September 3, 2005

What the mayor could have done

A reader writes:

It might well make sense, under some circumstances, to use the Superdome or Convention Center as emergency shelters. But if you were mayor, wouldn't you do a few other things as well? I mean, if I were evacuating thousands of people to a certain location, I'd make damn sure I had enough cops there to keep things organized and in control, along with somebody sufficiently senior to be in charge. And I'd move paramedics, doctors and nurses. Not to mention medicine which one could predict would be needed: antibiotics and insulin, at a minimum. Finally, I'd ship as much water as I possibly could. Food would be good too, but one can live a few days without resorting to cannibalism.

At a minimum, if none of those preparations were possible, I'd tell those shipped over before the flood began to bring a gallon of water each. And if I didn't have enough water to transport, I'd have some of the cops that I'd sent to the Superdome and Convention Center using the taps at those facilities to fill jugs, bottles, pots, or even buckets with water. I mean, even if FEMA had been maximally efficient, they'd have still taken a couple or three days to get aid to people. The fact that evacuation facilities had no food, water, or medicine at all is clearly attributable to local incompetence.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Here are the New Orleans buses

that could have evacuated the city before the hurricane hit, sitting around in nice, neat, flooded, useless rows afterwards. (Source: Yahoo News, 9/1/05, via "Our Way of Life," which has a lot of good commentary.) There are approximately 200 buses in this picture alone, and there are clearly more that are beyond the margins of the photo. If each one of the 200 could carry 60 people, that's 12,000 who could have been ferried out on each trip to, say, Baton Rouge on higher ground just 75 miles away.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Black activist Randall Robinson claims cannibalism

is happening in New Orleans in the Huffington Post:

It is reported that black hurricane victims in New Orleans have begun eating corpses to survive. Four days after the storm, thousands of blacks in New Orleans are dying like dogs. No-one has come to help them.

Robinson goes on to blame this purported cannibalism by blacks on ... [drumroll, please] white people.

He doesn't explain who is reporting that there is cannibalism. New Orleans has among the highest average obesity rates of any city in America, so I don't think they are quite at Donner Party straits yet.


Robinson's hysteria reminds me of The Onion essay by a corporate middle manager trapped in an elevator for forty-five minutes:

Well, I suppose everyone's heard about last week's incident by now, and you probably have a pretty low opinion of us survivors. And, all things considered, perhaps we deserve it. Perhaps we panicked and resorted to cannibalism a bit early. But you weren't there. You don't know what it was like. I just want you to hear our side of the story before you go judging us.

When the six of us got into the elevator on that fateful day, we had no idea what was going to happen. We thought we were just going to take a little ride from the 12th floor to the lobby, just like every other day. Do you think we knew that elevator was going to get stuck between floors? Do you think we got into the elevator saying, "Hey, you know, we should eat our good old pal Jerry Weinhoff from Accounts Payable"? Of course not. [More]


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

"The Raft of the Medusa"

The immense 1819 painting by Théodore Géricault, recalls events oddly redolent of the last week's in New Orleans, from the incompetence of the Bourbon political appointee put in charge of the Medusa who ran it onto a sand bar to the pointless fighting among the survivors on the life raft. Wikipedia has the story. Unlike the claims of black activist Randall Robinson about survivors in New Orleans, however, the sailors really did resort to resort to cannibalism after only four days.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Is Bush a total idiot or what?

The President said on Thursday in an interview on ABC's Good Morning America:

"I think there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this, whether it be looting, or price-gouging at the gasoline pump or taking advantage of charitable giving, or insurance fraud."

Looting and "price-gouging" (i.e., raising prices until supply equals demand) are the same in Bush's mind?

I remember the lines at the gas stations in 1973 and 1979 caused by Nixon's price controls on gasoline, which Reagan dumped as soon as he came in office. I guess Bush doesn't.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Black activist Randall Robinson claims cannibalism

is happening in New Orleans in the Huffington Post:

It is reported that black hurricane victims in New Orleans have begun eating corpses to survive. Four days after the storm, thousands of blacks in New Orleans are dying like dogs. No-one has come to help them.

Robinson goes on to blame this purported cannibalism by blacks on ... [drumroll, please] white people.

He doesn't explain who is reporting that there is cannibalism. New Orleans has among the highest average obesity rates of any city in America, so I don't think they are quite at Donner Party straits yet. Robinson's hysteria reminds me of The Onion essay by a corporate middle manager trapped in an elevator for forty-five minutes:

Well, I suppose everyone's heard about last week's incident by now, and you probably have a pretty low opinion of us survivors. And, all things considered, perhaps we deserve it. Perhaps we panicked and resorted to cannibalism a bit early. But you weren't there. You don't know what it was like. I just want you to hear our side of the story before you go judging us.

