Saturday, May 31, 2003

A few do-dads

A good sign or just coincidence? Anglicans and Presbytarians putting the clamps on homosexuality. Just to keep us honest, however, what would the day be without a story critical of the Catholic Church? Or yet more evidence that anti-Catholicism is the last acceptable (and last legal) prejudice in America today?

Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol also deflates the latest Blue America anti-Bushism, a Clintonian twisting of language by Vanity Fair. But wouldn't life be dull if they weren't so duplicitous and cunning?

Isn't it comforting to know so many French waiters are on the verge of unemployment? Americans are staying home and vacationing in the U.S., and avoiding the predictable catcalls of old Europe. Good. Instead, how about a sojourn to, say, Poland, one of America's firmest new allies?

And this Spectator article both tickled and annoyed me, written amongst the American Paleocons as they trapse across France, doing what they can to spread the Yankee dollars. Ugh. It must be extremely difficult going through life thinking that human life took a turn for the worse 600 years before you were born.

Thursday, May 29, 2003

So Much to Blog...

Back after a week's hiatus, aka holiday, I see that there is much to blog upon.

First of all, who is A.L. Rowse? The Times Literary Supplement with that stinging review was waiting for me in my college pigeonhole when I showed up there having read the Doc's plaintive question. I have read it carefully. The Doc is right; it is stinging, and often nasty. But I don't think a lot of the facts or interpretations by Stefan Collini of Rowse's life were that far off the mark. Rowse was, it seems to me, an egomaniacal scholar who believed that he had never done anything so great as be elected to All Soul's College, Oxford, at age 25. To my mind, this makes him more to be pitied than to be censured. Of course for Signor Collini the big disappointment in Rowse's later years is that he liked Margaret Thatcher. And that he disliked paying the income tax.

My goodness. It's at moments like this that you wonder if, eventually, a majority of British intellectuals won't come to believe by 2020 that there really was not Margaret Thatcher, it never happened, it was just a bad dream caused by a spoilt Glamorgan sausage.

So...pity Rowse, don't spit on his grave. There but for the grace of God go all scholars and intellectuals, obsessed with their legacy, their rivals, their victories and defeats, the mawkish and paltry way in which Society rewards them for their brilliance. There but for the Grace of God goes Al Zambone, Doc Curmudgeon and, dare I say it, Stefan Collini.

Anyway, poor old Rowse. Let's choose choose to l

Wednesday, May 28, 2003

Disconnect

So the Boston Globe polls Massachusetts residents about the quality of life and whether or not they would like to move. Sounds good. But the article describing the results barely mentions the number one reason people want to move away from the Commonwealth (41% of those between the ages of 18 and 29 would leave if they could). Bad education? Crime? Dirty environment? Nope. 27% of respondents said taxes are too high, quite a revelation there. What is the second most popular response? Bad education? Crime? Dirty environment? Nope. 25% of respondents said the weather was nasty. How about the third most popular reason to leave? Bad education, crime, or a dirty environment? Ah, no. 15% said the state was getting too crowded.

Tuesday, May 27, 2003

Two other interesting articles in the Ideas section of the Sunday Boston Globe:

This one discusses how Cardinal Egan of New York is beginning canonization proceedings for Rose Hawthorne Lathrop (aka. Mother Alphonsa), the daughter of New England writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne himself was always interested in Catholicism, like many of his antebellum Yankee counterparts unhappy with the hollowness and politicization of Unitarianism, and his time in Rome only strengthened this fascination. He never converted but apparently imparted his interest to his daughter who later became a prominent American nun. Hawthorne's best friend Franklin Pierce had a similar spiritual journey, terribly annoyed by the abolitionist pulpit, but stopped short of Rome and instead (dumping his family's tepid Congregationalism) took up Episcopalianism.

And this article reveals the growing conservative Catholic academic subculture springing up in the United States, paying special attention to small Magdalen College in Warner, New Hampshire. With seminary-like strictness and a traditional curriculum founded in the Magisterium and Western Civilization, Magadalen and others like it are thriving.

Monday, May 26, 2003

The Boston Globe is running a series entitled "The Mind of the Administration," highlighting a series of important writers and thinkers who have influenced the Bush policy-makers. As Peter Berkowitz noted in the Weekly Standard, all this has the smell of paranoia propounded by leftists claiming that mysterious intellectuals (often right-wing Jews) have infiltrated the White House and whisper in the President's ear. Still, the series carries interest, and the latest installment is on Victor Davis Hanson.

Too often I have passed over Hanson's posts at National Review Online, but after reading the Globe profile I went back and read his latest post. And what a read. A devastating (might I say vituperative?) article on the state of American Middle East policy worth every moment. Simply marvelous. Take a peek.

