Monday, January 30, 2006

Lavinia Fenton, William Hogarth, and The Beggar's Opera

I found this while looking for something else.


click to enlarge

It's a portrait by William Hogarth of Lavinia Fenton, Duchess of Bolton, painted circa 1740-50, and it's in the Tate, London.

Here's the caption:
This is traditionally said to be a portrait of the actress and singer Lavinia Fenton (1708–60), who starred as the heroine Polly Peachum in the original and wildly successful 1728 production of The Beggar's Opera. After it closed, Miss Fenton left the stage to become the mistress of Charles Paulet, 3rd Duke of Bolton (1685–1754). In this role she is said to have been a delightful and accomplished companion, and a model of discretion. She bore the Duke three illegitimate sons, all of whom did well in the army, navy and the church. When the Duke's estranged wife died in 1751, the Duke married Lavinia and she became Duchess of Bolton. This portrait – if correctly identified – shows her in her matronly, riper years.
Here also is a link to the Wikipedia article on Beggar's Opera.

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Rajan on resolving global imbalances

Perhaps you've been reading news reports lately dealing with the US economy in a ramp-up to the State of the Union Speech. See for example these three from the Washington Post: Savings Rate at Lowest Level Since 1933, Growth in 4th Quarter Reached a 3-Year Low, and Budget Office Expects Deficit to Edge Up.

US politicians seem to have an overly rosy view of the economy and its prospects. Not just the Bush administration, but I think some prominent Dems as well, are saying the US economy is strong enough and expanding well enough to support our current deficit and its expected continuance into the future.

That isn't how Raghuram Rajan, my favorite economist, sees the situation. He says, as he repeatedly has been saying, that the US is exposing itself to great risks in not dealing with the deficit. He recently gave a cogent summary of his arguments for resolving global imbalances:
Perspectives on Global Imbalances
Remarks by Raghuram Rajan, Economic Counsellor and Director of Research Department, the International Monetary Fund
At the Global Financial Imbalances Conference
London, United Kingdom
January 23, 2006

Charts

extracts:

Good morning. Since this will be the first session on global imbalances, I thought I would give you a broad overview. The picture is familiar to most of you. The United States is running a current account deficit approaching 6 1/4 percent of its GDP this year and over 1.5 percent of world GDP. And to finance it, the United States needs to pull in 70 percent of all global capital flows. While the deficit is still increasing, the location of the surplus countries is changing. The current account surpluses of the oil-exporting countries of the Middle East have now surpassed those of emerging Asia, which were already quite high.


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The current situation, I believe, has its roots in a series of crises over the last decade that were caused by excessive investment, such as the Japanese asset bubble, the crises in Emerging Asia and Latin America, and most recently, the IT bubble.


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Investment has fallen off sharply since, with only very cautious recovery.


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This is particularly true of emerging Asia and Japan.

The policy response to the slowdown in investment has differed across countries. In the industrial countries, accommodative policies such as expansionary budgets and low interest rates have led to consumption- or credit-fuelled growth, particularly in Anglo-Saxon countries.


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Government savings have fallen, especially in the U.S. and Japan, and household savings have virtually disappeared in some countries with housing booms.

By contrast, the crises were a wake-up call in a number of emerging market countries. Historically lax policies have been tightened, with some countries running primary fiscal surpluses for the first time, and most bringing down inflation through tight monetary policy.


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With corporations cautious about investing and governments prudent about expenditure—especially given the grandiose projects of the past—exports have led growth and savings have built up. Many emerging markets have run current account surpluses for the first time. In emerging Asia, a corollary has been to build up international reserves.

Some call this a new world order. I see the situation as a temporary but effective response to crisis. It is somewhat misleading to term this situation a "savings glut" for that would imply that countries running current account surpluses should reduce domestic incentives to save. But if the true problem is investment restraint, then a reduction in world savings incentives will engender excessively high real interest rates when the factors holding back investment dissipate. Put differently, I think it is best to see the underlying cause of current account surpluses as inadequate investment rather than excess savings, because the desirable policy response is to improve the investment environment rather than cut back on savings.

The world now needs two kinds of transitions. First, consumption has to give way smoothly to investment, as past excess capacity is worked off and as expansionary policies in industrial countries return to normal. Second, to reduce the current account imbalances that have built up, demand has to shift from countries running deficits to countries running surpluses.

The traditional view is that exchange rate movements will help guide these transitions.


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[In fact] exchange rate depreciation will help shift demand, in general, however, such changes take time. The question is whether financial markets will be patient or force adjustments to occur through sharper price changes—notably exchange rates and asset prices—in a way that is destabilizing to the real economy and financial markets.

The most immediate concern in the current environment is whether foreign investors will continue to buy US assets without hiccups for the time it takes for the real side to adjust?

Overall, the bulk of U.S. assets sold to foreigners are still to the private sector.

Given this, it is worth noting that both foreign direct investment and net purchases of equities by non-residents have declined markedly since 2000. The concern is that financing will become more difficult — with consequences to U.S. interest rates and the exchange rate — precisely when other factors make the United States slow and look an unattractive place to invest, compounding the slowdown.

To summarize then, the global current account imbalances have arisen, in large measure as a temporary and uncoordinated response to crisis rather than as a permanent new (and perverse) international order. Emerging markets have recognized the risks posed by volatile cross-border flows, especially given the fragility of their own financial and corporate systems. They have learnt to fit their investment coat within the domestic savings cloth they have available, even leaving a bit over to finance rich countries. The resulting global liquidity, abetted by accommodative monetary and fiscal policies, has led to credit-fuelled housing and consumption booms in some developed countries, providing the needed global aggregate demand. And most recently, imbalances have been accentuated through the oil price boom and by countries resisting exchange rate appreciation. While the imbalances have been financed easily thus far, we cannot be sanguine about them.

The best case scenario is that demand shifts smoothly from deficit countries to surplus countries, even while aggregate world demand grows—the proverbial soft landing. There are two other possibilities. One is that as monetary and fiscal stimulus is withdrawn, consumption demand from the deficit countries, notably the United States, contracts sharply. Domestic demand from surplus countries does not keep pace, and even falls, because external demand has indirectly been pulling investment — for example, in the case of Germany or China. In this worst case scenario, we get a contraction of global demand, with only moderate correction of current account imbalances. A second possibility is that adjustment is forced by the financial side, because the real side is seen as unlikely to adjust on its own. Investors become unwilling to hold increasing amounts of U.S. financial assets, demand higher interest rates and some exchange rate overshooting, which in turn forces U.S. domestic demand to contract. Again, if this happens abruptly, it could cause a slow down, as well as financial market disruptions. Of course, overlaying all this is the specter of protection that could make things worse.

What can policy makers do to help effect the needed transitions? In developed economies running current account deficits, the policy emphasis should be on removing monetary and fiscal accommodation at a measured pace. The United States has agreed that reducing its fiscal deficit is part of the solution and is committed to reducing the deficit by half by 2009. While the goal is welcome, we believe the measures are not ambitious enough, and some revenue raising measures will have to be contemplated, especially in view of Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq war's effects on broader U.S. government spending.

Perhaps the central concern in the process of withdrawing accommodation has to be about consumption growth in the United States, which has been holding up the world economy. U.S consumption growth has to slow because the negative household savings rate is unsustainable. It will slow, perhaps on the back of slowing house price growth. The worry is that it will slow abruptly, taking away a major support from world demand before other supports are in place.

Let me conclude. The world economy has been resilient in the face of shocks, in part due to improvements in the quality of policy. This has allowed a variety of imbalances to build up. While the imbalances have been financed easily thus far, one concern we have is that if financing dries up, it will do so at the worst possible time for the world economy — when its strongest engine falters.

A second concern has to do with protectionism. It is all too easy for politicians to blame other countries for imbalances — after all, foreigners do not vote. The solution then appears easy. Impose punitive tariffs! Yet as we have seen, the imbalances are a shared responsibility, and no one country will be able to solve it unilaterally, least of all by imposing tariffs. And a tariff here will bring forth a tariff there, potentially harming the entire world economy. We have seen the movie before in the depression of the 1930s and it is frightening. It is to forestall such a descent into autarky that the Fund has been arguing that countries should avoid pointing fingers at each other. If instead countries see the imbalances as a shared responsibility, it will help guide the domestic debate in each country away from the protectionism that may otherwise come naturally. We should recognize that the need of the hour is sensible domestic policy reform.

Saturday, January 28, 2006

Diary of Lady Shelburne

Like other Victorian biographers, the grandson of the Earl of Shelburne included extracts of letters and other documents in his biography of this politician/statesman of the late 18th century and among the items he included were entries from the diary of Shelburne's first wife, Sophia.

The biography says little about her and few published sources mention her at all. She was 18 when she wed, a young age in an era when delayed marriages were common. Shelburne was eight years her senior and already well established in government. She consequently took on responsibilities as wife of a wealthy and politically ambitious Earl before having much experience of life herself. She managed large households and abundant social engagements while also bearing and raising their first child. So far as I can tell, she did all this very well.

This surprising maturity shows in the diary, which has a deliberate and formal style of a sort we don't usually associate with youth.

She seems to have written it for her own use, but at one point in the entry I've reproduced below she mentions a responsibility she feels toward "posterity, if this Diary should by any means descend to them."

