I’ve being doing some academic research on African American history from approximately the 1880s to the 1930s, and occasionally see a reference to an individual or community that responded to mob or other illicit violence with armed resistance. However, I’ve been unable to locate any book or article that discusses the subject in anything resembling a comprehensive way. Leads from readers would be appreciated (dbernste [at sign] gmu.edu).
Archive for August, 2004
I was going to blog this interview with Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis (most famous for “Zorba the Greek”), but Clayton Cramer beat me to it. A short excerpt:
So today’s globalized capitalism is controlled very much by the Jews?
“Since we speak frankly, I will tell you something else. The Jewish people control most of the big symphonic orchestras in the world. When I wrote the Palestinian national anthem, the Boston Symphony was planning a production of my work. It is controlled by Jewish people. They didn’t allow the concert to go on. Since then I cannot work with any great orchestra. They refuse me.”
You ran into this problem with other orchestras too?
“Wherever there are Jews. Wherever there are orchestras controlled by Jewish people, they boycott my work.”
You really feel Jews control much of the music world?
“Yes.”
And the same applies to world finance?
“In America the Jewish community is very strong. It controls much of the economy. Certainly the mass media.
Theodorakis denies that he is anti-Semitic. Rather, he is just upset that besides controlling the music, financial, and media industries, the Jews control the Bush Administration (which, along with the Sharon administration, he accuses of pursuing “Nazi” policies) and help orchestrate its evil agenda. As Cramer writes, “the mind boggles.”
I think the idea of having affordable “flying cars” is very cool, but can anyone give me a plausible reason why the government is spending taxpayer money on researching this, rather than leaving it to the private sector? And how exactly did domestic transportation issues come to be within NASA’s purview?
Update:Readers inform me that NASA has being doing basic aeronautics research for decades, along with its “sexier” agenda. I still don’t see any need to spend taxpayer money on something as potentially attractive to private industry as flying-car research. On the general issue of whether the government should be funding scientific research more generally, especially research with primarily commercial outgrowths, I heartily recommend Terrence Kealey, The Economic Laws of Scientific Research.
I got many responses to my query; thanks very much to everyone who submitted items. I ultimately ended up choosing the ones for which I could find someone else saying (preferably in a reputable publication) that many readers were indeed likely to use the books to fantasize about doing, rather than to do. Nothing like having Authorities to Rely On, even if they’re just someone who’s making an educated guess about what’s likely.
The items I’m using — and no need to submit more, thanks — are:
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Lonely Planet: Antarctica. See Juliet Coombe, Planet Goes to China, HERALD SUN (MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA), Jan. 30, 2004, at T11 (interview with Tony Wheeler, co-founder of the company that produces the Lonely Planet guidebooks) (“Q The Lonely Planet guide to Antarctica sells about 45,000 copies a year. Why is it so popular, despite relatively few people going there? [A] Science and wildlife expeditions are getting more exposure and lots of people are armchair travellers. The guidebook includes long sections on wildlife and the environment. For most of us, a trip to Antarctica is a dream.”). Naturally, some of the readers are “armchair travellers” in the sense of people who are curious and want to satisfy their curiosity by reading rather than by traveling; but I suspect that some of the armchair travelers really do read the books to fantasize about actually being there. Thanks to Michelle Dulak Thomson.
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WoodenBoat magazine. See, e.g., MICHAEL RUHLMAN, WOODEN BOATS 23 (2002) (“[A]n obscure magazine idea, a magazine devoted to wooden boats, became a resounding success precisely because readers didn’t have to own wood to love it, admire it, or even dream about it. . . . [I]ndustry experts guess that fewer than 10,000 wooden boats exist in America, not including dinghies, canoes, kayaks, homemade plywood skiffs, and the like . . . . Yet this minuscule industry . . . generates a subscription base for Wooden-Boat of more than 100,000 . . . .”). Thanks to David Riceman.
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Worst-Case Scenario books. See, e.g., Jayne Clark, `Worst-Case’ Writers’ Newest Scenario: Runaway Train to Fame, USA TODAY, Apr. 27, 2001, at 7D (“In this sequel to their best-selling The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook, Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht have once again produced a very funny guide with a deadpan tone aimed at armchair Walter Mittys, as well as wannabe Indiana Joneses.”). Thanks to many people.
