Baby watches

The New Neo Posted on by

No, they’re not tiny timepieces babies wear on their teeny weeny wrists.

I’m talking about the wait for a baby to be born. It’s sort of like waiting for toast to pop out of a toaster or eggs to boil, although considerably more stressful and longer. But Kate Middleton’s going into labor, and the days leading up to it with story after story, has made me remember my own experience.

No, I’m not a Duchess. Nor did I give birth to the heir to a throne. But I was 31 at the time, like Kate now, and I did feel a certain amount of pressure (and not just of the physical kind) and scrutiny as I waited anxiously to go into labor.

When you’re pregnant, people (even perfect strangers) tend to take a certain proprietary interest in you. When are you due?, they ask, as they reach forward and poke you in the belly. Friends and acquaintances run into you in the store and say, Still haven’t had that baby yet?

It’s meant well, but it wears on the already-frayed nerves of a pregnant woman in her final month. In my case, my baby-to-be was also the first grandchild for my in-laws, who were very eager for the birth to occur. My mother-in-law, who worked as a school nurse and lived on the west coast, made it clear that she was planning to come visit (in fact, she had plane tickets way ahead of time) during her Christmas break and that it would really be helpful if I could manage to have the baby then.

She wasn’t joking, either. Nor was she being bossy. She was merely matter-of-fact: she was sure I would do it. What confidence in me—a confidence I rather lacked. In fact, it made me nervous—what if I was late? My due date was in fact about four days after the date of her return flight back home, and first babies are notorious for being overdue.

I shouldn’t have doubted her, though; my mother-in-law was right on target. I went into labor about a week early, she and my own mother came up the next day, and all was well.

Good luck, Kate and William.

[UPDATE: An 8 pound 6 ounce boy! Name: to be announced.]

Detroit: all the way down the Telegraph Road

The New Neo Posted on by

Detroit’s declaration of bankruptcy has been discussed in countless articles, both the how and the why of it.

One thing nearly everyone agrees on is that it’s been a long time coming. Just how long? Well, if you’d like a musical interlude, just listen to this song “Telegraph Road” by Dire Staits (and read the lyrics).

The song was first performed by its composer Mark Knopfler and the band in March of 1981, thirty-two years ago. Knopfler, who was born in Scotland but grew up in England, reports having written the song during a visit to””of course””the city of Detroit, driving along Telegraph Road and thinking of the rise and fall of the city.

Note in particular the last stanza:

I’ve seen desperation explode into flames
And I don’t want to see it again. . .
From all of these signs saying sorry but we’re closed
All the way down the Telegraph Road.

[NOTE: Cross-posted at Legal Insurrection.]

Psychopathy and the law

The New Neo Posted on by

I was surprised at the amount of misunderstanding that seems to have been sparked by my article yesterday speculating on the possibility that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is a psychopath. I thought certain things about psychopathy were evident from the article, but apparently not, so I wanted to provide some further clarification:

Psychopathy is NOT a mental illness.

Psychopathy is NOT insanity.

Psychopathy is NOT a defense to crime in any way.

“Depraved indifference”—words a commenter used here instead, to characterize Dzhokhar’s attitude towards the loss of life engendered by his crime—is actually a good brief description of what psychopathy is. If I were forced to describe psychopathy in two words or less I’d be very hard-pressed to come up with a better one.

I’ve amassed quite a bit of evidence for my point of view about Dzhokhar and psychopathy, especially from the Rolling Stone article. Whether you agree with me or not, the author of that article did a lot of original research/interviews with people who knew Dzhokhar. When I read the article (which I’m not sure many people did; most of the discussion around the blogosphere and elsewhere was about the cover photo) I noticed how well the interviews seem to match up with Cleckley’s classic work on psychopathy. It was really quite uncanny, although not a single person in the article, or the author, or anyone else I’ve heard of seems to be putting two and two together in quite that way.

Sometimes when you explain something—saying Dzhokhar is a psychopath, for example—you’re really not “explaining” much at all. And here I most definitely am not excusing anything, either. I think that making excuses for acts such as the Tsarnaev brothers’ is what most people fear from such speculation. Psychopathy, although apparently representing some sort of defect present from birth (we think) that then can interact with environment and free will to sometimes result in crimininality, is no bar to criminal responsibility at all.

