A black student at Haverford College explains.

Fascinating.

UPDATE: An answer, of sorts.

(Glad I don't have to go to college these days.)

In the old days, when people thought of May Day, they didn't think of Communism, or International Workers Day (or even massive immigration protests).

In simpler times, lovely young maidens would dance around the Maypole.

"They ... set up a May-pole, drinking and dancing about it many days together, inviting the Indian women, for their consorts, dancing and frisking together, (like so many fairies, or furies rather,) and worse practices. As if they had anew revived & celebrated the feasts of ye Roman Goddess Flora, or ye beastly practices of ye mad Bacchanalians."

-- Governor William Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation

According to Wikipedia, the history is very ancient:

Maypole dancing is a traditional form of folk dance from western Europe, especially England, Sweden and Germany. Dancers dance in a circle each holding a coloured ribbon attached to a central pole, known as the maypole. By the movements of the dancers the ribbons are intertwined and plaited either on to the pole itself or into a web around the pole. The dancers may then retrace their steps exactly in order to unravel the ribbons.

Maypole dancing is extremely ancient and is thought to have Germanic pagan fertility symbolism. It is traditionally performed in the spring around the festival of May Day, but in Sweden it is during the midsummer festivities.

Anyway, I was privileged to attend a Maypole Dance this morning, and I'll share a couple of pictures in the hope of honoring the true spirit of May Day.

The dancers begin by winding the ribbons (accomplished by dancing in different directions around the Maypole):

As the ribbons wind around the pole, they become woven into a distinctive pattern at the top:

The weaving complete, the maidens above are dancing around the pole.

Being that this is Floralia, the blog post wouldn't be complete without some Spring flowers. The color of these tulips pleased me:

While Coco didn't attend the festivities, she has colorful eyes, and I managed to illuminate her irises with the camera flash:

She's a "bi-eyed" dog, which means that she has one blue and one brown eye. As you can see, the two retinas have different colors too.

In humans the condition is known as heterochromia. Alexander the Great had heterochromia. So does David Bowie.

No, I don't make this stuff up. Coloring the truth is redundant.

I'm suffering from a serious time crunch, and I won't have time for writing until much later in the day.

I did find an interesting piece from the Washington Post which may shed some light on a serious error in logic committed by many Americans -- that Shia Islam is "radical" and Wahhabi Islam is "moderate." This took form over many years in response to problems which both countries had with Iran. The Saudis' interest in promoting Wahhabism and the Americans' interest in easy answers (i.e. "our enemy is radical; our ally is moderate") led to a collusion of convenience.

In the United States, Saudi Arabia's infrastructure of preachers and money started as a bulwark against the spread into American mosques of radical Shiism, which surged after Khomeini deposed the shah of Iran.

"Many countries in the West asked Saudi Arabia to get involved in these [Islamic] centers because at that time Saudi Arabia was considered moderate," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Faisal said in an interview in March. The Americans "felt comfortable with the presence of the Saudis," he said.

Backed by Saudi money, this presence grew rapidly.

It isn't comfortable any more.

Considering the demise of the American melting pot in favor of multiculturalism, Saudi religious hegemony has grown and grown (metastasized is a better word):

Scholars of Islam find it difficult to precisely assess the impact of 40 years of Saudi missionary work on the United States' multi-ethnic Muslim community -- estimated at 6 million to 7 million. But survey data are suggestive.

The most comprehensive study, a survey of the 1,200 U.S. mosques undertaken in 2000 by four Muslim organizations, found that 2 million Muslims were "associated" with a mosque and that 70 percent of mosque leaders were generally favorable toward fundamentalist teachings, while 21 percent followed the stricter Wahhabi practices. The survey also found that the segregation of women for prayers was spreading, from half of the mosques in 1994 to two-thirds six years later.

John L. Esposito, a religion scholar at Georgetown University, said the Saudi theological efforts have resulted in "the export of a very exclusive brand of Islam into the Muslim community in the United States" that "tends to make them more isolationist in the society in which they live."

It's a complex issue, and I wish I had more time.

But I am running very late.

AFTERTHOUGHT: Blogging demands posts. Posts demand thought. Thought demands time.

(I'm afraid it's a serious conflict without any hope of resolution. If I'm lucky I'll have time for a "throwaway post" later . . .)

This video is hilarious.

It's described by the Washington Post:

Just check out the music video created by Columbia Business School students lampooning their dean's disappointment at not being chosen to succeed Alan Greenspan as Federal Reserve chairman.

But these dry nerdy things aren't supposed to be funny!

(I guess that's the whole idea.)

Mickey Kaus notes the dire importance of immigration as an election issue. According to a new poll, a hypothetical candidate promising "to build a barrier along the Mexican border and make enforcement of immigration law his top priority" . . .

. . . beats the generic "Republican" nominee by 9 points-- 30 to 21--and runs practically even with the generic "Democratic" nominee (who gets 31%). The border-centric third-party candidacy actually takes more votes from the Democratic side than the Republican side!. But it draws heavily from both parties, and as heavily from "moderates" as from "conservatives."

I myself would never vote for Hillary. But the Republican establishment takes for granted at its peril the significant number of party faithful who may be sorely tempted to do so if the Bush betrayal at the border continues.

Hillary Rodham Buchanan? Don't laugh. She could be the GOP's worst nightmare in '08.

I know it sounds counterintuitive, but I think the Republican calls for ever more draconian legislation might help her. The more to the right the GOP's hardline drifts, the less likely the possibility of any change in the status quo, and the more the "center" is shifted to the right. When the center shifts right, Hillary shifts right. And Hillary on the right places Republicans on the far right. (Except, of course, the lamer and lamer ducks, who won't be worth shooting.)

What would really ensure a Democratic victory in '08 would be the emergence of a hard right third party candidate. He'd never win, but Hillary would.

Thus, I think a Hillary Buchanan strategy (slightly altered from Michelle's original version) is beautiful.

(Now, how to get Soros to toss $20 million in the right direction . . .)

MORE: But what about the huge upcoming demos, and the backlash factor?

"It's intimidation when a million people march down main streets in our major cities under the Mexican flag," said Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman volunteer border patrol group. "This will backfire," he said.

Some Latinos have also expressed concerns that the boycott and marches could stir up anti-immigrant sentiment.

Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Los Angeles archdiocese, an outspoken champion of immigrant rights, has lobbied against a walkout. "Go to work, go to school, and then join thousands of us at a major rally afterward," Mahony said.

And Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who has long fought for immigrant rights, has said he expects protesters to be "lawful and respectful" and children to stay in school.

In Washington on Thursday, immigrant-rights activists brushed off talk of a backlash.

"This is going to be really big. We're going to have millions of people," said Juan Jose Gutierrez, director of the Latino Movement USA. "We are not concerned at all. We believe it's possible for Congress to get the message that the time to act is now."

How the backlash is managed and spun will be of utmost importance.

