The Academic Closed Shop

David Brooks had a depressing yet nice piece in the NYT the other day about the travails of conservative academics. Roger Kimball in Armavirumque explains it thusly: Oh, they exist. It's just that at most campuses they are a vanishingly rare breed. Departments of English generally have none; political science might have one; history, one; classics, one. Williams College is reported to have two bona fide conservatives: I can vouch for the presence of one. It's a lonely but often exhilarating existence. What does it mean for conservative students? It means that, if they want to pursue an academic career, they become experts in the arts of evasion. I can relate. Being a rightist in the academy is an exercise in evasion and smiling, teeth-grinding tolerance of intolerable remarks, policies, and ideas.

Oh the things I could tell. Overheard outside my office door last week, a poli sci prof speaking to a criminal justice prof: "The Lieberman campaign called asking me if I had decided, and I said 'no.' They said, 'are you leaning toward anyone?' I said, 'the first candidate who advocates impeachment.'" [laughter ensued] Or perhaps the time when the woman who shared my office put up a 2003 calender entitled "Cat Lovers Against the Bomb." Or the rage of "door art," in other words the various things profs paste on their office doors to advertise their political ideas: the sociology prof with his "Preemptive War is Terrorism," another with "Save Tibet," yet another with anti-death penalty and pro-pot legalization stickers and articles.

I could go on. This just scrapes the surface.

My "favorite" was when one of my students came to class with a feather scarf. She explained that directly after class she was playing in the campus production of the "Vagina Monologues." When asked by me what she planned to do after graduation (she was a senior), she replied she was going to graduate school to get a History Masters in black gay and lesbian history ... and then go on to be a high school teacher.

I smiled politely.

England, England

Ah, dear Old England. Where they're always ready to get rid of the wog for the good of the Empire.

Really this story is appalling, and to think the Education Editor of the Observer talks about "middle class dims". Personally I'd vote for this bunch up as the dimmest of all. For one thing, their mass suicide would certainly get England closer to the lower population goal, as well as pushing evolution into a positive trend, and yet they haven't proposed this solution. But they should! At once! Everybody wins!

Beaten to Buchan

Well, one of our posters will be sad. He has been beaten to the Buchan punch by this piece reviewing Buchan's work and his life in the New Criterion. Nonethless, it is an enjoyable read. I still enjoy a bit of Buchan myself, even after having been dragged to the place of pilgrimage this summer. To be honest, I must say there's not much at the John Buchan Centre besides some very nice and enthusiastic Buchanites, but the Borders are spectacular.

On Bloom

A fellow professor asked me today, is Harold Bloom a moldy fig or insightful critic? I would say an insightful fig.

I do not think Bloom is being nostalgic – Nostalgia is bemoaning the loss of something past, dead, and gone; he is decrying the progressive loss of something important dying yet recoverable. Wishing for tailfins on cars is nostalgia; wondering why Stephen King is trumping Kipling is genuine cultural worry, and not without justification. Would anyone say this is a positive phenomenon?

If it is true that “you are what you eat” (eat cheeseburgers = get heart disease/get large) it is also true “you are what you read, listen to, and see.” (watch only “Temptation Island,” “Cops,” “When Animals Attack,” anything on FOX and see what happens to your vocabulary and imagination). If this was not true, why would Madison Ave. spend billions to make us think, act, and, therefore, purchase in particular ways? What you consume matters, whether it enters via the mouth or the eyes. That said, if you do not read quality literature, you will read substandard fare, and eventually the bad will drive out the good. This is what Bloom is aiming at. What in Rowling fires students to tackle Hawthorne? Probably nothing.

I know I sound like an economist, but there are two ways to look at the J. K. Rowling phenomenon, from the demand side and from the supply side. In the first, the students have been “dumbed down” in our own day so that the only way to reach them is through a Harry Potter story, hence the oft’ used line, “better they read Harry Potter than nothing at all”; here, demand creates supply. In the second, the literature has been “dumbed down” independent of readers’ interests and abilities, hence Bloom’s cry “where has all the quality gone”; here, supply creates demand by appealing to readers’ lower instincts.

