Gods of the Copybook Headings

Assorted Links: October 21, 2006

Twenty Five Years of Weird Al Yankovic

Yet I still find him kind of funny.

The only "weird" thing about Weird Al Yankovic (and it's not weird in the way he seems to want it to be weird) is that he insists on calling himself weird. The tag, at this point in his career, is like an appendix or a vestigial tail—a remnant of an earlier evolutionary phase, now a little misleading. It's a spray-on, pseudo-zany veneer that manifests itself mainly as an unshakeable faith in the hilarity of Hawaiian shirts and hamsters; it's incidental to the rigorous logic of his actual comedy. (My 2-year-old daughter calls him "Funny Al," which seems better.) Unlike Salvador Dalí or Mel Gibson, Yankovic isn't essentially weird—i.e., a figure with whom we have nothing in common. In fact, the opposite is true. Weird Al's essential service is to point out that, from the perspective of the middle-class suburban lifeworld, pop culture itself is weird. This is the paradox of Weird Al's weirdness: He's actually Normal Al, a common-sensical, conservative force. He's Everyman trapped on Neverland Ranch, exposing as many stylistic excesses and false profundities as he can.

The Scotsman Cometh

The Canadianization of England continues.  First, it was the Blairite transformation of the House of Lords into an ermined version of the Canadian Senate.  Now it seems that the Scots are taking over the government of the United Kingdom.  The role of the Scots in building and running much of the British Empire is well known.  The Scotocracy reached its zenith in the late nineteenth century and was particularly influential in Canada.  To name just a few prominent Canadian Scots: John A MacDonald, John S MacDonald, Hugh Allan, Donald Smith, George Brown and the never ending procession of explorers, businessmen, lawyers, politicians and ordinary folks named Alexander Mackenzie (including our second prime minister).  A century later the SCTV crew could think of no better surname for their satirical masterpieces, Bob and Doug, than Mackenzie.  Sadly, this most recent wave of Caledonian invaders lacks their country's legendary common sense.  Indeed, in Gordon Brown, John Reid and Menzies Campbell, we see the arrogance and pretension characteristic of the Stuarts.  And we all know what happened to them.

The Scot, which in the British imagination is a bluff and mumbling fellow, may seem like an unusual object of fear and loathing. But in London, it seems the city is being ruled over by a group of ambitious Scots—what Jeremy Paxman, a popular BBC presenter, has dubbed the "Scottish Raj." Prime Minister Tony Blair, who claims Englishness, was born and educated in Edinburgh. Five of Blair's 20 Cabinet ministers are Scottish, meaning that about one-twelfth of Great Britain's population has produced one-quarter of its Cabinet. The ruling Scots include Gordon Brown, who will probably succeed Blair as prime minister, and John Reid, the home secretary, Brown's only real rival for the post. Menzies Campbell, the leader of Britain's Liberal Democrats, is Scottish, as is his predecessor, Charles Kennedy.

When Scottish pols sit down for interviews at the BBC, they are increasingly likely to hear questions posed in a familiar brogue: Scottish media stars include Andrew Marr and Radio 4's James Naughtie. "At some point, it begins to sound like an intensely Edinburgh conversation," says Ian Jack, a Scot who edits the London-based literary magazine Granta. Perhaps because of this critical mass of ascendant Scots, the last year has been a noticeably tense one for English-Scottish relations. In June, London's mayor, Ken Livingstone, joked that a new rail-link system was necessary "so that we can continue to pay for the Scottish to live the lifestyle to which they are accustomed." (It is of great annoyance to the English that the Scottish receive more money per capita in public funding.) A BBC poll published in May revealed that 55 percent of English voters did not think a Scot should be prime minister—a dilemma the Daily Telegraph, in an unfortunate turn of phrase, has called "The Scottish Question."

The Greatest Philosopher

The Scholastics had it right in considering Aristotle the greatest philosopher; indeed that great Aristotelian, Thomaso d'Aquino, simply called him "The Philosopher."  Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, as the book said, and a recent BBC poll puts Karl Marx as the Greatest Philosopher.  How deep has the rot gotten that a second rate intellectual, who passed himself off as a historian and economist - which he was neither - could be regarded as a philosopher?  Below is the BBC's brief biography:

Marx developed the theories upon which modern communism is based and is considered the founding father of economic history and sociology.

Which would certainly surprise anyone who has read Adam Smith or Montesquieu.

Marx set down his ideas in The Communist Manifesto (1848) and Das Kapital ((3 vol., 1861, 1885, 1894) arguing that economic relations determined all other features of a society, including its ideas.

And for this he is considered a genius?  The Left often mocks the Right for its adherence to "Economic Man,"  yet it is the modern Left that sees man as purely an economic creature.

