Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards --

From the Washington Post's Robert J. Samuelson:

For most Americans, living standards are increasing, albeit slowly, over any meaningful period. But rising health spending is eroding take-home pay, and immigrants are boosting both poverty and the lack of health insurance. Unless we control health spending and immigration, the economic report card will continue to disappoint. Unfortunately, neither Obama nor McCain seriously addresses these problems.

Fun fact from Samuelson's very interesting column: "Since 1990, Hispanics numerically account for all the increase in the number of officially poor."

More here.

Best,

Michael

at September 5, 2008 | perma-link | (5) comments

Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards --

Tyler Cowen raises a charged topic: secession. Commenters pitch in zestily.

No idea why, but I've been thinking about secession myself recently. For no particular reason -- election season, maybe? -- I've found myself wondering, If the U.S. should break up, would I grieve? If Vermont, say, were to secede, would it bug me? Would I object? I don't think I would. And I say this as someone who's very fond of the U.S.

The question, of course, is: Which U.S.?

As that bard of Western NY Bill Kauffman says: "I love the old republic, and I hate the American Empire." The America of McCain and Obama can fall into a million pieces as far as I'm concerned. It's the people and communities that I care about -- and they might well do better for themselves by leaving the Empire.

Bonus points:

• Here's the website of the American Secession Movement.
  
• Robert Higgs thinks that the historians who makes lists of Great Presidents get it all wrong.
  
• Thomas DiLorenzo thinks it's past time that people wake up to the damage that Abe Lincoln did.
  
• I asked visitors for guidance about Lincoln.
  
• Buy a copy of Bill Kauffman's wonderful Western NY classic "Dispatches from the Muckdog Gazette" here.
  
• Bill calls Gore Vidal "the last Republican." By "Republican," I don't think he means that Vidal votes Republican ...
  
• I read some of Vidal's American history novels and blogged about them here.
  
• I interviewed Bill Kauffman. Get to all five parts from this page.
  
• Read about a genuine contemporary Vermont secessionist movement, the Second Vermont Republic.
  
• The blog No Treason is sympathetic to secessionism.
  
• Eco-leftie Kirkpatrick Sale talks to the New York Times about secession. Sale makes a bioregionalist case for secession here.
  
• Get to know a YouTube channel devoted to secessionism.
  

As far as I've been able to tell, the dean of secessionism is the Emory philosophy professor Donald Livingston, who presents history as a story of the centralizers vs. the decentralizers. If it matters: I've listened to a number of Livingston podcasts and I've read a number of his essays, and I find his accounts convincing and his arguments compelling. In any case: well worth a wrestle. Sample Livingston's podcasts here. As for essays, try here and here. A nice passage from one of them:

Talk about secession makes Americans nervous. For many it evokes images of the Civil War, and is emotionally (if not logically) tied to slavery, war, and anarchy. That the word “secession” is laden with these negative connotations should be surprising since America was born in an act of secession. The Declaration of Independence is a secession document justifying an act whereby "one people...dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another." George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson were secessionists. Americans should be the last people in the world embarrassed by the thought of secession.

Previous installments in this Un-PC Reading series are here, here, and here.

Thanks to Dave Lull for some of the above links, and to commenter Anon, who points out that a new tract by paleo-antifeminist F. Roger Devlin has been posted.

Best,

Michael

UPDATE: Dave Lull emails me a link to an LATimes piece claiming that Sarah Palin may have some sympathies with secessionism.

at September 5, 2008 | perma-link | (25) comments

Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards --

How much of a cloud-computing person are you?

For those with better things to do than keep up with stupid tech jargon ... "Cloud computing" means "computing on the web" -- using online applications rather than ones located on your own hard drive, and storing your documents on webservers rather than on your own machine.

Although the term "cloud computing" is of fairly recent vintage, you may already do a fair amount of it. If you use webmail, for instance -- Gmail, say, or Yahoo! Mail -- then you're already cloud computing. The email program that you're using, after all, is Google's or Yahoo!'s -- and your actual email isn't stored on your computer, it's on Google's or Yahoo!'s hard drives. If you show off photos on Flickr, Picasa, or Smugmug -- or if you use Picnick or FotoFlexer to tweak your images -- hey, that's cloud computing too.

In any case, cloud computing seems to be today's next great thing. If tech-industry visionaries are to be believed, paradigm-shift time is upon us yet again. Soon we'll all be doing much of our computing directly on the web, using server space and processing power from Google and others. Google's brand-new Chrome web browser is said to represent a big step in the direction of using the web browser as a kind of operating system, with the web itself as the computer.

The two main worries some express about cloud computing:

• Away time and downtime. If you rely on "the cloud," how can you do any computing at all when you aren't connected to the web? And what happens if the outfits that supply your tools and storage misbehave? These fears aren't unreasonable, it turns out. Both Google and Apple's new MobileMe have demonstrated major vulnerabilities in recent months.

• Trust. Can you feel certain that the company hosting your documents won't peep at them? Let alone that they won't make legal claims on them? Smart people are scrutinizing those absurd Legal Agreements we all checkbox-off when we sign up for new web services, and they aren't liking what they're finding.
  

As for entrusting my content to a company like Google ... Well, maybe I'm a sucker, but 1) they've got my email already, and 2) I'm such an impractical goof that I can't imagine of what interest my material could possibly be to them.