When the six of us got into the elevator on that fateful day, we had no idea what was going to happen. We thought we were just going to take a little ride from the 12th floor to the lobby, just like every other day. Do you think we knew that elevator was going to get stuck between floors? Do you think we got into the elevator saying, "Hey, you know, we should eat our good old pal Jerry Weinhoff from Accounts Payable"? Of course not. [More]


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Here are the New Orleans buses

that could have evacuated the city before the hurricane hit, sitting around in nice, neat, flooded, useless rows afterwards. (Source: Yahoo News, 9/1/05, via "Our Way of Life," which has a lot of good commentary.) There are approximately 200 buses in this picture alone, and there are clearly more that are beyond the margins of the photo. If each one of the 200 could carry 60 people, that's 12,000 who could have been ferried out on each trip to, say, Baton Rouge on higher ground just 75 miles away.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

September 2, 2005

Wrong Bush

A reader writes:

The worst management I've ever experience was Hurricane Floyd in S.C. in 1999. The evacuation of it led to the worst traffic jam in U.S. history: the population of Charleston was stranded on I-26 for hours and hours. I was almost 39 weeks pregnant and stuck out there without any cop or ambulance in sight. And all we could do was salivate at the incoming lanes on the interstate which had been empty for hours, but the bureaucracy just hadn't given the go ahead for us to travel on them.

The best: Jeb Bush, by far, I or my elders, have never experienced a Governor who is so prepared and who is anything but nonchalant. Before every hurricane we have, he has buses and other emergency vehicles ready at the Florida-Georgia line to invade Florida as soon as the hurricane passes.

One of the many odd things about George W. Bush being President is that if the voters in the Presidential election had been restricted to his own parents and the candidates restricted to his own siblings, Jeb would have beat George 2-0.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

"Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang"

Early movie hype: "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang," with Robert Downey Jr. as an ineffectual thief turned actor who stumbles into trying to solve a murder mystery derived from every famous Los Angeles detective story from Raymond Chandler's great "Farewell, My Lovely" through "Chinatown," "Lethal Weapon," and "LA Confidential," is the "Big Lebowski" of this decade. And that's high praise indeed.

They've pushed the rollout back to late October, probably to boost Downey's Best Actor chances, although the Academy doesn't give comedies much respect.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Three words, Raffy, three words: "Human Growth Hormone"

From the Associated Press:

Slumping Palmeiro Loses First Base Job

BALTIMORE -- Rafael Palmeiro has lost his job as the Baltimore Orioles' regular first baseman, the result of a prolonged slump that began after he returned from a 10-day suspension for testing positive for steroids.

Mired in a 2-for-22 skid in which he has gone hitless in his last 14 at-bats, the left-handed hitting Palmeiro did not start Monday against Oakland right-hander Kirk Saarloos. Asked if he sees Palmeiro as the team's everyday first baseman for the rest of the season, Orioles interim manager Sam Perlozzo responded, "No, I don't, but if he would swing the bat he would be. I don't have a problem with playing everyone that can help us on a regular basis."

Palmeiro was hitting .280 with 18 homers and 59 RBIs at the time of his suspension. Since his return, he has no homers and just one RBI in six games. His batting average has also dropped 12 points to .268.

Unlike steroids, baseball doesn't test for Human Growth Hormone. Expect to soon see baseball players with all those weird jaw deformities, kind of like how normally sleek-looking track king Carl Lewis showed up for the 1996 Olympics looking like a squirrel with his cheeks stuffed with nuts.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Looking on the bright side of New Orleans

At least the rioters haven't been able to burn it down the way looters torched much of Los Angeles in 1992.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Low productivity labor

The huge supply of cheap immigrant labor in the US means that we lag at increasing productivity, which is the main engine of higher standards of living. For example, in LA it's very hard to find the kind of automated robot car-washing facilities that many gas stations offer in Chicago. In LA, you can only get your car washed by a swarm of illegal immigrants. I'm sure in ancient Rome, you could only get your chariot washed by a crew of slaves with buckets and sponges, but you might think we would have progressed since then.

Further, while Chicago's automated washing systems are open 24/7, in LA it doesn't pay to have the illegals work before noon (when demand for car washing is light). So, if you get told by your boss to go pick up a client and your car is filthy, well, you're out of luck.

Or, how come the waitress has to come to your table four times at the end of restaurant meal?

First, you call her over to tell her you'd like your check.