He also outlined the goal of Marxism - the creation of social and economic utopia by the revolution of the proletariat which would "centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the state."

All class boundaries would be destroyed and each individual would find personal fulfilment, having no need for the bourgeois institutions of religion or family. Marx himself was an atheist, coining the phrase, "Religion is the opium of the people."

Unlike modern public education.

Marx continued to express views about class struggle and bourgeois oppression throughout his life, despite being exiled from his homeland and coping with both his own illness and the death of his children.

Most modern socialist theories are drawn from his work but Karl Marx has had a wider influence touching on many areas of human thought and life such as politics, economics, philosophy, and literature.

Sadly.

Hard Work is For Anglos

Traitor though Lucien Bouchard is - to Canada, the Conservative Party, the Mulroneys and plenty of others - he gets the modern world, sort of.  Culturally and intellectually the separatist movement peaked in the 1970s.  It's been running on gas fumes pretty much since Rene smoked his last Marlboro.  This doesn't mean the separatist movement is dead, it's only intellectually dead.  Just like the Left.  Both are still dangerous, but only because the followers of these big failed ideas haven't yet realized the gig is up. 

What new arguments have the separatists proposed in the last three decades?  What are they saying now, that is any different from the kind of hot air that was being mixed with marijuana smoke in dorm rooms during the 1960s?  Notice the near comic obsession among Quebec politicos and intellectuals, with the wording of a possible referendum question.  Through out the 1995 referendum campaign the economic, political and cultural arguments were thread bread about the hows and whys of independence.  The whole tone of that referendum, compared to 1980, was of revenge.  This time, we'll scare those Anglos into taking us seriously.  What other separatist movement in the world comes within a hair's breadth of winning and then promptly collapses?  They got scared it might actually happen. 

Separatism, like democratic socialism, was one of those new secular religions that was suppose to wipe away the evils of the old religious religions.  It certainly did and pretty much everything else.  It replaced sexual repression with promiscuity; rigid control of Quebec's social and cultural life by the Church, with rigid control of the economy by the state and, le coup d'grace, families so large they threatened to overwhelm the family breadwinners, with families so small they may bankrupt the welfare state.  Bouchard, belatedly, gets this.  He is, after a fashion, an economic conservative and is something of an oddity in a movement dominated by socialists (the editorial staff of Le Devoir), recovering Marxists (Giles Duceppe) and rehabilitate fellow travelers of the FLQ (whoever the GG's husband is hanging out with tonight).  Jacques Parizeau - who eloquently summed up the separatist soul with his glib remark about "l'argent et le vote ethnic" - was a trained Keynesian economist and considered a bit of right winger.  Bouchard's remarks below are therefore practically redneck:

Former premier Lucien Bouchard has ignited a heated debate after charging in an incendiary television interview that Quebecers are threatening their future because they don't work hard enough.

The former Parti Quebecois leader argued in an interview with TVA that the province is lagging behind Ontario and the United States with its fiscal record, partly because its residents don't share the same work ethic.

He added that 75 per cent of the province's debt, the highest per capita in North America, was racked up during his generation.

Bouchard said Quebec is now holding back the new generation in its failure to make economic progress.

When asked about a possible return to the political stage, Bouchard told TVA that his life in the public eye is over.

Labour leaders expressed outrage over Bouchard's comments, saying Quebecers are willing workers but they need fair wages and a balance between their jobs and personal lives.

In other words, if you're really, really nice to us we'll actually do our jobs.  To hell with the Protestant work ethic, the Quebecois would do well with returning to the Catholic work ethic of their parents.

"I've Got the Right to Sing the Blues"

Bob Rae tells tales about that trip to Damascus he, and about 10 million other Ontarians, took not that long ago. 

As for his single term as Ontario premier from 1990 to 1995, when the province's deficit and unemployment rate soared, Rae says he's learned what he calls "the Ella Fitzgerald lesson: `I've been rich and I've been poor and rich is better.' ''   

Governing during "the worst recession since the 1930s,'' Rae says he learned that "prosperity and the encouragement of prosperity are critical.''

"Since my time as premier of Ontario, Canada has developed a collective allergy to deficits and that's a good thing,'' he adds.

"In some ways that has become as much a part of our political identity as quality health care. We must continue to keep our fiscal house in order.''

Rae argues that tax cuts must be balanced with investments in education, innovation and infrastructure that will help boost Canada's competitiveness.

At the same time, he says wealth creation "must be a partner to shared opportunity,'' with government setting ambitious long term goals to, for instance, eliminate child poverty.

