it's your own fault

Yesterday, Paul Krugman's column dealt with "the skills gap" -

But the belief that America suffers from a severe “skills gap” is one of those things that everyone important knows must be true, because everyone they know says it’s true. It’s a prime example of a zombie idea — an idea that should have been killed by evidence, but refuses to die.

He spends a lot of his word count proving that assertion, and then goes on to talk about why the idea is pernicious.

Unfortunately, the skills myth — like the myth of a looming debt crisis — is having dire effects on real-world policy. Instead of focusing on the way disastrously wrongheaded fiscal policy and inadequate action by the Federal Reserve have crippled the economy and demanding action, important people piously wring their hands about the failings of American workers.

Moreover, by blaming workers for their own plight, the skills myth shifts attention away from the spectacle of soaring profits and bonuses even as employment and wages stagnate. Of course, that may be another reason corporate executives like the myth so much.

I agree - but I'd like to add one thing. We do love to blame the victim in American politics, don't we? There's gotta be some reason it's your fault you're poor - because that absolves me of the responsibility to do anything about it.

The Week in Entertainment

Live: A completely delightful La Sonтambula at the Met - wonderfully cast with talented bel canto singers who were also fine comic actors - especially the marvelous Javier Camarena as Elvino and the very funny Rachel Durkin as Lisa, but actually all six principles were wonderful. It was that odd Mary Zimmerman production (the action takes place in a rehearsal hall) but that doesn't detract from, even if it doesn't add to (and it is interesting if slightly flawed),  Bellini's glorious music.

TV: Watched a number of the "Doctor Who Revisited". I have seen very little of Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy, but the latter's episode was intriguing. They also showed the Paul McGann movie, which wasn't quite as bad as I was remembering (but I still hate that whole "half human" nonsense). A really moving The Middle, and a very funny Modern Family that managed to unite all the disparate strands into one sustained, intricate, hilarious farce at the end. I'm not sure what The Neighbors is doing with their season (possibly series) ender coming up, so I'll wait to judge the unfinished feel of this ep. The Mentalist was intriguing, but I cheered loudest at the lawyer's dressing down the FBI agent. And ... sob! ... Psych has come to an end. A well-done, satisfying final episode.

Read. Finished My Thoughts Be Bloody, which was a fascinating story marred only by her bending over backwards to make John Wilkes and Edwin equally to blame for the former's bizarre ideas and the feeling that she really thought nobody would read the book straight through - she continually repeated things she'd told us before; I lost track of the number of times she referred to "their father, Junius Brutus Booth", for instance. On the other hand, if you didn't read it straight through, some of that might be helpful.Hagar of the Pawn-Shop, an episodic novel of short-story-style mysteries from the nineteenth citizens.

Sic!

In the excellent My Thoughts Be Bloody, Nora Titone quotes from various letters written by John Wilkes Booth to illustrate his thoughts and opinions. JWB was, even for a nineteenth-century guy, a casual speller, and Titone feels the need to (sic) his misspellings. Which is certainly fine, but I find it curious that she only sics those that don't involve apostrophes. For example,

Banks will fail. Familys [sic] ruined. Poor widow's who want their little mite to raise their children, will point to the famished stricken forms of their dear infants.

"Widow's" is as much a misspelling as "familys", no?

Who's that singer??

Today's Blondie has me wondering ... Who's covering that song? Dino didn't sing it in dialect!

Guns (almost) Everywhere in Georgia

Georgia legislators are gun-happy and/or NRA-fearing guys, but they aren't completely crazy:

But, while patting themselves on the back for protecting the Second Amendment rights of their fellow citizens and dismissing any notion that guns could be a danger to the public, Georgia lawmakers were careful to continue to ban the carrying of weapons in government buildings with security checkpoints, like the Capitol itself, though guns are welcomed in buildings without screening.

That's from an NYT editorial that ends with a real kicker:

This bill is evidence that cynics were wrong when they said nothing would come of the surge of attention to guns after the Newtown, Conn., massacre in December 2012. Since then, The Times reported, 70 laws have been passed to loosen restrictions.

Hoo boy. Another state I'm glad I've been to...

