Getting to know Mamdani – a bit late in the game

The New Neo Posted on by

Of course, lots of people would agree with Mamdani’s remark here, and they’ll be voting for him in November:

That’s instructive in so many ways. If you watch it, you’ll learn how smooth and smiley and downright pleasant Mamdani sounds. He just wants less inequality, that’s all, and he’ll work with everyone in New York to make the place more fair. It sounds good to a lot of people who don’t think much beyond the happy vision. Who really needs a billion dollars, anyway? Mamdani is just imagining a world in which billionaires don’t exist, but he doesn’t explain how that would occur or what the consequences would be.

We can guess. The methods that come to mind are to confiscate the money of anyone earning over a certain amount, either through an astronomical tax rate or some other method; or cap salaries and investments. The kind of “fairness” he’s talking about can only be accomplished through income redistribution and government control. Government decides how much people “should” earn. The effect this would have is that, on a local level, the rich would move away – and take their job creation with them. Or they’d just stop striving.

Kipling said something of the sort long ago:

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

I don’t know what Mamdani would have the power to actually do about it if he did become New York’s next mayor. But it’s just one of many worrisome statements of his.

He’s certainly got the attention of the press and pundits, and there’s a lot of analysis since last Tuesday of just who voted for him to account for his win. Here’s one article on the subject:

Less than 30% of Democrats voted in the mayoral primary. Of those, supposedly, 43.5% voted for Mamdani. So some 12.9% of New York Democrats voted for Mamdani.

56% of registered voters in the city are Democrats so some 7.2% of city residents voted for him. …

Mamdani’s base isn’t New Yorkers, it’s a coalition of white hipsters and Muslim immigrants, most of them weren’t even in the city during 9/11, like Mamdani, have no roots in the city, and no connection to its history. The quintessential New Yorker, as envisioned by a thousand Hollywood movies, TV shows and Broadway musicals, still exists, but is harder to find than ever. The city of those movies and shows can be glimpsed as a palimpsest under layers of chain stores, illegal migrants, social justice projects and vegan eateries before it vanishes again in the rain.

What happened to New York is what happened to legendary cities across the country and around the world, from Philly to London, which is that the revival of the 90s was the final act in driving out its working class and middle class population. Rents soared until the only young people who could afford to live there were white hipsters and third world immigrants.

And their politics became based on coalitions between the hipsters and the new arrivals. In New York City, as in London, it produced a Jihadist coalition that paved the way for a Muslim mayor.

Interesting observations. But unless a decent alternative is presented to the voters, and unless the opposition becomes focused on just a single candidate, Mamdani will probably win because his supporters are passionately involved. There’s apathy and disarray on the other side, and that’s not good.

My curious foray into poetry translation

The New Neo Posted on by

I was generally an excellent student, but my worst and most disliked subject was foreign languages. I’m not sure why, except that I hated having to memorize lists of words. I took Spanish because I was told it was easier than French – certainly the spelling was easier. But I still found it difficult, although I learned enough to get by at a fairly undemanding high school level. By now, I’ve forgotten almost all the Spanish I ever learned, which wasn’t much in the first place.

However, I recall that one day when I was in high school I resolved to translate a poem into Spanish. This was an exceptionally odd decision of mine, and it was definitely not an assignment. Granted, I loved poetry. But not only did I hate learning Spanish and knew relatively little, but translating poetry is exceptionally difficult and one needs exceptional skills to do it. I didn’t have those skills, to say the least.

Why the thought even occurred to me is a great puzzlement. I must have been bored that day, and was probably procrastinating about doing my other schoolwork. It was a weekend, most likely a Sunday. The challenge must have appealed to me. At any rate, armed with a large Spanish/English dictionary – which I would need for about 80% of the words – I proceeded to try.

What poem did I choose to translate? That’s very strange as well; it was A. E. Housman’s “To An Athlete Dying Young.” Granted, I liked the poem and still do. But it’s not an easy poem even in English, with some archaic words, and I also had to follow the rhyme scheme. But I went about doing it.

I never knew if my translation made any sense once I was done, because I never showed it to anyone who could speak Spanish. Sadly, I’ve lost most of my translation of the poem. But the other night, while looking for something else, I found a remnant of three stanzas. And so I’ve decided to put them here, and anyone who can speak Spanish (or anyone at all, for that matter) can give an opinion on them.

First, here’s the original poem in English. It has seven stanzas, and I translated them all. But only the last three of my translation survive. Here are those three in Housman’s original English:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s.

