condemn it as a nation of anti-Semitic religious fanatics and collaborators in the Holocaust. All it will take is a headline in the New York Times to set them off. The idea of not spouting off never occurs to them.

See also this post at Dean' blog.

An Example of the "Youth Premium"

In syndication, "Friends" has an audience of 7.32 million. "Wheel of Fortune" pulls in 13.38 million viewers. Yet a 30 second national spot on Friends costs $221,567 and only $82,950 on "Wheel". Advertisers believe that the average "Friends" watcher is worth almost five times as much as a "Wheel" fan.

Given this large gap, one might suppose that this differential is backed up by reams of data and analysis. But, instead, it rests on little more than the belief that young people are easier to persuade than older people. (Not that anyone has a lot of evidence for that, either.)

Spain, or The Ugly American Blogger

I don't know if Spain just capitulated to bin Laden. Interpreting election results is a pretty complex business and instant analysis is just so much hot air.

But that doesn't stop big name bloggers and their commentators. Check out Roger Simon, Jeff Jarvis, the Corner, and the Inkwell.

This reaction is funny in so many ways. I thought warbloggers were in favor of democracy. But it turns out that they only like elections when their side wins. They seem to confuse allies with satellites.

The Spanish voters are cowards because they have deserted the Bush coalition in Iraq. Yet, Jeff Jarvis has been looking for an excuse to jump off the Bush bandwagon here at home because the FCC is being mean to Howard Stern. That, apparently, is a matter of principle not a failure of courage.

In October 2000 Al Qaeda attacked the US Cole. A few weeks, the Democrats lost the White House. Did we "capitulate" to terrorism by electing Bush?

FWIW, i'm puzzled by the former Spanish PM's insistence on blaming ETA for the Madrid atrocity when the evidence pointed Islamic terrorists. Maybe he was playing a little politics with the attack and got burned at the ballot box for it.

This post over at Volokh makes a lot more sense than those noted above.

As does this one at the evangelical outpost.

Forgotten American Terrorism

After WWI, "anarchists"* carried out a number of bombings against American targets. They tried to assassinate the Attorney General in Washington and killed 40-44 people with a lunch time explosion on Wall Street. While not on the scale of the WTC atrocity, they were still large scale in the context of America at that time. (Our population was then only 100 million which makes the Wall Street bombing over half as deadly as Oklahoma City in comparative terms.)

This NY Press story is a good summary of the attack and the unsuccessful investigation which followed.

*The term is something of a misnomer. Many of the revolutionaries were left-wing radicals inspired by Lenin and Trotsky.

Carnival of the Capitalists

This week's edition can be found here.

"Other People's Navels"

Really liked this from the evangelical outpost:

There is only one form of blogger that is more tedious that the navel-gazer who posts about the eflluvia of their daily lives and that is the blogger who gazes at other people’s navels, especially those who do so looking for lint. Gawker and Wonkette are the twin archetypes of the OPNG, each representing two of the most self-important cities in America - New York (Gawker) and Washington D.C. (Wonkette). (Will LA be next? If so I recommend the name Gazer.)

Dead on

Scott Chaffin gets it right on the blogosphere's biggest Howard Stern fan:

Need to vomit? Check out Jeff Jarvis' Paean to Thee Commyn Man Who Be Howard Stern.

RTWT

The Limits of South Park Conservatism

Jonah Goldberg generally doesn't care what two consenting adults do in the privacy of their home. But he is willing to make an exception when it comes to Mel Gibson and his accountant.

The Journal also reports today that Mel Gibson stands to make between $350 and $400 million in profit from The Passion. I am not someone who thinks profits are ever "obscene" -- at least not in the way liberals use the word. However, is no one remotely troubled by this? Whether the movie is wonderful or offensive, it is still about the Crucifixion and Mel Gibson has said time and again that he made the movie out of religious and artistic passion. I take him at his word, and considering the trouble he had in making it, there's a lot of evidence on his side.

But doesn't that raise the question of what he's going to do with all the cash? If he's going to use the money to make more biblical pictures, as he's said he wants, I think that's one thing. But simply pocketing all of the cash (it's certainly fair for him to recoup his investment and then some) without doing good works with it seems, to me at least, problematic. I mean this isn't "Ernest Goes to Rehab," it's a movie about, well, we all know now what it's about -- and he's making a third of a billion dollars from it. Shouldn't he at least tithe it?

This drew a lot of emails and additional comments that enlivened the Corner all Friday afternoon.

The comments at Open Book and Justin Katz's blog were even more interesting.

One problem with the original post is that Goldberg invites us to layer speculation upon speculation. How much money will Gibson make? How should he spend it? Will he do the right thing? And note, Goldberg seems to doubt that Gibson will do the right thing. ("Shouldn't he at least tithe?") without offering a reason for his misgivings.

"The geek shall inherit the Earth"

The emergence of the internet has done much to legitimise this kind of withdrawal from the world. Once, the majority of people - even those with their nose permanently stuck in a book - were obliged, by practical necessity if nothing else, to risk venturing into the outside world every now and then. Now, this socialising experience is no longer necessarily the norm. Thanks to the internet, marginal obsessions can be indulged in at unlimited length, with like-minded people around the world.

Rather than being integrated into society by being forced to take people as they come, the internet allows you to preselect whom you choose to fraternise with, based upon whether or not they share your specific interests. And if you dislike or disagree with someone you encounter in this faceless environment, then rather than go through the process of being forced to account for your worldview, you can simply retreat from confrontation. Such an environment breeds individuation and solipsism.