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Some cookbooks. See, e.g., Maurice Sullivan, Last Best Books of 1997, WINETRADER, vol. R, no. 6, http://www.wines.com/winetrader/r6/r6bk.html (“I have finally figured out that all these beautiful and expensive color cookbooks aren’t for people who really want to cook, but rather are for folks on diets that want to fantasize about food!”). This is probably something of an overstatement, but I suspect that some of the cookbooks’ readers do indeed use the books this way, even if others do actually use them to cook. Thanks to many people, especially Ashley Doherty.
Apropos the story I mentioned yesterday, here’s Daniel Pipes’ argument for why revoking Tariq Ramadan’s visa was a good idea. (My post dealt simply with why it’s constitutional.) I don’t know enough about the facts to speak to this myself, but I thought I’d pass the item along; I’ll be happy to link to counterarguments, too. Here’s an excerpt:
What’s up? The DHS knows much more than I do, but it is not talking. A review of the press, however, gives an idea of what the problem is. Here are some reasons why Mr. Ramadan might have been kept out:
He has praised the brutal Islamist policies of the Sudanese politician Hassan Al-Turabi. Mr. Turabi in turn called Mr. Ramadan the “future of Islam.”
Mr. Ramadan was banned from entering France in 1996 on suspicion of having links with an Algerian Islamist who had recently initiated a terrorist campaign in Paris.
Ahmed Brahim, an Algerian indicted for Al-Qaeda activities, had “routine contacts” with Mr. Ramadan, according to a Spanish judge (Baltasar Garzón) in 1999.
Djamel Beghal, leader of a group accused of planning to attack the American embassy in Paris, stated in his 2001 trial that he had studied with Mr. Ramadan.
Along with nearly all Islamists, Mr. Ramadan has denied that there is “any certain proof” that Bin Laden was behind 9/11.
He publicly refers to the Islamist atrocities of 9/11, Bali, and Madrid as “interventions,” minimizing them to the point of near-endorsement.
And here are other reasons, dug up by Jean-Charles Brisard, a former French intelligence officer doing work for some of the 9/11 families, as reported in Le Parisien:
Intelligence agencies suspect that Mr. Ramadan (along with his brother Hani) coordinated a meeting at the Hôtel Penta in Geneva for Ayman al-Zawahiri, deputy head of Al-Qaeda, and Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind sheikh, now in a Minnesota prison.
Mr. Ramadan’s address appears in a register of Al Taqwa Bank, an organization the State Department accuses of supporting Islamist terrorism.
To return to the legal question (and I stress again that I don’t know enough about the factual issues to comment on them), if one thinks that aliens should have a right to enter the U.S., and should be barred based only on proof in court of criminal conduct rather than based simply on suspicion of connections with terrorists, then these allegations might not be enough. But U.S. law has not generally taken such a view, and I think it has been right not to take such a view.
It seems that one of the detainees being tried at Guantanamo, Ali Hamza Ahmed Sulayman al-Bahlul, wants to admit he is a member of Al-Qaeda and doesn’t want a lawyer to help him.
Mr. Bahlul at one point asked not to be interrupted. He declared that there was no evidence as important as a confession given freely and that everyone in the courtroom and around the globe should know that he was speaking without being forced.
He then said: “I am from Al Qaeda. And the relationship between me and Sept. 11 — “
At that point he was abruptly cut off by Colonel Brownback, [the presiding officer on the five-member commission panel,] who apologized for interrupting but said he wanted to remind his fellow panel members that Mr. Bahlul’s statements should not be taken as evidence to be used against him. When Mr. Bahlul resumed speaking, he did not pick up where he had left off and never completed the sentence about his relationship to the Sept. 11 attacks.
Brig. Gen. Thomas L. Hemingway of the Air Force, a commission official, told reporters at the Pentagon in Washington after the session that Colonel Brownback had only been trying to protect Mr. Bahlul. There is, however, no protection against self-incrimination in the military commission proceedings.