In fact, as someone who spends significant time on the road, and who flits back and forth between different computers even when at home, I love -- as in l-u-v -- the idea of cloud computing. The less dependent I am on a single computer the better. And if I'm able to get at and do things with my documents from many different computers, I'm even happier.

I opted for webmail long ago and have had no regrets about it. When Google announced Google Docs -- an online word processor / spreadsheet package -- some time back, I was thrilled. I was considerably less thrilled when I gave the product a try, though. Sluggish, ugly, stupidly organized ...

I don't know about you, but I'm often underwhelmed by Google's offerings. That emptiness ... That affectless blue-and-white color scheme ... That zombified typography ... That over-reliance on tags ... After uploading a lot of writing to Google Docs, I lost enthusiasm and decided that I'd wasted my time.

In the last few months, though, I've checked in on Google Docs once again. This time around I've found it to be very useful, if nothing thrilling. Google's techies-with-Alzheimer's design is as blank-and-blah as ever. But the onscreen actions no longer lag a half second behind my typing fingers, and the filing system now offers one capability that I find a huge plus: You can store your files in multiple folders.

An example of how cool this is. Let's say that you've written a blog posting about a movie about gangsters that's set in Chicago. In Google Docs, you don't have to choose one and only one folder to dump that file in; you don't have to choose between "my blogpostings," "movies," "Chicago," and "crime fiction." You can store it (in actual fact, references to it) in all four folders -- which means, as far as I can tell, that you get all the benefits of tagging with none of the annoyances.

A few other cloud-computing options that I've messed with:

• I've tried and enjoyed Zoho, which offers a suite of online applications, including a word processor that's much more handsome than Google's.
  
• I've also liked Adobe's Buzzword, a glitzy-looking and easy to use online word processor.
  
• Mashable offers a look at ten online note-taking applications -- I'm trying out Evernote, which so far looks very usable. It's something like an online version of Yojimbo, a Mac program that I'm very fond of.
  

In what ways -- and with which products -- are you cloud computing? Where do you come down on the vital question of tags vs. folders? And has anyone run across a good online service for storing web bookmarks? I can't stand Delicious, or any outfit having anything to do with "social bookmarking," come to think of it. Jesus H. Christ, must everything be turned into a social networking tool?

Best,

Michael

at September 4, 2008 | perma-link | (9) comments

Donald Pittenger writes:

Dear Blowhards --

[Yawn]

Quiet week. Gotta pack for a trip to the Northeast and Canada. Peck away on that book chapter.

Not much news. The Democrats nominated somebody or other for President last week and maybe the Republicans will do the same this week. Or next. Whatever.

[Yawn]

I'm bored.

Oughtta stir things up around here. But that's what Michael's good at, not me.

Oh, hell. Why not? Wave a red cape at that bull. Give the ant hill a good kick.

Lotsa libertarians hereabouts, so why not talk about third parties and voting for them versus voting for one of the bigs.

Lacking in imagination, I've never seriously considered voting for a third party candidate at any level above the local. To me, it's a case of damage control; if you vote for a third-party candidate instead of a guy you aren't too fond of, you increase the odds of winning for somebody whose politics you definitely don't like.

Others disagree. I already know some of their likely arguments, but won't steal any thunder.

It's a fact that no third party has advanced to top-tier status in this country in around 150 years. In the 20th century, there were maybe five halfway important outsider runs at the presidency, none of which captured more than a few states and none of which resulted in a new party that can be seriously considered to have endured. In chronological order, we have Teddy Roosevelt's 1912 Bull Moose Party, Eugene Debbs' 1904-1920 presidential runs under the Socialist banner, Strom Thurmond's Dixiecrat effort of 1948, George Wallace's American Independent Party of 1968 and Ross Perot's 1992 run.

It can be argued that TR's campaign prevented Taft from winning a second term and that Perot did the same to the elder George Bush. But the Dixiecrats did not prevent Truman from prevailing.

It has been said that minor parties have the effect of feeding ideas to major parties. I haven't studied this matter and won't pass judgment on that claim. What I do know is that major parties can be transformed internally due to generational change -- the recruitment of new adherents while older activists pass from the scene. For example, the Republican party was transformed over the 40 years between 1940 and 1980 from being isolationist to internationalist-interventionist while the Democratic party was going the opposite direction. Note that other aspects of the two parties changed less.

So here we go. Is it worth voting for a third party in presidential elections? If so, why?

Later,

Donald

at September 3, 2008 | perma-link | (18) comments

Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards --

Is modern tech making conducting a tradional-style affair impossible? "There are just too many ways to get caught, and the technology-savvy realise this," writes Nick Harding. An interesting stat from his piece:

Currently, the most common duration of an affair is less than six months (68 per cent of them). Twenty years ago, it was three years.

I assume that those figures hold for England only, but still ...

Source.

Best,

Michael

at September 3, 2008 | perma-link | (14) comments

Donald Pittenger writes:

Dear Blowhards --

I'm still chipping away on that proposal for a book about non-Modenist painting since 1900. I have two sample chapters drafted and am working on a chapter that is intended to set the stage before dealing with the art I wish to highlight. I'm finding that this is akin to writing the state-of-things chapter of a Masters thesis or Ph.D. dissertation. Slow, nasty work; it's rather like trying to pull chickens' teeth.

At any rate, it finally seems to be shaping up so I'd thought I'd toss out a paragraph for you to ponder. No guarantee that it'll even be in the draft I mail to publishers; and if it's panned, I'll probably jerk it.