More here.

Reality Check

Americans who watched the Superbowl: 89.8 million
Americans who watched the Oscars: 43.5 million

You might think from watching TV that the two events have equal pop cultural resonance. They don't. Far more people watch the Super Bowl.

Total female audience for the 10 syndicated TV shows most popular with women: 50.44 million

Total male audience for the 10 syndicated TV shows most popular with men: 43.74 million.

The popular image of men is that they are couch potatoes planted in front of the tube while women do other things. Facts do not bear this out. Women watch more television and the gap is growing. (That's what is at the core of the "missing men" debate over television ratings.

Thus far roughly 25 million Americans have seen the Passion. That is less than 11% of the population over 15 years of age.

Of those who have seen the movie, 92% had a "very favorable" or "favorable" opinion of it.

All of this sheds some interesting light on the blogosphere. It seems that a fairly high proportion of bloggers have seen the Passion and posted about it. At the same time, a significant percentage of bloggers gave it an unfavorable review (prejudiced, too violent, poorly made, etc.)

A lot more bloggers posted about the Oscars than the Superbowl. Maybe it was the LotR effect, but in any case, it makes the blogosphere different.

When Jonah Goldberg plays Everyman in the Corner with his couch jokes and Simpson references, he is reflecting a media-created stereotype.

Winston Churchill on Political Leadership

Here is how Churchill described his differences with the pragmatic leadership of Stanley Baldwin in the 1930s.

"My idea was that the Conservative opposition should strongly confront the Labour government on all great imperial and national issues, should identify itself with the majesty of Britain as under Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury, and should not hesitate to face controversy, even though that might not immediately evoke a response from the nation. So far as I could see, Mr. Baldwin felt that the times were too far gone for any robust assertion of British Imperial greatness, and that the hope of the Conservative Party lay in accommodation with Liberal and Labour forces, and in adroit, well-timed manoeuvres to detach powerful moods of public opinion and large blocks of voters from them."

Gathering Storm pp 32-33

More Passion

I just listened to a two hour discussion on the Passion on WGN. Because it was on Milt Rosenberg's show it generated much more light than heat. Two solid hours of thoughtful conversation with no name calling, no histrionics and no hysteria. They will archive the show soon so you can listen to it at your convenience. Watch this space.

Two other items of interest:

This is a review by a Muslim. One point bears repeating-

However, let us address the Islamic factor first. This is a movie centered entirely on a major Prophet, portrayed, of course, by an actor. For that reason alone (forget the huge amounts of gore) Muslims may want to avoid The Passion of the Christ. The Qur'an refutes the Crucifixion story. The Qur’an says that Jesus was not killed nor crucified; only the likeness of that was shown to the people and Jesus was saved and raised up unto Allah.

This review is by Michael Moriarty of Law and Order fame

Mel Gibson's reply to 9/11

A Double Dose of Good Sense

Scott Chaffin continues to put the Howard Stern matter into perspective. There are those who want to make him some sort of martyr, but that dog won't hunt. See more here and here.

Richard Bennett finds a dog that does not bark: Blogger silence on the role Sid Blumenthal played in igniting the Trent Lott firestorm.

Those who've crowed the loudest about the Lott Affair's showing the power of blogs to influence politics have ignored Blumenthal's role.

History, Movies, and Politics

I expect that everyone who wrote about the danger that the Passion would stir up Islamic violence will want to weigh in on this:

Historians say film 'distorts' Crusades

Mr. Riley-Smith [Britain's leading authority on the Crusades] said Mr. Scott's efforts were misguided and pandered to Islamic fundamentalism. "It's Osama bin Laden's version of history. It will fuel the Islamic fundamentalists," he said.

Let the hand-wringing begin. HT: Justin Katz.

The Market Share Myth

Business Pundit posts on "The Market Share Myth." As he he says, a large number of business plans fall into this trap.

It's not just unsophisticated would-be entrepreneurs who get caught. Many of the dot-bombs fell for a more "sophisticated" version of the fallacy. They would take a p-SWAG projection (that is a pseudo-Scientific Wild Ass Guess dressed up with lots of spreadsheets) and then count their money. As in, "the on-line market for cyber widgets and digital wadgets will be at least $75 billion by 2005. By gaining only 2% of the market our revenues will be $1.5 billion."

OTOH, market share projections can be useful, especially as reality checks on planning assumptions. For instance, say you are about to enter a new market where the largest competitor has a 15% share. Your analysis shows that your break-even point is a share of 10%. That should set off alarms. You have to ask how you are going to displace so many established firms to become a major player. It is going to take a compelling price and value proposition in a market where you have little experience. Moreover, your attempt to displace existing firms is likely to provoke a competitive response: price cuts, increased marketing effort, etc. These will undercut your existing assumptions about profitability.

Back in 1999, when the Internet frenzy was at full cry, Steven Rosner of LEK Consulting looked market valuations in light of implicit market share assumptions. He found, for example, that Ebay need to attract auction volume equal to 3% of total GDP by 2013. Yahoo made sense only if its advertising revenue hit $113 billion, yet projections for total on-line advertising were only $44 billion by 2013. Amazon need to reach revenue of $100 billion in a period when the total book/music marketplace was expected to grow to only $85 billion. It was a useful analysis which kept my 401(k) away from tech stocks. And, i would argue, events have shown he was right.

Carnival of the Capitalists

The latest round-up of business and economics blogging is here.

Journalism

Mark Bowden has an article in the Atlantic (not online) that provides a lot of insight into modern journalism.