Sounds like this will be pretty interesting. As for the title of this post, forgive me if the dynamics of the tribunal hearing remind me just a bit of this scene from Life of Brian.
The claim: A paper on climate change reaches bad results because the authors entered one piece of data in degrees rather than radians. (See Crooked Timber (John Quiggin) and Deltoid (Tim Lambert).) Whoops! Not quite as bad as filling up an airplane in pounds rather than kilograms or using the wrong units in the Mars Climate Orbiter, but — if this indeed happened — still pretty bad.
Of course, that’s the claim; if there’s a rebuttal somewhere, please point me to it, and I’ll happily link to it.
A tangentially related phone call from a reporter reminded me of this story that a law professor I know and trust told a while back.
It seems that a visiting colleague’s students were going to a public school in Texas, and declined to say the Pledge of Allegiance. The teacher insisted that they say it, which of course violates Barnette v. West Va. Bd. of Ed., the 1943 case that held students had a First Amendment right not to recite the Pledge. Fortunately, the school backed down after getting a letter from the father.
The letter gave an explanation for the children’s behavior, though it didn’t have to (and though as a legal matter, there should have been no need for the letter). The explanation was that the visiting colleague, and his children, were visiting from a foreign country, and they were citizens of that country, not the United States. They thus don’t owe allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, or the Republic for which it stands, wonderful as it may be. (Technical footnote: In a purely legal sense, noncitizen residents of the U.S. owe the nation a duty not to aid its enemies in time of war — noncitizens can thus be convicted of treason — which is sometimes called a sort of “allegiance,” but this is not, I think, the solemn allegiance to the flag that the Pledge contemplates.)
Apparently the teacher not only didn’t know or think about the students’ First Amendment rights. The teacher also didn’t think about what exactly the Pledge means, and why some students have an entirely simple and prosaic reason — entirely unrelated to high constitutional debates about dissent and conscientious objection — not to express that meaning.
The new academic year has arrived at law schools around the country, and that means it’s fall law review placement season. Professors are sending out articles they wrote over the summer, and student articles editors are selecting articles to publish. I thought I might provide a public service to law review editors out there by offering a behind-the-scenes look at what professors are really thinking when they write law review articles. Here is a model title and abstract; just click on “translate” to see what a typical professor might be thinking and what message he might have wanted to send to the journal when he wrote the preceding text.
Deconstructing the Panopticon:
A Neo-Realist Critique of the Rehnquist CourtThis article presents a neo-realist critique of the Rehnquist Court. By combining the architectural insights of Foucault’s Panopticon with recent advances from Jungian psychoanalytic theory, the article exposes the Rehnquist Court as a contingent product of Hegelian substantive ethics.
Building upon and extending the insights of Akhil Amar, Lawrence Lessig, and Cass Sunstein, the article applies this framework to recent decisions in controversial areas ranging from affirmative action to the Court’s decision in Lawrence v. Texas.
It also explains how the Supreme Court should decide United States v. Booker and United States v. Fanfan, pending cases that consider how Blakely v. Washington applies to the United States Sentencing Guidelines.
It concludes by offering additional thoughts on the broader connection between Rehnquistian jurisprudence and social darwinism.
Of course, any similarity between this and any actual article title and abstract is entirely accidental.
seems to be marked on ears, not foreheads. Thanks to GeekPress for the pointer.
seems to be saving the day — or ruining it, depending on whether you’re human or a bee.
UPDATE: My colleague Steve Bainbridge has a different view.
In case dancing in the streets during the GOP convention doesn’t bring the Republican Party to its knees, Al Franken has a back-up strategy: Have people across America yell “fuggedaboutit!” just as President Bush is about to begin his acceptance speech. (Hat tip: Wonkette)
I’m looking for examples of factual books — preferably how-to books — that some readers read for the fun of imagining themselves using this knowledge. One example, though I don’t know if such a book actually exists, would be a work that explains how someone could reconstruct civilization if stranded on a desert island. It may not be consciously aimed at the fantasizing market, but I imagine that a lot of people who read it would do it in part to imagine themselves as some super-savvy Robinson Crusoe.
