Planet Utah

I'm glad Arlen Specter is gone

And it's not because I believe in ideological purity and Specter is a squish (that is, a bed-wetter, or if you prefer, a moderate Republican). Instead, it's because I believe in not being an arrogant, condescending tool, and Specter is an arrogant, condescending tool.

It's sort of like when your sister brings home her peacenik, one-world-government boyfriend--a guy who thinks that if we could just sit down and talk with the suicide bombers, you know, really talk and try to understand their point of view--that we could put an end to all of the bloodshed. Well, you have to be polite to that guy because your sister likes him, and he's a guest in your home. Once they break up, though, then you're free to say, "Wow, that kid needs a severe beating."

I feel the same way about Arlen Specter.

Watching the Spurs' ouster (and eating a hot dog) with relish

Last night the Spurs were bounced from the playoffs by the Dallas Mavericks in a lopsided series. Though the Mavs were the sixth seed and the Spurs the third, Dallas dominated, allowing San Antonio only one win.

Given the Spurs' history of methodically destroying the Suns' playoff dreams, I've decided that this is no time for sportsmanship. And so I say to you, denizens of the Evil Empire:

Nanny, Nanny, Nanny-Goats!

Footnote: This sort of juvenile taunting will have to suffice until the Suns can actually beat the Spurs in a playoff series.

Conservatism: what's the point?

Over the weekend I was reading the most recent National Review. It got me thinking about all of the time, money, and energy invested in propagating conservative ideas, promoting conservative candidates and issues, etc. To what end? Even when conservatives are in power, the direction of the ship of state changes only by a few degrees.

Conservatism has achieved isolated victories--welfare reform, the recent Supreme Court decision on the 2nd amendment, the D.C. school choice program (now on life support), limits on taxation, etc.--but there is still a yawning chasm between how the federal government operates and how it would operate if, say, the staff at the Heritage Foundation were running the country.

Increasingly, it feels as if all of the conservative talk and thought related to national governance is about as relevant as the pronouncements in your local Marxist newspaper. Both schools of thought have a blueprint, but those blueprints are, overall, so far out of line with mainstream public opinion, and so deeply at odds with the incentives to which most politicians respond, neither blueprint has any chance of being adopted.

So, conservatives, can you content yourselves with 10 percent of a loaf...forever?

Evolutionary psychology and the double standard on age

Does that sound like the title of a journal article? Well, I've been reading evolutionary psychology again lately. Among other things, it's the study of how contemporary behaviors may have resulted from evolutionary adaptations during the hunter-gatherer phase of human development. The way we chose our partners then, and the way we learned to present ourselves to potential mates, may still govern our behavior today.

Consider, for example, the issue of age. In general (everything here is a generality; there are always exceptions), women are considered more sensitive about their age than men, and it is considered rude to ask a woman her age. Not so regarding men.

Why would this be? If getting older is bad or undesirable, then it should be equally so for men and women. But that's clearly not the way things work in our culture.

So, what's the deal? Evolutionary psychologists would say something along these lines: With women, age is strongly correlated with reproductive capacity. After a certain point, women simply become incapable of bearing children. At the same point, though, men are still capable of fathering children...and will be for three or four decades after that, too.

From an evolutionary perspective, our primary drive is to pass on our genes. From an evolutionary perspective, then, as women pass into their late-30s, age becomes a sensitive issue for them. If you choose a woman in this age range as a mate, she may not be able to bear children. That makes her a less attractive mate...if, that is, you know her age. So, she and her single sistren in their 30s (or older) begin to withhold that information. Over time, a norm develops under which it is considered rude to ask a woman about her age.

And now you know the origins of that norm...at least from the evolutionary psychology perspective.

Footnote: I wonder if the norm against asking how much money someone makes is the flip side of the age question. From an evolutionary psychology perspective, how much money a man makes--or, back in the day, how much mammoth blubber he brought home--represents his capacity to care for any offspring that might arise out of a union. Men with less money make less attractive mates: not because women are "gold diggers," but because they want to pass on their genes. Other things being equal, a man with more money will be better able to provide for the needs of his mate and their children. This raises the odds of having healthy offspring that go on to have children of their own.