In the extracts within the Shelburne biography there's only one mention of her writing habits. There, she merely mentions that she returned home to write in it while waiting for Shelburne's return one evening.

I plan to give further diary extracts in blog posts over coming weeks, if my interest in this task continues and the time available to me permits. [Update: I've put links to all the Diary posts in the right-hand panel.]


Here, then is a beginning. I'm selecting an entry whose context doesn't need a lot of explaining. Much of her reporting of political events and allusions she makes to these events requires an understanding of the upheavals of the time: the passage and then withdrawal of the Stamp Act, for example, or the election and deposing of John Wilkes. Similarly, many of the people she mentions have significance that she naturally assumes anyone reading the diary would know, and there are very many of them. It would be tedious -- at least here at the outset of this little expedition into the diary -- to explain the importance of events and people she mentions in many of the diary entries.

This is the entry for March 22, 1768. It's not a typical one, as you'll see after I've reproduced a few others. Lady Shelburne was compassionate and generous, but this is the only instance in the published entries in the diary of anything close to pious grand-standing or sentimentality. It's a report on the death of a child. Lady Louisa and Lady Anne were sisters to Lady Shelburne's mother (and thus of course her aunts). Lady Louisa figures in many diary entries. Lady Anne Dawson, not mentioned so often, is pictured in this link. She was 32 at the time of her daughter's death.

Extract from the Diary of Lady Shelburne

22nd. A note from Lady Louisa, who was arrived at Stoke from Ireland, determined me to go and spend the day with her there. I found her looking well, but grown thin, which I was not surprised at. She told me Lady Anne (Dawson) was at Harrowgate and surprisingly well in health; that her attendance on her daughter had been continual, and her sorrow for her of the tenderest, most permanent and reasonable kind, restrained merely by the submission she pays to the power and will of that Supreme Being, whose beneficence had granted her, for eleven years, the most promising of children. I think it right to posterity, if this Diary should by any means descend to them, to relate the most remarkable of many acts of resolution that her sincere piety enabled her to perform, as an example of how parental tenderness ought to operate on such trials, and as a proof that the Divine support can do all things even in a mind torn by grief and a body worn by sickness. In the last visit the physician made her daughter, she followed him out to ask his opinion of her state. He told her that she could not live twelve hours. She then asked him if he expected any struggle before her death. He answered she was so weak he thought she would go off in faintings. Having heard this she returned into the room, and summoning all her courage said to the child, "My dear Henrietta, I have been asking your physician how soon he thinks you will be well, for you have been so long ill we may expect it now every day. He assures me before this time tomorrow , but as all severe illnesses have their crises, you must expect first to be extremely sick and faint, and at last to be quite overcome with sleep, which you have been so long without, that it will be the soundest you have ever had, and when you wake you will be stronger, lighter, and better than you ever remember to have been." The child, who was perfectly sensible, seemed pleased, and asked her how she could know that. To which Lady Anne answered that the course of most illnesses were well known, and that she herself always knew that it would be so in this, as it was one many people had had, but as she did not know the exact time of the crisis, would not talk of it to her for fear of making her impatient. In an hour or two the child called her and complained of extreme faintness, upon which she took her hand and said, "Well then, my dearest Henrietta, think of what I told you." The effect was so blest, that the child smiled upon her and expired.


Here is a citation for the biography in which extracts from Lady Shelburne's diary appear:

Author: Fitzmaurice, Edmond George Petty-Fitzmaurice, 1st
baron, 1846- [from old catalog]
Title: Life of William, earl of Shelburne, afterwards
first marquess of Lansdowne,
Edition: (2d and rev. ed.) ...
Published: London, Macmillan and co., limited., 1912.
Description: 2 v. fronts. (ports.) plates, maps (1 fold.) 23
cm.
LC Call No.: DA512.L3F5 1912

To find this book in a library, click here.

Friday, January 27, 2006

I commute

some days.....

Some days, like yesterday, the greatest occurance is my ride home. Sunny, with temperatures in the 30's, winds from the northwest, gusting to 25 mph. I travel northwest; and so ....

- The sun part: low on the horizon and quite frequently in my eyes.
- The temperature part: low enough to cause eyes to tear and nose to run, fingers and toes to tingle (after a while); colder seeming, of course, because of the headwinds.
- And then the winds: strong enough to require effort equal to a week's worth of normal commutes (so it seemed at the time anyway); like climbing a mountain, I say; taking my breath away; bouncing off buildings and pushing my front wheel (no, I don't want to go that way!)

If there's consolation, it's that I've learned to keep my back muscles from stiffening up -- Use the gears I tell myself, make your legs do the work, breath deep and push out that abdomen.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

which side are you on?

A Belgian site called World Standards answers the burning question, Why do some countries drive on the right and others on the left? The author says:
About a quarter of the world drives on the left, and the countries that do are mostly old British colonies. This strange quirk perplexes the rest of the world; but there is a perfectly good reason.

In the past, almost everybody travelled on the left side of the road because that was the most sensible option for feudal, violent societies. Since most people are right-handed, swordsmen preferred to keep to the left in order to have their right arm nearer to an opponent and their scabbard further from him. Moreover, it reduced the chance of the scabbard (worn on the left) hitting other people.

Furthermore, a right-handed person finds it easier to mount a horse from the left side of the horse, and it would be very difficult to do otherwise if wearing a sword (which would be worn on the left). It is safer to mount and dismount towards the side of the road, rather than in the middle of traffic, so if one mounts on the left, then the horse should be ridden on the left side of the road.

In the late 1700s, however, teamsters in France and the United States began hauling farm products in big wagons pulled by several pairs of horses. These wagons had no driver's seat; instead the driver sat on the left rear horse, so he could keep his right arm free to lash the team. Since he was sitting on the left, he naturally wanted everybody to pass on the left so he could look down and make sure he kept clear of the oncoming wagon’s wheels. Therefore he kept to the right side of the road.

In addition, the French Revolution of 1789 gave a huge impetus to right-hand travel in Europe. The fact is, before the Revolution, the aristocracy travelled on the left of the road, forcing the peasantry over to the right, but after the storming of the Bastille and the subsequent events, aristocrats preferred to keep a low profile and joined the peasants on the right. An official keep-right rule was introduced in Paris in 1794, more or less parallel to Denmark, where driving on the right had been made compulsory in 1793.

Later, Napoleon's conquests spread the new rightism to the Low Countries (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg), Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Russia and many parts of Spain and Italy. The states that had resisted Napoleon kept left – Britain, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Portugal. This European division, between the left- and right-hand nations would remain fixed for more than 100 years, until after the First World War. .....
The author purportedly quotes the UK Ministry of Transport: “Visitors are informed that in the United Kingdom traffic drives on the left-hand side of the road. In the interests of safety, you are advised to practise this in your country of origin for a week or two before driving in the UK.” Sounds apochryphal and, alas, I can't find any such language on the UK Min of Transp site.


This photo shows Dagen H (Day H) in Sweden, the day on which traffic in Sweden switched from driving on the left-hand side of the road to the right. The H stands for Högertrafik, the Swedish word for "right-hand traffic" - according to wikipedia. The date was September 3, 1967, and the city is Stockholm.





There other good pages on this topic, including:

Which side of the road do they drive on? Edited by Brian Lucas, last updated: August 2005, and:

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_the_road
* http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Rule_of_the_road
* http://www.geocities.com/jusjih/driving-rl.html
* http://www.starimage.co.uk/scda/reference/drive_on_the_left.htm
* http://www.amphicars.com/acleft.htm


This photo by Brian Lucas shows a "Keep right" sign on a dirt road on the Snæfellsnes peninsula of Iceland.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

underbar musik - perfekt på jobbet

I like a little background music at work but nothing that intrudes if I can help it. After some experimentation, I've settled on two internet radio stations, both classical and both from the far north of Europe: NRK Alltid Klassisk from Norway and Sveriges Radio, SR Klassiskt, from Sweden. They play music that I like (classical chamber works as often as not, with quite a bit of art song -- lieder -- both familiar and interestingly new). It's important that there's little talk and all of it in languages that (a) I don't understand and (b) aren't distracting -- I mean they're not so different from English as to attract my attention nor so close that I'm tempted to figure out what's being said.

I listen the the Norwegian station over Viddiplayer as default and switch to the Swedish one if there's a connection difficulty or I don't like current programming.

They both have lots of different music on offer. Here's a bit more about the Swedish station:

The SR Klassiskt is almost entirely in Swedish, but there's one bit of translation. The station describes itself as: "Classical music from Swedish Radio. Around the clock and worldwide. A selection of 500 years of outstanding hits as well as the lesser known." There's a page that lists current and immediate past selections: Spellistor/Playlists.

Other programing includes humor, sports, rock, hip hop, pop, jazz, folk, news, history, local stations, and quite a bit that I can't figure out.

This is the header banner for SR Klassiskt:

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

what Homer said

There's an interesting blog called Crazy 8 Opinions by the "Agile Blog group." Pretty bizaare. This post is fairly representative. See also 8 Favorite Candies.

Top 8 Homer Simpson Quotes

If any of you out there actually question my dedication to Homer J. Simpson, just remember, I was about 20 minutes away from having him tattooed on myself……….On with the quotes!