Based on my own experiences, I lean toward the former. I see this too often in my own students. The last two years I have used Horatio Alger’s juvenile rags-to-riches tale “Ragged Dick.” Without shame or realization, numerous students in and out of class told me it was one of the best books they read in college. The fact that is was written for 10-year olds in the 1870s didn’t seem to faze them and they laughed it off. The malicious side of me grumbled, “I bet you read a lot of Judy Bloom too.”

So, Bloom (though certainly a curmudgeon) has a point, and denying it exists seems to me to be whistling past the Humanities graveyard.

Whither the BBC, whither NPR?

Peter Hitchens, delightfully addressing "sensible reactionaries" everywhere (sign me up), has announced his support of the BBC, defending the embattled left-wing bastion from the libertarian conservatives who want to "marketize" (and hence euthanize) it. He notes: Those who would abolish the BBC also need to recognise that without a licence fee it is difficult to see who will pay for a broadcasting network, especially speech radio on which intelligent thought, good manners, culture and morality will get any sort of hearing at all. Without the BBC, the British public would be left with Rupert Murdoch soft-porn and dumb-as-the-day-is-long American programming. The Corporation should also realise that there is, thanks to the failure of schools and universities, an increasing hunger for radio and television programmes that treat us as intelligent and seek to inform us and uplift us. It should say openly that its licence fee allows and obliges it to ignore ratings and that it will pursue quality without compromise. Where are the educated and curious to turn?

For all my loathing of National Public Radio (correctly labeled "grindingly liberal" by Hitchens), PBS, the NEA, and NEH, I am sympathetic to this line of argument. Civilized states throughout history have always acted as patrons of the arts and humanities, but today the patrons have lost control of their assets or are unwilling to tell those who take public money how to use it. "Use it" not in the sense of what opinions to hold ("agree with me or else"), but in seeking a balance of opinions, a search for knowledge in intellectual combat, and fair play in guests, shows, and commentaries so sensible liberals and reactionaries have a venue to make their case.

As it is now, both the BBC and NPR are determinedly anti-conservative -- listen to either in the morning and there is no need for coffee because their distemper enrages you. The other morning BBC interviewed a British professor in "peace studies" as to how the war in Iraq was progressing, not a prof. of international relations, military history, or political science; you can imagine what was said. Is the solution to pull the plug and force them to compete on the open market, a fight they will lose to Fox-TV in a day? Or to reform the institution as a true patron would, reminding the artist that with public money comes responsibility to the public that gives it, asking only for balance and intellectual pluralism rather than radio's equivalent to a one-party state?

Hitchens makes a valid point, that libertarian-conservatives will "throw the baby out with the bath water" in killing the BBC. Will they complain or rejoice when Sister Wendy is replaced by "Temptation Island?" Can they?

Clark as Trojan Horse

Andrew Sullivan has had some interesting observations on Wesley Clark and why Democrats are so crazy about him. They see him as a Trojan horse into which they can sneak the Clinton staff so that they can run the country again. Sullivan compares this to the Republican zeal for Colin Powell in '96. Who knows what he believes! Who cares! He can save us!

I guess. But it's of a piece with the Dean boom. I can't believe that Dean is going to lose his supporters. The mania for both Dean and then Clark shows how desperate rage against Bush drives Democrats across the increasingly narrow board of the Democratic party. Today's CNN poll showing that Clark is in a statistical deadheat with Bush will only fuel the zeal for Wesley Clark, Patriot King. Fine with me. He's going to have to do some pretty hard fighting against Dean, in both fundraising and in debates-- and he's going to have to be a lot more impressive than he's been since he declared. Until such time, he's just a retired general.

Stuff from Dennis Miller

Some observations from an interview in The American Enterprise.

On the Clinton's marriage: "Bill and Hillary’s marriage couldn’t have been any more about convenience than if they’d installed a Slim Jim rack and Slurpee machine at the base of their bed." 

On Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina: "There are enough litigious people in this country. I don’t need the Commander in Chief serving papers on our enemies: 'You will be deposed, Mr. Hussein!'"