I can't recall whether it was Mel Hurtig, or some other professional hysteric / pseudo-Canadian nationalist, who said that energy trading with the Americans was like wife swapping with a bachelor.  Private-public sector "partnerships" meet that definition quite nicely.  The state brings nothing to such "partnerships" but a gun and political sermonizing.  To quote Jack Welch, who may have been quoting John Galt, "Get the Hell Out of the Way!"

Invest Democrat

Harry Truman was fond of saying that if you want to live like a Republican, vote Democrat.  Now a group of fund managers and politicos believes that investing along Democratic principles will lead to higher returns.

There are a few major differences between the Blue Fund and the Red-leaning Free Enterprise Action Fund. While both have lobbyists and politicos associated with them (former Democratic National Committee Chairman Joe Andrew chairs the Blue Fund), the Blue Fund's team includes people who have experience in the asset-management business. And while the Republicans behind the Free Enterprise Action Fund want investors to take it on faith that their approach is good for investors, the Blue Fund has a white paper, complete with graphs, that shows the superiority of their methodology. While past performance is no guide to future performance, the white paper (see Page 3) shows that over the past five years, the Blue Large Cap Index would have beaten the S&P 500 by 13.1 percent annually, and beaten companies that give a majority of their political donations to Republicans by 15.6 percent annually. That's a massive difference. Of course, virtually any market-cap-weighted portfolio in which Google and Apple constitute 10 percent of holdings would have put up similar numbers in the past several years. But Adamson notes that even if you remove the three companies in the Blue Fund with a market capitalization of over $25 billion (Google, Apple, and Costco), the blue companies still outperformed the S&P 500 by three percentage points per year.

So what makes Democratic-leaning companies do better? Adamson attributes the outperformance to what he calls "progressive leadership." Companies with progressive leaders are more likely to innovate and be flexible, more likely to treat employees better (Costco), more likely to work better with outside organizations that can burnish or damage brands (the Gap), and more likely to earn the loyalty of committed customers with lots of disposable income (Starbucks). And all that leads to better profits and performance. Says Adamson: "Nice guys sometimes can finish first."

Present at the Creation

Speaking of Truman, Henry Kissinger reviews a new book about the 33rd President's Secretary of State.

No secretary can fulfill all these tasks with equal skill — though Acheson came closer than any other of the modern period. His overriding challenge was to define a conceptual framework on which to base America’s involvement in global affairs. Beisner, a former president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, describes this process in detail and with special emphasis on Acheson’s growing debate with George Kennan. Acheson turned Kennan’s seminal article, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” into the operating principle of American foreign policy. He interpreted it to mean that the task of foreign policy was to create situations of strength around the Soviet periphery to deter any temptation for aggression. Negotiation with the Soviet Union was to be deferred until these situations of strength had come into being; any attempt to begin diplomacy prematurely would undermine the primary task.

Throw the So-Cons From the Train

Jennifer Roback Morse on the eternal dividing line of the Right - so-cons verus libertarians:

When I wrote Love and Economics in 2001, I hoped to convince my libertarian and fiscal conservative friends that they needed to pay more attention to the family. Since the family creates the next generation, the future of any society depends on what mothers and fathers do. Even while they are performing this quintessentially private task, mothers and fathers are also providing an essential public good, for which there is no adequate substitute. Family breakdown has been extremely expensive, not just to the individuals who suffer from it, but to the public sector as well.

Health care, mental health care, and educational remediation are all services taxpayers provide disproportionately to over-extended unmarried parents. The rise in prison population is connected with the poor socialization young fatherless males so often receive. And the most egregious invasions of personal privacy in America are not perpetrated by Justice Department wiretaps or the religious Right peaking into people’s bedrooms. The most outrageous intrusions into people’s personal lives are perpetrated by the family courts, who regulate in minute detail the behavior of unmarried parents who can’t or won’t cooperate with each other.

Lord Harris of High Cross (1924-2006)

It is with sadness tonight that we mark the death of Ralph Harris, Baron Harris of High Cross.  One of the founders of the legendary Institute of Economic Affairs, his advocacy of free market ideas deeply influenced the likes of Margaret Thatcher and Keith Joseph.  He also greatly inspired Michael Walker in founding our own Fraser Institute.  The Times' obit is here and quoted below.  An indepth interview with Harris here.  The Adam Smith Institute's obit is here.

FOR three decades at the epicentre of free-market thinking, Ralph Harris was decisive in converting the British political consensus back to liberal economics. He did this chiefly by informing — and often inspiring — an ideological underpinning for Margaret Thatcher and Sir Keith Joseph as they remodelled the Conservative Party after 1975.

Supplying the motivating energy (as its general director, 1957-87) behind the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), the most enduring and intellectually substantial of the think-tanks made famous by the Thatcher phenomenon, Harris had exhibited great character in maintaining his viewpoint while government by dirigisme dominated political fashion.