8.)   Mmmmmm…….anything


7.)   Oh Lisa, you and your stories. Bart is a vampire, beer kills brain cells. Now let’s go back to that building…thingy…where our beds and TV…is


6.)   Look, the thing about my family is there’s five of us. Marge, Bart, Girl Bart, the one who doesn’t talk, and the fat guy. How I loathe him.


5.)   Lisa: Do we have any food that wasn’t brutally slaughtered?
       Homer: Well, I think the veal died of loneliness


4.)   Homer no function beer well without


3.)   Homer: Got any of that beer that has candy floating in it? You know, Skittlebrau?
       Apu: Such a beer does not exist, sir. I think you must have dreamed it.
       Homer: Oh. Well, then just give me a six-pack and a couple of bags of Skittles
2.)   It’s true, I’m a Rageaholic…..I just can’t live without Rageahol!


1a.)   Here’s to alcohol, the cause of—and solution to—all life’s problems
1b.)   Marge:  "Have you been up all night eating cheese?"
         Homer: [slurred] "I think I’m blind… "



There are tons of other quotes from this genius of a man, but these are my favorites……Hilarious



Monday, January 23, 2006

snooping on citizens, a failure of oversight

Sabrina I. Pacifici continues to provide excellent pointers to web stuff related to government snooping on citizens. Here are a couple of examples:
Questions About NSA Surveillance From the Not So Distant Past

Statement for the Record of NSA Director Lt Gen Michael V. Hayden, USAF, House Permanet Select Committee on Intelligence, 12 April 2000:

  • "In performing our mission, NSA constantly deals with information that must remain confidential so that we can continue to collect foreign intelligence information on various subjects that are of vital interest to the nation. Intelligence functions are of necessity conducted in secret, yet the principles of our democracy require an informed populace and public debate on national issues. The American people must be confident that the power they have entrusted to us is not being, and will not be, abused. These opposing principles--secrecy on one hand, and open debate on the other--can be reconciled successfully through rigorous oversight. The current oversight framework reconciles these principles. It serves as a needed check on what otherwise has the potential to be an intrusive system. The regulatory and oversight structure, in place now for nearly a quarter of a century, has ensured that the imperatives of national security are balanced with democratic values. Mr. Chairman, this is a complex and difficult issue, one that involves an intricate mix of technical and legal nuance. In the end, however, the concerns expressed about NSA’s capabilities strike at very basic desires on the part of our citizens to be secure in their homes, in their persons, and in their communications. My appearance here today is as the Director of NSA. But I’m also here as a citizen who believes that the careful and continuing oversight of NSA -- at many levels, internal and external -- represents a commitment to striking a balance between the government's need for information against the privacy rights of U.S. persons that my fellow citizens and their elected representatives can endorse. I can assure you, Mr. Chairman, and all our citizens, that I consider the maintenance of that balance one of my highest priorities, as do the other men and women of NSA." [emphasis added]

  • See also this related PowerPoint presentationprovided as documention during the hearing referenced above. [links via cryptome]

  • Related postings on domestic surveillance




  • Commentary on Government Search Engine Data Collection Highlights Privacy Issues

    Commentary related to postings this past week, Google Fights DOJ Order to Produce Records of Database Searches and MSN Blog Post Explains Search Data Provided to DOJ, focuses on the privacy issues that dominate this probe, rather than the government's contention that the effort revolves around protecting children who use the Internet.



    See the following articles and news that widen the scope of the discussion and provide additional relevant facts:

  • Washington Post (reg. req'd), Forgot What You Searched For? Google Didn't: "..the request -- and Google's refusal to fork over its search data -- is putting a helpful public spotlight on the vast amount of personal information being stored, parsed and who knows what else by the Web services we increasingly rely on to manage our lives."


  • CBS News.com: Internet Privacy Out Of Our Hands


  • Newsweek: The government is demanding millions of your queries. AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft have coughed up. Google is resisting: "Though the government intends to use these data specifically for its COPA-related test, it's possible that the information could lead to further investigations and, perhaps, subpoenas to find out who was doing the searching."


  • NPR: Google Fights Request to Turn Over Search Records


  • Boston.com: Google subpoena roils the Web - US effort raises privacy issues



  • TechWeb: Search Engines' Trustworthiness Shaken By Government Data Gathering

  • Saturday, January 21, 2006

    Pearlstein on health care

    I do like Steven Pearlstein's columns in WashPost. He lays out the facts, sets out issues clearly, and explains what needs to done, and he does all this concisely and persuasively. Here's a recent one on health care:
    With Health Care, First Fix Terms of Engagement
    By Steven Pearlstein
    Wednesday, January 18, 2006; D01

    extracts:

    In the coming weeks, President Bush intends to initiate a long-overdue national debate on what do about health care. The sector represents 16 percent of the economy and is growing twice as fast as the incomes of the people who pay for it. Even at that level of spending, however, 40 million Americans have no health insurance at all, while the health of those who do is worse than in many other industrialized countries where spending is considerably lower. If we don't fix it, the health care "system" will render U.S. businesses uncompetitive, require huge increases in taxes and eventually bankrupt the country.

    The White House line that we need to get government out of the health care business, or that we'd have better, cheaper health care from an unregulated market, is not only nonsense. It is also the kind of ideologically charged rhetoric that will immediately ensure that Democrats oppose anything that follows it.

    Government -- in the form of Medicare, Medicaid and insurance coverage for employees and veterans -- already pays half of the nation's health bill.

    Moreover, we know that by its nature, health care is a highly imperfect market.

    It suffers from tremendous "information asymmetries" between sellers (doctors, hospitals and insurers) and buyers (patients).

    It is rife with what economists call "principal-agent problems" -- like the doctor who benefits financially by providing more medical treatment than patients need, or health insurers that are always trying to get them to consume less.

    In rural areas, there are often few providers and little or no competition.

    And left alone, insurance markets will tend to lower costs for the young and healthy and raise them for the sick and aged -- an outcome that is as socially unacceptable as it is economically efficient.

    We know from behavioral economics that people are particularly irrational about health care risks, with a tendency to overconsume, overpay and over-insure.

    So, please, let's dispense with the free market, personal choice rhetoric. Economically, its inappropriate. Politically, its just stupid. It didn't work with Social Security and -- trust me on this one -- it really won't work with health care.

    That doesn't mean there aren't ill-advised government policies that need fixing.

    Both economic theory and recent experience tell us that "universality" is an economic necessity. In a competitive marketplace, the sick and poor tend to be priced out of the system while an increasing number of employers and healthy workers try to free-ride by getting others to pay for their emergency-room care.

    Just as important, universality is a political necessity. Leave it out and you can be sure that Democrats will mau-mau the issue and refuse to participate in the discussion. On the other hand, include it as a central purpose of health care reform and Democrats will have no choice but to join in.

    Thursday, January 19, 2006

    don't look now ...

    I had a little email exchange with Gobbergo in which we lamented the things that inhibit a carefree immursion in all the wonderful goodies the internet offers, such as communing with people you don't yet know (like, for example, fellow book-lovers, or movie-lovers, or music-lovers). It's particularly annoying that the risks we face include dissemination of such apparently innocuous little bits of data as the search-history trails accumulated by Google as you use it on your home or work computer - bits that -- through data mining techniques -- can be used to compromise your privacy even where your pc hasn't been told who you are in real life (though many have that info).

    So here's an instance of why it's important to worry about these things. Google is one of the cleanest, most trustworthy, and well-intentioned of corporate monsters that exists, but what about the other search engines mentioned in the post that lamely handed over databases to the Government? And, with regard to Google, they can resist, but they can't give an iron-clad guarantee that they'll protect our privacy. They can only do their best. {Note: it's very worthwhile clicking on the link that Battelle gives at the end of the post and exploring the "Patriot Search" site fully -- including mission, search syntax, and privacy policy.} here's the report from John Battelle:

    Don't Look Now, But It's Happening<

    From my book, written a year or so ago:

    As we move our data to the servers at Amazon.com, Hotmail.com, Yahoo.com, and Gmail.com, we are making an implicit bargain, one that the public at large is either entirely content with, or, more likely, one that most have not taken much to heart.
    That bargain is this: we trust you to not do evil things with our information. We trust that you will keep it secure, free from unlaw-ful government or private search and seizure, and under our control at all times. We understand that you might use our data in aggregate to provide us better and more useful services, but we trust that you will not identify individuals personally through our data, nor use our personal data in a manner that would violate our own sense of privacy and freedom.

    That’s a pretty large helping of trust we’re asking companies to ladle onto their corporate plate. And I’m not sure either we or they are entirely sure what to do with the implications of such a transfer. Just thinking about these implications makes a reasonable person’s head hurt.

    From the Mercury News, today:

    The Bush administration on Wednesday asked a federal judge to order Google Inc. to turn over a broad range of material from its closely guarded databases.

    The move is part of a government effort to revive an Internet child protection law struck down two years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court. The law was meant to punish online pornography sites that make their content inaccessible to minors.

    In court papers filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Justice Department lawyers revealed that Google has refused to comply with a subpoena issued last year for the records, which include a request for one million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period.

    The Mountain View-based search engine opposes releasing the information on a variety of grounds, saying it would violate the privacy rights of its users and reveal company trade secrets, according to court documents.

