[The following is a slightly edited repeat of a previous post.]
Tonight is the beginning of the Jewish holiday Passover.
I’ve been impressed by the fact that Passover is a religious holiday dedicated to an idea that’s not solely religious: freedom. Yes, it’s about a particular historical (or perhaps legendary) event: the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. But the Seder ceremony makes clear that, important though that specific event may be, freedom itself is also being celebrated. Continue reading →
You may recall that Sweden never really locked down over COVID. Although certain precautions were recommended, life went on more normally than in most other countries. The official death count per million people there from COVID was lower than in many other European countries such as Hungary, Slovakia, Portugal, Belgium, Czechia, Spain, Italy, UK, and France, as well as the US. Sweden had more COVID deaths per million (at least, according to official statistics) than Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Greece, Norway, Finland, and Denmark.
So it’s pretty clear that Sweden came out fairly well in terms of comparative statistics within Europe. And now we learn that Sweden experienced lower overall mortality in 2020, too:
Preliminary data from EU statistics agency Eurostat compiled by Reuters showed Sweden had 7.7% more deaths in 2020 than its average for the preceding four years. Countries that opted for several periods of strict lockdowns, such as Spain and Belgium, had so-called excess mortality of 18.1% and 16.2% respectively.
Twenty-one of the 30 countries with available statistics had higher excess mortality than Sweden. However, Sweden did much worse than its Nordic neighbours, with Denmark registering just 1.5% excess mortality and Finland 1.0%. Norway had no excess mortality at all in 2020.
But neighboring countries don’t necessarily have similar statistics at all, which is one of the many things about COVID that we don’t quite understand. Should Sweden be compared to the rest of Europe, or to its extreme outlier neighbors such as Norway? What are the most important variables that contribute to these differences? Policies? Climate? Population habits or demographics? Chance? Method of reporting statistics? Treatment? None of the above? All of the above?
And yet our lack of knowledge doesn’t stop people from making sweeping generalizations. A little while ago I had a conversation in which a man I know declared that the US has “the worst COVID record of any country.” I called him on it, telling him that our death per million rate is exceeded by many countries. He said I was wrong, and then I recited statistics for him (I’d looked it up just a few days earlier).
Did those statistics change his mind? I’m virtually certain they did not. I don’t think he is the least bit unusual in that, either.
It is sad to see how susceptible people are to Critical Race Training propaganda – although I suppose it’s not all that surprising. CRT is more than propaganda, of course. It functions more like a cult that is programmed through training, group think, and pressure (intra- and inter-personal).
CRT works on some of people’s better impulses as well as some of their worst: on guilt and people’s impulse to make amends for historic wrongs, on fear of being called racist, the desire to fit in, and techniques of brainwashing.
I know from personal experience how hard it is for most people to speak out against group pressure. Several times I’ve been in the position of speaking out (on other issues, mostly when I was in school) and each time I’ve done it alone although many people would come up to me privately afterward and say they agreed with me but were afraid to speak out publicly. And this was in situations considerably less fraught with peril than objecting to CRT in a job situation, for example. But publicly speaking out in that way is usually stressful and the social costs are high even if one’s job isn’t at stake (mine never was).
Something called Critical Race Theory intervened to turn our society around, head it back toward racial enmity and, to be blunt, destroy our country, and with it our common humanity, unless it is stopped.
Unlike slavery, which was overt, CRT is a growing cancer infecting our schools, media, entertainment, and businesses. It is everywhere, often unseen and more often not even known or recognized by a large percentage of the public, so all the more dangerous.
Many definitions and explanations of Critical Race Theory exist, a literal phantasmagoria of intellectual obfuscation, the stuff of theses and “studies,” some of it quite brilliantly, if sophistically, executed, but CRT boils down to something quite simple.
Martin Luther King’s justifiably famous dream that the day will come when we judge each other by our characters and not by the color of our skins has been turned on its head.
I’ve said it was a cult. But it’s a cult that doesn’t talk about a deity or religion although it functions somewhat like a stern sort of religion that brooks no argument and demands unquestioning obedience. It also shares something with Nazism and Communism, although CRT is neither. That “something” that it shares is a view of the world that divides people into groups based on some inherent characteristic, and then rewards or punishes them on that basis. Show trials, pressure, and public confession are sometimes part of it.