(Right now, I'm wondering whether the plan is to get the right wing to go absolutely ape. Who benefits the most from a civil war in the Republican Party?)

MORE: Buchanan2008.com is coming soon. Buchanan08.com is for sale.

UPDATE: My thanks to Pajamas Media for the link!

Just before yesterday's Saudi-based DOS attack, Captain Ed announced the formation (along with Frank J. and Derek Brigham) of the 101st Fighting Keyboardists, and Derek designed this incredibly cool logo to go with it:

Baldilocks and others have signed on. Count me in.

More from Captain Ed:

First of all, the term "fighting keyboardist" describes our efforts pretty well, and we think the pseudo-military terminology is pretty danged amusing. Derek himself designed the logo.

And why the chicken hawk? When we looked into it, it turns out that the chicken hawk is a pretty impressive predator. It's the largest of its family. This species vigorously defends its territory, getting even more aggressive when the conditions get harshest. It adapts to all climates. Most impressively, it feeds on chickens, mice, and rats.

Make of that what you will.

I'll try to get some photos of my raptor friends.

UPDATE: Captain Ed thinks there will be more DOS attacks, but remains loyal to Hosting Matters:

We've come under attack all day here at the Hosting Matters community, apparently by Saudis who have issues with free speech. Michelle Malkin has some of the background at her site, if you can access it. The only thing I know is that the folks at Hosting Matters have treated me very well, and I'm not going to burn my friends when they're getting attacked.

(It goes without saying that the best way for bloggers to combat any ideologically motivated attackers is to combat their underlying ideology.)

At the risk of stating the obvious, this country wasn't founded as a land of submission, and the First Amendment wasn't intended as a theory never to be put into practice. (Unlike the Stalin Constitution [link from Patrick Crozier at Samizdata] which recited that "freedom of speech" is "guaranteed by law.")

I've often marveled, though, over the contrast between the theory and practice of free speech. As we all know, the right to sound off and criticize what we don't like is part of our birthright. When the target of the criticism is government conduct, why, the First Amendment is paramount.

That's the theory. Put it into practice and you might find that what we call "the government" consists not of an impartial and fair body of neutral parties steeped in the culture of the founding fathers, but people. Often powerful, politically motivated activists with biases and axes to grind. Like most people, they don't take kindly to criticism, but unlike most people, they have the power of the state behind them. (And the trusty but rusty First Amendment is the only restraint on their power.)

A blogger in Maine, one Lance Dutson is learning first hand about the difference between First Amendment theory and First Amendment practice. He's being sued for exercising his First Amendment rights:

MBA Member Lance Dutson who blogs at Maine Web Report was recently served with a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court in Maine. The lawsuit alleges copyright infringement and defamation for reporting and commentary written and published by Dutson on his blog.

"This case is nothing more than an attempt by a deep-pocketed litigant to bully a blogger for criticizing state officials and state contractors"", said MBA President Robert Cox. "We have successfully defended MBA members in nine previous cases and I don¹t expect the outcome here to be be any different."

Dutson went public this morning with news of the lawsuit and provided key links here including his account of the events leading up to the lawsuit and the complaint served on Dutson by the local sheriff at his home in Maine. Dutson has vowed to fight.

"The idea that criticism of the state government can be defamatory is absurd", said Dutson, "This attempt to bludgeon critics of the state government is not going to work."

Through it's legal defense initiative, the MBA provides member bloggers with "first line" legal defense, pro bono advice on how best to respond to legal threats related to the member's blog.

Warren Kremer Paino Advertising has filed a 3 count multi-million dollar federal lawsuit against me for the reporting I’ve done in this blog. They are claiming defamation, libel, and copyright infringement.

Getting the sheriff to deliver the suit to me, in front of my kids and neighbors, is the latest freaked-out situation this Office of Tourism has put me in. I have to say this has disrupted the Dutson household a bit, that’s what happens when someone files a crushing lawsuit that, if successful, would utterly destroy my life.

So here I am, one man against the state and its contractors, put in the position of shutting up or being pounded by their deep pockets and a wild misconception of what the court system is supposed to be used for. One person who has exposed a cavalcade of incompetence and who has to choose to allow it, or face an onslaught of personal attack and legal action.

This is crap, total crap and I’m not going to fold, not at this point. They’ve already screwed with me and my family so much, and I will not be bullied into discontinuing my work here. This state agency is wasting money, telling stories, and paying subcontractors who seem more focused on spending their time and money bludgeoning critics with legal threats and lawsuits rather than working to promote Maine tourism.

....the days of traditional techniques of intimidation are numbered. That's because any attempt at intimidation will immediately be widely reported, and, as an attack on one becomes an attack on all, suddenly the attacker will not be a bully facing one lone victim, but hundreds, maybe thousands of victims -- all turning the tables and defending themselves at once. It would be as if a mugger selected a victim in a crowded city and everyone suddenly leaped into action to help.

To add insult to the bully's injury, a documented attack on a blogger tends to produce what every blogger wants: hits and traffic.

Thus, the bully who tries to intimidate a blogger ends up helping the very thing he intended to harm!

No wonder fear societies hate bloggers. It just isn't fair, being afraid of the people who are supposed to fear you!

Sheesh.

I know this all should be obvious, but sometimes it helps to remember the obvious. That's why we used to have Civics classes. (Link via Positive Liberty.)

Well, not that local.

But I am amazed -- yes, shocked -- to see that in neighboring New Jersey, consideration is being given to allowing citizens personal freedom on a magnitude I'd never have believed attainable in that state:

TRENTON - Motorists in New Jersey could soon be introduced to a foreign concept: pumping their own gas.

Gov. Corzine said yesterday that he would push for a trial run of self-serve gas in New Jersey, the only state besides Oregon that bans drivers from pumping fuel.

Sure, the idea is to save money, because if the stations aren't required to pump the gas, they'll save on labor costs -- to the tune of a nickel a gallon. I'm a libertarian, but I have to say -- allowing people to pump their own gasoline? That's a pretty radical idea. Aren't they putting profit ahead of safety?

Fortunately, the reckless move is being opposed:

....opponents - including AAA New Jersey and the New Jersey Gasoline Retailers Association - said it could put thousands of station workers out of jobs, increase insurance costs, and burden the disabled and senior citizens while benefiting oil companies that might keep the savings.

Sen. Gerald Cardinale (R., Bergen), who has been trying to legalize self-serve gas for more than two decades, said Corzine's support gave the cause credibility.

"There is no reasonable excuse for us to be out of sync with the rest of the world - and in the rest of the world, you can pump your own gas," he said.

UPDATE: Life imitates satire. (Or is that the other way around?) As it turns out, New Jersey drivers don't want the right to pump their own gas.

Gov. Corzine's push for self-serve gas sparked outrage yesterday as New Jersey motorists reacted to the notion they might have to pump their own gas.

New Jerseyans sent a flood of angry e-mails to the governor and staged a sedentary uprising at area gas stations as they sat in their cars and waited for attendants to fill their tanks.

