Government Spending, Waste, Fraud, and Republican Politicians

I just understood where the fracture lies between Republican politicians and tea party activists and more or less tea party followers like me: I was watching Neil Cavuto on Fox News today Cavuto was interviewing Senator Tim Coburn of Oklahoma. Coburn is a good Republican with excellent conservative credentials. In other words, he is not one of those “Eastern” wishy-washy, effete, “liberal Republicans,” not by a long shot. I am not about to burn a straw-man. (I rarely do and when I do, I tell you in advance.)

Cavuto was trying to draw the Senator out with respect to earmarks. Earmarks are little gifts tucked into a bill to reward those who vote for it and that have nothing to do with the project the bill is funding. The Senator, more or less answered Cavuto’s questions regarding earmarks but his language struck me. He kept referring to “waste” and “fraud” in government spending. This is where he leaves me.

Of course, I want waste and fraud reduced butt that’s not my main objective, not a by a long shot. Instead, I want nearly all government spending reduced including spending that is neither wasteful nor fraudulent. Here is a concrete example: We don’t need a federal  Department of Education. The Constitution does not allow for one. Education is clearly a local and a state responsibility. The Federal Government has not business in that field. Nevertheless, I could be talked into allowing temporarily a federal office of education statistics. Quantitative figures are useful  much beyond the cost of gathering, stocking and distributing them. They can help states do their job in the field of education. It could be argued that the federal department is well located to handle data, pending a cooperative agreement between states to handle the job. With my proposal, federal spending on education would be reduced at least by 9/10.

Here is a second example: Every year, the federal government, through its  Department of Agriculture, gives away large amounts of money to agricultural corporations. It’s your money and it’s my money. There is no reason for this subsidy. If these corporations are not able to grow corn with my tax money, they should just stop trying. Maybe, they can try growing organic leek, I don’t really care. And if the Federal Government let me have the money it gives away to the farming interests, I might put it toward buying a car. It might even be a Chevy; you never know. There are powerful reasons to stop so-called “farm” subsidies. One of them is that they are unfair to growers elsewhere in the world. Small African cotton growers are on record stating that they will beat the price of American cotton on world markets if it stops being subsidized. Sounds to me like small African farmers have a moral right to compete on level ground. Sounds to me also that if they win, there will be cheaper cotton for me. That’s another strong reasons to stop agricultural subsidies.

Liberals, whose minds normally work like the minds of precocious eleven-year old, are lying for me in ambush when I speak like this: How about military expenditures, they ask, with what they think is final brutality? The answer is that I would probably increase military expenditure. National defense is clearly within the purview of the Federal Government in the Constitution. And yes, I do think we have enemies and we would have enemies whatever we did because so much of the world is a basket-case and envious. Also because so many rely on magical thinking to designate culprits for what ails them. (See my 9/25/10 posting on this). I read libertarian sources frequently but I have not yet seen a practical alternative to placing national defense, the defense of this whole society, in the hands of anyone but the Federal Government. I long for such an alternative, of course.

In the meantime: Mr conservative Republican Senator: You don’t get it. We want much less government spending beginning at the federal level. We just want less, including of honest and efficient government spending. Period. How difficult is this to understand?

PS My wife and I have spent a little money to Christine O’Donnell. We don’t care whether she has a chance to win. It’s a good, peaceable way to show the left-pundit and the political class that we are pissed off. We did it also because Sarah Palin asked us to.This election is going to be a revenge election. I like it that way.

Race and Ethnicity

My Facebook friend, VXA who is a disgruntled Afghan immigrant but quite smart some of the time asks this question: What’s the difference between race and ethncity?

I am a sociologist by trade and I think I know the answer.

Both are vague terms. Race is a well established habit to classify people according to certain selected physical characteristics. The physical features are selected generally according to their usefulness within a given social agenda. Thus the presence or absence of  hair on the second knuckle of the index finger never is selected because it’s not useful. Skin color and hair shape often are because they allow for quick classification.  Medieval Europeans had not category “negro.” They would describe people in physical terms without assigning them to a  social category “Du Guesclin, the Marshall, was very dark of skin and hair.” It turns out that famous French historical figure was probably a man of some African blood. He would have been considered “colored” in Georgia in 1850. Same goes for Pushkin, the Russian national poet.

Europeans began assigning people to groups on the basis of physical features only with the advent of large-scale slavery and only where slavery was common or familiar. The Arabs went further. I am told (repeatedly) that the common term for a black person in Arabic, “abid” or “abed” or “abd, ” is the same as the term for slave. Race serves the purpose of racism. No racism, no race.

Ethnicity can be anything in connection with people who think of themselves as a group in relation to their neighbors.  Race can be the supporting scheme of ethnicity but it does not have to be. It can be religion and often is: Muslims are an ethnic group in India. The Sikhs, also of India, created their own ethnicity, away from Hindus, with great deliberateness.  Starting as a religious splinter, they imposed certain martial behaviors on their young men. Ultimately, with the help of endogamy, they managed to become their own “ethnic” group. It means that their neighbors thought of tem as significantly different. (Endogamy: marrying within the group.) The Cossacks thought themselves as different from other Russians although they speak Russian, are Orthodox Christians, and look just like everybody else. Their ethnic identity ultimately came from an administrative decision under the Czars relieving peasants of the condition of serfdom if they would settle on the frontier.

