Required disability insurance for seamen, too. But not farmers, or artisans, or merchants, or anyone else.
I'm sure a general public interest can be construed in there - most foreign trade was conducted by sea - but why just them?
Perhaps it was too difficult to assure an adequate number of people willing to be cod fishermen. That kind of insurance may have been seen as necessary to keep a major export industry going strong. No need for the carrot for other jobs.
The tariff thing is idiotic. Not because tariffs are always or inevitably bad, but because they are being applied to correct a problem (trade imbalance) that is not necessarily a problem in the first place.
Not to mention that they are being used more to extort foreign policy goals (or, see Brazil, to benefit Trump's personal pals), rather than having anything to do with, you know, actual trade issues. Even if done by someone with a clue, that's a terrible use.
If you are going to give out food stamps, make sure that you cut some for Jeff Bezos.
That's actually not a bad idea. We have a hodgepodge of programs to support poor people, especially children, to attempt to get them enough to eat. They're better than nothing. But expensive to run, overlapping in places, and less than effective.
We can afford, as a country, to simply give every person enough food to live on. Maybe not prime rib every day, maybe not the junk food they love, but enough decent quality food for them to live on. Quite possibly for less money than we now spend, not least because we ditch the overhead of determining eligibility. If you're breathing, you're eligible.
Now most likely people like Bezos and Musk, or you and me for that matter, won't bother to collect the benefit. We can eat basically what we like without it. But still, it's worth doing.
Not that I'm optimistic about getting such a thing enacted. But the fact that it's not politically popular doesn't negate it's merits.
The town is likely to lose several million dollars in state money
This may actually be the salient point. Here, it isn't a matter of losing state money (which may be earmarked for stuff they aren't enthusiastic about anyway). Instead, it's fines charged to the town. New Expenses!
The dollar amount may be a wash. But the difference in perception between "stop giving us money (with strings)" and "charge us money" is apparently quite significant.
A number of communities affected by the law refused to comply.
There were some minor rumblings here like that. They went nowhere because the Town Council basically said "We don't have funds to pay the fines for non-compliance." Which amount to $1 million -- the number that sticks in my head is per day, but it might have been per month. Anyway, enough that nobody was jumping up volunteering to personally donate the cash to cover it.
Maybe you're having a (perfectly understandable) inflammatory reaction to the state of the nation, too. I figure that's a factor in my long (for me) comments.
They do not prompt wealthy college-educated folks living in islands of privilege to welcome cops, welders, nurses, and carpenters into their neighborhoods. They certainly and absolutely *DO NOT* prompt those people to do anything that would make lower-income housing more available in their communities, because that would put the assessed values of their own lovely homes at risk. And if the schools in their areas are not up to snuff, they quite often respond by sending their kids to private school, rather than take whatever steps would be needed to improve the local public schools.
Without going into the gory details of my own situation, I can tell you that I live this stuff. Live around it, live with it.
I have the recurring feeling that I am living in a different universe. This town is chock full of highly educated people. Has been since I was growing up here in the 1950s. (The town was a twentieth the size then, but its character hasn't changed much.) A lot of my neighbors are college educated; a couple used to teach college.
But my next door neighbor is a cop. (Not sure where. San Francisco maybe?) The guy a couple doors down is a farrier. (Yes really.) Great folks, not particularly well educated; one says he still marvels that he managed to graduate high school. In short, nothing like the class segregation described.
The town is mostly single family houses; archetypal suburbia. But there are also apartment buildings. No more houses being built the last decade or two; we ran out of space. But new apartment buildings are still going up. Afordable ones; at least what passes for affordable for California.
Like I say, a different universe. Not that I doubt for a minute that the problem exists. Just that it's outside my lived experience.
I'd like to hear what nous and wj have to say about Newsom's counter-gerrymander initiative.
I strongly supported the initiative that set up our nonpartisan redistricting commission. I really, really hate to see anything that weakens it.