Holiness or Love?

From Fred at Slacktivist:

There’s a word for that which is opposed to love, against love and instead of love. That word is not “holiness.” Not even close.

As always, worth your time.

"The Egregious Misuse of Dietrich Bonhoeffer"

Via Fred at Slacktivist, a look by Scott R. Paeth, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at DePaul University in Chicago, at Eric Metaxas and Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

A tease

it is worth noting a couple of the underlying problems in Metaxas's whole approach, particularly in this interview. First is his insistence that the dividing line between his evangelical cohort of followers and "liberal Christianity" is over this idea of "Biblical orthodoxy," which is of course another way of saying "Liberal Christians don't go out of their way to condemn homosexuality," a topic that occupies all of about five verses in the entire Bible. "Biblical orthodoxy" never seems to attend such issues as, for example, nonviolence, which was central to Jesus' teaching, or charging interest on loans (known in the Bible as usury, but known in the United States as "the engine of our economy").

But then again, evangelicals of the kind who like to be flattered by Metaxas's historical distortions aren't really all that concerned with war or economic injustice, both of which are much more central to the moral concerns of the Bible than any issues of "sexual orthodoxy." It's passing strange when your conception of what constitutes orthodoxy of any sort revolves around the isolated focus on such a minuscule aspect of the Biblical text. It's even stranger when your conception of orthodoxy focuses, not on questions of God's nature, Christ's incarnation, the nature of his sacrifice or the possibilities of salvation, but instead on one question that was culturally marginal at the time the Bible was written and has become crucial today only because a subset of the human family has decided that it would very much like to be treated as fully human thank-you-very-much. If that's orthdoxy, I'll take heresy any day of the week.

The Week in Entertainment

TV: Beautiful Creatures, which was an interesting concept that really failed to click. The Princess Stallion, which was similar in failing to really get underway - everyone in it was really dumb, too, which didn't help; it was pretty, though.Trouble with the Curve, which shows how formula can be a work of art in the hands of a master. Grimm - do birds that sound like mourning doves live in France? Because I certainly heard one in the woods when Adelind and the Resistance guy were heading for the car with poor, brave Sebastien. (Hint, Adelind, he didn't do it for you; he did it for Sean.) Perception had a rather nice episode this week. Obviously Daniel wasn't the stalker, but the ending was unexpected and satisfyingly open-ended. The Neighbors was goofily endearing. And of course, the women's basketball tournament started this weekend!

Read: A brilliant YA called The Year Without Michael, about what happens to a family when their son - their middle child - vanishes without a trace. Then my first Dr Priestly novel - Murder at Lilac Cottage - which, although written well enough, didn't have continuing characters I found interesting and did have a murderer who was, for me, obvious pretty early. While I'm willing to believe that's partly or even mostly due to my having read so many books written since (it's from 1940) - the Roger Ackroyd problem - it doesn't change the fact that the book bored me. No more Dr Priestly for me. Began My Thoughts Be Bloody, a (so far) excellent book on Edwin and John Wilkes Booth and the world-shaking ramifications of their rivalry.

not quite

  So, this was the bit on Facebook for a column on Gazeta.ru by Konstantin Novikov, called "Учи меня думать (Teach me to think)".

Пропагандист — это не учитель. Это единственный, окончательный и бесповоротный пастырь. Причем окормляемая паства, выбирая между учителем и пропагандистом, обязательно выберет последнего — потому что учитель учит мыслить, а пропагандист отучает думать.

The new Facebook interface offered me a translation - I was curious, so I clicked on it to see what I was going to get; was Gazeta.ra offering an English version?