In preceding paragraphs I suggest that paintings with staying power are likely to be connected to life experiences common across centuries. I continue with ...

Now, I expect some readers to recoil in shock and accuse me of implying that for art to “last,” it must appeal to the lowest common denominator of emotion and taste. I made no such implication, but raise the matter of popularity at this point because it is one of those issues that is constantly present, yet seldom in the forefront of discussions about art. To condemn something for being popular is a form of elitism stemming from the belief that the very best art is a rare thing. So far, so good, regarding the art itself; excellent examples of anything are rare by definition because if they were not excellent they would be good, average or not good -- most things being near average. Where elitism goes wrong is when some elitists think that the same thing holds with regard to art appreciation and that it is they who know best and the other 90 percent or whatever share of the population does not and probably cannot properly appreciate art and whose preferences in art should be dismissed as naïve or even boorish. While it is true that some people put more effort in appreciating art than others, it does not follow that the heavy appreciators necessarily have the best taste; it is possible that they have gotten themselves so wrapped up in theories and wanting to be part of an “in-group” that the art they are supposedly appreciating becomes a secondary matter.

I hope to launch the proposal after I get back from a trip to Boston, Québec, etc. Let me thank vanderleun for some thought-provoking tips regarding the publishing industry. But if I screw this up, it it'll be my fault, not his.

Later,

Donald

at September 2, 2008 | perma-link | (9) comments

Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards --

* Meet the GOP's biggest donor. (Link now updated and functioning.)

* Steve Sailer lifts the lid on the way the game is played in Chicago. Obama makes a few appearances. One especially nice passage:

Contract set-asides for minorities provide a lucrative opening for crooks like [now-jailed Obama backer, Syrian immigrant Tony] Rezko. The demand for "diversity" provides an excuse for a thumb on the scales, a justification for diverting the contract from the lowest bidder to a political ally who employs a minority frontman. Most of America's pundit class hasn't figured this out yet, but Rezko grasped how "diversity" works soon after getting off the plane.

* While most Republicans are standing up for their girl Sarah Polin, rightie Heather Mac Donald writes that McCain's choice was a disgraceful "diversity ploy."

Where's Preston Sturges when you need him?

Best,

Michael

at September 2, 2008 | perma-link | (20) comments

Donald Pittenger writes:

Dear Blowhards --

Hey history buffs! It's alternative history time again at 2Blowhards!!

This time, the subject won't be war. Instead, suppose the Great Depression of the 1930s had simply been a nasty recession lasting two or maybe three years instead of grinding on for nearly a decade in the United States.

To set the stage, some economists contend that the bad economic times were as severe as they were and continued far longer than normal because of a reactive imposition of protective tariffs by the United States and other economic powers. Let's assume this contention was true and that, instead, tariffs were not altered, resulting in a shorter, less-painful downturn.

I am not an economist, though I brushed elbows with them professionally for most of my working career. So please do not assume that I necessarily believe that the collapse of world trade was a factor in how the Depression played out. The explanation superficially makes sense, but I'll leave it to Lex Green, his Chicago Boyz buddies and other knowledgeables to discuss that. Do keep in mind that our present wealth of economic data didn't exist in 1929 or 1930, so the actors at the time as well as current researchers have a lot less to work with when studying economic events of that era. Regardless, the hypothetical I'd like us to play with is a shorter, gentler depression or whatever it might be called.

Now for my two cents.

If the United States was clearly on the economic upswing by the start of 1932, Herbert Hoover might have remained in the White House. And even if Franklin Roosevelt or another Democrat had won that fall's election, the likelihood that the New Deal would have happened would be nil. I suppose a few programs might have made their way into law, but not the whole thing. Today's politics and economics would be considerably different, absent the New Deal push to big government.

I'm less sure of the impact in Europe. France, if I understand correctly, was a little late to the Depression. So an early end to it might have allowed that country to skate through without a lot of damage. The Popular Front might never have happened or happened in a different way. As for Germany, Hitler's assumption of power was one of those near-run things. Given a recovering economy in the fall of 1932, there's a good chance he would not have been able to make his bid in 1933. Whether he might have been able to pull it off later is impossible to say, though I'm inclined to doubt it.

Finally, it's likely that the Auburn, Pierce-Arrow and Reo automobile companies would have been introducing their 1940 models in the late summer of 1939.

And what is your alternative version of history without a Great Depression?

Later,

Donald

at September 1, 2008 | perma-link | (9) comments

Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards --

Another enthusiastic and insightful review for the webseries that The Wife and I helped create has just appeared. No link, as I'm still being a little coy about my real identity, but here's a brief excerpt from it:

The humour is bold throughout. The blend of sci-fi and sex comedy come together in a way that seems designed for the exciting new medium of the web serial ... And the homage to stylistic genres of art movies is cleverly compiled and adds another level of enjoyment to the whole experience. [Webseries title here] is already becoming cult viewing that needs to be seen.

Campy, sexy, a little intense, funny, and seething with kooky ideas -- that's our webseries!

Let me know if you'd like a link to the series' website, where three of our six episodes are now viewable. And -- ahem -- if you're someone who's interested in getting involved as a producer / financier in the low-budget movie world, don't be shy about saying hello. Me and my posse have some dy-no-mite ideas that we're raring to put into production. My email address is michaelblowhard at that gmaily place.

