We have the harvest moon

The New Neo Posted on by

Last night was a rare “super harvest moon” (see also this), and I went outside to gaze at the lovely sight.

And since I’m one of those people with a lot of poetry rattling around in my head, up popped some lines from “Mr. Flood’s Party” by Edwin Arlington Robinson, one of the poems I loved when I first read it back in junior high school.

It’s a sad poem, as are almost all of Arlington’s works. The subject is an elderly drunk in Tilbury Town (the stand-in for Robinson’s hometown of Gardiner, Maine) whose life is almost over, and who has a conversation with himself while in his cups:

Old Eben Flood, climbing alone one night
Over the hill between the town below
And the forsaken upland hermitage
That held as much as he should ever know
On earth again of home, paused warily.
The road was his with not a native near;
And Eben, having leisure, said aloud,
For no man else in Tilbury Town to hear:

“Well, Mr. Flood, we have the harvest moon
Again, and we may not have many more;
The bird is on the wing, the poet says,
And you and I have said it here before.
Drink to the bird.” He raised up to the light
The jug that he had gone so far to fill,
And answered huskily: “Well, Mr. Flood,
Since you propose it, I believe I will.”

There are many more stanzas, but my favorite back then (and now) was/is this one:

Then, as a mother lays her sleeping child
Down tenderly, fearing it may awake,
He set the jug down slowly at his feet
With trembling care, knowing that most things break;
And only when assured that on firm earth
It stood, as the uncertain lives of men
Assuredly did not, he paced away,….

More here, if you care to read it.

Robinson (often confused with another tri-named poet who wrote character sketches based on people he knew in the two Illinois towns in which he was raised, Edgar Lee Masters) had a life full of darkness and tragedy, but utterly dedicated to poetry. Like Frost who came slightly after him, he was a New Englander, and a master of forms. Robinson is by far the lesser poet, but that doesn’t make him a bad one, although he’s considered very old-fashioned nowadays.

You may not remember Robinson’s name, but you’re probably familiar with his most famous poem, “Richard Cory.” But did you know that he was discovered by Teddy Roosevelt, who was almost singlehandedly responsible for his fame?

Woodward on Obama and Afghanistan: hello we must be going

The New Neo Posted on by

Woodward’s book on Obama’s Afghanistan policy-making process reveals that Obama didn’t speak of victory there:

According to Woodward’s meeting-by-meeting, memo-by-memo account of the 2009 Afghan strategy review, the president avoided talk of victory as he described his objectives.

“This needs to be a plan about how we’re going to hand it off and get out of Afghanistan,” Obama is quoted as telling White House aides as he laid out his reasons for adding 30,000 troops in a short-term escalation. “Everything we’re doing has to be focused on how we’re going to get to the point where we can reduce our footprint.

Is there anyone on earth who is surprised by this? If so, they shouldn’t be.

Nor by this:

Privately, he told Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to push his alternative strategy opposing a big troop buildup in meetings, and while Mr. Obama ultimately rejected it, he set a withdrawal timetable because, “I can’t lose the whole Democratic Party.”

Of course not. Let’s sacrifice the war effort by letting the enemy know when we’re leaving, in order to preserve your political support with your base.

[NOTE: For an explanation of the title of this post see this]:

Larry Summers says buh-bye

The New Neo Posted on by

The White House has announced that economics adviser Larry Summers is leaving.

I’ve been anticipating this move for quite some time (see this), and I’m certainly not the only one (see this). The real question is: why is Summers leaving? Don’t think you’ll find the answer in the formulaic articles about his wanting to return to Harvard before he has to reapply for tenure.

Was Summers’s ego not fed enough by the position, and was he also hurt by Obama’s failure to nominate him as Treasury Secretary? Was there a personality clash between the two? An ideology clash? Both? Neither? Will he write the tell-all book, or keep silent?

And who will replace him? Rumors are that Obama would like it to be a woman CEO. I have no quarrel with the CEO part—Obama’s financial advisers are predominantly academic types, and it would be nice to get the perspective of someone who’s been out more in the real world of business. But seeking a woman in particular bothers me.

It’s not that I’d mind at all if a woman were to be appointed (I have nothing against women; some of my best friends…). But to specifically look for one is PC offensiveness. Of course, that’s the way it goes these days. And of course, the Obama administration has said it will hire the best person (“Administration officials emphasized there’s no litmus test for the job and they will hire the most qualified person they can find.”) But it’s a good guess that that “best person” will somehow turn out to be a woman, perhaps this one.

The departing Summers is famous for rubbing people the wrong way (abrasive, like sandpaper), and his tenure as Harvard’s head featured fuming faculty members and a controversy over remarks he made about the scarcity of women in the most upper echelons of science (see this and this for my take on the matter).