Well, no. What I got was this:

Promoter is not a teacher. This is the only final and irreversible Shepherd. The okormlâemaâ flock, choosing between a teacher and promoter, make sure you choose the latter, because the teacher teaches you to think, and promoter of the otučaet thinking. (Translated by Bing)

Ouch. You don't have to know Russian to know that Bing hasn't done a very good job. (I'm also intrigued by their transliteration system. The hacek (inverted circumflex) over the C is one thing, but the circumflex on the A? How many people would guess that means /jɑ/ - that is, a  jotated A like the YA in yard?) But that they have to transliterate is an indictment of their algorithm. The word окормляемая isn't in the online dictionaries, or the print ones - Novikov didn't make it up, but it's not very common. What it is, though, is a completely regularly formed participle - present passive - from the verb окормлять, an imperfective verb meaning "to guide, direct, care for". A person who knows Russian can recover the verb and then go to "is cared for"; Bing cannot. And отучает is the present tense third person singular of отучать, meaning "to disaccustom, wean from/of, cure of, break of, dishabituate" - and it is in the online dictionaries. There's no excuse for missing that one.

 There's no excuse for capitalizing Shepherd, either. And "make sure you choose" for обязательно выберет? The verb is future, third person, singular declarative and its subject is the flock! And обязательно is an adverb, usually translated as "without fail" but also as "surely, certainly, by all means, definitely...". It can be translated as "make sure", but only with imperative verbs, not declarative ones. And "promoter of the otučaet thinking" means Bing didn't even recognize отучает as verb, never mind that there's no morphological justification for "of the".

To be fair, Google Translate isn't that much better:

Propagandist - is not a teacher. This is the only, final and irrevocable pastor. And okormljal flock, choosing between a teacher and promoter, carefully choose the latter - because the teacher teaches to think, and think disaccustoms propagandist.

They don't know окормляемая, either - and their transliteration (while more standard) has inexplicably turned the participle into a plain past tense verb! They did know отучает, but have oddly inverted the sentence ("think disaccustoms propagandist" instead of "the propagandist disaccustoms to think") which is a very serious error, since it makes the English say that "think" is what "disaccustoms (the) propagandist", instead of what the propagandist disaccustoms you from doing. Also, Google misses the meaning of — это, which is a simple copula (as Bing correctly translated it), plus they chose "pastor" instead of "shepherd".

I'd say:

A propagandist is not a teacher. He is a sole, indisputable and irreversible shepherd*. And the flock which is being so cared for, when it chooses between a teacher and a propagandist, unfailingly chooses the the latter - because a teacher teaches reasoning, while a propagandist weans one from thinking.

* What I'd really say is "He is a shepherd, one and only, whose word is final and from whom there is no appeal" but I don't expect a translation program to do that kind of rearranging.

And the Madness begins

The NCAAW Division I tournament is underway. (Yes, I'm pleased the men got in this year, but I'm not a real fan of the men's game.) The UT women are seeded No 1 in their bracket, playing at home for the first four games - and in Nashville for the Final Four, close to home! Up by only two points against Northwestern State, they came out playing hard. And with less than five to go, NBC figures their lead is so unstoppable that they've just switched over to the Fordham-California game, which is Fordham up by 2 with 5:22 to go. (edited to add: and NBC was right, they won, scoring more points in the second half than Northwestern scored total! On to the next round!)

Grind For Nine! Let's go!

Brackets here.

Hmmmm...

From the excellent My Thoughts Be Bloody (about Edwin and John Wilkes Booth):

New Orleans' pleasures came at a price.    Many who flocked here annually never returned to their homes but remained in the city permanently, residents of the graveyard.

It seems to me that this sentence doesn't really work. There's a referent problem.

If people "flock here annually" they can't also "never return", can they?

I'd like to see something more here, such as "many of those who flocked..."

Fish for Dinner

Haven't been to College Park in quite a while, but I was there today. And while I was walking back to the Metro Station, look who dropped in for a quick fish dinner! All I had was my phone, but I did catch him swallowing!

Wow.

Today's Wheel of Fortune Bonus Round.

He chose CHD and O. So he had this:

NE_   _ _ _ _    _ _ _ _ _

The first thing he said was "new baby buggy" - and that was it.

A-freaking-mazing.

The Week in Entertainment

DVD: The rest of Mr and Mrs Murder, which I really enjoyed.

