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.

The lame duck that wouldn’t die

The New Neo Posted on by

The WaPo offers this fascinating glimpse into why the lame duck sessions of Congress have continued despite the obvious need to stop them. It turns out that the 20th Amendment (passed in 1933) was intended to do just that when it moved the transition date from March to January. At the time, this effectively thwarted lame duck sessions because, “…it was inconceivable that lawmakers would journey back to Washington to meet for a few weeks after Thanksgiving.”

Ah, those short-sighted legislators! Enter airplane travel. Although the amendment did work as intended for many decades, by the 80s it had become obsolete. And now we have the worst—most “ambitious,” that is—lame duck session since the amendment was passed, according to John Copeland Nagle, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame and “one of the obscure amendment’s few scholars.”

And I love this quote:

“We wouldn’t need to be doing all this in the lame duck if the Republicans had not obstructed and delayed everything that we had been trying to do,” said Regan LaChapelle, a spokeswoman for Reid. “I don’t see anything wrong with working for the American people to get things done.”

Yes, the Republicans made them do it. The Democrats tried and tried to get those “Bush tax cuts” [sic] extended while the Republicans stood in their way and pushed for HCR and cap and trade. And of course, it’s the “American people” clamoring for the enactment of the rest of the Democratic Party agenda. That’s why the Democrats won such a resounding victory last November.

The Dream Act dies–for now

The New Neo Posted on by

It was only a Dream.

Depending on the source, articles describing the defeat of the Dream Act refer to the young people involved as either illegal immigrants (correct) or undocumented immigrants (annoying euphemism).

The measure, which would have granted citizenship to those who “came to the United States as children, completed two years of college or military service and met other requirements including passing a criminal background check,” was defeated by 41 Senate votes although it had majority support.

This effectively means the Dream is dead until at least 2014; be assured it won’t be given up permanently by the Democrats, who among other things are eager to swell the voter rolls with those they consider their constituents, and to encourage more illegals to come here with their children in order to receive similar benefits.

Legal immigrants are already eligible to serve in the military and be fast-tracked to citizenship. Illegals aren’t. And this “undocumented” business really, really gets my goat. It suggests that those who came here illegally are guilty only of a mere paperwork glitch.

Even the NY Times, which at least doesn’t use the “undocumented” gambit in its article, plays the sad violin:

…[The Dream Act] would have helped grant legal status to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrant students and recent graduates whose lives are severely restricted because they are illegal residents, though many have lived in the United States for nearly their entire lives.

And Senator Durbin of Illinois, in a plea for support of the Act, had this to say of the young illegals:

They stand in the classrooms and pledge allegiance to our flag. They sing our star-spangled banner as our national anthem. They believe in their heart of hearts this is home. This is the only country they have every [sic] known.

It’s a fascinating argument. The believe in their hearts that this is home. They feel it, don’t you see? And who are we to frustrate those feelings? It is incumbent on us to remedy the lack of a few piddling papers, and to make reality conform to belief, as it should.

Use Amazon at neo-neocon for those last-minute gifts

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s getting late, but not too late. There’s still time to use the handy Amazon widgets on my right sidebar to click-though to Amazon and order gifts for all the loved ones, friends, relatives, and business acquaintances on your list. Hey, you can even get something for yourself! All of it will benefit neo-neocon without costing you an extra cent. Sounds like a deal to me.

Obama: Comeback Kid II?

The New Neo Posted on by

Bill Clinton did it—at a low political ebb after a Congressional defeat, he returned to the center and won re-election. Charles Krauthammer believes that President Obama has just received concessions via the tax bill that will allow him to do the same in short order. It’s worth reading the whole thing to get a flavor of what Krauthammer is saying.

Is he correct? Dunno. But if he is, it would mark a new low in stupidity and amnesia on the part of the American people. It’s been obvious to anyone paying a moment of attention to the last two years that Obama had no interest in compromise or moving to the middle until he was dragged there, kicking and screaming, by an angry electorate. Even now, he can’t resist bad-mouthing the other side even as he reluctantly concedes to them. Does anyone believe that, once re-elected in 2012, he would not move as far to the left as Congress would let him?

Besides, unemployment is still down and may remain so, the economy is still stalled and may remain so, our foreign affairs are still chaotic and our reputation for strength in the gutter, Obamacare is still unpopular, and the deficit was still sky-high when last I looked. What’s more, despite what Krauthammer writes about liberals being angry at Obama but having no place else to go in 2012, they really don’t have to go anywhere to desert him; they can just stay home.

Bill Clinton was a different sort of politician with a different sort of history. Like him or not, he came across as personally warm, and he moved people to believe he understood (and felt!) their pain. Obama is quite the opposite. Clinton also had a history as governor of Arkansas of operating from the center and then campaigning from the center. His move to the left was more the aberration, and so his move back to the center, although strategic, was also seen as believable and even sincere. Obama is quite the opposite.

The American people just might decide to say to Obama, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me…” Obama has betrayed their trust, and trust once lost is hard to recapture and must be slowly rebuilt with demonstration after demonstration of lessons learned. Nothing Obama has done has constituted even the first step in that process; he’s merely being pragmatic for the moment—and I like to think that enough voters have been paying attention that they’re aware of it.