On Sen. Joe Lieberman: "Joe Lieberman has taken more “great stands” on issues than any man in the history of this country! He should realize that occasionally a great man lowers the other foot."

Well, Isabel certainly made my life challenging. My wife and I were supposed to attend a wedding in Washington DC on Saturday, arriving at our hotel on Friday afternoon. Because of the weather, we didn't leave on Friday at all; instead, we hung by the internet and telephone getting updates on how the District was faring. I had my doubts we'd be going at all.

But late Friday, we decided to make a run for it. We awoke at 1am, left NH at 230am, and worked our way through the fog. I thought we'd be ok, but about the 5 hour mark, construction delayed us an hour (3 lanes down to 1), then I took the wrong exit, mistakenly opting for the express lane (they've changed the road since I'd been there last in 2000). This meant I passed every exit I wanted to take, so we pressed on, taking the "scenic route" and losing another hour. Then just as we were getting close, there was an accident, losing us another 45 minutes. Just to rub it in, as I came up to the accident scene (a Winnebago trailer rollover) -- 5 cars from getting past it -- the cops stopped the traffic to let the wrecker flip it back over. Nothing seemed to be going right for us.

So, what normally was an 8 hour drive, took 11 hours. The wedding was lovely, but the power outrages had knocked out the A/C at the reception. There was much sweating. We were so tired that we left at 930pm, the first guests to leave I think. To complete the whirlwind tour, we awoke at 630am yesterday, jumped back in the car, and came back to ole' dame NH. 40 hours total, about 20 in the car, 8 sleeping, the rest at assorted locations in DC and VA.

I slept well last night.

And yet, as bad as it was, it could have been much, much worse. Isabel was a Class V not that long ago.

I think that it's impact has come from it's size, and from the waterlogged condition of the region. The high tides combined with an already full Potomac and, now, lots of rainfall on the upper Potomac watershed has led to flooding. And the soft ground means that a lot of trees have fallen over...there was a huge, grand tree just near the rotunda at the University of Virginia that looks as if it's been plucked out and tossed down.

If Isabel had struck at even Class II strength, I shudder to think...

Isabel

Now here's an illuminating page. Pity the poor people of the Northern Neck. (except for the 150 or so who still have power. They should go play the ponies. Immediately.)

What aggrevates me are the people who complain (COMPLAIN I tell you!) that Isabel wasn't that bad. Morons all of them, these people, and next weather event they should be lashed to trees above power lines and see if that creates enough excitement for them.

Believe you me, I do NOT long to see the Great Hurricane of 1938 repeated.

24 hour reprieve for life and property

Yes, chickabiddies, the federal government is closed. DC is shut down thanks to the Metro system, which closed at 11 AM thanks to the slow approach of Isabel. Leave our lives and property alone, Isabel darling, and we'll no beef with ya, just some gratitude.

And a heck of a lot of entertainment. I had MSNBC on, and the entertainment value was high. Brian Williams is whooping it up in Virginia Beach, and for purposes unclear to this correspondent (I believe his intent was the dramatic), he was standing between two tall buildings built close together. In short, he had positioned himself in a wind tunnel, and indeed he breathlessly informed the viewer audience of this fact as he was splayed against the wall, holding on, trying to maintain balance on the 2-foot ledge on which he had positioned himself.

Physics was not one of my strengths, but I know enough to have been most intrigued with these proceedings, and indeed I was not disappointed. He summoned into the frame a Weather Channel lackey who had a little wind reader thingamabob, and there they were desperately clutching each other trying to get a reading, and then, by God, they were gone! Blown off the ledge and out of the camera frame by the wind. (For the tenderhearted out there, they were both unharmed.)

I enjoyed the spectacle immensely. It bore a marked resemblance to the "Monsterpiece Theater" presentation of "Gone with the Wind", and I expected Alistair Cookie to appear with some thoughtful commentary at any moment. If MSNBC would stick to this sort of programming, they can definitely expect a rise in their ratings.

James Lileks is so on fire today that the screen smolders when you read his Daily Bleat. He systematically takes apart a Minneapolis Star-Tribune editorial, comparing its declaration of Bush's failure in Iraq to its editorial supporting Clinton's "Desert Fox" campaign in 1998.

