View 697 Thursday, October 20, 2011

The headline is that Khadaffi is dead, ignominiously shot down while pleading for his life. So far as I know they didn’t take the body out and hang it upside down in a public square, but much of this is reminiscent of the death of Benito Mussolini – who was, oddly enough, the founder of the nation of Libya. Libya didn’t exist until the Italians formed it from the provinces of Tripolitania , Cyrenaica, and various interior Berber, Taureg, and other tribal groups in the province of Fezzan. The Italian marshal charged with unification was given carte blanche, and the unification wars were brutal. Under Mussolini the trains ran on time – actually there weren’t trains, but a Coast Road was built from Tripoli to the Egyptian border, modern factories such as a Fiat plant were built, and there were numerous showpiece public works such as cathedrals and the Marble Arch commemorating unification. Jewish enterprises thrived.

After World War II a Tripolitanian emir was proclaimed king of Libya. Foreign developers were invited in. The US built an important base and some of infrastructure needed to operate it. The king was overthrown by Colonel Qadaffi, who ruled until the Arab Spring uprisings and consequent NATO-backed rebellion. The US lost a significant imperial asset, Wheelus AFB in Libya, which was not only a primary SAC base but a major staging area for any US regional forces. US Libyan relations in the era of Qadaffi have been a roller coaster. We ended by supporting and partly financing the rebellion that killed him.

President Obama announced Qadaffi’s end in a statement that stopped short of claiming credit for the kill, but certainly didn’t deny it.

It is clear that Qaddafi would still be in control of at least part of Libya had not NATO intervened, and US activities were a vital part of that intervention. How much of a seat that gives us at the table when the time comes to pick the bones of Libya is not clear, nor is it clear that the fall of Khadafi will result in a political resolution and restoration of order without further fighting. NATO obviously holds the balance of power in Libya, and in the Imperial era this might have inspired conflicts among the Great Powers; but of course today there are few Great Powers. It will interesting to see how the new power struggles play out. But it’s more Europe’s business than ours. We’re broke. We may be a Great Power, but we’re a busted Great Power with $12 Trillion in debt to pay before we’re up to broke. We have our own recovery to manage. Rebuilding Libya is not our problem. Khadaffi is dead. Mission accomplished. Can we come home now?

It will be interesting to see how Obama’s advisors make use of this in the campaign.

(This is not a revision but a test)

It is that time of the year: KUSC is having its pledge drive. I time mine to coincide with theirs, so be prepared to be bombarded for a week with exhortations. I operate this place on the Public Radio Model – it is free, but if not enough donate, it will go away. So far it is healthy. It needs subscriptions and renewals to keep it that way. SUBSCRIBE NOW! RENEW NOW! Think how awful it would be if this place closed down! (Well, KUSC takes to saying that when subscriptions aren’t coming in fast enough so I thought I’d try.) Thanks!

Forgive The Debts!

The expected shakeout of the Occupy Wall Street movement continues. Given the great media sympathy for this movement, and the overt support it is receiving from local governments – ignoring permits and restrictions, visits by public officials, restrictions on police activities – the path this will take will be very different from the “Days of Rage” during the Viet Nam era. There is no conscription, and thus no great force driving educated middle class young men into the protest movement – and of course the big incentive of the Left in my undergraduate days, “free love”, is no longer very effective. It’s no longer exclusively the Marxist girls who wear wool stockings who proclaim a right to sexual equality. Actually, the Marxist girls of the 1950’s still used words like slut and public pump, and would have been horrified by the hookup culture. They wanted at least a pretense of commitment. But I digress.

One of the driving force demands of the OWS is “debt forgiveness.” While the demand is for all debts to be forgiven – this is the 99% demanding release from debt to the 1% — there is special attention to student loan debt which has resulted from the education bubble. The bubble was created by the continuous injection of money into the higher education system. That started with the GI Bill, and I was certainly a beneficiary of the Korean War GI Bill. I probably would have got through Memphis State College (as it was known in 1950, having been elevated from West Tennessee Normal School to Memphis State College a few years before) because I had enough connections in Memphis that I could manage to work my way through, and there was in essence no tuition for those who had completed the College Prep programs in high school. I might have got through and perhaps found a way into graduate school, but I might not: the GI Bill left me with some freedom of choice.