On Stephen Glass and his fictional non-fiction:

"Glass's run of faked features happened not just because he was clever and determined but because he was giving The New Republic and other magazines exactly what they wanted. His story is about the pitfalls of advocacy journalism and its close relative, journalistic celebrity, two of the profession's most dangerous modern trends."

****

"Glass diagnosed an appetite at The New Republic for stories that illustrated, preferably outrageously, the naivete of traditional liberals and the moral corruption of conservatives. His stories fit perfectly the pugnacious neoconservatism The New Republic of that era was attempting to define."

On the impact of cable news on journalism:

"We are approaching the time, if we haven't already reached it, when a reporter with a hot story can spend more time on TV talking about it than was spent reporting and writing it."

Bowden praises the portrayal of journalists in the movie Absence of Malice. For example it:

"it showed that what passes for a great investigative story is often nothing more than information leaked by public officials who have motives of their own. It was a rare instance in which the silver screen actually had something useful to say to the Fourth Estate."

This gets at a very dangerous confluence of trends in the media. One stream is cable's obsession with certain criminal cases. Another is journalists's near-total dependence on prosecutors/police for information on such cases. A third is the black box nature of news programming: it almost never tells us how or where the reporters get the information presented.

The result is that certain defendants get hosed down with fact, innuendo, speculation, and fiction before they enter a courtroom. A fair trial becomes next to impossible.

Interestingly enough, neither left nor right seem particularly interested in the subject. It is much easier to rail about right-wing talk radio or the left-wing bias of NPR.

Related: I posted about the problem of "investigative journalism" here:

Leaks, Journalism, and the Right to Know

Then and Now

The Weekly Standard keys in on Nader's toughest obstacle

Still, there's one obstacle that Nader may find insurmountable: The media are almost uniformly critical of his campaign, and of him personally.

It is worth remembering that this is not how Perot was covered in 1992.

Barone quotes a Democratic operative in the Almanac of American Politics, 1996 as saying that Perot "departisanized the critique of Bush" . That is key. If a Democrat called Bush a failure that can be dismissed as politics; when an independent Republican did so, it had a powerful effect. Moreover, when Perot entered the race the first time, he was able to drive down Bush's poll numbers-- something Clinton had failed to do. By making the race competitive, Perot drew interest to it. Finally, Perot's flirtation and entrance into the race helped draw attention away from Clinton when he was reeling from Genifer Flowers, etc.

All of this depended on the media treating Perot as a sincere citizen forced by necessity to take up politics. Had the dominant story been "Texas billionaire trying to hurt Bush," the whole dynamic of the race would have changed.

The House that Phil Built

Michael Barone's Almanac of American Politics is a marvel. I don't think anyone knows more about the topography of the electoral landscape.

Recently i was reading the 1996 edition. He had some astute observations about the methods the Democrats used to maintain power after 1974 despite the normal ebb and flow cycle of US politics.

A key figure in this was Phil Burton-- an important Democratic congressman from California in the 70s.

To maintain the overall Democratic majority in the House, Burton relied not on the popularity of his issues, about which he entertained no illusions, but on institutional advantages such as redistricting and teaching talented young candidates with superior skills to hold otherwise Republican-leaning seats; he encouraged Democrats to rely on the perquisites of office and pork barrel projects.

***

Democrats continued to win majorities in every election. They ignored Republicans, routinely used the rules to prevent direct votes on issues on which their stands were unpopular, maintained caucus solidarity and, under the leadership of Tony Coelho in the 1980s, bludgeoned business PACs into contributing to marginal Democrats and not contributing to Republican challengers.
***

And this is his verdict on the 1994 election which upset the Burton regime:

Most of all the Burton regime ultimately failed because it could not stand the light of day. Talk radio shows showed voters how overbearing and unfair the Democratic majorities were.

Speaking of Barone, this forthcoming book of his could be very interesting.

Just a couple of Thoughts

I know the template says it's the right-wing that is imposing censorship on broadcast media--Stern, Janet, yadda, yadda, yadda...

But do you think the PC left would be silent if Archie Bunker debuted today? In 1971 the language was praised as "frank" and "honest". Now it would be hate speech.

A few short years ago the federal government sent in SWAT teams to resolve a child custody case in Miami. Most liberals applauded-- rule of law, you know.

Now, they just shrug and say that there is nothing to be done as local officials defy state marriage laws.

Ad Age Concurs

WHO CARES IF 'SEX AND THE CITY' IS GONE?

About 5 million to 6 million viewers have tuned in (if that's still a verb) to the exploits of Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte each week during the past year, according to Nielsen. But that's less than one-fifth the viewers drawn by the top broadcast show, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

***

But you wouldn't know that from the column inches spilled on Sex and the City. During the last year, Sex star Sarah Jessica Parker pulled in 2,001 clips, according to a cheap search on the Factiva database. Comedian Ray Romano, creator and star of Everybody Loves Raymond, whose average audience is about four times the size of Sex's, garnered only 805.

During the week ending Feb. 18, NBC's Law & Order outran Sex and the City by 1 million viewers. But poor Jerry Orbach, its star, drew only 193 newspaper articles during the past year.

***

True, newspapers, like all media, have their demographics, and those demos have moved increasingly upscale and older as younger audiences obtain their news from TV and the Web. Newspaper executives have been scrambling to find ways to reach out to the missing millions. Hitching their caboose to the engine of pop culture is their preferred strategy. But that's a risky gambit, if they allow editors and reporters to populate their pages with unthinking self-references to their own psychodemographic obsessions.

