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Re: "Going Rogue" Preview: Five Chapters Of Palin

TheRaven — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:49:31 -0000

Almatt,

It ain't just the ivy league elites who detest the notion of uneducated white America putting a moron on a national pedestal. Sarah Palin is barely qualified to run a beauty salon, let alone a state. Her fundementalist rejection of science, her witch-burning pastor, are merely the symbols of national disgrace.

Anyone who follows Plain can't grasp the idea that belief doesn't replace science. Worse, you just don't get the shame and embarrassment you bring on Americans who venture out in the world.

The creationist museum was built for the Plain faithful. I'm sure Palin will have a speaking engagement there sometime soon. All the silly faithful can gather around exhibits of dinosaurs playing with cavekids and pray to the Christian god who can't stop laughing at her creations. Remember, this is the same god who created Newton, Hume, Darwin, Crick and Hawking.

God creates geniuses and low-lights to test you. Remember the biblical injunction against false idols? It's all about choosing your leaders wisely. If you praise Palin too much or commit the sin of voting for her, god may nudge a very large asteroid in our direction.

Re: With Whom Is Obama Most Unpopular?

TheRaven — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:45:23 -0000

Obama possesses the best qualities of the best 20th century presidents. He has Wilsonian intellect, Truman's toughness, more charisma than Kennedy, Reagan's strategic vision and Clinton's political instincts. All criticism of Obama's performance thus far is out of context with American history and serves only to discredit the critics.

Comparisons made to Lincoln are off-base and Obama would be the first to say so. The comparison thus far is to Truman, who was considered completely unprepared. He faced the Korean War and establishment of new Federal agencies, among other challenges. Subsequent events vindicated Truman. Although he left office with only a 22% approval rating (same as Bush, the younger), he is now widely considered one of the 10 best in our history.

When viewed in the context of the situation he inhereted, Obama's first 10 months in office have been bold and productive. We have never had a bad president who grasps nuanced American history and Obama is a case in point. His appointment of MacCrystal echoed Truman's move with Matt Ridgway, bold and emphatic. Obama has appointed the best administration we've ever seen and he's hasn't been shy about replacing people who aren't moving fast enough.

This is not to say that he's been perfect, that's simply impossible. The point here is that presidents are judged not by pundits but by the verdict of subsequent events. No one saw potential in South Korea in 1953 and Truman's war was judged a waste of American blood and treasure for a backwards nation. Prevailing racial attitudes surely furthered this view. Our stand in Korea created a modern democracy and paid dividends 30+ years later when Reagan and Thatcher confronted the Soviets. Unlike Americans, Europeans understand that history informs the present, each and every day. The Soviets learned from Korea that democracies respond to aggression in-kind. (They also knew that their tanks were no match for American firepower, as was subsequently proven in Iraq, twice).

It's amusing to compare Obama's actions with various characterizations. This is the so-called liberal president who threw down the gauntlet on teacher performance. This is the 'indecisive' president who very deliberately queued up immigration reform and gay rights behind health care and financial reform. Obama is the only president to recognize the unique and important role played by community colleges (the great engine of American upward mobility) yet he's been bashed as an ivy league elitist.

The opposition has many tools with which to twist American thinking. Lobbyists aren't individuals, they are well-funded corporations, hiding in the shadows of the not-for-profit tax code. Lobbying isn't limited to capital hill back alleys, it buys space in money-losing print media and owns a major network. The opposition has been enraged by Obama's effortless style and perplexed by his lofty refusal to engage race-baiting politics. Obama has been pitch-perfect in communicating ideas and vision, including his response to a Nobel surprise, and right down to the perfection of his salute to fallen soldiers.

You all have a choice. You can take the easy road and flip on the TV or you can learn your country's history and empower yourselves to see the President in an appropriate context. The first choice is intellectual slavery, the second choice fulfills the destiny of the Constitution of the United States of America.

Most of us would give our lives defending the Constitution, isn't easier to just read a book?

Re: The CMS Report: What it Says

TheRaven — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:19:25 -0000

TheRaven suggests that Megan considers the primary care doctor shortage in context of vertically integrated health systems. When primary care doctors work for an integrated health provider, are they more involved with the total delivery of care? TheRaven sides with Atul Gawande on the basic flaw in American health care: self-employed doctors have every economic incentive not to control costs. If the Mayo model is the future, might that not kill two crows with one reform?

Regarding endless wrangling over the reform bill, TheRaven asks all to consider which world they'd rather live in: (a)status-quo in which anonymous insurance company clerks hold the power of life or death; (b) rational and humane world where citizens of the world's richest nation do not have to chose between life and loss.

TheRaven further poses a question for Megan and respectfully asks the reactionary fools to shut their pie holes. (If you damn big government for incompetence yet think an agency such as CMS is capable of pulling off the logistical nightmare named 'conspiracy', you are a reactionary fool). The question is this: has the best economic solution been hiding in plain sight all along?

It occurs to TheRaven that biggest flaw in health care reimbursement is that it discourages provider efficiency at a basic level. The reason is simple: reimbursement rules do not incent capital investment over labor. How could this be? When reimbursements are determined based on minutely-defined services investments not directly associated with specific medical procedures are disincented. The most obvious proof is electronic medical records. America has a well-established model in an enormous industry in which the opposite is true.