That said, like nous I will vote for this one-time, Congressional districts only, change. It's tragic that it has come to this. But the world is how it is, and the alternatives are worse. As long as nobody tries to make it a permanent change, or extends it to state legislative districts, I expect it to pass.
It seems to me that the Mets hat thing is a way of trying to experience goodwill and a human connection between groups who may not have many other interests or passions in common.
For the first 3/4 or more of the 20th century, baseball was one of the things that bound people together in this country. Rich or poor, black or white, city or country -- people, whether they followed the game closely or not, were sufficiently aware to be able to talk about it. Their favorite team might not be the local one, but nobody got too exercised about that.
I think two things happened. One was technological: television. Baseball games can be readily followed on radio (presuming good broadcasters, which most were). But football is a TV game. You can't really appreciate what is happening without seeing things unfold. Somehow, football seems much more divisive than baseball.
The other was cultural. It became de rigueur for the upper classes to look down on the game. One could be interested, and many were. But showing interest was not the done thing. If you must talk about sports, talk about something lacrosse, which the lower classes don't do.
What that Mets hat does is show an interest in breaking down that barrier. And a refusal to sneer at the people he's talking to.
Isn't what you are describing fallout from Prop 13, which capped property taxes, which was the mechanism that funded education?
Prop 13 contributed, certainly. But, as nous notes, it's far from the whole story.
Property taxes are a big part of funding primary and secondary education. But they aren't the only source. Also, the problem of reduced results has occurred even in places where there is relatively rapid turnover of home ownership. (Taxes weren't capped by Prop 13. It just froze assessments of property values, on which taxes are based, until the property changes hands.)
Funding for the University of California, and for the state university system, is totally unrelated to property taxes. It comes directly from the state budget, and from whatever tuition gets charged to make up the shortfalls. We could provide more funding from the state budget, and so reduce tuition. We chose, and continue to choose, not to.
educational outcomes are not an especially blue state / red state thing. California doesn't do very well, Utah does.
I wouldn't be surprised if a big part of that is California getting worse. I grew up when we made big investments in education. Not just university education (where tuition was minimal) but at every level. We stopped.
Now, you can build up a couple of decades worth of debt even at a state college. And the quality of primary and secondary education (just in public schools, not even looking at private ones, where available) varies dramatically, depending on where you live.
We didn't have to do that. We chose to do that. The state government manages to find big bucks for projects with marginal benefits. (See the high speed rail boondoggle. It's a nice idea in theory. In reality? No.) But serious money for the basics? Not really. And it's not like Republican reactionaries and radical libertarians have any clout around here. These are the priorities of politicians on the left.
I can hope for an equivalent to the Michigan "Fix the damn roads!" campaign. But I sure don't see any politician who seem interested.
I'm actually pleasantly surprised at the outcome. Far less bad than I had expected. Far less.
I read some griping about Putin being "honored" by being welcomed on US soil. Putin may feel honored (fat chance!). But will anyone else be impressed? Will anyone change their opinion of Putin? No and No.
Or, you could just go: pick the first of the remaining choices the first time, then the second the next, then the third (if there happens to be one). Repeat as you go thru the test.
True randomness, or even pseudo- randomness, isn't required. The folks creating the test will have done all the randomizing necessary
a kid who aces his college boards is probably pretty smart
Or clever enough that you can get a pretty high, at least way above chance, score on a multiple choice test if you eliminate the (2, sometimes 3) obviously wrong choices and then just guess at random. (Versus guessing at random among all 5. Or, worse, just leaving it blank.)
If asked how I know, I'll take the 5th, thank you.
I think that the difference between "smart" and "clever" is mostly a matter of culture (if that's the right term). It's about what you are good at.
Anybody can be clever. But to be "smart" you have to do well at the things that are valued by the formal education system. Not necessarily be highly educated. But able to do those kinds of things.