But over time more and more money has been injected into the University and College system. If they have the money they will spend it. Eventually the Iron Law governs, faculty, administrators, and staff get ever increasing raises and benefits, admission requirements fall, demand for more public money rises – well, you get the idea. Tuition rises. The answer to that is to inject more money in the form of loans. Unforgivable loans. Loans that will destroy social mobility, as everyone who doesn’t inherit a college education finds himself – herself – a bondswoman for life. But as tuition rises, fewer want to pay, so more and more students must be admitted regardless of qualifications. Public programs that were supposed to be restricted to the smart people who might become boffins have to be extended to everyone regardless of qualifications – or even of background. A program that was supposed to be for veterans is replaced by programs that must be available to all. Programs expand. Campuses multiply. The bubble continues.

And here we are.

The OWS won’t get what they want. There aren’t enough of them actually to storm the centers of power, and they haven’t the discipline to stay peaceful and orderly and build more and more public sympathy as did the veterans camped in Washington and the other occupants of Hoovervilles did in the early days of the Great Depression. They haven’t any consistent views of the world because their college educations are often worthless. They are shocked to discover that there is a real criminal element among them, and the criminals are quite content to be parasitic and feign whatever sentiment is popular on a given day.

I can feel a bit sorry for them. The Obama administration has not been kind to them, and has no concept of how to end the Second Great Depression. On the other hand, the Country Club Republicans and their rapacious allies calling themselves “compassionate conservatives” and “big government conservatives” went stark mad in a spree of needless war and exponentially rising spending. The OWS people have every right to be disgusted. They also have the right to be damned fools, but that’s not a right they ought to exercise.

For those contemplating a rebellion, I remind you again: good guys take responsibilities. Good guys clean up after themselves. Good guys look more than ten minutes into the future. Good guys can be fools too, but they don’t go seek folly.

If you want to go protest, look into the Tea Party. It’s got some dolts and asses and predators and a few dammed fools, but for the most part it believes in freedom, and understands that there isn’t a big government remedy for the mess we got into ourselves. There won’t be any big central action – a general strike, or rising up and erecting guillotines in the public squares, however momentarily attractive that notion may seem – none of that will save us. It took a while to dig this hole, and it will take a while to get out of it.

But we are not surrounded by ruins. Many of the tools of prosperity are in storage or even for sale on eBay (Art Robinson has managed to find a lot of equipment his Institute could never have afforded). We still have a capable work force with good work ethics even if many are now retired; they can still teach apprentices. We are not prostrate under the occupation of a foreign enemy. We have oil and coal and natural gas. There is no requirement that we continue to support an educational establishment that drains our substance while stupefying the bright kids we need to educate. We have all the elements for recovering and sustaining that recovery.

All we need is Freedom.

NATO’s air strikes were too much for Khadafi’s 40 car convoy. (I am told that Obama’s cavalcade is 42 vehicles including the Canadian made armored bus, but doubtless has some air cover assets as well; interesting that the President of the United States apparently needs an entourage/escort similar to that of an oil rich dictator.)  Given Qadaffi’s record of public trials and executions it is hard to conclude that he was dealt with unjustly.

Science fiction writers like to ramble about lessons from history. Are there any here? This is all first draft from here on: sheer speculation.

One lesson to be learned is, DO NOT LOSE if you are in the dictator business. The US will borrow money to furnish the Brits, French, and Italians with the means to kill you. Understand that, and be sure that you have the means for defending yourself. The more strategic your country the more important it will be to have defenses including personal defenses. Another lesson is, do not renounce your nukes. Get some. Get at least one and let it be known that it will detonate if you don’t talk to it at daily intervals.