The key is this: Ethnicity means differentiation from neighbors. No neighbors, no ethnicity.

Ahmadinejad and Magical Thinking: Big Deal!

Following President Ahmadinejad‘s speech at the UN last week, the US mass media has been acting like an old nun who would has caught a glimpse of a naked man. “The horror, the horror!” they cry out. The grotesque President of the deadly Islamic Republic only mused about the possibility that the 9/11 mas murder was an inside American job. He made it a simple hypothesis. What’s the surprise? I bump into people downtown Santa Cruz who will offer all the details of the conspiracy and of the cover-up that followed. Mr Ahmadinejad probably got his information from an American blog anyway.

The kind of world-view that rests on endless conspiracies and on corresponding cover-ups is common everywhere. It’s just more common in the greater Middle-East than it is in Western countries, including this one. The President of Iran and probably, most people in his part of the world, think in terms of hidden causes most of the time. The Shiites of Iran even have a “Hidden Imam” who will come back any day now and set things right.

The fact is that primitive people and children normally live in a magical mental world where things are not what they seem to be. Many otherwise rational Americans, as well as other westerners, have lost even the ability to consider this self- evident truth because of the astonishing triumph of cultural relativism. It’s the doctrine that says that cultures must be considered “on their own terms” that is, non-judgmentally. In other words, all cultures are equal and there is no such thing as “primitive.”

It was no so long ago that the ancestors, both genetic and intellectual, of western rationalists were also magical thinkers. (More on this below.) And, of course, many of our contemporaries, often our own relatives, still live in mental childhood. How else to explain the fact that so many periodicals still publish horoscopes? How about the unlimited claims of many proponents of ill-defined “organic” foods? How about mass hysteria, even among our half-educated class, about global warming? The fact that the same-self half-educated like their magical beliefs robed in scientific garb simply tells you that formal education works, to an extent.

Show them that the leading scientists of the global warming religious movement were caught lying and it does not alter their faith. They are like “Rapture” believers: Come the announced day for the great event; nothing happens; they will just go on waiting for the Rapture. (I ask them if I can have their car.)

Middle-Eastern and Muslim magical thinking does seem to take a particular form though: The delirium of persecution, the instantaneous belief that occult forces cause most of the damage people from that region inflict on themselves. They rear, indoctrinate, motivate thousands of potential terrorists in their schools, in their official textbooks, in Friday sermons. But when a handful of these potential terrorists becomes the real thing, many among them can’t confront the simple fact that actions have consequences. The more reasonable, the more peaceful, the more decent, they are, the more difficult they find it to face this simple fact of life, the greater their propensity to engage in magical thinking. Bin Laden had no trouble admitting to the successful 9/11 mass murder. He bragged about gleefully on video. That’s because he is a blood-thirsty fanatic. On the other hand, my Muslim friends who live in America or France, all people who are easy to like, can’t face the simple facts precisely because they are horrified. It matters little: Someone else did it who was in no way connected with them. Could be the CIA for example. (This kind of allegation always saddens me as an American patriot: I wish the CIA were 1/10 as powerful, as omniscient, as effective, as people of the Middle East give it credit for. No such luck, alas.) Could be Muslims fanatics manipulated by the CIA. Could be Muslims fanatics who don’t understand that Islam is a religion of peace and who were armed by the CIA, once. Or their cousins who were armed. Could even be their neighbors, belonging to a slightly different sect of Islam, who must have been manipulated by the CIA also.

In the meantime, the same Muslims insist quietly on the unity of the umma, the community of Muslims world-wide. That could be why I don’t hear them condemn the thousands of atrocities Muslims commit against other Muslims all the time. (Think Darfur.) That could be why you never hear a Muslim voice mention the salvation of Muslim Bosnians and of Muslim Kosovars, entirely by American and Western European military intervention in the Balkans during the 90s. Saying anything at all about these recent events would raise the obvious question: Where were the Muslim saviors of Muslim Bosnians and of Muslim Kosovars?

In the meantime, it’s fiendishly difficult to prove that the CIA did not help or manipulate this or that group. It’s difficult because no one can prove a negative. It’s difficult, additionally, because the CIA, and most US administrations, don’t mind at all the legend of the agency’s all-around efficacy. Our government thus helps maintain the people of the Middle East in their mental infancy. I am not referring here to Middle-Eastern infants, to children, but to adults you would expect to know better, at least superficially. Here are two anecdotes drawn from my own life about knowing better.

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking with a friend of mine who was raised in the near-Middle East. She is a woman in her mid-thirties with two advanced degrees, one from her country of origin, one from a good California university. Both her degrees are in subject-matters most people would consider difficult because they require above-average intellectual rigor. Though from the Middle-East, this well-educated woman is not a Muslim, yet her first language is a Middle-Eastern language. A propos of nothing, she told me she believed 9/11 was an inside job. Perplexed, I asked her why she thought so.