At the root of his thinking lay an abhorrence of the “vain ambition” of economic planning — 1940s controls really did entail, he recalled, that “the practical world was a kind of serfdom. You did as you were told.”

But his methods of changing matters were sophisticated. As far as the IEA was concerned, he was opposed to orthodox political involvement. Think-tanks should aim to change opinion, but remain uncontaminated by baser activity. He argued the point with inimitable style: “Keep clear of politics. Politics is bad for you. It leads to compromise and deals and confusion and vote-getting and lying and cheating and all these, in the end.”

In 1987 Thatcher used the opportunity of an IEA anniversary dinner to pay tribute to Harris’s work, saying: “What we have achieved could never have been done without the leadership of the IEA.”

Quote of the Day

On the one hand [Burke] is revealed as a foremost apostle of Liberty, on the other as the redoubtable champion of Authority. But a charge of political inconsistency applied to this life appears a mean and petty thing. History easily discerns the reasons and forces which actuated him, and the immense changes in the problems he was facing which evoked from the same profound mind and sincere spirit these entirely contrary manifestations. His soul revolted against tyranny, whether it appeared in the aspect of a domineering Monarch and a corrupt Court and Parliamentary system, or whether, mouthing the watch-words of a non-existent liberty, it towered up against him in the dictation of a brutal mob and wicked sect. No one can read the Burke of Liberty and the Burke of Authority without feeling that here was the same man pursuing the same ends, seeking the same ideals of society and Government, and defending them from assaults, now from one extreme, now from the other.

Winston Churchill, Consistency in Politics

Assorted Links: October 15, 2006

A Grown Up Country

Linda Frum, brother of and daughter of, interviews the Steyn:

It starts in kindergarten. Every time you're faced with a situation where a grade school teacher is telling your child patent nonsense, you should object. Every Canadian is the heir to a thousand years of constitutional evolution from the one civilization that has done the most to create the world we live in. Canada has very little to be ashamed of in its inheritance. Every country needs a heroic national narrative. Canada has actually got one. Why not tell it?

Indeed, let's.

The Red Man's Revenge

A century ago, French-Canadian leaders argued that the best revenge against les anglo-saxons would be to out populate them.  The idea of the revenge of the cradle, as it was known, died with the influence of the Catholic Church that had preached it.  It seems the aboriginal population, without the aid of any religious authority, are about to out populate the whites of Saskatchewan.

If current trends continue, aboriginal people will form the majority in Saskatchewan in five decades, a new study suggests.

Some studies have seen that as a potential negative, citing the high rate of unemployment and low rate of secondary and post-secondary graduation among aboriginal people.

However, a recently released report by the Saskatchewan Institute of Public Policy says there is more reason for optimism as aboriginal people are expected to become the majority by the mid-2050s.

Eric Howe, an economist at the University of Saskatchewan and author of the report, said a review of the numbers shows that when it comes to education and entrepreneurship, aboriginal people are where eastern European immigrants were 100 years ago.

One can only hope.

Mr. Dithers, I Presume?

After leaving office Brian Mulroney sat on the boards of Fortune 500 companies with the likes of Peter Munk and George Bush Sr.  Who is our dear old friend Paul Martin going to sit with?  Why, the former President of Mozambique.  It seems Paulie is going to help develop Africa.  White Man's Burden and all that.  Good Luck.  The question, dear readers, is how Maurice Strong and Power Corp fit into all this? 

The African Development Bank (AfDB) Group announced the establishment of a High Level Panel of eminent personalities to advise the Bank on its strategic vision. The Panel will be co-chaired by former President Joachim Chissano of Mozambique and former Prime Minister of Canada, Paul Martin. 

The Panel, which is independent, will consult widely with stakeholders and is expected to produce an interim Report at the Bank’s Annual Meetings in May 2007. Members of the High Level Panel include top national and international personalities in the academic, business, and development communities. 

Meanwhile in Quebec.....

A bridge collapses because of a structural defect.

The devastating overpass collapse in Laval, Que. that left five people dead happened because steel reinforcing rods were installed incorrectly in the structure, according to reports.

On Thursday Montreal's La Presse quoted unnamed sources who said the inquiry probing the collapse has concluded parts of the overpass were poorly aligned and corrosion weakened the structure.

Transport Minister Michel Despres has refused to comment on the report.

Hellen Christodoulou, a bridge engineer, told CTV Montreal the conclusions fit with a visual inspection she made of the de la Concorde overpass after it collapsed on Sept. 30, killing five people.

"It was evident from visually inspecting the bridge that the problem did lie with the reinforcement," Christodoulou said.

"Initial speculation again was that there was corrosion. In fact, what we saw on-site was that the rebars were not corroded, but it was kind of obvious the way the damage had occurred and the concrete had sheared off, given the weakness of the concrete, that the rebars were the problem, and as it is confirmed now, this is the case."

What are the odds of the same thing happening in Ontario or Alberta?  I'd suspect a lot less.  The Quebec construction industry is notorious for its corruption, political patronage and gangster inclined unions.  The building trades are not alone in this.  Adscam was only the tip of a political culture that dates back to long before Wolfe climbed up the cliffs.

The State is God

While attending a fourth year seminar on British constitutional history, one of my fellow students, a middle aged libertarian Presbyterian press operator, remarked that socialism was a religion with the state as a poor substitute for God.  I was reminded of his observation by the below:

The body overseeing Manitoba's doctors is considering giving physicians the authority to stop or withhold medical treatment, even if the patient or family disagrees.

CBC News has obtained a draft document from Manitoba's College of Physicians and Surgeons that sets out proposed policies surrounding end-of-life decisions in hospitals.

The draft policy spells out the process that doctors must follow when deciding whether to withhold or withdraw respirators, breathing tubes and feeding tubes, or continue with treatments like dialysis.

It concludes doctors have the authority to make the final decision concerning treatments, but would give families 96 hours notice of the decision and the right to appeal it through a second opinion or court intervention.

College registrar Dr. Bill Pope said physicians make these kinds of decisions every day.

"This actually puts some boundaries around the ability of physicians to, as you put it, play God," said Pope.

As the article goes onto say, this draft policy would only codify what has been going on for many years in our socialized health care system.  Euthanasia is of course nothing new.  George V was probably shuffled off by his own doctor in an act of mercy.  What is new is the economics of mercy killing.  In a free market health care system, it is up to the individuals and families involved to arranged financing for health care.  In a state run system the state finances care and so it also rations the delivery of care.  Rationing will happen in either system, albeit less harshly in a free market system where resources can be allocated more efficiently than by state edict.  What will be very interesting in the years ahead is how the Left will rationalize this latest bit of state sponsored "compassion." 

For at least a decade the wise and good told us there were no waiting lists for health care.  Then we were told that in some extreme cases it might be happening.  Finally, when the truth became too apparent even for the Red Star's reporters to ignore, we were told there were waiting lists and it was all Mike Harris' fault, or Brian Mulroney, or Paul Martin or Ronald Reagan or globalization etc....  As the Medicare myth gradually crumbles, its defenders are being pushed into ever more extravagant apologias for the system and its failings.  I'm just waiting for one of the enlightened humanitarians of the Left to explain, Spock like, that the needs of the many out weight the needs of the few or the one.  Meaning that grampa's gotta die because we have to pay for junior's leukemia treatment.

Darcey Akbar!!!

The Metis Mullah speaks:

Those that can go beyond, I would hope and wish that everyone tries it at least once. In the end, it is not just a wall but a defining measure of your life and your own inner strength. The people I love and respect the most are those that have tried and failed but also do not give up. They have recognized their limitations and move forward in life with that knowledge. They define their barriers and create a life within them.

The wall is a wonderful benchmark to touch and caress and to create dreams of going beyond but above all, as long as you know it is there you are going to be ok. Go ahead and touch it.

Scars are a good thing. You can never know that you have been burnt until you have been.

The Professor Speaks

EclectEcon writes an open letter to his students:

If you come to see me because you are worried about your grade, and you use all the study suggestions that I suggest, and I really honestly believe that you are trying hard but you are still getting a bad grade, I will wish I had the guts to gently tell you that not everyone is meant for university, but most likely I won’t. I will feel bad instead.

University is different from high school: reading all the material and going to class does not guarantee you an A or even a B unless you are considerably above average in ability. You actually have to study too.

Class clowns may have been funny in high school, but they aren't in university. My classes are not like Canadian Parliament --- heckling is not permitted.

This is for the girls: If you are flunking my class, do not make sly little suggestions about what you might do to earn a passing grade. You are flunking my class — why should I think your performance would be better in any other areas? Besides, I'm too old to care.

Tell me if you got something out of my class. I really really need to hear that sometimes. Actually, this last item goes for all your professors.

While Old Publius never attended Professor Palmer's class, in fact Old Publius has never been anywhere near Western for reasons too numerous to detail, Cassius did take the good professor's first year course.  The following year he hightailed it to U of T, something about the campus orgies getting in the way of studying, but he always spoke very highly of Professor Palmer and his course. 

"Canada is losing its corporate soul."

A touch melodramatic, no?  The Globe gets all hot and bothered about trusts.

Imagine the federal finance minister is strapped to an electric chair. Every income trust conversion raises the voltage.

Why an electric chair?  Why not a firing squad?  Or a gallows?  Or the Titanic?  Journalists used to love Titanic metaphors.  Oh, how those deck chairs were arranged and re-arranged! 

Last month, when Telus put its $22-billion trust plan into motion, the pain might have gone from the tolerable to the uncomfortable. Today, with the announcement of the copy-cat move by BCE, owner of Bell Canada, the pain must be close to intolerable. But will the feds do anything about it? Or are they masochists?

BCE's conversion will create a trust worth about $27-billion, Canada's largest. The trust will join about 250 others, collectively worth $200-billion, on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The vast majority pay no tax or almost no tax, which is why they became trusts in the first place. BCE would have paid $800-million in taxes in 2008 if it were to remain a company.

With Telus and BCE about to leave the federal and provincial tax rolls with no political consequences, other biggies will surely follow. The cable companies (or at least the ones that are, or soon will be, taxable) and the banks may be next. Why not the oil companies?

Here's a guess: It won't be long before shareholders launch lawsuits against the CEOs who refuse to convert their companies into trusts.

Until the next corporate fad comes around.  My guess is that the trusts are revenue neutral.  No less a figure than Ralph "Goodtimes" Goodale approved their continued tax exempt status last year.  Why would a Liberal give up a good tax dollar?  Because distributions to unit holders in trusts, shareholders by any other name, are taxed at the personal income taxes rates of investors, not the corporate rate. 

Which leads us to the second point. In civilized countries, there is a sense of tax balance. Corporations and individuals pay taxes. The split is generally not 50-50, but the direction Canada is going is already totally out of whack. The national income and expenditure accounts tell you that, in 1961, corporate tax as a percentage of personal tax was 63 per cent. By last year, it had fallen to 32 per cent. In other words, the relative tax burden on the individual has doubled. The income trust craze will surely keep pushing that percentage down, possibly into single digits. Does Canada want to be a country where almost all of the tax burden comes from personal income?

Darlin' where do you think corporations get their money from? 

The Ring of Fire

Speaking of tawdry melodramas, a court is paying very close attention to Barbara Amiel's jewelry.

A Chicago judge has ordered U.S. Marshals to "promptly" serve Conrad Black and his wife, Barbara Amiel Black, with a restraining order prohibiting them from selling or compromising the value of a 26-carat diamond ring.

The ring, purchased from Graff Diamonds Ltd. in November, 2000, for US$2.6-million, is the latest asset to become subject to forfeiture in a criminal case against the former press baron.

Since August, Lord Black has been contesting the U.S. government's demand that the ring be turned over because it was a gift for his wife and is no longer his property.

But in documents filed on Friday in Chicago, Judge Amy St. Eve of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois said she found "reasonable cause" to issue a restraining order to "preserve" the ring and other antiques and jewelery purchased by Lord Black in 2000 when his alleged crimes at the helm of newspaper publisher Hollinger International Inc. took place.

A restraining order on a ring.  While no doubt common in these types of cases, there is an air of deliberate humiliation in the Black saga.  One recalls the truly appalling Red Star headline, heralding the laying of charges against the former media baron: "Fade to Black."  The schadenfreude that has surrounded Black's career is only further proof to the old joke about Canadians lobsters; you know you've got some when they try to keep any of the other lobsters from escaping the pot.  Black wasn't just a right-winger who ruled countless newspapers for nearly two decades.  Rupert Murodch is far more powerful today, and Lords Thompson and Beaverbrook in their day, than Black at his height.  What drives people mad about Conrad Black is his pride.  In a culture where most businessmen are non-descript suits, with nothing interesting to say, aside from the quarterly results, and, to borrow Trudeau's description of back benchers, nobodies a few hundred feet away from their offices, Black was a somebody - and knew it.  To rub salt in the wound he likes big words.  The kind journalists, having been educated in j-schools, have to look up.

The Married Minority

The Boomer Legacy continues.....

The American Community Survey, released this month by the Census Bureau, found that 49.7 percent, or 55.2 million, of the nation’s 111.1 million households in 2005 were made up of married couples — with and without children — just shy of a majority and down from more than 52 percent five years earlier.

The numbers by no means suggests marriage is dead or necessarily that a tipping point has been reached. The total number of married couples is higher than ever, and most Americans eventually marry. But marriage has been facing more competition. A growing number of adults are spending more of their lives single or living unmarried with partners, and the potential social and economic implications are profound.

“It’s partially fueled by women in the work force; they don’t necessarily have to marry to be economically secure,” said Andrew A. Beveridge, a demographer at Queens College of the City University of New York, who conducted the census analysis for The New York Times. “You used to get married to have sex. Now one of the major reasons to get married is to have children, and the attractiveness of having children has declined for many people because of the cost.”

William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, attributed the accelerated trend to the lifestyles of baby boomers.

“It’s the legacy of the boomers that have finally caused this tipping point,” Dr. Frey said. “Certainly later generations have followed in boomer footsteps, with high levels of living together before marriage, and more flexible lifestyles. But the boomers were the trailblazers, once again, rebelling against a norm their parents epitomized.

“This would seem to close the book on the Ozzie and Harriet era that characterized much of the last century,” he said.

Only the last century?  I thought this whole marriage thing went back a little further back, no?  Common law relationships, or ones sanctioned only by the Church, may have been the norm but marriage as a life time commitment has been around since the apes.  The comment is of course quite revealing.  The Brookings Institution is a Left wing think tank.  It's fascinating how often people on the Left cite the 1950s, or the Victorians, in attacking traditional values and modes of living.  History for them seems to extend only a little bit further back than a modern human life span.  When those on the Right, whether paleo-conservatives like Pat Buchanan, neo-cons like Iriving Kristol, or even classical liberals like yours truly, talk about tradition and the centuries past, most on the Left stare back blankly. 

One of the treads that binds the modern Right is a respect for tradition and history.  The past, observed Edward Gibbon, is "little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind."  The modern Left's spin on this is that the register should be read along racial and class lines, a list of grievances to be used in mixed economy horse trading.  On occasion history will also be used by the Left as out of context "proof" of their position.  Take a classic example, one I heard only too often when a student: "If we have a free market economy, then we'll return to the poverty of Dickensian England." 

Not one in a hundred of the people who use that line know anything about "Dickensian England," beyond whatever they picked up from watching a few minutes of PBS costume dramas.  That the poverty of Victorian Britain was inherited from previous absolute poverty, stretching back millennia; that the population of Britain increased four fold in the nineteenth century, without mass starvation or significant social unrest, are elementary facts ignored in the argument.  The poverty of Dickensian London was a strange triumph, though few at the time understood it as such; the Oliver Twists of previous eras would never have made it past their fifth year.  The study of history, the attempt to understand the context of a time, intellectual, cultural, political and economic is what the political Left, and parts of the academic Left, dropped years ago.  The past isn't another country for them, it's a list of data (as opposed to dates) to be cited when expedient.

As the demographer from Queens College alludes, the ground rules of marriage and sexuality changed in the 20th century.  The economic limits that had made marriage a necessity for many faded and then vanished.  Traditional conceptions of gender roles that well suited the pre-World War II era were no longer necessary.  The tragedy of what should have been a tremendous social opportunity was that it occurred during a period of intellectual and moral anarchy.  The guidance of our intellectual and spiritual leaders in the 1960s was too often "anything goes."  The alternative was also too often "go back."  A different epoch, say the Georgians or Victorians, might have taken a rather more Burkean approach; one of prudent evolution.  The struggle between Left and Right since 1789 has in many ways been a debate about how to change.   This is not how the Left wants to define the debate.  In dropping Whig values they kept one of the key conceits of the Whig mentality, the inevitability of their understanding of progress.

It's sometimes forgotten that Edmund Burke was a man of the Left, though the term would gain currency only after 1789.  A staunch Whig, he was no admirer of George III, and walked very close to treason in backing the American rebels.  Contrary to what some of his biographers, and devout enemies, would like us to believe he did not convert to conservatism, he was always the same.  What changed were the times.  The more radical Whigs, from perhaps the 1760s onward, adopted the fatal conceit of the continental Enlightenment, rationality without empiricism and its corollary materialism without spirituality.  All the elements of the modern Left are present in that summation.  A rationality that from first principles deduces elaborate theories of human behaviour, never descending to the level of data.  Evidence of such an approach can be seen in the ruins of numerous "planned economies" and countless public housing projects. 

More grimly we see a materialism without spirituality, a vision of man as a hunk of meat moved by instinct, bereft not only of free will, and necessarily freedom, but ultimately of humanity itself.  Burke, in contrast, was a perfect representative of the 18th century English mind.  Deeply suspicious of abstract theories, perhaps too much so, it functioned by a kind of rough empiricism and simplified Christianity.  English intellectuals of the late 17th century had seen the Cartesian alternative that was developing to the Catholic Church.  Going forward along this road they sensed something danger.  Their strange little island had thrived as far as it had by chance.  Their ancestors had made mistakes; the generations that had followed had striven to avoid repeating those mistakes.  Even their faith was, by historical accident, pragmatic.  The Anglican Church makes sense only as an English Church born of English circumstances.  Its theology is otherwise inexplicable.  This makes it no less worthy or effective a church, merely more historical than most. 