    Nicole Wong, an associate general counsel for Google, said the company will fight the government's effort ``vigorously.''

    ...The government indicated that other, unspecified search engines have agreed to release the information, but not Google. (emphasis is Batelle's)

    Of course the Bush administration started with the cover of "fighting child porn." Do you think that's all they've asked for?

    Of course not. Bravo, Google, for fighting this. Don't give up the fight. It's not just about this one request. This is a major, major moment. And shame on the other engines for not standing up and fighting.

    (And while I'm tossing out kudos, bravo on the two tier Internet stance, as well.)

    Update: Philipp has a hilarious send up here - "Patriot Search."

    maybe we do have a 2-party system after all

    Here's a feel-good article for Maryland Dems. After you've read it, look at the second article, below, which tersely shows how wage-earners are falling behind as price indexes continue to climb.

    Minimum Wage Raised In Maryland Over Veto
    Governor Considers Move a 'Job Killer'

    By John Wagner and Matthew Mosk
    Washington Post Staff Writers
    Wednesday, January 18, 2006; Page A01

    extracts

    Maryland lawmakers voted yesterday to raise the state's minimum wage by $1 an hour, delivering a pay increase to more than 50,000 workers who toil on the bottom rung of the employment ladder.

    The Democrat-led Senate voted 30 to 17 to override Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s veto of the legislation, which will in 30 days officially increase the minimum wage in Maryland to $6.15 an hour, $1 more than what is mandated by federal law. The House, also led by Democrats, voted to override Ehrlich (R) last week.

    The veto override was the second in the opening days of the 2006 General Assembly session to draw a bolder line between the two parties as they head into a hotly contested election season, a split that follows a traditional storyline for each party.

    Democrats billed the passage of the wage bill, coupled with legislation approved last week requiring Wal-Mart to spend more on employee health benefits, as a way to plant their party firmly on the side of working-class voters. The governor, by contrast, wants to show his party's unyielding commitment to the business community.

    Both bills were part of a series of rapid-fire votes cast in the opening weeks of the legislative session that could drive up Democratic turnout on Election Day. Yesterday also brought passage of two vetoed bills that proponents said will make it easier for people to vote. In a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly 2 to 1, any increased turnout is expected to benefit Democrats.

    One bill approved over the governor's veto will expand the number of days polling places will stay open, allowing voting as early as a week before the election. Another will criminalize any effort to trick or intimidate potential voters from going to the polls.

    During debate on the measure in the House, Del. Maggie L. McIntosh (D-Baltimore) said it was "shameful" that the wage has not been increased in nine years. "Anybody recall what a gas-electric bill was in 1997?" asked McIntosh, who then held up her home heating bill, which had nearly doubled.


    Here's the article on wages and prices.

    Inflation Hit Five-Year High of 3.4% Last Year
    Wages Didn't Keep Up, Labor Department Says

    By Nell Henderson
    Washington Post Staff Writer
    Thursday, January 19, 2006; Page D01

    extracts

    Surging energy prices pushed consumer inflation to a five-year high in 2005, outpacing average wage gains for most U.S. workers, the Labor Department reported yesterday.

    The department's consumer price index, a widely followed inflation gauge, rose 3.4 percent last year, the fastest rate since 2000, reflecting higher prices for fuel oil, gasoline, natural gas and electricity, the department said.

    Workers' average pay rose more slowly. Average hourly wages fell 0.5 percent and average weekly earnings declined 0.4 percent, after adjusting for inflation, in the 12 months that ended in December, the department said in a separate report.

    Last year was the third consecutive year in which weekly wages fell, after adjusting for price changes, according to department statistics on the 92 million private production and non-managerial service workers who make up more than 80 percent of the nation's workforce.

    Monday, January 16, 2006

    sand storm in Iraq

    This is a selection (about half) from a set of photos called Sand Storm in Iraq: April 26, 2005. There's no further explanation. Internal evidence suggests they were taken by someone who works for a contactor at a military compound in the Iraq desert. {Click image to see full size.}



    Saturday, January 14, 2006

    Prufrock at New College, Nov 30, 1933

    Isaiah Berlin was a conversationalist. He loved to talk and his phenomenal memory fed a rapid delivery of learned wit, gossip, and high ideas. He could deliver monologues (and was a masterful lecturer once you got used to the accent and pace) but he prefered to engage in conversation, listening and responding, not just spouting forth. His letters have a similarly engaging conversational tone. The charm that makes them fun to read also makes him an interesting subject for biography.

    {Click image to enlarge}

    Not everyone was immediately taken with him however. Michael Ignatieff's biography of IB contains an anecdote about a Prufrock-like encounter with Virginia Woolf:
    It was to Elizabeth Bowen that he wrote in November 1933, after he met Virginia Woolf at dinner at the Fishers' [Warden's lodgings] in New College Lodge. Woolf had the fine-boned beauty he was to find attractive in women and he was fascinated by her way of speaking. Warden Fisher asked her whether she liked walking, and she replied that she did, because she liked coming upon goats. 'They look so ecclesiastical,' she said. After dinner, Isaiah retired into a corner with the Magdalen don C. S. Lewis. They talked unctuously about 'God, Shakespeare and the charade of life', until Isaiah overheard Virginia, nearby, mention Elizabeth Bowen. He stepped forward and said that she was in America. A halting conversation then ensued about literature, before she turned away to talk to other guests. While Isaiah felt he had been rewarded with a few moments in the Elysian Fields, Mrs. Woolf's reaction was considerably more caustic: 'I should think there were one hundred promising undergraduates in after dinner; and I shook hands with all, and tried to think what to say, but oh dear what a farce! One might as well go to a school treat and hand out penny buns. There was the great Isaiah Berlin, a Portuguese Jew by the look of him, Oxford's leading light; a communist, I think, a fire-eater - but at Herbert's everyone minces and mouths and you wouldn't guess to talk to them that they had a spark.
    This tells the anecdote nicely, but there's more to know about this Woolfian moment. In his selection of Berlin's letters, Henry Hardy sets the scene:
    NOVEMBER 1933

    At the end of the month Virginia Woolf dined in New College, and IB was a guest. The account he gives of this meeting in the next two letters is complemented by extra (sometimes conflicting) details in the memoir of Woolf he wrote in 1989. The seating plan for the dinner survives among the papers of the Warden's wife, Lettice Fisher[1]:
    The Warden

    Mrs Woolf -        - Mr Berlin

    John Sparrow[2] -        - BJ.

    Mary -        - Mr Crossman

    A Ker[3] -        - Mr Lewis[4]

    LF

    Woolf herself wrote to her nephew Quentin Bell on 3 December: There was the great Isaiah Berlin, a Portuguese Jew by the look of him, Oxford's leading light; a communist, I think, a fire eater'; but to Elizabeth Bowen on 6 January 1934: 'I never realised which of [150 undergraduates] Mr Berlin was, but had to piece him together from descriptions afterwards.'

    ====================
    [1] Lettice *Fisher (1875-:956), economist and historian, married to the Warden of New College, H. A. L. Fisher, 1899.

    [2] John Hanbury Angus Sparrow (1906-92), barrister, historian, Fellow of all Souls 1929-52, author of Half-Lines and Repetitions in Virgil (Oxford, 1931), later (1951-77) Warden of All Souls. {I met him!.}

    [3] Alan Ker (1904-67), New College classics 1923-7, Fellow of Brasenose 1931-46.

    [4] Clive Staples Lewis (1893-1963), Fellow and English Tutor, Magdalen, 1925-54, author of Pilgrim's Regress: An Allegorical Apology for Christianity, Reason and Romanticism (London, 1933).
    ====================

    Notice how Hardy's note on C.S. Lewis makes no mention of Narnia. I take this as evidence of his dry Oxonian wit.

    Also: B.J. was Maire Lynd (pronounced "Moira"), daughter of Irish nationalists. She was IB's pupil and it was she who organized trips to Ireland in which he visited with Elizabeth Bowen. Mary was Mary Fisher, daughter of Lettice and The Warden. Crossman was Richard Crossman, Oxford don, editor of the New Statesman, and a Labour politician. I - your own Secondat - actually met John Sparrow in 1968 at a dinner in All Souls! Details happily provided on request.

    Here is part of Berlin's letter to Mary Fisher, who was seated across from Richard Crossman at dinner. IB wrote it at 1 a.m. right after he returned to his rooms.

    TO MARY FISHER
    [30 November 1933]
    All Souls
    Dear Mary

    X was v. funny on the way home. "There was the Warden talking about Rosebery and talking well, and Virginia gently questioning him, when a bellow from the lower end of the table - you know who I mean - Crossman or Crosspatch or whatever the name is. ..."

    I do think she is the most beautiful person I've ever seen. I can also imagine what she looks like when she goes mad, as I believe, she occasionally does. I can't say how much altogether I enjoyed myself I'll be grateful if it is half as pleasant to-morrow night at the Clarks'
    yrs
    Shaya
    The X stands for John Sparrow. IB usually used "X" for his friend Chistopher Cox (a fellow at New College and participant in the festivities after dinner). It's unclear why Sparrow is "X" in this note. Directly after writing Mary Fisher, he wrote a long letter to Elizabeth Bowen. Note IB's treatment of the side-role that C.S. Lewis plays in this little drama. Here's the beginning of it:

    TO ELIZABETH BOWEN
    30 November 1933, 1 a.m.