Public utilities are free market enterprises whose prices are constrained within a range defined by government. Said rate range is not established on a per-transaction basis as in health care. Rather, rates are set according to a targeted (and disclosed) return on total invested capital. This provides leeway on transaction-level pricing while shifting the provider mindset to maximizing capital investment and minimizing operating expenses. In other words, the overall system incents efficiency.

Let's all refrain from comments about coal, global warming, fly ash, et al. TheRaven detests coal and strongly favors government direct investment to ramp up geothermal, with coal heavily taxed and replaced by methane in the near-term. The point is that with all known flaws in America's energy system, public utilities represent an economic model dating back to the 19th century which functions significantly better than health care. How many people in America live without electricity?

Yes, hospitals have far more types of transactions than your local electric company and leftist reactionaries will immediately defend hospital worker jobs (for whom TheRaven has great respect). Such fear is entirely misplaced. Health care providers have been most fearful of losing control case by case; we have a national shortage of nurses (30% of the hospital workforce) that will not be solved; hospitals are capital intensive enterprises; more capital investment creates new jobs, albeit with higher skill requirements. The deepest perversion of the present system is that it pushes market opportunities away from the most capital-intensive providers. New medical technologies are deployed more rapidly by group practices than by non-university hospitals and as seen in McAllen, Texas, doctors are the sole beneficiaries.

If reimbursement rules were changed to allow ranges of charges to DRGs, ICD-9 codes (ICD-10, someday), said ranges not arbitrarily defined in isolation but rather in the broad context of agreed level of return on capital, then many present concerns would simply go away. This idea does not advocate abandonment of controls to detect and prosecute patterns of abuse but does anticipate solving another flaw in reimbursement rules: comorbidity. The overall economic measurement would shift from whether reimbursement of a specific condition is high or low to focus on the overall economic health of the world's largest human health provisioning system.

Private insurers? They already follow CMS' lead with regard to setting reimbursement rates. The beauty of pending legislation is that private insurers are finally brought to heel.

On a separate note, TheRaven has seen no reportage on where presently uninsured people are located. TheRaven suspects that rural America carries a higher proportional burden of uninsured persons and that legislated reform will be a boon to many rural providers presently suffering from lack of volume.

What say you, Megan?

(TheRaven having spoketh thus wondered about package inserts for osteoporosis drugs that declare broad indication for elderly patients in microscopic type).

Re: Seriously, Stop Worrying About Hyperinflation

TheRaven — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:43:32 -0000

TheRaven is impressed with Megan's grasp of this and other subjects. Her $100k education debt for a mixed background in liberal arts and reality was both a good investment and yet another proof of fallacies buried in our national accounts. It must be a living irony to both grasp the definition of 'net worth' yet also prove the limitations of said definition.

TheRaven wonders whether Megan has read The Great Wave. David Hackett Fischer's long view of inflation is a sobering read. The inflation risk we're facing is not in current debt levels but rather in the collision of: (a) the beneficial effects of said debt (return to growth); (b) dwindling commodities; (c) one-third growth in world population over the next 40 years; (d) tripling the world's middle-class over the next 20 years. TheRaven points to pre-2008 commodity price spikes as obvious harbingers.

Fischer considers 20-40 years as piffle. The Great Wave chronicles 4 major bouts of global inflation over a 600 year period. Historic inflation rates were much lower than what we now accept as the low-end of an acceptable range. Yet inflation crept up on mighty governments and the historic end result was catastrophe.

(TheRaven having spoketh thus flew off to ask Jane Kaminsky how she writes performance reviews for one of America's greatest living historians)

Re: Between Palin and Palinism

TheRaven — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:04:25 -0000

Porkins,

TheRaven doesn't scare easy but also recognizes the ring of Truth. You nailed it brother, and the news ain't good. I'm hoping Frank Schaeffer is right and there really are only 20 million white people who sell their votes for mention of Christ. I have a bad feeling it's much, much worse.

Re: Mental Health Break: Remembering The Wire

TheRaven — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:20:57 -0000

Wow, for once, a series of comments where TheRaven doesn't have to wade in and smack heads. If you all would please show up in more contentious subjects!

As you might guess from my name, TheRaven knows Baltimore quite well. The genius of The Wire lives at many levels but for TheRaven, the headline is 'authenticity'. Baltimore accents and nuance were spot-on, e.g., 'Bel Air Road' pronounced as 'Blair Road'. The aforementioned season on the working class had a scene in which a real estate agent is pushing a rehab'ed row home in Locust Point as being in the chic Federal Hill neighborhood. Yup, that's exactly what they do.

(TheRaven having spoken thus said: 'The Wire is the best series in the history of television')

Re: On Poverty, Interest Rates, and Payday Loans

TheRaven — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:46:55 -0000

Bang - Cynic gets it. Props to shannonlove for good insight.

One upon a time, TheRaven was working poor but working hard, all the way through college. TheRaven now lives where pay day lenders are lightly regulated and - exactly as Cynic describes - cluster up around lower income people. TheRaven sees this every day.

TheRaven wonders why Megan didn't fully connect the dots here: geography; lower income; immigrants; undocumented; untaxed incomes. It all adds up when you see signs advertising free money wires in pay day lender windows. The signs are in Spanish. Megan, have you ever actually seen a pay day lender? I suspect there aren't any where you live.