Never mind that New Jersey, with the exception of Oregon, is the last state to prohibit self-service gas pumping.

Many shuddered at the thought of having to get out of their vehicles in the rain, the snow, or the scorching heat, just to refuel.

"Gas would have to be at least 20 cents cheaper before I would want to get out of my car," said Chris Rose, 30, of Pennsauken, as he leaned back and watched the attendant unscrew his gas-tank cap at Mac's Amoco station on Route 73 in Maple Shade.

Customs die hard in New Jersey, especially one based on a 57-year-old law that requires the luxury of full service at the pump.

"It's intrinsic to New Jersey's culture," said Ryan Doan, an editor at Weird N.J., a magazine that touts bizarre icons and legends in the Garden State.

"People are just worried about this new experience, like, 'Whoa, I don't know how to pump gas and I don't want to,' " said Jon'a Meyer, a Rutgers University-Camden professor who studies human behavior.

As if to reinforce that sentiment, Corzine's office yesterday was deluged with negative comments.

As of 3:30 p.m., the office had received 413 calls, 410 of which were opposed to the idea of self-service gas, according to press secretary Anthony Coley. The office had also received 508 e-mail messages through its Web site; 497 of them were opposed.

(I usually keep my mouth shut until I hear other people complain. Then I'm often inclined to complain -- about the complainers. In this case, I was only pretending to complain. How I hate reality-based satire!)

What do you do when the Saudis [more properly, computers in Saudi Arabia] shut down your blog?

I dunno. It occurs to me that maybe I should retaliate. But how would I do such a thing? Not buy gasoline? Nah, that wouldn't work. Gasoline is fungible, which means it comes from all sorts of countries -- Saudi Arabia being only a small percent. Besides, if I buy from companies known not to buy Mideast oil, I end up funding Hugo Chavez. (That's a hell of a way to punish the Saudis.)

Instead of retaliation, how about doing some basic reporting? There's a Saudi madrassa in my neighborhood which has recently applied for a permit to expand. Here's what they want to do:

Appeal No. 3975
Applicant: Foundation for Islamic Education
Property: 1860 W Montgomery Avenue, Villanova, PA 19085
R 1 Residence District
Election District #6
The Foundation for Islamic Education seeks a special exception under §155-11 S(4), §155-11 S(1)(e) and/or 155-11 X to expand its existing religious and educational institution use for the following:
· A licensed Elementary School for grades pre-K through 8 with 93 students and 13 faculty/staff personnel, with a future enrollment up to 130 students.
· A 6-week summer camp program for up to 25 children, ages 4-12.
· Increase the number of retreats permitted to 10 per year with no more than 2 per month.
· Increase the Friday Juma Prayer session to allow up to 150 attendees.
· Increase Sunday School classes to allow up to 160 students.
· Increase various Holiday attendance to allow up to 400 attendees.
· Increase staff residence to allow the 6 current individuals/families to remain and allow accommodations for a security guard, gardener, maintenance supervisor, VAHS principal, Islamic Arabic teacher, and provide two guest rooms for lecturers.
The Foundation also requests that if it is determined that any additional parking spaces are required that the Zoning Hearing Board waive up to 50% of the required spaces as permitted under §155-95 AA(4) and/or grant a special exception under §155-95.1 to hold the additional parking spaces in reserve.

I think I might as well put on a suit and go down to my local planning department.

Hey, if they won't let me blog [whoever "they" may be], I might as well do something!

Besides, according to Tom Maguire, the MSM complains that bloggers do too much sitting around, and they need to rely on shoe leather.

The problem is, I hate bureaucracy.

UPDATE: I just returned, having wasted an hour to discover that no one can find the file, and that the person responsible won't be in until next week. Why am I not surprised?

I guess that's what they mean by the term "shoe leather." To be a "real" reporter means spending a lot of time running around for nothing. Chasing down Google leads on the Internet would probably be more productive.

On the Internet, for example, you can find out stuff you'd never learn about from a bureaucrat, because, assuming you asked questions, (as Howard Kurtz would have us do), the bureaucrats would most likely not know. And if they did know, they probably wouldn't tell you.

If you ask the Internet, on the other hand, it will generally tell you whatever is there.

And when you find something, if you save it on your hard drive, it will always be there -- even if the links expire.

Like this story:

A Home in America

Displaced for decades, ethnic minority Turks settle in the Philadelphia area. The language is daunting, the regulations burdensome, but finally they're making a home in this country.

...

Some live in dormitories on the grounds of an Islamic center tucked along the Main Line, and a few live amid the farmhouses of Lancaster. But many more are close to Russian canteens in the strip malls of the city's Northeast.

As the website proudly proclaims, it's run by the American Open University. It's probably worth noting that the Washington DC area director of American Open University was deported and the Fairfax madrassa raided last year.

It occurred to me that the least I could do would be to take a look at their local zoning file. That, it seems to me, is what any decent reporter would do anyway. Even though I'm not a "real" reporter, I just have this funny feeling (dare I call it a "reporter's hunch"?) that if I didn't look at the file, no "real" reporter would.

The problem is, they haven't let me see the file. That creates a feeling of (ugh!) responsibility.

Not sure I like this "reporter" stuff at all . . .

MORE: What's pasted below consists of old links which I found in 2004, along with some of my usual gratuitous unprofessional commentary.

AND MORE: Men's News Daily has a writeup of the DOS attack titled "Conservative Blogs Suffer Cyber Attack Originating in Saudi Arabia." Little Green Footballs, Captain Ed, and Power Line (and of course yours truly) were among those affected.

AND MORE (4/29/06): Michelle Malkin discusses the attack in more detail, and lists many more blogs which were affected. Adds Michelle,

We are all affected by cyberterrorist tactics, wherever they may originate.

DDOS attack at Host Matters (which Glenn Reynolds says originates from Saudi Arabia); hope this goes through, and please forgive any errors I haven't caught! (BTW, there is a Classical Values backup site, which I rarely use....)

Anyway, I'm more than skeptical about peak oil theory, and I appreciate Justin's recent post on the subject.

In fact I'm even skeptical about oil theory. Back in 2004, I wondered whether fossil fuel is in fact that, and I linked to the work of Nikolai Alexandrovich Kudryavtsev -- "who first enunciated in 19511 what has become the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins. After Kudryavtsev, all the rest followed."

All the rest includes a recent book by James Corsi and Craig Smith which apparently ruffled a few feathers in the scientific oil community.

Anyway, I don't have time to get into detail here, and I don't know enough about the field. I cannot state with confidence that I know that "fossil fuel" is a Big Lie promoted by Big Oil and Big Environmentalism. I will say that these two huge interests could be expected to find common ground propping up the fossil fuel theory.

Is "fossil fuel" a theory?

Or is it fact?