Likewise, my sense is that the Hit Man contract murder manual — obviously a much darker and more dangerous work — has also been used mostly as entertainment for people who want to imagine themselves as soldiers of fortune. It apparently sold 13,000 copies, and I doubt that there are 13,000 would-be real contract killers in the country. The same may be true for the Anarchist Cookbook and similar works.
I’m looking for more examples, preferably of real how-to books, that people do use, or are likely to use, as means to imagine themselves as something else — a successful castaway, a contract killer, or something else. If you can give examples of people actually remarking (preferably in the press) that this book is good for that sort of thing, that would be best. But examples where it’s simply plausible that many readers would read the book for that purpose would be fine, too.
This is for a tangent to my Crime-Facilitating Speech, which I’m just finishing up and getting ready to send to the journals, so responses that I get will come in very useful. Many thanks in advance.
[Note: Yes, I know that my first hypothetical is reminiscent of the "what technology could a smart 12-year-old reproduce if hurtled back in time to ancient Rome?" question. I have the 250 messages that I got in response on my desk, and I've gone through about 175, looking for what strike me as the best answers — I'll then try to do a bit more research on them, and post the answers, probably in a month or two. Thanks again to everyone who responded, and sorry for the delay.]
UPDATE: A bunch of people have recommended the Worst Case Scenario guides, and some others have recommended some other items (I’ll blog more about this soon). In the meantime, more, more — I’m still not satisfied!
Venkat Balasubramani (Begging to Differ) points to what appears to be a revocation of a visa based on an alien’s speech:
The US administration came under fire for barring prominent European Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan from entering the country to take a post at the renowned Notre Dame University.
Ramadan, rated by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, was granted a visa in May only to have it revoked on August 2 by the US State Department on the recommendation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). . . .
Russ Knocke, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman, told Reuters on Tuesday, that the work visa was taken back because of a section in federal law applying to aliens who have used a “position of prominence within any country to endorse or espouse terrorist activity.” . . .
(I say “appears” because the article is clearly an opinion piece, not an objective news account — note the reference to “the Board of Deputies of British Jews [launching] a vile campaign against prominent moderate Muslim scholar Youssef Qaradawi’s visit” — but I’ll assume that the account is complete and accurate for purposes of this post.) Balasubramani calls this “a good example of Patriot Act abuse” (because “The Patriot Act added the following clause which provides an additional ground of inadmissibility with respect to an alien who . . .’has used the alien’s position of prominence within any country to endorse or espouse terrorist activity, or to persuade others to support terrorist activity or a terrorist organization, in a way that the Secretary of State has determined undermines United States efforts to reduce or eliminate terrorist activities’”); he also says that “[i]t’s definitely not a no-brainer as to whether this passes First Amendment scrutiny,” though in an update he suggests that “the case may be a bit less strong, and maybe because of the standing issue,” and may present only an as-applied challenge.
But as a doctrinal matter, this is a “no brainer” in favor of the government; there’s a 1972 Supreme Court case, Kleindienst v. Mandel that’s quite squarely on point:
It is clear that Mandel [a self-described "revolutionary Marxist" foreign academic] personally, as an unadmitted and nonresident alien, had no constitutional right of entry to this country as a nonimmigrant or otherwise. . . . The case, therefore, comes down to the narrow issue whether the First Amendment confers upon the appellee professors, because they wish to hear, speak, and debate with Mandel in person, the ability to determine that Mandel should be permitted to enter the country or, in other words, to compel the Attorney General to allow Mandel’s admission. . . .
Recognition that First Amendment rights are implicated, however, is not dispositive of our inquiry here. In accord with ancient principles of the international law of nation-states, the Court . . . [has] held broadly . . . that the power to exclude aliens is “inherent in sovereignty, necessary for maintaining normal international relations and defending the country against foreign encroachments and dangers – a power to be exercised exclusively by the political branches of government . . . .” . . . The Court without exception has sustained Congress’ “plenary power to make rules for the admission of aliens and to exclude those who possess those characteristics which Congress has forbidden.” . . .