Best,

Michael

at September 1, 2008 | perma-link | (2) comments

Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards --

John Schwenkler -- already infamous as the guy who argued that good food should be a conservative cause -- writes the definitive article about today's raw milk wars. John has been covering Slow Food Nation too: here, here, here, and -- yummiest of all -- here. His day-to-day blog is here.

Directly related: Food is Love adores butter so much that she eats chunks of it straight. But it's always the good stuff.

Semi-related: Would Edmund Burke have approved of Michael Pollan?

Completely unrelated: If Sarah Palin is elected, will she become our first VPILF?

Best,

Michael

at September 1, 2008 | perma-link | (5) comments

Donald Pittenger writes:

Dear Blowhards --

Tom Wolfe responds to questions literary on Time's web site (hat tip, Matthew Continetti, The Weekly Standard). One item:

What are your feelings on the current state of fiction? Andrew Herold, JOHANNESBURG

There's so little of it now that it's pathetic, and it's pathetic all over. Writers come from master-of-fine-arts programs now. If you add up the college education of Steinbeck, Hemingway and Faulkner, you get to spring break of freshman year.

This comes from a guy who has a Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale. I, myself branded with those scarlet letters, tend to agree that college isn't all it's supposed to be -- and should do for you.

Discuss.

Later,

Donald

at August 31, 2008 | perma-link | (21) comments

Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards --

* Peter Briffa isn't as cheered by a book celebrating capitalism as he'd expected to be.

* Does any blogger write more evocative life-snapshots than MD? Examples here, here, and basically all over her blog.

* Self-described "genre slut" Polly Frost writes in praise of short fiction here and here. Great passage: While it may not a good time in conventional book-publishing for short fiction ... "Maybe we creators of it need to be more entrepreneurial. Maybe we need to take more advantage of the online world, of Amazon's Kindle, of self-publishing, of audio, of doing live readings."

* MBlowhard Rewind: I wondered about the relationship between negativity and criticism in the arts.

Best,

Michael

at August 31, 2008 | perma-link | (6) comments

Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards --

A line of questions for the day, prompted by this typically beyond-absurd Nicolai Ouroussoff piece from the NYTimes: Why are mainstream architecture critics so focused on such a narrow sliver of building-activity and aesthetic experience? And why are they so averse to taking note of life as it's actually lived?

Translated into action, this latter question might lead a critic to -- oh, I don't know -- pass up the latest Gehry or Hadid and instead visit the malls, developments, schools, restaurants, and parks that real people really interact with, learning about and from them, and offering critiques and appreciations.

A pretty radical thought, I know ...

And -- further! -- why are civilians (and editors, who are supposed to represent the interests of their readers) so willing to put up with this kind of twee carrying-on?

Funny how certain kinds of kooky behavior can become the expected thing, isn't it? For example, we take it for granted that an architecture critic should be spending most of his column inches pontificating about the likes of Steven Holl. Yet if the Times' food coverage only concerned the latest $500-a-plate chic eateries -- neglecting cheaper places, farmer's markets, home cooking, etc -- we'd all be having daily laughs at the expense of the newspaper's clueless and pompous twerpery.

Further comparisons: What if a magazine's "music coverage" only took in the latest bits of spikey experimentalism? Of if its "movie coverage" paid attention only to the hottest expressions of post-avant-garde-ism?

All of which makes me wonder: Where architecture and architecture criticism are concerned, why don't we have a more active (perhaps even a "vibrant") let's-ridicule-these- snobs-out-of-existence movement in the blogosphere?

My hunch of an answer: Since many people spend zero time taking note of their environment, it never occurs to them to search out quality conversation about it. Too bad.

Link thanks to the smart, funny, and quirky Gil Roth, who has recently been reading Montaigne and enjoying the company of Rufus the daffy and irresistible greyhound. For some reason, when I try to link to Gil's site, the effort torpedos this posting. Gil's site, which otherwise behaves perfectly well, is at:

http://chimeraobscura.com

Get to know Rufus at:

http://chimeraobscura.com/vm/dog-days/

Go and visit.

Best,

Michael

at August 29, 2008 | perma-link | (6) comments

Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards --

The country most afflicted by spam is Switzerland, where 84.2 percent of all email is spam. (The percentage in the U.S. is 79.8.)

Source.

Best,

Michael

at August 29, 2008 | perma-link | (2) comments

Donald Pittenger writes:

Dear Blowhards --

It's political convention time and, for some strange reason, I got to thinking about the length of speeches.

As I write this, Obama has yet to deliver his acceptance speech. But the speechifying at the Democrat convention is nearly over and I'm pleased to report that most of the ones I heard were blessedly brief. Even Bill Clinton who, given ten minutes, went on for only around 20, discounting applause. That's a big improvement over his State of the Union speeches that seemed to soak up an hour or so.

I suppose the ideal speech length is equivalent to Abraham Lincoln's (well, he's the guy I 've heard it linked to) quip that one's legs should be long enough to reach the floor. In other words, it should be long enough to do the job, but no longer. That, and the speaker should leave 'em wanting more.

Nevertheless, I hark back to the monthly army "training" sessions I had to endure while stationed at Fort Meade, Maryland. Part of the drill was a "character guidance" segment given by one of the chaplains. The best of that lot was Father Nosser. He'd walk into the room. light up a non-filtered Camel cigarette, droop himself over the lectern and start talking. Eight or so minutes later, when the cigarette was about 3/8ths of an inch long, he'd grind it out and stop his lecture.