Napoleon Bonaparte marched all over Europe, transferring many of the art treasures of Western Civilization to the Louvre. He carried liberation, meaning government by intendants general, to many places, ended the longest living republic in human history and looted it thoroughly, and led a Grande Armée into Russia in Winter, leaving much of it behind as he hurried to retreat. Yet Bonaparte was beloved by his troops and much of France. He’s got a bigger tomb than most any king. He died in exile. (He who has only seen an eagle caged has never seen an eagle.) For some indication of the emotions he could stir up long after his death, see Stendhal’s Red and the Black. Or as Van Loon suggests, listen to a great artist perform Di Beiden Grenadiere.  (In English. Jerome Hines.)

The radio is now telling me that Kadafi was put on display in a shopping mall. Still not strung up as Mussolini was.

View 697 Wednesday, October 19, 2011

If you rely on the Washington Post or other establishment media reports, Newt Gingrich wasn’t even in Las Vegas at the debate last night; when in fact he was, as usual, the clear winner and best performer. He didn’t make any mistakes, and his critique of host Anderson Cooper for encouraging bickering rather than steering the debate to substantive issues was right on target. But if you look at the Washington Post score card, Newt wasn’t even there.

Newt was the only one on the platform who took Cain’s 9-9-9 plan seriously. He pointed out that the plan as so far presented isn’t complete: there are details that need to be worked out. The important point is that the tax system is all wrong from bottom to top. It needs fixing. I doubt seriously that anything as simple and catch-phrasey as 9-9-9 will do it. To begin with, a federal excise tax on food products that have not crossed state lines would have horrified every delegate to the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, and had the voters understood that ratifying the Constitution would allow that, we’d still be under the Articles of Confederation. The Whiskey Tax was inferred from the Constitution. It was instituted at the behest of Hamilton as a way to repay the national debt. The notion that a farmer could not make whiskey from his own corn without paying a tax designed to bail out the banks who had loaned money to finance the Revolution brought about armed rebellion that required President George Washington to take to the field to suppress it; had the tax fallen on eggs and milk and beef the rebellion would have been a lot larger.

Jefferson repealed the Whiskey Tax. It was later reinstated, but “the revenoors” have never been very popular. See films of the Waco Massacre with BATF agents firing unaimed automatic weapons in the general direction of a compound containing not only women and children but four of their own agents as an example of their courage and professionalism. (Sorry: it’s the Southern boy in me; I was raised to be contemptuous of the revenoors.)

Cain is now tied with Romney as Number One.

Cain came off well enough: he did try to debate real issues and he didn’t interrupt the other candidates. He has good manners, a strong personality, and looked Presidential. He’s clearly not very well versed in foreign policy, but neither is the present occupant of the White House. Foreign policy is important, but the most important part of it is having the right principles; after that it’s a matter of choosing the right team to conduct it. Reagan wasn’t a foreign policy wonk and had no experience in the matter. He did know that Nixon’s détente wasn’t the right strategy for the Cold War.  George H. W. Bush had been the Director of Central Intelligence and had lots of experience. Bill Clinton wasn’t a foreign policy expert, and proved it by choosing Allbright; one may disagree with some of Hillary Clinton’s policy moves, but she has done a more than creditable job as Secretary of State working for a clueless President. The Republic needs a principled President, not a policy wonk.

Third Party Taxes

As to 9-9-9, Cain is both principled and intelligent; if a plan won’t work he’s capable of adjusting it without sacrificing its underlying purpose. The underlying purpose of changing the tax code is to make it simple and certain. The purpose of including some kind of excise tax is to make certain that everyone in the nation has a stake in keeping federal taxes reasonable: at the moment taxes are a third party matter for a very large segment of the population, who thus have an interest in spending but will face no personal consequences from expanding entitlements: a sure formula for disaster. Cain understands that. Unless everyone pays something – unless taxes hurt all voters – there’s no curb on spending. Reagan understood that and tried to eliminate withholding from the Income Tax: come tax time you would have to write a check. It wouldn’t be invisibly taken out of your wages. That didn’t fly and for the simple reason that the cost in revenue would be enormous. Having a quarter of the state’s inhabitants in debt to the state for unpaid income taxes would perhaps be philosophically beneficial but it would also be a nightmare. But the principle is that those who vote for taxes must pay some is a vital one for a Republic. There is no limit to taxes you can vote on someone else.