And although psychopathy is regarded as a “disorder” rather than a mental illness, that is primarily descriptive as well. We actually know very little about the etiology of character disorders and they are virtually irrelevant in assigning criminal responsibility. My point in calling Dzhokhar a psychopath is certainly not to absolve him of anything, nor to say we “understand” him, but to point out the futility of trying to “understand” him in the usual psychological sense of “what terrible trauma did he undergo to make this happen?”, the way the Rolling Stone article and Dzhokhar’s friends and teachers seem to be trying to do. With a psychopath, there is not necessarily any terrible trauma at all, although sometimes there is.

Islamic fanaticism had a role in the Boston bombing, apparently a very large one for Tamerlan. For Dzhokhar, it seems to have acted more as another mask, a not-very-deeply-motivated excuse for violence. Not all terrorists are alike, nor are all brothers alike.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Rolling Stone: the affable psychopath

The New Neo Posted on by

[UPDATE: I seem to have figured out a way to comment at PJ. Although it won’t let me do so as “neoneocon,” it seems that I can under “neoneo.”]

I’ve got a new article up at PJ today. The takeoff point is the Rolling Stone article about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. But I don’t write about the cover that’s generated so much controversy and chatter; I write about the content.

It struck me when I read it that the people interviewed by Rolling Stone—friends, acquaintances, and teachers of Dzhokhar—were universally puzzled by his supposed transformation from easygoing guy, affable and loved by all and particularly relaxed and cool (and who wasn’t even especially religious) into murderous jihadi. That transformation has puzzled not only those who knew him, but most journalists who write about him. My thesis is that they are failing to entertain the theory I think most likely, which is that the charming-appearing Dzhokhar was and is a psychopath. Unlike his brother Tamerlane, who was a more conventionally troubled misfit, as well as devout Muslim, Dzhokhar fits the classic description of psychopathy in Hervey Cleckley’s classic book on the subject, The Mask of Sanity.

For some reason my sign-in to comment at PJ isn’t working. I’d like to comment on my own article there, and I can’t! The reason I wanted to comment is that I noticed that a few commenters there seem to misunderstand the point of the article, and seem to think I’m saying either that Dzhokhar is not culpable for his murderous acts (he most definitely is), or that Islam had nothing to do with the Boston bombing (it most certainly did, as primary motivation for Tamerlane and as weak motivation/excuse for Dzhokhar), or that all jihadis are psychopaths (they are not—Dzhokhar is hardly typical of the genre). If you could comment under your own name there and point out these facts, it might be helpful. Thanks. [See UPDATE above.]

[ADDENDUM: Commenter Geoffrey Britain writes:

When reality proves that one’s assumptions and perceptions were gravely mistaken, puzzlement can only continue if one retains the idea that one’s prior beliefs had validity. Obviously, Dzhokhar was never really an easygoing guy, affable and cool and his actions prove that he was especially ”˜religious’ or more accurately, ideological. He simply pretended to be those ”˜nice’ things and his friends, acquaintances, and teachers lacked the discernment to see past the pretense.

I disagree:

Dzhokhar, IMHO, was an affable guy, but everything he “was” was a mask or a screen. He was not “pretending” in the same way non-psychopaths would pretend, as a sort of conscious, thought-out plan of dissemblance. Psychopaths have no core to “pretend” about, except their own emptiness. They are affable right up to the moment they murder innocent people (and by no means are all of them murderers, or even violent).

Psychopathy is a very poorly-understood phenomenon. It is what is called a character disorder rather than a mental illness such as schizophrenia. Psychopaths are profoundly different in their makeup from non-psychopaths, and the motivations for their behavior are very different. If you read the quotes I selected from Cleckley’s book, you’ll see a bit of what I mean. But you would need to read more of the book to get a fuller picture.

In Dzhokhar’s case, I would say his becoming a terrorist was multiply-determined. A psychopath first and foremost. Next, exposure to jihadi thought via the media and especially his brother, the true jihadi. And then perhaps something as simple as boredom and desire for excitement.]