The Nazis, like the CRT trainers, categorized people by race, although Nazis added nationality. Nazis developed a hierarchy of peoples around Europe, with Germans at the top and the rest subservient and even marked for slavery or death in some cases. The hierarchy they set up was far more complex and widespread than most people realize, and it was deadly serious (literally). That it was stark raving mad was no bar to their belief in it, their teaching of it, and their ability to implement it in the real world wherever and whenever they gained power and chose to exercise it. Here’s a very brief summary for those of you unfamiliar with what I’m talking about (much more at the link, including the hierarchy of countries and ethnic groups and how they were ranked for better or worse treatment by supposed degree of racial and cultural similarity to Germans):
Generalplan Ost was a secret Nazi German plan for the colonization of Central and Eastern Europe. Implementing it would have necessitated genocide and ethnic cleansing on a vast scale to be undertaken in the European territories occupied by Germany during World War II. It would have included the extermination of most Slavic people in Europe.
Soviet Communists based their own hierarchy mostly on class, although it wasn’t quite that simple.
The Nazis’ racial/ethnic theories and the Soviets’ class theories are reductionist; they pretty much are Theories of Everything, pretty much all you need to explain most of the complexities and mysteries of the human world. And they offer a solution (or at the very least an explanation) and proclaim that you are supposed to regard the purveyors of these “truths” as authorities. Protest is not just futile; it is dangerous. CRT shares these characteristics.
Nazism and Communism are among the most destructive ideologies the world has ever known. CRT is not the same, but I don’t think that Simon is exaggerating the damage CRT has already done and has the potential to do.
You may think I am being ridiculous by comparing it to Nazism and Communism. I can assure you it’s something I don’t do lightly. When people are grouped together by race or similar characteristics, excoriated and blamed on that basis for the ills of the world, called names, told to shut up if they want to disagree or protest, encouraged to publicly confess their sins (including thought crime) and to make amends, are shunned or punished and/or their livelihood taken away if they don’t agree, then you’re in cultland and if those dispensing this toxic theory ever come to full power you might be in even greater danger.
When you look at CRT from the outside in seems so insane and morally wrong that you can’t believe anyone accepts it. But with group pressure, they do – far more often than one might think.
I am very surprised that this story has been allowed to appear in Politico.
It goes like this:
On Oct. 23, 2018, President Joe Biden’s son Hunter and daughter in law Hallie were involved in a bizarre incident in which Hallie took Hunter’s gun and threw it in a trash can behind a grocery store, only to return later to find it gone.
Delaware police began investigating, concerned that the trash can was across from a high school and that the missing gun could be used in a crime, according to law enforcement officials and a copy of the police report obtained by POLITICO.
“Bizarre incident” is Hunter Biden’s middle name, so no surprise there.
But that was only the beginning of the story, and not really the most noteworthy part. It’s too complex to summarize succinctly, but it involves (among other things) a possible coverup, Hunter’s lying on the application form for the gun, and Hallie’s fear of a suicide attempt by Hunter.
There’s also this:
The incident has received scant attention, save for a report on the conservative website The Blaze that focused on the state police decision not to file charges against either Hunter or Hallie.
It’s a question we’ve asked many times, but can you imagine the coverage and the reaction if an incident like this had involved one of Donald Trump’s children? Or any Republican, for that matter?
States can’t enforce boundaries against interstate migration. That’s been true my whole life, but until the last decade or so it was a thought that had zero significance for me.
For quite a while, though, it’s been apparent that this simple fact has been responsible for at least some of the leftward drift of our country. Over and over we seem to have the following phenomenon: people who are upset with something or many things the left has imposed or allowed in their own home states – high taxes, toleration of large numbers of street people, crime, release of prisoners, leftist ideology in school systems, crumbling infrastructure – leave for more pleasant environments where states and cities are well-managed and clean, housing is affordable, and taxes are relatively low.
And then they vote for people advocating policies that will turn their new states of abode in the direction of their old states.
I’m not sure to what extent this happens – surely, some of the refugees from blue states have become red-pilled as part of the process of disillusionment and will be voting more conservatively. But I’m convinced that it does happen that a lot of people keep voting Democrat, and that if it keeps happening it will cause more and more states to become reliably blue.
I have no idea what to do about this phenomenon, but nothing comes to mind. Any ideas? Glenn Reynolds has been suggesting the following for years:
Over at Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds links to a typically perceptive column by Joel Kotkin about the explosive economic growth in regions dominated by red states, which are now attracting migrants from the failed blue states, and then offers this observation:
“The danger, of course, is that these immigrants will bring the same toxic blue-state politics with them that produced the disasters they’re fleeing. Someone should set up a sort of Welcome Wagon — an education program for these immigrants that will encourage them to appreciate the policy and cultural differences that led to the prosperity that’s attracted them.”