She averred it was because “not a single Jew” had died in 9/11 although New York has a large Jewish population. Later I sent her a list of names of victims. It included many names who are probably but not certainly Jewish, such as “Goldberg,” and names like “Shapiro” that must be Jewish. (Go ahead, ask yourselves how many Roman Catholics, how many Hindus are called “Shapiro.”) She had no reaction.

Later, I asked that same young woman why the US government would commit such a crime, for what purpose? She asserted without hesitation that it was to facilitate the invasion of Iraq. When I remarked that it would then have made more sense to make at least a few of the terrorists (in her book, CIA agents) Iraqis, she had no reaction. Nobody is perfect, she may have thought, not even the CIA!

This woman is a well-educated US citizen who has lived in this country for a long time and who likes it here. No bitter immigrant, she! She just relies on the tools of analysis that she is used to.

Another friend of mine was raised a Muslim, in another Middle-Eastern country, but he came to the US as a teenager. He has good mastery over the languages and, , I think, over the cultures of two different Middle-Eastern countries. In his daily life, he is an unusually perspicacious man. He had an even better take on 9/11: He confided that he too thought it had to be an inside job. He just did not see how Arabs would have the foresight, the planning ability, the discipline, and the raw personal courage to conduct that fairly complex endeavor to term!

As I said earlier, none of this should surprise us because we used to be them. In the later 12^th century, the perennially badly outnumbered Crusaders lost in battle what they thought to be a piece of the “true cross” on which Jesus died. From that point on, they also lost heart for fighting Saladin. A few years later, they also lost Jerusalem over which they had maintained a dominion, against impossible odds, for 90 years.

In a handful of Western countries that include the US, as an heir and as a participant, it took several centuries for a determinedly rationalist upper-class to emerge. The movement took those countries through the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment. (Civil authorities in Europe took charge of burning witches until the beginning of the 18^th century.)

Note the modesty of the claim I make above: A rationalist upper-class emerged and ran those countries most of the time. It’s not clear the the mass of the people ever became rationalists, ever abandoned childish magical thinking. It’s not clear how close to the rational surface this magical thinking remains. What is clear is is that there were major setbacks, at the societal level. Nazism was a dramatic instance of magical take-over. Communism was too, toward its end, when anyone who cared could see that it was a monstrous failure in precisely what it had promised to deliver: material abundance.

“I am still a Communist,” said Gorbachev. That was the Soviet leader whose role was paramount in dismantling Communism in Europe! And, of course, there are outbursts of magical thinking in the most mature Western countries on the occasion of important elections

The Middle-East has not gone through anything like the Renaissance, not for centuries, at least. It has experienced nothing like the Reformation and even less anything like the Enlightenment. There is no reason to expect even its leadership in general to have abandoned puerile magical thinking. It’s so deeply ingrained that doing anything with them along the line of the strict rationalism we try to follow is almost silly. It would be easier to make them like us and thus, to appeal to their tribal instincts which are entirely compatible with magical thinking.

A Ray of Muslim Sunshine

Extraordinary good article by Fouad Ajami in today’s Wall Street Journal (9/20/1). Ajami is a professor at Johns Hopkins School of International Studies and he is affiliated with the Hoover Institution. He was born and reared a Shiite Muslim in Lebanon.

In his “Islam’s Encounter with America,” he argues, among other things, that Muslims immigrants to this country bizarrely often espouse more extremist, less rational positions than does mainstream Muslim opinion in the Muslim world.

Ajami always speaks with a clear and strong voice. If there more like him, or if Muslims bothered to read him, there would be little Islamophobia in America today.

(That goes for you, Aminata!)

“Facts Matter” on-line?

Listeners to my radio show (“Facts Matter,” KSCO Santa Cruz 1080 AM)  have asked me if they could listen to me on-line after the show (Sundays 11am to 1 pm). The answer is no but I am working on it. My station, KSCO, operates on a shoe-string  and I will not ask management to organize it for me. Instead, I am asking someone else informally to look into it. I am not capable of making it happen by myself. (Why, it seems like yesterday, I thought a telephone was two empty cans linked by a string!) Also, I tend to count on serenpidity for many things. If you can help me, please, let me know. Here is my email: jdelacroixliberty@gmail.com. Even telling me that you would like that option helps.

Unconnected item: I seem to have a blog reader in Indonesia. I would really like to know who he or she is.  Just curious.

Comment: I often write on Islam and Muslims. I know for a fact that some Muslims read my blog and that some listen to my show. I expect them to correct me when I am wrong and to disagree with me when they think I am pushing the envelop. So far, only one has ever done so, one time. This makes me think that I have not said anything grievously contrary to fact or reason.

Le voisinage. (C’est presque pareil partout!)

La banque, ma femme et moi possèdons une jolie maison de style victorien. Elle est située dans une petite ville côtière, à 100 kilomètres au sud de San Franciso. Notre maison, comme toutes celles du quartier, date d’environ 1900. Elle est en bois, comme presque toutes les autres, dans ce pays de tremblements de terre.