See also

Big Media Echo Chamber

Customer Loyalty

Synergy Fest points to this discussion of customer loyalty.

Several years ago i published an article titled "Is Customer Loyalty a Pernicious Myth." So you might think that i am in the anti-loyalty camp. Which isn't true. I just think it is a matter that lacks analytical rigor, conceptual clarity, and a real appreciation of long-term strategy.

More Clausewitz

Christopher Bassford has a response to Fleming here. Here's how it starts out:

Periodically, some pundit decides to blow the whistle on Clausewitz and the Clausewitzians. Bruce Fleming, Professor of English at the US Naval Academy, offers the latest effort to demonstrate that the Emperor has no clothes. Ultimately, Fleming's critique is not of Clausewitz but of the misuse of Clausewitz's descriptive, explanatory theory in a prescriptive manner by charlatans and ideologues. Unfortunately, the net effect is a sophomoric rejection of ugly, concrete reality and the friction it imposes on those who would think, write, advocate, and act.

Read the whole thing. Bassford is one of the leading American scholars on Clausewitz.

John Kerry in Forest Gump?

That's what Mark Riebling says and it's not April 1.

an unsympathetic supporting character in Forest Gump is based directly on John Kerry

I dunno, since i don't have a copy of the movie to check. But funny if true.

Big Media Echo Chamber

Controversial.

That seems to be the required adjective for any story about "The Passion of the Christ". Further, stories about the movie always include opponents.

In contrast, stories about the end of "Sex and the City" were generally celebratory. Producers did not feel compelled to interview people who found the series pernicious, unrealistic or biased.

"Sex and the City" flattered the demographic that includes journalists and TV people. It gave them a modern day fairy tale, and, for all their vaunted cynicism and critical thinking, they lapped it up like a thirsty poodle.

The contrasting tone of the coverage is only one part of the story. Another is the outsized attention devoted to "SatC." The last episode was watched by 10 million people. The next to the last installment was only the fourth highest rated show on cable the week-end it aired. Despite the media hoopla, less than four million people watched. It was beat out by a preliminary NASCAR race at Daytona and by Monk-- a conventional whodunit with neither nudity nor obscene language.

"SatC" just was not that popular with country at large. The media coverage shows just how insulated and self-referencing journalists have become.

Howard Stern

Richard Bennett has a good post that pretty much sums it up IMHO:

Never in history has a man been more full of crap than the talentless Howard Stern. His whole schtick is dependent on standards of decency setting the boundaries of good taste so he can position himself outside them. He's like the little kid who's learned that he can get attention saying bad words who then works the gimmick to death. He didn't even invent this gimmick himself, he stole it from Alex Bennett (http://www.radiofreejack.com/).
In a setting where adolescent content isn't circumscribed, his show would have no audience. He was created by the FCC, and he knows it, so all this whining about the government cracking down on his free speech rights is just crocodile tears. He benefits from being pushed out of the 6 markets that Clear Channel has banned him from by generating buzz for his tired formula.

Confusion? Or Willful Misreading?

The current Parameters has an article that asks

Can Reading Clausewitz Save Us from Future Mistakes?

The author has a definite answer-- No. As he sees it, On War is one of those books that

are so broad in scope, so inclusive, even of contradictions internal to themselves, that they can be used to justify almost anything.

Fleming is not a military officer (although he teaches at the Naval Academy) but rather is an English professor. He approaches On War as a text and makes a great show of pointing out the internal contradictions in Clausewitz's work and in several commentators who are self-conscious Clausewitzians.

While he scores several good points, the overall effect is superficial and cavalier. This itself is a serious contradiction in a work which has very big aims. Fleming argues that On War which is currently "the foundation document in war theory at the nation’s war colleges and command and staff schools" should only be taught as "poetry."

One "contradiction" is that Clausewitz is a theorist who denies the utility of theory. Further, he is a thinker who discusses war as a perfect absolute and yet highlights the ways in which friction and chance keep real war from mimicking perfect war.

The first contradiction is pure canard. Clausewitz recognized the limits of theory: it can't explain everything or make war predictable. To see this as a fatal contradiction is rather like calling meteorology as a pseudoscience because the weatherman can't make every Memorial Day sunny and 75 degrees.

There are two key things to keep in mind when approaching Clausewitz and the role of theory and friction in his work. First, he was a practitioner, a theoretician, and an educator. Second, officers have to prepare for war in long periods of peace. What they are preparing for is nothing like the activities they engage in while preparing. (Clausewitz wrote before modern training methods like war games and field exercises were developed). Few professions face as wide a gap between the experience of preparation and the activity itself.

His emphasis on friction, then, is in part, a reminder to the future commander that the complex and elegant- no matter how intellectually satisfying- can be dangerous. His emphasis on will brings to the forefront a quality that is absent in academic discussions but vital in war.

(This excellent article argues that On War has a pedagogical intent as its primary purpose: The Relationship of History and Theory in On War)

Fleming is also cavalier in his handling of neo-Clausewitzian commentators. This is how he dismisses Col. Harry Summers's On Strategy:

There is no point in appealing to Clausewitz’s famous assertion as if, were we to put it over the mirrors of all the officers in the US armed forces, it could prevent future failures. What for one man is a policy, even a good one, is for another a complete and utter lack of one. Summers writes as if the Vietnam War simply lacked a policy, a direction. Certainly it did not seem so to the people running it from Washington, who (as Summers admits) had many justifications (he counts 22) for US intervention. Those who engineered the war were not bereft of a policy.