A good place to start might be by withholding the vote in state and local elections for a reasonable period — say, 50 years — until they get acclimated to their new environments.
That last sentence is a joke, of course. But the situation is no joke at all.
…[I]t also happens intrastate. Liberal voters get frustrated with progressive policies in action in large cities, so they flee to the suburbs. The suburbs then become reliably blue and start down the same path of deterioration, so the liberal voters flee to exurbs. Then, to smaller cities and towns in the same state, but farther away from the major city they (or their parents) originally fled from.
Call it ‘Blue Flight’
And, unfortunately, I don’t think many of them get red-pilled…at least not sufficiently to change their voting habits.
While intrastate migration doesn’t affect the state’s Presidential preference, it certainly can as to congressional districts and, especially, state legislative districts.
I try not to watch Biden much, although I certainly follow what he does. During the campaign, I never shared the attitude of so many people that he is somehow a victim being exploited by wife or party. For one thing, although he is clearly in some degree in cognitive decline, he’s not so far gone that he lacks all agency or judgment. He is a willing – nay, eager – participant in the process that has led him to become president.
Furthermore, it’s what he’s always wanted. He’s tried time and again, and failed till now, but this is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream and goal. He’s never been especially intelligent or distinguished himself much in any way except for his willingness to do what’s necessary to be elected and his propensity for plagiarism and lying. Those traits are all still strongly in evidence.
It’s instructive to look back at this interview he gave back in 1974, over forty-five years ago. He was only 31 years old but already a senator, and had recently lost his wife and one child in a horrendous car accident. Here are a few quotes:
He defines politics as power. “And, whether you like it or not, young lady,” he says, leaning over his desk to shake a finger at me, “us cruddy politicians can take away that First Amendrnent of yours if we want to.”
Mull that one over. And this:
Senator Biden’s friends say he is looking for more than a wife and mother. “He also needs to find a First Lady,” says one, “a woman who enjoys politics and will help him get to the White House.”
And then there’s this:
He feels the indignity is compounded by the temptation to sell out to big business or big labor for financial help, and says it’s almost impossible for a candidate to remain true to his conscience in this situation. He admits that more than once he was tempted to compromise to get campaign money. “I probably would have if it hadn’t been for the ramrod character of my Scotch Presbyterian wife,” he say’s. “I am not a rich man. And my family does not have money. If I sold every thing I own, including my house and cars, I could probably’ scratch up S200,000, but that’s nothing compared to most of the guys in the Senate.”
Plus:
His sister Valerie says…“Joey is going to be President someday. He was made to be in the White House. There is no one else who can lead the country. Just you wait and see.”…
A wire service reporter sizes up Biden’s chances as “better than 60-40.” He added, Can you imagine what they’ll be when he’s old enough to run and people know who he is?”
I bet no one reading that back in 1974 could quite imagine Biden’s actual trajectory, and what condition he and the country would be in when he was finally “old enough to run.”
This was Biden’s coming out party, and the nation faces a mess that will only grow worse with time. The man who campaigned on unity is hell-bent on permanent polarization, meaning cancel culture and the supercharged racial climate are here to stay.
Biden gave license to the worst instincts on the left with his repeated sneering references to all Republicans and especially Donald Trump. At one point, he actually accused Trump of letting immigrant children “starve to death on the other side” of the Mexican border.
He said it in a room full of 30 supposed journalists and not a single one challenged him or even asked whether he meant it literally. In fact, not a single one challenged him on any of his falsehoods.
Nor did anyone ask him why he read from prepared talking points during answers to three questions on foreign policy. No recent president has felt the need to do that.
There also were moments when he talked himself into dead ends, yet there were no questions about when he would release the health reports he’s been hiding.
Regarding his agenda, a report that Biden sees himself as the new FDR gives credence to the idea that he’s all in for every big, crazy idea left-wing Dems can cook up.
Each piece of his party’s planned utopia is unprecedentedly radical in its own way, but not nearly radical enough for the media. Their performance was pathetic not just in what questions they asked and didn’t ask, but how they asked them. The dominant theme was that Biden and his team are not moving fast enough to turn America upside down and inside out.
Of course, FDR actually had a mandate. Not so for good old Joe. But he won’t let that stop him if he can possibly swing it.
Much more at the link.
Much of what Goodwin writes about Biden was already true, though, when Biden was Obama’s VP and his cognitive faculties were as intact as ever. Back then he was fully cooperative with Obama’s program, and the press covered for him (and Obama, of course).