Here's the conclusion, but do read the whole thing.

Iraq will probably never be nuked because of the actions of its leaders. We can now expect the editorialists of the world to tell us we had it coming if we get nuked for making that future possible.

Let us go back to that editorial from 1998.

“There is one sound conclusion to be drawn from the confluence of events in Washington and Iraq: The conduct of foreign policy is a weighty responsibility that at times requires the undivided attention of a whole, unencumbered president. It is a sad commentary that some voices in Washington are complaint that momentous world events have interrupted their sideshow. . . . Events in Iraq make it clear that there is a world out there which requires the attention of the US Government. It’s time to shift focus away from the neighborhood farce and back to the world stage.”

This was a reference to the impeachment proceedings, of course. The editorialists were appalled that Congress was impeaching the president when the threat of Iraq loomed so large. Now the threat has been dispatched - and does this count for anything? No. The terrorist training campes are closed down, the torture barracks padlocked, the mass gravesare opened to the wailings of the families, the official hospitals of Baghdad no longer welcome cancerous terrorists, the Kurds no longer watch the skies for the helicopters and their bitter gusts, the citizens no longer wonder whether the government men will rip out the eyes of their infant children to produce the proper confession -

Irrelevant.

You know what really bothers some people?

That yellowcake story still looks shaky.

Further comment would be superfluous.

Memo from the Rector

I know my compatriots will appreciate this. An appallingly possible memo from an Episcopal Rector

I have noticed with growing alarm a growing state of confusion surrounding the distribution of Communion. As someone with a keen interest in the correct and proper procedures let me take a few moments to explain exactly how things are supposed to be done.

All baptized persons are welcome to receive Holy Communion as long as they
believe in the Real Presence of Christ as either Risen Lord, Rabbinic Authority, Holy Spirit Person, or Great Ethical Teacher.

If you prefer to receive Communion under the conventional species of bread (St. Mary's Convent - Wahoo, Nebraska) and wine (Ernest and, Julio Gallo Classic Port -California 1994) please stand or kneel at the rail with your hands by your side. If the nitrates in the Port induce nasal Congestion, a light Chablis (Sutter Home 1993), Zinfandel (Paul Masson - April), or Dandelion (St. Mary's Convent - Thursday) is offered depending on availability. Please indicate this preference by placing your right hand behind your head. Two non-alcoholic options are also offered. For red grape
juice (Tucker's Berry Farms), place your left hand behind your head. If you prefer a white pasteurized grape juice product, kindly place both hands behind your head. To express solidarity with oppressed farm workers in the grape industry, place both hands tightly over your mouth and hum La Marseillaise...

To receive an ordinary unleavened Communion wafer kindly wink your right eye as the minister approaches. For a certified organic whole-grain wafer, wink your left eye. For low-salt, low-fat bread, close both eyes for the remainder of the service. For gluten-free bread, blink both eyes rapidly while looking at the ceiling.

Next, a word on the consumption of the host. If it is your custom and preference to have the Precious Body placed in your hands, please cup them together in front of you. If you are expressing a wine preference, the minister will allow ample time to change postures. If you feel uncomfortable holding the Lord in your hands, simply assume the baby bird position as the minister approaches. Be sure not to extend your neck so far that the acolyte cannot see your eyelids by which you will express your bread preference...

At St. George's it is our commitment to see that the worship experience will be as meaningful, efficient, and error-free as possible. In this vein, an electronic billboard will soon be installed over the altar outlining these instructions. Please note that traditional options flash in blue and organic food options flash in orange for easy reference...

But don't you have to actually be a Democrat and respect the candidates to invite them into your house? I would think they'd be suspicious and sense a trap when they saw the dualing Warren G. Harding portraits in the living room, no?

Doc: "So why do you always want to take more of my money, Howard?"
Dean: "Well, I ... uh ...the rich should pay their fair share."
Doc: "Do you have vision problems? Have you looked around here? Does this look like the Breakers to you?"

