Census revelations

The New Neo Posted on by

Michael Barone points out that the new census reveals that states with lower taxes have higher growth.

No surprise there. Although I will point out that several of those states are in warm climes, and they would not have much growth no matter how low their taxes were if it weren’t for the ubiquity of air conditioning.

Barone also observes that immigration has slowed down and may be reversed. I’m not sure whether he means legal or illegal immigration; most likely he means immigration in general. And that red states have gained a total of six representatives, whereas blue ones have lost the same number.

More on that couple…and others

The New Neo Posted on by

Yesterday’s post on the couple who met while married to others, fell in love, left their spouses, got married, and then had the whole thing written up in the NY Times generated a lot of chat in the comments section on this blog. And many of the commenters predicted that their new and “improved” marriage will have a very short duration.

The odds are that this is correct: statistics on second marriages are not good, with 60% of them ending in divorce, a higher percentage than first marriages. And it stands to reason, doesn’t it? The people involved have sometimes—as in the case of our Times second-time-around lovers—demonstrated their propensity to have affairs. What’s more, even if no infidelity has been involved in the dissolution of the first marriage, those in second marriages have already learned that, whatever grief they may have endured in the first breakup, life went on and love entered the scene again.

But I’ve seen a lot of divorces and remarriages over my lifetime, and a number of the people I know have had an experience roughly similar to that of the Times featured couple, without the publicity. That is, they had an affair while married to one person and then divorced that spouse and married their lover. Perhaps the people I know are an atypical bunch, but all of those second marriages have endured for several decades so far, and look to be on track to endure till death do them part.

I’m not one to advocate this course of action. I certainly think affairs are wrong, and I’m proud to say that while I was married I never had one. But too many times I’ve seen people trapped in deeply unhappy marriages contracted when young and foolish, to a person with whom they had little in common emotionally or otherwise. And then I’ve seen that person meet another with whom they shared so much—including not just sexual attraction, but joy and companionship and interests—and visibly blossomed in that person’s company.

Was there grief and pain, especially for those innocents, the children? Yes, absolutely. Was that grief and pain worse for those children than they would have endured had the original bad marriages continued? I don’t know, but I don’t necessarily think so. Were the first spouses hurt? You bet, although several of them (not all) have remarried and seem quite happy now.

Do we have a “right” to happiness? Not exactly; not a right. But we are constructed to pursue it, especially in matters so deeply personal, and many of us will do so no matter what the moralists say.

Divorce is now accepted and commonplace, and those two things go together. Society used to frown far more mightily on divorce, and divorcing couples were therefore often ostracized. This had, as one might expect, a chilling effect on the divorce rate. But many people were still unfaithful, and I have no idea whether straying occurred more often or less often back then.

As commenter Tatyana mentioned here, there is a group of John Updike short stories about suburban infidelity, divorce, and remarriage, some of them in the “Maples” series. I read these long ago and have always remembered them because they struck me as reflecting the almost overwhelming complexity of human beings, with their desires and their moral dilemmas, their passions and their guilt. Although Updike was apparently using his own life as model, he was hard on the lovers and compassionate to those left behind, those first spouses and the kids, and didn’t whitewash the pain they endured. In the end, as I recall, his remarried lovers often found themselves nostalgic for the family they’d left behind, and laden with a fair amount of regret.

Sometimes we just end up exchanging one problem for another of similar magnitude, sometimes through boredom and inattention and self-centeredness. But sometimes the exchange is for something much much better. And yet we must make our decisions without knowing which one it will be, or how much those we hurt will suffer, or whether in the end they will be happier too (a not-unheard-of result, as well).

Are we just kidding ourselves when we say everything will be all right, and go forward to do what we want to do anyway? After all, life must be lived, and decisions made, without knowing the effect they will ultimately have. Even looking back afterward, with the perspective of years—as I do with my friends, long ensconced in those second marriages—it often can be very difficult to really know the results and to evaluate them. Fortunately or unfortunately, we don’t have matched lives to compare this one with as controls.

Let’s do away with the filibuster, saith the Democrats

The New Neo Posted on by

This is exactly what I’ve been anticipating, ever since I realized that the Senate would probably remain in Democrat hands.

William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection says not to worry. But I’m hardly as sanguine as he on the possibilities for control of both houses in 2012, or what Republicans would do if they had it.

As I wrote before, there’s always the House.