Saturday, May 24, 2003

For my Oxford counterpart, who is A. L. Rowse? There is a book review of his diaries in the latest TLS, which really sneers at him, particularly at his late-in-life conservative turn. Snooping around the internet, I take it he was a Shakespearean scholar and popular historian, but I must blushingly admit I know nothing of him.

Friday, May 23, 2003

A few things on a rainy New England Friday

For several years now I have teased my wife that "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" is a silly show and a waste of time. In fact, I have found it so juvenile, I usually leave the room when it is on and putter around on the computer instead. Yet she stubbornly insisted that is was a good, harmless show. And, lo and behold, Weekly Standard runs this long article saying it was the best show ever made for television. I stand chastened and rebuked.

What is the ultimate point of Annika Sorenstam's playing in the PGA this weekend? Most commentators keep saying the idea is that "she can play with the men," but it must be more than that, else the idea of it all is rather empty. So she can shoot a 71 from the men's tees...and? It would seem the implication of the Sorenstam event is either (1.) to get the LPGA to use the men's tees and hence eliminate the differences between itself and the PGA, or (2.) to eliminate the two golfing associations and merge them into one (point #1 would nearly do that anyway). Is this necessary? I generally believe doing things based on observable need -- does golf NEED this change? Will tennis follow next? Prediction: within the next year, the Williams sisters will try and play the men.

And finally, on a lighter note, let's talk about "lawn art." Lawn art is viewable in every suburban neighborhood, and takes on many different forms: shadow figures, plastic ducks, wooden ladies who bend over and show their underwear, mysterious metallic globes, etc. Now, my wife and I find lawn art to be rather stupid and tasteless (in fact, she suggested this blog), and an effort to divert attention from the front of a person's house. Why? Either because they don't manicure it very well or the house/garden/lawn is beyond carpentry/landscaping effort. So, instead, driving by, the eye is drawn not to the pealing paint or overgrown grass, but to a frightening plastic pig. If you must have lawn art, please observe the following two rules:

1.) Study and implement the principle of proportionality. Lawn art is awful enough, but when you place giant ducks next to a dwarfish Uncle Sam what was once silly becomes scary. These ducks must be waist-high to the nation's symbol, giant mutant ducks as big as horses. So, to avoid this problem, either get a bigger Uncle Sam or smaller ducks.
2.) Pay attention to theme. What exactly do Uncle Sam, blueish metallic globes, and shadow cowboys have in common? Nothing. They are just a haphazard grouping of lawn art, all congregated on the grass, without any guiding theme. Drivers don't know what to think. Is this a commentary on the nation: patriotism, new ageism, and a fondness for the Old West? Instead, if you use farm animals, use only farm-oriented lawn art; ducks, pigs, cows, a tractor, silo, etc. If you use Uncle Sam, add a few flags, a Statue of Liberty, maybe a White House or bust of Washington. It may be silly, but at least you are showing a bit of thought.

Lawn art is still silly and ugly, but with a little effort it can still be moderately thoughtful.

Thursday, May 22, 2003

Plagiarism Isn't Theft

So says public intellectual Judge Richard Posner, in an essay linked to by Arts and Letters Daily. His money paragraph:

Journalists (like politicians) have a bad reputationfor truthfulness, and historians, in this "postmodernist" era, are suspected of having embraced an extreme form of relativism and of having lost their regard for facts. Both groups hope by taking a very hard line against plagiarism and fabrication to reassure the public that they are serious diggers after truth whose efforts, a form of "sweat equity," deserve protection against copycats.

Hmmm. My first reaction is that none of my students better read this. My second is that I think he's right about the reason historians have lately begun to take plagiarism seriously. And my third reaction is that Posner is beginning to jar a bit with all his arch and superior essays in which he, the libertarian bien-pensant sees through the dark and shrouding woods more clearly than the rest of us benighted sheep.

I wonder...he does write a lot of stuff. To paraphrase Dr. Johnson, "Sir, if he believes this, why then, let us check his references after he has published."



Monday, May 19, 2003

And regarding the tinted twenty, as long as they keep Jackson I am willing to compromise. True, the color effect is a bit too Rainbow Coalition for my tastes, but it is still the Hero of New Orleans, Old Hickory, Father of the (old and true) Democracy (before William J. and Woodrow screwed it up).
That Scruton article is simply magnificent, all the more so as I am enjoying an Austrialian chardonnay while reading it. It is one of those articles you need to read several times to pick up all the meaning and nuances. The Evalyn Waugh references are rich: "There is no respectable reason for wishing not to be fat." Here, here. And this is particularly nice:

"Likewise there are people who dedicate their lives to exercise – the fitness buffs who spend their evenings jogging and their mornings in the gym. But is there not something narcissistic about their obsession, just as there is about anorexia – a sense that all this trouble is aimed at one thing only, namely me? Waugh’s protest on behalf of normal middle-aged spread was really an injunction to live on easy terms with the body, so as to be able to forget about it. To those who reply that fat people die younger, Waugh would have replied, ‘well done them’."