Doc: "So what will be your response to the increase in terrorist attacks when you withdraw American troops from Iraq?"
Dennis: "We need dialogue, cultural understanding, and massive blobs of foreign aid to third world countries so they don't see terrorism as a viable response."
Doc: "One, haven't we been talking for decades? Has it done any good? Two, suicide bombing is not cultural. It's psychotic. Third, you mean like the hordes of poor sheiks in Saudi Arabia, because they look like a suffering bunch."

And I said the same thing to my wife this morning, when she asked me about Wesley Clark: "He's from Arkansas. Enough said."

War in Iraq

I will hold Mark Helprin's coat when he does battle with any lit'ry artist in the world. But lately when I read his policy analysis, I think that it is like eating a magnificent pastry by a superb pastry chef; delicate, crisp pastry, lots of pungent cream, and not a lot of nourishment.This essay is a case in point. Beautifully written, of course. But I am not sure what he wants.

He says the war in Iraq was a "war of sufficiency" rather than what it should have been, a "war of surplus". This is linked to a call for the Army to be a lot larger. Well, I agree that the Army should be larger; though not as large as Helprin thinks it should be, which I believe based on previous articles of his is on a scale approaching that of the Korea-era army. Still, he observes that the Army is dangerously stretched at 23 total combat brigades, when only nine are available for deployment. True. But doesn't that indicate that there wasn't much to play with in the invasion of Iraq? The President needs some kind of strategic reserve, no?

So with this war of surplus, what should we have done? Helprin tells us also that occupying Arab countries is simply hopeless, they're too backwards. So I guess we were supposed to conquer them with a force larger than we have; burn their cities; plough them under; sow with salt; repeat. I mean, on 9/12 it sounded like a good plan, but surely that's not a way to move towards any sort of future?

And on the other end of the spectrum from Mark Helprin, we turn to this truly apalling article in the Speccie on the attitudes of the German elite towards the United States. If half of it is true, it's awful.

Take these two paragraphs:

With every reverse, or seeming reverse, that the Americans suffer in Iraq, the schadenfreude in Germany reaches new heights, or depths. The Germans hope the Americans will fail in Iraq. They expected them to lose the war, and now they expect them to lose the peace. Such views are not, of course, unknown in Britain, but are far more widespread in Germany. They are accompanied by an astonishingly low estimate of the Americans’ abilities, lower even than the BBC sometimes conveys.

Whenever I visit Berlin I try to see my friend Dr Tilman Fichter, a veteran Social Democrat. We usually walk round the gardens of Schloss Charlottenburg, which are looking more and more beautiful, for they are being restored to their 18th-century form. Dr Fichter on this occasion excelled himself. He is full of acute insights into German politics, but considers the American armed forces to be of no value whatever. As he himself put it, ‘Even a British Boy Scout troop is a more military formation than the American army today.’ He believes the Germans would be prepared to serve in Iraq as long as a British general was in charge of the country.

Apparently even when he's in the gardens of the Schloss Charlottenburg, ol' Doc Fichter still manages to stay inside his own little dream world. Now, how the hell did he get in there?

War by Other Means

So now another know-it-all Rhodes Scholar from Arkansas wants to be President. Great.

It's now gotten so that I can't keep everyone straight who's in this race. But this is where the Doc can help. As a service to the seven people who read Dr. Curmudgeon regularly, he should host some neighborhood coffees for Democratic candidates swinging through the Monadnock region of New Hampshire. Finding it will, of course, be quite a challenge. But I am sure that Dennis Kucinich will do just about anything for coffee with a potential supporter. Maybe Howard Dean will condescend to come, and he and the Doc can reminisce about the time the Doc gave him the finger. Or was that Bernie Sanders? Maybe the Doc head-butted Howard Dean, I can't remember.

As for Wesley Clark, I am not sure that he leaps into the front of the race, as Bill Kristol was opining last night. Seems to be a little more difficult than that, surely, to get support in this field. As for why he does this, well, blame it on being a CNN pundit; you get so you think you know everything. The General is just one of the few pundits to actually be arrogant enough to act on that assumption.

Or he could be doing it for this reason.