Any circumventing of the filibuster this way is short-sighted. What one party can do to become the overbearing majority, another can do just as well. But I think the philosophy is to grab as much power as you can while you can, because the other party will do the same when it can.

The lovers who left—and were featured in the NY Times

The New Neo Posted on by

A number of years ago, the NY Times added a special feature to its previously rather staid engagement and wedding announcement pages. It was called “Vows,” and featured an in-depth look at a particular marrying couple.

Usually the stories have been cute and anecdotal and sometimes even a bit heartwarming, if you happen to be in the mood for that sort of thing. But not the story of the romance and then wedding of Carol Anne Riddell and John Partilla, who left their respective first spouses (the two couples had been best friends) for each other.

The details appear here. Both couples had several young children. The two lovers-turned-bride-and-groom swear they did not have a sexual affair until they left their first marriages, although they did fall in love and declared that fact to each other before they announced it to their mates.

Mr. Padilla seems to regret the publicity from the Times piece because of the firestorm of criticism it has provoked; Ms. Riddell apparently has no regrets. A great deal of the negative reaction comes from people who say they believe a person should stick with a spouse, even if unhappy, if there are young children involved. Others disagree, pointing out that if people are profoundly unhappy in their marriages it’s not good for the children either.

As for me, I think it’s dreadful that this couple and the Times chose to air this particular story publicly. What were they thinking of? Certainly not their children’s or ex-spouses’ privacy or pain. My guess is that they were so in love with each other that they figured that everybody loves a lover. But everybody doesn’t–at least not these lovers.

But what do I think they should have done, given the situation of meeting as friends and then falling in love—and assuming they are telling the truth about refraining from an affair? It depends on the circumstances of their first marriages.

I’ve seen a lot of marriages. I’ve observed those in which spouses have stayed together in an atmosphere so poisonous and destructive that I believe the children end up suffering more than if their parents had broken up instead. And yet I’ve seen marriages that are abandoned for what seem like frivolous and temporary reasons, in which the children suffer greatly and the spouses grow to regret their move, and the whole thing seems needless and self-indulgent and narcissistic. I’ve seen divorces where the children don’t seem to suffer at all, although these are quite rare and tend to feature grown-up offspring rather than actual children.

In the Riddle/Padilla story, the Times and the couple are mum (fortunately) on the details of just how bad—or good—their first marriages were, or whether abuse or substances were involved, or how long and how hard they tried to work on staying together. We really don’t know, although that hasn’t stopped people from guessing.

[ADDENDUM: Here’s a sequel to this post that expands on some of its themes, including those raised in the comments section.]

Why has the lame duck session “produced” so much?

The New Neo Posted on by

Ezra Klein and I are asking essentially the same question, although we’re phrasing it a bit differently. He wonders why the lame duck session been so “productive;” I’m not so sure I’d use that particular word.

However, we’re in agreement on the point that there’s been a flurry of bills passed lately, and that most of the “compromise” has been on the part of RINOs who let these bills go forward instead of waiting till late January, when the new Congress will be in session and Republicans could get a much sweeter deal.

The reason? Klein’s guess is that the RINOs aren’t pleased with the more conservative makeup of the new Congress and want to pass what Klein calls “sensible” legislation. They disagree with their new Republican colleagues on principle.

I’d add that the RINOs are distressed that the extraordinary power they now hold by being the swing votes will be diminished in the upcoming more Republican Congress. For politicians, it’s often about personal power, I’m afraid. In addition, since these RINOs are mostly from fairly liberal states and would prefer to be re-elected, they don’t want their constituents to take it out on them; after all, bills such as the repeal of DADT are very popular with the American public in general and certainly with the voters of Maine and Massachusetts.

Another reason I think this may be happening now is that the Pelosi/Reid Congress purposely tried to get its most leftist and controversial bills passed in the early days of the session, when liberal strength was strongest. What’s left now are those bills that are more amendable to compromise, bills that had some sort of bipartisan (RINO, in particular) support, or bills with some time urgency (the so-called “Bush tax cuts”).

It also might be that the Republican leadership just isn’t very tough. You’d think they’d have the power right now to threaten RINOs with loss of privileges in the next session if the line isn’t toed, but that doesn’t seem to be happening. Or, if it has been happening, it’s been ineffective.