Seems a nice extension of Scruton's On Hunting, no?
New $20 Bill

Quite frankly, the news of a new $20 is quite frankly horrifying. How can they do this to us expatriates? You leave home, and they give Andrew Jackson plastic surgery; you are on the verge of coming home, and then they tart him up with some pink and peach.

Moreover, this is a violation of a law central to my economic theory. Zambone's Law of Monetary Appearance is inviolable: "the value of a currency is inversely proportional to its beauty."

Alan Greenspan, email me, and then we can talk.
Food is the Most Important Thing

Roger Scruton, philosopher, farmer and essayist, has an
Apparently there are still people out there who wear monocles,
as the Spectator tells us.

Sunday, May 18, 2003

Warren, We Hardly Knew Yah

The hotel is reserved, the date is set, and I'm all ready to go. That's right, my first trip to the hometown & house & memorial of America's most misunderstood and underestimated president (Franklin Pierce a close #2) Warren Gamaliel Harding. Since my wife and I are attending a christening in Cincinnati, I figured this would be a perfect time to swing through Marion, Ohio and pay my respects to Warren.

What's not to like? Harding reduced taxes, reduced the budget, helped America emerge from the Wilson Depression (and was arguably more responsible for the real prosperity of the Roaring Twenties than Coolidge, who merely continued Harding's policies), and hired the best men available (don't get me started on Fall and Daugherty -- it's a fight you can't win). Besides that, he drank whiskey, played golf, dressed snazzy, and gave a darn good (if a bit windy) speech. Don't believe me? Check out the newly published book of Harding's speeches, just out from University of Missouri Press. Certainly the best overview of Harding is by Paul Johnson in his History of the American People, another book worth checking out.

So why do we hate Harding so much? Well, the conventional answer (aside from being a conservative, criminal in progressive eyes) is scandal, scandal that came in two forms: betrayal by his employees and "women trouble." Let's deal with these one at a time.

First, the "betrayals" came in essentially three waves. (a.) Charlies Forbes, the Veteran's Bureau Commissioner, made off with millions and eventually went to jail. People use Forbes as a way to say, "Gee, that Harding was a bad judge of character." Untrue, really -- William H. Taft, soon to be Chief Justice, recommended him highly, as did the American Legion. (b.) Harry Daugherty, the Attorney-General, was tried twice but never convicted of essentially selling favors. He was certainly qualified, being one of Ohio's most prominent corporation lawyers, and since he was one of Harding's campaign managers he deserved a place in the cabinet. Daugherty is a quizzical character; so many shady things and people around him, but so many highly esteemed and credible attorneys and judges thought the world of him. (c.) Albert Fall, Secretary of the Interior, went to jail for his part in the infamous Teapot Dome scandal. Teapot Dome always struck me as small-time; what was there, a few thousand bucks that changed hands? And Fall was qualified for the job -- he was approved unanimously by the Senate (an esteemed member of the Senate himself, specializing in western affairs) and was thought of highly by most in DC at that time. So, what does this add up to? Three people, all highly qualified and thought well of my most Americans/two genuine crooks and one found innocent/ one crook truly nefarious (Forbes, taking millions and shafting WW1 veterans), one crook pretty small time (the impoverished Fall used the few thousand to jazz up his ranch), and one who the prosecutors could not nail.

Second, I've always thought the women trouble really overdone. Did he have affairs? Absolutely no question about it, one rather silly and sloppy one with the wife of his neighbor. The one that gets all the attention is the Nan Britton affair, but Robert Farrell's The Strange Deaths of President Harding really cast doubt on this. And Carl Anthony's Florence Harding is wholly unreliable (a glance at his sources and bibliography is a horror show, as are the sweeping, smearing assertions he makes from them). They were immoral and wrong, but Harding was never a Bill Clinton lying under oath, or a John Kennedy shacking up with Nazi sympathizers and mafia bimbos.

So, lift a glass and toast Warren. A good man, wrongly smeared by progressive historians enamored by FDR and Wilson, who had some real accomplishments to his name in a short 2 1/2 years. Warren, we hardly knew yah.

Saturday, May 17, 2003

Just Three More Weeks in Oxford, and 100 More Postcards

Here's the thing: as I was cleaning out my desk on Thursday, I found stacks and stacks of beautiful postcards, none of which (obviously) were ever sent. I had some sort of aphasia with sending postcards. Maybe it's the whole two-step process, in which you have to buy the stamp as well as the card. This is difficult for some people, like myself, to remember.

So I think that everyone on my address list is going to recieve about four postcards apiece in the next four weeks. It's on my to-do list. But that's another story.
But Wait, There's More!

I am delighted to report that there is another blog devoted to the tasting of beverages. Or, rather, a section of another blogg: check out Oddbits, and see what he has to say about the MacCallan. Aye.