I guess I don’t need…

The New Neo Posted on by

…this pillow, because I sleep on my back.

I’ve always been a very quiet sleeper, without a whole lot of position changes during the night. When I was a kid at camp, I used to pride myself on being able to slip into my bed at night so carefully that I didn’t disturb the covers much and could even leave them all tucked in, and then in the morning get out again so that I only had to smooth them over a bit and not make the bed at all. Success!

That doesn’t quite work any more. But when I hurt my back and arms many many years ago, I found the best sleeping position for myself, on my back with pillows under my legs, and have stuck with it ever since through thick and thin. I had no idea at the time that it might reduce the production of wrinkles, but hey, I’ll take it.

All hail Obama

The New Neo Posted on by

When in doubt, Obama makes a speech about race and is hailed as magnificent.

We’ve noticed this phenomenon before, most noticeably in his reaction to the Reverend Wright problem he faced during the 2008 election. That speech was vapid, but it was noteworthy for showing us his willingness to throw people under the bus, in that case his grandmother (my reaction as soon as I heard that part was to call it “one of the single most revoltingly self-serving statements I’ve ever heard in a speech”).

And yesterday he did the same to George Zimmerman, a private citizen and not a relative of Obama’s, to be sure, but one who has been declared not guilty by a court of law and against whom there is no evidence of racism whatsoever, although that will not stop the Obama/Holder witch hunt against him and the fomenting of racial discord in the wake of the verdict. And in some ways yesterday’s speech was worse than Obama’s 2008 one, because then he was a candidate and now he is president and throws the entire weight and authority of his office behind what he says.

But that’s what I have come to expect of Obama. And I should not be surprised, either, at the praise he gets from the usual suspects in the MSM for doing it. But something about their sycophancy still stuns me nevertheless. If you care to wade through it, see this, this, and a lot more if you scroll down here. It’s Obama the brave, finally having that dialogue about race, and giving much-needed context to the case to teach white America about it.

Most people, of course, neither listened to nor read the text of the speech. Their perceptions of it, and so many other things, are filtered through the MSM’s glowing report.

The IRS and the public: what’s a “bombshell” these days?

The New Neo Posted on by

As opposed to what should be considered a bombshell?

I refer you to this column by Peggy Noonan entitled “A Bombshell in the IRS Scandal”:

The IRS scandal was connected this week not just to the Washington office””that had been established””but to the office of the chief counsel.

That is a bombshell””such a big one that it managed to emerge in spite of an unfocused, frequently off-point congressional hearing…What the IRS originally claimed was a rogue operation now reaches up not only to the Washington office, but into the office of the IRS chief counsel himself [one of only two Obama political appointees in the agency]…

This is the moment things go forward or stall. Republicans need to find out how high the scandal went and why, exactly, it went there. To do that they’ll have to up their game.

True, as far as it goes. The only problem is that, even if Republicans were to “up their game”—and it’s not immediately apparent they will be willing and/or able to do that—what is the available remedy? At this point, even were the investigation to discover a trail leading all the way to the president, and even if such involvement were considered an impeachable offense, does anyone honestly think that enough Democrats in the Senate would vote “guilty” to achieve the two-thirds majority required to remove Obama from office if the Republican House managed to impeach him?

Short of direct presidential involvement, although some lower-down officials may be sacrificed, it becomes a question of the response of the voting public to the “bombshell.” But Obama is not going to be running for re-election, and voters who might be outraged by these further revelations in the IRS scandal are probably plenty enraged already. Many of them have suspected White House involvement from the start, and so to them this is no bombshell; they never swallowed the “rogue workers in Cincinnati” explanation in the first place.

There is also large segment of the population who are either unconcerned with the entire issue, or have applauded the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups rather than opposing it. The latter group appear to be ignorant of the general danger that could come from politicizing an agency such as the IRS. As long as that agency’s political shenanigans are in alignment with their own political persuasion, their attitude is “right on.” To this particular group, the basic principles that preserve our republic are not the point. Nor do they seem all that concerned with the practical implications of their stance, the prospect that if you support such malfeasance when your side does it, the same could be done to you someday when the other side comes to power. Perhaps they calculate that the right never will come to power again. Or perhaps they think that, if and when it does, the right will exhibit more devotion to the rules than the left has.