And could we have a moratorium on analyzing the generals who have run for office? Or if people insist on doing it, could it be an analysis with a little analysis, rather than a Trivial Pursuit training routine?

Once again, evidence that Americans just plain dislike soccer. The WUSA, the women's professional soccer league, is going under, er, suspending operations on the hope that new and better (read, more money) sponsorship can be found. League officials blame this lack of corporate support for the shutdown, but what company is going to pony up $6 million (which is what the league wants) for a league without fans? Big companies like Johnson & Johnson decided that the risk was too great, that sponsoring to create fans and interest had a low probability of success, so they invested little.

The Second Law

I spent my weekend fighting entropy, which is to say cleaning the house and editing a paper. This fighting entropy action is depressing stuff because you know entropy is always going to win. There aren't even temporary victories.

But even entropy is not as depressing as the fact that the beloved (but lousy heartbreaking and soul destroying fiends) Eagles have a 0-2 season so far (They stink!) and the loathsome Redskins a 2-0.

Now I see why my father eschews sports. Being of a scientific bent, he knows you can't fight entropy.

All of Fairfax is divided into bizzare lots

Or at least a goodly part of it as today's WaPo discusses. Question to our new urbanist friends. It seems that developing in established suburbs, which I should think a new urbanist would support, leads to these bizarre lot configurations, which strike me as contrary to the new urbanist ethic. So how do you resolve this problem?

Used to be crying on the stump ended presidential campaigns by making the candidate look weak, like Edmund Muskie in '72. Nowadays it's counted as evidence of compassion -- remember that river of tears at the '96 Dem Convention? Well, that river is still flowing, except now it is John Kerry crying at the plight of an unemployed publishing employee. Ugh. Please stop crying.

A short word on this "Reason" magazine interview with economics writer Tyler Cowen, where he states globalization and international capitalism are inevitable and positive. In making his case, he uses the late venerable Harvard economist Joseph Schumpeter's famous phrase "creative destruction" to describe capitalism's core meaning -- constant and unstoppable change, an "out with the old-in with the new" tsunami of economic progress.

My problem with this is not that he misquotes Schumpeter, but that he half-quotes Schumpeter. In his seminal Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, Schumpeter did indeed indeed say that capitalist entrepreneurial activity was a whirlwind of creative destruction, but he went further and said this had serious consequences aggressive pro-capitalists failed to see. First, over time it led to progressively larger firms, less property and small-business ownership, greater monopolies, and allied government bureaucracies to watch over them -- ie., regulatory socialism. Eventually there will be nobody left who really cares to stand for [free-market society] -- nobody within and nobody without the precincts of the big concerns.

Second, the protective social strata that made entrepreneurship possible (loving families and institutions that raised, educated, and taught ethics and morality, for example) were non-economic and anti-rationalist (hence contrary to the prevailing methods of capitalism), and, in this "gale of creative destruction," were slowly eroded.

Third, the social foundations of capitalism are also undermined by the criticism of intellectuals, as the economic freedoms latent in creative destruction are also applied to society; hence you see the unwillingness and the inability of the capitalist order to control its intellectual sector effectively. The unwillingness in question is unwillingness to use methods consistently that are uncongenial to the mentality shaped by the capitalist process; the inability is the inability to do so within the frame of institutions shaped by the capitalist process and without submitting to non-bourgeois rule.

In short, creative destruction may happen, but it is something to watch carefully rather than blindly celebrate: Since capitalist enterprise, by its very achievements, tends to automatize progress, we conclude that it tends to make itself superfluous -- to break to pieces under the pressure of its own success.

Thus, Cowen is only giving half the story. Creative destruction untethered and unwatched will slowly kill itself, a fact few libertarians care to consider. Which leads to the irony (and Schumpeter was supremely ironic) that Schumpeterian conservatives -- seeking to insulate social and cultural life from cost-benefit rationalistic analyses -- profess these doubts not to destroy capitalism, but to save it.

And they may not be young fogies, but perhaps Christopher Hitchens, his brother Peter, and maybe Roger Scruton (although he is greying) are the best we can do. Mr. C. Hitchens does it again here, opining on the glories of drink, food, and drink. Two drink minimum, please.