Thanks to Jon Boyd at

Thursday, May 15, 2003

Is it me, or is Gordon Brown the spitting image of Monty Python's Terry Jones?

Pocock, eh? You are a brave man, better than I. I am earnestly waiting by the postbox for W. H. Mallock's Doctrine and Doctrinal Disruption and Reconstruction of Belief, which will occupy me for May probably.
Single Malts and Jersey Lightning

Pathetic Earthlings is a blog that covers whiskey. Strange that we didn't think of that first, but then we have discussed cocktails at some length. I stumbled across it because John Derbyshire of National Review was interviewed there as to his favorite whiskeys. It turns out that he likes Glenmorangie and Talisker- and like anyone else who finds someone who shares his prejudices, I think Derb is a brilliant man. Myself, I think I like Talisker even better than Glenmorangie. In a week's time I will actually be paying a little pilgrimage to the Talisker distillery, in amongst the bens and glens of Skye, och, wi' a wee bit of peat smoke and the clean salt air, d'ye see. Aye.

These people at Pathetic Earthlings also have a thing for apple brandy. But since they do not wish to give France a slim dime, they suggest buying American applejack. This, of course, is the apple brandy which made colonial New Jersey notorious. "Jersey Lightning" it was called, and I imagine that it was the tipple of choice for all those soldiers of the Continental Army who tried not to freeze at Morristown. The Jersey Lightning of choice is produced by Laird's, which has carried on since the 1780's in making the Stuff to Give the Troops. It may not be the Old Man of the Mountain, but it's what we've got. And when you tack on the Pine Barrens, well, those are at least two things to be proud of, no?

Wednesday, May 14, 2003

Summer Reading

Well, if the Doctor is finally going to read Leo Strauss (and I might add it's about time, considering the amount of acerbic comments I have heard from him regarding Straussians) I promise to read J.G.A. Pocock, particularly The Machiavellian Moment. I started, but have not got beyond the first ten pages. This happened with The Portrait of a Lady, as well; in that instance it took me about five years to get beyond the first five pages. But when I finally did, I devoured the rest. Alas, it has been quite some time since I devoured a work of historical study. These days I nibble at the introduction and conclusion, and graze in the chapters. Such is the requirement of reading for the production of a dissertation. It would be nice to really tear freely into something. Perhaps Pocock can be that something.

We shall hope so.
Traitor George Banned in Oxford

Well, that's what the banners in front of the newsagent says today. But the actual Oxford Mail story describing how the Oxford City Council banned George Galloway from speaking is a touch more restrained. Alas. Where will the traditions of British gutter journalism be without inflammatory headlines?

Monday, May 12, 2003

Read this article from the Boston Sunday Globe's Ideas section while proctoring an exam yesterday. Speaks of the enduring influence of Leo Strauss on many of the neocon policy wonks in DC, in and out of government. I never had to read Strauss as an undergrad or grad student, and know of him only in passing. And that passing knowledge was always skeptical. As a historian, I put great importance on context, time, and ideas, and thinkers (as I perceive Strauss) who seem to dabble too much out of time are under suspicion. The strongest ideas are based in and out of time, like humans are both body and soul. Too much reliance on either clouds understanding.

But I may try and snag a couple of examination copies of Strauss' works and give them a summer read, possibly for inclusion in a course next year.

Sunday, May 11, 2003

Studies like this in the Sunday Globe annoy the heck out of me. "Boston-area Catholics, increasingly alienated by the sexual abuse crisis that has rocked the church, say the characteristic they would most like to see in a new archbishop is openness to change, according to a new Boston Globe poll." I just love the phrase "openness to change," which everyone knows is a euphemism meaning liberal Catholicism (ordaining women/homosexuals/married men, no more chaste priests, no more birth control strictures, etc.)

One, they annoy me because it is obvious to all but the most intransigently dumb that a new bishop has absolutely no authority to do anything the liberal Catholics want. The day a Boston bishop begins ordaining women is the day he will also be removed by Rome. Who doesn't know this, or refuses to see?

Two, they annoy me because if lightening struck and the next pope were to do all the things liberal Catholics want, the RC Church would end up just like all the mainline Protestant churches: splitting and fighting and low attendance. Have American RCs ever seen or heard of the evangelical churches? Have they seen the statistics?

Three, they annoy me because American Catholics are but a sliver of the worldwide RC population. The overwhelming majority of world Catholics are Hispanics, Africans, and Asians, they are "conservative" (not interested in an "openness to change," see above), and Rome knows it. This is why Pope John Paul II has been much more outspoken about things like social justice; it is the issue on the minds of many more Catholics, rather than the Americano angst on ordaining the lady next door.