It may also be that Republican leaders don’t want to validate their own reputation for being the party of “no.” Some of these bills (such as the aforementioned DADT repeal) have broad popular appeal with the public, and drawing a line in the sand on them seems both mean-spirited and counterproductive, especially when it’s unclear that the bill’s passage will have a negative effect on the military (the only argument I can see that could justify blocking it).

Many Republican—and especially conservative—voters have had tons of experience with disappointment with Republicans in Congress. My guess is that in the next session, even with the Republicans more in control, there’ll be plenty more of that to come.

Haley Barbour and racism

The New Neo Posted on by

The opposition’s been trying to paint Haley Barbour with the racism brush for quite some time, and now he’s given them some good ammunition in a new Weekly Standard piece.

What constitutes “good ammunition” is different than it used to be, of course. Overtly racist statements are few and far between, so these days the racism accusation almost always relies on candidates making racially-related statements that contain inaccuracies, innuendos, and/or insensitivites, or are badly phrased, or some combination of these things.

Barbour’s seems to have encompassed the last two categories, at least evinced by the correction/clarification he issued today, which attempts to explain that he was not insinuating that the Citizens Councils of the South in his youth were non-racist, just that they were against violence:

When asked why my hometown in Mississippi did not suffer the same racial violence when I was a young man that accompanied other towns’ integration efforts, I accurately said the community leadership wouldn’t tolerate it and helped prevent violence there. My point was my town rejected the Ku Klux Klan, but nobody should construe that to mean I think the town leadership were saints, either. Their vehicle, called the ‘Citizens Council,’ is totally indefensible, as is segregation. It was a difficult and painful era for Mississippi, the rest of the country, and especially African Americans who were persecuted in that time.

Makes sense, but will Barbour get a second chance? I doubt it. He’s already had his previous “macaca” moment:

Both Geraghty and Rubin hammer Barbour for that widely-discussed 1982 episode in the New York Times, in which Barbour allegedly warned that if the aide persisted in racist remarks, he would be reincarnated as a watermelon and placed at the mercy of blacks. Geraghty says this episode will “come to define him.”

Chris Cillizza analyzes whether it is the case that remarks such as the ones in the Weekly Standard interview for which Barbour’s been called racist (untrue) and insensitive (perhaps true) will wind up defining him and harming his chances in 2012. Will it? I have no idea; it’s a long way to 2012, but my guess is that Barbour is not going to do well.

[NOTE: Here’s a really astounding criticism of a seemingly innocuous remark Barbour made during the WS interview, which shows how broadly racism has now come to be defined:

“I remember Martin Luther King came to town in ’62. He spoke out at the old fairground and it was full of people, black and white,” Barbour said.

When asked to describe the event, the governor replied, “I don’t really remember. The truth is, we couldn’t hear very well. We were sort of out there on the periphery. We just sat on our cars, watching the girls, talking, doing what boys do. We paid more attention to the girls than to King.”

Derrick Johnson, president of the Mississippi NAACP called Barbour’s comments
“beyond disturbing.”

Let’s set the scene: depending on the month King came to town, Barbour was either fourteen or fifteen years old at the time. And yet he actually attended the King speech, certainly not an indication of racism. He mentions a racially mixed crowd, but when questioned for details, instead of making up some other facts or stating general platitudes about an event that occurred forty-eight years ago, he tells the truth, which is that he doesn’t recall much more because he was a young teen, interested in girls, and sitting far away on the outskirts of the crowd.

Derrick Johnson of the NAACP finds this “beyond disturbing.” I find Johnson’s comments “beyond disturbing.”

No doubt Barbour the 14/15-year-old should have foreseen his future in politics, made sure he got a great seat up front, and taken copious notes.]

Global warming: the theory of everything

The New Neo Posted on by

George Monbiot explains how it is that the unusually cold winters in Europe lately are actually consistent with, and probably caused by, global warming. Warm, cold, wet, dry, it’s all fodder for the global warming mill.

As John at Powerline has noted, a scientific theory is judged by, among other things, its predictive power, and in this sense global warming is both fabulous and terrible. A theory that predicts everything predicts nothing. It can neither be proven nor refuted. It is, as many have long said, more in line with a faith than a science.

But global warming is one thing. Whether it’s happening or not tells us nothing about the far more important question of whether whatever global warming that is occuring is anthropogenic, or human-caused. The science that purports to prove that is even iffier, but the faith is strong.

[NOTE: When it came time to choose a category for this post, I didn’t know whether to select “science” or “religion.” So I split the difference and chose both.]