    All Souls
    Dear Elizabeth
    A most trivial peg to hang a letter on, but you will I hope forgive me. It is this: After huge preliminary preparations and a great deal of consulting and rearranging Mrs Woolf was finally induced to come & stay a night with The Warden of New College - her first cousin. She was asked for a week-end but funked that and came for one night. John Sparrow was specially got down from Town via me as intermediary and at 7.45 tonight we commenced. Mrs Fisher whom I saw on the previous night & whom I asked whether it was true, as alleged, that Mrs W. was very shy, especially of new faces, said "yes, she must pull herself together, that's all. I met her last when [she] was 17 and most priggish & horrible I thought her. I hope she's improved since then. Anyway there won't be many new faces. Only 20 or 30 or so".

    During dinner I sat opposite her in petrified and satisfied silence admiring her beauty which is very, very great. The Warden talked gently & rather well about Rosebery, & she egged him on very gracefully with a minimum of effort. Now & then John Sp. murmured half and quarter sentences which mingled with the current without either augmenting or diverting it. We then trooped out led by a screaming Mrs F. who was shouting that she liked Uppingham* it was so sincere and hearty, where chosen undergraduates and undergraduettes one or two titled, one or two possessing the even greater advantage of really humble birth + self-taught knowledge of literature ('700 books on Shakespeare alone, & some of them quite good ones, you must talk to him Virginia' The Warden said 'he's very poor') were awaiting us. There Virginia settled comfortably among the worshipping pop-eyed New College boys and girls (among whom Cox) and talked about Meredith. But we weren't allowed to listen (she was talking a behaving very nobly) but were constantly re-formed by Mrs F., who ill at ease and idle handed jumbled everyone into a sort of game of musical chairs in which nobody talked to anybody for more than 2 minutes, except me, who tired of this & hopeless of conversation however broken with Mrs Woolf retired sulkily into a corner with a man called Lewis and talked about God, Shakespeare, and the comedy of life. (Literally. He is a pious man & believes that God is a dramatist in a most literal way. It was rather exciting, really.) Mary F., B.J., others would stray into our neighbourhood, & be frozen away by the apparent repulsiveness of the subject & the unction in our voices. (I develop my interlocutor's voice to a ludicrous degree). Mrs F. like Anna Pavlovna Scherer in War & Peace continually refashioned her uneasy little groups into more & more ill fitting combinations. Only Virginia's corner was sacred, & there I had no apparent access. So matters dragged themselves till 10.30. Mrs F. now began to fidget & I grew angry at my spoilt evening, not wholly spoilt, for I enjoyed her appearance a gestures enormously (this sounds gross, but the feeling was really exquisite, really exquisite); 11 p.m.: finally we got up & water, I think, was handed round. Mrs W was talking to Sparrow: '. . . Mrs Bowen' (sic) she said. B.J. and I automatically turned towards her. 'We know her too' we both wanted to say grasping at an opening. It was here that my shameful act must be recorded, God give me strength. I stepped forward: 'She is in America' B.J. said 'I received a postcard from her' I said blushing as furiously as even you could have wished me to. 'What does she say?' said Mrs Woolf, I mumbled something unintelligible and quickly swallowing said 'which poet do you think will get the King's new medal?' etc. I cannot tell you how that lie which I shall think white to-morrow, but certainly don't to-night, revolved in my head, like some ludicrous autobiographical Russian's. I really had the feeling of a man who had committed an unscrupulous desperate act & had, moreover, been rewarded for it by a few Elysian moments. I am trying to make this as Tchekhovian as possible (I do think it is a theme worthy of no better author. But also of no worse a one) to melt your heart into not merely forgiving me (which I don't deserve, but you will, I hope, do, seeing how I grovel) but into not even being excessively amused, nor being as amused as I should be, for instance, if it had happened to someone else, being heartless in such matters, but on the contrary rather touched. After this the story ends abruptly. After some 3 minutes on Olympus I told myself that I must perform an act of will, obey the Warden's warning yawns, & leave before everything petered out. So I bowed stiffly and went. I've never felt more like an inferior character in a Russian story who goes through a gamut of trivial emotions which he dramatises ad infinitum, including a minor crime which looms enormous & pursues him and grows into quite an alastor.** She really is a most beautiful and godlike person whom it is a pity that anyone should know intimately. I hope I shall meet her again.

    ... rest of letter omitted.

    ===========================
    * Uppingham is a British boarding school which began in 1584 as an almshouse and which seems, consequently, to have a reputation for egalitarianism.
    ** Greek for 'avenger'
    ===========================


    {Virginia Woolf; source: www.fembooks.com.tw (which is also the source of the image at top}

    Friday, January 13, 2006

    walking across Andorra

    I'm fond of travel narratives and adventure stories (which always involve travel don't they?). I like mountain climbing narratives such as Into Thin Air and the riveting Touching the Void. I like ocean passage narratives, such as the story of a trans-Atlantic crossing by rowboat (one of the first of the genre I can recall reading as a young teen) which, alas I cannot now find. I like books by famous travel writers, such as Bruce Chatwin, and by famous authors who also wrote travel pieces, such as D.H. Lawrence (it was Ernie who put me on to his travel writings 40 years ago). I like the classic memoirs that I suppose are high up in the travel-adventure canon, such as (the other) Lawerence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and Dana's Two Years Before the Mast. I think Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle must fit in this category too. I like offbeat accounts, like Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey and Jerome's Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog). And, I should not leave out, I like myths, legends, and novels, such as The Odyssey, Inferno, Gulliver's Travels, Moby Dick. There's a lot to like. One top favorite is very hard to find: Narratives of the mission of George Bogle to Tibet, And of the journey of Thomas Manning to Lhasa, edited by Clements R Markham. Another should be more readily available: Goethe, Italian Journey.

    All that's by way of introduction.

    The World Hum web site ('travel dispatches from a shrinking planet') has an article with the intriguing title: The Art of Writing a Story About Walking Across Andorra. It's a funny account which is both a travel narrative and a how-to for aspiring travel writers. The intro and section headings give the flavor of it:


    He traversed an entire nation in a long weekend. Now Rolf Potts shows how you can impress members of the opposite sex and write a textbook-perfect travel article in eight easy steps.

    I. Many Travel Stories Begin as an Attempt to Impress Pretty Women

    II. Historical Details Make it Look Like You Know What You’re Talking About

    III. Editors Are Impressed By Tidy Narrative Formulas

    IV. When Bogged Down in Description, Trot Out Some Colorful Characters

    V. Be Sure to Contrast the Purity of the Past With the Superficialities of Today

    VI. Don’t Forget to Talk to a Local

    VII. Public Festivals are the Holy Grail of Any Travel Story

    VIII. End With a Tidy Generalization, or Perhaps a Knowing Wink


    Endnote: There are some good books that I can't bring back to mind. One about Africa, one by Sir Walter Scott about travels around the fringe of Scotland, one about travels in the Arabian desert.

    A quick google search shows me that -- as you'd expect -- there are some travel lit reading lists for college English classes. Cribbing from one of them, and from Wikipedia's list of Notable Travel Literature, here's some more good stuff in the genre:
    Samuel Johnson, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland
    Jack Kerouac, On the Road
    Paul Theroux, Great Railway Bazaar
    V.S. Naipaul, An Area of Darkness
    Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Letters from Constantinople
    Tobias Smollett, Travels through France and Italy
    Laurence Sterne, Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy
    John Steinbeck, Travels With Charley

    Wednesday, January 11, 2006

    China cuts back on financing US deficit

    There hasn't been much to report lately regarding international finance and the US deficit. It's amazing how consistent are statements coming from the Fed and IMF. Less surprising is the failure of governments to follow the good (though not particularly welcome) advice. With respect to China, my favorite IMF'er gives a particularly lucid statement of what needs to be done and why in a speech this week at the American Economic Association meetings in Boston. In introducing his topic he says: "The basic issue is familiar to most of you. The United States is running a current account deficit approaching 6 1/4 percent of its GDP this year and over 1.5 percent of world GDP. And to help finance it, the United States pulls in 70 percent of all global capital flows. Clearly, such a large deficit is unsustainable in the long run." I recommend you read it if you've time and interest: Financial System Reform and Global Current Account Imbalances by Raghuram Rajan.

    A couple of days after Rajan spoke, the world heard that China is having second thoughts about funding the US deficit. Here are extracts from a Washington Post article on the subject.
    China Set To Reduce Exposure To Dollar
    Move Would Probably Push Currency Down
    By Peter S. Goodman
    Washington Post Foreign Service
    Tuesday, January 10, 2006; Page D01

    extracts:

    SHANGHAI, Jan. 9 -- China has resolved to shift some of its foreign exchange reserves -- now in excess of $800 billion -- away from the U.S. dollar and into other world currencies in a move likely to push down the value of the greenback, a high-level state economist who advises the nation's economic policymakers said in an interview Monday.

    As China's manufacturing industries flood the world with cheap goods, the Chinese central bank has invested roughly three-fourths of its growing foreign currency reserves in U.S. Treasury bills and other dollar-denominated assets. The new policy reflects China's fears that too much of its savings is tied up in the dollar, a currency widely expected to drop in value as the U.S. trade and fiscal deficits climb.