Fourth and finally, they annoy me because if the Church ever made itself again "open to change," it would cease to be an alternative and a challenge to the world. What makes the Church attractive is precisely because it is different and slightly mysterious. Make priests just like your local grocer, make churches look like the local bank, make worship look like the local cabaret, and you will get the Church you deserve: an empty one. Just like the empty seminaries and convents, dusty and quiet since the last time the Church wanted to make peace with modernity. When the Church decided it no longer wanted to abide by the adage, "in but not of the world," it began to lose relevance.

The real heart of the matter is found in paragraph three: "But nearly one in five Catholics say they have considered joining a non-Catholic church over the past year, and 39 percent say they would support an American Catholic church that is independent of the Vatican." Apostasy and schism. And this is beaut, a remark by one of the "openness to change" people: "''The Catholic Church for so long has relied upon dogma, and hasn't kept up with the times, and as society has become more open and encompassing of all, the church has stayed in its own staid pattern ... I used to accept that, but when the [sexual absuse] crisis hit, it shook everybody up, and maybe now, instead of us always answering to them, maybe they should answer to us.'' So, no more dogma (which means the Church can longer tell its adherents what to do, which would mean an end to sin, I suspect), "open and emcompassing" (which means anyone believing anything at anytime can be a Catholic -- gives new meaning to the term "universal Church"), and "they should answer to us" (which means a democratic church -- I guess the libcaths would get more meaning and power from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John if Jesus was referred to as "President of the Jews" and the disciples were "party members").

Saturday, May 10, 2003

Joined with the John Derbyshire metropolitan/provincial article of yesterday, I thought this new article in Policy Review was quite similar if much more dense. This has set my mind afire once again thinking about my antebellum Whigs, cosmopolitans par excellence. Are you "citizens of the world," or merely provincials? Brings to mind Joseph de Maistre's famous remark, "In the course of my life, I have seen Frenchmen, Italians, Russians ... But as for man, I declare that I have never met him in my life; if he exists, he is unknown to me."

Friday, May 09, 2003

Are you a metropolitan or provincial conservative? An interesting idea that I've run into in other venues -- historians like to use these labels as well, like center versus periphery in understanding politics, religion, and culture.

And in connection with my two anti-secession posts, take a look at this conference held in late March called "Lincoln Reconsidered." I think it rather boldly demonstrates the secessionist tendencies of some conservatives.

Tuesday, May 06, 2003

Why I am not a secessionist, continued

Practically
Think about the world 1800-1860 and ask yourself, "was it a safe place for republics, for representative governments, for constitutions, and the like?" The answer is most definitely no, and you need only look at the events in 1830 and 1848 across Europe to see why. Republics were the exception to the rule, fragile things that most people did not think could survive, even in America. In fact, the American Civil War was proof to many Europeans that the "experiment" (so annoying to monarchist intellectuals who had to constantly address the American exception) was finally and blessedly over.

Secession, aka the dismemberment of constitutional governments by their own citizens, was the ultimate fulfillment of Ben Franklin's haunting warning at Philadelphia, "we must all hang together, or we shall surely all hang separately." Division and rebellion invited foreign intervention and the possible end to the 1789 Constitution. The counter-factuals are many and fascinating. Who is to say that Britain (on poor diplomatic terms with the US prior to 1860) would not have taken a more active and aggressive role in North America if there were two American republics, themselves on poor diplomatic terms? How did Britain act with the weakening Ottomans?

Once the rebellion ended, what kind of Constitution would we have? If the South left successfully, would the North keep the 1789 document? If secession had occurred once, would that document lose its power (becoming another Articles of Confederation), knowing that at any time, any state could leave if it was annoyed enough? If the South was successfully defeated (hardly a certainty after July 1861), what would a post-war Constitution look like? Would the states rights and limited government that did exist pre-1860 be swamped in a new empowered federal government, rightfully suspicious of state power after a four year civil war with 600,000+ casualities? These questions obsessed Northern Democrats like Franklin Pierce and Stephen Douglas, who professed to be federalists and states rights men but denied the theory and efficacy of secession and opposed war. They understood what secession would mean to the limited government/Jacksonian creed.

For those conservatives who say Southern secession was a reasonable act with better justification than Northern nationalism, I say secession gave you the world you hate. Secession did not defeat big government, it made it inevitable; secession did not defend federalism and states rights, it brought them under a permanent cloud.
Why I am not a secessionist

The buildup has been tremendous, so I hope I can fulfill even part of the expectations. As an American historian who specializes in the nineteenth century, I find secession to be a silly doctrine, silly theorectically and practically.