Le terrain comporte un arrière-jardin clos, avec des arbres fruitiers (qui produisent bien, merci) et un avant-jardin donnant sur la rue. De ce côté-là, nous jouissons d’une vue imprenable sur le parking de la mairie, un bâtiment long et bas, en fer-a-cheval, dans le goût faux-mexicain des années 20, plutôt agréable, à vrai-dire. En saison, un vrai train folklo (pas un tramway) passe devant chez nous, au beau milieu de la rue. Les voyageurs, en wagons ouverts, saluent de la main. On leur rend leurs saluts quand on a le temps.

Les voisins de gauche sont des gens à la cinquantaine accusée, bienveillants et serviables mais pas éclatants de beauté. Lui, est musicien de blues, amateur certes mais tout à fait actif. Elle, est en retraite, je ne sais pas de quoi ou d’où. C’est sans importance; l’ étiquette sociale de “retraitée” lui va comme un gant. Elle, est gentille mais elle a l’allure de la retraitée règlementaire: pas toujours coiffée dès le matin, les espadrilles un peu éculées. Ces voisins de gauche se sâoulent plusieurs soirs par semaine, en famille, gentiment, sans troubler la tranquilité du voisinage. Quand ils ont bien bu, ils se déshabillent complètement et font trempette dans leur jaccuzi plusieurs heures d’affilée. Ils ont placé la cuve chauffée, à dessein, sous un gros arbre feuillu censé les abriter des regards, ou censé abriter les voisins du spectacle, ce n’est pas clair. Malheureusement, en Californie, la température reste douce bien après la chute des dernières feuilles. Malheureusement, mon second étage surplombe leur arrière-jardin, lieu de leurs ébats aquatiques.

La voisine de gauche, elle, est franchement vilaine, et en plus, mauvaise coucheuse. Pour complèter le tableau, elle aurait besoin d’une pièce détachée ou deux. Un jour, elle s’est plainte à ma femme de ce que je me levais la nuit pour saccager sa pelouse de derrière. Une semaine plus tard, son équipe de jardiniers d’entretien prenait au piège coup-sur-coup cinq raton-laveurs. Il s’agit de ces animaux bigarrés de gris et de noir, gros comme un gros chat, dont le faciès fait penser à Zorro. Se sont des bestioles effrontées à qui il arrive de terroriser les chiens pour leur faire abandonner leurs gamelles. Le raton-laveur moyen mange tout et n’importe quoi, mes figues, pour commencer, et les vers de terre, en cas de besoin. Les vers, eux, affectionnent les pelouses bien arrosées.

Un jour, que je lui faisais des remarques désobligeantes sur ses poubelles, logées près de notre clôture mitoyenne, la voisine m’a amèrement admonesté: “N’essayez pas de m’intimider juste parce que je suis une femme seule!” Comme elle a la soixantaine bien sonnée et comme elle est exceptionellement vilaine pour son âge, j’ai immédiatement fait marche arrière. En fait, mon coeur s’est rempli d’une sorte de pitié inhabituelle: “Il faut lui en passer – me suis-je dit – c’est une vieille vierge misérable et solitaire.” Renseignements pris, à cette époque, elle avait déjà eu trois maris tués sous elle! Fait important, aucun de se ex-maris ne se trouvait dans les parages.

Une année, huit ou dix jours avant Noël, elle expulsait un gentil jeune couple qui louait son second étage depuis longtemps. Relents de Dickens! (“The Grinch”) et de Victor Hugo (“Les Misérables”) ! Puis elle partit en vacances toute seule. Un mois plus tard, elle rentrait accompagnée d’un vieil homme un peu tordu. C’était le quatrième élu, bien sûr, un vieux professeur qu’elle avait capturé, Dieu sait comment, quelque part sur la côte Est, en safari à quelques quatre mille kilomètres de chez elle.

Je ne suis pas beaucoup plus pipelette qu’un autre mais il aurait été impossible de ne pas s’intéresser, même si seulement à distance, aux allées et venues du nouveau conjoint. Or, il disparu soudainement au bout de seulement quinze jours. A peu près au même moment, une équipe de Mexicains armés de pelles et de pioches arrivait de bon matin dans l’arrière-jardin de la vilaine voisine.

Je n’ai pas le temps d’expliquer comment mais je sais très bien différencier entre les Calexicains, installés de longue date, et les nouveaux immigrants, presque tous sans papiers. (Ces derniers, entres autres caractéristiques, parlent bien l’ Espagnol, un Espagnol haut en couleurs et extrêmement obcène!) Ce sont des gens qui travaillent dur et que leur statut légal précaire rend discrets: Bien sûr, quand on veut faire des travaux chez soi sans permis, on engage toujours des sans-papiers mexicains.

Je ne voyais pas très bien de derrière mon rosier mais le récit auditif de la suite des évènements était on ne peut plus clair: Les Mexicain creusaient longuement et durement une partie de la pelouse dont la vilaine voisine s’était montrée si jalouse peu de temps auparavant. Bientôt, un camion livrait des dalles de pierre massives que les Mexicain posaient sur le sol precédemment pioché. Puis, très vite, ils sont repartis et ne sont pas revenus.