Bottom line: America's broken, inhumane immigration laws combined with our previously robust economy were like agar to the pay day pathogen. Seeking the destruction of pay day lending isn't a liberal stance when you consider the toxic effect such predators have on a free market consumer society. Seeking justice is non-partisan. As for why 'poor people' are adverse to banks, TheRaven asks when anyone outside of the southwest or Miami saw a bank run by Spanish-speaking people.

Megan, your control group for assessing poor people's participation in mainstream banking are recent immigrants living in Miami. In no other American city has Spanish become so predominant. TheRaven thinks that comparison of that group to, for example, poor Spanish speaking people around Nashville (where banks are run by white people) would reveal distinct differences.

Re: A Milestone in the Health Care Journey

TheRaven — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:08:40 -0000

Dave,

Once upon a time the United states was inundated with a peculiar immigrant horde. They fled a country that lost 50% of her population to famine and flight in the space of only a few years. They were short, spoke funny, had huge families and obviously questionable loyalties. The press derided these newcomers and unabashed discrimination was the order of the day. Does any of this sound familiar?

They were called 'the Irish'.

Now, there's nothing more quintessentially American than Irish ancestry. All the Irish did was earn their way in, same as every other immigrant group. Mexicans have been earning their way in for years and the pattern is strikingly similar. Short Catholic people with large families outwork everybody else, then their children attain education, enter public service, climb the ladder.

The American-born population is aging. Demographics is destiny. We can't afford to let the productive portion of our population slip below 60%. Developed nations with restrictive immigration policies such as Japan, Germany and Italy are on a self-destructive path to 50% productive population. These nations will literally retire into bankruptcy.

The current immigrant wave has paid their dues for citizenship. We need them and they need us. You can extend an open hand and help ensure your own future or be on the wrong side of history. No matter, the rest of us will extend America's legacy without you. Same as it ever was.

(TheRaven having spoketh thus flew past the Gettysburg Battlefield monuments, counting the Irish multitude)

Re: Palinoia

TheRaven — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:00:32 -0000

HC,

Obama kicked abortion to the curb very early on. He rightly characterized the issue as overly distracting from pressing problems, then set a legislative course from the high ground. He won't look back.

George Will is a conservative. TheRaven may not agree with Will or other conservative brains like Gingrich but respects the fact that they have them. Palin is simply a moron with a narrow talent for reactionary oratory. This isn't about gender. Unfortunately, America is loaded with stupid white people, so her little talent found a big audience. No surprise she quit Alaska, the entire state's population is a fraction that of a large county in the lower 48.

Let me illustrate Palin not by expressing hatred for her but rather with comparison to another female politician who was intensively disliked, in many countries, for far longer than Palin has enjoyed her feeble celebrity. TheRaven is an ardent fan of this mystery woman and in fact holds her up as the gold standard for judging potential female candidates for President of the United States.

Our model female President was instrumental in reversing adverse economic conditions. She fought an impossible long distance war and won a decisive victory. She broke crippling national strikes. She was a target of terrorist attacks, some of which killed close allies. She was highly educated and a disciple of fair dealing, free market economics, diplomacy and the rule of law. She was highly articulate and didn't shy away from substantive policy issues. She influenced positive change in South Africa, led her country for nine years and earned grudging respect from the Russians, who nicknamed her 'the Iron Lady'.

I am of course talking about Margaret Thatcher, who while accused of many things by a multitude of detractors, was never called a 'liberal'. Thatcher was Christian, but nowhere close to fundamentalist.

So, as opposed to objectively arguing about emotions Palin manipulates in a gullible, largely evangelical population, which is obviously impossible, why don't you compare Palin to Thatcher in every objective category of leadership, knowledge, negotiating ability, diplomacy and other essential Presidential qualities. Then come back to everyone here in McArdleville and let us know how Palin really stacks up. (Hint: you can't bluff this one).

(TheRaven having spoketh thus fondly recalled Reagan and Thatcher standing firm against liberal naysayers and Russian tyranny)

Re: Obama Dips To 49

TheRaven — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:43:24 -0000

Truman and Reagan?

Damn good company for a new President!

Polling numbers are the biggest journalistic trope since the invention of movable type.

When presidents are given history's verdict, polling numbers don't figure. Truman left office with only 22% approval (same as Bush 2) and he's clearly one of the ten best. No one saw promise in post-war Korea, just a waste of blood and treasure on a backwards nation. Oops.

So polls, like articles, blogs or newspaper corporations are transitory and ephemeral. No truths are revealed. All us people who aren't polled because we've got unlisted cell phones (and no land lines), travel excessively, work too much or just don't like pollsters, we're not in the numbers.

Polling statistical validity is a silly concept in a multicultural nation constantly on the move where the people most likely to be sitting by the phone are white, retired and uneducated.

TheRaven isn't stupid and neither is the majority of America.

We like Obama just fine.

Re: New Mooned

TheRaven — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:08:48 -0000

TheRaven is amazed that out of 60 comments 'Victorian' doesn't appear once.

What do you think vampires are but the plainest sexual metaphors from the high-collar age? The nocturnal activity, faces grotesquely contorted, supernaturally beautiful, victims moaning, c'mon!

So with New Moon we have the irony of Victorian era chastity grafted onto a sexual trope born while Queen Vic still ruled. TheRaven appreciates irony like a vampire sucks blood and wonders where the hell you people went to school. Hope it wasn't expensive.