Smart guy, that Father Nosser.

Later,

Donald

at August 28, 2008 | perma-link | (5) comments

Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards --

An underknown giant in economic thought -- or so it seems to me -- is the German "ordoliberal" Wilhelm Ropke ). An advocate of the free market, Ropke nonetheless spent much of his career gnawing over the question: "What if the activities of the free market undermine the social conditions that the existence of a free market depends on?"

Many who argue that a society isn't just a marketplace turn out to be either boring ol' leftists or boring ol' rightists, of course. Considerably Crunchy (localism, federalism, respect for small farms and businesses) yet much preoccupied with the basics (soundness of currency, noninterference, ease of trading), Ropke seems to me to offer a refreshing alternative to the two-teams-and-only-two-teams shootout that we're used to (dogmatic "freemarketers" vs. top-down, dial-twisting Keynesians). He was anything but a True Believer, disliking Socialism and statist capitalism equally. "Good man!", sez I.

There aren't many Ropke resources on the web at this point -- the fate, perhaps, of those who don't play along with the usual version of the usual story. But some of them are awfully good.

* John Zmirak's short intro to Ropke makes a punchy and likable starting point. Zmirak's longer essay introduces some depth and complexity into the picture.

* Zmirak's book-length intro to Ropke is a clear and fast read. (John Attarian writes a very informative review of the book here.) Zmirak himself is a very interesting guy in his own right, provided that your tolerance for being-interested-in- and-amused-by Catholicism is pretty high. He makes regular appearances at Taki's magazine.

* Shawn Ritenour's article-length biography of Ropke fills in much of the personal story.

* Note where these links lead: Vdare ... The Mises Institute ... Weird, isn't it, the way that someone as Small-Is-Beautiful and Crunchy -- someone as downright liberal -- as Ropke has these days become the property of what's currently thought of as the fringe Right? How to explain this?

* Alan Carlson's brainy and handy-dandy intro includes this concise passage:

Röpke once declared: "It is the precept of ethical and humane behaviour, no less than of political wisdom, to adapt economic policy to man, not man to economic policy." He was a fierce foe of both state socialism and uncontrolled capitalism. He advocated a market-friendly but socially responsible free enterprise economy based on widespread ownership of property and economic enterprises.

Fun to see Carlson making a connection between Ropke and the New Urbanism.

* Ropke may be one of those cases where you're better-off sticking with the secondary material. Though a magnificent thinker -- and nothing if not clear in his presentation of his perceptions, ideas, and arguments -- Ropke was a sadly boring writer, ponderous-old-Swiss-professor division. His "A Humane Society," "The German Question," and "The Economics of a Free Society" are great books, but if you're like superficial me and like prose that has some tang, zip, and spin in it, you may spend a lot of time in a strange state: fighting sleep even while your brain opens. If you're interested in the gist of his thought, Zmirak, Ritenour, and Carlson do excellent and balanced jobs of presenting it. Let it be said: In the case of Ropke, there's no real need for anyone but but specialists, scholars, and geeks to go to the source.

Very curious to hear how anyone else responds to Ropke.

Best,

Michael

UPDATE: I should have linked to Jim Kalb's thoughtful and smart reaction to Ropke's "A Humane Society" too. Read it here. Fab passage:

It's an attempt to place free-market economics in a civilizational setting. That setting is classical bourgeois society, especially as it existed in European villages and small towns before 1914. The author is in effect a distributist: he believes in roots, localism, and widely dispersed property. On the whole he's liberal as to economic self-organization but conservative on ultimate matters.

Here's some more Jim on Ropke. Pre-order a copy of Jim's new book here or here.

at August 28, 2008 | perma-link | (16) comments

Donald Pittenger writes:

Dear Blowhards --

Yesterday while out for coffee I sat near a women reading a Peter Rabbit story to her daughter. The lady was wearing a tee-shirt with various writings on it including the URL for KosherKungFu dot-com, the School of the Macabees website.

Seattle is such an interesting place to live.

Later,

Donald

at August 27, 2008 | perma-link | (1) comments

Donald Pittenger writes:

Dear Blowhards --

He wasn't a professional painter. I don't even know if he painted as a hobby. So I can't call him a Peripheral Painter for that reason. Nor can I call him "peripheral" because his work is well known to poster-art buffs. On the other hand, even though New York's Museum of Modern Art has a few of his posters in its collection, his work wasn't avant-garde enough to satisfy modernist purists. That and the fact that he did posters for government agencies during Hitler's regime in Germany.

The artist in question is Ludwig Hohlwein (1874-1949) who began his studies as an architect, but made his career as a Munich-based poster artist. I haven't been able to find much biographical information about him aside from here and here. The second link is to Paul Giambarba's illustration site, which is well worth perusal.

Below are examples of Hohlwein's work. The Giambarba link has some of these as well as other examples. Many more can be seen by googling on Ludwig Hohlwein and then linking to Images.

Gallery

Combination of a top poster artist and top automobile. Makes me want to dash off and buy that car. (Hope it has air conditioning, a six-speed automatic transmission, a GPS and good fuel economy.)

"Spring in Wiesbaden" seems to be a travel ad from just before or after the Great War. Hohlwein was born in Wiesbaden, which might have provided added incentive to do a really nice job.

Speaking of the Great War, this is an advertisement from early in the conflict (to judge by the helmet) for some kind of "strength and energy" confection.