A month ago a CNN poll found the public fairly evenly split as to whether the White House was involved in the IRS imbroglio. In addition, only 51% of respondents considered the IRS controversy itself to be very important, a depressingly small number considering the crucial issues involved. The split tended to be along party lines, too; no surprise there.

Would a poll taken today be any different? Perhaps, although it’s not at all clear how many people are paying close attention even now. Of course, scandals (Watergate, Lewinsky) have historically tended to emerge rather slowly and build over time as evidence amasses. But the multiple messes the Obama administration is facing this term have had the paradoxical effect of causing a certain amount of outrage fatigue. The fear is that, for way too many people, what should ordinarily have been a “bombshell” has become business as usual.

[ADDENDUM: Cross-posted at Legal Insurrection.]

Guest posting at Legal Insurrection

The New Neo Posted on by

William Jacobson is off on vacation, lucky guy, and I’m one of several bloggers who will be filling in for about ten days. It’s an honor, because I deeply respect Professor Jacobson, and have also been especially admiring of the coverage Andrew Branca offered there during the Zimmerman trial.

I’ll probably deal with the situation by cross-posting articles at both blogs. For example, I’ve submitted the post below to them, which is due to go up there some time later today, probably in the early evening. I will publish an addendum to the post below with a link when it goes up. You can comment here or comment there or comment at both places—the more the merrier.

Obama’s identification with Trayvon Martin

The New Neo Posted on by

Either President Obama identifies pretty strongly with Trayvon Martin, or he’s pretending to do so for political purposes.

First we had Obama’s statement that, if he’d had a son, he’d have looked like Martin. That was fairly early in the game. But now, post-verdict, we have the following from the president:

When Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said this could’ve been my son. Another way of saying that is, a Trayvon Martin could’ve been me 35 years ago. When you think about why in the African American community at least, there’s a lot of pain around what happened I think it’s important to recognize that the African American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn’t go away.

There are very few African American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me. There are very few African American men who haven’t had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me — at least before I was a senator. There are very few African Americans who haven’t had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. That happens often.

Obama may identify with Martin for several reasons, the most obvious of which is being a black male. In addition, Obama smoked marijuana as a youth; so did Martin (so do lots of young men, white and black). Martin’s parents had split up, so had Obama’s. Not all was similar; unlike the young Obama, Martin had already gotten into quite a bit of trouble during his short life, and he had grown up in a largely black neighborhood.

But the most important similarity Obama is pointing out is his insinuation that they were both unfairly profiled for being black. Forget the actual reasons Zimmerman had phoned the police to report Martin as a suspicious person (hint: it was Martin’s behavior, not his color). Forget about what Martin actually did to Zimmerman to start the fight and continue it.

Obama has already described the origins of at least some of his strong feelings about profiling. They come from an incident with that “typical white person”, his grandmother, who had raised him. It might be time to take another look at what he wrote:

A careful look at this incident as Obama described it on pp. 88-91 of Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance…shows that Obama is slandering his elderly grandmother to make Rev. Dr. Wright look better. Obama’s white grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, who was raising him and earning most of the money in the family while his own mother was off in Indonesia…rode the bus each morning to her job as a bank executive. One day, the 16-18 year old Obama wakes up to an argument between his grandmother and grandfather. She didn’t want to ride the bus because she had been hassled by a bum at the bus stop. She tells him:

“Her lips pursed with irritation. ‘He was very aggressive, Barry. Very aggressive. I gave him a dollar and he kept asking. If the bus hadn’t come, I think he might have hit me over the head.”

So why didn’t Obama’s lefty grandfather want to drive his own wife to work? Because to help his wife avoid the hostile, dangerous panhandler would be morally wrong, because the potential mugger was … Well, I’ll let Sen. Obama tell the story:

“He turned around and I saw that he was shaking. ‘It is a big deal. It’s a big deal to me. She’s been bothered by men before. You know why she’s so scared this time. I’ll tell you why. Before you came in, she told me the fella was black.’ He whispered the word. ‘That’s the real reason why she’s bothered. And I just don’t think that right.’