Dracula was published in 1897. The whole blood fetishism thing almost didn't happen. Bram Stoker's working title was 'The Undead'. That would have recast vampires as zombies out of the gate. Has anyone ever seen a sexy zombie?

Ps - Ta-Nehisi - might have missed it but any post on Sandra Bullock's secret plan to take over the world? Did you ever think any man would ever say "I want to see a Sandra Bullock movie?" TheRaven's vast network reports men saying this in Cleveland, Cincinnati and in the land of those-who-wave-rags. Simply unbelievable!

Re: There Are No Poor White People

TheRaven — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 22:30:24 -0000

Good to see zacksback mention the New York Times article. The Times provided underlying, county-level data and I obtained county demographic data from the Census Bureau. Put both both data sets together, analyze, and you get another case of poor reportage. It's not the Internet killing The Times, its The Times. Here's what The Times missed in the data, pertinent to this discussion of white & black poverty:

1. Extrapolating The Times claim on the number of people who care eligible to receive SNAP (it's no longer called 'food stamps') benefits, but do not, against population figures, suggests that up to 7 million American children experience hunger which could be easily alleviated. So the big point isn't 'white or black', it's 'children'.

2. While the RATIO of blacks receiving SNAP is much higher than whites, which The Times took pains to point out, The Times failed to mention that the absolute NUMBER of whites is significantly greater. Thirty-five million people receive SNAP, of which 17 million are white and 11 million are black. So, 50+% more whites than blacks receive SNAP benefits. This points to the urban tilt of American poverty as it affects politics and policy. White poverty is significantly greater but it is mostly rural and is therefore largely invisible.

3. Forty-five percent of SNAP recipients are children. Given that, according to data gathered by the NYT, only 11 million recipients are black, this suggests that a large number of persons receiving SNAP are WHITE CHILDREN. This finding puts a much different light on broad perceptions of poverty amelioration programs.

There are 471 counties in which 50% or more of all SNAP recipients are children. These counties are home to 92 million people, about 30% of the American population. The counties with the largest NUMBER of children receiving SNAP are clearly urban (LA, Cook, Maricopa, Kings, Harris, etc.). The 20 counties with the largest numbers of child recipients average 2.5 million people per county. Counties with the highest RATIOS of child recipients (i.e., those places where children are the 'face of poverty') are mostly much smaller. Population in 17 of the 20 counties with the highest child recipient ratios was less than 250,000 per county. It was under 50,000 in twelve of these counties; clearly far from 'urban'.

SNAP stands for "Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program". Credit the government for renaming this program to remove the 'food stamps' stigma. Why disadvantaged people in America were ever stigmatized for hunger is a mystery to TheRaven.

The Times mentioned 'SNAP' only once. The mostly white and certainly educated journalists employed by The Times could have slanted their article away from poverty stereotypes by referring to 'food stamps' only once and to 'SNAP' thereafter. They instead mentioned 'food stamps' eighteen times, an offense more egregious than Lindsey Graham's. Lindsey is merely a southern dumbass and he behaves as we expect him to. People who incur 6-figure debt attending the Columbia journalism school paid for the privilege of knowing better. That said, a whole lot of us regular folk (and birds) know better, period.

Perhaps the simplest, big statement The Times could have made to properly frame a discussion of American poverty is that white SNAP recipients outnumber black recipients in 2,599 counties. Considering that there are 3,141 counties, this means that, on a geographic basis, whites outnumber blacks in this significant poverty program across 83% of America.

While a 3-pound bird with a bad attitude and an iridescent sheen can parse data into information, such attributes are apparently not imparted by Columbia, et al, despite buy-a-Lexus-each-year tuition.

Ta-Nehisi - do you want a marked copy of the NYT article and the analysis?

Re: The Benefits of Health Benefits

TheRaven — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:13:05 -0000

Credit Megan for grabbing the third rail of American life with both hands. The problem in her piece stems from yet another attempt to view a technically complex problem in narrow, theoretic terms. Simple consideration of whether uninsured people die faster misses questions like: 'what about additional pain and suffering"?. TheRaven flies above even that consideration to address the real issue: 'what about national competitiveness'?

Consider pain and suffering. People of modest means can buy routine healthcare. Family practice physicians routinely discount the price of 6-month checkups below $100. A blood sugar test costs less than $20. A flu shot at Walgreens costs $25. These prices are not out of reach for most uninsured Americans.

But, what if you have a painful, chronic condition, such as degenerative disk disease? Lower back pain grows more intense as the your condition inexorably worsens. Episodes of peripheral numbing become more frequent. You've had a few episodes of partial paralysis in one leg. Constant pain begins to corrode your personality, a definite liability if your livelihood depends on interaction with other people. Your doctor asks whether you'd like to get an MRI, but what good would further confirmation of the obvious provide? MRIs cost a bit more than blood sugar tests and the final choice is corrective surgery vs. financial ruin.

America's prosperity accrues from small businesses. Every Google started small, and this statement does not at all demean the millions of small businesses that start small and stay that way. Small businesses hire while large corporations fire. Historic employment growth is so centered on the fiscal health of America's small businesses that TheRaven is incredulous that every conversation about health insurance and health care does not center on small business.