In summary, plenary congressional power to make policies and rules for exclusion of aliens has long been firmly established. In the case of an alien excludable under [sec.] 212(a)(28), Congress has delegated conditional exercise of this power to the Executive. We hold that when the Executive exercises this power negatively on the basis of a facially legitimate and bona fide reason, the courts will neither look behind the exercise of that discretion, nor test it by balancing its justification against the First Amendment interests of those who seek personal communication with the applicant. . . .
One can debate whether the Court got it right in Kleindienst; I think it did, but that is a story for another day. One can also debate whether it’s a good idea for Congress and the Executive Branch to exclude such aliens — though note that the Patriot Act is not an innovation in this respect. But as a matter of existing First Amendment doctrine, the government has a clear winner of a case here (again, even if the press account that Balasubramani quotes is entirely accurate).
Here’s an excerpt:
Digital radio promised lower costs, higher quality and more variety. To portray this as a bad thing, the NAB turned the free-market logic of 18th-century economist Adam Smith on its head, stressing the harm satellite radio could do to the listening public.
Satellite’s “purported benefits are, in the main, nonexistent, unrealistic or of minimal value,” the group assured the FCC in 1995. Left free to compete, the NAB added, satellite radio would offer inferior programming and shove better-quality AM and FM service off the air. Thus competition would leave consumers worse off, the NAB said in an Orwellian conclusion: “Adding a new service would likely decrease the overall service to the public.”
“Economists just don’t take a lot of those arguments seriously,” says Stuart Benjamin, a Duke University professor who studies broadcast regulation. “To be blunt, the NAB has power that is not commensurate with the persuasiveness of its arguments.” . . .
time travel:">Lewis Lapham apologizes for time travel:
The Harper’s Magazine site contains the following (thanks to Christopher Rohrbacher):
[Letter to the Editor:] I was most impressed to read of Lewis Lapham’s ability to travel in time in “Tentacles of Rage” [Essay, September]. As far as I can tell, on the day I received my copy of Harper’s Magazine, the Republican convention had yet to take place, and living in New York, I think I would have noticed. Admittedly, the pablum will be predictable (barring some unforeseen event), but it seems awfully sloppy of Lapham to discuss feelings he had while watching something he has yet to watch, simply in order to put some additional feathers on one of his rhetorical barbs. What is most appalling is that he chose an actual piece of journalism, rather than his accustomed punditry, for this rather silly fillip. This doesn’t exactly give me faith in his understanding of what it is reporters actually do.
On the other hand, if he has in fact traveled in time, I would appreciate it if he could let all of us subscribers know the outcome of the forthcoming election.
Matthew Ostrowski
BrooklynLewis Lapham responds:
As Mr. Ostrowski properly notes, the rhetorical invention was silly. The mistake, however, is a serious one, and if I’d had my wits about me as an editor, I wouldn’t have let the author mix up his tenses in manuscript or allowed him in page proof to lapse into poetic license. Both of us regret the injury done to the magazine and apologize, wholeheartedly, to its readers.
It’s to Lapham’s and Harper’s credit that Lapham apologized, and did so promptly, via the Web. I’d like to know a bit more about how this error came about — but in any event, I’m glad that it was promptly acknowledged.
Alice Cooper apparently has little patience for all the rock bands touring the country to encourage their listeners to vote against President Bush. “To me, that’s treason. . . . I call it treason against rock ‘n’ roll because rock is the antithesis of politics. Rock should never be in bed with politics.” Cooper continues:
When I was a kid and my parents started talking about politics, I’d run to my room and put on the Rolling Stones as loud as I could. So when I see all these rock stars up there talking politics, it makes me sick.If you’re listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you’re a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we’re morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal.
A reader asks: “[C]an you explain this geometry puzzle?,” pointing to the 8 x 8 = 5 x 13 puzzle that’s been making the rounds. He adds:
Ever since I saw it, I’ve had a hard time concentrating on work. It seems to call into question an orderly universe, which is quite disturbing.
Well, I surely don’t want American productivity — or for that matter American faith in an orderly universe — to decline. So the answer is
UPDATE: Reader Jason Wolfkill articulates the general point well:
Your answer to the 64=65 puzzle showcases what I like to call the “do the math” principle. Our eyes and intuition may lead us astray, but the numbers don’t lie (at least not to a degree that those of us living in the Newtonian/Cartesian world can detect).