Now, if you're a guy who doesn't have any money--or at least has less than your competition in the mate selection process--this works against you. So, when the question of money comes up, you either have to lie or insist that it's not an appropriate question. Over time, this may be how we developed the norm against asking about someone's income.

Anklenote: Yes, you say, but it's also considered rude to ask women about their income. In evolutionary terms, their resources shouldn't have mattered for mate selection (because men were expected to be the providers). So why would the norm apply to women, too?

My guess is that the norm was probably in place for tens of thousands of years before it was possible for women to be the primary resource providers for their family. For tens of thousands of years, then, there was no need for men to say, "It's impolite to ask a man about his earnings (or mammoth blubber haul)." Men were the only ones who had earnings, so there was no need to distinguish men from women. You could just say, "It's impolite to ask about earnings/mammoth blubber haul."

Could be, anyway.

Did you know Anderson Cooper was gay?

I didn't, until the "tea parties" and Cooper's reference to "teabagging," which I heard described as "a kind of oral sex," but which I think of more as a fraternity prank. Anyway, I'm surprised that Cooper is gay, and I'm surprised that I went this long without knowing that he was gay.

Footnote: In case the link wasn't clear, when Cooper mentioned teabagging, radio commentators started talking about the fact that he was gay, and that that's how he knew what teabagging was.

Changing my mind about...

When I change my mind about something, I like to announce it to the world. It gives me some insulation against the charge that I'm an unthinking ideologue.

Recently I've been reading a biography of Che Guevara. I had assumed he was just another murderous, freedom-hating communist. Why would I assume that? Because wherever you find communism in charge of the apparatus of government, you find censorship, imprisonment, torture, and murder. Che Guevara was part of the government in Cuba for about five years, and in fact was #3 in the ruling hierarchy there (after Fidel and Raul Castro). I assumed, therefore, that he must have played a significant role in building and sustaining the regime's security apparatus. If the biography I am reading is correct, however, he seems to have had very little role in that. Instead, his energies were devoted to (unsuccessfully) trying to remake the Cuban economy along socialist lines. When he failed at this endeavor, and when he found himself on the wrong side of the USSR/China dispute, he left to spread revolution elsewhere.

Of course, I'm still going to have problems with any proponent of communism, as it inevitably and without exception leads to the loss of basic civil liberties and the persecution of dissidents. That's what Guevara signed on for when he signed on to become a communist revolutionary. But once in power, he seemed to be neither a major proponent of these things, nor a major author of them. If the bio I'm reading is correct, he didn't pay much attention to such matters at all. Instead, he dedicated himself to implementing a pure socialist economic model in Cuba. He was a competent administrator who worked hard and cared deeply about Cuban workers and farmers, and he did not live the lavish life of, say, members of the politburo in the Soviet Union. Essentially, he was a serious thinker who was also a fighter and revolutionary. I just think he picked the wrong fight.

Footnote: Of course, I still find repulsive the cult of Che, kept alive primarily by university students who idolize him without grappling with the implications of what he stood for.

Anklenote: I will say, too, that reading the biography of Guevara has given me a better sense of why some of the world has, historically, resented the United States. I think it's safe to say that at its worst, the U.S. in the 20th century freely meddled in the politics and economics of other countries when it thought that doing so would advance its strategic interests. If I were, say, Guatemala or Chile or Iran or Cuba, I could imagine being deeply resentful of the U.S. for this sort of thing.

Shin-note: It's worth recognizing, though, that the U.S. also did, and continues to do, some great things for people in other parts of the world. One of the most memorable moments of my life occurred when I was walking through the streets of Vienna, Austria with an American friend. A very old Austrian gentleman walked up to us and said, "Americans?" We said, "Yes." He said, "Thank you for...out Germany." This was broken English, but it was his attempt to say, basically, thanks for joining in the war effort and helping to liberate the continent from the Germans. Forty years after the fact (this was in the early 1980s), this guy was still grateful enough for American intervention to thank two young kids who had nothing to do with it.