If a business is very small, under 25-50 employees, providing health insurance is perilous to the point of futility. Health insurers set the rules, aided and abetted by incompetent state regulators and the absence of interstate competition, while taking advantage of a federal oversight vacuum. If a business insures less than 25-50 'covered lives' (the number varies), a single medical event for one employee could cause premiums to explode. Right now, small business owners are privately thanking Wellpoint for its gross stupidity. Their private hell is now publicly exposed. TheRaven half believes that WellPoint may have have intentionally sparked the controversy as an indirect cry for help, as it faces what Paul Krugman calls a "classic insurance death spiral".

Businesses that employ even hundreds of people are hardly better off. Many revert to partial self-insurance, with health coverage used for stop-loss. This leads to lower levels of individual coverage and higher cost of doing business. It's not the employer's fault. A firm employing 500 people, with connections and outside experts, is still no match for predatory monopolies like Wellpoint. The extent of this problem is well-stated by Krugman. It's so bad that health insurers are literally destroying their own markets.

Let's say that you own a small business. Health insurance is out of the question. Your blood sugar test was fine but your back pain is ever present. You have a client meeting in two hours that will determine the fate of several employees, your accountant is on hold for an urgent conversation regarding your quarterly tax filing and your best sales person is sitting in front of you, explaining why a 20% pay cut to work for a competitor that offers health coverage is a no-brainer. Can you overcome pain that attacks your ability to speak in coherent paragraphs? Can you keep the sales person, find another $10,000 for the IRS and somehow win the day with your client? You'll be limping into that meeting, not exactly a sign of strength and reliability.

Extend this little parable to America as a whole and consider how our national competitiveness is the product of our our individual capabilities. If millions of Americans are hobbled by conditions they cannot afford to remediate, if millions more cling to unfulfilling jobs merely to provide health coverage for the families, what does that say about our ability to compete on the world stage? Economists point to internal mobility as an indicator of America's ability to globally compete. Internal mobility has been in decline for years. There are demographic factors and the recent implosion of property values, exacerbated by a pig-headed banking industry, has depressed mobility to post-war lows. Health insurance is also a factor, but workforce mobility is rarely mentioned in context of needed reforms.

Putting aside our shared national interests, consider how much better you'd feel knowing that no person you'd ever interact with in the United States of the Best Damned Country That Ever Was - not the small-business owner, not the taxi-driver, the hotel maid, the barrista or even the guy who mows your lawn - would ever again be asked to live in pain and suffering that, in the world's richest nation, they couldn't afford to heal. If we all had that knowledge, that comfort, each and every day, what would that do for our collective sense of well-being? TheRaven knows that immense new power would accrue to the shining city on hill, that Reagan would smile from above, that Truman would bark "what took you so long!" and that Jefferson would finally be at peace, knowing that America had finally abolished its last form of slavery.

While TheRaven is usually in agreement with Megan, and certainly empathizes with anyone who deals with multiple conditions, it appears in this case that direct and specific advice is needed for a highly intelligent person who might have fallen prey to intellectual-in-the-big-city syndrome. The conversation really is about life and death, however, the patient isn't us, it's our country.

Megan, in the interests of our collective future, please take your well-functioning head out of your well-educated ass.

Sincerely,

TheRaven

Re: Your Chance To Go To School On TNC - International - The Atlantic

TheRaven — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 15:57:35 -0000

Modern African conflict resembles internal French conflict in the 14th and 16th centuries.14th century French conflict was characterized by disparity between the number of men limited by societal strictures to the warrior class (knights only knew how to fight). Unemployed knights as brigands preyed on their fellow citizens. 16th century conflict was driven by Catholic vs. Protestant hostility. There were no differences in the scope and magnitude of 16th century atrocities vs. what is seen now in Africa. France endured 8 or 9 civil wars in the 2nd half of the 16th century, all were due differences in Christian ideology. Woman and children were butchered, there were mass rapes, etc. 14th century conflict was more driven by economic need to plunder but there were enough atrocities such that differences in cause in either century aren't clearly seen in effect.

This is not to suggest that current African conflicts are wars of religion (although a case could be made for Darfur and perhaps Nigeria) but rather that 14th-16th century French conflict is akin to the tribalism that plagues Africa today. For example, Nigeria contains 300 distinct tribes. 14th-16th century class distinctions are not comparable to some tribal differences. The real comparison is different notions of 14th-16th citizenship, which were oriented around a person's district, town or local lord. There really wasn't a sense of French national identity (outside of the King's inner circle) in the 14th century. Stronger national identify at a personal level was diminished by 16th century Christian conflict.

Another common feature is low levels of literacy. Roughly 90% of 14th century French peasants and artisans were illiterate. The picture improves in the 16th century but the strong majority remained illiterate. Modern Africa is in better shape here in terms of "cause" (people know how to read) but not in effect (people have little access to books).

Step back a few feet and the similarities between then and now make rough sense:

1. 16th century feudalism isn't much different from African land holding patterns, broadly described. This limits economic development (see point 2).
2. Imbalance between warrior-age male population and available employment opportunities.
3. Lack of external threats to which the warrior class can be applied (ironically, US/UN peacekeeping efforts may exacerbate internal conflicts)
4. Rule of law compromised by corruption (see point 2)
5. No sense of "country first" in vast majority of population (the tribalism problem)
6. Absence of an effective, national judiciary
7. Absence of an effective, national police force, separate and apart from armed services
8. Build up of armed services for perceived external threats, which results in large number of under-utilized, bored, well-armed men.