Cain is principled and intelligent, and his fixation on 9-9-9 is in fact indicative of his recognition of the problem: taxes can’t be controlled unless everyone is paying some. Progressive taxes generate complexities. He doesn’t like complexities. Even so, I wouldn’t be astonished if 9-9-9 didn’t end up as a 9% tax but with serious exemptions for food and certain other necessities, and several income tax brackets ranging from a minimum perhaps below 9% and a maximum of, say, 27%. Or something of that sort. The important principle is that there has to be a general incentive to cut spending, not raise taxes. Entitlements have to be paid for. By everyone.

So far as I am concerned, the winner was probably Obama as the top GOP Candidates bashed each other rather than Obama’s “Jobs” plan. Perry demonstrated that he would be disqualified in a high school debate: his debate strategy is to keep the other guy from speaking by using up all his time. His pounding on Romney “for hiring illegal aliens” was not an optimum performance. Romney hired a legal contractor as a gardener. When it turned out that the contractor employed one or more illegals, the contractor was replaced. It turned out the next contractor employed someone with fraudulent documents. When that was discovered the worker was fired. Hardly a major factor in determining who ought to be President of the United States, and certainly not so important that Perry should be so vigorous in making it known. On the positive side, Perry understands that states are not the federal government, and states have powers the feds don’t have. It is important that we have a President who knows this.

Michelle Bachman came off well, looking Presidential at times. Santorum held his own, but succumbed to Anderson Cooper’s predictable seductive call to bicker rather than speak to real issues. Newt correctly took Cooper to task on this. Huntsman tended to be lost in the pack; I could wish he had spent more time expanding his own views. Like this.

And as usual Newt was clearly the smartest man in the room. He was also focused on the goal: getting rid of Mr. Obama.

Romney

Romney started in the lead, and stayed there: he showed a certain degree of calm under fire, and resisted to temptation to retaliate. He can take being bullied: important for someone who may have to stand up to Putin and those whom the Mideast ferment will allow to bubble up to power. He can be decisive, and he showed that he fully understands that the Romney Care Package was designed to take advantage of conditions unique to Massachusetts. It wouldn’t work for the United States as a whole – indeed it wouldn’t be constitutional for the federal government.

It is interesting to note that the mainstream media is showing more and more sympathy and concern for Romney. He is clearly their favorite among the Republicans, and indeed, as Mr. Obama’s approval rate plummet, hovering now below the magic 43%, I look for some of the media to abandon him for someone – anyone – of the traditional ruling class who can win. That, they think, may be Romney.

It’s not that Romney is a traditional Country Club Republican desperate for the approval of the media, someone who can be expected to show “unexpected growth” in office. (“Growth” to the media means becoming more sympathetic to liberal causes.) He’s not that. Romney is a rather odd duck who holds some very conservative views – but who has also managed to be elected as Governor of Massachusetts, and to have governed that unruly state without being pounded into jelly. It’s not that the media like Romney; it’s that he’s about the only place they can go given the Republican field and the dismal record of the present administration. We may look to see more pro-Romney news coupled with increasingly frantic attacks on all the others. Cain, in particular, horrifies them.

I note Sarah Palin’s analysis of the debate.

It is that time of the year: KUSC is having its pledge drive. I time mine to coincide with theirs, so be prepared to be bombarded for a week with exhortations. I operate this place on the Public Radio Model – it is free, but if not enough donate, it will go away. So far it is healthy. It needs subscriptions and renewals to keep it that way. SUBSCRIBE NOW! RENEW NOW! Thanks!