Knee-note: Speaking of unthinking ideologues, as I was in the beginning of this post, did you see/hear Janeane Garofalo attribute the April 15 "tea parties" to right-wing racism directed against a black president? The irony here is that conservatives and Republicans are, in the eyes of the left, supposed to be the ignorant, uncurious ones. But for sheer intellectual flaccidity, Ms. Garofalo's statement beats anything I've heard from the right in a long, long time.

Still too soon, Sarah

I keep reading that Sarah Palin is gearing up for a 2012 presidential run. I hope that's not true. If Barack Obama is going to be vulnerable in 2012, it will likely be because the economy has not improved much, or has improved in some respects but gotten worse in others. The meme will be that Obama, like Jimmy Carter before him, was simply not ready for prime time--not up to the job.

If that's the case, Republicans will want to offer someone who can plausibly claim that they are ready for prime time, and that they are up to the job. I'm not sure Sarah Palin is there yet. She accumulated a lot of baggage during the 2008 campaign. She needs to present herself to the public all over again, this time as a more serious person--more thoughtful, more knowledgeable, more accomplished. I just don't know if she'll be prepared to do that by 2011. I don't know, in fact, if she even sees that as something she needs to do.

Don't get me wrong--I like Sarah Palin a lot, and I think she has great potential. But if she's going to run for president, she's going to need more than potential. She's going to need "actual." She's probably only got one chance to reintroduce a more serious version of herself to the public, so she better get it right. I think 2011 is probably too soon to get it right. I'd rather see her sit the next one out, lest she risk ending up like Dan Quayle.

Footnote: I don't want Gov. Palin to lose her folksiness, believe me. I like that. But it's possible to balance that against a knowledge of and seriousness about public policy that would make her a plausible president.

How Austin is

I've been in Austin for about a year now, and whenever I see people back in Phoenix they ask, "How's Austin?" In the year that I've been here, I've seen some of these same people seven or eight times. (I've had to travel back to Phoenix a lot for work.) And seven or eight times they've asked, "How's Austin?" I know they mean well, but what I really want to say is, "I already told you." I mean, how many times can a guy answer that question? Anyway, for those of you who remain curious, here are some of my thoughts about Austin:

Austin is really NOT Texas. If someone blindfolded you, spun you around a few times, and then shoved you into Austin, your impression would be "college town" much more so than "Texas town." In other words, it feels more like Tempe than it does like Ft. Worth. (Encountering someone with a Texas accent is a rarity. Did you hear that, Angie? You are a rarity. But you already knew that.)

Austin is the capital of Texas, but state politics really isn't a big deal here. I'm not sure why that is. It may be because Texas government doesn't do much, or because so much of government is run by faceless boards and commissions instead of the governor and legislators. But again, if someone plopped you down here out of the blue, you might be surprised to learn that the whole state of Texas was governed from this very spot. State politics is just not a big part of the culture of the town.

I love the vitality of downtown Austin, but I also tend to avoid it. Why? It's crowded, it's hard to find parking, and it's full of people who are younger than I am. Yes, I know what I sound like--one of those guys who stands out front of his house and shouts, "You kids stay off my lawn!" as he shakes his fist. It's true, though. The downtown area is great, but it's kind of like having a world class museum in your town: you're glad it's there when you want it, but you're not going to go there every weekend.

Austin is probably most famous for two things: a) live music; and b) assorted festivals. Since I have been here, I haven't seen a single live music act or been to an assorted festival. I need to get on that. Truth be told, I tend to shy away from live music, except as background to something else I'm doing. If I don't know a particular band, I tend not to like it on a first listen, and I definitely don't like having all conversation drowned out by it. ("The next time that ball lands on my lawn, I'm keeping it!")

I have really been struck by the beauty of the area west of town. There are rolling green hills there that overlook rivers and lakes. This is the eastern edge of the Texas hill country. Gorgeous, really. If I stay here, and if I discover a clean-burning, sustainable alternative to petroleum, I think I will buy a house in that part of town. (For those not getting the joke, the houses in that area are a little bit spendy.)

Because there are two major universities in town, a lot of the local culture is targeted toward, and dominated by, youth. I used to be youth. Sometimes, I think I still am. There's nothing worse, though, than looking at an attractive young woman, mulling over whether she might be in an appropriate age range, and then having her walk past and say, "Excuse me, sir." Ouch. But that's the way it is here. Wherever I go, most people are younger than I am. Soon, I'll be dead.