For example, a great auto mechanic may have struggled to get thru high school. But can be very clever when it comes to figuring out how to fix, or enhance, something mechanical. The formal education system doesn't reward those kinds of abilities, so he very probably doesn't get labeled smart. But nobody would argue against clever.
In contrast, you can be a Nobel Prize winner in physics or chemistry but struggle to do simple cooking or basic home maintenance, let alone auto repair. Which makes you smart, brilliant even, but definitely not clever.
sneering at someone's ignorance, particularly in the matter of taste, immediately marks one out as a member of the kind of "elites" that have understandably caused such vitriolic resentment.
I know a fair number of unarguably working class folks whose immediate reaction to Trump's redecorated Oval Office was immediate sneering.
Looks like a relatively normal room. I'd describe it as grad student / working class (i. e. without a lot of excess cash), but with good taste.
In short, the inverse of excess money and no taste.
Thank your lucky stars that Strump hasn't razed the White House and replaced it with a garish casino.
Yet. Gotta save a few big projects for the third term.
It isn't just that the design is tasteless. It's that the execution is so poor. I think "sloppy" is the word I'm looking for.
It's like no competent craftsmen could be found to do it. Although most likely nobody looked, if they had there might have been a derth of people willing to work under any terms except cash in advance. A poor reputation can do that.
Taking a hard turn in a different direction:
Headline in today's Washington Post: "House issues subpoena for Epstein files". Which is good to know. (And about time, considering how the Trump Justice Department has stonewalled.)
But what got me was the subhead: "It’s unclear how the Justice Department will respond to the request." Do you morons not know? It's not a request. It's an order! Not that the Trump administration recognizes the distinction.
On “David Brooks in Laodicea”
Required disability insurance for seamen, too. But not farmers, or artisans, or merchants, or anyone else.
I'm sure a general public interest can be construed in there - most foreign trade was conducted by sea - but why just them?
Perhaps it was too difficult to assure an adequate number of people willing to be cod fishermen. That kind of insurance may have been seen as necessary to keep a major export industry going strong. No need for the carrot for other jobs.
"
The tariff thing is idiotic. Not because tariffs are always or inevitably bad, but because they are being applied to correct a problem (trade imbalance) that is not necessarily a problem in the first place.
Not to mention that they are being used more to extort foreign policy goals (or, see Brazil, to benefit Trump's personal pals), rather than having anything to do with, you know, actual trade issues. Even if done by someone with a clue, that's a terrible use.
"
If you are going to give out food stamps, make sure that you cut some for Jeff Bezos.
That's actually not a bad idea. We have a hodgepodge of programs to support poor people, especially children, to attempt to get them enough to eat. They're better than nothing. But expensive to run, overlapping in places, and less than effective.
We can afford, as a country, to simply give every person enough food to live on. Maybe not prime rib every day, maybe not the junk food they love, but enough decent quality food for them to live on. Quite possibly for less money than we now spend, not least because we ditch the overhead of determining eligibility. If you're breathing, you're eligible.
Now most likely people like Bezos and Musk, or you and me for that matter, won't bother to collect the benefit. We can eat basically what we like without it. But still, it's worth doing.
Not that I'm optimistic about getting such a thing enacted. But the fact that it's not politically popular doesn't negate it's merits.
On “Giving Away the Store”
The town is likely to lose several million dollars in state money
This may actually be the salient point. Here, it isn't a matter of losing state money (which may be earmarked for stuff they aren't enthusiastic about anyway). Instead, it's fines charged to the town. New Expenses!
The dollar amount may be a wash. But the difference in perception between "stop giving us money (with strings)" and "charge us money" is apparently quite significant.
"
A number of communities affected by the law refused to comply.
There were some minor rumblings here like that. They went nowhere because the Town Council basically said "We don't have funds to pay the fines for non-compliance." Which amount to $1 million -- the number that sticks in my head is per day, but it might have been per month. Anyway, enough that nobody was jumping up volunteering to personally donate the cash to cover it.