Twenty-two justifications (many contradictory) do not equate to a clear policy. Summers's point is that the shifting moves in Washington made it impossible for the military to come up with a strategy and carry it out: the objectives kept changing. Further, some of the objectives were not the sort of thing that could be accomplished by military means.

Summers's broader point is that the US did not take policy seriously, entered the war without thinking through ends and means, and trusted to technology and GNP to solve the problem in Vietnam. As a good Clausewitzian he argues that this was a grave mistake and crippled the war effort. In his refutation Fleming basically quotes Tin Pan Alley- you say tomayto, I say tomahto. It's glib, it's clever, but is is hardly a serious critique.

That, in the end, is the problem with the whole essay. It is one thing to mock the Clausewitzians or to find contradictory passages in On War. But if we reduce it only to "poetry", what is to replace it as a foundation document for the war and staff colleges? There are not a lot of contenders for the role and all of them have weaknesses even greater than Clausewitz. On this question Fleming is silent.

See also

Waiting for our Clausewitz

Clausewitz (II)

weird Post

Over at Hit and Run they take note of the Naomi Wolf matter and comment:

Nothing illustrates feminism's moribund state like the response to Naomi Wolf's charges of sexual harassment against Yale literary lion Harold Bloom.

They then cite the large number of women writers who have criticized Wolf for her article.

How exactly does that show feminism is "moribund" unless you expect that vital movements should exhibit rigid ideological conformity?

"Shame on Fox"

Ranting Profs has some good advice for our cable news outlets.

Report what you know -- there has been an arrest, there is reason to believe this man would have had a motive to wish this family ill (and here are the motives), the cops have promised a "profound development" but refuse for now to say what it is. This kind of wild speculation does no one any good whatsoever and is frankly irresponsible. If in fact bodies have been found bring the forensic specialists on then. Until then there is more than enough news to talk about without this kind of macabre speculation. Speculation does not equal scooping.

I couldn't agree more.

Also check out this one.

SCORE A BIG ONE FOR THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY

I wonder if any enterprising reporter is digging into this example of political considerations riding roughshod over the objective analysis?

Carnival of the Capitalists

The latest edition is here.

Gibson's Future

One Hand Clapping says "Mel Gibson, blacklisted? Never happen. "

Gibson's movie made $26 million just last Wednesday, more than twice as much as Scorcese's flick made total. You betcha movie producers of all faiths or no faith at all are paying careful attention. I have no doubt that come Monday, producers' inboxes will be filled with 20-page screenplay treatments of the next great Jesus movie. "Jesus Returns" anyone? Maybe "Son of Ben Hur - bar Judah's Revenge."

On the other hand you have this from Steve Sailor

The point of all this inside baseball is that Hollywood is not the do-anything-for-a-profit machine as it is often depicted. There's much the studios won't do, even though the profit opportunities are obvious -- make pro-Christian or anti-Communist or anti-illegal immigration films, to pick some obvious examples.

I tend to agree with Sailor simply because corporate managers tend not to be profit maximizers. Instead, they satisfy the perceived profit requirement and pursue more congenial activities.

Good review of an important book

"It's a Disgrace This Book Had to Be Written"

There are very few books on Americans who long for Hitler, mainly because there never was a significant segment of Nazis in America, but unfortunately there is a significant number of Americans who still think that Joe Stalin was an idealistic reformer, and some of these Americans are in control of history departments of important universities -- and virtually no books are available that document and explain this peculiar situation. "In Denial" fills this gap.

The FCC, Stern, etc.

I think Instapundit has a good point here.

My challenge to those who think that Stern being dropped from 6 stations is an example of Bush Administration crushing of dissent -- see if you can get Kerry and Edwards to adopt a platform of ending all FCC regulation of broadcast content. Take it to the people!

As i noted here, the anti-regulation side is playing a little fast and loose with the facts. We have always had rules on acceptable broadcast content. Stern, Jarvis, and Karmazin want to eliminate those rules by regulatory inaction (while maintaining the cozy oligopoly made possible by licensing).

If the Pinkertons and others want to remove the rules against indecency, go to it. Get a Congressman to introduce the bill to remove restrictions on what goes out over the airwaves. Let's have a debate. (Watch your side lose 355-80).

But, at least, be honest. Don't pretend that Powell is the bad guy or that the "Repressive Right" is trying to impose new restrictions. Admit that you want the current rules changed. And tell us how much nudity, cursing, and rutting you are willing to permit on broadcast TV.

Scott Chaffin also provides the needed reminder that the Stern kerfuffle is about business and lucre.

Let me take a short minute to work this out from a bidness perspective. My understanding is that Clear Channel is #1, and Infinity is #2 in the radio biz. Infinity is the employer of Howie. Clear Channel, then, was in the business of providing sustenance to the bunch most likely to take them down. If you think that doesn't stick in the craw of even the most ruthless, bottom-line businesspeep, you're very mistaken. Only an idiot would NOT go try to find a way out of that situation. That's like McDonald's importing Breakfast Croissants from Burger King. Even if it's a short-term loss, it's worth doing. All that New Economy bullshit about coopetition is fine, as long as you're not direct competitors.
Under the cover of Janet's boob and Mike Powell's FCC whining, Clear Channel gets to "make a stand" against indecency, which will very definitely garner them some good will, and most likely, cause them little to no economic harm. I know the coastals think Howard Stern is the stone-cold nuts, but he ain't, not everywhere.