Too many conservatives today, wedded to localism and states rights (with good reason usually) see in secession a fulfillment and extension of their love of limited government, the ultimate tool to wield against a big bureaucratic regime. Looking across history, their longing eyes settle upon the American South in 1860-61, and they ask: "Wasn't secession the rejection of heavy-handed centralized federal interference with state matters? Wasn't it federalism in action, one layer of government in one region, gallantly defending its constitutional turf?" The answer is no, and, again, it needs to be thought of theoretically and practically (historically). No one who calls himself a conservative can also be a secessionist. Here is why:

Theoretically
1. Secession is Lockean liberalism at its most extreme, textbook Locke actually – if life, liberty, and property are not sufficiently protected, then citizens have a "right to revolution" that invalidates the social contract (the state neglects our interests, so we reclaim the liberties we gave up, and contract a new state) – this has several important consequences: (a.) It weakens the stability of government – why? Who can sufficiently unite upon a reason for secession to give it credence and legitimacy, more legitimacy than the state it seeks to leave? If misconduct of the government is the charge, how do you judge? What is the threshold? Danger to "local rights?" Danger to "slavery?" Danger via the tariff (some ninnies say)? Who decides? (b.) It would deliver society and government into a state of perpetual war, not stable constitutional government – why? Because the threat of secession is blackmail to prevent any legislation a minority opposes – certainly one of the foundations of stable constitutional government is agreeing to play by the rules, and that includes accepting defeat legally and gracefully – secession is essentially the immature reaction of some who do not always get their way, they take their ball and go home – is this stability or anarchy? Bedlam or constitutional government? (c.) Secession is a radical constitutional innovation, akin to Calhoun’s wild, inventive suggestions of dual presidencies and concurrent majorities – radical constitutional innovations are inherently destabilizing, see France and its many constitutions – secession is thoroughly anti-conservative.

2. When I think of the doctrine of secession, I immediately turn to Edmund Burke and his remarks in the Reflections about "cashiering" rulers and the sober reality of revolution. Defending 1688 from those who wanted to compare it the French Revolution, he wrote: "The ceremony of cashiering kings, of which these gentlemen talk so much at their ease, can rarely, if ever, be performed without force. It then becomes a case of war, and not of constitution. Laws are commanded to hold their tongues amongst arms; and tribunals fall to the ground with the peace they are no longer able to uphold ... The speculative line of demarcation, where obedience ought to end, and resistance must begin, is faint, obscure, and not easily definable. It is not a single act, or a single event, which determines it. Governments must be abused and deranged indeed, before it can be thought of; and the prospect of the future must be as bad as the experience of the past. When things are in that lamentable condition, the nature of the disease is to indicate the remedy to those whom nature has qualified to administer in extremities this critical, ambiguous, bitter potion to a distempered state. Times and occasions, and provocations, will teach their own lessons. The wise will determine from the gravity of the case; the irritable from sensibility to oppression; the high-minded from disdain and indignation at abusive power in unworthy hands; the brave and bold from the love of honourable danger in a generous cause: but, with or without right, a revolution will be the very last resource of the thinking and the good.”

All right, so let's break this fascinating Burkean threshold of revolution down and compare it the South in 1860-61. (a.) Note he says that the revolutionary act of overthrowing kings and warring against the established order is not a constitutional matter, but outside law and an act of war. (b.) Since the "line" between obedience and rebellion is "faint, obscure, and not easily definable," rebellion must be taken with extreme gravity and not be due to one event. (c.) Was the US Government "abused and deranged" in 1860-61? I hardly think the election of Lincoln held that possibility, and what did Buchanan or Taney ever do to the South? (d.) Did the future look to be "as bad as the experience of the past?" Since the past (1800-1860) was one of virtual Southern domination of the federal government, I also hardly think the past was bad at all. If the past was not "bad," how can you judge the future? (e.) Was the US Government in a "lamentable position" in 1860-61, a situation that led Southern worthies to "administer in extremities this critical, ambiguous, bitter potion to a distermpered state?" Again, the only people using the words "distempered" and "lamentable" in 1860 were Robert Barnwell Rhett and William Loundes Yancey; hardly credible judges of current events and with remarkably different perceptions of the 1860 world than 3/4 of the nation. (f.) Can we call the Southern secessionists the “wise” among our national leaders, gripped with such a wisdom as to decide upon national dismemberment? The word wise does not come to my lips after Rhett, Yancey, Davis, and the like. When you think of the Websters and Clays who died ten years earlier, these Southerners were merely pygmies among giants. (g.) Was rejection of the Constitution and a revolution truly "the very last resource of the thinking and the good" in 1860-61? I seriously doubt it, even if we agree to disagree about their being "thinking and good." Go to the Gettysburg cemetaries, smile, and ask how the "thinking and good" could have done this.

Secession was an immature violation, to steal Willmoore Kendall's phrase, of "constitutional morality," an anti-democratic, radical impatience with elections and legislation, that said to fellow citizens, "since we cannot always get our way, we opt to leave." Republics do not work that way, unless you are Bolivia or France. Republics that institutionalize facile ways to dismember themselves enter into a self-fulfiling prophecy. Talk enough about secession, and soon enough South Carolina leaves. The practical-historical case against secession will follow.