J’imaginais mal la voisine brandissant la hachette à couper le petit bois, à cause de sa moquette beige. Elle est plutôt du genre arsenic dans la camomille. Ou bien, comme l’influence asiatique est forte ici, du genre rasures de bambou vert. Voila comment cela fonctionne, pour le cas ou: Tous les jours, on va dans le jardin avec une lame de rasoir; on y prélève une minuscule quantité de la surface du bambou vif. On mélange ces rasures dans la salade ou dans la soupe. Surtout, ne pas les faire cuire, ce qui les amollirait! A chaque repas ainsi fortifié, le bambou induit une hemorragie interne imperceptible. A la longue, l’objet des affections de la jardinière meurt dans d’affreuses soufrances, d’une cause indiagnosticable.

Bon, d’accord, d’accord, mes soupcons se sont revélés erronés! Le dernier mari est ré-apparu au bout de trois mois, en fin de trimestre universitaire, à vrai dire. Pourtant, il faut bien avouer qu ‘il y avait des raisons de se poser des questions, d’autant plus que son assurance-vie de professeur senior et ses avantages sociaux divers n’étaient sûrement pas négligeables. Et puis, de fait, elle en était quand-même à son quatrième mari!

A tous hasards, par acquis de conscience, j’ai continué à surveiller le vieux mari de loin. Je dois admettre qu’il ne semble pas décliner. Au contraire, il paraît avoir le pas plus guilleret qu’au début. Apres tout, dans le noir, la vilaine voisine n’est pas plus vilaine qu’ une autre. Et puis, sous ses apparences rébarbatives, il se peut que se cache une fieffée cochonne! En fait, elle possède peut-être d’époustouflantes recettes érotiques; l’internet n’est pas pour les chiens, après tout! Et puis, je n’ai jamais dit que la voisine était bête, en sus de sa laideur effrayante! Et puis, après tout, pour perdre trois maris, il avait bien fallu qu’elle en trouve autant. Va savoir!

Mon vis-à-vis, de l’autre côté de la rue, est une grande maison également de style victorien. Elle comporte trois petits appartements loués auparavant à des étudiants. Il ya a trois ans, elle a été mise en vente après des travaux de rénovation importants. En treize mois, elle n’a pas trouvé d’acquéreur. Le propriétaire (que je ne connaissais pas) l’a retirée du marché pour six mois, “pour la rafraîchir”, comme on dit ici. Puis il l’a remise en vente pendant six mois, toujours sans succès.

Nous habitons une jolie ville universitaire, près de la mer et assez proche de la grosse masse de bons emplois de Silicone Valley. Le marché immobilier local est toujours vivace. Quand une maison bien située, en bon état, comme celle-la, ne se vend pas, c’est presque toujours pour la même raison: Le vendeur s’est montré trop gourmand.

Un beau jour, la pancarte “A vendre” a disparu. Puis, à notre grand étonnement, les travaux d’amélioration ont recommencé, pendant plusieurs mois, comme s’il s’agissait d’un des palais de Saddam Hussein.

Intriguée, ma femme a fini par traverser la rue (en évitant le train) pour s’encquérir de la source de ces évènements. Elle a vite repéré au milieu des ouvriers une femme d’une cinquantaine d’années, d’allure distinguée. Ses cheveux gris coupés courts au rasoir signalaient une lesbienne politique, une militante de l’inversion. (Je n’ai rien contre les lesbiennes par goût. Après tout, elles sont comme moi; elles aiment ce que j’aime!) Celle-ci s’est presentée comme la directrice du programme social qui allait bientôt prendre possession de la maison. Elle décrivit le projet en ces termes:

Un gîte pour une dizaine, ou une douzaine (ou une vingtaine?) d’ex- droguées réformées, célibataires et enceintes, et “peut-être” un certain nombre de leurs enfants en bas-âge. Un projet conjoint entre la ville et le canton (“county” ).

Il en faut, évidemment. Il n’est pas question de laisser les abandonnées accoucher dans la rue, et peut-être même pas à l’hôpital public du canton.

Néanmois, je me pose des questions:

Pourquoi une maison trop chère pour le marché privatif est-elle jugée d’un prix acceptable par ces entités publiques et donc, pour le contribuable, c’est à dire pour moi?

La maison en question a-t’elle été retirée de la liste des propriétés imposables? Dans ce cas, pourquoi ne pas choisir une propriété moins chère et donc payant moins de redevances à la ville afin de restreindre le manque-à-gagner fiscal? Je pose la question parce-que la municipalité, gauchiste et verte, a réussi à chasser tour-à-tour hors la ville les quelques industries locales, tout en continuant à faire la vie dure au seul employeur de taille, l’université.

Pourquoi tous ses travaux interminables? La maison était-elle donc vêtuste avant, quand elle abritait des étudiants, et si c’était le cas, que faisait la ville à cet égard? Je me dis que c’est bien la faute des anciens locataires étudiants laborieux non-assistés. Après tout ils n’avaient qu’à se faire prendre les pilules d’amphétamine à la main ou jetter la pilule contraceptive dans l’évier. Bande de privilégiés, va!