The JibJab “This Land Is Your Land” controversy (see here and here and several posts in between) is over: It turns out, thanks to an investigation by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, that the song may well be in the public domain — and thus free for all to use — because the original copyright had not been properly renewed. (Under the pre-1978 copyright law, a copyright had to be renewed after the first 28 years; that’s not the case any more for new works.)
Ludlow Music still claims that they do own the copyright, but they have decided to withdraw their objections “to avoid the expense and difficulties of litigation.” JibJab had earlier filed a lawsuit for declaratory judgment to establish their right to use the song, and that lawsuit has now been settled in JibJab’s favor. See this Electronic Frontier Foundation press release and this Wired News story.
Thanks to readers Robert Schwartz and Matthew Sheffield for the pointers.
On Tuesday, a panel of the Third Circuit reversed and remanded an order of a district court judge who had simply copied verbatim the appellee’s proposed opinion in the case. Here is an excerpt from the Third Circuit’s opinion:
Judicial opinions are the core workproduct of judges. They are much more than findings of fact and conclusions of law; they constitute the logical and analytical explanations of why a judge arrived at a specific decision. They are tangible proof to the litigants that the judge actively wrestled with their claims and arguments and made a scholarly decision based on his or her own reason and logic. When a court adopts a party’s proposed opinion as its own, the court vitiates the vital purposes served by judicial opinions. We, therefore, cannot condone the practice used by the District Court in this case.
Good stuff. To make matters more interesting, the Third Circuit’s published opinion includes both the proposed district court opinion and the district court’s order as an appendix so you can compare the two yourself. (According to the Third Circuit, the appellant raised the verbatim copying argument as a ground for reversal only in a footnote.)
Justice Brown, whose nomination to the D.C. Circuit has been stalled by Senate Democrats, easily gets the better of her California Supreme Court colleagues in a dissent. The majority’s opinion makes it absurdly easy for a prosecutor to present expert testimony claiming that a woman’s recantation of a prior claim of a single incident of domestic violence was due to the woman suffering from “Battered Woman Syndrome.” The evidence in question clearly didn’t meet the specific California statutory standard for the admissibility of this sort of evidence, nor should the evidence have been admitted under California’s general expert testimony standard, which requires that expert testimony “assist the trier of fact.” Even granting the (very controversial) theory behind “Battered Woman Syndrome,” mainstream advocates of the theory haven’t been known to claim that a single violent incident creates the “learned helplessness” that is a hallmark of the sufferer of the syndrome. Justice Brown has once again shown why she deserves to be a D.C. Circuit judge.
Update:The majority appears to be arguing that even though the expert apparently discussed BWS on the stand, the court would not apply the specific statute governing BWS. Instead, the testimony should still be admitted because it was helpful to the jury to have an “expert” with experience dealing with victims of domestic violence discuss the psychology of victims of domestic violence, and the “cycle of violence” that leads to domestic violence. However, the general rule in American courts is that expert testimony regarding a testifying witnesses’ credibility (or lack thereof) is inadmissible, especially when the expert is not testifying regarding a body of established scientific knowledge, as opposed to experience-based witnesses. (See The New Wigmore: Expert Evidence, chapters 1 and 7.) In the case under the discussion, the expert in question was apparently not even a trained pyschiatrist or psychologist, but the “Program Manager for the Antelope Valley Domestic Violence Council.”
I’m amazed how often people think there’s some puzzle about whether zero is odd or even. (Do a google search on “is zero even” and you’ll see.) The question has even made its way into news stories, usually when some government institutes “odd-even” gasoline rationing in which the days you can buy gas depend on whether the last digit of your license plate is a 0.
The answer couldn’t be simpler: Zero is even because it is exactly divisible by 2 (i.e., when divided by 2 it yields no remainder) or, if you prefer, because it is a multiple of 2 (just as 2, 4, and the like are). That’s the dictionary definition, and it’s also the standard mathematical definition.