Second, she brings the check.

Third, she comes back to pick up your credit card.

Fourth, she comes back with the credit card slip for you to sign.

Couldn't this all be done electronically right at your table with no visits at all by the waitress?


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

September 1, 2005

IQ, Abortion, and Crime

A reader who was an inner city social worker comments:

Now I'm soooooo confused! As you point out, Charles Murray in his article "The Inequality Taboo," has "calculated that 60% of the babies born to black women who began participating in the National Longitudinal Study of Youth in 1979 were born to women with IQs below the black female average of 85.7. Only 7% were born to black women with IQs over 100."

But wait, weren't all those [low IQ, lower class] women having abortions? That's what genius economist Steven Levitt says in his super-brilliant book *Freakonomics,* where he tells us that abortion cut crime substantially because it kept hordes of little ghetto marauders from being born. Well, OK, Levitt doesn’t exactly put it that way, but we all know what he means (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

If we are to believe Murray's figures, then it would seem that the black women who had abortions must actually have been the *brighter* ones -- whose children (had they been born), would statistically have been less likely to commit crimes than those born to lower-IQ women.

Could this mean that Levitt is, ahem, wrong?

That's what I told Levitt back in 1999: that the most likely explanation for why the serious violent crime rate show up among those born after abortion was legalized was that legalized abortion hollowed out the black middle class, while the black underclass just let s--- happen all the way to the maternity ward.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

August 31, 2005

"The Constant Gardener"

Everybody else is giving this adaptation of John Le Carre's bestseller about corporate conspiracies in Kenya dutifully rapturous reviews. From my review in the Sept. 28th issue of The American Conservative

"Hotel Rwanda," despite its catering to white liberal self-obsession, at least was about some closely observed Africans. "The Constant Gardener," in contrast, exemplifies how cinematic political correctness, the fear of showing human differences, strips Africans of their distinctiveness, rendering them ciphers who merely suffer nobly at the hands of fascinating white villains.

"The Constant Gardener" of the title is a handsome but passive British diplomat (Ralph Fiennes of "The English Patient") married to a feisty but gorgeous activist wife (Rachel Weisz of "The Mummy"). Her anti-racist dedication is so saintly that she refuses to have their baby delivered at a white-run hospital. (If Weisz's character were real, she'd be appalling, but, fortunately, even the most radically chic put their own babies' survival above their ideological fashion statements.)

When she loses the child in a hellhole slum clinic, she barely notices because she can tell that the European scientists examining the dying tribeswoman in the next bed are up to no good. She discovers that the nefarious multinational pharmaceutical firm is testing a new tuberculosis drug in Kenya on patients dying of both AIDS and TB without obtaining -- you'll be shocked to learn -- their fully informed consent. (Although Le Carré's Cold War spy stories were endlessly praised for the moral ambiguity he discerned within the KGB, he portrays "Big Pharma" as the epitome of evil.)

Objectively speaking, overly aggressive clinical trials must rank about 312th on the list of Africa's most pressing problems, in-between overcrowded buses and hostile hippopotamuses. (Ludicrously, the screenplay claims that the evil corporation is cutting corners to rush the pill to market because of the obscene profits it will make preventing an epidemic of a new antibiotic-resistant form of TB that threatens to kill two billion people. In that case, the drug company would deserve a tickertape parade.) But, unlike Africa's major tribulations -- many of which stem from its traditional polygamous and matrilocal family structures that are profoundly dysfunctional in the modern world because they lead to low paternal investment in children -- slipshod drug testing is one that can be rightfully blamed on white people.

Don't assume, though, that Le Carré and the American critics who revere him are consumed by White Guilt. They're not blaming themselves, just white people they already hated. White culturati use black victims as props in their endless competition to win superior moral status over other whites, especially ones who make more money than they do.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

August 29, 2005

David Rieff on Muslim immigrants in Europe

In an essay entitled "An Islamic Alientation" (echoing Peter Brimelow's book) in the New York Times Magazine, Susan Sontag's son echoes many of my themes.

Even if they produced no other positive result, the attacks on the London Underground have compelled Europeans of all faiths to think with new urgency about the Continent's Muslim minority. Such a reckoning was long overdue. Some left-wing politicians, like London's mayor, Ken Livingstone, have chosen to emphasize the proximate causes of Muslim anger, focusing on the outrage widely felt in Islamic immigrant communities over the war in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But the harsh reality is that the crisis in relations between the European mainstream and the Islamic diaspora has far deeper roots, consoling as it might be to pretend otherwise.