Pourquoi installer un gîte presque au centre-ville, loin de tous les commerces alimentaires pratiquant des prix modérés mais proches, par contre, des lieux les plus évidents de distribution de drogues de toutes sortes?

Les commerces alimentaires de proximité sont tous des “boutiques” – c’est à dire, des petits magasins basés sur un truc marketing ou autre et tirant le maximum de rente de leur localisation centrale plutot que des grande surfaces où règne la concurrence des prix. On trouve toutes les drogues voulues au dépôt de bus, a six minutes de marche décontractée; j’ai arpenté le trajet.

Pourquoi pas au bon air, à la campagne toute proche mais pourtant éloignée des tentations les plus pressantes? Je demande parce-que tout le monde sait que les petits revendeurs de drogue sont tous des drogués eux-même et trop paresseux pour faire des livraisons dans la verdure. Et puis, en zone rurale, les réformées auraient pu apprendre à traire les vaches. Et s’il n’y en avait pas, j’aurais volontiers organisé une collecte pour en acheter une ou deux. Il est vrai qu’il y a des pumas pas loin de la ville, mais pas tellement que cela.

Madame la Directrice a déclaré à ma femme qu’elle entendait que le gîte devienne un “bon voisin”. Pourtant elle refuse de répondre publiquement a ces questions sensées. “Nous n’y sommes pas légalement obligés” annonce-t’elle sans la plus menue trace d’humour, ou même de cynisme. Bonne voisine en perspective!

Ma femme s’inquiète à haute voix des visiteurs éventuels des gîteuses. Elle envisage des voyoux, plutôt ques des scouts, évidemment. “Ne vous inquiétez-pas – la rassure la Directrice – je surveillerai les pensionnaires de près.”

“Qu’allez-vous faire le jour ou vous découvrirez de la drogue sur la personne d’une pauvre fille enceinte de huit mois et demi?” s’enquiert ma femme impitoyablement.

“Je l’expulserai immédiatement!”

“Ça va pas la tête?” comme on disait dans mon école communale, il y a de cela longtemps.

Juste à côté du futur gîte, se trouve un petit immeuble d’appartements locatifs. Y résident plusieurs hommes célibataires dans la force de l’âge et qui font de la musculation. Ils paraissent plutôt vains de leurs corps mais ils faut bien dire qu’ils ont de bonnes raisons de l’être. Par beau temps, ils passent leurs dimanches après-midi à boire de la bière, s’exhibant dehors, le torse nu. Je me demande ce qui va arriver quand le filon sera découvert par une bande de jeunes femmes esseulées, au manque de maîtrise de soi plusieurs fois démontré et qui ne craignent pas de tomber enceintes (pour cause!)

Le proche avenir dans mon voisinage s’annonce joyeux. J’espère continuer de trouver le temps d’aller à la plage pour regarder l’Océan Pacifique scintiller au soleil mais rien n’est moins sûr!

© Jacques Delacroix 2008,2010 (Jacques Jean Delacroix, mon num de plume quand j’ecris en Francais)

Kidnapping and Ransom Under Sharia

The Islamic Republic of Iran released an American female hiker on health grounds who had stayed into Iran after one year of captivity, most or all in solitary confinement. She and her two companions were accused of spying but never charged. I must say the circumstances of their arrest are surprising. Who would be so stupid as to hike near the deadly border of the deadly Islamic Republic, especially considering that one of the hikers if of Iranian origin? It turns out the three are from Berkeley, California. This explains everything. Cultural relativism can turn right around and bite you in the ass.

The hikers were not charged, as I said. I am pretty sure some faction or other would have charged them with espionage if there had been anything. Instead, one of them was charged for her freedom. The liberal media failed to comment on the most interesting part of the story. Someone charged $500,000 “bail,” in return for her freedom. Some highly placed mullah must have thought: She is going anyway; might as well get a Mercedes for each of my sons out of this.

The first person who said anything about this within my earshot is a man I know who was brought up as a Muslim, in that part of the world. It’s not bail, he said, it’s a ransom. Of course, he was right. Bail is a bond posted, deposited someplace, to insure that the person will show up for trial. There is no question of the female hiker going back to trial anywhere in Iran.

As always, I have been watching for the reactions of individual Muslims, and especially, for the reaction of Muslim organizations that say they represent Muslims. I have not seen any except from the clear-headed guy I mentioned above. You would expect them to state categorically that ransoming is inhumane and forbidden by the Koran. You would probably be dead wrong. Kidnapping infidels and selling them for ransom is perfectly all right. In fact, I think the Koran unambiguously approves of this practice.

If I am wrong, I will be glad to correct myself on this blog in font twice larger than the one I am using here.

The Tea-Party Victories, the President and I

Sweeping Tea-Party supporters victories plus Rep. Governor of New Jersey makes unions cry by talking frankly to them.

Liberals don’t understand what’s going on and that’s understandable. If you spend months spewing condescension on a group of people, you will probably end up believing yourself. Plus, the impending catastrophe is beyond their ability to process.

The Republican establishment does not seem to understand much better. Many within it seem shocked that unknown backed by a non-existent Tea Party kick their asses. Only exception is Michael Steele, Republican National Committee Chairman who is wisely in hiding. I always said he was a smart man, just too much of a gentleman to get down in the gutter and gouge eyes when that’s needed.

I want to help by explaining to both liberals and Establishment Reps what ails them. Won’t take long; that’s why it eludes them.

First, many Americans, conservatives, independents, and increasingly registered Democrats, hate with a passion the Federal Government taking their livelihood by force and setting their children into debt to support social program that they don’t approve of.

The fact that this is done with massive waste of resources and the fact that the programs don’t even do what they are supposed to do make them even more angry

Second, many Americans want something to be done quickly and energetically about illegal immigration in general and about the porousness of our southern borders to Mexico’s troubles. (I don’t necessarily share this priority; I am just translating the obvious.)

Third, they want whoever speaks for our country to stop kissing the asses of terrorists states and of friends of terrorists, even inactive friends of terrorists.

What’s so hard to understand?

And, no, again, the problem is not that the President is an alleged “black man.” He is not, by the way, just the accidental byproduct of 70s haphazard hippie coupling. (I don’t knock it; I was doing it too.) Also, he does not understand America well because he spent his formative years abroad. I did too. I can identify with the man, perched on his tippy-toes on a small rock with the tide coming up fast.

And, by the way, my fellow conservatives and my fellow libertarians-leaners, President Obama is no monster. He is an obstinate man of average intelligence and of average education who is out of his depth. I know how he feels; I would too. The main difference is that I have pretty good taste in my choice of advisers and that often, I pay attention to what they have to say.

A Good Book

I recommended a book on my radio show last Sunday, yesterday. (“Facts Matter” on KSCO Santa Cruz 1080 AM, Sundays 11am to 1pm .) A listener asked me to put the reference up on this blog. Here it is:

Paynes, James L. 2010. Six Political Illusions; A Primer on Government for Idealists Fed up With History Repeating Itself. Lytton Publishing. Sandpoint, Idaho.

Make a note that I rarely recommend books without being asked to do so by listeners or readers. Every recommendation creates a burden of sorts, if ever so slight a burden, I think. Personally, I have a thousand books I would like to read but will not before I die. Steal my reading time, steal my life!

I like Paynes’ book because it does in a few pages what others do less well with many more pages. (It’s 125 pages divided in six concise chapters. ) It’s clearly written. It explains well important issues of government that many think complex. I recommend it to everyone but especially to university students at all levels, to working people who would like to read more on politics but don’t have the time, to people who suspect they are libertarians at heart but are not sure. I would also recommend it to bright high school students not afflicted by testosterone poisoning and to open-minded left-liberals if there were any.

Bad Taste and Gray Water

After living in Santa Cruz County for 24 years, and in California for more than 35, I have developed an aversion to liberals’ and leftists’ style, to the form in which they present themselves and their beliefs. Same goes for Greenies ‘style, except worse because the irrationality with them is closer to the surface. Form matters, style matters. It infects content. Bad taste easily turns into stupidity.

This self-induced deafness is a concern because if one of them came up with something novel and potentially valid, I might miss the event altogether. I am that ready to tune them out entirely. This irritability is hardly compatible with my general stance that “facts matter.” New and relevant, important facts might elude me altogether. I listen to NPR and I read Left publications often but it feels a lot like jogging regularly does for a fat man. (Excuse me, I meant a “weight-challenged person of the -provisionally – masculine gender.”) I am proud to be doing it but I am clenching my teeth throughout.

This frame of mind is so solid that it affects my perception even of leftie and Green initiatives that have everything in their favor, actions I would approve of 90% if I became aware of them. The 9/9/10 issue of the Santa Cruz Good Times, a generally good throwaway periodical gives me a case in point. It contains an article by a Kimberley Wein about good news regarding gray water. The article is clear, well-written overall. In the middle of not passing a budget, the powers-that-be of the state of California amended the state plumbing code to allow for wider use of gray water. Gray water is the used water that comes out of your shower and of you washer but not out of your toilet.

It’s a fact that California suffers periodic water shortages. It’s true even if Green-minded alarmists regularly exaggerate the imminence of a water disaster. The City of Santa Cruz has normally dealt with shortage by imposing new water use regulations. Regulations are bad on several levels. First, they increase the cost of government. Second, they enlarge the power of government, creating precedents that are difficult to reverse. Third, regulations of public use of resources, such as watering gardens, encourage mean neighbors to spy. They create an atmosphere of ratting that rewards unpleasant people by making them feel virtuous about doing their civic duty. Fourth, regulations de-responsibilize citizens: I don’t have to use water reasonably anymore because Big Brother, Little Brother in this case, is watching me. Fifth. and I can’t prove it right now but I would bet on it, interdictions coupled with mild sanctions don’t work. If you want to stop drunk driving, send drunk drivers to jail for five years, no ifs and buts, no suspended sentence; do it at the first offense. Pretty obviously, even enviro-maniacs would not agree that watering the roses after hours justifies severe punishment. At least most of them. At least, I think so.

The new California law is a breath of fresh air, a dream come true, I would say if I were not afraid to sound like an effeminate liberal. First, it does the obvious: Most domestic water use goes through showers and dishwashers; what comes out is neither dangerous nor very offensive; its sources are concentrated. So,re-use gray water. It appears to be easy.

This makes sense to me because I am a conservative, although I am not an ardent conservationist. As a conservative, I dislike profligacy. As a conservative, I believe people can do whatever they want with their money but I have an aesthetic and moral preference for not throwing it away. As a rationalist (goes with conservative) I believe in the principle of the least effort. Begin improving the situation from its easiest angle. The new law does all this.

In addition, as if it were my birthday, or Christmas, the application of the new disposition does not trigger up a new permitting process and it makes registration/notification voluntary until such time as it becomes possible to assess whether the new practice create health or other problems. This is a model of reasonableness and an attempt to avoid coercive solutions. We should be able to take such qualities for granted in the area of public governance but we don’t because we are used locally to decades of mindless authoritarianism. (Note: Leftists have been at the helm of both city and county of Santa Cruz for thirty years or more.)

OK, I am painting a lightly rosier picture than I should. There are still plenty of opportunities for irresponsible government intervention into the new system. Don’t use this piece as a source for regulations. Still, what I see in this case is much better than what I am used to.

So, what am I bitching about you might ask? I am not bitching, I am delighted but I might have missed the good news because of how it is embedded in the article. It’s surrounded by mindless platitudes that usually cause me to turn the page and go home to watch Fox News. (I have good academic credentials. I can afford to admit that I watch Fox, even in Santa Cruz!)

The second paragraph in this otherwise good article quotes an elementary school’s “mission statement” to “prepare students to become contributing members of the world community.” What bullshit is this? There is not world community. The word “community” implies a degree of familiarity, of intimacy even. If it’s world-wide, it’s not a community. How about cannibals? How about people who think it’s proper and morally required to subject their little girls to genital mutilation (tens of millions of them at least)? How about ethnic cleansers everywhere? How about genocidal maniacs acting in concert in large numbers (as in Rwanda, as in Darfur)? How about societies where child molestation is institutionalized? How about the old Chinese men who believe that drinking tea brewed from the penis-bone of tigers will restore their virility? Read that one again, you might think you misheard. And yes, tigers have a penile bone. Anyway, I would rather the Siberian tigers survived than have old men shoot their pathetic ammunition one more time. Are these grotesque and cruel people part of my community, of my children’s community? They are not, fortunately. I don’t want them inside. I want them outside as far as possible. That’s because I am an averagely decent person.

The teachers/educators, administrators who devised this ridiculous “mission statement” for an elementary school should be shunned or pilloried. Tie them up in a public place and throw chicken-shit at them until they mend their ways.

(I say, “chicken-shit” because, like them, I am non-violent!)

And why should a public elementary school indoctrinate children at tax-payers’ expense. The missions statement is directly contrary to the one I would prefer: To encourage children to become self-sufficient by teaching them skills such as reading and writing, and a little math. To show them the wisdom of being good citizens of this great nation (not of some other, bad nation), of this great nation where none of the above horrors is allowed.

The paragraph from which this is taken in the Good Times article is not even in good English. It mixes “their statement” with “has plans.” Look here: A given object can be singular or it can be plural. I may not be both in the same sentence. Of course, the writer of the article can’t even think of the obvious: Elementary school must teach children their native language because she does not know it herself.

In the next-but-one paragraph, the writer cites approvingly a sixth-grader who speaks about growing …”stuff that is eco-friendly.” What’s eco-friendly?How do we know? It’s not a simple matter. It involves complex economic calculations based on real data: The production of the added plumbing supplies required to re-use some gray water may do more harm to the environment than simply bringing in more water from the Sierras and storing it. I am not saying it does. I don’t know, The sixth grader does not know either and she should be taught by her teachers that she does not know. In fact, letting children know what they don’t know should be the primary “mission” of a school.

What does eco-friendliness have to do with gray water, in any case? Why the drift into that language? Is it a more or less automatic religious incantation?

Does “eco-friendliness” mean anything at all, anyway?

Not only does the local commentator takes it for granted that the public schools must indoctrinate our children, she does not see that the doctrines are meaningless.

This was an article on the wise re-use of gray water. How about conveying the message, including to children: Saving is a good thing. Saving in an ingenuous way that does not cramp your lifestyle is even better. That’s how our ancestors rose from the beast.

Oops! I am sorry, rising from the beasts is politically incorrect. The beasts are better than we.

PS I talked about this posting in my radio show on 9/12/10. (“Facts Matter” on KSCO Santa Cruz 1080 AM, every Sunday from 11 am to 1 pm.) An engineer called the show to let me know of a problem I had not thought about. Apparently, sewer lines and sewer plants are built for a certain volume of water flow. If we decrease the flow by keeping gray water out of them serious technical problems arise.

That’s the miracle of radio. There is usually someone who knows something you don’t know and who is willing to straighten you out. Thanks you caller. (Sorry, I did not write down your name.)