With that in mind, Bush's new nominees for his Council on Bioethics seem much stronger than I expected. James Q. Wilson, for example, has a long track record of making successful predictions (e.g., to reduce crime: put more crooks in jail for longer terms and fix broken windows). Francis Fukuyama, Charles Krauthammer, and Stephen Carter are also smart guys that you might have heard of. 1/22/02
January 22, 2002
Bioethics are too important to leave to the bioethicists
January 20, 2002
Enjoying Martin Luther King Day off?
Since most whites don't mind working on Martin Luther King Day, the holiday has just ended up worsening racial divisions. Chris Rock says, "You gotta be pretty racist to not want a day off work!"
Fortunately, I have a solution. Move the holiday from King's birthday to the date of his most memorable accomplishment, his "I Have a Dream" speech on Aug. 28, 1963. All Americans would then unite to demand a three day weekend the week before Labor Day. Racial harmony would prevail across the land. 1/20/02
More MLK: You may have thought that King's "Dream" speech was about allowing black American citizens to share fully in the benefits of American citizenship. But Roger Clegg, of Linda Chavez's Center for Equal Opportunity, sets you straight in National Review Online. It was really about "liberal immigration policies." Thanks, Rog, I can feel the scales falling from my eyes already. 1/20/02
Factually Correct? The 9/11 Firemen Statue
"Factually Correct?" "I think the artistic expression of diversity would supersede any concern over factual correctness," said a black NYC fireman in defense of depicting as minorities two of the three firemen in that 9-11 statue that will be based on a picture of three white firemen. Jonah Goldberg of NRO works up a good head of steam denouncing the poor man for saying "factual correctness." Jonah seems to assume that works of art inspired by reality were always 100% "factually correct" until insidious postmodernists like Stanley Fish corrupted everybody.
Look, Jonah, Iet me let you in on a secret: George Washington didn't really chop down the cherry tree. As Nabokov used to say, art is artifice. It's artificial. People who make art are called artists, not naturists or factists. Artists have been fudging the facts forever to affirm various values. You can argue about which values art should express, but please don't get up on your high horse about postmodernists inventing factual incorrectness in the arts.
What's actually interesting about the statue controversy is that around 95% of the NYFD is white. NYC firemen are largely a hereditary caste for white Catholics. The few blacks who get in can expect lots of on-the-job harassment intended to keep the NYFD that way. Hereditary castes are supposed to justify their existence by living up to the ideals of noblesse oblige - they live better than others because they are not afraid to die to defend the others. That bargain is seldom fulfilled in real life. Yet, the NYFD has not only satisfied the demands of noblesse oblige, but vastly exceeded them. 1/20/02/
Radley Balko: "Race Doesn't Exist"
Headscratcher of the Week: "A black man and a white man from Manhattan, for example, are likely to be more genetically similar than a black man from Manhattan and a black man from Nigeria." - Radley Balko, Cato Institute, "Biologically Speaking, Race Doesn't Exist," FoxNews.com.
Well, sure, if the average "black" guy is more than half white. But most African-Americans are not (1/6th white on average might be the best estimate), so the statement is obviously silly. How do writers and editors get simple family tree stuff like this so wrong?
Yeah, I know, everybody has heard about how "There is more genetic diversity in one African village than in yadda yadda." But that only applies to junk genes, not the genes that actually do anything. The West Africans dragged to the U.S. as slaves were actually biologically fairly homogenous. They were the descendents of the "Bantu expansion" that emerged out of the Nigeria-Cameroon border region a few millennia ago and ethnically cleansed most of Africa of Bushmen and other truly genetically diverse peoples. Dean of population geneticists L.L. Cavalli-Sforza says, "… differences between most sub-Saharan Africans other than Khoisan [Bushmen] and Pygmies seem rather small." 1/20/02
More from Balko's "Race Doesn't Exist:" "Possibly only six genes determine the color of a person’s skin ... Six genes, out of the 30,000 to 40,000 genes that make us human, determine race."
Inspired by this widespread notion that the only biological difference between blacks and whites is skin color, an 11-year-old boy asked a conservative talk show host this question: How come everybody is so worked up over plans to change one of the bronze figures in the 9-11 Firemen's Statue from a white man to a black man? Won't all the statues be bronze-colored, so nobody could tell the difference in race?
The radio host was completely stumped by the question!. White people sure can be morons about race - they just condescendingly assume that blacks are whites with black skins. They never look at blacks carefully enough to notice the myriad other differences. 1/20/02
January 17, 2002
The critically acclaimed art-house film Monster's Ball
January 15, 2002
January 14, 2002
Pathans, pederasty, fueds, brigandage, and smuggling
The larger point is that the reason the Pathans welcomed the Taliban in 1996 is because they knew they have a royally screwed-up culture - one largely dedicated to not just pederasty, but also blood feuds, brigandage, smuggling, and tax evasion. They wanted to change. That's the good news. The bad news is that the best idea they could come up with for fixing their culture was religious totalitarianism. Does anybody have any suggestions for how the Pathans can change for the better? Email me at SteveSlr@aol.com
The most optimistic analogy I've dreamed up for the Pathans is the Scottish Highlanders, who also lived in Bronze Age clans devoted to raiding and feuding up through 1745. Then, however, they followed Bonnie Prince Charlie on his almost-successful invasion of England. Outraged by this 9/11-like provocation, the English subsequently used overwhelming force to modernize the Highlands. A century later, Celtic Highlanders like Thomas Babington Macaulay were at the forefront of British civilization. 1/14/02
January 11, 2002
January 9, 2002
Argentina and The End of History
Argentina and The End of History - Francis Fukuyama famously observed at the end of the Cold War that - at the highest levels of ideology - there was nothing to argue over anymore: capitalism and democracy were obviously better than any alternatives. From now on, history would get ever duller because everybody knew that capitalist democracy was the solution.
Of course, history hasn't exactly ended yet. What's becoming clear is that there was a fatal flaw in Fukuyama's model. He forgot to ask: "What if large parts of the world are simply not competent enough to make capitalist democracy work?" Consider Argentina, a nation blessed by nature at least abundantly as Canada. A nation so trendy in social values that plastic surgery is more common in Buenos Aires than in Los Angeles. A nation where, after decades of bad choices, the political elite had for the last decade been the world's truest believers in neoliberal economics. Yet, Argentina has once again has collapsed into economic and political chaos. 1-9-2002
January 3, 2002
A Not-So-Beautiful Mind
A Not-So-Beautiful Mind - As an apparent frontrunner for the Best Picture Oscar, A Beautiful Mind demands more scrutiny than critics have so far given it. Ultimately, it reveals less about the delusions of mathematician John F. Nash than it does about the delusions of the modern hack screenwriter. Read the rest of my review here. 1/3/2002
January 2, 2002
529 Plan, Tax Savings, and right half of the bell curve
Here in California, you can shelter up to $229,000 in a 529 account. You don't have to pay federal taxes on your earnings while they accumulate, and, starting today and running until at least 2010, you don't even have to pay taxes on earnings when you withdraw them to pay for college expenses for your child. Oh, you say your kid isn't the college-type, but you are saving money to buy him an 18-wheeler to drive when he gets out of the Marines, and you'd like to use a 529 plan? Sorry, but too bad. If you want the tax break, you should have had a smarter kid. Click here for an FAQ giving the unbelievable details. 1/1/02.
December 31, 2001
Have you ever heard a Kwanzaa song?
December 29, 2001
December 27, 2001
Bush Family and the Corrupt Mexican Rich
December 24, 2001
December 16, 2001
Tom Clancy - The Bear and the Dragon
Why have so few rock groups been racially integrated?
Christmas vs. Winter Solstice Holiday
Q. I'm a Multiculturalist Pagan. I want to celebrate the shortest day of the year at the exact same moment as all the indigenous peoples on Mother Earth. Exactly when will that moment occur?
A. Never. Unlike Christianity, pagan religions are local. This causes practical problems for politically correct American pagans who want to use the seasons of the sun to commemorate the unity of humanity under nature. Their problem is that nature treats humans very differently depending upon where they live. For example, while Dec. 21 is the shortest day for the Inuit (i.e. Eskimos), it's the longest day for Australian Aborigines. And for Africans living on the equator, it's just another twelve-hour day like all the others. In truth, Winter Solstice celebrations are (gasp) Eurocentric! Or, to be precise, "Nordocentric."