Speaking of the Passion

Here is Rev. Sensing's review. I doubt i have many readers who do not read him first, but if i do, make sure you read this.

New Finds

OK. So blog -wars sometimes do have positive results. For example, i found this blog

You Big Mouth, You

I agree with him about some of the commentaray that has flowed around Gibson's movie. There has been a steady stream of abuse and mockery aimed at the underlying story and those who believe it.

Also, this site covers crime in Canada. (Yes, Canada). The author's own sister was murdered in 1978 and his own loss makes this a site that never forgets that crime is about victims as well as cops and criminals.

Who Killed Theresa?

Are We All Episcopalians Now?

Ned Flanders is the most prominent Christian on series television. That, in itself, is strong evidence of the profound secularism of the medium and, also, of its fundamental unreality But that is old news.

What i find interesting is that Flanders has become something of a role model for Christians. Flanders, for all his effete fussiness and moralistic obtuseness, is nice. While they might want to be more hip, most Christian spokesmen want always to be nice. For many, inoffensiveness is Godliness.

Part of this surely grows out of a need to be a good witness. Harsh words undermine any talk of Christian love. Also important is the need to counteract the common caricatures of Christians as hateful Puritans and Inquisitors eager to bring back the stake and scarlet letter.

This emphasis on niceness presents a difficulty when confronting our history, For example, the great reformers were many things, but nice is not one of their cardinal qualities. Luther and Knox, especially, were masters of invective. Neither of them had a problem with unloading torrents of crude humor to make a point.

So here is the question: Was Luther a bad Christian? Are we to be ashamed of the men who led the Reformation? Should we value inoffensive niceness more highly than the men who created a central pillar of our civilization?
Or is this just a matter of different mores for different times?

Luck

Business Pundit has a good post asking Does Luck Matter in Business?

Napoleon, when evaluating generals for promotion, would often ask, "is he lucky?" Not a perverse question at all when you consider what he said about battle in his Maxims:

#95
War is composed of nothing but accidents, and, although holding to general principles, a general should never lose sight of everything to enable him to profit from these accidents; that is the mark of genius.
In war there is but one favorable moment; the great art is to seize it.

Exploiting accidents is the "mark of genius". To the outsider it will often look like luck.

As BP says:

It seems that luck, by definition, should be random, but I have to second guess that when I hear comments like "that guy has all the luck." Maybe that guy was just well prepared when the right opportunity came along.

Global Bomb Network

Junk Yard Blog connects a few more dots.

I just found this blog.

It rang a bell with me because for twenty years i, too, was a Pennsylvanian in exile.

Varieties of Liberalism

Cella's Review discusses an essay by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn on the subject. As he rightly notes, K-L "exudes erudition and wisdom." (Plus he discusses Poland's repeated role as savior of Western Civilization.)

Two interesting posts on liberalism

Here and here at Unqualified Offerings. This was especially good:

Unqualified Offerings long since became convinced that among the things "liberalism" has become is revenge. A lot of the bicoastal policy class actually come from flyover country, but they leave mad. They're gay or brainy or ugly or bad athletes, or all at once. They have rough childhoods and come to the government or the media with a grudge. UO attended many parties with such people in its youth, so it knows what it's talking about here. (UO also fits snugly in two or three of the adduced categories.)

48% Yankee

According to this quiz.

When metaphors blind

Jacob Levy over at Volokh has a really perverse analysis on bubble candidates.

I was actually thinking about this over the weekend, after reading the NYT's Week in Review retrospective of the Dean bubble, with the recent Kerry-bubble debate in mind as well.

Because W was a bubble candidate, in just the same way.

He then goes on a long, entertaining jaunt about how voters just sort of fumbled into supporting GWB because they were confused, desperate, misled. For example,

That earlier President was named George Bush. And it appears that a fair number of the people who expressed support for George Bush in the polls didn't understand that there were two of them

It's a classic piece of punditry-- plausible analysis, entertaining conclusion, lacking some critical facts.

First, GWB impressed a lot of his fellow governors. That was a crucial part of his early support. They certainly didn't confuse him with his father. Plus, Bush's victory in 1998 was crushing and deep: his electoral prowess was not simply a matter of polling numbers. (Bush also was generous with his fund-raising apparatus in 1998 and helped other Republicans raise money. That's a big plus for someone who aspires to lead the party).

Second, McCain squandered his chance for the nomination; it wasn't just GWB's war chest. McCain decided to pander to the media bus by sticking his thumb in the eye of conservative voters: gun owners, born-again Christians, pro-lifers. In contrast, Bush was willing to take the heat and stand by them on their issues. Again, it is hard to reconcile that with bubble behavior-- those groups knew what they wanted in a candidate and where the candidates stood on the issue. Their choice was both rational and well-informed.

Carnival of the Capitalists

The latest blogging on business and economics is here.

Kerry in the Atlantic

John Kerry got a tremendous boost to his candidacy late last year when Douglas Brinkley brought out his book and excerpts ended up as the cover story in The Atlantic. The current issue has several letters in response. Two, I thought, were pretty interesting.