And here’s my translation. I believe that it’s probably missing some of the accent marks, alas, and I don’t know enough Spanish now to have a clue where the missing ones should be:

No aumentaras el gran numero
De estos con honor pasajero
Corredores de quien fama salio
Y antes del hombre, el nombre murio.

Pongas, antes de marchitan los ecos
El pie rapido en los bordes lejos
Y leventas al dintel bajo
La taza defendiste por su trabajo.

Y a esa cabeza de laurels coronado
Leventaran par aver el cuerpo de debilado
Y, en los rizos, la guirnalda sera
Más breve que lo de una niña.

I tried to translate back to English what I had written, and this is what I thought at the time that I’d said:

You will not increase the large number
Of those with fleeting [or transient] honor,
Runners from whom fame departed
And before the man, the name died.

Put, before the echoes fade
The fleet foot on the far border
And raise to the low lintel
The cup defended by your work.

And to that head with laurels crowned
Will flock to see the weakened body
And, on the curls, the garland will be
That is briefer than that of a girl.

And what does handy online Google Translate say that I wrote? Why, this:

You will not increase the great number
Of these with fleeting honor
Runners from whom fame came
And before man, the name died.

Place, before the echoes fade
The swift foot on the far-off edges
And raise to the low lintel
The cup you defended for its work.

And that head crowned with laurels
They will rise to see the weakened body
And, in the curls, the garland will be
Shorter than a girl’s.

Not half bad, I think.

And by the way, although Google says “shorter” rather than “briefer” in that last line, when I ask for the word in Spanish for “brief,” it gives me “breve.” So breve apparently means either short or brief.

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

As often is the case these days, there’s a ton of news and so I’m resorting to a roundup for some of it:

(1) Trump actually has made America great again – for the moment. He’s shown leadership on the world stage and accomplished something most countries applaud (some of them secretly, some overtly): the destruction or near-destruction of Iran’s nuclear program. But the Senate Democrats (minus Fetterman) would like to have been able to stop him, and would like to prevent future such actions by him:

The resolution, authored by Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, aimed to affirm that Trump should seek authorization from Congress before launching more military action against Iran. Asked Friday if he would bomb Iranian nuclear sites again if he deemed necessary, Trump said, “Sure, without question.”

The measure was defeated in a 53-47 vote in the Republican-held Senate. One Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, joined Republicans in opposition, while Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky was the only Republican to vote in favor.

Democrats had no such qualms about Obama’s bombing efforts abroad.

(2) Speaking of double standards, there’s Justice Kagan in 2022 on universal injunctions:

In a stunning display of judicial flip-flopping, Kagan’s own words from 2022 have come back to haunt her, exposing the left’s all-too-familiar habit of changing the rules when it suits their political objectives. …

Back in 2022, when President Biden was in the White House and conservatives were the ones seeking relief from his executive orders, Kagan was openly skeptical of nationwide injunctions.

“This can’t be right that one district judge can stop a nationwide policy in its tracks and leave it stuck for the years that it takes to go through a normal process,” she said.

(3) Did Andrew Sullivan just notice that trans extremism hurts gay people? That’s been obvious for well over a decade, and not just in the ways Sullivan mentions. I haven’t read Sullivan’s piece – it’s in the NY Times, and I can’t get behind their paywall at the moment – but the summary at the link, plus the quotes from Sullivan’s article, indicate he thinks that the excesses of the trans movement and in particular its move towards going after the children have alienated some of the public from the gay rights movement as well. Although that is certainly the case, the trans movement hurts gay people more directly by encouraging minors who would otherwise grow up to be gay or lesbian to mutilate themselves in an effort to change sex instead. This is most obvious in a country such as Iran, which punishes homosexuality harshly but encourages sex changes. But even in Western countries, the trans movement draws from people who would otherwise be gay if trans propaganda hadn’t swayed them.

(4) Cuomo isn’t withdrawing from the mayoral race:

While it’s hard to predict with any degree of certainty how this ultimately will play out, the first post-mayoral primary poll is out and shows Cuomo and Mamdani both with equal levels of support, and Adams trailing badly.

I hadn’t followed the mayoral race until a couple of days ago, but from what I’ve read and heard, Cuomo was sort of just phoning it in. Of course, plenty of New Yorkers dislike him for very good reasons. But still, he really didn’t attack Mamdani sufficiently, probably believing that he (Cuomo) could coast to victory. Now he’s woken up. But will New York? As far as Adams goes, he hadn’t really started his campaign till now. The big problem, however – aside for the fact that all these candidates are deeply flawed – is that the anti-Mamdani vote is split among Sliwa (the Repubublican, who probably doesn’t have any chance at all), Adams, and Cuomo.