    China now boasts the world's second-largest cache of foreign exchange -- behind only Japan -- and is on pace to see its reserves climb past $1 trillion later this year. Even a slight diminishing of the dollar as a percentage of those holdings could exert significant pressure on the U.S. currency, many economists assert.

    In recent years, the value of the dollar has been buoyed by major purchases of U.S. Treasury bills by Japan, China and oil-exporting countries -- a flow of capital that has kept interests rates relatively low in the United States and allowed Americans to keep spending even as debts mount. Some economists have long warned that if foreigners lose their appetite for American debt, the dollar would fall, interest rates would rise and the housing boom could burst, sending real estate prices lower.

    In 2005, the dollar rebounded against major foreign currencies as the Federal Reserve raised short-term interest rates -- making dollar assets relatively more attractive than others -- but has slid a bit early this year. Meanwhile, China continues to amass foreign-exchange reserves at a pace of roughly $15 billion per month.

    Even if a Chinese shift away from the dollar weakened the currency, that would probably not soothe tensions with those in Washington calling for an increase in the value of the yuan to help U.S. manufacturers. Unless China severs the link between the value of its currency and the dollar -- a move Beijing says could destabilize its economy -- then a weaker dollar would simply mean a weaker yuan as well, leaving in place the current debate over whether China's export earnings are being netted unfairly..

    Tuesday, January 10, 2006

    a watery walk in May

    The Washington Post Magazine for Christmas Day recently had a photo spread on the 12 months. Here are January, February, and March with links to the others. Click on the image to read the personal narrative that accompanies each.

    January

    February

    March


    This photo for May is my favorite.


    Next-best, I like the one for August.


    Links for other months:

    APRIL
    JUNE
    JULY
    SEPT
    OCT
    NOV
    DEC

    Monday, January 09, 2006

    a master of realism


    This is a 1905 oil painting by Frank E. Schoonover which appeared as an illustration in a magazine. I've two reasons for showing it: (1) The same artist did a WWI battle scene showing a great-uncle of Allen and (2) its setting is so different from our current bleak midwinter.

    The painting hangs in the Delaware Art Museum. Here's the information that the museum provides:
    Hopalong Takes Command,
    Frank Earle Schoonover(1877-1972)
    From "The Fight at Buckskin," by Clarence Edward Mulford, Outing Magazine, December 1905
    Oil on canvas
    30 x 20 in.
    Bequest of Joseph Bancroft, 1941

    Schoonover was a student at the art school of Drexel Institute (now Drexel University) when he received a scholarship to Pyle’s school at Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, during the summers of 1898 and 1899. By 1906, he had established a Wilmington studio.

    Known especially for his depictions of outdoor adventure stories and of tales about Canadian far North and American West, Schoonover illustrated for many major American writers, including Jack London and Zane Grey. In this illustration for Clarence Edward Mulford’s popular Hopalong Cassidy series, the subject was the illiterate, whisky-drinking cowhand nicknamed for his limp and not the matinee-idol character of the later films. In The Fight at Buckskin, the locals stage a chaotic siege in which Hopalong ends up in a barn perched on a ledge. His vulnerable position is short-lived, and Hopalong lives to fight another day.

    Schoonover’s mastery of realism is evident in the scorched, bullet-riddled wood, and Hopalong’s dry leather chaps and dusty hat. The cowboy’s face, mostly shielded from the searing sun, has the weathered look of a man worn down by the relentless violence of the Old West.

    There's a Schoonover page at ERBzine which gives a bunch of thumbnail images indicating the wide range of subjects he illustrated.

    Sunday, January 08, 2006

    a Prufrockian moment

    Isaiah Berlin was a conversationalist. He loved to talk and his phenomenal memory fed a rapid delivery of learned wit, gossip, and high ideas. He could deliver monologues (and was a masterful lecturer once you got used to the accent and pace) but he prefered to engage in conversation, listening and responding, not just spouting forth. His letters have a similarly engaging conversational tone. The charm that make them fun to read also makes him an interesting subject for biography.

    Not everyone was immediately taken with him however. Michael Ignatieff's biography of IB contains an anecdote about a Prufrock-like encounter with Virginia Woolf:
    It was to Elizabeth Bowen that he wrote in November 1933, after he met Virginia Woolf at dinner at the Fishers' [Warden's lodgings] in New College Lodge. Woolf had the fine-boned beauty he was to find attractive in women and he was fascinated by her way of speaking. Warden Fisher asked her whether she liked walking, and she replied that she did, because she liked coming upon goats. 'They look so ecclesiastical,' she said. After dinner, Isaiah retired into a corner with the Magdalen don C. S. Lewis. They talked unctuously about 'God, Shakespeare and the charade of life', until Isaiah overheard Virginia, nearby, mention Elizabeth Bowen. He stepped forward and said that she was in America. A halting conversation then ensued about literature, before she turned away to talk to other guests. While Isaiah felt he had been rewarded with a few moments in the Elysian Fields, Mrs. Woolf's reaction was considerably more caustic: 'I should think there were one hundred promising undergraduates in after dinner; and I shook hands with all, and tried to think what to say, but oh dear what a farce! One might as well go to a school treat and hand out penny buns. There was the great Isaiah Berlin, a Portuguese Jew by the look of him, Oxford's leading light; a communist, I think, a fire-eater - but at Herbert's everyone minces and mouths and you wouldn't guess to talk to them that they had a spark.


    This tells the anecdote nicely, but there's more to know about this Woolfian encounter. In his selection of Berlin's letters, Henry Hardy sets the scene:
    NOVEMBER 1933

    At the end of the month Virginia Woolf dined in New College, and IB was a guest. The account he gives of this meeting in the next two letters is complemented by extra (sometimes conflicting) details in the memoir of Woolf he wrote in 1989. The seating plan for the dinner survives among the papers of the Warden's wife, Lettice Fisher[1]:
    The Warden

    Mrs Woolf -        - Mr Berlin

    John Sparrow[2] -        - BJ.

    Mary -        - Mr Crossman

    A Ker[3] -        - Mr Lewis[4]

    LF


    Woolf herself wrote to her nephew Quentin Bell[1] on 3 December: There was the great Isaiah Berlin, a Portuguese Jew by the look of him, Oxford's leading light; a communist, I think, a fire eater'; but to Elizabeth Bowen on 6 January 1934: 'I never realised which of [150 undergraduates] Mr Berlin was, but had to piece him together from descriptions afterwards.'

    ====================
    [1] Lettice *Fisher (1875-:956), economist and historian, married to the Warden of New College, H. A. L. Fisher, 1899.

    [2] John Hanbury Angus Sparrow (1906-92), barrister, historian, Fellow of all Souls 1929-52, author of Half-Lines and Repetitions in Virgil (Oxford, 1931), later (1951-77) Warden of All Souls. {I met him!.}

    [3] Alan Ker (1904-67), New College classics 1923-7, Fellow of Brasenose 1931-46.

    [4] Clive Staples Lewis (1893-1963), Fellow and English Tutor, Magdalen, 1925-54, author of Pilgrim's Regress: An Allegorical Apology for Christianity, Reason and Romanticism (London, 1933).

    {Also: B.J. was Maire Lynd (pronounced "Moira"), daughter of Irish nationalists. She was IB's pupil and it was she who organized trips to Ireland in which he visited with Elizabeth Bowen. Mary was Mary Fisher, daughter of Lettice and The Warden. Crossman was Richard Crossman, Oxford don, editor of the New Statesman, and a Labour politician.}
    ====================


    Here is part of Berlin's letter to Mary Fisher, who was seated across from Richard Crossman at dinner. IB wrote it at 1 a.m. right after he returned to his rooms:

    TO MARY FISHER
    [30 November 1933]
    All Souls
    Dear Mary

    X[3] was v. funny on the way home. "There was the Warden talking about Rosebery[4] and talking well, and Virginia gently questioning him, when a bellow from the lower end of the table - you know who I mean - Crossman or Crosspatch or whatever the name is." ... I do think she is the most beautiful person I've ever seen. I can also imagine what she looks like when she goes mad, as I believe, she occasionally does. I can't say how much altogether I enjoyed myself I'll be grateful if it is half as pleasant to-morrow night at the Clarks'
    yrs
    Shaya


    Completing this, he wrote a long letter to Elizabeth Bowen. Here's the beginning of it:

    TO ELIZABETH BOWEN
    30 November 1933, 1 a.m.

    All Souls
    Dear Elizabeth
    A most trivial peg to hang a letter on, but you will I hope forgive me. It is this: After huge preliminary preparations and a great deal of consulting and rearranging Mrs Woolf was finally induced to come & stay a night with The Warden of New College - her first cousin. She was asked for a week-end but funked that and came for one night. John Sparrow was specially got down from Town via me as intermediary and at 7.45 tonight we commenced. Mrs Fisher whom I saw on the previous night a whom I asked whether it was true, as alleged, that Mrs W. was very shy, especially of new faces, said "yes, she must pull herself together, that's all. I met her last when [she] was 17 and most priggish & horrible I thought her. I hope she's improved since then. Anyway there won't be many new faces. Only 20 or 30 or so".