Biden’s debate in 2008 against Sarah Palin featured a great many lies and errors, and not little ones either, but almost all in the press utterly failed to call him on any of it and lauded his performance.
The NY Post was one of the few back in 2008 willing to say what was going on:
For all the focus on Sarah Palin’s graceful performance in Thursday’s vice presidential showdown, a more significant spectacle was taking place behind the other rostrum.
That’s where Joe Biden, speaking with the pompous self-importance befitting his 36 years in the Senate, told one baffling fib after another.
The article then goes on to list a lot of big lies Biden told.
So what’s happening now is only a change in the degree to which Biden is cognitively impaired, the degree to which the Democratic Party has been emboldened to move to the far left, and also the degree to which they are willing to do anything to hold onto power indefinitely. Joe Biden is actually the perfect tool for that, or at least not an imperfect tool. He has a long history of being “affable old Joe” and people not paying attention – and a lot of people aren’t paying attention – can be lulled into a false sense of security by that. He will do what is necessary without any hesitation. And he can easily be removed and replaced with Harris if and when it’s decided that would be most expedient.
For those of you who are stunned that a man this mediocre, mendacious, and debilitated is actually president, my response is that he’s the perfect symbol of the decline that America and even the Western world has experienced during the last couple of decades.
My post on the song “City of New Orleans” got a lot of comments, and what’s more that sort of thing is a wonderful respite from political angst. So, since I have even more to say on the subject, why not do another post?
Some of the commentary in that previous post had to do with a subject dear to my heart, which is comparing one version of a song to another. I’m not alone in noticing that people often prefer the first version they’ve ever heard, although for some reason I don’t seem to share that pattern.
There’s no right or wrong in song preferences, because it’s a matter of personal taste. With “The City of New Orleans,” I’ve already expressed my preference for the version sung by the song’s creator, Steve Goodman, over the more popular and much more well-known Arlo Guthrie version – although Guthrie’s happens to be the one I heard first.
Not everyone agreed with me, and I don’t expect them to. For one thing, Goodman’s version is more idiosyncratic and unusual, in addition to being more unfamiliar. For another, Guthrie’s version is really really really good, too; what’s not to like? So at the outset let me say I’m not arguing with anyone about this. I just find it interesting, and I’d like to explain in more detail the differences I see between the versions, and why I prefer Goodman’s rendition although I very much enjoy both.
The song itself is one of those instant classics that are almost universally loved. What it is that makes it that way I can’t explain, except to repeat that it’s one of those songs that seems to exist in some Platonic sense as though it’s always been around, a perfect melding of sound and sense in almost all its versions.
Now let’s cut to the chase. Here’s the original Arlo Guthrie studio version. I’ve seen an interview with him where he said that his group did seven completely different treatments of the song in different styles, and this more simple one won out over the others and is the one they finally released. The backup singers are a good part of the magic, and it has a gentle, rolling, slightly-mournful quality:
You can’t help but tap your foot and sing along, right? At least, I can’t. It’s lovely. But it mostly stays on one dynamic level, with only a slight increase in loudness and intensity for the chorus. I assume that’s by design, with the smooth flow of energy enhancing the idea of the soothing sound of a train.
But why did Guthrie change a few of the words? You may not notice it, if you’re not familiar with Goodman’s version (and you may not care), but I want to call your attention to the following, which I’ll take up again later:
At around 00:46 Guthrie sings, “trains that have no name…”
At around 2:01 he sings, “ride their fathers’ magic carpets made of steel…”
At around 2:13 he sings, of the mothers and their babies being rocked, “and the rhythm of the rails is all they feel…”
Now for Goodman and a complete change of energy. Goodman isn’t laid-back, although he can be on other songs; he’s very versatile. But here he plays the guitar with great force to establish a driving rhythm, along with some fierce picking, and his body language emphasizes all of this. The song carries him away, and along with the energy he shows, he can’t help but express his delight in the song itself and the fact that he gets to sing it and play it for the audience. I find his joy infectious; you may not. It’s not at the expense of loveliness and pathos, either, because his singing voice is both expressive and beautiful.
In addition, there are almost constant dynamic changes both in his guitar playing and his singing. He changes the volume, the loudness and the emphasis more than Guthrie does, and he uses slightly different lyrics which I have to assume are the original ones. Not only that, but it’s always an impressive feat when someone plays intricate guitar solos and sings along so beautifully. I suppose this is as good a place as any to note that Goodman pronounces “New Orleans” the way that natives supposedly do: “New Orlins” (I certainly don’t know; I had to look it up and that’s what I found), whereas Guthrie says “New Orleen” and sometimes “New Orleens.”