I was struck by the ending of Douglas Brinkley's piece on John Kerry's Vietnam combat experience, a passage that was apparently taken from Kerry's war diary. Having jumped into a ditch with the mutilated body of a comrade, and with AK-47 bullets whizzing over his head, Kerry recorded the following dissociative episode:
I just lay in the ditch, not firing because I wanted to save ammo and because I couldn't see what I was firing at and I thought about what was happening in New York at that very moment and if people really felt that I was doing something worthwhile while they went down to Schrafft's and had another ice cream sundae or while some fat little old man who made another million in the past months off defense contracts was charging another $100 call girl to his expense account. And then, when the shooting stopped, I came back to where I was.
To anyone who grew up reading Hemingway and Fitzgerald, the style and sense of the passage is familiar, especially the references to Schrafft's ice-cream sundaes and fat little old defense contractors with their expense-account "call girls"?images that sound about right for 1920 or 1935, but to my ears are very dated if ostensibly reflecting the thoughts of a young American under fire circa 1969.

Which is not to say the account is not perfectly true. I've heard a story about an intoxicated reporter who got thrown in jail and, feeling that some dramatic response was called for, removed one shoe and pounded it against the bars of his cell, only later realizing that he had borrowed the scene wholesale from a gangster movie.

However, there is no apparent irony in Kerry's story, and since Hemingway himself was big on bullshit detection, I can't help wondering if an American soldier in 1969 in a Vietnamese ditch under AK-47 fire would truly ponder New Yorkers eating Schrafft's ice-cream sundaes and fat little old defense contractors charging their expense accounts for call girls. Having never been in combat, I have no basis for judging, but it would be most edifying to learn if the passage rings true according to the bullshit detectors of other combat veterans.

Thomas Martin Pflaum
Micanopy, Fla.

According to an excerpt from John Kerry's war diary, when pinned down by enemy fire, Kerry wondered about fat-cat war profiteers who charge call girls' fees to the cost of war materiel. Ordinary combat officers, when pinned down by enemy fire, tighten their sphincters and wonder 1) How the hell am I going to get out of this? and 2) What's the best thing I can do now for my men and my mission?

One wonders what Lieutenant Kerry's men wondered while he wondered about higher matters.

Joseph R. Owen
First Lieutenant, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.)
Skaneateles, N.Y.

Quite Right

From OTB:

Are we really going to take the juvenile position that only people who have earned a Silver Star or higher get to talk about national security issues? And that whatever they say is, by definition, right because they once got shot at? If so, what if they disagree? How can they conduct a debate, since they are all, by definition, right?

Funny the Democrats didn't talk that way when Clinton ran against two decorated veterans. And they had no problem having Patricia Schroeder act as one of their leaders on the House Armed Services Committee. (WHat right did she have to question generals who had served in combat?)

Vietnam, AWOL, etc. etc.

From the MRC: Kerry?s Partisan Partners in Smearing Bush:

The networks followed McAuliffe?s agenda. From Feb. 1-16, ABC, CBS and NBC aired 63 National Guard stories or interview segments on their morning and evening news programs. That?s far more coverage than Bill Clinton?s draft-dodging scandal received in 1992. Back then, the three evening newscasts offered 10 stories on Clinton?s complete evasion of service; this year, those same broadcasts pumped out 25 stories on whether Bush?s acknowledged service was fully documented.

Despite the fact that no Democrat had substantiated their AWOL claims, the networks put the burden on Bush to prove his innocence. After the White House released documents on February 10 showing Bush had satisfied the Guard?s requirements and received an honorable discharge, reporters wanted more evidence (see box). The records showed Bush was never ?AWOL,? exposing the baselessness of the Democrats? original charge, yet none of the networks framed their stories around questionable Democratic tactics. Instead, they kept the onus on Bush: ?The issue is not going to go away,? ABC?s Terry Moran promised.

From Hitchens:

But now, those like Terence McAuliffe who defended every piece of Clintonian mendacity have decided to pin the label of "deserter" on George Bush Jr. This is sordid from at least three points of view. First, in respect of the facts it was self-evidently untrue even before the release of the president's records (and before some of his original accusers began to change their minds, or, in one case, to admit that he was losing same because of early onset Alzheimer's disease). Bush evidently did the gentlemanly minimum, which was itself a good deal more than the average for his college generation. The term "AWOL" is a studied insult and a conscious lie. Second, it's been admitted by the president well before now that the pattern of his youth was not entirely creditable. We've already covered all that, from the boozing to the driving. We don't have to take his word for it that he was "saved," but it's plain enough that he has reformed, thanks largely to his wife, and so it's mean and despicable to revisit that period in such a Pharisaic manner. Third, some Democrats really seem to want to act hawkier than thou. Are they so sure that this is a bright idea?

Sooner or later, Sen. John Kerry is going to have to say which he thought was the noble cause: the war or the antiwar movement. In the later movement, he clearly was not numbered among the "moderates." I remember those "Winter Soldier" hearings very well, and as far as I'm aware the charges made against the U.S. Army in Vietnam were substantially true, even if some of them were laid by shady and suspect characters. However, if the average in the field was tolerance for rape, torture, mass killing, and a depraved indifference to human life, what becomes of the "band of brothers"?

What am i missing

How are Mel Gibson's father's views relevant to the merits of "The Passion"? It seems to me that they have even less relevance than a movie director's membership in the CPUSA.

Sounds Reasonable

A prediction: some time before the November election, Sullivan will formally renounce the GOP and/or George Bush.

Over at Spoons.

It's Buchan-mania

First, it was an essay in the New Criterian.

Then it was Hitchens in The Atlantic.

Now, we have Steyn dusting off an old column.

And to think, i read Buchan when Buchan wasn't cool.

"A Vet Questions John Kerry's Military Service"

Over at Frontpage Mag.

Definitely worth a read.