“The words were like a fist in my stomach, and I wobbled to regain my composure. In my steadiest voice, I told him that such an attitude bothered me, too, but reassured him that Toot’s fears would pass and that we should give her a ride in the meantime. Gramps slumped into a chair in the living room and said he was sorry he had told me. Before my eyes, he grew small and old and very sad. I put my hand on his shoulder and told him that it was all right, I understood.

“We remained like that for several minutes, in painful silence. Finally he insisted that he drive Toot after all, and I thought about my grandparents. They had sacrificed again and again for me. They had poured all their lingering hopes into my success. Never had they given me reason to doubt their love; I doubted if they ever would. And yet I knew that men who might easily have been my brothers could still inspire their rawest fear.”

Then Obama drives over for counseling to the house of his grandfather’s friend Frank, an old black Communist Party USA member, who tells him:

“What I’m trying to tell you is, your grandma’s right to be scared. She’s at least as right as Stanley is. She understands that black people have a reason to hate. That’s just how it is. For your sake, I wish it were otherwise. But it’s not. So you might as well get used to it.”

“Frank closed his eyes. His breathing slowed until he seemed to be asleep. I thought about waking him, then decided against it and walked back to the car. The earth shook under my feet, ready to crack open at any moment. I stopped, trying to steady myself, and knew for the first time that I was utterly alone.”

Well, he’s not utterly alone now, is he? He has a bully pulpit to try to avenge the perceived psychological wounds of his childhood. Note, also, that Obama’s age at the time of the incident was very similar to Martin’s age at the time of his death, and note also that his grandmother indicated a fear that the panhandler might have hit her over the head if the bus hadn’t come in time. Shades of what actually happened to Zimmerman.

Seeing the above excerpt from Obama’s book, it’s no wonder he made the speech he did today. His political agenda dovetails nicely with his psychological one. Obama’s certainly not going to ground and pound Zimmerman, but he’ll use his formidable resources to perpetuate the idea that Zimmerman was a “typical white person” who profiled Martin for being black. The actual situation—whether it be that the panhandler was aggressively harassing his grandmother, or that Trayvon Martin was acting in a way that would have caused suspicion whatever his skin color—is of absolutely no importance to Obama.

[ADDENDUM: Cross-posted at Legal Insurrection.]

Surprise, surprise!

The New Neo Posted on by

Another untruth in the selling of Obamacare emerges:

“Depending on the plan you choose in the Marketplace, you may be able to keep your current doctor.” The bottom line is that Obamacare guarantees neither. Doctors may be only available through certain networks, just as in the current system. And only plans that existed in their current form on March 23, 2010, are even eligible to be “kept.” The vast majority of plans will be new, subject to a raft of new regulations, requirements, and restrictions.

Is anyone on earth surprised?

I remember once, when I was a young woman of about nineteen, I went to a gynecologist who decided to do a very minor procedure on me. She told me it wouldn’t hurt. And yet when she started, it hurt quite a bit.

The pain was not excruciating, and the procedure was supposed to be quick. But it frightened me greatly because I thought the pain meant something wasn’t going right. So I yelled out in alarm, “It hurts!” She just said “Yes” and proceeded.

It was all over in a minute or two, and afterward I asked her about what had happened and why it had hurt. She told me that it always hurts.

I was stunned, and asked her why, then, she had told me it wouldn’t. Her response was, “I didn’t want you to refuse to do it.”

This was a long time ago. Nowadays I probably would report her to some sort of board. But in those days lying to a patient like that was considered not such a big deal, although I have no idea whether it was standard. I never went back to her again, although she’d been highly recommended. And the fact that I’m repeating this story all these many years later is an indication of just how much I detested what she’d done.

That’s Obamacare, in a nutshell. “This won’t hurt”—in order to get our acquiescence. The pain comes later.

The FBI orders…

The New Neo Posted on by

…the Sanford police not to give Zimmerman his gun back.