What got my attention were the ad hominem attacks directed at the American authors. Their book explores the Russian/Ukrainian theory, but the criticism of them seems to be based largely on Corsi's Swift Boat background.

Staniford's column is titled "The Swiftboating of Peak Oil," an allusion to Corsi's co-authorship of "Unfit for Command," the New York Times No. 1 best-seller during the 2004 presidential campaign that challenged Sen. John Kerry's claims about his Navy swiftboat service in Vietnam.

Staniford said Corsi "can perhaps be forgiven for his … allegiance to the abiotic theory which has roughly zero support amongst working exploration geologists. … But what on earth are the editors of Rigzone thinking?"

Secondly, Staniford writes, "given Dr Corsi's recent history of involvement with well-funded extreme right-wing causes, are we seeing the start of a comparable campaign against peak oil?"

Fark.com has an interesting discussion of the theory, which doesn't convince me one way or the other, but the simple logic of one commenter appealed to my sense of logical pathos:

If oil comes from fossils, how many fossils does it take to create a big huge oil field that supplies billions of barrels of crude, and how did all those fossils get in that one place? Really... I want to know.. because it just doesn't seem logical.

But I don't. Highly compressed swampland over millions of years, perhaps?

And might both theories possibly be right?

Verifying the abiotic oil theory by taking an inside peek might take a journey to the center of the earth.

We can't get there from here.

UPDATE: More on the DDOS attack (via an email from Rand Simberg to Glenn Reynolds):

Rand Simberg emails, correctly, that originating in Saudi Arabia doesn't actually mean that the perpetrators are Saudis -- just the computers they've hijacked. True enough.

No way to know. And no way to retaliate.

...the film has been banned in parts of South America because it depicts revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara in a negative light.

--Film Stew

I'm writing this post on the opening day in the hope that frustrated movie goers (and maybe bloggers) might lend a hand. I agree with J.B. Spins that bloggers need to get behind it:

The Lost City opens in New York (and White Plains), Los Angles and Miami on the 28th, rolling out to additional cities in succeeding weeks. It is well worth looking for. Since it takes on Hollywood sacred cows, like Che and Castro, this film will need word of mouth support. The film critics of the antique media won’t help. The blogosphere needs to get behind it.

It's remarkable that this film was made, but that fact alone is not going to guarantee distribution. Here's the list of theaters from distributor Magnolia Pictures's web site:

4/28/2006
Encino, CA: Town Center 5
Hollywood, CA: ArcLight Hollywood 15
Irvine, CA: University Town Center 6 Cinemas
South Pasadena, CA: Rialto Theatre
West Los Angeles, CA: Westside Pavilion Cinemas
Aventura, FL: Aventura Mall 24 Theatres
Miami, FL: Palace 18
Miami, FL: Dolphin Cinema 19
Miami, FL: LeJeune Cinemas VI
Miami Beach, FL: South Beach 18
Miami Lakes, FL: Miami Lakes 17
South Miami, FL: Sunset Place 24 Theatres
Montclair, NJ: Clairidge Cinemas
Union City, NJ: Summit Quadplex
New York, NY: Sunshine Cinema
New York, NY: Empire 25 Theaters
New York, NY: Coliseum Theatre
White Plains, NY: Clearview Cinema 100 Twin

5/4/2006
Dallas, TX: USA Film Festival

5/12/2006
Berkeley, CA: Shattuck Cinemas
San Francisco, CA: Embarcadero Center Cinema
Cambridge, MA: Kendall Square Cinema

5/19/2006
Washington, DC: E Street Cinema
Chicago, IL: Landmark's Century Centre Cinema
Highland Park, IL: Renaissance Place
Edina, MN: Edina 4

5/26/2006
San Diego, CA: Hillcrest Cinemas
Tampa, FL: Tampa Theatre
University City, MO: Tivoli Theatre
Dallas, TX: Inwood Theatre

6/1/2006
Honolulu, HI: Doris Duke Theatre

6/9/2006
Indianapolis, IN: Keystone Art Cinema 7
Bloomfield Hills, MI: Maple Art Theatre
Charlotte, NC: Ballantyne Village 5
Austin, TX: Dobie Theatre

6/23/2006
Atlanta, GA: Midtown Art Cinemas 8
Houston, TX: River Oaks Theatre

Parenthetically, I should note that while it shocked me to see the right wing boycottliberalism.com announce a boycott of the film (it's still there, under "New Boycotts"), that view does not seem to typify the right wing. Here's WorldNetDaily:

Poetic, dramatic and at times incredibly moving, "The Lost City" not only is a loving tribute to Havana and Cuban art and music, it is also a loving tribute to liberty, democracy and capitalism. Castro's regime is clearly portrayed as an evil dictatorship.

No wonder it faces an uphill battle.

Lest anyone think that only WorldNetDaily takes notice of Hollywood's peculiarly pro-Communist slant, here's the New York Sun:

Perhaps it's because of vestigial bitterness over McCarthyism, but Hollywood has produced appallingly few anti-communist films. By some estimates, 100 million people have died at the hands of communist governments - by now it might seem that there are a few stories to be told about the dangers of an ideology other than fascism.

At the moment, Steven Soderbergh and Benicio Del Toro are currently working on the second Che Guevara biopic in just the past few years, so it seems doubtful that many in Hollywood are troubled by romanticizing a man who was directly responsible for the execution of thousands of innocents.

The apex of absurdity came last year when Carlos Santana performed the theme from the other recent Che flick, "The Motorcyle Diaries," at the Academy Awards. He performed the song wearing a crucifix over one of the ubiquitous Che T-shirts, an act that prompted Cuban jazz great Paquito D'Rivera to write a letter to El Nuevo Herald castigating Mr. Santana, translated in a New Republic article last year: "One of those Cubans [at La Cabana, a prison in Cuba run by Guevara] was my cousin Bebo, who was imprisoned there precisely for being a Christian. He recounts to me with infinite bitterness how he could hear from his cell in the early hours of dawn the executions, without trial or process of law, of the many who died shouting, 'Long live Christ the King!'"

Given this context, it's hugely gratifying to see a film such as "The Lost City" that deals honestly with the full horrors of the Cuban revolution. Sadly, actor Andy Garcia's fine directorial debut, which rightfully frames the Cuban descent into communism as a tragedy, may disappear in a climate where Hollywood's cultural commissars are trying to make a hero out of Che Guevara. This is despite some expert staging and an impeccable pedigree.

Such things aren't supposed to be shown in theaters.

Speaking of "eliminationist rhetoric," I expect vocal conservatives who support closing the border and immigration enforcement (and who are often angry in their pronouncements) to be blamed for this:

SPRING, Texas

Two white teenagers severely beat and sodomized a 16-year-old Hispanic boy who they believed had tried to kiss a 12-year-old white girl at a party, authorities said.

The attackers forced the boy out of the Saturday night house party, beat him and sodomized him with a metal pipe, shouting epithets "associated with being Hispanic," said Lt. John Martin with the Harris County Sheriff's Department.

They then poured bleach over the boy, apparently to destroy DNA evidence and left him for dead, authorities said. He wasn't discovered until Sunday, 12 hours after the attack.

The victim, who was not identified, suffered severe internal injuries and remained in critical condition Thursday.

"It's more than likely the boy won't live," Harris County prosecutor Mike Trent said.

Keith Robert Turner, 17, and David Henry Tuck, 18, are charged with aggravated sexual assault, investigators said. Prosecutors are considering whether to attach hate-crime charges, but unless the victim dies, the possible penalty would be the same. If the boy dies and it is ruled a hate crime, Tuck could face the death penalty, authorities said. Turner would be too young to face execution.

Not people who are said to create a "climate." The logical folly of blaming person A's opinions for the actions of person B strikes me as too absurd to require extended comment. Charlton Heston was no more responsible for the Columbine killings than was the "Goth Movement." Or black trenchcoats. But the "climate" illogic is recycled again and again.

The problem is that emotion is highly effective as a political tool. Without knowing it, the stupid racist scumbags who tortured that poor immigrant kid nearly to death have given more leverage to the illegal immigrants' cause than a hundred demonstrations with a million in attendance at each would have done.

Sigh.

But who ever said politics was the art of the logical?

Despite my hatred of the slide rule, one of my fondest memories of the slide rule period was that there tended to be "statistics" ("official numbers" if you will) which scientists as well as lay people could consult.

The "unemployment rate" is officially estimated to range between 4% and 6%. (The current figure, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is 4.7%.) But this site claims it is actually a whopping 23%.

I'm using the above as an extreme example, by way of illustration. But what are we to make of increasingly vast divergences in what used to be considered factual data?

While most conservatives today would accept the government's 4.7% unemployment figure, an ever larger number think the government's immigration statistics are wrong, and they offer their own.

Issue it is; the numbers themselves are no longer statistics, but are themselves issues to be debated. Makes it rather tougher and tougher to have anything resembling a reasonable discussion.

As I point all of this out, I should remind readers that I am not someone who trusts or accepts government figures at their face value. Or pronouncements of "experts." I am a skeptic, and I am ever more skeptical over time, because experts themselves -- even government experts -- are biased. In my view, the most insidious kind of bias is the concealed variety which masquerades as "objectivity."

Even "scientific objectivity." Global Warming is a perfect example of this. Many of the shrill claims made in the name of "science" have turned out to be exaggerated, and have been advanced by scientists whose minds are made up and who conceal any data which might encourage skepticism -- to the point where scientists with dissenting views are actually banned from their conferences. (In the days of the slide rule, I was taught at UC Berkeley's Department of Paleontology that we were still in the Ice Age, and that a period of global cooling was setting in, so not only have I been distrustful of the more recent turnaround, I suspect a bait-and-switch operation.)

How many homosexuals are there in the United States? Gay activists claim as high as 10%, while their opponents claim as low as 1%. (Typical numbers debate here.)

But my point is not to argue the merits of Global Warming, immigration, homosexuality, or unemployment. What bothers me is the disappearance of real, unbiased statistics in favor of shrill, ever-more-partisan ones.

Statistics, in my view, are rapidly becoming opinions.

I miss the good old days when they were facts.

But what if I was duped as a young person?

Maybe statistics weren't facts even then.

(Now that I think about it, I remember Rachel Carson. Paul Ehrlich. And other promoters of "scientific truth" . . .)

While I could easily write a goofy satire about the now meaningless nature of numbers and statistics, there is a serious side to the problem. (Yes, "not knowing" is a problem.) I suspect that especially when coupled with existing information overload, the blurring of the line between fact and opinion by politically-contaminated numbers fosters a mental condition known as cognitive dissonance.

. . .the perception of incompatibility between two cognitions, which can be defined as any element of knowledge, attitude, emotion, belief or value, or a goal, plan, or interest. The theory of cognitive dissonance holds that contradicting cognitions serve as a driving force that compels the mind to acquire or invent new thoughts or beliefs, or to modify existing beliefs, so as to minimize the amount of dissonance (conflict) between cognitions. Experiments have attempted to quantify this hypothetical drive.

I know that the idea of "emotional statistics" sounds like a contradiction, but that is the nature of cognitive dissonance.

The father of cognitive dissonance argues that the problem can be resolved by adding missing information:

When confronted with two belief cognitions that contradict each other, Festinger suggests the dissonance can be resolved by finding and adding a third piece of information relevant to the two beliefs.

Wouldn't that at least relieve stress?

Maybe so. But might it also lead to post-modernist/deconstructionist-style nihilism?

Don't ask me, for I am not objective in these matters. I refuse to become a nihilist, a decon, or a pomo, because I am a proud, out-of-the-closet cynic who believes that there is such a thing as truth (elusive though it so often is).

Cynicism is my way of being an optimist.

(An internal caveat, though, is that my dark side is often tempted by emotionally satisfying numbers.)

I enjoy strange and unusual signs, and I try to photograph them if a camera is handy. Frankly, the signs in California are better photographic subjects than the ones on the East Coast, and I don't know why. I'd hate to say that California is a "more interesting" place, because that might insult East Coasters (who might see it as an accusation that the East is more boring), and some Californians might be touchy about being called "interesting."

So I don't know what I should say. Maybe I should try to let the signs speak for themselves. (That's what signs are for!)

The first one is about Bush.

Considering that it was on a telephone pole in LA, I think it's most likely critical of Bush. But then again, the way some young people think these days, it might be someone's way of saying that Bush is cool! In a Goth-ish sort of way. But let's suppose the sign is meant as an insult. Is it necessarily coming from the left? With the "666" business, can we be certain? Couldn't it be some sort of right-wing paranoid conspiracy message implying that Bush is connected to the Bilberberger/Trilateral Commission/New World Order, and is flooding the country with illegal aliens under direct orders from the heroin-dealers who run the Vatican? How are we to know for sure? Without seeing one on a car bumper, there's no owner to ask. I have friends who are both for and against Bush, and I don't think any of them would put the above on their cars.

Hmmm...

Come to think of it, maybe I do know someone who'd put it on his car bumper. It would go very well with the "Anarchists for Bush" bumpersticker so lovingly designed by Dennis.

So there! (Dennis, sorry I forgot to unpeel it for you.)

The next one shows that there's no keeping down the American entrepreneur spirit.

Nor is there any need to spell out everything in detail for the customers. The 99 cent pupusas are enough. And besides, who the hell would expect the vendor of 99 cent pupusas to have the money to replace missing letters? All the information you really have to have is right there. I'm not picky about these things, and I simply don't think it's fair to hold a restaura t to the same standards as a blog.

Which means that despite the mysterious way the sign hints at English, I'll also give the next shopowner a pass:

If you are unconfortable buying courtains there, you can go somewhere else.

The next sign warmed my heart, as I have always believed in ethical drug laws.

Seriously, would you trust anyone who sold unethical drugs?

Last but not least, a sign of what might be called "End Times." Some anonymous writer does not like the park benches they've installed at the Albany Waterfront park.

I don't know whether that's a philosophical reflection on the inevitable fate of young urban professionals (a fate we all share, of course), but I suspect it is more along the lines of a wish, if not a command. As such, it's probably what Dave Neiwert condemns as "eliminationist rhetoric."

I agree that wishing people dead just isn't nice.

Small confort that is.

Because sooner or later, it's courtains for all!

Zoolander replicant Andrew Keen strives to prolong his fifteen minutes. Eastern European sophistication is called upon...

Now the politics of the Great Seduction is truly out of the bag. In a provocative piece in In These Times, cultural iconoclast Slavoj Zizek gets to the political heart of the digital matter. Zizek explains why post French revolutionary political categories of left wing and right wing don’t work anymore. The reason, Zizek explains, is that the digital revolution has changed the moral and economic language of politics. The old left/right divide now is digital versus analog.

Yeah. Right. So who is this Zizek cobber, and why should we listen to him?

Slavoj Zizek is a professor at the Institute for Sociology, Ljubljana and at the European Graduate School EGS who uses popular culture to explain the theory of Jacques Lacan and the theory of Jacques Lacan to explain politics and popular culture...

He was analysed by Jacques Alain Miller, Jacques Lacan's son in law, and is probably the most successful and prolific post-Lacanian having published over fifty books including translations into a dozen languages.

He is a leftist and, aside from Lacan he was strongly influenced by Marx, Hegel and Schelling...

He is an effective purveyor of Lacanian mischief, and, as a follower of the French "liberator" of Freud, Zizek's Lacan is almost exclusively transcribed in mesmerizing language games or intellectual parables.

That he has an encyclopedic grasp of political, philosophical, literary, artistic, cinematic, and pop cultural currents — and that he has no qualms about throwing all of them into the stockpot of his imagination — is the prime reason he has dazzled his peers and confounded his critics for over ten years...

He is interested in discerning the Lacanian Real amid the propaganda of systems. In appropriating "Lenin" he is also looking for the moment when Lenin realized that politics could one day be dissolved for a technocratic and agronomic utopia, "the [pure] management of things". That Lenin failed is immaterial, since Zizek is extracting the signifier "Lenin" from the historical continuum...

Even when performed before a riotously approving audience, wanking remains wanking. Quotable quote, please?

In a proper revolutionary breakthrough, the utopian future is neither simply fully realized, present, nor simply evoked as a distant promise which justified present violence -it is rather as if, in a unique suspension of temporality, in the short-circuit between the present and the future, we are — as if by Grace — for a brief time allowed to act AS IF the utopian future is (not yet fully here, but) already at hand, just there to be grabbed.

My. That was all one sentence.

Revolution is not experienced as a present hardship we have to endure for the happiness and freedom of the future generations, but as the present hardship over which this future happiness and freedom already cast their shadow — in it, we already are free while fighting for freedom, we already are happy while fighting for happiness, no matter how difficult the circumstances.

I bet he's thigh deep in coed plenitude.

Revolution is not a Merleau-Pontian wager, an act suspended in the futur anterieur, to be legitimized or delegitimized by the long term outcome of the present acts; it is as it were its own ontological proof, an immediate index of its own truth."

Damn. They're like nested Russian dolls, each level more pretentiously vacuous than the last. This is considered impressive? Admirable? It's revolution without victory! Simply redefine your terms!

Such mesmerizing wordplay seems spot on perfect for a man like Andrew Keen, who could say the following line with no apparent trace of irony...

If people aren’t able to censor their worst instincts, then they need to be censored by others wiser and more disciplined than themselves.

If revolution can be an immediate index of its own truth, then much becomes clear. For instance, given the Bill of Rights, I have long been curious as to how exactly Mr. Keen proposes to accomplish his well intended censorship. What concrete steps does he advocate?

In brief, none. He's all hat and no cattle. For all his talk of a war on digital literacy, he comes to the battlefield unarmed.

Perhaps he intends to talk his way to victory? It would be in character. Perhaps he hopes to persuade us to censor ourselves? Well. You all know what that means.

His sole and greatest weapon is his tongue.

I just put an ugly picture in my head.

She will be sorely missed.

If any of our alleged "cultural critics" could be said to have any value at all, then Jane Jacobs would surely exemplify the best of that small subset. I don't have a single unkind thing to say about her. The woman had a marvelous way of looking at things, a slightly skewed approach to life that generated truly useful insights. I would happily read anything she wrote.

Here's an introduction to her, courtesy of 2 Blowhards. Contrary to the author's modest protestations, I found it neither half-assed nor scattershot. For what it is, it's just right...

When the post-war years came along, America went into pave-the-country-over hyperdrive. Sorry to say this about the Greatest Generation -- all due honor paid to them, of course -- but: What in God's name were they thinking of?...

I'm not entirely sure of my judgment in the matter, but I suspect that urban renewal may have been a self-inflicted American disaster on a par with the Vietnam War...

These sad and horrifying developments brought out the best in Jane Jacobs. While the experts (and their propagandists) grew ever more drunk on their do-gooding, egomanical, sci-fi visions, Jacobs went out and looked at what was actually happening.

I hate grandiose theorists. I truly do. Humble empiricists are far more useful, and much easier to be around as well. Back to the blowhards...

If any one thing characterizes Jacobs' work -- and I'm not sure any one thing does, but I'm gonna try anyway -- it's her aversion to theory and dogmatism. Take it case-by-case; be skeptical of general rules. Government usually screws things up and makes life more of a burden then it needs to be, but some of what it does seems to help.

Her perpetual-amateur stance and her anything-but-systematic, anti-deterministic approach has opened her to criticism. Some portray her as naive, and god knows that her books about economics especially are very quirky. But I'm a sunny sort of guy, and I love her work. Why not appreciate her for her very real contributions?

Amen, brother. Amen.

My own introduction to Jane Jacobs' work came via Systems of Survival, so I was at first quite unaware of her contribution to urban design "theory" and the battle over urban renewal.

It was a modest and pleasant little book, thought-provoking, chock full of odd little facts and pleasing anecdotes. Did you know that Kalahari bushmen had a homicide rate comparable to inner city Detroit's? I didn't know that. Eskimos too, by god. You get into a hot quarrel with a hunting buddy and then, oops, you spear him. Simple, no? The anthropologists were all very disappointed. Appalled even. Farewell naive preconceptions!

Amusingly, the blowhards link to an interview with her from back in 2000, conducted by none other than James Howard Kunstler. Try spotting the incipient madness.

JHK: Well the million flowers are now blooming mostly in China. I don’t know about you—every product I pick up is made in China. I’m not against the Chinese.

Except when their commerce raiders attack our western coast.

But it makes you wonder how long we go on having an advanced civilization without making anything anymore. Can we?

JJ: I don’t think so.

JHK: It seems to me that what we are doing is we are buying a lot of stuff from other people by basically running up tremendous unprecedented amounts of debt. That can only go on so long.

JJ: But you know we aren’t complete dolts in all of this. For example, we don’t manufacture our own computers. They are made mostly in Taiwan but they aren’t designed in Taiwan.

JHK: We hand them a set of blueprints and they make the stuff for them.

JJ: There are still an awful lot of intelligent, clever constructive Americans and they are still doing clever constructive things. Is it more necessary to be able to design computers or is more necessary to be able to manufacture computers. I think that it is necessary to do both. I think it is fatal to specialize. And all kinds of things show us that and that the more diverse we are in what we can do the better. But I don’t think that you can dispose of the constructive and inventive things that America is doing—and say oh we aren’t doing anything anymore and we are living off of what the poor Chinese do. It is more complicated than that. There is the example of Detroit which you noticed yourself was once a very prosperous and diverse city. And look what happened when it just specialized on automobiles. Look at Manchester when it specialized in those dark satanic mills, when it specialized in textiles. It was supposed to be the city of the future.

JHK: We have an awful lot of places in America that don’t specialize in anything anymore and don’t produce anything in particular anymore.

JJ: Well that’s better than specializing.

JHK: I am thinking about the region where I live which is a kind of a mini rust-belt of upstate New York—one town after another where the economy has completely vanished. There is no more Utica, New York, really. There is no more Amsterdam, New York, or Glen’s Falls or Hudson Falls. They are gone. And I am wondering, is the rest of America going to be like that.

JJ: Never underestimate the power of a city to regenerate.

JHK: Well that’s fair enough.

JJ: And things everywhere are not as bad as you are picturing.

JHK: Oh, I am Mr. Gloom and Doom..

JJ: For instance Portland—lots of constructive things are happening in Portland.

JHK: I’d say Portland is in pretty good shape compared to lots of other American cities—but it ain’t France.

JJ: No, it ain’t. But there are lots of things about America that are better in their own way than France.

Today is a sad day.

Glenn Reynolds links to a really good post by a man calling himself "GoldwaterRepublican."

I agree with almost everything he says, and here's an excerpt:

When someone asks me why I am a Republican, I say I am a Republican because I believe in free trade, fiscal responsibility, personal freedom, individual responsibility, and state's rights. The person asking the question will usually begin a diatribe about how the Republican Party in recent years has not necessarily advanced the above-mentioned values. While I do not agree that the current Republican leadership has wholesale sold out the ideals that are the fabric of our party, I cannot disagree with the basic assessment that our leaders have tossed aside some of our values.

I think the two biggest areas where Republicans have sold out traditional Republican values are fiscal responsibility and state's rights. Government spending and the national debt are up significantly under the Bush administration. We have increased entitlement programs, i.e. Medicare and refuse to get serious about cutting government waste. While I continue to support Bush's tax cuts, he and other Republicans must get serious about balancing a budget and cutting government waste if they want their economic policies to work and come across to the public as being fiscally responsible.

In regards to state's rights, I know many on here will disagree with me, but this is an important value, even in regards to moral questions. I am pro-choice and pro-gay marriage, however, I acknowledge that there is no constitutional right to either of them. It is my opinion that our founding ancestors thought that states legislators should decide these types of issues. In addition, I think states are better able to handle these types of issues and federal debates on the issues are a waste of resources and time.

I too am a fan of Goldwater conservatism. The problem is, I think the word "conservative" has been hijacked by so many for so long on both sides of the spectrum that it no longer has no meaning. As I argued in an earlier post, Barry Goldwater would be called a liberal by many who claim to be conservative today. But the word "liberal" is also devoid of meaning. The two words are alternately used as insults to scold or as compliments to entice, depending on who is trying to establish hegemony, and have little to do with an individual's philosophy. Quite the opposite; the labels are chiefly intended to stifle individual thought. (I've struggled over the definitions for a long time . . .) But classical liberalism is dead. So, it appears, is genuine conservatism.

That's why I called myself a "Goldwater liberal." (As well as a RINO in name only. . .) But I'll also plead guilty -- right now -- to being a Goldwater conservative.

As long as the labels don't get in the way of what I think, I'll just have to label and let label.

Newsstands in Philadelphia have been disappearing in the middle of the night. It seems a man who didn't own them hired a crane to just yank them off the sidewalk and move them to corners where he felt like operating newsstands:

A man hired a crane to uproot six newsstands Sunday that were not his and transport them to six other corners where he had applied for permits but had not received approval to do business, said a stunned city official yesterday.

"That's stealing," said Licenses & Inspections Commissioner Robert D. Solvibile. "I believe he knew exactly what he was doing. And now he'll have to pay the price."

While the police major-crimes unit investigated the bizarre heist, Solvibile wondered yesterday what possessed Ofatai King, aka John King, aka Fatai O. King, to make the surreal snatch.

"I went to Catholic school," Solvibile said, "where this would be considered a mortal sin. I would have had to confess to the priest."

No word from the accused stand-snatcher, and while the story is funny, I'm sure it wasn't funny for the newsstand owners (described as "new immigrants, who own newsstands but speak little or no English") who showed up at work to find their businesses physically gone. That ought to make new immigrants think twice about the meaning of "land of opportunity."

What's remarkable about this is that (if the reports are correct) the suspect had enough chutzpah to actually apply for newsstand permits at the six locations to which the stands were moved. As well as 36 other locations:

Solvibile showed the Daily News 42 newsstand-license applications that King filed on April 1, including ones for the six corners where the shanghaied stands were dumped.

None of those applications has been approved, he said. So, King has no permission to do business at any of the 42 corners.

He certainly had no permission, Solvibile said, to uproot someone else's business - candy, magazines and all - and slam it down halfway across the city.

Police tracked down the man who hired the crane. He apparently claims Licenses and Inspections okayed him to do this. Not true, says L & I.

“At this point no approvals have been given to Mr. King to have a newsstand anywhere.”

Although I guess he might have asked when he could move "existing newsstands" to the new locations.

I have no idea whether it's the same man, but the Small Business Tax and Management web site has a report about newsstand deductions involving someone with the same name:

Fatai O. and Mary King (T.C. Memo. 1999- 293) ... claimed a deduction for amounts paid to lottery winners at their newsstand. The Court found that checks they represented as paid to those winners showed no evidence of that. Moreover, their testimony was less than convincing. In another issue, the Court found that records purportedly showing repair expenses appeared to be altered.

(I just hope no one figures out a way to snatch blogs in the middle of the night.)

I just stumbled onto a new film I'm surprised was ever made, and which I can't wait to see.

It's The Lost City, directed by and starring Andy Garcia:

Set in Havana, Cuba, during the 50's, a club owner is caught in the turbulent transition from the oppressive regime of Batista to the Marxist government of Fidel Castro. Castro's regime ultimately leads the club owner to flee to New York.

But I'm late to the game. "The Lost City" has already been winning the highest praise in the blogosphere, from Roger L. Simon, Michelle Malkin, and Babalu Blog (who wrote a great review back in October).

According to imdb, the film has already been banned in the predictable places:

Movie star Andy Garcia's controversial new movie The Lost City has been banned in parts of South America because it depicts romantic revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara in a terrible light. The Ocean's Twelve star spent years trying to get the project made, only for film festival bosses and cinema chains to shun the movie because it tells the truth about the Marxist guerilla leader and the Cubans slayed as he fought to revolutionize the country and hand Fidel Castro leadership. Garcia, who wrote, directed and stars in the film, says, "There have been festivals that wouldn't show it. That will continue to happen from people who don't want to see the image of Che be tarnished and from people who support the Castro regime. He still has a lot of supporters out there. Some people think Castro is a savior, that he looks out for the kids and the poor. It's a bunch of hogwash. In the 45 years since Castro came to power, Cuba has been in the top three countries for human rights abuses for 43 of those years. People turn a blind eye to his atrocities."

While that's certainly true for many people, certain Hollywood producers have had their eyes wide open. Like Robert Redford, producer of the Che-idolizing Motorcycle Diaries -- who "took the film to Cuba for a special screening in the presence of Guevara's friend and comrade, Fidel Castro."

When I think of turning a blind eye, I think of people who remained silent while awful things were done. The eyes of Redford and the Hollywood lefties who funded the Motorcycle Diaries were about as blind as those of Leni Riefenstahl.

What surprises me is that Andy Garcia's film was ever made at all -- much less in Hollywood. (Interview with Garcia here.)

Might there be hope?

I haven't seen any major MSM reviews of this film, but it's supposed to open on Friday. Considering how quickly movies vanish around here, I'd better hurry.

(Maybe I can recycle my T-shirt design . . .)

MORE: Amazingly, I see that "The Lost City" has been listed under "New Boycotts of the Week" at BoycottLiberalism.com (a well-known ideological conservative site).

Can anyone explain to me how minds like that work?

I almost forgot about last week's visit to Bolinas. A charming Northern California town where just about everyone over 50 has taken too much acid, and where the teenage kids are pretty wild too, Bolinas isn't on the North American continent, but on the Pacific Plate.

Here's a NASA aerial photo of the place:

The fault is obvious, isn't it? (The white dot indicates the location of the town.)

I dearly love Bolinas, as it is leaderless, followerless, and just naturally, charmingly crazy.

Here's a flute player on the beach:

Another beach scene:

And finally, a letter I found tacked to a wall, warning us about digital technology, and, um, other stuff:

Well, who says you have to live in North America?

Don't know what a slide rule is for

-- Sam Cooke, 1960

I just can't remember any time in the past year when the act of writing and publishing single blog post has so lifted my spirits as it did yesterday.

Because I try to separate my logical from my emotional side, I need to examine why I found it so emotionally rewarding to write about something I always found emotionally unrewarding in the extreme. (Perhaps there's an inherent emotional reward in attacking the emotionally unrewarding.)

There's something very gratifying about letting go of the past. This, um, thing -- the so despicable slide rule -- a seemingly irrelevant detail from my life, mired as it was in forgotten detritus of American culture, has plagued me for most of my life, as my inability (failure?) to learn how to use it was one of those pivotal events which steered me into law school.

For me, the slide rule is literal and symbolic.

It is human morality, on a sliding scale. The slide rule is proof that there is such a thing as cultural and moral relativism.

Slide rule morality?

Not quite as insane as it looks.

First, consider it as a cultural artifact:

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s the slide rule was the symbol of the engineer's profession (in the same way that the stethoscope symbolized the medical profession). As an anecdote it can be mentioned that German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun brought two 1930s vintage Nestler slide rules with him when he moved to the U.S. after World War II to work on the American space program. Throughout his life he never used any other pocket calculating devices; slide rules obviously served him perfectly well for making quick estimates of rocket design parameters and other figures. Pickett brand slide rules were the standard in the Apollo program; Pickett's slide rules of the era often included a NASA or Apollo logo to promote the fact. A Pickett N600-MES (6 inch, magnifying cursor, "Eye-Saver" yellow) was standard equipment on all Apollo flights.

Some engineering students and engineers carried ten-inch slide rules in belt holsters, and even into the late 1960s this was a common sight on some campuses. Students also might keep a ten-or twenty-inch rule for precision work at home or the office while carrying a five-inch pocket slide rule around with them.

The slide rule required reason and understanding, and learning to use it well took ordinary mathematics into another plain. In effect, learning to use a slide rule required relearning math, or at least learning to think about it in another, new way. It was thus a cultural stepping stone, a true rite of passage. It is not exaggeration to say that it separated the men from the boys.

Much as I hate it, I must recognize that the slide rule had an elegance all its own, something that has been largely forgotten along with its demise. Common sense was built into the slide rule. Without the former, the latter was impossible to use. Even today, this is something button pushers forget at their peril:

A slide rule tends to moderate the fallacy of "false precision" and significance. The typical precision available to a user of a slide rule is about three places of accuracy. This is in good correspondence with most data available for input to engineering formulas (such as the strength of materials, accurate to two or three places of precision, with a great amount—typically 1.5 or greater—of safety factor as an additional multiplier for error, variations in construction skill, and variability of materials). There's an old saying in engineering, "if you care about the third significant digit of tensile strength, you are already in trouble." When a modern pocket calculator is used, the precision may be displayed to seven to ten places of accuracy while in reality, the results can never be of greater precision than the input data available.

Nonetheless, the cultural icon remained on display in certain circles:

Computers also changed the nature of calculation. With slide rules, there was a great emphasis on working the algebra to get expressions into the most computable form. Small terms were approximated or dropped. Fortran allowed complicated formulas simply to be typed in from textbooks. Numerical integration was often easier than trying to find closed form solutions. More difficult problems could be solved. The young engineer asking for computer time to solve a problem that could have been done by a few swipes on the slide rule became a humorous cliché. Many computer centers had a framed slide rule hung on a wall with the note "In case of emergency, break glass."

Notwithstanding its obvious virtues, there really is no rational argument which can be made for bringing the slide rule back.

Culture was changed.

Was morality changed too? Or is there no such thing as morality in numbers? (Oddly enough, the calculator represents the triumph of absolutism over the slide rule's inherent relativity, but that's a supremely relative irony that I'm afraid only Steven Malcolm Anderson would appreciate, God bless him....)

Emotionally, I think it's a good thing for me to let the slide rule go.

UPDATE: As Glenn Reynolds notes, people continue to grumble about the ways in which digital technology has changed the nature of human thought:

We need to listen to the expert warnings about the potential impact of digital communication on how people think and learn

(If we have to move in reverse, I'd prefer the abacus!)