Indeed, the news could scarcely be worse. What Europeans are waking up to is a difficult truth: the immigrants who perform the Continent's menial jobs, and, as is often forgotten, began coming to Europe in the 1950's because European governments and businesses encouraged their mass migration, are profoundly alienated from European society for reasons that have little to do with the Middle East and everything to do with Europe. This alienation is cultural, historical and above all religious, as much if not more than it is political. Immigrants who were drawn to Europe because of the Continent's economic success are in rebellion against the cultural, social and even psychological sources of that success...

In January 2004, I wrote in "Four Failed Immigration Approaches,"

But look at Europe. Its experience proves that the different immigrant-treatment approaches of the host countries matters less than what the immigrants bring with them.

Likewise, Rieff explains that none of the European's states' latest responses are likely to prove terribly effective.

Strikingly, Rieff notes:


In a sense, Europe's bad fortune is that Islam is in crisis. Imagine that Mexican Catholicism was in a similar state, and that a powerful, well-financed minority of anti-modern purists was doing its most successful proselytizing among Mexican immigrants in places like Los Angeles, Phoenix and Chicago, above all among the discontented, underemployed youth of the barrios. The predictable, perhaps even the inevitable, result would be the same sort of estrangement between Hispanics and the American mainstream.

Yet, it's crucial to keep in mind that when this vast social experiment of importing millions of poor Muslims "to do the jobs Europeans just won't do" began, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Islam looked like a beaten and broken faith, and Muslims appeared to be dutiful and submissive laborers, just the way the American elite conceives of Latin American immigrants: as cheerful replacements for those uppity blacks whom you can't trust as servants anymore.

The future remains unwritten. Still, history suggests prudence, something that has been in short supply among the ruling classes of both Europe and American in recent decades.

Of course, I've also been pointing out in VDARE.com essays like "The Wind from the South" that much of Latin America south of Mexico is increasingly in crisis due to the growth of anti-white populism in reaction to the still-unresolved racial problems growing out of the Conquest of 500 years ago. This movement is likely to become vocal in Mexico during the Presidential election of 2006.

Will indigenous anti-white populism become a major problem in the U.S. as the Hispanic population becomes increasingly less white as the poorer, more brown and black sources of immigrants are progressively tapped? I don't know, I'd guess the chance of Latinos in the U.S. someday becoming a massive problem on the order of Muslims in Europe is less than 50% but more than 10%.

But why do we continue to exacerbate the odds? When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Wedding Crashers & Mark Wahlberg

"The Wedding Crashers" -- I finally saw the sex comedy starring Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn about a couple of likable sleaze-dogs who attend wedding receptions uninvited to meet bridesmaids who are in the mood for love.

Well, it's not a sequel, remake, or old TV show, so it's got that going for it, which is nice. (Otherwise, it's mildly funny, but it's making a lot of money because even mildly funny is unusual these days.)

It is, however, roughly the 300th comedy about weddings. It's a hit because Americans love comedies with "wedding" in the title. Our culture has become so casual that nuptials provide one of the few remaining formal occasions that can make indignities and embarrassments so much funnier.

Vaughn is an oddity, a comic actor with no apparent sense of timing. He simply spits out great bursts of semi-funny dialogue at high speed, with none of the rhythmic variation that comedians use to set up punch lines. (To see how it's normally done, watch for old pro Christopher Walken delivering a one-liner about his daughter's sweet 16 party late in the movie using his trademark off-kilter rhythm). Vaughn's shtick sort of works because we are used to movie motormouths being little Steve Buscemi-types, instead of an enormous 6'-5" 46 extra-long suitcoat galoot like Vaughn.

***

Mark Wahlberg: Heir to The Movie Gods -- Mark Wahlberg is a likable actor in a low-expectations sort of way, but why does Hollywood keep casting him in roles pioneered by famous stars? Reviewing "The Italian Job" remake of a couple of years ago, in which Mark Wahlberg took what was Michael Caine's role in the 1969 original, I noted:

For inexplicable reasons, Wahlberg has recently become the go-to guy to remake parts originated by screen legends. He has also recently redone Charlton Heston's role in "Planet of the Apes" and Cary Grant's in "Charade" (renamed "The Truth about Charlie"). Perhaps Wahlberg will next star in new versions of "Modern Times," "Citizen Kane," and "The King and I?"

This August brings us "Four Brothers," a remake of "The Sons of Katie Elder," in which Wahlberg will take on a role originated by ... John Wayne.

A reader replies

I feel like there's something cypher-y about Wahlberg. Maybe that has something to do with it. Like, rather than trying to match Heston/Grant/Wayne with a non-existent contemporary equal, the filmmakers just give us an unprepossessing semi-everyman into which we can channel our memories of the necessary charisma.