Here he is, the irrepressible Steve Goodman:
His guitar won me over before he even started singing. Here are some moments I find particularly wonderful:
At about 1:35 when he sings “out on a southbound odyssey…”, the guitar gets quieter for the slow beginning of the journey. Then, when he adds “and it rolls past…” the speed and volume pick up.
At around 1:44 he sings, “passing towns that have no name…” Guthrie sang “trains that have no name.” I find Goodman’s lyric far better, giving the idea of small towns that time has passed by and no one notices. The idea of trains not having a name, on the other hand, is ho-hum.
At around 1:55 the guitar gets a little louder again.
At around 2:12 when the card game begins, the guitar gets softer again as he concentrates on the game.
At around 2:21, there’s a little smile for “nobody keeping score.”
At around 2:35, he sings, “ride their Daddys’ magic carpet made of steel…” [correction: “steam”]. Guthrie sings “fathers'”, which is so much more formal and indicates older children. That word “Daddys'” gives it an intimacy and warmth that the Guthrie version lacks.
At around 2:40 and following, when he sings about mothers rocking their sleeping babies, Goodman starts bouncing up and down as though he’s part of what he’s describing – rocking. And his voice rises higher at the end of the phrase “and the rhythm of the rails is all they dream…”, more like a woman’s voice would sound, with a beautiful near-yodel effect. Note also that he says that the rhythm of the rails is all they “dream.” In that same line, Guthrie sings, “And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel,” which seems to me to be a more prosaic and ordinary thought.
I love the 3:08 to 3:25 solo.
At around 3:32 when he sings of nighttime on the train and the stop for a change of cars, he starts getting softer again.
At around 3:43 to 3:46 when he sings, “and all the towns and people seem to fade into a bad dream…” his singing and playing gets quieter – it fades and becomes hushed. The guitar fades, too, and it gets so quiet that it becomes softly percussive at around 3:45 to 3:50 (“and that steel rail still ain’t heard the news”).
At around 3:52 when he sings, “the conductor sings…” he starts bouncing and getting louder again, and then around 4:39 he begins to end the song, with a high sustained note as the rhythm part of his playing gets slower and slower, which indicates the train slowing down.
Goodman’s has such verve it’s catching. I can’t help but smile as I watch him – although in slower songs, he can easily make you cry. Speaking of verve, catch this (he’s introduced here by a very young Arlo Guthrie):
Nikuyah Walker was elected to the City Council in November 2017, and currently serves as mayor. Her term is up at the end of 2021. Her political goals have to do with racial and social justice, and the city website states that Walker’s “commitment has been to authentic inclusion, equity, and progress.”
That date, November 2017, struck me as being not long after the Charlottesville demonstration/riot in which one woman was killed and Trump’s remarks were widely disseminated and misrepresented. My guess was that Walker’s election was at least in part a reaction to that incident, and her Wiki page backs that idea up:
Walker began her campaign in March 2017. Her campaign gained traction after the Unite the Right rally in August 2017. Walker publicly pressured the City Council and then-mayor Michael Signer to answer questions about why a permit had been issued for the rally, and why the City Council was not addressing issues raised by the event. Walker and Heather Hill were elected to the city council, winning 29% and 28% of the vote respectively.
Here it’s that polite, you know, civil political scene. I tell people all the time: “In very polite, civil discussions around boardroom tables, eating Baggby’s sandwiches, you have put policies in place that have ruined generations of native families in this area.” So I don’t really care about your request for civility…
I can’t bring myself to do it. I’m not a glutton for punishment. But I’ll pay attention later if anything of interest emerges.
Comment seen at Ace’s: “I see the Lying Crapweasel part of his brain remains intact.”
As I’ve written many times, Joe Biden was awful long before he started his cognitive decline, and one of the most unashamed liars in the business of politics, which is saying something. I neither liked nor respected him back when I was a Democrat, and time has not enhanced his character. Most of America never liked him either, which is why his previous national candidacies went nowhere – as his 2016 one was going before the Democrats decided to throw their full weight behind him.
Now he’s having a press conference that doesn’t resemble what we used to know as press conferences. It certainly doesn’t resemble the attack fests from the press that were the Trump press conferences, or even the press group hugs that Obama hosted, which at least seemed off-the-cuff for the most part. Here’s some info on how Biden prepared for the occasion.