    During dinner I sat opposite her in petrified and satisfied silence admiring her beauty which is very, very great. The Warden talked gently & rather well about Rosebery, & she egged him on very gracefully with a minimum of effort. Now & then John Sp. murmured half and quarter sentences which mingled with the current without either augmenting or diverting it. We then trooped out led by a screaming Mrs F. who was shouting that she liked Uppingham it was so sincere and hearty, where chosen undergraduates and undergraduettes one or two titled, one or two possessing the even greater advantage of really humble birth + self-taught knowledge of literature ('700 books on Shakespeare alone, & some of them quite good ones, you must talk to him Virginia' The Warden said 'he's very poor') were awaiting us. There Virginia settled comfortably among the worshipping pop-eyed New College boys and girls (among whom Cox) and talked about Meredith. But we weren't allowed to listen (she was talking a behaving very nobly) but were constantly re-formed by Mrs F., who ill at ease and idle handed jumbled everyone into a sort of game of musical chairs in which nobody talked to anybody for more than 2 minutes, except me, who tired of this & hopeless of conversation however broken with Mrs Woolf retired sulkily into a corner with a man called Lewis and talked about God, Shakespeare, and the comedy of life. (Literally. He is a pious man & believes that God is a dramatist in a most literal way. It was rather exciting, really.) Mary F., B.J., others would stray into our neighbourhood, & be frozen away by the apparent repulsiveness of the subject & the unction in our voices. (I develop my interlocutor's voice to a ludicrous degree). Mrs F. like Anna Pavlovna Scherer in War & Peace continually refashioned her uneasy little groups into more & more ill fitting combinations. Only Virginia's corner was sacred, & there I had no apparent access. So matters dragged themselves till 10.30. Mrs F. now began to fidget & I grew angry at my spoilt evening, not wholly spoilt, for I enjoyed her appearance a gestures enormously (this sounds gross, but the feeling was really exquisite, really exquisite); 11 p.m.: finally we got up & water, I think, was handed round. Mrs W was talking to Sparrow: '. . . Mrs Bowen' (sic) she said. B.J. and I automatically turned towards her. 'We know her too' we both wanted to say grasping at an opening. It was here that my shameful act must be recorded, God give me strength. I stepped forward: 'She is in America' B.J. said 'I received a postcard from her' I said blushing as furiously as even you could have wished me to. 'What does she say?' said Mrs Woolf, I mumbled something unintelligible and quickly swallowing said 'which poet do you think will get the King's new medal?' etc. I cannot tell you how that lie which I shall think white to-morrow, but certainly don't to-night, revolved in my head, like some ludicrous autobiographical Russian's. I really had the feeling of a man who had committed an unscrupulous desperate act & had, moreover, been rewarded for it by a few Elysian moments. I am trying to make this as Tchekhovian as possible (I do think it is a theme worthy of no better author. But also of no worse a one) to melt your heart into not merely forgiving me (which I don't deserve, but you will, I hope, do, seeing how I grovel) but into not even being excessively amused, nor being as amused as I should be, for instance, if it had happened to someone else, being heartless in such matters, but on the contrary rather touched. After this the story ends abruptly. After some 3 minutes on Olympus I told myself that I must perform an act of will, obey the Warden's warning yawns, & leave before everything petered out. So I bowed stiffly and went. I've never felt more like an inferior character in a Russian story who goes through a gamut of trivial emotions which he dramatises ad infinitum, including a minor crime which looms enormous & pursues him and grows into quite an alastor.[6] She really is a most beautiful and godlike person whom it is a pity that anyone should know intimately. I hope I shall meet her again.

    ... rest of letter omitted.

    ===========================
    [1] Quentin Claudian Stephen Bell (1910-96), son of Woolf's sister Vanessa and Clive Bell; artist, potter, author, critic; later (1972) Woolf's biographer. His wife, Anne Olivier Bell, edited Woolf's diaries, which do not mention this occasion.

    [2] The Sickle Side of the Moon, The Letters of Virginia Woolf Volume V, 1932-35, ed. Nigel Nicolson (London, 1979), pp. 255, 360.

    [3] Mary Bennett believes this to be John Sparrow. (JB usually uses "X" to refer to Christopher Cox, who, however, was not present at this dinner, though he was - as the next letter records - among those to whom Woolf was introduced afterwards.)

    [4] Archibald Philip Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery (1847-1929), Prime Minister 1894-5.

    [5] Probably George Norman Clark, Chichele Professor of Economic History and Fellow of All Souls 1931-43, Regius Professor of Modern History, Cambridge, 1943-7, Provost of Oriel, and his wife Barbara.

    [6] Greek for 'avenger'
    ===========================

    traffic cams and out-of-control underground construction

    Like many cities, DC has lots of traffic cameras with internet feeds (traffic cams). The Washington Post Traffic Video Center provides access to them. In fact there are about 300 traffic cams in the Washington area.

    Here are two static images lifted from the site.


    This shows an intersection that I pass through twice a day. In the morning, I'm out of sight off to the left. In the afternoon I pass by in the direction the one-way arrows are pointing (the ones under the no-left-turn signs). This is the junction of New York and New Jersey Avenues. It's a busy intersection. I generally have to stop and wait at this light and that makes the location a particularly familiar one.


    This shows the front of LC's Madison Building, where I work. The bright lights upper-left are part of the very extensive post-9/11 Capitol Police security operation. The camera is mounted midway between the adjacent corners of the three LC buildings. It faces west, so you can see the front of the Madison Building and part of the Cannon House Office Building.

    This map may help you visualize the location of the camera. Click to enlarge.


    The map reminds me of the humongous construction project that's been going on for the past few years in this area. There was a feature article about it in last Saturday's paper:

    Visitor Center Inches Along
    Costs Keep Rising, Deadlines Are Pushed Back, Yet Some See Progress
    By Petula Dvorak
    Washington Post Staff Writer
    Saturday, January 7, 2006; Page B01
    extracts:

    The project is plagued by delays, a ballooning budget and growing scope. [It] began as a $71 million anteroom and rest stop for visitors. It has turned into an approximately $550 million extension of the U.S. Capitol that looks like an underground football stadium.

    The center will include an expansive dining area, dozens of restrooms, two gift shops, two 250-seat movie theaters and a high-tech, interactive museum.

    [Add-ons include a] secret network of tunnels and passageways more than 50 feet below ground to hold 15,000 gallons of water for use in decontaminating people, if necessary.

    [More add-ons appeared as] some in Congress said it would be a good time to expand the office space for members.

    The space that resulted from all the add-ons is almost large enough to move the entire Congress and its operations underground. There is a $37 million tunnel to the Library of Congress and a 1,000-foot, two-lane truck tunnel for service deliveries, which is at least five months behind schedule. Another $1 million was added for a rush job on the pave stones for last year's inauguration, so that President Bush could review the troops on the East Front of the Capitol, Fontana said.
    Note the $37 million tunnel to LC. Top management at the Library have been making plans to wow the hoards of tourists that are expected to plunge through it. A major undertaking to say the least.

    Saturday, January 07, 2006

    Isaiah Berlin to Elizabeth Bowen 1938

    This is Isaiah Berlin in 1927.
    (click to enlarge)
    For the past few years he's been a favorite author. I own, but haven't yet begun to read the compilation of letters he wrote between 1928 and 1946. Recently I pulled it off the shelf and read the first letter that came in view. It's good -- worth sharing.

    He wrote it immediately after completing work on his Karl Marx book. He'd been traveling -- to Italy, Austria, France, and then Ireland. The book's editor, Henry Hardy, says he spent a night at the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin where he observed 'Mr. Yeats chanting verse in a corner to a young woman.' The letter concerns his next stop in Ireland, visiting Elizabeth Bowen at Bowen's Court in County Cork.

    Henry Hardy gives the following context for the letter and provides some helpful footnotes. There's a biographical glossary in the back of the book containing entries on most of the people the letter mentions.
    IB returned to England at a time of political crisis. The Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, had begun a series of meetings with Hitler in an attempt to avert the threat of a war over Germany's demand that it should annexe the Sudetenland. The first of these, at Berchtesgarten on or September, raised hopes that war might be avoided, but disagreements, and hence preparations for war, continued until the Munich Conference of 29--30 September, when Britain and France accepted that Czechoslovakia should cede the Sudetenland to Germany.


    Here's the letter.
    TO ELIZABETH BOWEN

    Saturday [after 15 September 1938]
    All Souls

    Dear Elizabeth,
    I have never - this is really true - had so much to thank for before in my life. I don't in the least know how to convey it, the overcompensation against my emotional mother + life in England & in Oxford has so far atrophied all my natural capacity for expressing direct personal feeling, that I must necessarily hope that they will get expressed by some cumulative effect of everything else one says, the alternative is frightful Henry James circumnavigation with, allusions to a state too sacred to be unlocked or described etc. & all this fearful embarrassment because I don't know how to say that I enjoyed myself enormously, that in the middle of it I was conscious of inability to repay, that I theoretically condemned {that} the whole complex of payment-repayment, but that for all that I was pursued by a sense of insufficient sensibility to offer in return, that I hope that my well known ponderous inadaptability didn't get on your nerves too much, that the possibility of finishing K. Marx in peace is due to you solely, that my affection, admiration, & a circumambient complex of unstateable feeling has risen to a point which I shd be angry if I could articulate - I can't continue with this, 1 hope I hope I convey, that I have induced ideas. Let me rather give an account of the succeeding hours.