The memorious

The New Neo Posted on by

“Funes the Memorious” has long been one of my favorite short stories by Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges. In it, Borges describes a fictional character who has an accident and becomes unable to forget anything:

Funes…reveals that, since his fall from the horse, he perceives everything in full detail and remembers it all. He remembers, for example, the shape of clouds at all given moments, as well as the associated perceptions (muscular, thermal, etc.) of each moment. Funes has an immediate intuition of the mane of a horse or the form of a constantly changing flame that is comparable to our (normal people’s) intuition of a simple geometric shape such as a triangle or square.

In order to pass the time, Funes has engaged in projects such as reconstructing a full day’s worth of past memories (an effort which, he finds, takes him another full day), and constructing a “system of enumeration” that gives each number a different, arbitrary name. Borges correctly points out to him that this is precisely the opposite of a system of enumeration, but Funes is incapable of such understanding.

Funes is an extreme example of memory run amok to the point of being dysfunctional. But there are real people who are only a bit less memorious than Funes, although they seem to keep their abilities compartmentalized so that they don’t take over their lives. “60 Minutes” had a fascinating piece on them that aired last night, featuring five people who have Rainman-like capabilities but are not autistic (one is a well-known actress).

Here’s a bit about them and the genesis of the show [NOTE: That video seems to have disappeared, so I’m linking to one of the show itself]:

A personal note: I exhibit a small area of strangely enhanced memory myself, although nothing remotely as impressive as theirs. I often remember what I wore, especially if it was during emotional or important situations. I sometimes remember what others around me wore, too.

This ability goes back to early childhood. It is mostly a visual thing, although I also recall parts of the conversation pretty clearly, especially if it was upsetting (the “60 Minutes” piece said that adrenalin enhances memory, and I believe it). For me the memory of the event often includes the setting in which it took place, where I was standing, where the other person was standing, what I was wearing, and sometimes what they were wearing.

For example, I have a memory of an argument with my mother when I was about two. I was objecting to something she wanted me to do, much in the way of the typical two-year-old. We were standing on the porch in the summertime, and I had on a yellow skirt decorated with red rickrack.

There is no photo of the scene to jog my memory, nor even a photo of the skirt, but I remember it well. Plus, there’s no one around who can correct me or tell me I’m wrong. My mother was the only witness, and she’s almost 97. What’s more, she hardly remembered it in the first place—it just wasn’t significant to her, and she doesn’t have that sort of visual memory.

I also remember—or believe I remember—every article of clothing I ever owned. One would think that I place extraordinary emphasis on clothes and am exceptionally interested in them. But no, not in the least; I’m about average in the respect.

[NOTE: Here’s a Wiki article on the type of memory exhibited by the people in the “60 Minutes” piece. It’s considered exceedingly rare.]

Assange objects to leaks to press–when they’re about him

The New Neo Posted on by

Julian Assange objects to the leak of police files related to the rape allegations against him, published in—of all places (et tu, Brute?)—the leftist Guardian.

Actually, it’s his lawyers who object. I’m sure Assange himself would fully support the Guardian’s move, in the interests of transparency and truth and all that:

In a move that surprised many of Mr Assange’s closest supporters on Saturday, The Guardian newspaper published previously unseen police documents that accused Mr Assange in graphic detail of sexually assaulting two Swedish women. One witness is said to have stated: “Not only had it been the world’s worst screw, it had also been violent.”

Bjorn Hurtig, Mr Assange’s Swedish lawyer, said he would lodge a formal complaint to the authorities and ask them to investigate how such sensitive police material leaked into the public domain. “It is with great concern that I hear about this because it puts Julian and his defence in a bad position,” he told a colleague.

I do not like the idea that Julian may be forced into a trial in the media. And I feel especially concerned that he will be presented with the evidence in his own language for the first time when reading the newspaper. I do not know who has given these documents to the media, but the purpose can only be one thing – trying to make Julian look bad.”

However, it shouldn’t have happened—even the execrable Assange should have his legal rights protected—and I suppose it might even backfire if it is considered sufficiently prejudicial to his impending trial.

But there are many kinds of justice. And on a certain level—that of poetic justice—this can hardly be improved upon.

Spambot of the day

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m sure there’s an important message here somewhere, if only we could discern it:

Oh how I dear the music punishment from the, everything seemed to be way statesman yeasty than today penalization.