(5) Speaking of Mamdani, the WaPo’s editorial board has come out against him:

Usually the liberal rag is little more than a mouthpiece for the DNC, so to see them go after a Democrat this hard is a stunner and reveals two things: 1) Mamdani and his extremist policies are truly a danger to the Big Apple, and 2), leftists are scared right now.

The headline of the piece is “Zohran Mamdani’s victory is bad for New York and the Democratic Party.”

The German definition of freedom of speech

The New Neo Posted on by

I learned long ago that compared to Europe and Canada and other countries I’d assumed had freedom of speech, only in the US is there a serious commitment to it. Of course, that commitment in the US is sometimes compromised, but it still is much greater than that of any country that comes to mind. Europe has long had hate speech laws, for example, and in Germany that situation been ramping up lately:

Police in Germany have launched a nationwide operation targeting suspected authors of online hate speech and incitement, according to information obtained by dpa.

More than 170 operations are planned, coordinated by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA).

The suspects are accused of incitement to hatred and insulting politicians, among other things.

The investigations focus on far-right statements made online. Many cases also involve criminal insults against politicians, with fewer cases concerning extremist religious or far-left postings.

Insulting politicians seems to be a crime in Germany. It also appears that these laws are more often enforced against the right than the left.

From this past April, FIRE reports:

This month, David Bendels, editor-in-chief for the Alternative for Germany (AfD)-affiliated Deutschland Kurier, received a seven-month suspended sentence for “abuse, slander or defamation against persons in political life.”

The offense? Bendels had edited and posted a photo of Interior Minister Nancy Faeser so that a sign she held said, “I hate freedom of opinion.” … A Bavarian district court found Bendels guilty under a provision giving advanced protections to political figures against speech.

And from this past February:

Dozens of police teams across Germany raided homes before dawn in a coordinated crackdown on a recent Tuesday. The state police weren’t looking for drugs or guns, they were looking for people suspected of posting hate speech online.

As prosecutors explain it, the German constitution protects free speech, but not hate speech. And here’s where it gets tricky: German law prohibits speech that could incite hatred or is deemed insulting. Perpetrators are sometimes surprised to learn that what they post online is illegal, according to Dr. Matthäus Fink, one of the state prosecutors tasked with policing Germany’s robust hate speech laws.

“They don’t think it was illegal. And they say, ‘No, that’s my free speech,'” Fink said. “And we say, ‘No, you have free speech as well, but it is also has its limits.'”

In other words, you are free to say nice things about people we like.

More:

Fink, and prosecutors Svenja Meininghaus and Frank-Michael Laue, explained that German law prohibits the spread of malicious gossip, violent threats and fake quotes. Reposting lies online can also be a crime.

And of course it’s they who get to determine what’s a lie or an insult worthy of prosecution:

The punishment for breaking hate speech laws can include jail time for repeat offenders. But in most cases, a judge levies a stiff fine and sometimes keeps the offender’s devices. …

It was a 2021 case involving Andy Grote, a local politician, that captured the country’s attention. Grote complained about a tweet that called him a “pimmel,” a German word for the male anatomy. His complaint triggered a police raid and accusations of excessive censorship by the government.

As prosecutors explained to “60 Minutes” correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, in Germany it’s OK to debate politics online, but it can be a crime to call anyone a pimmel, even a politician.

“Comments like ‘You’re son of a b—h,’ excuse me for using, but these words has nothing to do with a political discussions or a contribution to a discussion,” Fink said.

I won’t call Fink a pimmel, although he sounds like one.

Trump plays hardball with Canada on tariffs

The New Neo Posted on by

Here we go again:

We have just been informed that Canada, a very difficult Country to trade with, including the fact that they have charged our farmers as much as 400% Tariffs, for years, on dairy products, has just announced that they are putting a Digital Services Tax on our American technology companies, which is a direct and blatant attack on our country. They are obviously copying the European Union, which has done the same thing, and is currently under discussion with us, also. Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on trade with Canada, effective immediately. We will let Canada know the tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

The ball is in Canada’s court now.

SCOTUS rules that parents must be allowed to opt out of LGBTQ indoctrination in primary schools

The New Neo Posted on by

Ace has a lengthy post on the ruling from the busy Supreme Court – including photos from some of the books in question – in which he quotes The New York Times. From the Times:

Public schools in Maryland must allow parents with religious objections to withdraw their children from classes in which storybooks with L.G.B.T.Q. themes are discussed, the Supreme Court ruled on Friday.