TV: Caught up The Middle, The Neighbors (that Bollywood number!), and Modern Family. Also The Mentalist, which was pretty good, though it looks like they're diving into another deep plot - they killed Laroche! A couple of episodes of Grimm, which is also deepening the plot. Poor Sebastien! And poor Wu - they really should have told him. The finale of Almost Human, which tried out the old fake tension - really? Were they ever going to get rid of Dorian? Psych - almost over, which is sad. I've missed the old-time beginnings, but I finally realized: it's part of the whole "Shawn finally grows up" thing they've got going on - the chief leaving, Juliet taking the job, Lassie getting promoted, Henry's selling the house ... the new detective, Betsy, is a hoot. The Crazy Ones was quite funny. I do hope it gets picked up for next year. Cosmos, a very promising beginning. Oblivion, which I liked more than I thought I would. Good performance by Cruise, visually gorgeous even though the story was a bit obvious.

Read: Two very good YAs by Shiela Turnage, Three Times Lucky and The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing, and a very good one by Rainbow Rowell called Fangirl. Two Gervase Fen novels - Frequent Hearses and The Glimpses of the Moon - both of which I'd read many years ago but neither of which I remembered the end to, though occasional odd details did come back to me. Started Preincarnate, by Shaun Micallef.

Punctuation is cohesive

It has meaning. Here's an example:

A couple has to make a decision: leave Iran to better the life of their child, or to stay and take care of a parent suffering from Alzheimer's, which could end their marriage.

Okay, based on that description, which is word-for-word and punctuation-mark-for-punctuation-mark off the On Demand menu, what threatens their marriage? Staying home, right? But it's the decision that does - she wants to leave, he feels obligated to stay - or rather, it's the existence of the decision, because she's not staying, so if he chooses to, she's leaving him. But the way that's punctuated, that's not what it says.

ps - the movie is A Separation, which is brilliant. 

Happy Pi Day

С днем числа ... Happy ___ Day!

Happy Birthday, Albert

Yep. Today in 1879, in Ulm, Germany, Albert Einstein was born.


What else is there to say? Albert Einstein was born, and lived, and worked...

The question

In an article about Joe McGinniss in today's Post, Gene Weingarten dicusses the genesis of "Fatal Vision" and the way it and its author were pilloried after its publication. Among other things, Weingarten asks

What was McGinniss supposed to have done when he realized, midway through the reporting, that the man he was writing about had lied to everyone? That he had killed his wife and older daughter in a rage — and then calmly, methodically hacked to death his sleeping two-year old, stabbing her 33 times with a knife and ice pick, just to strengthen his alibi? Was McGinniss required to dutifully inform the murderer that he now believed him guilty, and invite him to withdraw his cooperation if he wished, possibly killing the book outright, but certainly killing it as a meaningful, enlightening, powerful examination of the mind of a monster?

The answer is "No" - and I would agree with that. Weingarten notes

There is an implicit covenant between a writer and a subject; in return for whatever agreement you might make for the telling of the story, the subject must tell you the truth. If he lies, all deals are off. It is impossible for a subject to be less truthful than Jeffrey MacDonald was with Joe McGinniss: he misrepresented the central fact of his story, his own guilt.

But here's something I've never understood. As Weingarten notes,

One of the main reasons that there is still doubt about Jeffrey MacDonald’s guilt – 44 years after the crime — is the degree to which “Fatal Vision” was unfairly pilloried by Janet Malcolm, and in a tsk-ing generation of journalistic self-righteousness that followed.

This is, I think, quite true, but I don't understand it. "Fatal Vision" was published after the trial, after MacDonald was convicted. Even had it been a hatchet job, how could McGinniss's views be held to in any way cast doubt on the verdict?

Lie may not even be the right word

Michael Medved tells a lie so startlingly, so brazenly a lie that it's hard (perhaps impossible) to figure out what the hell he was thinking:

"There has never been a state in this country that has ever banned gay marriage. That is a liberal lie."

There are in fact 30 states that have or have had constitutional bans on gay marriage. Thirty. Twenty nine still do.

So, Michale Medved: WUT?