View 697 Tuesday, October 18, 2011

The morning was devoured by locusts. The locust attack started Friday when we noticed Time Warner Cable trucks outside. Later that afternoon we noticed that some of our TV channels were no longer available, and the whole service was degenerating. We called Time Warner and after perhaps ten minutes got Mellissa, who did something to try to reset the box. The result was that our cable box no longer knew what time it was, the menu section didn’t know the names of the channels, and the system didn’t know what was showing or what was going to be shown: all that was To Be Announced. Waiting didn’t help. Using the Power button on the box to reset the system didn’t help. The DVR wasn’t’ available. The only way to know what was on was to go to the channel or, with hope, look in the newspaper. Just like the very old days of TV: watch one thing at a time, and when it shows. No halting and fast forward.

Time Warner scheduled a visit by a technician for Tuesday, and over the weekend we got a number of calls finally settling on Noon to Two on Tuesday. By that time I was thoroughly dismayed; I am astonished at how darned dependent I have become on having the TV work properly including being able to record something to watch later. I also discovered just how bad the newspaper coverage of TV has become, but I suppose I shouldn’t be astonished by any of that.

At 1330 the technician arrived. English was not his first language, but that’s true of half of Los Angeles. English was clearly his second language and he spoke it pretty well, so we managed. He looked at the TV and it didn’t take long before he announced that he had to go outside to the junction on the pole outside. I said I’d try to see if the TV worked all right at one of the other outlets – there’s an outlet in an upstairs room although the TV in there is a bottle and we haven’t had it on in years – but he said not to bother. It would all work when he got down off the pole. He sounded confident.

He came back carrying an in-line cylinder about three inches long and a bit less than an inch in diameter. “Someone accidentally installed a filter on your line.” That seemed unlikely and I said “How can you accidentally install that?” He repeated that someone had accidentally installed it. He said if several times always using the word accidentally: that was clearly a script.

Meanwhile the TV was working. It knew what time it was, and the Menu knew the name of the station it was looking at even if the name of the program was “To Be Announced.” As I watched a couple of items went from “To Be Announced” to a program name. I tested the DVR. I could record and play back and fast forward. Everything worked. Two hours later most of the programs after about 1900 are “To Be Announced” – it seems to be taking a long time to reset, but I make no doubt that it will.

When the technician left – I would have liked to have had him give me a few lessons on operating the system, but that’s where the language barrier began to count – I had to go out and run some errands I couldn’t do

PETA Calls For Federal Investigation Into Conrad Murray Propofol Study On Beagle Dogs

http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2011/10/conrad-murray-propofol-testing-beagles-peta-wants-federal-investigation

I am not a big fan of PETA but I can understand their outrage. My first instinct is to send them a donation. Conrad Murray is the attending physician who says he administered Propofol to Michael Jackson not long before Jackson died; the trial is going on in Los Angeles. His defense team seems to have used Propofol to kill young beagles as part of establishing the lethal dosage.

Actually I am not sending a donation to PETA and I do not believe it is the business of the general government in Washington to look into the antics of a defense law team in California. If there’s a Federal Law against administering an anesthetic to beagles then the law ought to be repealed, and we don’t need to add Beagle Inspectors to the Federal Bunny Inspectors. I am not even sure this is a matter for the State of California. Perhaps Los Angeles County, or the State Bar Association. Reading further I find:

“PETA asserts that if attorneys from Flanagan, Unger, Grover & McCool did commission the tests for the drug Propofol – the toxic effects of which have been extensively studied in dogs and humans – those tests were likely conducted in violation of the federal Animal Welfare Act’s prohibition against tests on animals that duplicate previous experiments. PETA has filed a complaint with the State Bar of California as well."

The Bar Association complaint seems reasonable. And we need to look into repealing the Animal Welfare Act, which is, I suspect, the basis for the Bunny Inspectors as well as the Beagle Protection. Leave the protection of bunnies and beagles to the states, or the counties. But of course the likelihood is more Animal Rights Inspectors to be given lifetime jobs and pensions. And a call for increased federal revenue.