Nor would there be any reason to define evenness the same way. Mathematical definitions are sometimes chosen with an eye towards convenience, for instance when prime numbers are defined to exclude 1, so as to guarantee that every positive integer above 1 has a unique prime factorization. One could define prime numbers so that 1 is included (any positive integer that’s divisible only by 1 and itself) rather than so 1 is excluded (any positive integer that has exactly two different positive integer divisors); but mathematicians have chosen the latter definition for their convenience. Still, I know of no reason why evenness would be defined so 0 wouldn’t be even, and I’ve never seen any such odd definition. (Of course, zero isn’t an even positive integer, but that’s because it’s not positive, not because it’s not even. I’ve also heard it said that in some versions of roulette, if you bet on the evens, you’ll lose if the ball lands on 0, but naturally doesn’t really tell us much about the mathematical definition.)
Incidentally, I once ran across an article whose author was saying some political question was unanswerable, much like the question whether zero is even. I e-mailed him to say that the is-zero-even question is very much answerable. He responded with an apology, and a suggestion that he should have used some other example, such as “Is there an infinite number of primes?”
I felt compelled to respond that actually there is an infinite number of primes, and there’s an elegantly simple proof developed of this over 2000 years ago (by Euclid). Ah, the perils of drawing analogies to a subject that one doesn’t really know well.
I should be on Bill O’Reilly’s radio show today at 10 am Pacific, talking about the First Amendment rules that would apply to protests at the Republican National Convention.
Disappointing decision by the 10th Circuit in Powers v. Oklahoma this week upholding Oklahoma’s law permitting only licensed funeral directors to sell caskets. Why someone would need a to embalm 25 bodies, pass a licensing examination, and complete a specified 60-credit program of undergraduate training for the required funeral director’s license just to sell a box remains unclear to me. Indeed, given the complete lack of any link between box-selling and embalming, it is surprising that the funeral home directors don’t just go ahead and have their monopoly extend to all forms of box-selling, including cardboard boxes and luggage.
These restrictions have always struck me as especially distasteful, in that these guys mark up their caskets by a couple hundred percent and take advantage of people who may be grieving. To add insult to injury, the price-gouging morticians defend their practices by saying that they are proctecting people in their time of need.
One of the more disturbing aspects about this opinion is that it suggests that protecting an interest-group from economic competition is itself a legitimate government purpose. “In contrast, the Supreme Court has consistently held that protecting or favoring one particular intrastate industry, absent a specific federal constitutional or statutory violation, is a legitimate state interest.” On the other hand, there is a refreshing honesty to the court’s characterization of the realities of the political process (especially when it comes to regulation of the licensed professions): “We also note, in passing, that while baseball may be the national pastime of the citizenry, dishing out special economic benefits to certain in-state industries remains the favored pastime of state and local governments.” The court goes on to state, however, “While the creation of such a libertarian paradise may be a worthy goal, Plaintiffs must turn to the Oklahoma electorate for its institution, not us.”
In fact, according to FTC studies of the funeral industry, it turns out that in many families there is one person who essentially specializes in buying funerals–i.e., “Uncle Joe” or “Aunt Sue” handles all the funeral arrangements for family funerals. So in fact the decision-maker can and will shop–if given the chance. These sorts of laws like the Oklahoma decision in Powers instead just deliver up consumers to get ripped-off by a licensed monopoply. And it has been well-recognized since at least Mancur Olson that the political process is likely to fail in exactly this situation–where there is a delivery of concentrated benefits to a well-organized interest group and the costs are borne by dispersed consumers as a whole who lack the incentive and ability to organize themselves to overturn these regulations. Indeed, in this situation the incentives would appear to be even more attenuated, in that purchase of funeral goods and services is at best a rare shopping incursion, distinguishing it from such goods and services as plumbers, lawyers, and doctors.
The 10th Circuit’s opinion creates a circuit split with the 6th Circuit’s decision in Craigmiles v. Giles, 312 F.3d 220 (6th Cir. 2002), so perhaps this will make the issue ripe for Supreme Court cert.
A nice summary and analysis is provided by Fritz Schrank at sneakingsuspicions.com, who brought the decision to my attention.