If something happens to him as a result, I assume the family can sue the FBI?

This has gone beyond a show trial.

By the way, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Obama will never dump Holder. The guy is golden, exactly and precisely what Obama wants, the perfect lackey, mind-meld alter ego, what-have-you.

Of course, I have little doubt that if Holder had to be let go, Obama could find another willing legal beagle eager to do his bidding. But never another so perfect, or so willing, as Holder.

Detroit is bankrupt

The New Neo Posted on by

Literally.

The article says it’s the largest city in the US to ever file for bankruptcy, but New York came mighty close in 1975. I know, because I owned a very small NYC bond at the time, and I remember the crisis well:

Rohatyn and a deputy were referred to as the “Batman and Robin of New York.” The legendary Lazard banker talked to Quartz about his worries that the same tools he used might not be available in Detroit.

“We couldn’t do this today,” says Rohatyn. “The various stakeholders are no longer around the same table.”

He’s referring to three major breakthroughs that helped refinance the Big Apple. First, municipal unions, as well as conceding pay cuts, used their pension funds to invest in the city. Then big Wall Street banks, which owned a lot of New York municipal debt and therefore had strong incentives to cooperate on restructuring, agreed to defer loan repayment and underwrote new securities on the cheap. And despite President Gerald Ford’s famous message to New York, pressure from Congress””and even from foreign governments fearing a default””led to federal guarantees on the city’s debt…

The Motor City is in a different position. Today’s weaker unions aren’t able to make the kind of investments they did four decades ago. The financial sector is not entwined in Detroit’s problems, and the city’s debt is in the hands of a far greater number and much more diverse cast of investors, making consensus on restructuring much harder. It’s also not clear that today’s Congress, let alone foreign leaders, would be interested in bailing out America’s 18th-largest city. And on top of all that, Orr faces ongoing strife between the city’s Democratic council and the anti-union Republican governor who appointed him, not to mention citizens upset at losing control of their beleaguered city.

By the way, one of the things that arguably may have helped lead to NYC’s financial troubles back then was none other than ye olde Cloward-Piven strategy:

Cloward-Piven’s early promoters cited radical organizer Saul Alinsky as their inspiration. “Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book of rules,” Alinsky wrote in his 1971 book Rules for Radicals. When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system’s failure to “live up” to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist “rule book” with a socialist one.

The authors noted that the number of Americans subsisting on welfare — about 8 million, at the time — probably represented less than half the number who were technically eligible for full benefits. They proposed a “massive drive to recruit the poor onto the welfare rolls.” Cloward and Piven calculated that persuading even a fraction of potential welfare recipients to demand their entitlements would bankrupt the system. The result, they predicted, would be “a profound financial and political crisis” that would unleash “powerful forces for major economic reform at the national level.”…

Cloward and Piven recruited a militant black organizer named George Wiley to lead their new movement. In the summer of 1967, Wiley founded the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO). His tactics closely followed the recommendations set out in Cloward and Piven’s article. His followers invaded welfare offices across the United States — often violently — bullying social workers and loudly demanding every penny to which the law “entitled” them. By 1969, NWRO claimed a dues-paying membership of 22,500 families, with 523 chapters across the nation.

Regarding Wiley’s tactics, The New York Times commented on September 27, 1970, “There have been sit-ins in legislative chambers, including a United States Senate committee hearing, mass demonstrations of several thousand welfare recipients, school boycotts, picket lines, mounted police, tear gas, arrests – and, on occasion, rock-throwing, smashed glass doors, overturned desks, scattered papers and ripped-out phones.”These methods proved effective. “The flooding succeeded beyond Wiley’s wildest dreams,” writes Sol Stern in the City Journal. “From 1965 to 1974, the number of single-parent households on welfare soared from 4.3 million to 10.8 million, despite mostly flush economic times. By the early 1970s, one person was on the welfare rolls in New York City for every two working in the city’s private economy.” As a direct result of its massive welfare spending, New York City was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1975. The entire state of New York nearly went down with it. The Cloward-Piven strategy had proved its effectiveness.