One of the criticisms of US officers in Vietnam was that they collected medals they didn't deserve and for actions that were just part of the job for enlisted men. So, if Lt. Kerry had not joined up with the VVAW he would have served as a pretty good example of that.

No one asked me

but i think Blogopoly is good clean fun. And yes, even funny sometimes.

But not everyone agrees.

Passion in the Corner

NRO passed along a weird little email under the heading "A CONTRARIAN VIEW OF THE PASSION". I say weird, but mean-spirited and cynical might be more accurate. Ed Kilgore writes

the heavy marketing of Gibson's film to conservative evangelical Protestants strikes me as theologically perverse, if commercially smart. These are people, for the most part, who don't place much stock in the liturgical calendar, and the particular relevance of the Passion to the annual cycle of meditations about Christ. Moreover, these are people who often think St. Paul's comments on gender relations or homosexuality--or for that matter, the entire Old Testament--are as central to Revealed Truth as the gospels themselves. Presumably, most conservative evangelicals would be as interested in, say, a movie about the cursing of the Cities on the Plain as with anything specifically about the Passion.

And third, I'm a bit concerned, though not surprised, by the sort of Popular Front thinking that has so many conservatives from every religious background expressing total solidarity with Gibson's faith, which is by any standard a bit eccentric, and by Catholic standards specifically, heretical or at least schismatic. I realize that many conservatives share the Left's eagerness to transfer political and cultural ideological labels into every realm of life, including religion…conservatives should beware embracing just anyone who calls himself a conservative.

First, note that Kilgore assumes that conservative Evangelicals would be happier watching a movie where gays are killed than a movie about Jesus Christ.

Second, he assumes that Evangelicals and traditional Catholics are more divided on essential matters than either are from secularists. (That's how i read "theologically perverse). That sure doesn't leave much room for ecumenicalism.

Similarly, by speaking of "Popular Front thinking" he implies that the Protestants who have praised this movie are forging cynical quasi-political alliances with Gibson. He rules out that they might actually admire the movie.

The late Francis Schaeffer was a prolific writer much admired by Evangelicals. One of his most influential books was The Christian Manifesto which argued that believers could and should become active in politics. One of his key points was that conservative Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox, and Jews should join together in what he called "an ecumenicalism of orthodoxy." In his view, the matters which divided a conservative Evangelical from a conservative Catholic were smaller than those matters which divided either one from secularists and from many liberals in their own churches.

This book was a huge seller (although it never made the best seller lists because Christian bookstores were not then polled by the list-makers). I'm not certain i knew any Evangelical minister or Sunday School leader who had not read it. Operationally, you see Schaeffer's thinking at work in many grass-roots pro-life groups where Baptists and Catholics work together despite their theological differences.

This type of ecumenicalism is driving a lot of the Evangelical interest in "The Passion". Yes, Gibson is Catholic. But his movie, by following so closely to the Gospel narrative, is orthodox. There is nothing cynical about that.

I also was disappointed that the Cornerites largely let Kilgore's ("an occasional NR/NRO Contributor") charges pass without comment.

"Freedom Without Responsibility"

Terrific post over at TCS:

When we see leftist ideology statistically predominant among college professors, news reporters, or open-source software advocates, what we are seeing is self selection. What Richard Florida dubbed The Creative Class is a self-selected group that seeks freedom without responsibility in their professional lives. Thus, we should not be surprised that their ideological bent is toward modern liberalism, which translates this personal preference into a political platform.

Carnival of the Capitalists

The latest edition is available here.

This is a true must read

Have you ever heard that "rule of thumb" was derived from the common law rule that a husband could beat his wife as long as the rod was no thicker than his thumb? Did you know this was an example of the Big Lie? Do you know what connects that lie with the San Francisco marriage ceremonies/civil disobedience?

All this and more is revealed here.

Politics and the Sports Pages

From InstaPundit on the way the AP slipped anti-Bush commentary into its coverage of Daytona:

Message: I don't care! Reader Rick Giovanelli, who sent the link, comments: "Give me a break, I can't even read the sports websites now without seeing this nonsense?" Apparently not. At least until after the election. . . .

Those with good memories will remember that Rush Limbaugh said that sportwriters were infected with political correctness when he was a commentator on ESPN. That part got lost in the controversy about race and Donovan McNabb. But there can be no doubt that the first part was right. (And for the record, i thought Rush was wrong about McNabb and said so at the time).

Several ESPN interviewers spent time asking drivers and journalists about the reaction to the "controversial" movie "The Passion" which was promoted on the hood of Bobby Labonte's car. One of the professional chatters even asked "do sports and religion mix?" (Guess she didn't know about the whole invocation thing at all the Cup races).

Mark Steyn

By contrast, the Kerry narrative is almost impenetrable. If Vietnam bitterly divided a nation, split communities, tore apart families, etc, etc, Sen Kerry somehow managed to wind up on both sides of the fence: in the 1960s, he was John Wayne taking out the gooks in 'Nam; in the 1970s, he was Hanoi Jane Fonda, leading the protest movement; now, after two decades in Congress opposing every new weapons system for America's military, he's campaigning like Bob Hope on a USO tour flanked by wall-to-wall veterans. What story accounts for Senator Flip-Flop these past 40 years?

If character is the issue, Bush can relax. And, if doing your bit for national security is the issue, then John Kerry's been Awol for two decades.

The rest is here.

"12 Questions About Vietnam For John Kerry"

A sample: "It has been said that Vietnam Veterans Against the War encouraged soldiers to desert during the war. Is that true?"

John Hawkins has the rest here.