"
Maybe you're having a (perfectly understandable) inflammatory reaction to the state of the nation, too. I figure that's a factor in my long (for me) comments.
"
They do not prompt wealthy college-educated folks living in islands of privilege to welcome cops, welders, nurses, and carpenters into their neighborhoods. They certainly and absolutely *DO NOT* prompt those people to do anything that would make lower-income housing more available in their communities, because that would put the assessed values of their own lovely homes at risk. And if the schools in their areas are not up to snuff, they quite often respond by sending their kids to private school, rather than take whatever steps would be needed to improve the local public schools.
Without going into the gory details of my own situation, I can tell you that I live this stuff. Live around it, live with it.
I have the recurring feeling that I am living in a different universe. This town is chock full of highly educated people. Has been since I was growing up here in the 1950s. (The town was a twentieth the size then, but its character hasn't changed much.) A lot of my neighbors are college educated; a couple used to teach college.
But my next door neighbor is a cop. (Not sure where. San Francisco maybe?) The guy a couple doors down is a farrier. (Yes really.) Great folks, not particularly well educated; one says he still marvels that he managed to graduate high school. In short, nothing like the class segregation described.
The town is mostly single family houses; archetypal suburbia. But there are also apartment buildings. No more houses being built the last decade or two; we ran out of space. But new apartment buildings are still going up. Afordable ones; at least what passes for affordable for California.
Like I say, a different universe. Not that I doubt for a minute that the problem exists. Just that it's outside my lived experience.
"
I'd like to hear what nous and wj have to say about Newsom's counter-gerrymander initiative.
I strongly supported the initiative that set up our nonpartisan redistricting commission. I really, really hate to see anything that weakens it.
That said, like nous I will vote for this one-time, Congressional districts only, change. It's tragic that it has come to this. But the world is how it is, and the alternatives are worse. As long as nobody tries to make it a permanent change, or extends it to state legislative districts, I expect it to pass.
"
It seems to me that the Mets hat thing is a way of trying to experience goodwill and a human connection between groups who may not have many other interests or passions in common.
For the first 3/4 or more of the 20th century, baseball was one of the things that bound people together in this country. Rich or poor, black or white, city or country -- people, whether they followed the game closely or not, were sufficiently aware to be able to talk about it. Their favorite team might not be the local one, but nobody got too exercised about that.
I think two things happened. One was technological: television. Baseball games can be readily followed on radio (presuming good broadcasters, which most were). But football is a TV game. You can't really appreciate what is happening without seeing things unfold. Somehow, football seems much more divisive than baseball.
The other was cultural. It became de rigueur for the upper classes to look down on the game. One could be interested, and many were. But showing interest was not the done thing. If you must talk about sports, talk about something lacrosse, which the lower classes don't do.
What that Mets hat does is show an interest in breaking down that barrier. And a refusal to sneer at the people he's talking to.
"
Isn't what you are describing fallout from Prop 13, which capped property taxes, which was the mechanism that funded education?
Prop 13 contributed, certainly. But, as nous notes, it's far from the whole story.
Property taxes are a big part of funding primary and secondary education. But they aren't the only source. Also, the problem of reduced results has occurred even in places where there is relatively rapid turnover of home ownership. (Taxes weren't capped by Prop 13. It just froze assessments of property values, on which taxes are based, until the property changes hands.)
Funding for the University of California, and for the state university system, is totally unrelated to property taxes. It comes directly from the state budget, and from whatever tuition gets charged to make up the shortfalls. We could provide more funding from the state budget, and so reduce tuition. We chose, and continue to choose, not to.
"
educational outcomes are not an especially blue state / red state thing. California doesn't do very well, Utah does.
I wouldn't be surprised if a big part of that is California getting worse. I grew up when we made big investments in education. Not just university education (where tuition was minimal) but at every level. We stopped.
Now, you can build up a couple of decades worth of debt even at a state college. And the quality of primary and secondary education (just in public schools, not even looking at private ones, where available) varies dramatically, depending on where you live.
We didn't have to do that. We chose to do that. The state government manages to find big bucks for projects with marginal benefits. (See the high speed rail boondoggle. It's a nice idea in theory. In reality? No.) But serious money for the basics? Not really. And it's not like Republican reactionaries and radical libertarians have any clout around here. These are the priorities of politicians on the left.
I can hope for an equivalent to the Michigan "Fix the damn roads!" campaign. But I sure don't see any politician who seem interested.
"
I'm actually pleasantly surprised at the outcome. Far less bad than I had expected. Far less.
I read some griping about Putin being "honored" by being welcomed on US soil. Putin may feel honored (fat chance!). But will anyone else be impressed? Will anyone change their opinion of Putin? No and No.
On “A New Gilded Age”
Or, you could just go: pick the first of the remaining choices the first time, then the second the next, then the third (if there happens to be one). Repeat as you go thru the test.
True randomness, or even pseudo- randomness, isn't required. The folks creating the test will have done all the randomizing necessary
"
a kid who aces his college boards is probably pretty smart
Or clever enough that you can get a pretty high, at least way above chance, score on a multiple choice test if you eliminate the (2, sometimes 3) obviously wrong choices and then just guess at random. (Versus guessing at random among all 5. Or, worse, just leaving it blank.)
If asked how I know, I'll take the 5th, thank you.
"
I think that the difference between "smart" and "clever" is mostly a matter of culture (if that's the right term). It's about what you are good at.
Anybody can be clever. But to be "smart" you have to do well at the things that are valued by the formal education system. Not necessarily be highly educated. But able to do those kinds of things.
For example, a great auto mechanic may have struggled to get thru high school. But can be very clever when it comes to figuring out how to fix, or enhance, something mechanical. The formal education system doesn't reward those kinds of abilities, so he very probably doesn't get labeled smart. But nobody would argue against clever.
In contrast, you can be a Nobel Prize winner in physics or chemistry but struggle to do simple cooking or basic home maintenance, let alone auto repair. Which makes you smart, brilliant even, but definitely not clever.
"
sneering at someone's ignorance, particularly in the matter of taste, immediately marks one out as a member of the kind of "elites" that have understandably caused such vitriolic resentment.
I know a fair number of unarguably working class folks whose immediate reaction to Trump's redecorated Oval Office was immediate sneering.
"
Looks like a relatively normal room. I'd describe it as grad student / working class (i. e. without a lot of excess cash), but with good taste.
In short, the inverse of excess money and no taste.
"
Thank your lucky stars that Strump hasn't razed the White House and replaced it with a garish casino.
Yet. Gotta save a few big projects for the third term.
"
It isn't just that the design is tasteless. It's that the execution is so poor. I think "sloppy" is the word I'm looking for.
It's like no competent craftsmen could be found to do it. Although most likely nobody looked, if they had there might have been a derth of people willing to work under any terms except cash in advance. A poor reputation can do that.
"
"I know fully well how vulgar that is and I did it on purpose!'.
Well, we don't have to consider that. Trump has no clue how vulgar it is.
On “An open thread”
I suspect pretty much all of us would be the intern from hell, for anyone daft enough to take us on.
"
"Paid or unpaid?" sounds to me like she could make good use of them, but has no budget to pay them. If you were serious, apply and find out.
"
I have serious problems with anyone whose handwriting is that good. And that goes double for anyone working in IT.
"
Taking a hard turn in a different direction:
Headline in today's Washington Post: "House issues subpoena for Epstein files". Which is good to know. (And about time, considering how the Trump Justice Department has stonewalled.)
But what got me was the subhead: "It’s unclear how the Justice Department will respond to the request." Do you morons not know? It's not a request. It's an order! Not that the Trump administration recognizes the distinction.
"
Care to elaborate on that, Charles?
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.