Dead or just hiding?

According to the latest Spectator, the "young fogey" is dead and gone, like a once endangered animal now extinct, the Catamount of humanity. What is a young fogey, you ask? Quoting on a 1984 article on the species, Harry Mount relates: the Young Fogey is libertarian but not liberal. He is conservative but has no time for Mrs Margaret Thatcher and considers Mr Neil Kinnock the most personally attractive of the present party leaders. He is a scholar of Evelyn Waugh. He tends to be coolly religious, either RC or C of E. He dislikes modern architecture. He makes a great fuss about the old Prayer Book, grammar, syntax and punctuation. He laments the difficulty of purchasing good bread, Cheddar cheese, kippers and sausages.... He enjoys walking and travelling by train. He thinks the Times is not what it was and prefers the Daily Telegraph. He goes on: a fondness for being a gentleman, Gothic design, "Brideshead Revisited," and the "ceremony of life." Young men, rejecting over-commercialized, over marketed modern life, became spitefully retro -- where are they now, Mount laments?

Well, this is a blog (what could be more modern tech than this?) but it is also called "Doctor Curmudgeon & Co.," implying an impish "wrench in the works" attitude toward contemporary life. Let's see: stubbornly conservative, lover of Waugh and "Brideshead," a "coolly religious" RC, anti-Bauhaus, lover of language, perpetually hunting for good old-fashioned food and drink, loves trains and wrote a book on railroads, wears some tweed in winter, a dedicated bowtie man, smokes a pipe here and there. The British Young Fogey is dead? Long live the American Young Fogey! (Good Lord, I have become Russell Kirk.)

Read this fascinating article about George Orwell's "blacklist" of likely Anglo-American communist sympathizers, one that I worried would moan about his snitching on idealists and free-thinking intellectuals but does not. In fact, the author T.G. Ash makes this plain point: The list invites us to reflect again on the asymmetry of our attitudes toward Nazism and communism. Orwell liked making lists. In a London Letter to Partisan Review in 1942 he wrote, "I think I could make out at least a preliminary list of the people who would go over" to the Nazi side if the Germans occupied England. Suppose he had. Suppose his list of crypto-Nazis had gone to the Political Warfare Executive. Would anyone be objecting? Somehow I doubt it, but never let consistency get in the way of a cause.

Nice article here on the silliness of the gender language battles, and the hopeful turn against such silliness now taking place. Ugh, how many times do I see perfectly good student papers tying themselves in knots using the clumsy "he/she" anywhere and everywhere it can. Choose one, either is fine, both is like a placing a speedbump on the interstate and expecting a smooth ride. Choppy, tedious, and transparent, it ruins writing.

Cancun WTO

I think it safe to call it, in the words of a colleague, "a damp squib."

Talk about your mellow fruitfulness! It is so drop dead gorgeous here in Charlottesville, Capital of the Virginia Piedmont and Center of American Intellectual Achievement, that I am surprised that the police aren't out charging for just enjoying the day. Wait, that was a parking ticket. Anyway, it is crisp, cool, severe clear...it is like living inside champagne.

I think I will wander over to The Lawn and enjoy Mr. Jefferson's architectural achievement on a day that it matches in spirit and beauty.

Usually I would confine myself to declaiming the following to an audience of interested squirrels, but today is so outstanding in the DC metro area (and tonight is the harvest moon), that I can't resist a wider distribution:

To Autumn


1.

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, 5
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease, 10
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

2.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 15
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook; 20
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

3.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, 25
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; 30
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.


Rock on, Johnny Keats!

Straussian Alert!!Straussian Alert!!

Neoconservative Alert! Neoconservative Alert!

Bill Kristol, who runs the world as Dick Cheney's eminence grise as Michael Moore will tell you any day if he could understand French, tells us about Leo Strauss.

Of course, you can't believe him. He wants to confuse us, right?

BTW: What is totally cool is that I am blogging this from an open wireless connection in a Richmond, VA coffeeshop after a hard day's work in the Virginia Historical Society collections. And now I must go.

What's Bred in the Bone

Breeding they say is everything, but sometimes you have to wonder.