Another says:

When I see Mark Wahlberg playing roles originated by Grant, Heston, Caine, and now Wayne, I can't help thinking that they've brought in a boy to do a man's job. And I expect that's part of the appeal of casting Wahlberg: he can help a movie skew towards a younger audience.

One of my big pet peeves about Hollywood movies is that there really are no longer any old-fashioned male stars like John Wayne or Robert Mitchum, i.e. guys who were tough and manly and not cute and pretty. Even today's action stars tend to be "pretty boys" like Keanu Reeves or Tom Cruise.

I think that helped sink "Kingdom of Heaven" -- the presence in the early scenes of the formidable Liam Neeson, who is built on John Wayne's scale, made Orlando Bloom look too insubstantial for his subsequent role as a military leader. In contrast, Bloom had done fine as the hero in "Pirates of the Caribbean," where he was contrasted mostly with the fey Johnny Depp.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Bitter Asian Men

Bitter Asian Men: Here's a website that's amusing, sensible, and, I hope, empathy-building:

"Welcome to Bitter Asian Men, the site made by bitter asian men, for bitter asian men... and also for all of you out there who might be curious as to why we, as asian men, are so bitter. Are you a BAM looking for the right way to express his rage at the world? You've come to the right place. Are you [an Asian woman] looking for insight as to why your Asian ex-boyfriend isn't talking to you after you dumped him and started dating some frat boy? Again, you've come to the right place. Wonder why that Asian guy glares at you every time you ask him what brand of egg rolls he likes best? You're definitely in the right place!

I've long pointed out -- beginning with "Is Love Colorblind?" -- that much of the bitterness felt by many Asian-American males toward whites is perfectly understandable if you look at the gender gap in white-Asian interracial marriages. Of course, that has led to quite a lot of Asian male bitterness being directed at me and my family personally, on the principle of kill-the-bearer-of-bad-news. As Enoch Powell said in his much denounced 1968 speech:

"Above all, people are disposed to mistake predicting troubles for causing troubles and even for desiring troubles: ‘if only’, they love to think, ‘if only people wouldn't talk about it, it probably wouldn't happen.' Perhaps this habit goes back to the primitive belief that the word and the thing, the name and the object, are identical."

And I wasn't even making a prediction, just committing the sin of documenting on paper what everybody who lives in a cosmopolitan American city has seen with his own lying eyes.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Iraq Constitution or Peace Treaty?

Over at ParaPundit, Randall Parker quotes professor Karol Soltan that the "constitutional convention" in Baghdad is actually more like a peace treaty negotiation:

"It's not like Philadelphia. They're not 13 relatively homogeneous states at little risk of fighting a civil war. They're trying to prevent an early-stage civil war from exploding. They've spent a lot of time trying to settle borders and generally diminish the potential for violent conflict. In effect, they're working out key provisions of a peace treaty. Constitution-making is much more difficult."

In some ways, that's an encouraging perspective. The Iraqis don't have to work out rules for governing that they'll all abide by. For purposes of the U.S. getting out of there, theyl just have to work out how to stay out of each other's hair.

The problem, as always, is oil. It's relatively easy for the Swiss to get along with each other because individuals are highly productive and the country has few natural resources to squabble over. In contrast, Iraqis aren't very good at producing good and services, but the territory is loaded with oil.

On the other hand, Iraq has so much oil that it might be possible to divvy up the pie in such a way that everybody gets at least a moderate sized slice. A reader writes:

Your item about Ahmad the Thief set off an epiphany: with the rise in oil prices, Iraq’s oil wealth is now worth over $8 trillion. (If the price hits $100/barrel, that # goes to $10 trillion). Since there are roughly 27 million Iraqis, that amounts to a per capita wealth of about 300 grand. So the potential for a happy ending is there.

Two questions remain:

1) Will the new leadership be honest and wise enough to distribute this wealth fairly (or will it end up in the Chalabi family Swiss Bank Account?). Will they invest in their future?

2) Can the grassroots realize that they have a potential windfall coming and refrain from killing each other?

There two questions are the whole shooting match (perhaps not the best clichĂ© to use here!). I’d only give it a 10% chance of working. But six months ago, I would have said it’s less than 1%. So perhaps Wolfie’s idea of (to borrow Pat Buchanan’s term) “starting a fire in the world’s gas station” had some wisdom after all. Let’s see: the rest of the world has to undergo a recession and energy crisis to fulfill Wolfie’s vision. Talk about sacrifice!


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer