The Little Thread Which Grew - the Apollo '73 to Everything But
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Ted
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No Pain, No Gain
From Yale to the NFL: Are We Still the Home of the Brave?
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
ShareThis, by Dennis Prager
Last week, the National Football League called off an NFL game because it was going to snow in Philadelphia. This has not happened before. American football is played under all weather conditions. That is part of its appeal. Snow, rain, freezing temperatures -- nothing stops an NFL game.
But last Sunday, the NFL and Philadelphia city officials called off the Eagles-Vikings game because of an imminent snowstorm -- in order to protect fans from having to drive at that time.
Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, wrote a scathing column for the Washington Times, indicting those who called off the game. He described it as an example of the "wussification" of America.
He was right.
Sadly, this risk-averse/avoid-pain mindset is overtaking America. Anything that entails risk is to be avoided and, when possible, banned. The breast cancer drug Avastin has just been banned by the FDA because of side effect risk to some patients. Yet terminally ill breast cancer patients who understand the risks have begged to be allowed to take the drug (even Europe allows it). Peanuts and peanut butter, particularly good sources of protein for kids (because kids actually like and therefore eat peanuts and peanut butter), are banned in more and more schools because of the risk (which is far less than being killed by lightning) that peanut-allergic students may die in schools that do not ban peanuts. Desperately needed nuclear power plants are shelved because of the infinitesimally small risk of nuclear waste radiation leakage. And now an NFL game is canceled because of the risk that some fans might get into auto accidents in a snowstorm.
Americans are becoming increasingly risk-averse.
Though Rendell is a Democrat, this risk aversion comes from the left, which has made it its mission to protect people from risk. Risk may lead to pain, and the Left dreams of a pain-free life.
The most left-wing institutions in America, our universities, are therefore the most pain- and risk-averse. That is the reason for speech codes on campuses: No student should have his or her feelings hurt or ever feel "offended." Likewise, no Christmas trees are allowed, lest a non-Christian student feel not included.
That is why Yale University Press last year decided at the last minute to cancel inclusion of the Danish cartoons of Muhammad in the very book it was about to publish about the Danish Muhammad cartoons! Too risky. The liberal university now stands for avoiding pain much more than for freedom of speech.
I have a sad confession to make. Whenever I hear or sing the national anthem, I no longer fully believe its ending -- "o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave." We have many freedom-loving and brave Americans -- just think of those in the armed forces. But overall, risk has been banned as Americans seek to be immunized against pain.
Needless to say, the liberal Philadelphia Inquirer supported the decision to cancel the football game. And so did some of my callers who think of themselves as conservative. But all those self-identified conservative callers who supported the decision were, I noted on air, under the age of 40.
I explained to them that they have grown up in a different America than I did. The idea of telling an American that a pro football game is canceled because he might drive in bad weather strikes a conservative over 40 as demeaning. But the young have been raised without monkey bars, dodge ball or seesaws, lest they fall and hurt themselves; without "Merry Christmas," lest it offend; protected by parents and schools from experiencing the pain of a loss in sports; being told they are wonderful when they are not; and otherwise weakening them to the point where it seems perfectly natural to cancel a football game because fans may drive in bad weather.
A listener who disagreed with me sent me an e-mail asking me how I would feel if my father drove to that game and died in an accident because emergency vehicles could not reach him in time. I responded by giving my correspondent my father's e-mail address. I told him that I suspected that my father, who is a healthy 92 and fought for three years in World War II, would probably respond that he doesn't recognize the America of today as the one he fought for 65 years ago.
That's why the cancellations by the NFL and Yale University are important. Once the home of the brave, America is becoming the home of the risk-averse and the pain-avoiders. And when you are risk-averse, you are not only less brave, you are less free. With freedom comes pain, a price more and more Americans don't want to pay. ❏
From Yale to the NFL: Are We Still the Home of the Brave?
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
ShareThis, by Dennis Prager
Last week, the National Football League called off an NFL game because it was going to snow in Philadelphia. This has not happened before. American football is played under all weather conditions. That is part of its appeal. Snow, rain, freezing temperatures -- nothing stops an NFL game.
But last Sunday, the NFL and Philadelphia city officials called off the Eagles-Vikings game because of an imminent snowstorm -- in order to protect fans from having to drive at that time.
Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, wrote a scathing column for the Washington Times, indicting those who called off the game. He described it as an example of the "wussification" of America.
He was right.
Sadly, this risk-averse/avoid-pain mindset is overtaking America. Anything that entails risk is to be avoided and, when possible, banned. The breast cancer drug Avastin has just been banned by the FDA because of side effect risk to some patients. Yet terminally ill breast cancer patients who understand the risks have begged to be allowed to take the drug (even Europe allows it). Peanuts and peanut butter, particularly good sources of protein for kids (because kids actually like and therefore eat peanuts and peanut butter), are banned in more and more schools because of the risk (which is far less than being killed by lightning) that peanut-allergic students may die in schools that do not ban peanuts. Desperately needed nuclear power plants are shelved because of the infinitesimally small risk of nuclear waste radiation leakage. And now an NFL game is canceled because of the risk that some fans might get into auto accidents in a snowstorm.
Americans are becoming increasingly risk-averse.
Though Rendell is a Democrat, this risk aversion comes from the left, which has made it its mission to protect people from risk. Risk may lead to pain, and the Left dreams of a pain-free life.
The most left-wing institutions in America, our universities, are therefore the most pain- and risk-averse. That is the reason for speech codes on campuses: No student should have his or her feelings hurt or ever feel "offended." Likewise, no Christmas trees are allowed, lest a non-Christian student feel not included.
That is why Yale University Press last year decided at the last minute to cancel inclusion of the Danish cartoons of Muhammad in the very book it was about to publish about the Danish Muhammad cartoons! Too risky. The liberal university now stands for avoiding pain much more than for freedom of speech.
I have a sad confession to make. Whenever I hear or sing the national anthem, I no longer fully believe its ending -- "o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave." We have many freedom-loving and brave Americans -- just think of those in the armed forces. But overall, risk has been banned as Americans seek to be immunized against pain.
Needless to say, the liberal Philadelphia Inquirer supported the decision to cancel the football game. And so did some of my callers who think of themselves as conservative. But all those self-identified conservative callers who supported the decision were, I noted on air, under the age of 40.
I explained to them that they have grown up in a different America than I did. The idea of telling an American that a pro football game is canceled because he might drive in bad weather strikes a conservative over 40 as demeaning. But the young have been raised without monkey bars, dodge ball or seesaws, lest they fall and hurt themselves; without "Merry Christmas," lest it offend; protected by parents and schools from experiencing the pain of a loss in sports; being told they are wonderful when they are not; and otherwise weakening them to the point where it seems perfectly natural to cancel a football game because fans may drive in bad weather.
A listener who disagreed with me sent me an e-mail asking me how I would feel if my father drove to that game and died in an accident because emergency vehicles could not reach him in time. I responded by giving my correspondent my father's e-mail address. I told him that I suspected that my father, who is a healthy 92 and fought for three years in World War II, would probably respond that he doesn't recognize the America of today as the one he fought for 65 years ago.
That's why the cancellations by the NFL and Yale University are important. Once the home of the brave, America is becoming the home of the risk-averse and the pain-avoiders. And when you are risk-averse, you are not only less brave, you are less free. With freedom comes pain, a price more and more Americans don't want to pay. ❏
Mark A. Baker
Sponsor
The real problem is that risky behavior most frequently effects others who have not made the choice of experiencing heightened risk. Your "freedom" to choose does not extend to the "freedom" to produce whatever ill-effects you may cause upon others. Nor is such responsibility limited to only the effects on other humans.
Personally I have no problem theoretically with allowing risky behavior that endangers the individual provided the outcome can be restricted solely to that individual. Helps to kill off idiots. As a practical measure unfortunately it is rarely the case that the effects of risky conduct can be so controlled.
In the instance cited, cancellation of the game was a wise choice for the region, if not a popular choice with sports fans. There are more important things for civic officials to be concerned with than the peculiar mythologies of sports fans. All the more so in this climate of stretched local governments lacking resources. Pandering the indulgences of spoiled sports fans is not an important function for civic administrations.
If the sports fans feel discommoded, tough. They can go play sandlot football in a lot with lots of broken glass if you need cheap thrills. Bring in some mean & tough players and lapse your health insurance coverage for a bit of added excitement.
Risk is not a virtue in itself. It frequently proves to be a poor long term strategy. That's why it's "risky". Minimization of risk has better long term prospects but even it has potential for catastrophic outcome. In general it is smarter strategically to limit risk and confine outcomes of risky endeavors of whatever character. This however takes a greater degree of wisdom, intelligence, and foresight than most individuals prefer to allocate. Especially the imprudent. They prefer to "chance it".
Take all the risks desired so long as the possible ill-effects are confined to one's self alone.
As to the nation for which both your & my fathers fought, it was an openly racist & sexist society in which many minorities were routinely & openly discriminated against and in which they had little recourse for such indignities suffered. The society has progressed somewhat since that time, still much remains in need of change.
Mark A. Baker
Hatshepsut
Crusader
I have dealt with a lot of individuals who are fireman and police officers and FEMA and Army Corp Engineers. There seems to be an accent on safety like never before. Everyone wants to live to enjoy their retirement.
I watch football games or basketball and I think....wow. what sissys getting hurt so fast and so easily. Not like the hockey players. 
I remember how after only a day and a half out in the Florida everglades the search was given up on a downed commercial flight. The passengers were deemed gone..gone. Of course the heat and the mosquitoes and the alligators and the spilled jet fuel and the snakes had something to do with it. But if it was in the Potomac with lots of helicopter cameras and people cheering on the shore it might go on longer if the plane submerged as disappeared.
In New Orleans where there was NO predictability and poor accomodations and no clean water and no police to control the crime, FEMA was slow to rescue. Many Army Corp Engineers filling in part time after military retirement asked for reassignment to other 'causes' after some deliberating. I know. These folks stayed at our Embassy Suites for 7 months 'on call' ..being paid...just to go to briefings when Katrina hit. But they never really went IN there..not into that mess. These folks were ages 45 to 60 mostly. My ex boyfriend back in 1987 was a firefighter. He got his hair burned. He got psychological counseling for PTSD and got transferred to a station that had no activity. He bragged about how his counselor said he was a 'complex' personality and got reassigned as the engineer so he wouldn't need to go into a building again on rescue, but stay with the truck. As a woman I have been treated gruffly when getting out my ID while stopped by a police officer. Like I had a gun in the back seat where my purse was or in the glove box with my registration or in the back of the van with the groceries. Intimidation is their best protection. It's really about FEAR. In training school more and more stress is put on how to protect yourself and less on public service.
We live in a time when we can enjoy life until 90. Those who would have died of their accidents and injuries in the old days now live. But they are a reminder of how much a body can hurt and how long you may have to live like 'that'. It's unconfrontable. We didn't used to have so many surviving reminders of gunshot wounds to the head, or paralysis, or amputations, or burns or auto accidents. These people died and were out of sight soon. My motto has always been 'better safe than sorry' and 'an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure'. The cowards like me rely on the '
rescuer servants'. But these days if there is going to be a hurricane you have to abandon all your posesssions and home to vandals so the paramedics et al don't have to risk having to go in for a 'call'. They can arrest you for putting them at risk to have to go in after you even if it turns out to be another false alarm where a predicted catergory 3 was actually a 0.
"Better safe than sorry" is their motto. Kinda like mine. 
CarmeloOrchards
Crusader
Earth’s magnetic pole shifts, screws up runway at Florida airport
By Liz Goodwin
An airport in Tampa, Florida, has had to temporarily close its runways to keep up with Earth's magnetic north pole, which is drifting toward Russia at a rate of 40 miles per year.
Fox News reports that the international airport was forced to adjust the signs on its busiest runway Thursday because pilots depend on the magnetic fields to navigate. The runway will be closed until Jan. 13, and will re-open with new taxiway signs that indicate its new location on aviation charts, the Tampa Bay Tribune reports.
Paul Takemoto, a spokesman for the FAA, says the Earth's magnetic fields are constantly in flux -- but rarely so much so that runway signage needs to be changed. "You want to be absolutely precise in your compass heading," he told Fox. "To make sure the precision is there that we need, you have to make these changes."
"The Earth's poles are changing constantly, and when they change more than three degrees, that can affect runway numbering," FAA spokesperson Kathleen Bergen told Fox News. It's unclear whether any other airports will have to adjust their runways.
Earth's magnetic field, which still flummoxes those who study it, "is thought to be generated deep inside the planet," LiveScience writer Jeanna Bryner explains. "An inner core of solid iron is surrounded by an outer core of molten iron. They rotate at different rates, and the interaction between the regions creates what scientists call a 'hydromagnetic dynamo.' It's something like an electric motor, and it generates a magnetic field akin to a giant bar magnet."
Sometimes, the poles completely flip -- and presumably when that happens, many bigger changes are afoot than modest tweaks to airport signs. The last time the planet experienced a polarity flip was 780,000 years ago.
(Flight takes off from Tampa International Airport: AP)
By Liz Goodwin
An airport in Tampa, Florida, has had to temporarily close its runways to keep up with Earth's magnetic north pole, which is drifting toward Russia at a rate of 40 miles per year.
Fox News reports that the international airport was forced to adjust the signs on its busiest runway Thursday because pilots depend on the magnetic fields to navigate. The runway will be closed until Jan. 13, and will re-open with new taxiway signs that indicate its new location on aviation charts, the Tampa Bay Tribune reports.
Paul Takemoto, a spokesman for the FAA, says the Earth's magnetic fields are constantly in flux -- but rarely so much so that runway signage needs to be changed. "You want to be absolutely precise in your compass heading," he told Fox. "To make sure the precision is there that we need, you have to make these changes."
"The Earth's poles are changing constantly, and when they change more than three degrees, that can affect runway numbering," FAA spokesperson Kathleen Bergen told Fox News. It's unclear whether any other airports will have to adjust their runways.
Earth's magnetic field, which still flummoxes those who study it, "is thought to be generated deep inside the planet," LiveScience writer Jeanna Bryner explains. "An inner core of solid iron is surrounded by an outer core of molten iron. They rotate at different rates, and the interaction between the regions creates what scientists call a 'hydromagnetic dynamo.' It's something like an electric motor, and it generates a magnetic field akin to a giant bar magnet."
Sometimes, the poles completely flip -- and presumably when that happens, many bigger changes are afoot than modest tweaks to airport signs. The last time the planet experienced a polarity flip was 780,000 years ago.
(Flight takes off from Tampa International Airport: AP)
CarmeloOrchards
Crusader
Ted
Gold Meritorious Patron
The real problem is that risky behavior most frequently effects others who have not made the choice of experiencing heightened risk. Your "freedom" to choose does not extend to the "freedom" to produce whatever ill-effects you may cause upon others. Nor is such responsibility limited to only the effects on other humans.
Personally I have no problem theoretically with allowing risky behavior that endangers the individual provided the outcome can be restricted solely to that individual. Helps to kill off idiots. As a practical measure unfortunately it is rarely the case that the effects of risky conduct can be so controlled.
In the instance cited, cancellation of the game was a wise choice for the region, if not a popular choice with sports fans. There are more important things for civic officials to be concerned with than the peculiar mythologies of sports fans. All the more so in this climate of stretched local governments lacking resources. Pandering the indulgences of spoiled sports fans is not an important function for civic administrations.
If the sports fans feel discommoded, tough. They can go play sandlot football in a lot with lots of broken glass if you need cheap thrills. Bring in some mean & tough players and lapse your health insurance coverage for a bit of added excitement.
Risk is not a virtue in itself. It frequently proves to be a poor long term strategy. That's why it's "risky". Minimization of risk has better long term prospects but even it has potential for catastrophic outcome. In general it is smarter strategically to limit risk and confine outcomes of risky endeavors of whatever character. This however takes a greater degree of wisdom, intelligence, and foresight than most individuals prefer to allocate. Especially the imprudent. They prefer to "chance it".
Take all the risks desired so long as the possible ill-effects are confined to one's self alone.
As to the nation for which both your & my fathers fought, it was an openly racist & sexist society in which many minorities were routinely & openly discriminated against and in which they had little recourse for such indignities suffered. The society has progressed somewhat since that time, still much remains in need of change.
Mark A. Baker
The "real problem," as you say, is theory vs practical. Too many know-best assholes have wound up in charge of the rest of us. Loaded with theory, devoid of experience, they make laws and decisions that cause more trouble.
My mother was a Florida Cracker. Modern think is that the term Cracker is a pejorative. It is not. When Mom was a toddler she had a negro mammy. During the Depression when money was scarce the mammy was paid in food and clothing for her family as well as a small bit of money. My grandmother made her own clothes. One day my mother sat on a fire ant bed. She was covered in ants, could have died had not the mammy rescued her from the ant pile and washed her in raw cows milk.
In many ways, the relationship was mutually beneficial. But you did not hear about that on the 6 o'clock news did you? No. You hear about racism, sexism, discrimination, and other divisive elements of society even if in the minority.
Had the government intervened as it does today, the mammy and her family would be at home on food stamps and welfare. There would be no raw milk to save the child. A nosey neighbor would complain "Child abuse!" for not calling 911. Health and Human Services would arrive to investigate. The IRS would seek ways to account and tax bartered goods as income.
I think fanatics are fanatical. I won't even attend a game that I can see better from my wide-screen TV. But I'll be damned if I want the government telling me I can't plod through the snow to see my favorite team kick some ass under adverse conditions. That's football!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-7oMOxPjNE&feature=related
Last edited:
Ted
Gold Meritorious Patron
That explains it! When I walk North I have been leaning to the right, slightly drifting toward Russia at the rate of about 40 miles per year.
Is that just me in Florida or have any of you experienced the same thing in other parts of the world?
lkwdblds
Crusader
Nice statement of the "progressive" position.
This is an honest and thorough statment of the "progressive" point of view on matters of this nature. It is good for people who are not progressive such as myself, to read and understand it.
Though I do not fully agree with this viewpoint, I see some truth in virtually everyting MAB says. My differences of opinion are just in matters of emphasis on what is important and in degree. For example, I would rephrase the last paragraph as follows.
As to the nation for which both your & my fathers fought, it was openly racist against Blacks, especially in its Southern states and was more covertly racist against Blacks and various other minorities elsewhere. Even so, it was a far better society than those of the countries it was fighting such as Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan in WWII. The country was also a sexist society as was nearly every other society in the world at that time, though not as sexist as Middle Eastern societies. Many minorities were routinely & openly discriminated against; sometimes it seemed they had little recourse for such indignities suffered but in actual fact, they did have formidible recourse. As a result, the society has progressed enormously since that time, going so far as to elect a Black President in 2008 - something which would have been unthinkable in earlier times. Still, bigots exist, as in all societies, and there is still need for more change. We are on the right track but we need to continue until all racism and sexism is obliterated.
Lakey
The real problem is that risky behavior most frequently effects others who have not made the choice of experiencing heightened risk. Your "freedom" to choose does not extend to the "freedom" to produce whatever ill-effects you may cause upon others. Nor is such responsibility limited to only the effects on other humans.
Personally I have no problem theoretically with allowing risky behavior that endangers the individual provided the outcome can be restricted solely to that individual. Helps to kill off idiots. As a practical measure unfortunately it is rarely the case that the effects of risky conduct can be so controlled.
In the instance cited, cancellation of the game was a wise choice for the region, if not a popular choice with sports fans. There are more important things for civic officials to be concerned with than the peculiar mythologies of sports fans. All the more so in this climate of stretched local governments lacking resources. Pandering the indulgences of spoiled sports fans is not an important function for civic administrations.
If the sports fans feel discommoded, tough. They can go play sandlot football in a lot with lots of broken glass if you need cheap thrills. Bring in some mean & tough players and lapse your health insurance coverage for a bit of added excitement.
Risk is not a virtue in itself. It frequently proves to be a poor long term strategy. That's why it's "risky". Minimization of risk has better long term prospects but even it has potential for catastrophic outcome. In general it is smarter strategically to limit risk and confine outcomes of risky endeavors of whatever character. This however takes a greater degree of wisdom, intelligence, and foresight than most individuals prefer to allocate. Especially the imprudent. They prefer to "chance it".
Take all the risks desired so long as the possible ill-effects are confined to one's self alone.
As to the nation for which both your & my fathers fought, it was an openly racist & sexist society in which many minorities were routinely & openly discriminated against and in which they had little recourse for such indignities suffered. The society has progressed somewhat since that time, still much remains in need of change.
Mark A. Baker
This is an honest and thorough statment of the "progressive" point of view on matters of this nature. It is good for people who are not progressive such as myself, to read and understand it.
Though I do not fully agree with this viewpoint, I see some truth in virtually everyting MAB says. My differences of opinion are just in matters of emphasis on what is important and in degree. For example, I would rephrase the last paragraph as follows.
As to the nation for which both your & my fathers fought, it was openly racist against Blacks, especially in its Southern states and was more covertly racist against Blacks and various other minorities elsewhere. Even so, it was a far better society than those of the countries it was fighting such as Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan in WWII. The country was also a sexist society as was nearly every other society in the world at that time, though not as sexist as Middle Eastern societies. Many minorities were routinely & openly discriminated against; sometimes it seemed they had little recourse for such indignities suffered but in actual fact, they did have formidible recourse. As a result, the society has progressed enormously since that time, going so far as to elect a Black President in 2008 - something which would have been unthinkable in earlier times. Still, bigots exist, as in all societies, and there is still need for more change. We are on the right track but we need to continue until all racism and sexism is obliterated.
Lakey
Ted
Gold Meritorious Patron
Speaking of know-best a-holes, this fellow sees it like I do:
The New Sophists
January 6, 2011
By Victor Davis Hanson
In classical Athens, public life became dominated by clever and smart-sounding sophists. These mellifluous "really wise guys" made money and gained influence by their rhetorical boasts to "prove" the most amazing "thinkery" that belied common sense.
We are living in a new age of sophism -- but without a modern equivalent of Socrates to remind the public just how silly our highly credentialed and privileged new rhetoricians can often sound.
Take California, which is struggling with a near-record wet and snowy winter. Flooding spreads in the lowlands; snow piles up in the Sierras.
In February 2009, Nobel Laureate and Energy Secretary Steven Chu pontificated without evidence that California farms would dry up and blow away, inasmuch as 90 percent of the annual Sierra snowpack would disappear. Yet long-term studies of the central Sierra snowpack show average snow levels unchanged over the last 90 years. Many California farms are drying up -- but from government's, not nature's, irrigation cutoffs.
England is freezing and snowy. But that's odd, since global warming experts assured that the end of English snow was on the horizon. Australia is now flooding -- despite predictions that its impending new droughts meant it could not sustain its present population. The New York Times just published an op-ed assuring the public that the current record cold and snow are proof of global warming. In theory, they could be, but one wonders: what, then, would record winter heat and drought prove?
In response to these unexpected symptoms of blizzards and deluges, climate physicians offer changing diagnoses. "Global change" has superseded "global warming." After these radically cold winters, the next replacement appears to be "climate chaos." Yet if next December is neither too hot nor too cold, expect to hear about the doldrum dangers of "climate calm."
In 2009, brilliant economists in the Obama administration -- Peter Orszag, Larry Summers and Christina Romer -- assured us that record trillion-plus budget defects were critical to prevent stalled growth and 10 percent unemployment. For nearly two years we have experienced both, but now with an addition $3 trillion in national debt. All three have quietly either returned to academia or Wall Street.
There is also a new generation of young, sophistic bloggers who offer their wisdom from the New York-Washington corridor. They are usually graduates of America's elite colleges and navigate in an upscale urban landscape. One, the Washington Post's 26-year-old Ezra Klein, recently scoffed to his readers that a bothersome U.S. Constitution was "100 years old" and had "no binding power on anything."
One constant here is equating wisdom with a certificate of graduation from a prestigious school. If, in the fashion of the sophist Protagoras, one writes that record cold proves record heat, or that record borrowing and printing money will create jobs and sustained economic growth, or that a 223-year-old Constitution is 100 years old and largely irrelevant, then credibility can be claimed only in the title or the credentials -- but not the logic -- of the writer.
America is huge and diverse, but the world of our credentialed experts is quite small, warped and monotonous -- circumscribed largely by the prestigious university and an office in the incestuous Washington-New York corridor. There are plenty of prizes, honors and degrees among our policy setters and experts, but very little experience in running a business in Oklahoma, raising a large family in Kansas, or working on an assembly line in Michigan, a military base in Texas, a boat in Alaska or a ranch in Idaho.
In classical sophistic fashion, rhetoric is never far from personal profit. Multimillionaire Al Gore convinced the governments of the Western world that they were facing a global-warming Armageddon, then hired out his services to address the hysteria that he helped create.
How many climate Cassandras have well-funded research positions predicated on grants and subsidies that depend on convincing the pubic and government of impending disasters that they then can be hired to monitor and address? Are there no green antitrust laws? In contrast, how many of our climate theorists run irrigated farms and energy-intensive businesses at the mercy of new regulations that emanate from distant theorizing?
The public might have better believed the deficit nostrums of former budget director Peter Orzag had he not retired after less than two years on the job to position himself for a multimillion-dollar billet at Citigroup -- itself a recent recipient of some $25 billion in government bailout funds.
Are we to wonder why an angry, grassroots tea party movement spread -- or why it was instantly derided by our experts and technocrats as ill-informed or worse?
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War." You can reach him by e-mailing [email protected].
Copyright 2010, Tribune Media Services Inc.
The New Sophists
January 6, 2011
By Victor Davis Hanson
In classical Athens, public life became dominated by clever and smart-sounding sophists. These mellifluous "really wise guys" made money and gained influence by their rhetorical boasts to "prove" the most amazing "thinkery" that belied common sense.
We are living in a new age of sophism -- but without a modern equivalent of Socrates to remind the public just how silly our highly credentialed and privileged new rhetoricians can often sound.
Take California, which is struggling with a near-record wet and snowy winter. Flooding spreads in the lowlands; snow piles up in the Sierras.
In February 2009, Nobel Laureate and Energy Secretary Steven Chu pontificated without evidence that California farms would dry up and blow away, inasmuch as 90 percent of the annual Sierra snowpack would disappear. Yet long-term studies of the central Sierra snowpack show average snow levels unchanged over the last 90 years. Many California farms are drying up -- but from government's, not nature's, irrigation cutoffs.
England is freezing and snowy. But that's odd, since global warming experts assured that the end of English snow was on the horizon. Australia is now flooding -- despite predictions that its impending new droughts meant it could not sustain its present population. The New York Times just published an op-ed assuring the public that the current record cold and snow are proof of global warming. In theory, they could be, but one wonders: what, then, would record winter heat and drought prove?
In response to these unexpected symptoms of blizzards and deluges, climate physicians offer changing diagnoses. "Global change" has superseded "global warming." After these radically cold winters, the next replacement appears to be "climate chaos." Yet if next December is neither too hot nor too cold, expect to hear about the doldrum dangers of "climate calm."
In 2009, brilliant economists in the Obama administration -- Peter Orszag, Larry Summers and Christina Romer -- assured us that record trillion-plus budget defects were critical to prevent stalled growth and 10 percent unemployment. For nearly two years we have experienced both, but now with an addition $3 trillion in national debt. All three have quietly either returned to academia or Wall Street.
There is also a new generation of young, sophistic bloggers who offer their wisdom from the New York-Washington corridor. They are usually graduates of America's elite colleges and navigate in an upscale urban landscape. One, the Washington Post's 26-year-old Ezra Klein, recently scoffed to his readers that a bothersome U.S. Constitution was "100 years old" and had "no binding power on anything."
One constant here is equating wisdom with a certificate of graduation from a prestigious school. If, in the fashion of the sophist Protagoras, one writes that record cold proves record heat, or that record borrowing and printing money will create jobs and sustained economic growth, or that a 223-year-old Constitution is 100 years old and largely irrelevant, then credibility can be claimed only in the title or the credentials -- but not the logic -- of the writer.
America is huge and diverse, but the world of our credentialed experts is quite small, warped and monotonous -- circumscribed largely by the prestigious university and an office in the incestuous Washington-New York corridor. There are plenty of prizes, honors and degrees among our policy setters and experts, but very little experience in running a business in Oklahoma, raising a large family in Kansas, or working on an assembly line in Michigan, a military base in Texas, a boat in Alaska or a ranch in Idaho.
In classical sophistic fashion, rhetoric is never far from personal profit. Multimillionaire Al Gore convinced the governments of the Western world that they were facing a global-warming Armageddon, then hired out his services to address the hysteria that he helped create.
How many climate Cassandras have well-funded research positions predicated on grants and subsidies that depend on convincing the pubic and government of impending disasters that they then can be hired to monitor and address? Are there no green antitrust laws? In contrast, how many of our climate theorists run irrigated farms and energy-intensive businesses at the mercy of new regulations that emanate from distant theorizing?
The public might have better believed the deficit nostrums of former budget director Peter Orzag had he not retired after less than two years on the job to position himself for a multimillion-dollar billet at Citigroup -- itself a recent recipient of some $25 billion in government bailout funds.
Are we to wonder why an angry, grassroots tea party movement spread -- or why it was instantly derided by our experts and technocrats as ill-informed or worse?
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War." You can reach him by e-mailing [email protected].
Copyright 2010, Tribune Media Services Inc.
Ted
Gold Meritorious Patron
Good Advice!
I have found this advice to be true for me and others I have worked with...
From an ACW thread here on ESMB:
One of the things that helped me greatly was:
DON’T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY.
It was a game – if the game went wrong – let go of the game!
The moment you cease to take anything personally – it ends cycle - it ends the dramatization of the game!
You naturally come into PT.
I also always added and got the answer to:
What Game was I (were you) playing?
What game were the others playing?
The answer to those two questions usually blew the old Games to view and caused me to separate from them.
I have found this advice to be true for me and others I have worked with...
From an ACW thread here on ESMB:
One of the things that helped me greatly was:
DON’T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY.
It was a game – if the game went wrong – let go of the game!
The moment you cease to take anything personally – it ends cycle - it ends the dramatization of the game!
You naturally come into PT.
I also always added and got the answer to:
What Game was I (were you) playing?
What game were the others playing?
The answer to those two questions usually blew the old Games to view and caused me to separate from them.
CarmeloOrchards
Crusader
That explains it! When I walk North I have been leaning to the right, slightly drifting toward Russia at the rate of about 40 miles per year.
Is that just me in Florida or have any of you experienced the same thing in other parts of the world?
If you look at a globe, you would see that by leaning toward Russia, you'd be drifting left in the physical universe.
You are drifting right though, mentally, to that pretty woman with the shotgun, who can see Russia from out her window.
CarmeloOrchards
Crusader
lkwdblds
Crusader
Brilliant Article!
This is a brilliant article posted by Ted. Every word is spot on but I highlighted in blue my favorite passages occuring near the end.
It is amazing how far the heavily sedated Al Gore will go in promoting a false doctrine to compensate for the 2000 election being denied him. I believe that is what his actions are all about. He wanted a permanent place in history through being President and felt that he had earned it by getting the most votes in the 2000 election. Having been denied the office and commensurate fame which he feels he was entitled to, he will do anything to insure his place in history. Also, he is willing to do just about anything to insure he is a multi millionaire.
I would love to see the list of prescription medicines and drugs which Al Gore takes daily. I would bet the farm that he is taking several blockbuster psychiatric, mind altering drugs, mood enhancers, stress reducers, etc.
The Mortgage meltdown is also another example of the material covered in the article. Those that contributed to the meltdown the most, such as Barney Frank, are the ones pointing their fingers at others the most and blamming everyone else. In most cases they are also the ones who profited the most from the meltdown. They probably were not astute enough to know a meltdown had to come and may even feel that they did the right and noble thing at the time. They are quick to visciously attack everyone else but themselves for bringing on a disaster which they created.
Lakey
This is a brilliant article posted by Ted. Every word is spot on but I highlighted in blue my favorite passages occuring near the end.
It is amazing how far the heavily sedated Al Gore will go in promoting a false doctrine to compensate for the 2000 election being denied him. I believe that is what his actions are all about. He wanted a permanent place in history through being President and felt that he had earned it by getting the most votes in the 2000 election. Having been denied the office and commensurate fame which he feels he was entitled to, he will do anything to insure his place in history. Also, he is willing to do just about anything to insure he is a multi millionaire.
I would love to see the list of prescription medicines and drugs which Al Gore takes daily. I would bet the farm that he is taking several blockbuster psychiatric, mind altering drugs, mood enhancers, stress reducers, etc.