A portable typewriter advertisement, probably from the 1920s. Much of Hohlwein's work, including this, seems to have been done using watercolor washes. Note the skillful portrayal of facial and other planes.

Advertising a line of mens' clothing.

Another fashion poster, but probably late in his career if the dress is any clue..

The swastika tells us this was done during World War 2. I'm not sure why Hohlwein portrays what appears to be a bare-chested man wearing a stahlhelm (steel helmet) and holding onto a pole of some sort. The caption translates literally as "air protection" or "air security" which might refer to an air warden or air defense -- though wehr might be a better word than schutz for the latter meaning.

This is a detail from a poster advertising a brand of cigarettes. I think this is an extremely skillful piece of work. My only quibble is the low spot on the hair above the forehead that seems to be too low to accommodate the likely shape of the woman's head. On the other hand, it's likely Hohlwein worked from a photo to get the facial shading, so who knows?

Oh do I wish I had Hohlwein's drawing and watercolor skills!!

Later,

Donald

at August 26, 2008 | perma-link | (8) comments

Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards --

A few links for those who have been fascinated by what Roissy and F. Roger Devlin represent and say:

* Expectations about office behavior seem a little different in Russia than they are here in the States.

* A wiki devoted to spanking. The entry on "paddle" is very informative.

* Kathleen Parker praises men and argues that they've been unfairly browbeaten for decades. (Link thanks to ALD.) Neil Lyndon writes that when he said similar things 20 years ago, "the response to my work was a torrent of abuse," he recalls. "I lost all my work and income and was bankrupted."

* BBC presenter Jeremy Paxman says "The worst thing you can be in this industry is a middle-class white male. If any middle-class white male I come across says he wants to enter television, I say 'give up all hope'. They've no chance."

* The world's best condoms.

Best,

Michael

UDPATE: The Olympics ... Where the athletes are concerned, it isn't just about sports. "I am not implying, for one moment, that every athlete in Beijing is at it," writes Olympian Matthew Syed. "Just that 99 per cent of them are."

A passage that should interest the evo-bio crowd:

It is worth noting an intriguing dichotomy between the sexes in respect of all this coupling. The chaps who win gold medals - even those as geeky as Michael Phelps - are the principal objects of desire for many female athletes. There is something about sporting success that makes a certain type of woman go crazy - smiling, flirting and sometimes even grabbing at the chaps who have done the business in the pool or on the track. An Olympic gold medal is not merely a route to fame and fortune; it is also a surefire ticket to writhe.

But - and this is the thing - success does not work both ways. Gold-medal winning female athletes are not looked upon by male athletes with any more desire than those who flunked out in the first round. It is sometimes even considered a defect, as if there is something downright unfeminine about all that striving, fist pumping and incontinent sweating.

at August 26, 2008 | perma-link | (26) comments

Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards --

I was very sorry to learn that the painter and film critic Manny Farber has died. He was 91. I loved his art (a few examples are here) and his criticism. The Wife and I spent a little time hanging out with Manny and his wife, the artist Patricia Patterson (they often wrote together), and I can report that I found him a lovable guy: spikey, difficult, and maybe even a little paranoid, but brainy, funny, and soulful too. There can't be many critics who made as big an impact on a medium with a single volume of writing as Manny did on movies with his legendary "Negative Space." But, as far as I could tell, his heart was really in painting. Half of him may have been a wisecracking, off-center, neurotic intellectual -- but his bigger half was a color-drunk west coast sensualist.

Some highlights from the press and the blogosphere:

• David Chute offers some personal reflections, a lot of quotes, and a sensible evaluation.
  
• A 2006 Duncan Shepard memoir of his friendship with Manny and Patricia is also a fine snapshot of an amazing era in American art.
  
• Michael Sragow recalls his own friendship with Manny.
  
• Carrie Rickey recalls Manny's influence, as well as his impact as a teacher.
  
• Robert Pincus offers an appreciation of Manny's art and supplies a good short biography of him too.
  
• Green Cine Daily rounds up many more links.
  

In sadness,

Michael

at August 25, 2008 | perma-link | (4) comments

Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards --

Have there been many movie directors as obstinately wrongheaded in their evaluation of their own talents as Francis Coppola?

As far as the world is concerned, Francis Coppola is someone who occasionally -- all-too-rarely, in fact -- delivers rounded, worldly, stately narratives that feature a moving amount of warmth, mass, and dignity. He's a grownup entertainer / artist -- William Wyler with some additional splashes of blood and tomato sauce. But as far as Coppola himself is concerned, Francis Coppola is an enthusiastic, inventive kid, amusing himself with dolls and toys -- a born innovator bounding between surrealism and the early New Wave, playing mischievously and irrepressibly with ideas and styles.

Oh -- and not only that, he's also misunderstood. In the world's eyes, the first 2/3 of "Apocalypse Now" was pretty good -- too bad Coppola blew it in the final third. In Coppola's own view, the last third of "Apocalypse Now" was what the film was all about. Why doesn't anyone get that?

His recent "Youth Without Youth" was the first film he'd made as a director in ten years, and it's the latest in a long string of movies Coppola has done in pursuit of his image of himself as a childlike visionary / charmer, a string that includes "You're a Big Boy Now," "One from the Heart," "Rumble Fish," "Tucker: The Man and His Dream," "Dracula," and "Jack."