Sweeney Todd in Concert

A review of the New York Philharmonic's Sweeney Todd which I saw this weekend.I'd ask, though, about this: "Thompson's partner in crime, however, could have asked her for a few acting tips. Terfel's intimidating bass-baritone is perfect for Sweeney Todd, and his 6ft 4in frame conveys menace, but Terfel's Sweeney comes across as a monster not a brute." Exactly why is "monster" the wrong interpretation? (He doesn't act as well as Emma Thompson, true - but damn, that's a high bar!) I'd rather agree with this reviewer: Terfel "showed the murderous barber as a tormented figure on an operatic scale. He was in great voice, and his experience in art song seemed to inform a vocally nuanced interpretation."

They both rave over Thompson - and rightly so! She was extraordinary.

Anyway, they were filming it the night we were there, and it'll be on PBS eventually, and you really must watch it. Wonderful theater, just wonderful.

The Week in Entertainment

Live: The Joffrey Ballet - a mixed bag, all wonderfully done, though not all equally appealing to me at least. The Enchanted Island, a delightful pastiche of "The Tempest" plus "A Midsummer Night's Dream", thoroughly entertaining. I do love Baroque music anyway, and this had a terrific cast and amusing story attached. Sweeney Todd with Bryn Terfel and Emma Thompson, in "concert" with the New York Philharmonic - wonderful.

DVD: A few episodes of a cute Australian series called Mr & Mrs Murder, about a crime-scene cleaning duo who solve the crimes they clean up after. Lots of fun.

TV: Grimm - caught up on last week's (who didn't know Monroe's dad would help them out?) and things are boding ill all around.

Read: Two collections of (mostly) Gervase Fen mystery shorts - Fen Country and Beware of the Trains.

Yes, I believe we could

As Josh remarks about "Judge Parker",

Yes, the invention of armed, remote-controlled unmanned drones raises troubling questions about the future of armed conflict and the ability of hegemonic states to prosecute low-intensity warfare against non-state actors largely in secret, without expending much by way of blood or treasure. But if this technological advance leads to the insufferable Parkers being blown to bits by a remotely launched Predator missile, couldn’t we say that it was all, in the end, worthwhile?

Of course, it won't happen, but it's nice to dream if only briefly.

Now that's comedy gold!

Just saw a commercial from AAA insurance, asking "when did insurance become all about funny commercials? Remember when insurance was all about helping people?"

Insurance, all about helping people. Mwahahahahahahahahaha.

Now that's a funny commericial.

The Week in Entertainment

Live: First, the fabulous The Book of Mormon at the Hippodrome. What a blast! Such a fun show. Then Prince Igor at the Met, with Ildar Abdrazakov in the title role and the splendid Oksana Dyka (who must have been thinking about her homeland's troubles, reflecting the plot of the opera) but who really stole the show. The staging was new and kind of odd (why do they insist on describing things as "timeless" when they have stuff like rifles, electricity and late-19th or early-20th century uniforms in them???) but intriguing. Having the first act take place in a poppy field of Igor's injury-haunted mind sets the stage for his return (though having the scene where his son elects to stay behind rather than escape back home set in Putivl after he returns - a flashback, basically - is rather confusing; at first I thought they were saying that she had followed all the way). Igor is a mess, of course, since Borodin died before he'd finished it, and at least in this version it's all his music.

TV: A very funny and moving The Crazy Ones. I had no idea bar mitzvahs were such big business! The Middle was good, too. Perception is back, which surprised me (thanks, DVR!), with a nice twisty little story. Modern Family. Psych is winding down, with Juliet leaving, the Chief gone, and Lassie now Chief of Police...

Read: Dust, the ending to the Wook saga, which raised a few more questions than it answered, but was satisfying nonetheless. And finished Carthage, Joyce Carol Oates's intricate, bizarre and engrossing new novel.

Yay! Robbie's coming back!

An eighth season of Lewis is coming this year! YAY!

Finally?

The description reads:

A man who spins fables and fantastic tales from his life is dying - his journalist son finally wants his father to tell the truth in director Tim Burton's colorful, eye-popping story.

I'm not sure, but I'd bet this is the result of a fear of infinitive splitting.

He doesn't "finally want" him to tell the truth; he's wanted that for a long time, as we see in the movie's opening scenes. No, he wants him to finally tell it.