It is that time of the year: KUSC is having its pledge drive. I time mine to coincide with theirs, so be prepared to be bombarded for a week with exhortations. I operate this place on the Public Radio Model – it is free, but if not enough donate, it will go away. So far it is healthy. It needs subscriptions and renewals to keep it that way.

SUBSCRIBE NOW! RENEW NOW! Thanks!

The California transportation people managed to get some bond money for a scheme to have high speed rail from San Francisco to Los Angeles. There weren’t enough bonds to pay for it, or for anything like it, so they’re talking about building a segment of it from Corcoran to Borden – from a prison to a ghost town. That was laughed down, and there’s a new proposal, to build it from somewhere to Bakersfield. That won’t get any more traffic. And of course it’s all on flat land.

There won’t be any customers for this, and the commissioners will be dead before there is anything operating, but the money is to be spent, quickly, so that it can be said that “Well, we spent the money, and now we need to complete the project.” For $50 billion or so, across and along the San Andreas Fault.

If there were no possibility of luring Federal dollars into this mess the California voters would probably give and write off what has been spent as a bad job; but so long as there’s a chance of getting the Feds to pay, the ruling class will keep trying. California government is what the rest of the country will get if things go on as they have. Hurrah.

Leaving matters to the states won’t insure that everything will be well done, but it does mean that those responsible for the messes they make will be more likely to be the ones paying for them. That’s what self government means. And I do like living in Studio City which is a village: so long as Proposition 13 remains so that my home taxes stay somewhere near their present level I can afford to live here. Frugally, but at my age it’s easy to be frugal. The Opera is really our only extravagance. I like it here, but I sure feel sorry for those who have to find work. Uh – have I mentioned that this would be a great time to renew your subscription?

Herman Cain wants to “relaunch our space program”

October 18, 2011 at 8:29 am · Filed under Campaign ’12

In recent weeks Herman Cain has shot upwards from relative obscurity to the top tier of Republican presidential candidates, earning him increased attention in the media.

The interview is worth reading. Cain understands the importance of space. He also understands the need for free enterprise, and he seems to have an understanding of the need for X Projects. This is pretty close to Newt’s views.

Now it’s time to go write a scene for Anvil. I know what the scene ought to be.

View 697 Monday, October 17, 2011

I suppose there are more important matters, but the interesting news to me is:

“Sybil Exposed”: Memory, lies and therapy

How three women fabricated the most famous case of multiple personality disorder and damaged thousands of lives

http://www.salon.com/2011/10/16/sybil_exposed_memory_lies_and_therapy/singleton/

It’s hardly a surprise. I never believed in the “Sibyl” story to begin with. Even so, “Multiple Personality Disorder” made its way into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, and it’s still there although it has undergone a slight name change. Which means that insurance companies have to pay for treatments for this “disorder” and do. It’s not the only instance of fraud. The DSM defines a lot of “disorders” (and thus makes it legal to bill for their ‘treatment’). Some of them are indistinguishable from what others would say is a case of teenage rebellion. Then there is ADHD and ADD and Autism, none of which occupied much time in graduate classes in abnormal psychology during the 1950’s. Somewhere along the line that changed. A lot.

ADHD in Children Is on the Rise

CDC Report Looks at Racial, Ethnic, and Economic Factors in ADHD Trends

http://www.webmd.com/add-adhd/news/20110818/adhd-in-children-is-on-the-rise

Aug. 18, 2011 — The percentage of children diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has risen from 6.9% to 9% in the past decade, a CDC study shows.

The study suggests the increase may be influenced by racial, ethnic, and economic factors.

The report is published in the National Center for Health Statistics Data Brief for August 2011.

ADHD is one of the most common mental health disorders of childhood, but its frequency varies by race and ethnicity, the CDC says.

Symptoms of ADHD include inattention, impulsive behavior, and hyperactivity.