There are two notable differences:

1. The weapons kit of a 16th century warrior - armor, sharp weapons, horse, support staff, perhaps a gunpowder weapon - were comparatively much more expensive than the modern equivalent: a used AK47 sold in a dusty bazaar. The modern lower economic barrier to entry likely contributes to overall level of conflict. (How many African countries have established an effective legal process to govern small arms?)

2. There were no standing armies in the 14th century. The first European standing army comes along in the 15th century, introduced by Charles VII to sop up unemployed French knights and lower the level of internal conflict. England didn't have a standing army until 1685. (How many African nations have a standing army that consumes a share of GDP equal or greater to that average army/GDP share in developed nations?)

Ironic conclusion: Europe literally wrote the book on what Africa shouldn't be doing.

Re: Tea Partiers Are Conservative. Moving Along... - Politics - The Atlantic

TheRaven — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 16:52:57 -0000

Better Gallup questions would cover age and education attainment. No need to ask about ethnicity. Do a Google images search on "tea party" and you'll see a white, largely middle-aged or older demographic. Older translates to "less educational attainment" across the US but in some states, that's nearly guaranteed. For example, North Dakota has the lowest proportion of high school dropouts in the 25-44 year old population of any state (only 5%!), but 30% of its retirement age (65+) population didn't finish high school. That puts North Dakota 12th in the nation, in the retirement-age group. North Dakota is also a very white state, so that vast majority of that 65+ population without a high school diploma is white. Let's take the gloves off and reveal this so-called movement for what it really is: a credulous population that is easily victimized with cynical lies told by people with an economic motivation to lie, lie, lie.

How many educated Americans subscribed to the notion of death panels?

What are the demographics of people who bought Palin's lame ass book?

How many educated Americans do not believe that Glenn Beck is pond scum?

How many uneducated Americans know that Glenn Beck is a tool wielded by a thug named Roger Ailes, who is Rupert Murdock's lackey? (And how ironic is it that uneducated, largely evangelical whites jumped on the Obama-as-antiChrist bandwagon, completely ignorant of Rupert, the evil mastermind that twisted their thinking!)

Re: Jill Scott From Another Angle - National - The Atlantic

TheRaven — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 17:17:21 -0000

All notions of race are crap. Under superficial differences in color, we all have so much in common that notions of "race" are simply pathetic. The only real difference between humans is gender difference and proof there lies in the commonality of gender views across cultures and millenia. (For example, women have always "talked too much") The vast majority of Europeans (and by extension, a huge chuck of America) is descended from only seven women and when The Seven Daughters of Eve was published, less than 3-dozen original maternal ancestors had been identified for all people on Earth. Puts a different gloss on inherited notions, eh?

All religion is superstitious crap and most of what you define as culture is crap, too. Religion, like racism, is merely old code, Paleolithic survival programming that hasn't been deactivated. No need to call a specialist, such inherited ills are cured by education. Funny thing how the educated members of any so-called race or culture mix more easily, with so many more shared values and reference points, than do the uneducated.

Culture has value only for variation in artistic expression and cuisine and veneration of knowledge & learning. All other historic aspects of culture have served only to limit individual potential, especially for women. Modern, western cultures in a historic context aren't cultures at all but rather the opposite - the removal of historic, culturally imposed limitations. That's why woman in America obtain advanced degrees and can become surgeons, rabbis or hundreds or other occupations that were closed off until recently.

Having lived long enough to see the Cold War end and a great man become President (note to Republicans and All Gore: that's how "President" is done!), one can only hope to see the beginning of the end for religion and the restrictive aspects of culture. (Women, however, will always talk too much).

Re: Open Thread At Noon - National - The Atlantic

TheRaven — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 17:33:39 -0000

So, your thinking would lead you to not read or to distrust "Slavery by Another Name", which won a Pulitzer in general nonfiction for blowing the lid off of post Civil War slavery? It was written by the WSJ Atlanta Bureau chief, a journalist, not an academic. Synopsis: slavery continued until World War 2 in even worse form than before the Civil War. (Short synopsis: Alabama)

Having read the book and many works of history by notable academic authors (Fischer, Wilentz, Lepore, Ellis) and many lesser-known academics, I can't discern a meaning difference in scholarship, certainly not in prose, except that truly successful academics (e.g., Fischer) combine scholarship with accessible prose. The lesser knowns (e.g., Lambert) can't quite get out of the scholarly publication box. Not to put too a fine a point on it, but does "Barbara Tuchman" ring a bell?

As much as TheRaven bashes ignorance and venerates education, an academic-only mindset creates dangerous reliance on small groups of experts without the check and balance provided by alternative views. Besides, many of them can't write.

Re: McNabb Moved - Culture - The Atlantic

TheRaven — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 17:39:22 -0000

Leaving Donovan aside, this really isn't about him, how many teams have enjoyed a meaningful improvement in results by adding a QB with 10+ years experience? I'll bet the long-term stats point to home-grown QBs as the better bet, i.e., take short-term losses for long-term gains. Washington hiring Donovan smacks of insider politics, driven by an owner whose principle virtue is boundless arrogance.