The Mortgage meltdown is also another example of the material covered in the article. Those that contributed to the meltdown the most, such as Barney Frank, are the ones pointing their fingers at others the most and blamming everyone else. In most cases they are also the ones who profited the most from the meltdown. They probably were not astute enough to know a meltdown had to come and may even feel that they did the right and noble thing at the time. They are quick to visciously attack everyone else but themselves for bringing on a disaster which they created.
Lakey
FoTi
Crusader
How would the scientists of today know that there was a polarity flip 780,000 years ago?
RogerB
Crusader
It's recorded in several places in "rock" formations. In the mid-Atlantic rift . . . where the "rim of fire" of the split in the floor of the Atlantic is spewing up lava, when it cools, the magnetic orientation of the minerals in the lava gets set . . . . and as they have traced the ocean floor outwards from the rift they can measure the magnetic orientation/alignment change over time. They also have been able by this and other means pretty precisely date the magnetic pole flips.
Also the deposition of iron-oxide rich sedimentation that is characteristic of the layered red rocks in the Sedona, S. Utah and painted desert areas shows this changing orientation of the magnetic deposition over time as the stuff was laid down . . . . this by the way being a why of the "vortexes" in the Sedona area.
That's the quick off the top of my head answer without reference to my books on the subjects
Rog
CarmeloOrchards
Crusader
It's recorded in several places in "rock" formations. In the mid-Atlantic rift . . . where the "rim of fire" of the split in the floor of the Atlantic is spewing up lava, when it cools, the magnetic orientation of the minerals in the lava gets set . . . . and as they have traced the ocean floor outwards from the rift they can measure the magnetic orientation/alignment change over time. They also have been able by this and other means pretty precisely date the magnetic pole flips.
Also the deposition of iron-oxide rich sedimentation that is characteristic of the layered red rocks in the Sedona, S. Utah and painted desert areas shows this changing orientation of the magnetic deposition over time as the stuff was laid down . . . . this by the way being a why of the "vortexes" in the Sedona area.
That's the quick off the top of my head answer without reference to my books on the subjects
Rog
Do smart people read this thread?
(rhetorical question, do not answer)
FoTi
Crusader
It's recorded in several places in "rock" formations. In the mid-Atlantic rift . . . where the "rim of fire" of the split in the floor of the Atlantic is spewing up lava, when it cools, the magnetic orientation of the minerals in the lava gets set . . . . and as they have traced the ocean floor outwards from the rift they can measure the magnetic orientation/alignment change over time. They also have been able by this and other means pretty precisely date the magnetic pole flips.
Also the deposition of iron-oxide rich sedimentation that is characteristic of the layered red rocks in the Sedona, S. Utah and painted desert areas shows this changing orientation of the magnetic deposition over time as the stuff was laid down . . . . this by the way being a why of the "vortexes" in the Sedona area.
That's the quick off the top of my head answer without reference to my books on the subjects
Rog
Wow. That's really interesting. Makes me wish I had majored in science and had been involved in scientific research. Must be fascinating to work in this field. There is so much interesting stuff to learn these days.
FoTi
Crusader
These are interesting.
Investigations on the Gulf oil spill....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X33DIj9WZsU&feature=player_embedded
Investigations on underground bunkers being built by the govt.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOWWIDT910I&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73dAikiXoOM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFuGBKcyEQw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h3dx9baiwE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQHxm9gWkNo&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP7kMdLHc98&feature=related
In '79 I was traveling in Colorado with my husband. We ran into the mayor of a small town in Colorado who owned the restaurant where we were eating dinner. He told us of one of these underground cities built by the govt for the elite near his town, where certain highly political and very wealthy people could survive underground for a long time in case of a major disaster. He was trying to find out how to infiltrate this group in order to find out what was really going on there. He intimated it was a dangerous thing to try to do. A few months after we spoke with him his nephew met with a very nasty skiing accident and after that the mayor wouldn't talk to us anymore. I got the idea he was hushed up.
Investigations on the Gulf oil spill....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X33DIj9WZsU&feature=player_embedded
Investigations on underground bunkers being built by the govt.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOWWIDT910I&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73dAikiXoOM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFuGBKcyEQw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h3dx9baiwE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQHxm9gWkNo&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP7kMdLHc98&feature=related
In '79 I was traveling in Colorado with my husband. We ran into the mayor of a small town in Colorado who owned the restaurant where we were eating dinner. He told us of one of these underground cities built by the govt for the elite near his town, where certain highly political and very wealthy people could survive underground for a long time in case of a major disaster. He was trying to find out how to infiltrate this group in order to find out what was really going on there. He intimated it was a dangerous thing to try to do. A few months after we spoke with him his nephew met with a very nasty skiing accident and after that the mayor wouldn't talk to us anymore. I got the idea he was hushed up.
Ted
Gold Meritorious Patron
I checked. The globe is round. My right drifting will put me in Russia in a few thousand years.
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