Not just in the news. Twenty years ago we acquired neighbors: a pair of young lawyers. Nice people. They had two children, well behaved, polite, credit to the community. Both parents had law practices. A few years ago, about the time the children reached their teens, the husband told us he had found himself: it turns out that his lack of success as a lawyer was due to ADHD, and he had secretly been in misery for more than a decade. He had found a psychiatrist who could treat this, and now he felt wonderful. I don’t know what the treatment was, but the result was that he moved out of the house and for a while lived in his mother’s basement with a girlfriend. He didn’t work much. Under California law he was entitled to a share of the income from his wife’s successful law practice, and to force her to sell the house so he could have half. Fortunately the house didn’t sell and soon came the real estate collapse, and she was able to negotiate so the kids didn’t have to lose their home as well as their father. I gather she still has to pay alimony.

Anecdotal, of course, but alas not unique, not even uncommon. But it’s all in the DSM, and if it’s in the DSM it’s a genuine disorder, a disability not anything voluntary. It needs treatment. And that sure sells drugs. Not just to adults who need to find themselves. At one time, I am told, nearly 10% of American schoolchildren were diagnosed as having some form of Attention Deficit Disorder, and the number of them put on drugs was high and rising. That slacked off for a while, but the story above tells us it’s on the rise again.

Having said that, I have anecdotes from trusted and reliable sources that Ritalin was a God-send for them or one of their children. Others had more disappointing stories.

I have studied the ADD and ADHD symptoms given in the DSM and it’s pretty clear I would have been diagnosed as having one (or both; while everyone insists ADD and ADHD are different, the differences aren’t so carefully defined as you might think; lots of highly technical terminology that turns out not to have such precise definitions as you would hope for). I would very likely have been drugged (actually probably not since I doubt my parents would have approved). Anyway, I am glad I had to learn to control myself, rather than be controlled by pharmaceuticals. I learned self control from sheer fear: although the Sisters (and later the normal school graduate women teachers at Capleville) didn’t in fact whack me more than once – I learned fast – it was easier to daydream and be quiet than to invite physical pain…

Anyway, while Multiple Personality Disorder has been removed from the DSM it is still in there under another name; while the number of actual cases of genuine multiple personalities is somewhere near – and possibly at – zero. Sibyl was by far the best known. That was a fraud. So it goes.

It is that time of the year: KUSC is having its pledge drive. I time mine to coincide with theirs, so be prepared to be bombarded for a week with exhortations. I operate this place on the Public Radio Model – it is free, but if not enough donate, it will go away. So far it is healthy. It needs subscriptions and renewals to keep it that way. SUBSCRIBE NOW! RENEW NOW! Thanks!

One problem of public education is rights vs. obligations. It’s easy to say that everyone has a right to an education, and that we are all equal, so therefore everyone has an equal right to an education. What’s harder to come up with is the obligation to pay for it. To pay that union teacher (or retired teacher) one needs to send an armed tax collector to a retired childless couple and threaten to turn them off their property and sell their house at public auction if they don’t pay. Where did they get the obligation to pay that retired teacher?

The usual justification of tax paid education is that it is an investment; but that is not an entitlement. Investment implies fiduciary obligation to make prudent investments. Investment allocation of resources requires some intelligence in expected returns: you get the most from resources allocated to bright kids who want to learn, then to bright kids who need to learn self discipline, then to – well, you get the idea. It’s pretty hard to justify paying to keep a kid in class who doesn’t want to be there and who disrupts the class so no one else can learn — or one who is severely handicapped and thus requires a large part of the education resources and who insists on being mainstreamed and thus deprives the others in the class of everything except the diversity experience — or for special education classes that consume 500% more per pupil than normal education. Those may be rights but it’s hard to see who is obliged to pay for them.

Where did the retired couple get the obligation to pay for the special education classes for crippled dull normal children? I understand that’s a callous question, but if the justification is investment it has to be asked. It’s not a good investment at all.

For everyone entitled to receive there must be those required to pay, and a tax collector who has the right to collect, by force if necessary. That doesn’t get debated much in discussions of rights and entitlements.

But that debate almost never takes place.