Monday, May 05, 2003

Re: Scientist Nice, Humanists Nasty
Well, duh. I've known this since I was in college where I minored in the study of this subject, while I majored in a humanity and a science.

Pray don't misunderstand. I have the greatest respect, affection, and admiration for most of the professors who had the misfortune to instruct me in the humanities, but I adored most of the science profs. With some notable exceptions, they were brilliant, humble, approachable people, and it didn't matter to them if you were top of the class (which I wasn't), at the bottom (occasionally), or in the squidgy middle (my ground of choice). I spent minutes, many of them awkward, talking to humanities professors. They were kind, but I always felt they were just waiting for me to leave so they could get back to the latest journal article. I spent hours shooting the breeze with the science professors, because they seemed genuinely interested in talking to me

I found the difference intriguing, because I was a weak science student, but a strong humanities student, but perhaps the reason was that, even with the science crowd, I talked about the humanities. (Science professors are a well read lot.) For the humanities professors, this would have been talking shop to an able student, but still a student, but for the science professors, it was just fun.

However, you could see the divide forming even among the majors in my class. The humanist majors tended to work alone and not "share with the other children." The science geeks were much more open in collaborative efforts, especially if they weren't pre-meds.

To be sure there are prize #$*^@ in the science world, whose arrogance and pomposity have no boundaries, but overall I'd say there are fewer than there are in the humanities.

Sunday, May 04, 2003

Scientists Nice, Humanists Nasty

An interesting article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, aka Pravda (for nothing, for them, is ever wrong in Higher Education; at worst it is just an extra incentive to work for the Five Year Plan). Leonard Cassuto, a professor of English, describes a sojourn amongst phycisists and is amazed to find out that they're nice guys! The horror, the horror!

Fascinating that, despite the stereotype of the lone scientist in the lab, it's actually humanists who stay alone and are unable to share with other children. Scientists, as you'll see if you look at the end of a scientific paper, are supposed to work in groups.
A Nice Afternoon's Cricket

I wasn't playing, of course, just lounging around on the pavilion while New College played a village team from Essex. The Essex men played an agressive game which saw them quickly retired. New College played a cautious, crafty game which saw them score 48 points by tea, with their first two batsmen still in the game, and another hour and a half of play remaining. They seemed confident, but I do hope they went after the ball with a little more agression.

If you don't understand all that, no worries. It was a glorious, beautiful, immaculate English summer day, temperature in the low 70's, nice breeze, cloudless sky, clipped green grass, and all that with men in white racing around playing a strange game. Perfect. There was beer served, as well.

I asked a friend of mine who was playing for New College if they still observed an actual tea break. After all, I thought that like professional cricketers they probably down some gatorade or an energy bar, ice up the sore spots (someone is always spraining a finger when they catch an air ball barehanded), and head back out into the field. "Oh, no", he says, "I always have three or four cups, a couple of sandwiches...and there are always some very nice cakes."

Just when you think that the old cozy England is dead, it pops back up where you might hope that it would.

Oxford play Hampshire next week. I shall be there, and hope that someone will bring the pork pies. There was an English captain, two back, who despite everyone else on the team drinking only energy drinks demanded pork pies for his tea. And I think it was his team which was the last to beat Australia. When was that now, 1958?

The Old Man eulogies and stories are piling in now -- what he meant, what we will do now.

Hawthorne wrote of the Old Man in "The Great Stone Face," in the midst of the Jacksonian tourist interest in Profile:

"The Great Stone Face, then, was a work of Nature in her mood of majestic playfulness, formed on the perpendicular side of a mountain by some immense rocks, which had been thrown together in such a position as, when viewed at a proper distance, precisely to resemble the features of the human countenance. It seemed as if an enormous giant, or a Titan, had sculptured his own likeness on the precipice. There was the broad arch of the forehead, a hundred feet in height; the nose, with its long bridge; and the vast lips, which, if they could have spoken, would have rolled their thunder accents from one end of the valley to the other. True it is, that if the spectator approached too near, he lost the outline of the gigantic visage, and could discern only a heap of ponderous and gigantic rocks, piled in chaotic ruin one upon another. Retracing his steps, however, the wondrous features would again be seen; and the farther he withdrew from them, the more like a human face, with all its original divinity intact, did they appear; until, as it grew dim in the distance, with the clouds and glorified vapor of the mountains clustering about it, the Great Stone Face seemed positively to be alive.

It was a happy lot for children to grow up to manhood or womanhood with the Great Stone Face before their eyes, for all the features were noble, and the expression was at once grand and sweet, as if it were the glow of a vast, warm heart, that embraced all mankind in its affections, and had room for more. It was an education only to look at it. According to the belief of many people, the valley owed much of its fertility to this benign aspect that was continually beaming over it, illuminating the clouds, and infusing its tenderness into the sunshine."