Re: Open Thread At Noon - National - The Atlantic

TheRaven — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 18:03:09 -0000

I get it. A young person, a woman, less than 30, missed the Barbara Tuchman cue. How predictable was that? Here's an unqualified blanket parable for you. Once upon a time, in an America where women could be teachers, nurses and not much else, a woman named Barbara Tuchman, of good background, with a masters degree, had the temerity to write a history book. This was heresy because, as was known at the time, history was the province of lordly, male academics, who owned all historical opinions and wrote them their own style (basically, to each other). The Guns of August, published in 1962, chronicled the first month of The Great War, which would be posthumously named World War I. "Guns" is highly accessible, written in a style that later would become more associated with people like Tom Wolfe (and unfairly so). The academic establishment was appalled and reacted in kind. How dare she! The Pulitzer prize committee thought differently, as did millions of literate people who bought The Guns of August. History had been returned to the people! We are all better for it.

Ms. Tuchman won another Pulitzer for Stilwell and the American Experience in China. I like to think that at that point several stuffy male academics became mute, and it's possible, but I really don't know."A Distant Mirror" is damn good, too (14th century France). The 100th anniversary of WWI is right around the corner, so Guns should figure on your reading list.

Re: Open Thread At Noon - National - The Atlantic

TheRaven — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 18:11:20 -0000

Sorry but....did you completely miss the reference to Slavery by Another Name? While your precious academics are engaging in "potential criticisms of their work", a plain old journalist spent years sleuthing up a huge revelation in American history. Maybe some academics had similar findings but if they published only in professional journals, it doesn't count. The point of scholarship is to educate the polity. Ask yourself this question: how many Americans believe slavery ended in 1865? That illustrates the importance of accessibility to quality history, not some arbitrary notion of process. We, the literate public, can ferret out quality vs. crap.

Re: Your Chance To Go To School On TNC - International - The Atlantic

TheRaven — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 18:34:58 -0000

Right. Basic answer: not much difference. The importance of prose is that good prose illuminates events so that modern similarities are more discernible. From a victim's standpoint, being butchered by Protestants, Catholics or the LRA has so much in common that differences don't matter. Good analysis serves to dispel inherited western notions of the innate superiority of Christianity. The reality is that Europe blossomed due to a confluence of luck and Christianity went along for the ride. Europe is significantly less religious now because it endured 200 years of holy war between Christians, followed by 200 years of non-religious war that Christianity couldn't stop. You might say that in context of war, the value of Christianity was disproved at both ends.

Modern Africa can't be monolithically characterized, as most comments pointed out. I was speaking in broad averages and asked two questions relative to individual countries. The point is that while religion itself seems to figure less in modern African conflict, broader socio-economic patterns bear too much resemblance to mid-millenial European conflict and that the modern view of tribalism isn't materially different in effect from how mid-millenial Europeans saw themselves. French towns fought each other, sometimes for dubious reasons. The modern problem in seeing this is self-inflicted, e.g., academic wrangling over the precise meaning of "tribe", a word which is not associated with much European history after Charlemagne, except to describe non-European invaders.

Re: Open Thread At Noon - National - The Atlantic

TheRaven — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 23:21:18 -0000

Thanks Andy - that goes on my list, behind Stilwell.

Re: Jill Scott From Another Angle - National - The Atlantic

TheRaven — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 00:07:09 -0000

I dunno, sorn, seems to me that blanket condemnation of racial categorization matches cutting edge science, excoriating religion as superstition is in sync with statistics showing that higher levels of education correlate with less religiosity regardless or race or nationality and characterization of culture as rules that limit human potential is backed by several thousand years of history. That would make me so open-minded that I would expect most people to see the opposite. Perhaps you are not a humanist.

As for your sense of humor, let's try again with a question: what killed off the mammoth? Theories include asteroids and hunting. There's no concrete proof on the first. I think ice age hunters needed extraordinary motivation to kill mighty beasts with mere pointed sticks. My theory is that the mammoth were doomed the minute humans invented language. Before then, the mighty male hunters were sitting around the fire, not talking mind you, because they didn't have language. But with grunts and gestures, they were saying..."Oy! Are we mighty hunters or are we going to spend eternity killing rabbits? Let's kill mammoths!" (Ice age hunters, in fact, mostly hunted arctic hares and on that score, weren't so mighty). Then other hunters said "Are you bleedin' mad?" (Oddly, they gestured and grunted with British accents) "All we have are these poxy sticks!" At that moment, at the other fire, women invented language. When they realized they could communicate with more than grunts and gestures (which was always less suitable for women) they cast about for topics. "Let's talk about our feelings!" - "No, how about....relationships!". (Talking about shoes, at least in a fashion context, was a few years in the future). The men weren't talking yet, but they could hear. Not knowing exactly what feelings or relationships were (many still don't), but fearing the worst, they frantically gestured and grunted to find a way out of their predicament . "Er...hunting mammoth takes a lot more time than hunting rabbits". Questioning looks around the fire. "Yeah, that's means we won't be around for (fearful & confused looks all around) feelings and relationships!" (terror stricken looks on all their faces). They stared at their pointed sticks with desperate religious fervor. "You know, if we all stab the mammoth at the same time....it might work!". Much relived at dodging the terror of feelings and relationships, not to mention learning how to speak, the hunters truly became mighty and laid waste to the mammoth. With pointed sticks.