The main thing these films share -- in addition to an addiction to stylistic hijinks -- is an almost complete absence of emotional impact. As a style-noodler Coppola is unquestionably some kind of talent. Yet what's most striking about these movies is how little they convey in terms of human presence. Nothing counts, nothing takes; everything seems unanchored and arbitrary. They spin, they throw off a few sparks, and then -- pfffft. What? You were hoping for something more?

In terms of its style, "Youth Without Youth" -- set in Romania from the 1930s through the 1960s, starring Tim Roth as a nerdish old scholar who's struck by lightning and regains a second chance at life, and taken from a Mircea Eliade novel -- is melancholy as all get-out. But it's basically as weightless as "One From the Heart." The '30s-ish title cards, the never-quite-a-melody old-Hollywood-style score, the self-conscious touches of movie magic ... They don't illuminate the material or promote engagement with what's onscreen. They register as mere style choices, which means they feel contrived, troweled-on, and about a quarter-inch deep.

In the case of this movie, what Coppola mainly wants us to do is think about ideas. Our experience of time, mainly: cyclical vs. linear time seems to be what's fascinating him these days. Story, character, visuals, involvement -- these are there simply to get us thinking.

I'm OK with playing with ideas, strangely enough. What I'm less OK with is the way that Coppola seems to have lost interest in "selling" a story. The business of making fiction count for an audience apparently strikes him as silly and unimportant. What he'd really like to do nowadays is talk about religion and philosophy.

Which is fine, of course, and certainly the film deserves kudos for being unusual in today's movie climate. Judging from the viewer-reviews at Amazon, a fair number of people find the movie easy enough to enjoy. See it for yourself and let us know your own reaction.

Incidentally, there's a little trap that Coppola loves to set up for those who would complain about his playful movies. It's this: Why shouldn't he make movies like this? It's just a little movie, after all -- why not give it a try? Have you no generosity of spirit? And it's all about the freedom anyway, so why would you even consider coming down on him? He's just doing what he wants to do. Is there something wrong with that? Besides, he made this movie with his own money ...

My response: I agree that it's a free country, and I think it's cool that Coppola made his movie his way. No harm in any of it, wish him well, etc. At the same time, there's no reason I shouldn't report what my experience of the movie was, is there? Boredom and bewilderment, mainly. The movie was such a sleep-inducer that it took The Wife and me three evenings to get through it -- and The Wife is someone who adores "Rumble Fish"!

There's also no reason if / when we do bother to watch one of his movies not to marvel at the Coppola spectacle itself. By this point it has grown far more interesting than his movies.

In "Youth Without Youth, as in many of these films, the only real emotion that comes across is great gusts of sadness and regret. These blasts of woe are often affecting, but they never seem to have anything to do with the film's actual content. They seem to have to do with Francis Coppola.

What's that about? We can only speculate, I guess, and that might be unkind.

But, what the hell, I'll do it anyway. I'm guessing that what the personal sadness mainly represents is "Why won't they let me be an artist?" whininess. Francy-wancis is a big, ungainly bundle of enthusiasm and inventiveness who just wants to put on zany shows for the public. Why does anyone demand anything else from him?

I'm going to do something now that I shouldn't do. I'm going to hazard a guess at what might really be going on here. But, in my defence, isn't Coppola inviting us to do so? After all, aimless playfulness coexisting with personal-seeming misery and the theme of revisiting earlier times return so regularly in these films that it seems like something considerably more than just a tic.

FWIW, and I know you'll take my effort with a large grain of salt, here's the way I explain the Coppola mystery to myself:

• Early on, Francis Coppola was a big, ambitious, cocky kid. He then had a completely unexpected hit with "The Godfather" -- and overnight he went from being a promising unknown to being the world's favorite boy genius.
  
• The usual followed: drugs, throngs of yes-people, easy access to glamorous sex. In no time, he went quite crazy. (A breakdown of some sort is more than hinted at in "Hearts of Darkness," his wife Eleanor's documentary about the making of "Apocalypse Now.")
  
• With the collapse, gears started failing to mesh. Was Francis put on serious mood drugs? Perhaps even on anti-psychotics? In any case, he flailed. The magic went. The hits didn't come, and he even lost his knack for connecting with material.
  
• He has spent his life since staring in the mirror, blaming his "Godfather" success for his troubles, and trying to retrieve whatever it was that initially brought him into the arts. In true Boomer style, Francis can't stop trying to connect with the child within in the hopes that making such a connection will rescue him from his woe.
  

Please keep in mind that I could very well be wrong about all this. It's a story that suits me -- but does it also suit the actual facts? I have no idea. Besides, y'know, strangers really should avoid speculating in public about others' psychologies like this.

I found Coppola's commentary track on the DVD of little interest. Mostly, he narrates the film as though discovering it for the first time: "And look at him walking through the door, he's sad because his girl just left him ..." Thanks, Francis. Whenever Coppola does get around to talking about filmmaking choices, he almost never speaks about them in relation to characters, situations, or story. As far as he's concerned, everything's always about his own self-expression.

Any hunches about why the "I really need to be an artist!" thing was -- and I guess continues to be -- such a big theme for Boomers? (UPDATE/CORRECTION: Er, I see that Coppola isn't technically a Boomer. He sure carries on like one, though, doesn't he?)

Fast-Forwarding Score: Nothing, but only because I decided to meet Coppola's obstinacy with my own.

Best,

Michael

at August 25, 2008 | perma-link | (19) comments

Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards --

* Did you know that the Census Bureau has revised its estimate of how many Hispanics will be living in the U.S. in 2050 twice in the last decade? Upwards in both cases, as if you didn't know. Current best guess: In 2050, the U.S. will be home to 133 million Hispanics. That's an increase of 100 million in just 50 years. Steve Sailer asks a wonderfully blunt, Steve-esque set of questions:

Is adding 100 million Latinos to the U.S. population a good idea? Will it "form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity"?

(That’s the first sentence of something called the "U.S. Constitution"—a once-celebrated document put together way back when by a bunch of long-dead white guys, some of whom were slave-owners.)

We the people are supposed to have a say in such things. But how can we have a say when we're not supposed to talk about it?

* Mexico is opening a full-scale consulate in Anchorage, Alaska.

* The Irish Independant's Kevin Myers continues pointing out uncomfortable facts. For example: "Contrary to almost all predictions about the impact of immigrants upon an economy, a majority of Nigerians [in Ireland] are not economically active at all." He also continues asking hard questions:

Why are so many people, from a country to which we have no moral or legal or historical obligations, living off this state? Why are they being allowed through immigration, if they have no jobs to go to? Why are they choosing to come to Ireland, when 20 countries or more lie between their homeland and ourselves? And finally, and perhaps most important of all, why is no one else asking why?

* A round of applause, please, for Hibernia Girl, who's retiring from the blogosphere to return to school. Immigration restrictionists and skeptics are usually portrayed by the establishment as knuckle-draggers, haters, and (inevitably) racists. Ever cheerful, generous, and clear-eyed, Hibernia Girl didn't just supply regular shots of information and common sense, she showed that resistance to the establishment's immigration plans can be a humane and sophisticated stance. A fun fact that she passed along recently: 59% of Irish voters want "much stricter limits" on immigration to Ireland.

Best,

Michael

at August 24, 2008 | perma-link | (47) comments

Donald Pittenger writes:

Dear Blowhards --

Your Faithful Scribe is drafting this posting at the edge of Yellowstone National Park and will add photos when I get back to Seattle. And I plan to be quick about it because this place might be atomized and blowing east at 30,000 feet any old time between now and half a million years in the future.

You see, much of the park is a gigantic volcanic caldera where several immense eruptions occurred within the last two million years or so. There's a "hot spot" under the Earth's surface that a continental tectonic plate has been sliding over for tens of millions of years, a dead part of it being Idaho's Craters of the Moon area. It's similar to the situation in the Hawaiian Islands except that the Wyoming rhyolite rock helps create explosive rather than lava-flow type eruptions. For more information, click here.

I'm here because Nancy's treating her grand-daughters and son & wife to a trip to someplace they've never visited. I'm along to do the driving. Snapshots are below.

Gallery

There are various ways to get to Yellowstone, but we had to fly because we had four days of high school reunion activities immediately prior to the time we were scheduled to be there, so there was not enough time to drive. This photo shows a Horizon airliner (of the type we flew) pulling up to the Bozeman, Montana terminal. Nice little airport, nice terminal, nice weather.

As for ground transportation, we had four adults, two children and a bunch of luggage to contend with, so a Chevy Suburban filled the bill. The Suburban was redesigned last year, which means it's the latest and greatest. Actually, it really was a good vehicle for our purposes. There was enough storage space and elbow room, and the big slug handled well as we wandered through the park.

If you wish to tour the park in style -- 1938 style -- there are a few touring buses like this one back on the roads. There were several generations of such vehicles roaming Yellowstone, Glacier and perhaps a few other national parks circa 1915-50, the one pictured being of the last generation from the mid-30s. They were built on a modified White truck chassis and have a canvas top that can be rolled back, allowing passengers to enjoy the sun and lofty sights. The modernized buses have modern steering wheels, instrument panels and other features. I love seeing 'em, but didn't take a tour in one, alas.

Backing off a few yards to show the bus in front of the classic 1904 Old Faithful Inn.

View of same bus taken from the deck over the porte-cochère of the Inn. That white smudge in the background is Old Faithful venting steam during an interval between shows.

Once you hit the road there are occasional impediments, so don't expect to breeze from site to site. When I first visited the park in 1953, the problem was bears begging for food. We counted more than 50 of them during a three-day visit. This time, we saw zero bears. On the other hand, there were a fair number of elk near the roads, causing drivers to pull over to view them. But the biggest travel-time pests were buffalo that assumed roads were part of their turf. On previous visits, I only saw bison from a distance. This trip, I experienced two serious traffic backups that they caused. In one case, a critter stood in the middle of the road for a good 10 or 15 minutes.

Eventually, you get to a site you want to see. Here are tourists being beckoned by rising steam that implies interesting, colorful viewing, perhaps accompanied by a whiff of sulphuric odor.

For instance, you might see steaming pools of various hues...

...or even colorful patches beneath a hot veneer of water.

Here is some of the terracing at Mammoth Hot Spring in the northwest part of the park.

Given a little sunshine, a "can't miss" photo opp is the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone as seen from Artist's Point.

However, I found the colors and rock formations of the canyon just about as interesting and photogenic.

Possibly my greatest finds of the entire trip were Moose Drool baseball caps, one of which is pictured above. I posted about Moose Drool ale here. I also drank a bottle of the stuff, though I'm not an ale guy. Amateur's verdict: pretty smooth, but not as smooth as a good pilsner beer.

Later,

Donald

at August 23, 2008 | perma-link | (8) comments