Large portions of Austin--in fact, the portions that I experience most--are ugly: just mile after mile of freeways, malls, and charmless housing developments. But I guess that's probably true of any large/growing metropolis. I guess, too, that there are lots of freeways, malls, and charmless housing developments because people need and want them. And I'm definitely one of those people. I'm on the freeways all the time here. Unlike living in Phoenix, freeways are a regular part of the journey around town. I also like having malls nearby, even though they're ugly. Having a Target, a Best Buy, a Borders, a Safeway (known here as HEB), and a Little Woodrow's sports bar all within walking distance of one another is great. And the charmless housing developments, unlike the ones in the Phoenix metro area, are relatively close to the heart of Austin and yet remain affordable. Not dirt cheap (except in undesirable areas, which is the same as in Phoenix), but affordable.

The heat/humidity are bearable, as long as you don't try to exert yourself outside. Even so, it's pretty unpleasant to walk outdoors at seven in the morning in July and feel suffocated by the air around you.

Though "Keep Austin Weird" is a local mantra, I guess I'm not struck by Austin's weirdness. Well, let me rephrase: Austin does not strike me as any more or less weird than many other college towns I've lived in and visited. Then again, maybe "weird" isn't the right word in the first place. Austin is certainly different in that it's a bunch of different places rolled into one. It's smack in the middle of red-state Texas, but if it were a state of its own, it would be blue. It's a haven for artists and musicians, but also for high tech dweebs. There are hippies here, but there are yuppies, too. There is a large gay/lesbian population, but they tend to mix in rather than stand out. (Seems like every woman I've tried to date here turns out to be a lesbian.) There are real, organic neighborhoods, but there is also suburban sprawl. Football is HUGE. There is a sub-culture dedicated to health and exercise, but there are other sub-cultures dedicated to Tex-Mex, booze, and cupcakes. Movie-making is serious business here, and a handful of movie stars make Austin their home. TV stars, too.

What else to say? Well, I constantly meet people who live here and say, "I love Austin." And before I moved here I said, "I love Austin." Now that I live here I say, "I like Austin." I do. But I can't say that the town is a revelation. It's not as if, having been here for a year, I say to myself, "Who knew that life could be like this? I should have come here years ago..." It definitely suits me for now, though, and I have no regrets about my decision to move here.

That, friends, is how Austin is.

What did Democrats learn from Florida?

Since the Florida recount fiasco in 2000, there have been two high-profile elections involving a recount: one for governor in Washington state between Democrat Christine Gregoire and Republican Dino Rossi, the other for senator in Minnesota between Democrat Al Franken and Republican Norm Coleman. In both cases, the Republican led in the preliminary vote count, and still led (though by smaller margins) after mandatory double-checking of votes and clean-up of errors in the initial vote tabulation. It was only during the official recounts--amidst allegations of serious irregularities, particularly in Washington State--that the Democrat took the lead and kept it.

How unusual is this? Unfortunately, we don't have much data to work with. Here's what we do know, though. Between 1980 and 2006, there were 19 recounts in statewide elections. In only two of those cases did the recount change the initial outcome. One of those was the aforementioned governor's race in Washington state, which took place in 2004. The other was the state auditor's race in Vermont in 2006, in which the pattern was the same: Republican wins after the first two counts, loses his lead (and the election) after the recount.

There's one other bit of data out there that may or may not be relevant. In the special election in New York's District 20, in which a recount is currently taking place, the Democrat led on election day and still led, though by a decreased margin, after initial adjustments. There is still some chance, though, that the Republican could pull it out.

And what would that prove, or disprove? Nothing. But in case you haven't figured it out yet, I'm wondering if in the wake of Florida 2000, Democrats go into a recount thinking this: "We had the presidency stolen from us. We're going to do whatever it takes to make sure this election doesn't get stolen, too.  And whatever we have to do will be justified because of what they did to us."

So, tell me again...

...what are the arguments against a federal balanced budget amendment?