Moral of the story: when someone says "women talk too much" you can assume the opposite ("men listen too little") or make a some other kind of judgment, you know, like reactions dictated by cultural and religious dogma. The choice says more about the chooser.

Re: Jill Scott From Another Angle - National - The Atlantic

TheRaven — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 01:24:28 -0000

Christianity's fatal flaw is the notion that God has a human face. Paraphrasing Hitchens, "god invented man, but man invented religion". He may have borrowed that from someone else, it has that timeless feel. The idea that God created the universe and man, in his image, worked OK on illiterate sheep herders. It certainly played to the vanity of kings. Besides knowledge of how big the universe really is, Christianity's ticking time bomb is the incredible pace of exoplanet discovery. It won't be long before a few other Earths are in focus. The first exoplanet was found less than 20 years ago. I'm pretty sure Falwell didn't notice any of them. I'm also sure that only Pat Robertson is a bigger idiot.

It wasn't long ago that Christianity premised its power on infallibility (oops, some guy in Rome still does that!) and one of its foundations was the primacy of Earth, as in, the center of the universe. Copernicus was largely overlooked but Galileo wasn't so lucky. Funny how the world knows his name 500 years later but only historians can name his persecutor. (He was a bit of a show boat)

Christian dogma now faces a widening gulf between "god in the form of man" and "if god made the indescribably vast universe, aren't the odds in favor of her creating a few other Earths?". Terrible question, kinda takes all the specialness out of being Christian. But not out of being human. Here's a secret: there's nothing special about being Christian. It's just another silly label.

That which is most sacred, the Constitution of the United States of America, says (in effect) that you can believe any silly thing you please. The founders in their nearly infinite wisdom knew that freedom of religion is also freedom from religion. If they had killed off slavery in the bargain, they'd be deified. The irony is that in taking primacy over religion, the Constitution enabled it as no government ever could. Britain clung to its state religion and now the Anglican Church barely has a pulse. As a body, the founders viewed religion with justified suspicion and their feelings towards Infallible Rome can be safely described as fear and loathing.

How strange it is that 223 years after the most holy of all secular documents was born our newspapers are chock full of fear and loathing of the world's largest Christian order. Let's be clear: we're talking about international fear and loathing, embarrassed state prosecutors, pissed-off legislators and armies of plaintiff's attorneys. The current situation is beyond the founder's worst fears. I don't recall Adams or Jefferson wondering if priests would molest helpless children, some of whom were already burdened with disabilities. (The idea that those who took vows harmed children entrusted to their care puts TheRaven in a furious rage). It's too much to hope for but having witnessed the end of the Cold War and (finally!) a great President I suppose that the death of Catholicism, at least in the developed world, might be within reach.

The best way to deal with your religion, assuming that wearing meaningless labels makes you happy, is to not think about it. That's kinda contrary to what's needed for a graduate level education but myopia isn't a crime. Jefferson adored the moral teachings of Christ but he thought revelations was "nonsense". He customized your bible with reductive logic (a razor) and his work is available to this day. Thomas Paine said: my own mind is my own church. Considering that one estimate put the probable number of Earths spread through the universe at a billion, that's good enough for me.

PS - If you don't already know, suggest you study-up on King James. Biblical contradiction in a modern context isn't limited to words on the page.

Re: Jill Scott From Another Angle - National - The Atlantic

TheRaven — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 02:14:02 -0000

TheRaven is neck-deep in evangelicals. Having grown up is a working-class Catholic environment, chock-full of militant pro-IRA sentiment (years before they nearly killed Thatcher) and really bad ethnic jokes directed at a particular minority, the personal definition of irony is now "Catholics as the voice of reason". Not the Catholic Church, the institution that has so earned its own demise. I speak of Catholics as individuals who don't spout risible nonsense such as "Obama is the AntiChrist". The evangelicals have a much better case with Rupert Murdoch but most don't know the name of He Who Manipulates Their Thoughts. Education never stops. I learned the names of certain denominations is code for "waiting for the rapture" and I'm starting to realize that fundamentalist aversion to climate change acceptance is more than Fox programming - they can't see past "bible prophesy".

Education is no guarantee of broad mindedness in an individual but it's a gold-plated guarantee for a society. In similar vein, Christianity is no guarantee of kindness (as the Catholic Church so amply demonstrated during WW2) but individual Catholics have demonstrated undecorated heroism selflessly helping others. They were humanists and heroic. Their Church was neither.

America is under educated and its educated human capital is unevenly distributed. Massachusetts is rich, Alabama is poor. David Hackett Fisher's "Albion's Seed" explains why. Another education, profound in scope. We can keep living in the Reformation or graduate to a post-superstition era. Religion, like racism, will be put in rightful place. Europe is full of empty cathedrals.

Regarding comments on W.E.B. Dubois and other black leaders, I suggest one report and three books: official report to the Governor of Oklahoma concerning events in Tulsa in 1921 (you'll find it); "Arc of Justice" (Kevin Boyle); "Capital Men" (Philip Dray); "Slavery by Another Name" (Douglas Blackmon). The handful of black men who managed to rise, regardless of their personal qualities, contributions and fame, don't come close to balancing the toll of wasted human life. The real American history commands an open mind because it is terrible beyond belief.

Genuine debate requires neither apology nor contrition.