Perhaps not, though. Perhaps Krauthammer is correct to operate as though the old saying “no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people” is correct. If so, too many of us are fools.

Omnibus budget bill: easy come, easy go

The New Neo Posted on by

It seemed to come out of nowhere, as all these mammoth bills have lately—all two thousand pages of it. For a few days it caused a commotion, but now it has vanished as mysteriously as it came.

Or maybe not so mysteriously. The Omnibus funding bill was so earmark-laden that even some business-as-usual Republicans who were initially willing to go along realized their constituents wouldn’t approve, and so they backed away. The 2010 election and the power of the Tea Party appears to have put the fear into a significant number of members of Congress, if only temporarily.

It’s been a travesty that the Democrats could not or would not pass a funding bill while they had the overwhelming power to do so. Now time seems to have run out, and they’re passing the buck (literally) to the next Congress, in which Republicans will have a much greater say. Then we can watch the Old Guard fight with the New.

Here’s David Rogers’s take at Politico:

For the White House this is the worst case scenario because of the potential for another disruptive “shut down the government” veto fight in February, even as the president is trying to roll out his new budget for 2012.

The GOP paid a heavy price when it did the same in 1995 to then President Bill Clinton, but Obama isn’t without risks. The great mistake Republicans made in 1995 was to bring another issue””Medicare””into the appropriations standoff. But if the GOP learns and simply cuts spending, Obama will find it harder to veto the bill for fear he will be accused of shutting down the government himself.

According to Rich Lowry, McConnell and McCain were instrumental in reminding Republicans tempted to vote “yea” of the results of the 2010 election.

As for me, I’m especially pleased because hidden in the vast recesses of the bill was funding for Obamacare. It would be good if a simple and “clean” funding bill could be passed extending present funding to tide over the government until the new Congress can tackle the issues inherent in a budget bill, and give them proper weight. And then we’ll see what Obama will do in response.

Al Megrahi update

The New Neo Posted on by

Every now and then I check to see how al Megrahi—the convicted Lockerbie bomber released from prison by Scotland a year and a half ago (how time flies!)—is getting along.

When he was allowed to go home to Libya in August of 2009, it was said he had three months or less to live. A week ago there was a report by an unnamed relative that al Megrahi was now in a coma and within days of death, and Gaddafi added that his family plans to sue Scotland for mistreating him while in prison. And yet there was a simultaneous report from East Renfrewshire Council, the Scotland group responsible for monitoring him, that the other report was bogus.

Absolutely no surprise here:

A spokeswoman for the council, whose criminal justice social work staff are charged with monitoring Megrahi, said: “Today’s media speculation regarding Mr Megrahi is just that, and rumours are unfounded.”

She added: “We continue to be in contact with Mr Megrahi regularly and whenever we need to be for the purposes of supervision.”

What I wonder is this: why would reporters believe a thing this man’s family says about him? I know, I know; rhetorical question.

Rumer vs. Carpenter

The New Neo Posted on by

On this recent thread about singing, commenter “Anne” mentioned a contemporary singer named Rumer and compared her to Karen Carpenter.

I’d never heard of Rumer, and so I went to YouTube (never need much urging to take a trip to YouTube, my favorite vice!), and listened. This is what I heard:

I certainly hear—something a bit similar. There’s the obvious fact that both Rumer and Carpenter specialize in languid tunes with a hint of melancholy. Both have a relaxed and easy unforced quality with a harmonic vibration in the lower registers.

But Rumer lacks that special quality I mentioned here—an immediately recognizable uniqueness. Carpenter’s voice has a richness and a resonance in the lower registers that is hers alone.

Simply put, Rumer is a viola, and Carpenter a cello:

Tax bill stalled

The New Neo Posted on by

The sticking point at the moment seems to be something to do with tacking on a raise in the estate tax, but you try to figure it out (see also here).

It should never have come to this, of course; the tax cuts should have been dealt with earlier. But Obama and Congress were obsessed with passing HCR and cap and trade and a host of other goodies on their agenda, and that seemed to take up the bulk of their time while they still had time left; now they’ve run out of it. But more importantly, until now they saw no reason to extend the tax cuts, because they were dominant and they didn’t want to do it.

Their defeat in the election of 2010 changed that, especially for Obama, who suddenly re-connected with his inner bipartisan—you remember, the one who spoke so eloquently in 2004 and then again during the 2008 campaign but who went into hiding while the president was taken over by his evil partisan twin? Now that there is a renewed reason to compromise, lo and behold, we see the first glimmerings of it.

Hiking the estate tax further is apparently irresistible to some, however. Of course, the objection that the money involved has already been taxed during the deceased person’s lifetime is not considered worthwhile by those who believe the rich should not be able to leave their money to their children. After all, isn’t the money’s only temporarily on loan, and doesn’t it really belong to the government, which is just reclaiming a large portion of it?

Most prognosticators seem to be saying that this is merely a little blip, and that the tax cut bill will pass, so that the American people will at least get an idea of what their taxes will be before the next Congress convenes. And that latter event can’t happen a moment too soon, although no illusions should be retained that the new Congress will be significantly more functional than the old.