The vote was 6 to 3, with the court’s liberal members in dissent.

The case extended a winning streak for claims of religious freedom at the court, gains that have often come at the expense of other values, notably gay rights.

This has nothing to do with gay rights, however. Not a single gay person is deprived of any rights by allowing some parents to opt out of this previously compulsory education for young children.

Religious freedom is the peg on which this decision is hung. The name of the case – Mahmoud v. Taylor – is interesting because it indicates that the lead plaintiffs are Muslims. They were joined by two Roman Catholic couples as well as a Ukrainian Orthodox couple; an interestingly diverse group.

The case sparks a number of reflections and questions for me. I’ll come right out and say that I don’t think books like that have any place in a grade school curriculum. We certainly did quite nicely in grade school without any mention of sexuality at all, with the sole exception of a pair of slide shows – one for girls, one for boys – that we were shown in fifth or sixth grades, focusing on the changes associated with puberty. So why are any kids subjected to this, which I believe should be the role of parents?

I don’t think opt-outs should be limited to religious claims, either, although I understand that if a local school district decides to have a curriculum like that, the only way to fight it in the courts might be on religious grounds. My guess is that many parents who don’t want their kids to be part of this will claim religious objections when they aren’t actually especially religious, but will they be required to prove their religiosity in order to have their children opt out?

The Supreme Court smacks down “imperial” district court judges

The New Neo Posted on by

And Amy Coney Barrett smacks down Ketanji Brown Jackson as well.

The case itself was about Trump’s birthright citizenship EO, but the decision is only about the nationwide injunction aspect of it, and therefore has more universal applications to the recent phenomenon of the overreach of district court judges in issuing sweeping injunctions. I wrote about that topic recently in this post as well as this one. In the latter post, I quoted Jonathan Turley, who pointed out that:

Under President George W. Bush, there were only six such injunctions, which increased to 12 under Obama.

However, when Trump came to office, he faced 64 such orders in his first term.

When Biden and the Democrats returned to office, it fell back to 14. …

Yet, when Trump returned to office, the number of national injunctions soared again in the first 100 days and surpassed the number for the entirety of Biden’s term.

It is a favorite anti-Trump tool of the left, which can invariably forum-shop to get a friendly judge to cooperate.

Today the Supreme Court said No to that – with a few loopholes remaining. The vote was 6 to 3, with the usual division of justices The title of the present post stems from this passage in the majority opinion, written by Amy Coney Barrett:

We will not dwell on JUSTICE JACKSON’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself. We observe only this: JUSTICE JACKSON decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.

That packs a lot into just a few words – the lack of precedent and the lack of Constitutional authority for the practice, as well as the double standard about overreach.

More quotes from Barrett’s opinion:

The lower courts should determine whether a narrower injunction is appropriate; we therefore leave it to them to consider these and any related arguments …

The Government’s applications to partially stay the preliminary injunctions are granted, but only to the extent that the injunctions are broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue. The lower courts shall move expeditiously to ensure that, with respect to each plaintiff, the injunctions comport with this rule and otherwise comply with principles of equity.

Justice Thomas issued this warning in his concurring opinion (joined by Gorsuch):

Courts must not distort “the rule that injunctive relief should be no more burdensome to the defendant than necessary to provide complete relief to the plaintiffs.” …

Lower courts should carefully heed this Court’s guidance and cabin their grants of injunctive relief in light of historical equitable limits. If they cannot do so, this Court will continue to be “dutybound” to intervene.

From Alito:

But district courts should not view today’s decision as an invitation to certify nationwide classes without scrupulous adherence to the rigors of Rule 23. Otherwise, the universal injunction will return from the grave under the guise of “nationwide class relief,” and today’s decision will be of little more than minor academic interest.

And lawyer “shipwreckedcrew” tweeted:

The FACT that six Justices were OK with signing onto an opinion where Justice Barrett took a personal shot at Justice Jackson is a VERY STRONG indication that Jackson has alienated her colleagues and there is a growing lack of respect for her work.

The interpersonal elements are interesting. But the important thing is the ruling – and whether the left will be able to get around it. If they try, however, it might just go back to the same SCOTUS, which I hope would be able to stop them again.

NOTE: Yes, KBJ’s reasoning was very murky here, and there’s plenty of evidence that she’s not as smart as a SCOTUS justice should be. But how much does intelligence matter when a person is a leftist activist judge? Ruth Bader Ginsburg was plenty smart, and that didn’t stop her from voting almost exclusively for the left. Same for Kagan.