    Upon leaving you all at Fermoy[1] (as astringent a scene as even I cd desire) I found myself in the company, as you know, of Mrs Walton,[2] who spoke to me with the special air adapted to one who was at once a literary funny & a friend of the picaresque Foster.[3] That is, she spoke slowly, & apologized for every reference to local life, lamented her husband's ruthless devotion to his Irish home[4] and the pleasures of her youth & of London: she complained too of her husband's light head, & predicted that he would behave badly after a sherry party, when he wd dine in Bowen's Court to meet Mr Lennox Robinson.[5] She supposed she wd bear of it later: these things had happened more than once, & she was tired of inventing ad hoc explanations of it to allay shocked neighbours. This increasing intimacy, which I supported by a series of pontoon like Maurice 'yes' sounds, was interrupted by the arrival of a friend of hers, called Reggie certainly, & possibly also Stern or Stearn or Stirn. He greeted me with great affability, told gallant stories of insults to foreign station masters, & was finally left alone with me, after Mrs W.'s departure. Thereupon we settled down to a solid hour of discussion of the horse trade - I inquired, with I thought not really excessive crassness, about yearlings, hunters etc. being definitely pleased to see no look of frustration in my companion's eyes: I learnt a great deal about the habits of Cork horsebreeders, verified the story of the President's descent,[6] & altogether enjoyed the full pleasures of a highbrow behaving unfamiliarly without excessive loss of dignity. We became very
    ====footnotes to this page====
    [1] Town in County Cork.

    [2] Diana Florence Walton (I904-s3). a neighbour of Elizabeth Bowen. One of her sons remembers her talking of the train journey from Fermoy with IB, and reports that he resolutely disdained any interest in looking through the window'. In the 1920s she had lived at islip. near Oxford. where - as a beautiful young woman living close ov - she was Inuch in demand at undergraduate dances. Maybe these are among the pleasures of her youth that she lamented, and also one of the reasons why she regretted 'her husband's ruthless devotion to his frish home'. for whose management she was responsible.

    [3] John Foster is alleged to have had an affair with a relative of Diana Walton. Diana Hill 09n-ps1, an aHegation whose plausibility is perhaps increased by IB's remade however hyperbolic it may be, that Foster 'went to bed with more ladies than anybody in the twentieth century' (MI Tape 20).

    [4]Clifford, in a magnificent setting in the north of Co. Cork, overlooking the river Blackwater.

    [5] (Esmé Stuart) Lennox Robinson (1886-1958), Irish playwright and theatre director.

    [6] Douglas Hyde (1860- 2949), of Elizabethan settler descent, became first President of Irehind in
    ====end of footnotes====
    attached on the boat & in the English train - he is a revolting little man - it was very full & we shared a sleeping car. In some wayside station at 6. am. men in pyjamas ran out & bought newspapers, with Chamberlain's journey in them: 'the war is postponed' said my horsedealer & then something like 'whizzbang' & went to sleep again. I never, as Turgenev, wd say, saw him again. He was a very minor cad of about 1870, & continued the cord with the past, which didn't snap till one reached London. Oxford was in a state of absolute enchantment. The sun shone, the town was empty & extremely beautiful, the Warden of New College was walking very slowly in a panama hat, & Mr Rowse was mild & almost deferential. I spent a few hours there, a the sleepless night & the general state of unrest kept me afloat - I am sure you know the condition, in a state of abnormally acute sensibility, irrational ecstasy & suspended animation, all until one reached London, & collapsed into the pedestrian mood of my parents. On the next morning & through the whole of the next day I went through a period of misery and nostalgia which persists still & which nothing can cure. All the faces of ordinary passers-by - even one's friends, Freddie whom I called on, & who said how much he wished he'd been in Ireland - in Bowenscourt I mean - & Stuart whom I met by accident waiting for Renée, & who looked at me really like a frightened gazelle lest she come a find us together & demand some explanation, until I left him feeling at least 25 years his senior, & very grave, bearded, operatic, melancholy & wise, all lacked lustre - I don't know how else to put it, after the terrific temperament & glitter of everything in County Cork, persons, physical objects, the weather. I saw Stephen almost out of desire to achieve contact with a definite person, & he was that, certainly, but plaintive, saying Inez had written a wonderful novel sadly, a then on & on again about Spain.

    The sense of being driven out of paradise was so acute - I suppose Turgenev felt it when forced to leave the West a return to his literary coterie in Russia - that I am resolved not to let it happen so easily, to create possibility of returning to Ireland, at specified intervals however rare, but definite, which wd give stability to one's hopes. You will perhaps rightly suspect a Salzburg once more. Possibly. Except that Salzburg scenes used to return definitely theatricalized, definitely as artificial & sentimentalized as they were meant to be by Reinhardt[1] or somebody, whereas my memory of isolated place & times in Bowen's Court: notably the broad stairs, & the moment before turning the handle of the dining room in the morning, a the beginning of enchanted life (I apologize if this is badly put), the moment of carrying a candlestick from one room into the other, the stern reality of aunt Annie's[2]
    ====footnotes to this page====
    [1] Max Reinhardt

    [2]Anne Marcella Cole Bowen, one of EB's pateral aunts.
    ====end of footnotes====
    room, & the splendid sensation of the sanctity & hardships of a dedicated life, the infinite pleasure of one's bed afterwards, & Curiosities of Literature[1] & To the North[2] by candlelight (the latter I've been stupid about, & left in Oxford on Thursday & cannot finish till Tuesday when I return & then I will send back promptly) the (I thought) much too short walk with you & David C. - again like M. de Charlus,[3] why couldn't it go on & on? releasing one during its second portion & allowing one to say all sorts of things? Even the official theatre - Mr O'Mahoney[4] in knickerbockers drinking claret decoratively on the steps, & treating the company to his fund of laid up erudition & charm & the evening walk among the sneezing troops, a the complete unbelievability of it even at the time to me (I should never dare to confess this to you at the moment, I am certain) & above all the terrific allusiveness of everything to everything else, the sense of everything as chargé du passé et gros de 1'avenir, I can't go on; here there is a lull, the newspapers read like a cheap serial, Chamberlain from having been a sad, mean, bedraggled figure is a national hero, Runciman[5] sold the Czechs piecemeal & bit by bit while he prepared I think to sell them wholesale - Miss Grant Duffs book at 6 pence in Pelican on Czechoslovakia[6] comes out in a half million edition to-morrow - theatres are half empty, the ballet more so still, I shall return to Oxford with relief, it is very self-possessed & frigid: I can hardly believe that I have been as happy as I have: I shall return his detective story to Alan I think it is very good. My love to Noreen[7] who has no flaws. And to Humphry when he comes I can't bear to finish this letter. I must go.

    This is inconceivably inadequate - these & not when writing K.M. is what I really long to be able to write, a sentiment which is absolutely truthfully stated - & wd rightly have been despised by Flaubert or Tolstoy equally. This is like inability to go to bed. The pleasure of nostalgia is too acute. I've now suddenly recollected the Victorian evening in Cork, & the appearance of everyone in the box, & the directness and keenness of all one's
    ====footnotes to this page====
    [1] Curiosities of Literature. Consisting of Anecdotes, Characters, Sketches, and Observations, Literary, Critical, and Historical (London, 1791), published anonymously by Isaac d'Israeli, father of Benjamin Disraeli.

    [2] EB's novel, published by Gollancz in 1932.

    [3] Baron (Palamide) de Charlus, a character in Marcel Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu (Paris, 1913-27). Probably a reference to the male brothel scene early in the last volume, Le Temps retrouvé, where Charius is beaten and then stays to chat.

    [4] Eoin 'Pope' O'Mahony (1904-70), barrister by profession, a great raconteur and broadcaster who frequently discussed clan history on the radio, a familiar bearded figure travelling the roads of Ireland, and a well-known visitor at Bowens Court.

    [5] Walter Runciman, Ist Viscount Runciman of Doxford (1870-1949), head of the mission to Czechoslovakia July-September 1938. See Shiela Grant Duff, The Parting of Ways, 173 ff.

    [6] S. Grant Duff, Europe and the Czechs (Harmondsworth, 1938).

    [7] Noreen Colley, a much younger cousin of EB, daughter of her Aunt Edie Colley.
    ====end of footnotes====
    sensations, as if filtered & intensified by the period frame in which they occurred. I must end on a cautionary note. As I was driving out of Oxford in a taxi, the Broad being blocked, past Wadham, I saw Maurice contentedly in its doorway, surveying & approving. I stopped the taxi, & was at once rushed over the house, the red carpets, late Victorian desks (hideous I thought I must confess, & oddly vulgar for M. is this the David C. virus working insensibly? I must acquire an antidote at once) cellars, attics, bathrooms, bedrooms, sculleries & kitchens, he was well, benevolent, extremely nice. & colossally happy, & not wholly unlike Markie[1] - a character I am prepared to defend always & against anyone.

    My love
    Shaya
    ====footnotes to this page====
    [W[arden] Fisher quite polite about K.M.].[2]

    [1] A character in To the North based on Maurice Bowra: see 288/4

    [2] IB's outer brackets.