A View on Iraq

BTW, what is my view on Iraq? Well, I really don't want to have one, because I have grown so used to hearing other people's views when they really have no reason to have a view, other than the First Amendment guarantee. I had one guy who studies Late Antiquity explain to me that he could understand the situation in Baghdad because of his work in popular culture of the Middle East in the Sixth Century. This blatant essentialism left me speechless for about four months, or so. But I suppose it's no different than some British academic in the 1930's trying to explain Hitler on the basis of his knowledge of Visigothic tribal society. It's just that you'd have to be a pompous idiot to do either.

So rather than have a view on Iraq, I am trying to keep well out of it. An unusual position for an academic, but there it is. In the meantime I will let James Lileks speak for me:

As for the Iraq situation? I’m stunned that a country whose face was held mouth-down in the mud for 30 years hasn’t spontaneously produced a civil society in six months. I don’t think they’ve even started thinking about a new national anthem. Let’s give it all to the French.

I couldn't have said it better myself. If, that is, I wanted to.

Mortality in Iraq

This is a fascinating post from the invaluable www.strategypage.com. (People like to use the world "invaluable" on blogs a lot, but I really mean it.)

September 8, 2003: New body armor, new tactics and new medical procedures are producing much lower death rates in combat. During the recent Iraq fighting, only 14 percent of those injured in combat were killed. In World War II, 30 percent of those hurt in combat died. In Korea, where body armor was first introduced, and helicopters first used to rapidly get wounded troops to a hospital, it was 25 percent. It wasn't much better in Vietnam, at 24 percent, and was about the same in the 1991 Gulf War. Note that the World War II rate was same as it was during the American Civil War (1861-65) and the 1847 war with Mexico. During the American Revolution (1776-81), 41 percent of those hit in combat died. So what has happened in Iraq is a major shift in how troops are protected in combat? The better protection for the torso and head has meant that 80 percent of the wounds are in the arms and legs. During World War II, 65 percent of the wounds were in the arms and legs. Military doctors saw this trend coming, and provided additional training in treating arm and leg wounds for doctors and nurses going to Iraq.

Fascinating stuff. You can see from these stats the dramatic change in surgical procedures from the American Revolution to the Mexican War...though frankly I am more than a little surprised that sanitation and antibiotics didn't kick the stats down from the Civil War to the Second World War. This drop due to body armor, better treatment and (don't forget) better training is extraordinary.

It's been too long

Between lessons plans and weekend relaxation, I'll try and blog a bit more. A stark, frightening, and dead-on editorial from Weekly Standard, laying out the stakes in Iraq and the Bush Administration's sudden multilateralism. The Standard's conclusion: It is an illusion to imagine that this mess can be handed off to someone else and we can go on about our business. That option does not exist. The choices are stark: Either the United States does what it takes to succeed in Iraq, or we lose in Iraq. And if we lose, we will leave behind us not blue helmets but radicalism and chaos, a haven for terrorists, and a perception of American weakness and lack of resolve in the Middle East and reckless blundering around the world. That is the abyss we may be staring into if we do not shift course now. What's left unsaid in the editorial is the political worries at the White House. Does Karl Rove & Co. want daily bombings and American deaths on the television news, amidst Democratic tv ads with Howard Dean saying "bring the boys home?" Assuming the economy will improve in 2004 (it already is), Bush wants to remove the Iraq issue as much as possible, with the simple calculation of less American troops = less American deaths. But, oh, the risk to the original mission.

Like I said, by next summer, the economy will be a Republican and not a Democratic issue. Everything (save the lagging indicator, unemployment) is pointing up, up, up.

And yet another cogent, calm, and direct article by VD Hanson, stepping back to see what has been accomplished since 9/11, what the stakes are today, and what needs to be done. Reassuring and daunting.

I've been busy with the first week of teaching, so blogging has been on the back burner. But this article in NRO caught my interest -- yet another good article on the Episcopal train wreck of 2003. And the October Plano, TX traditionalist meeting looks to be a brimming with participants. Should be a fascinating autumn watching the leaves turn and the Episcopals split.