Wednesday, December 27, 2006
And Now, for Something Completely Different
My friend Evan caught me on video telling the Chanukah story at my Chanukah party last week. The kids are all in the foreground, but parents are scattered around my living room.
Here’s a link to me as storyteller. Feel free to peruse Evan’s other video clips while you’re there.
Comments (0) • Permalink • Tell-a-Friend
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
The Last Public Liberal?
With Tony Blair’s recent defection, the stable of folks willing to proclaim liberal values is dwindling. Somehow, eighty years of “realist” foreign policy promoting stability through the creation of a dangerously unstable Middle East, followed by four years of incompetent liberalism trying to promote individual rights, dignity, and self-determination, is now seen as a repudiation of liberal values. The architects of our criminal abandonment of our basic values when it comes to the people of the Middle East are reasserting themselves at center stage. Perhaps, if they have their way, we will soon return to the status quo ante. The Bakers and Gateses and PapaBushes and Carters and Brzezinskis of the world will all draw a sigh of relief as we once announce our abandonment of the people unfortunate enough to live int the Middle East to the hands of dictators, capable of imposing stability upon them for their own good. Perhaps our European friends will soon return to their secure little caves, confident in both their own superiority to the non-white savages of this planet, as well as the misguided do-gooding Americans.
Fortunately, at least someone out there notices the moral bankruptcy in this position--someone, that is, with something of a bully pulpit though not much authority. Christopher Hitchens says what needs to be said over at Slate. Sadly, his is one of a dwindling number of liberal voices. Has everyone else lost the ability to differentiate right from wrong? Have they abandoned their values? Casual conversations around San Francisco are hardly encouraging. Many of the folks I meet deny the existence of right and wrong. Most of the others accept the distinction, but are too lazy to think through its implications.
We are entering very dangerous times.
Comments (0) • Permalink • Tell-a-Friend
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Consensus for Defeat
No, the heading has nothing to do with the Democratic victories in Congress. Anyone who has read any of my previous writings should know that I am a lifelong active Democrat whose disgust with the Party’s recent trends—primarily though not exclusively on foreign policy—has led me to a point at which I can no longer support it. At the same time though, I can’t recall ever having written anything very positive about the Republicans. I remain today what I have been for a bit more than a year-and-a-half: a politically aware, educated, INDEPENDENT voter, eying both parties warily, willing to hear which, if either, of these camps actually wants to win my vote. Some say that American voters threw the bastards out on Tuesday. I prefer to think that the American voter drove in for a long overdue rotation of its bastards.
So to the leaders (and activists) of both parties, I say once again: Convince me that your agenda will promote the liberal values of individual freedom, individual rights, and meaningful informed choice—not only in the U.S., but around the world, and you will earn my active, enthusiastic support. I will work for your candidates, donate money, and provide the services of my website—including this blog, with its more than zero readers—on your behalf. Until then, I’ll have to continue doing what I did on Tuesday—splitting my ballot with little particular care as to party affiliation.
So, two paragraphs in, having opened by explaining what I’m not discussing, my more than zero readers may be wondering what I am talking about. I can sum it up in two words: Robert Gates.
Comments (0) • Permalink • Tell-a-Friend
Monday, November 06, 2006
Can’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow
Regretably, the more I think about tomorrow, the greater the nausea. I cannot recall ever feeling as dispirited heading into a major national election. Were there ever two houses deserved of the pox, todays Democrats and Republicans are they. Can they both lose?
Both of our major political parties can count numerous fine people and deep thinkers among their members. Regretably, all such decent types have been relegated to the sidelines. There isn’t a mensch in a leadership position anywhere in Washington. I could regale the left with a recounting of GOP absurdities, and the right with a comparable list of things the Dems would make worse, but why bother? The web and the airwaves are already replete with fodder for dogmatic true believers. If you want to hear why the other party’s ascendance would result in nuclear holocaust followed by plagues of locusts, go right ahead. If you prefer to dedicate a moment of silence lamenting the plight of our great nation, feel free in joining me to do so.
Nevertheless, it is always best to approach elections with a concrete question in mind. After all, ex ante concreteness helps guide ex post analysis.
more...Comments (0) • Permalink • Tell-a-Friend
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Prop 90 and Kelo
The Wall Street Journal has a good editorial on the various eminent domain propositions coming up for vote on Tuesday. Unfortunately, I think that it understates the problems with Prop 90, the speicifc California initiative that I’ve been agonizing over since I took the time to read it. I chose to share my thoughts with their editors. Here’s what I had to say:
more...Comments (0) • Permalink • Tell-a-Friend
Thursday, November 02, 2006
On the Source of Academic Bias
Larry Arnn, the President of Hillsdale College, published an interesting essay about American higher education in the Fall issue of the Claremont Review of Books. For wahtever reason, the editors have chosen not to make an on-line version of this essay available even to those of us who subscribe (at least as of the time that I pen this blog entry). Good luck to the rest of you! In any event, his essay motivated me to draft some thoughts of my own, which I have dutifully submitted as a letter to the editor in somewhat edited form. While my musings are working their way from my desk to the editor’s trash can or recycling bin shaped icon, I’m posting my thoughts here, where they will remain forever enshrined in someone’s cache buffer somewhere.
more...Comments (0) • Permalink • Tell-a-Friend
Thursday, October 19, 2006
How to Prevent Future Conflicts
Daniel Byman and Kenneth Pollack’s “Carriers of Conflict” in the current issue of the Atlantic tells a sobering tale of conflicts likely to come. They describe the flow of refugees from Iraq into neighboring countries, including an estimated 700,000 fleeing into Jordan, 450,000 into Syria, and smaller or unknown numbers landing elsewhere. Their article bears an ominous subheading: “For a preview of future instability and war in the Middle East, watch where the Iraqi refugees are going.”
more...Comments (0) • Permalink • Tell-a-Friend
Monday, October 16, 2006
Credit Where Credit is Due
The Nobel Committee hit a home run last week when it awarded Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank the Nobel Peace Prize last week.
Yunus pioneered the concept of microcredit--and made it work. In a nutshell, Yunus made modern credit financing available to the world’s poor. As far as I can tell, this idea has been the single most successful innovation in development economics within recent memory. Prior to microcredit, most poor people faced few options when they sought to take material action to improve their own lives. They typically had to choose between selling majority equity stakes in their proposed ventures, “collateralizing” usurious loans with their own bodies or those of family members, or taking handouts. Microcredit makes it possible for them to borrow small uncollateralized amounts. The lender--often a collection of community members--absorbs all risk. Almost all loans get repaid.
Comments (0) • Permalink • Tell-a-Friend