Saturday, May 03, 2003

Profile of a dead Old Man

I take it back. The most interesting and sad item of the day happened here in dear old New Hampshire. The beloved Old Man of the Mountain (or Profile) is no more. Sometime in the middle of the night, enveloped in fog and spring rain, the symbol of New Hampshire fell off its mountain perch.

I suppose all New Englanders like myself knew it could happen at any time, but never really believed it. For those unaware, the Old Man was a rock formation at the top of Franconia Notch in northern New Hampshire, that resembled the profile of an old man (my mother always said it reminded her of an old Indian man). It was discovered by settlers in 1805, and by the antebellum era was a major tourist attraction. To make sure it survived, the state applied glues to the cracks in the rock and fastened the Profile with a series of metal brackets and braces. By the twentieth century, Old Man became the state symbol, gracing our license plates, every state road sign, the recently designed New Hampshire quarter coin, and the masthead of the state's legendary newspaper, the Manchester Union Leader.

And it always seemed perfectly matched to New Hampshire, this rugged Old Man of the "Granite State," scowling toward the east, looking the part (dare I say) of a Yankee curmudgeon. Here was New Hampshire, a stubbornly conservative state in a thoroughly liberal region, a state of wild natural beauty with its mountains and short craggy coastline, symbolized to the world by a steady, crabby rock face. What more perfect match could be made between the Old Man and the state motto, "Live Free or Die?"

But now it is gone. What shall we replace it with? What will be the new New Hampshire symbol? I suppose Mt. Washington is the obvious choice, the highest peak in America east of the Mississippi River, where the highest wind gust on earth was recorded. I suppose we could also look to the Isle of Shoals off Portsmouth, a spiteful, bleak, tiny island that has attraced authors, artists, and sightseers for generations. An ex-Confederate general even died there.

I was at Franconia Notch about a month ago, driving south on Route 93 showing friends the sites. I couldn't see Profile because I was driving, but they did. Little did I know one month later, the Old Man, formed when gravity and erosion carved a face sometime before 1800, would slide down to Echo Lake. Thankfully I saw him when I was a child. The Union Leader said it best:

"It is somehow fitting that, apparently, no human beings were witness to the Old Man’s end. Thank God there was no advanced warning, no time for “reality TV” or a macabre “televised countdown to the end.” It is comforting to think that his was a death with dignity and solitude. But not in silence. Oh, no. We would like to think that the Old Man came crashing down with a great shudder and roar that split the spring night in Franconia Notch and caused Echo Lake to carry news of his demise back, back to Stark and Webster and Ethan Allan Crawford and the rest of those for whom he truly was a sign that here, God made men."

For those of us who think being a New Englander means something, it is a very sad day.
Certainly the most interesting item of the day is that conservative intellectual William Bennett is a big-time gambler, with stakes running into the millions. Newsweek investigated his activities in Vegas and Atlantic City over ten years and suggested his losses have run close to $8 million. Now, I find this all disappointing, but one rather important fact is buried in the middle of the expose:

“'I play fairly high stakes. I adhere to the law. I don’t play the ‘milk money.’ I don’t put my family at risk, and I don’t owe anyone anything,' Bennett says. The documents do not contradict those points."

If all this is true, then what is the big issue? Hypocrisy? The chance to deflate the so-called "morality czar?" If he hasn't violated the law, hasn't endangered his family, and is not broke or playing above his head, is there a morality issue here? Is it character assassination?

Friday, May 02, 2003

If you're into following the Supreme Court, even in a desultory sort of fashion like me, there's no better way to do it than by subscribing to the e-mail list run by Mark Stancil (If you want to subscribe write mark.stancil@bakerbotts.com.) He watches; he writes; all you have to do is read and be amused. His write up yesterday had an example of Justice Scalia at his finest:

"One issue raised at oral argument [Virginia v. Hicks (02-371), which concerned a Richmond municipal housing authority policy allowing the authority's director wide discretion to bar nonresidents from the premises. "] was whether a state can effectively designate certain streets or sidewalks "private," by ceding them to a separate authority or otherwise barring the public. Justice Scalia pushed Hicks' counsel to concede that, for example, the street leading up to the door of the Virginia Governor's mansion is not "public" in the true sense of the word. After counsel sidestepped the issue by calling the
pavement in question a "driveway," Breyer chimed in with the observation that there are things in Cambridge (Mass., I assume) called "private ways," but no one really understands what that means. As the ripple of laughter subsided, Scalia brought down the house with his retort that "there are a lot of things up in Cambridge that no one understands what they mean."

Amen, Mr. Justice! Preach, brother, preach!
Here and there

Why can't we bring back the blacklist to officially shame the loony lefties who signed this pro-Castro petition?

Despite having the best April record in club history, my beloved Boston Red Sox once again exemplify the old line from the 1970s about the team: "25 guys, 25 cabs."

And on a higher plane, a lovely article defending Cardinal Newman from the academic ninnies.

A missive on secession is forthcoming. I promise.