Now that Obama would like to get some fresh blood into the administration, Summers will be on his way back to Harvard in a few months. And what does Harvard think of the return of the prodigal? Fine, as long as he doesn’t want to be President again, or hold any position of power and influence, according to this professor:

“Larry is always a source of lively argument and ideas,” said Theda Skocpol, a professor of government and sociology who had been one of Mr. Summers’s toughest critics, adding, “The Summers presidency ended quite a long time ago, and everybody at Harvard has long since moved on.”

Ouch.

Barney Frank is vulnerable, so how about a Sean Bielat money-bomb?

The New Neo Posted on by

Who’s Sean Bielat? Why, Barney Frank’s opponent, that’s who.

I’m a little late to the game, but apparently there’s a chance (see this and this) that Frank could be defeated.

Just let that sink in: Barney Frank’s tenure in the House could be over come January 2011.

Help make it happen by donating. And here’s Bielat’s website.

Please spread the word.

That popular touch: Palin vs. Obama

The New Neo Posted on by

Back in June, Barack Obama was seen as much more qualified than Sarah Palin for the presidency, if this Rasmussen poll of likely voters is any guide. Fifty-one percent considered him qualified, but only twenty-six percent said the same of her.

That’s quite a difference, although you may not agree with it and you may not like it. Personally, I don’t think either of them is especially qualified, although I think Palin has more qualifications for the job than Obama due to her previous executive experience.

Nor do I think Hillary Clinton is particularly qualified for the office she so covets, despite the fact that she beat them both on that score, with 57% of voters considering her qualified. Mitt Romney was the Republican closest to Obama’s rating (49%, which is within the margin of error) among the three queried about (Palin, Romney, Gingrich) by the pollsters. Although I’m not wild about him as a candidate, he does seem pretty well-qualified to me.

The poll was mum on the question of why Palin was seen to be unqualified: was it her lack of experience on the national scene, which could be remedied over time? Or was it something deeper, some perceived characterological flaw?

It was with Independents that Palin’s scores were especially telling on the dimension of qualifications: two to one of Independent respondents said Palin is unqualified, and it’s Independents who usually swing elections. But even Republicans were only equally split on the matter, while Democrats were very strongly in the “Palin-unqualified” camp.

A new Rasmussen poll presents an interesting contrast, although one that is not necessarily in opposition to the June poll results. The question was a different one: “Who’s [sic—Rasmussen, for shame!] views are closer to your own”¦Barack Obama’s or Sarah Palin’s?” Fifty-two percent said Palin versus forty percent for Obama. What’s more, Palin showed strength among Independents on this question, with 59% answering that her views were more like theirs than the President’s are.

I can only conclude that, so far, it seems that people like Palin (unless those people happen to be Democrats) and think that she represents their viewpoints quite well. She’s a populist with the common touch—unlike elitist Obama, who seems to have never had one.

But that’s not the same thing as wanting to vote for her over him if it came to a showdown. Her strength at the moment still appears to be as spokesman (woman?), rallier, gadfly, thorn in Obama’s side, and candidate-endorser. And at those things she’s doing very well indeed.

The UK government tax collection agency says…

The New Neo Posted on by

…all your money really belongs to us anyway, so why not just skip the middleman: you!

Perhaps it’s only a matter of time, although for now the proposal is still considered “radical:”

The UK’s tax collection agency is putting forth a proposal that all employers send employee paychecks to the government, after which the government would deduct what it deems as the appropriate tax and pay the employees by bank transfer.

The proposal by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) stresses the need for employers to provide real-time information to the government so that it can monitor all payments and make a better assessment of whether the correct tax is being paid.

Please read the whole article. In it, the proposal is criticized, to be sure. But the main arguments seem to be whether it would really save the government money or cost money instead, and whether errors would be likely to be made. Liberty? Never heard of it.

[Hat tip: commenter Artfldgr.]

[ADDENDUM: If you believe that the same mentality doesn’t exist here, note Paul Krugman’s recent remarks:

And among the undeniably rich, a belligerent sense of entitlement has taken hold: it’s their money, and they have the right to keep it.

Why, why, why—how dare they!

And lest you think that’s an isolated instance from Krugman, see his use of the word “giveaway” in the eleventh paragraph of this column.]

Malware alert?

The New Neo Posted on by

A few people are reporting that they’ve been getting a malware alert when they try to come to the site, and that it’s triggered by blogrolling. I’ve used blogrolling for my blogroll for five years, and there’s never been any problem before. I’ve been told that some other blogs that use blogrolling have been generating the same warning recently.

I just removed my blogroll to see whether the warning disappears. Please let me know whether you were getting a malware alert, and if so whether it has now disappeared.