This famous English pragmatism was not so much an eschewing of principles as prudent skepticism toward principles.  Let's see what "works."  What "works"  is a loaded question however.  What works depends on your values.  Feudalism, Fascism and Communism "worked" too.  Here the English, perhaps more so than other people, fell back, ironically, upon the greatest of Catholic Church Fathers, Aquinas.  Here was a nexus of reason and faith that opposed both Platonic rationalism on the one hand and superstition on the other.  The English were pragmatists within a Thomistic context.  A good English compromise is only good and English when it presupposes certain values.  Our Canadian aversion to extremes comes from this English belief in compromise.  Like the English we sometimes forget that compromise "works" only within a context. 

Those on the Right sometimes forget this, opposing all change, or opposing change on crude reactionary grounds.  Compromise and change may be necessary within a context.  In issues like marriage, if the vice of the Left is to drop context and denounce all values; the vice of the Right has been to focus on the Left's folly.  That focus on the other guy's dumb ideas sometimes suckers the Right into opposing change outright.  This is because the Right has conceded to the Left a monopoly on change, specifically the idea of positive change: progress.  The Right needs to re-define progress on its terms; prudent, historically minded and pragmatic in the best sense of the word.  Marriage seems a perfect place to start.

The Adventures of Mr. Orangetoque

Shere Khan on the mysterious toque that has come to fascinate an entire nation:

Once he realized there where bigger adventures to be had than lying low in the sleepy auto theft capital of the planet, Mr. Orangetoque begged me to ship him off on to greater and better things.

By co-incidence, I had received an email from a regular commenter on our site who goes by the name of ‘been around the block’. (Aside to Alan, sorry man, when he comes back he will be headed out your way).

You see, BATB has a very special excursion planned for Mr. Orangetoque, but that is fodder for upcoming posts (when the pictures come in).

So Mr. Orangetoque was stuffed in a box and on his way to Happyville, Ontario. He seems to have arrived in fine shape, and here we see him getting into the sauce and mistaking a pumpkin for a distant relative:

How often hasn't that happened to Brutus!!!

George VII (not Charles III)

Jeremy Paxman contemplates life after Regina. HT The Monarchist (as always read the comments):

For the British monarchy works best when the individual at its centre behaves as figureheads should, keeping themselves to themselves. Paxman illustrates the practical nature of this arrangement, quoting a general who declares: "We know what the Queen's views are. She doesn't have any views." This silence, uncommon in an age of celebrity confessionals, allows her to be seen as a unifying symbol, above party politics.

Her son has not been so astute. Paxman recognizes that the problem at the heart of the monarchy is that of the succession, and he does the heir to the throne no favours by recounting tales of his extravagance and pettiness. Any sympathy one might have for Charles's predicament is undermined by Paxman's portrait of a Ruritanian household of footmen and flunkeys, all of who fail to improve the mood of the Eeyorish figure at the centre. Prince Charles's capacity for self-pity causes even royalists to despair, and his identification with minority interests such as polo and foxhunting smacks of elitism when compared with his mother's love of horse racing.

The succession will be the most dangerous moment for the monarchy since the abdication crisis. If Charles cannot capture public affection - and his grasp of modern communication skills seems somewhat flimsy - then the House of Windsor could fall.

It is true that Charles is something of a walking disaster.  The history of the British monarchy is, however, filled with walking disasters, think of the Hanoverians until William IV.  The best parallel I can come up with is James II.  Openly catholic as Duke of York, and heir apparent to Charles II (not one of his thirteen children was legitimate), he deeply antagonized many.  A large cross section of the English people, who would eventually coalesce into the Whigs, opposed James' ascension, fearing a full blown Catholic takeover. The bluff and often clueless James was repeatedly sent out of England, to Scotland as well as France and the Dutch Republic, by his elder brother Charles to prevent further exacerbating the situation.  Yet when Charles died in 1685, the country rallied to James; parliament voted him supply easily and loyal addresses came from across the country.  James did however fall in 1688, but only after alienating his Anglican-Tory political base.

Going to Bed

The Insomniac leaves us.

I suppose to some this will seem pretty out of the blue, but the time has come for me to fold up the Insomniac. It has existed for close to a year now and I've had a lot of fun. More to the point, I’ve sure enjoyed the people I’ve come into contact with here. Pre-Insomniac I afflicted the people I know with this or that thing I had written, but I never imagined a bunch of great people would come on their own free will! A treat indeed.

I am blessed by the good people around me and who continue to cross my path.

Thanks for being part of that.

You are more than welcome. 

The Nietzsche Family Circus

Existence really is an imperfect tense that never becomes a present.

One has to pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while one is still alive.

After the old god has been assassinated, I am ready to rule the world.

One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly.

In the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, man now sees everywhere only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence and loathing seizes him.

This website combines randomly selected quotes from Frederich Nietzsche with randomly selected Family Circus cartoons.  Enjoy.  HT Brutus.