Does the COVID vaccine impair fertility?

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve seen people saying that this Czech study proves that the vaccine does impair fertility. But actually, the study does nothing of the sort. The most it does is raise a question that warrants further study.

To reiterate points I’ve made many times before, I think that if you look back at my posts on COVID and on the vaccine they generally hold up quite well. At the outset I thought the danger of the disease was overhyped, with the biggest danger to the elderly. I also thought the lockdowns were okay for a short time – “two weeks to slow the curve” – but went on way too long and were seriously damaging in a host of ways. As for the vaccine, it soon became clear that it promised much more than it delivered. I thought it had somewhat of an attenuating effect on the seriousness of cases of the initial more deadly strains, but it didn’t seem to fulfill its promise of stopping transmission. After that, it didn’t seem to do too much of anything although it might have continued to make symptoms a bit less serious, and many studies started appearing that people online were saying showed the negative side effects were worse than the benefits.

For a while I read each report carefully – not just the online descriptions of vaccine doom and gloom, but the reports themselves. I have yet to read a single one that proves what the online anti-vaxxers say it does. That doesn’t mean that one doesn’t exist that I haven’t seen. And it doesn’t mean that a new one won’t come out that has more convincing results.

I have no desire to rehash my reactions to each of these studies of the vaccine. You can take a look on the blog itself – for example, please see this previous post that summarizes some of my position, with links.

Now let’s go to the recent Czech study on the COVID vaccine and fertility. When I read it, what immediately leapt out to me was that the two groups – vaccinated and unvaccinated women between 18 and 39 – cannot be presumed to be alike, and that their differences may account for the disparity in conception rates. And sure enough, the researchers themselves say as much:

While the strength of our study is its nationwide unselected sample of fertile women, the observed association between decreased SC rates and COVID-19 vaccination is, of course, not proof of a causal relationship between vaccination and fecundability. For example, it is possible that more women who wished to become pregnant, that is, achieve SC, chose not to be vaccinated, and/or that more women who did not plan to become pregnant opted for vaccination. Indeed, such self-selection bias is compatible with the increase in SCs of the women unvaccinated before SC in the second half of 2021 …

The current study should be interpreted in view of other limitations that include, for example, unmeasured confounders such as the age distribution of the 18- to 39-year-old women, socioeconomic and lifestyle factors, comorbidities and sexual health, effects of individual COVID-19 vaccine products or vaccine boosters, concurrent COVID-19 infection, preconception fertility, contraception use, pregnancy loss, stillbirths, and paternal health and vaccination status. Unfortunately, we were not granted access to this information. Also, the estimated SC rates for vaccinated women were uncertain, mainly in the early phase of the vaccination campaign.

Hegseth has a word with the press about their coverage of the Iran attack. Plus, Trump’s NATO triumph

The New Neo Posted on by

And what happened recently at NATO? Why, this. That link is from the leftist British rag The Guardian, by the way:

The president described the summit as “a very historic milestone” in which Nato allies committed to increase their defence spending to 5% of GDP. It was, he said, “something that no one really thought possible. And they said: ‘You did it, sir, you did it’. Well, I don’t know if I did it … but I think I did.”…

Trump described this as “the Hague defence commitment”, saying it was “a monumental win for the United States, because we were carrying more than our fair share” and “a big win for Europe and for actually western civilisation” because Europe would now be “stepping up to take more responsibility”. …

Earlier on Wednesday, Rutte offered sycophantic praise of the US president in his presence, saying that “Daddy sometimes has to use strong language” – a reference to Trump’s foul-mouthed outburst about Iran and Israel a day before. Just before heading to The Hague, Trump had accused both countries of not knowing “what the fuck they’re doing” after reports of breaches by both of a ceasefire he had imposed.

The Nato secretary general defended his tone towards Trump and denied it was demeaning, though he acknowledged it was “a bit of a question of taste”. Rutte said that Trump was “a good friend” and added: “Would you ever think that this would be the result of this summit if he would not have been re-elected president?” …

Trump said he had a lunchtime meeting with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “to see how he is doing” and said in response to a question from a Ukrainian journalist that he pledged to supply Kyiv with Patriot anti-missile interceptors, some of which had been sent to Israel.

I seriously wonder if Trump sleeps more than two hours a night. And when he sleeps, he probably dreams about what problems he will tackle the next day and the day after that.

NOTE: I found this refueling video:

And this is about the B-2 itself: